F16’s Don’t Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People

The next time a journalist sneers about "bloggers" and their lack of credibility, just give them THIS link, penned by a gen-u-ine, degreed, capital "J" journalist at the Lincoln Journal Star. I can believe someone wrote it, but I have a more difficult time understanding how this dreck made it past an editor.

 

In eight years of living in Nebraska I can honestly say I’ve met a total of two individuals I could describe as having any degree of intellectual curiosity. One is a Fundamentalist and the other (I’m pretty sure) is autistic. I might be wrong, but I’ll go out on a limb and assume neither would stay home to watch Nebraska’s favourite son, Larry the Cable Guy, who filled 50,000 seats at Memorial Stadium last weekend for a 4th of July show. I know, that’s a broad brush-but in a city of 250,000 people 50,000 isn’t statistically insignificant. Again, I’m not being a snob-I used to watch Hee Haw, and found it amusing, but I didn’t embrace Hee Haw as a way of life. I didn’t find in Minnie Pearl some sort of role model. Sometime between the 70’s and today we lost the ability to grasp parody. The fact that Bush was elected in 2000 based on his appeal as "A guy you’d have a beer with", should serve as a frightening example of where this sort of lacking intellectual curiosity can lead us. 

 

The anti-intellectualism everyone found so shocking during the election seemed only more of the same from my daily existence here. Thankfully, the population is sparse, and I live on a farm so my dealings with people are mercifully limited. Lest you think I’m taking a cheap shot at those without degrees, let me assure you I am not. There are plenty of degreed idiots walking around, or sitting in newsrooms publishing rubbish like what is linked above. You don’t need a degree to crack a book, or give something more than ten seconds of consideration before forming an opinion-or better admitting that you can’t form an opinion. When was the last time you heard someone admit they didn’t have an answer or a conclusion to be reached? I swear, people treat it like they will lose points or something for saying: "I don’t know."

 

No, I’m talking about people who, when engaged in conversation respond with gems such as:

"Carter? Was he like a president or something?"

 

I don’t know, maybe I’m an old fuddy-duddy but I think that someone in their thirties with a university degree ought to know that Carter was president. I don’t think that’s setting standards too high. I’ll bet he knows what time Larry the Cable Guy comes on the telly.

 

I don’t know why the elitist smear works, as it ends up being cast at unlikely "elitists" like union organisers, and Catholic Workers. Perhaps it is simply a convenient, all-purpose insult like "Pinko" designed to marginalise anyone that might question whether they are as content as they’ve been told they are. I’m not convinced it has to do with money, or social status, or educational level. I do however worry that it is dangerous, if only because time and again we can see examples of how the mentality turns into witchunts. Elitist mobs might be irritating, but they don’t tend to get violent and burn crosses on people’s lawns, or beat them up because they feel threatened by their sexual orientation.

 

Obviously, it was a business decision to begin running stories like the one above in newspapers. These stories wouldn’t run if they didn’t generate page views. I clicked on it too, so I bear a good deal of responsibility in keeping the beast alive. The difference is that I don’t take the content seriously, and can still be mortified that the journalist treated the subject as though it had merit. If that makes me an elitist, I won’t shy from the label.