Nachbetrachtung

Serious Black, Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2021, 09:56 (vor 1054 Tagen) @ Serious Black

“Most American intellectuals think you can only be profound if you’re outraged,” Wolfe added. “So they’re perpetually outraged. It’s rather amusing to watch. Wasn’t it Marshall McLuhan who said that moral outrage is a common strategy for endowing idiots with dignity?”

During the Trump years, the incentive structure for journalists, authors, editors, activists, analysts, and socially engaged academics—basically anyone who makes a living in the wide realm of public affairs—rewarded moral outrage, hyperbole, and dogmatism. In this land of punditry without consequences, moderation, humility, nonconformity, and an appreciation for life’s manifold complexities are no longer just undervalued; they are actively ridiculed, if not condemned outright as traits intrinsic to the retrograde and the just plain nutty. For all the good it will do, Trump’s defeat is likely to embolden those grifters who prospered most in this corrupt intellectual environment—and not only the deluded Trumpists who cling to his political carcass like barnacles on a shipwreck, but also his most zealous foes who stand to profit. The moment of our deliverance from one long national nightmare may only have been the beginning of something worse.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/james-kirchick-grifter-nation