April 1, 2012

Why liberals were complacent and are now panicking.

I'm analyzing the breakup of the major media monopoly and the phony neutrality of liberal voices in the political culture:



IN THE COMMENTS: Ron said:
Your remarks about media's relationship to liberalism makes it seem like the media is a kind of Nessus Shirt for liberalism; they think it makes them invulnerable, but the shirt itself is toxic.
ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: Saint Croix said:
I could never call up NPR because then I would have to do the NPR voice.

Maybe they're all medicated?

I don't know who's worse, the screaming crazy madman liberals, or the NPR voice. The NPR voice is definitely spookier.

"We are in control. Everything is fine. Listen to my voice. There is no need for excitement. Remain calm."

The NPR voice often reminds me of HAL from 2001.

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

This is like NPR, right after they fired Juan Williams:

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

51 comments:

Ron said...

Trap Settin' Ann -- your new nickname!

cubanbob said...

Wright espouses on the appeal to emotionalism by Fox News all the while ignoring the same from the the MSM.
Then he admits he hasn't been following the legal details regarding the ACA. Enough said.

purplepenquin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ron said...

Your remarks about media's relationship to liberalism makes it seem like the media is a kind of Nessus Shirt for liberalism; they think it makes them invulnerable, but the shirt itself is toxic.

sakredkow said...

Those informal rules of logic are only for those stuffy elites who read the New York Times and sneer at the rest of us.

Be as ugly and irrational as you want in your political dialogue. History shows us that's how you win.

mesquito said...

Is there a critter more cocooned and insular than an American liberal?

John said...

No big surprise Robert hadn't paid much attention to the case details... his attention span is observably shorter than 4.5 minutes.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I bet Wright is lying when he says he has not paid attention to this week's SCOTUS hearings.

KCFleming said...

Mr. Wright better be careful. He knows more than anyone that hostility causes heart attacks.

Ann Althouse said...

"I bet Wright is lying when he says he has not paid attention to this week's SCOTUS hearings."

Well, he's blogged about it, but he clearly admits that he didn't listen to the oral argument. He's apparently picking up the characterizations second hand, and I am very critical of that material. There is soooo much distortion.

Tom Spaulding said...

"We hold these unexamined assertions to be self-evident..."

- The Left

sakredkow said...

So let me get this straight. This civil discourse and sober presentation bullshit is a ruse by elites who speak in long sentences and use big words to keep the rest of the people, who actually have the better ideas, shut out of the discourse.

Was this in a Pol Pot book? I kid, I kid! I know how uncivil that sounds! Count on a liberal to call someone Hitler or Pol Pot, huh?

God, though, that sounds like Pol Pot.

pm317 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pm317 said...

4/1/12 10:06 AM
Blogger Ann Althouse said...

"I bet Wright is lying when he says he has not paid attention to this week's SCOTUS hearings."

Well, he's blogged about it, but he clearly admits that he didn't listen to the oral argument. He's apparently picking up the characterizations second hand, and I am very critical of that material. There is soooo much distortion.
--------------------------

Why do they feel the need to write anything when they have not done their homework? Why do people take them seriously?

Ann Althouse said...

"God, though, that sounds like Pol Pot."

Remember, I lived amongst the Critical Legal Theory lawprofs at the height of their power, at Crit Ground Zero, for the first 10 years of my lawprofdom.

Ann Althouse said...

"Why do they feel the need to write anything when they have not done their homework? Why do people take them seriously?"

People define their work to include that which they do. Look at the political scientists who study the courts. They don't bother with the actual legal arguments. The find ways to look at judicial behavior that avoids wasting time on what is presumably nonsense.

In the dialog, I directly ask Bob if that's the position he means to defend himself from. At which point, he scrambles into the protective arms of the authority figure named Mickey Kaus.

sakredkow said...

Remember, I lived amongst the Critical Legal Theory lawprofs at the height of their power, at Crit Ground Zero, for the first 10 years of my lawprofdom.

Even worse than the Hells Angels.

Saint Croix said...

I could never call up NPR because then I would have to do the NPR voice.

Maybe they're all medicated?

I don't know who's worse, the screaming crazy madman liberals, or the NPR voice. The NPR voice is definitely spookier.

"We are in control. Everything is fine. Listen to my voice. There is no need for excitement. Remain calm."

The NPR voice often reminds me of HAL from 2001.

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

This is like NPR, right after they fired Juan Williams:

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

Anonymous said...

The left are in a full state of disillusion because the old stun guns of discussion don't work anymore - epithets like "racist", and "sexist" and "bigot" and "for the children".

Panic stricken, they continue to push the buttons furiously, but nothing is happening - the right isn't scattering like sheep.

rcocean said...

Bob quoting Micky Kaus as an expert partly because Kaus' father was a judge was pretty funny.

I'm not an MD, but my father was - so if you want a medical opinion just send me an email.

Seeing Red said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Seeing Red said...

So let me get this straight. This civil discourse and sober presentation bullshit is a ruse by elites who speak in long sentences and use big words to keep the rest of the people, who actually have the better ideas, shut out of the discourse.

------------


Welcome to my school board meetings. The retiring sup loved using this tactic. Best practices and all that stuff. The very few I went to they used educationese and since parents aren't up on the buzzwords, it pissed me off because I knew what they were doing.

They were putting in a new math program and it was AWESOME! So I asked if the committee went on the net, found other schools which used it and looked at what the parents said about it. (Since, you know, we're all in this together for the children. I didn't say that part, tho.)

No. I don't think it even crossed anyone's mind to do that.

Ann Althouse said...

"Welcome to my school board meetings. The retiring sup loved using this tactic. Best practices and all that stuff. The very few I went to they used educationese and since parents aren't up on the buzzwords, it pissed me off because I knew what they were doing."

Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

YoungHegelian said...

It was fun watching Prof. Althouse expertly deconstruct Robert Wright's ruling hegemonic paradigm (Prof, you actually stayed awake during those Critical Theory lectures!).

Didn't the folks who came up with Critical Theory ever think about the fact that their "Universal Ideological Solvent" (my made up term) could & would be used against them if they ever got power? If their paradigms are the ruling ones, guess whose paradigms are up next to be de-centered?

It's a lot harder being in power than being in opposition, at least ideologically.

rhhardin said...

Don't forget that legal stuff is inside baseball. Its connection to "reality reality" depends on what it does, not what reality does.

Say reality has its eye on the commerce clause, and the court to reality's view got it wrong in the first place.

It hardly matters what the court reasons next if it doesn't fix that. It's just more error from a politicized court.

You could even say, in fact it's just more error from a politicized court.

Not taught in conlaw, probably. Maybe under techniques.

wildswan said...

Conservatives have to think out principles and how to apply them and gather facts because their position is not fashionable. Liberals are fashionable and they have begun to argue that they are right because they are fashionable. With clothes, fashion cannot be disputed. With ideas, fashion is the worst argument there is - it is not even an argument. This is becoming important because "the times they are a changing" and the liberals can't be reached with argument about how to manage this change.

Alex said...

OMG is Wright for real? Liberals are the people of logic and reason while conservatives are emotional idiots? No wonder he's panicking.

Alex said...

Those informal rules of logic are only for those stuffy elites who read the New York Times and sneer at the rest of us.

Oh fuck off and die. Show me any examples of the NYT engaging in reasoning. It's flagrant emotionalism 24 hours a day from your fucking side.

Alex said...

phx worships at the altar of the existing entrenched liberal elite, just fucking because.

Scrutineer said...

Saint Croix - I could never call up NPR because then I would have to do the NPR voice.

What Ira Glass calls the "soothed-out, we-are-so-very-reasonable Montessori School for Adults" tone of voice.

purplepenquin said...

Oh fuck off and die.

Is that comment considered "logic and reasoning"? 'cause it looks more like something an emotional idiot would say...

Alex said...

purple - Ann made a good point. You guys owned the media forever and it made conservatives like me crazy with rage. I'm just lashing out in justified waves of anger and rage at people like you.

sakredkow said...

You guys owned the media forever and it made conservatives like me crazy with rage. I'm just lashing out in justified waves of anger and rage at people like you.

In other words, so common here, who I am is always someond elses'
fault."

That's your argument, Alex, and it's Ann's - and a lot of other people who post here. You guys freely admit it.

Where's the conservative principle of accepting the responsibility for yourself?

Nowhere to be seen? It's the liberals' fault?

I know, I know, "Fuck off and die."

traditionalguy said...

NPR can take a liberal myth and make is sound good. That helps you practice graciously accepting other's opinions and not acting out like Newt Gingrich.

But NPR also has some balance by periodically running conservative points of view. Bob Edwards Weekends on the after church after church on Sunday is delightful example.

What is BORING is listening to a continual Sean Hannity like diatribe that is so partisan that it twists all news stories into an "angry victim Conservatives" narrative meant to counter the liberal's silly naratives.

Alex said...

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. You libpigs disgust me to no end. I don't want to see you, hear you or even know that you exist.

mtrobertsattorney said...

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. So it is with phx: "Even worse than the Hells Angels."

Whatever else you might say about the Hells Angels, they still believe some things are true and some things are false. Not so with the Crits. They deny the concept of truth altogether.

edutcher said...

As I've said, decentralized media (blogosphere, talk radio, etc.) is the death knell of Lefty domination.

CNN (sampling 30% D, 35% R) says people who felt George Zimmerman should have been arrested dropped from 73 to 48%. You wouldn't have that unless people were getting news from someplace other than the Lefty circle jerk.

sakredkow said...

Where is the conservative principle of accepting the responsibility for how you behave and how you are?

When did it become okay to blame someone else for the mess that you present of yourself?

crosspatch said...

I could see this coming a few years ago (2006) with Gene Weingarten's comment in a commencement speech at the University of Maryland School of Journalism:

"I want to congratulate you all upon your graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, and wish you luck as you prepare to embark on exciting careers in telemarketing or large-appliance repair.

My point is, this is a challenging time for journalists.

And because you are word people, you understand that "challenging time" is a euphemism often used to describe disasters of epic proportions. For example, Richard Pryor was facing a "challenging time" when he ran down the street half-naked and on fire.

What are your challenges, specifically? Let us begin with, quote unquote, getting a job. Good jobs in journalism have become scarce as newspapers shrink and die, broadcast media fragment to smaller niche audiences and the public appears more and more willing to receive its "news" online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants.

But, it's not like there is no hope. There are still high-prestige, well-paying positions in journalism. Unfortunately, they are filled by tired old coots who aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Me, for example. It'll take a hydraulic winch to pry me loose from this gig. "

purplepenquin said...

purple - Ann made a good point.

What point? That civility is bullshit? Sorry, I don't agree with that opinion at all.

You guys owned the media forever and it made conservatives like me crazy with rage

You must have me confused with someone else. I didn't own the newspaper, but rather just worked there for a few years. But that was a while ago...last century, actually.

But don't be hater and getting all jealous on those folks who do own a newspaper. If you wanna own your own then I'm sure you can pick one up relativity cheap now-a-days...

Tarzan said...

NPR is Tele-tubbies for big kids.

"Ohhh! Loook! Mi-cro-phone!"

"Hehehehheeeeeehhheee!"

Synova said...

The perception of how rude someone is being is determined by which side of what they've said you see yourself occupying.

You can say, "look, you've said the same things using the same words," and it doesn't matter. It matters if you hit the buttons of the other side.

I had someone "go off" on me on a forum once for saying, "I've never considered myself a feminist." You'd have thought I said, "Yes, I eat babies."

I've been deleted from comments for posting my opinion and nothing the least bit more un-civil than "that's very silly", which isn't an attack at all, but is *perceived* as an attack by people who want to be where they are comfortable. I made their space uncomfortable. There's no way to be civil enough to avoid that.

And my instructor the other day, when she said that believing wrong about global warming was *dangerous*, would clearly not consider the civility of how the ideas were presented. They're *dangerous*. What else is there to know?

Synova said...

There was some study a long time ago that rated the bias of news networks, (IIRC, by comparing how often right or left think-tanks and organizations were cited,) and Fox rated the same amount to the right as the next nearest other network (probably CNN) rated to the left. All the other networks rated even farther to the left.

For what it's worth. Someone maybe should do the same study again.

Oh, and other than NPR usually sounding like they're on sedatives, all the not-Fox networks seem to be full of screaming pundits these days. (Even though Olbermann is currently unemployed.)

crosspatch said...

"I've been deleted from comments for posting my opinion and nothing the least bit more un-civil than "that's very silly", which isn't an attack at all, but is *perceived* as an attack by people who want to be where they are comfortable. "

Yes. For many people, their positions are extensions of themselves as are their political affinities. So when the position is "attacked" they experience a feeling of being attacked personally and feel that retaliation is in order. They don't get that nobody called THEM silly, they called a position on an issue silly.

A person should be able to change their positions on things as they learn more and as new information becomes available. Decisions that were quite reasonable at one point might now be considered "silly" given new information. Building a nuclear power plant next to a subduction fault was quite reasonable before the acceptance of plate tectonics and discovery of subduction.

But the more emotionally driven see any evolution of position as a "flip flop". Any compromise that give the other side ANYTHING is a failure to such people even if it gives their side most of what they wanted OR prevents the other side from doing something deemed unacceptable by their side.

Even calling into question some policy or position on an issue can result in fierce attack. Go onto a liberal site and try to question a position on something sometime.

The response is the same as you get from "fundamentalists" of any sort be they religious, political, scientific, engineering, etc. There is no room for dissent by these people as it feels like a personal threat to them. Part of it is, also, "If we are wrong in our position in this issue, it calls into question our position on ALL issues so we have to stand fast on this one in order to preserve the others". Any "defeat" on a position threatens to cause cracks in the foundation of their belief system and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent those cracks forming even when the position makes no sense at all.

Writ Small said...

At which point, he scrambles into the protective arms of the authority figure named Mickey Kaus.

I want to give a partial defense of Bob. He was not saying that Kaus said X, so you should, too. He was saying, "Kaus told me X, and I believed X. You say X is wrong, and that's fine, but don't jump ugly with me. I'm just going by what this guy I trust told me."

He was explaining how he came to his (wrong) opinion - not citing Kaus as an expert.

sakredkow said...

Even calling into question some policy or position on an issue can result in fierce attack. Go onto a liberal site and try to question a position on something sometime.

But don't look for anything like that close to home. You won't find it in this very thread for instance. Because fierce and unfair attacks are a liberal thing.

Sheesh. School us.

Synova said...

"But don't look for anything like that close to home. You won't find it in this very thread for instance. Because fierce and unfair attacks are a liberal thing."

Well, no.

The perception of incivility is a point of view thing.

And at least Althouse doesn't delete comments that disagree with her.

sakredkow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christy said...

The calm soothing NPR voice is the voice of a battered woman. The voice of a woman who walks on eggshells so as not to cause anger in her partner.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

My point is, this is a challenging time for journalists.

Zero sympathy. Today's journalists are no better than Winston Smith, "disappearing" information that conflicts with their narrative.

I honestly hope they starve to death.

Good jobs in journalism have become scarce as newspapers shrink and die, broadcast media fragment to smaller niche audiences and the public appears more and more willing to receive its "news" online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants.

Yes, a nincompoop named Buckhead took down Dan Rather.

A journalism profession that wasn't corrupted would never have found itself in such a precarious position.