Personally I got a lot of "yes, exactly" moments out of this article's focus on Jon Stewart. But I think the article would have been more effective if they had compared Jon Stewart to Keith Olbermann (I'm a fangirl, of course I'd think that) because Keith is intellectual and educated while still using the exact passion and moral outrage they're talking about here.
Scornful criticism of KO from the left is rarely about the facts of his argument. It's almost always about how his yelling and name-calling make the rest of us look silly. This is a thorn in my side, because while it's true emotional arguments are not automatically more correct than intellectual ones, I'm heartily sick of the idea that displaying emotion or being "undignified" - all girly-like - automatically disqualifies you from the conversation.
Jon plays this card all the time, IMO. He has chummy debates with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee, thereby validating their bizarre opinions and making them appear reasonable, all because they make a show of being entertaining enough to be on The Daily Show. Meanwhile KO, who is much smarter and more thoughtful then O'Reilly and Huckabee, will probably never appear on TDS because his displays of emotion make Jon uncomfortable.
But I think the article would have been more effective if they had compared Jon Stewart to Keith Olbermann...
I think it would make sense for someone to do that, but I don't think this article could. It's too hung up on the idea of passion versus detachment as part of a Real America versus Liberal Elites culture war narrative:
Moore, while taking all the right positions and displaying all the right characteristics for a political and cultural leader – courage, boldness, uncompromised expression of contested beliefs – represents everything that the modern, educated liberal casts as inferior. Moore is obese. His appearance is consistently sloppy and working class. He’s a college dropout. He has an apartment in New York City, but continues to spend most of his time living in Michigan. He’s devoutly Catholic.
An overweight, relatively uneducated, Midwestern Catholic is the image that most liberals mentally sketch when they consider the cultural enemy.
The gist of the article seems to be that "aloof hipness" will never have broad appeal outside the "politically impotent" "cocktail party and faculty lounge scene of the liberal establishment," and that the left will have to sacrifice this aloofness if it wants to alter public discourse and reach a general audience (i.e., Real America).
And it's totally right, too. I mean, just look at how Olbermann appeals to a much broader audience than Stewart!
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fakenews_srsbsns2011-10-26 02:04 pm
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Scornful criticism of KO from the left is rarely about the facts of his argument. It's almost always about how his yelling and name-calling make the rest of us look silly. This is a thorn in my side, because while it's true emotional arguments are not automatically more correct than intellectual ones, I'm heartily sick of the idea that displaying emotion or being "undignified" - all girly-like - automatically disqualifies you from the conversation.
Jon plays this card all the time, IMO. He has chummy debates with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee, thereby validating their bizarre opinions and making them appear reasonable, all because they make a show of being entertaining enough to be on The Daily Show. Meanwhile KO, who is much smarter and more thoughtful then O'Reilly and Huckabee, will probably never appear on TDS because his displays of emotion make Jon uncomfortable.
no subject
I think it would make sense for someone to do that, but I don't think this article could. It's too hung up on the idea of passion versus detachment as part of a Real America versus Liberal Elites culture war narrative: The gist of the article seems to be that "aloof hipness" will never have broad appeal outside the "politically impotent" "cocktail party and faculty lounge scene of the liberal establishment," and that the left will have to sacrifice this aloofness if it wants to alter public discourse and reach a general audience (i.e., Real America).
And it's totally right, too. I mean, just look at how Olbermann appeals to a much broader audience than Stewart!
...oh, wait.