Rant-O-Matic: I'm skeptical about skeptics

Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword had it right. How many have suffered a horrible death by a thousand paper cuts at the hands of vicious, sniping skeptics and pundits? How many great ideas were drowned under a torrent of "it'll never work"...or "I don't see the sense in this" or whatever. It's amazing how many companies and ideas have been killed because somebody thought, I don't like that. Or, it's different, so it must die.

Here's an example: every time I read a technology or a business magazine, there's always an article slamming a business or invention. I remember all too well the concerted effort in the mid-1990s to drive Apple Computer out of business. Everywhere you looked, the journalistic vultures were circling overhead. Okay, at the time, Apple sucked. You know it. I know it. And to the surprise of many, Steve Jobs came back and turned the company around. But in the mean time, it became a blood sport to deride Apple for every wrong, to spread rumors that the company was going out of business, to blame Apple and its users for all the crimes of humanity. Every time I would read another poisonous article, I was reminded of the National Geographic documentary on the albino penguin. He was different. So he was shunned at best, and in the end, pecked to death. It did the world no good. But it made some penguins feel better, secure in the fact that the status quo was again preserved.

I'm not for making the world safe for mediocrity. I don't want to live in a world where everybody looks the same as me, drives the same car, dresses in the same colors. Difference, taking chances and asking why are vital if we as a society are to advance. In business. In technology. Science. The arts. Medicine. And improving the human condition. Otherwise, we all might as well tune into another nightly installment of Pleasantville.

Look. It's not like criticism doesn't help to improve things. It can. But I'm just tired of people who contribute nothing but dark thoughts cutting down the passion and imagination of people who want to make the world a better place. You don't advance by standing still. You can't cross a chasm without taking a chance. But the skeptics and pundits who rule the printed pages and the airwaves don't understand that. They're too busy blathing on in often convincing tones about why an idea is a threat, why an enterprise is bound to fail, why people don't measure up to their standards and why the status quo must be preserved. I think of them and I think of the late J.T. Walsh's brilliant portrayal of Big Bob in the forementioned Pleasantville.

That's why I'm critical of criticism. That's why I'm skeptical of skeptics. I worked too long around people whose job it was to cut down the efforts, passion, hopes, dreams and energy of people lower on the corporate food chain than them. Maybe it was all about power, about holding people down. Maybe it was to cover their insecurities and their inability to make a difference. I only know this: it's pointless and poisonous. If we spent as much time encouraging good ideas and bold ventures as we did criticizing them, imagine what the world could be.

Already, I can hear the skeptics pontificating on that.