Jon Stewart And The Left's New Pundits

Jon Stewart announced his impending retirement from The Daily Show this week, and I was quite surprised to see a lot of gloating from the professional/academic Left on Twitter.  In general his critics seemed to be blaming Stewart for the failures of the Left, whether it be because Stewart's cynical viewpoint encouraged 'anti-politics," or because he wasn't radical enough.

I find this all quite amusing, since Stewart is a comedian who hosts a show on basic cable.  Trying to blame him for the fact that the radical Left is mostly incapable of making a political argument without resorting to either academic jargon or to insufferable moral self-righteousness is pretty silly.  (I'm a pragmatic social democrat, just for the record.)  In terms of mainstream politics, the fact that the Democratic party is unable to get their base motivated in off-year elections has little or nothing to do with Stewart's show.  Yes, Stewart often used his "I'm just a comedian" defense as a way to deflect political criticism in ways that could be questionable, but that hardly merits the take-downs I've seen over the last week.

I see something deeper at work, something I've noticed more now that I am engaging more fully with Twitter.  There is a a growing Leftist punditocracy on that site, one that is desperately hoping to overtake the old one.  For that reason they usually save their biggest attacks not for conservatives, but for established liberals.  Just witness the firestorm of Schadenfreude over the changes at The New Republic.  Don't get me wrong, those liberals need to be held to account.  At the same time, however, the intensity and nature of the attacks often seems to come from a place of competition.  Stewart is the liberal voice with the greatest level of respect and biggest following in America today, so of course he's a target for the Left's new pundit class.  Take for instance Jamelle Bouie's piece in Slate.  I normally really like what he has to say, but this article takes Stewart to task for being a pundit.  What exactly is Bouie then?

The new pundits want the place of the old pundits, pure and simple.  That desire is transparent.  From a careerist standpoint I guess that makes sense, but the whole thing has made me less and less interested in what the rising pundit class thinks.  It's been especially difficult to go on Twitter and in the Leftist blogosphere and see people trying to tear others down for their own benefit, and pass it off as truth telling.  Blogger Freddie DeBoer is a case in point.  (I only mention him by name because he trolled this blog once upon a time.)  He seems to have it in for the other prominent Left folks on Twitter (which he mostly steers clear of), based on his long blog posts attacking Adam Kotsko and Jeet Heer by name in rather insulting and misleading terms.

I'll stop there to avoid committing the same sin of character assassination.

While people on the Left are expending all their energy dumping on the liberal figure who's had the most effective cultural influence in my lifetime, the Right is busy raising close to a billion dollars for the Koch brothers.  Maybe, just maybe, a late night talk show host's lack of ideological purity isn't the biggest issue that the Left is facing these days.

Track of the Week: The War on Drugs "Under the Pressure"

Lost in the Dream by The War On Drugs was by far my favorite album of last year.  It has an amazing atmosphere that I am always glad to find myself (excuse the expression) lost in.  The production is reminiscent of the 1980s with the worst excesses toned down: airy synthesizers, reverby guitar, echoey piano, and metronomic drums.  Singer and composer Andrew Granduciel's has a bit of raspy Bob Dylan in its grain, making "Under the Pressure" sound like a lost outtake from Oh Mercy.

"Under the Pressure" kicks off the album and sets the mood.  Although this is hardly a barn burner, the tempo is fast and insistent, and Granduciel lets out a few "whoos."  I find myself listening to it a lot in the morning, riding the train into New York City with the sun barely peaking over the horizon of the New Jersey swamps.  It's such a beautiful song, a kind of morning prayer as I head off to work at the start of another day.

TS Eliot was wrong.  April is by no means the cruelest month, February's got it beat by a country mile.  Winter has been here for months, and now it is getting colder than ever at a time when my body is crying out for spring.  Music is one my healthier means of surviving it, and when I listen to The War On Drugs, I feel a kind of spiritual warmth.  Rarely have I found music this theraputic for this trying time of the year.

Low Rent Cable Commercial Memories

It's hard to believe that I was so impressed with cable back in the 80s.  We only had about thirty channels, compared to today's hundreds, and most of them were full of bad World War II movies and syndicated reruns.  (It's no wonder MTV had a leg up, since they had outsiders paying all the money to create the content.)  The commercials on cable were also suitably low rent, full of all kinds of weird gadgets, doo-hickeys, and music compilations all magically priced at $19.99 plus $4.95 shipping and handling.  Many of those commercials were more memorable than the stuff I was watching at the time.  Here's a sampling.

A friend posting the link to Freedom Rock on Facebook set off this blog post.  I grew up in such an isolated place that standard classic rock music wasn't that easy to come by anymore in the late 80s-early 90s, and so this commercial's music intrigued me, even if I spent most of my time laughing hysterically at the burnout hippie characters promoting it.  Their counterculture vibe also seemed strange when compared to the album's patriotic cover motif.



Not only did cable let you buy music that you couldn't get in stores, it also sold cleaning products with miraculous powers.  If the commercials were to be believed, Didi Seven had magical qualities that no stain could ever stand up to.  I wondered if this stuff was made out of hydrochloric acid or something.



Without Zamfir, how would I ever have known about the sublime beauty of the pan flute?

 

Aw, Sy Sperling.  As a child of Nebraska his Nuu Yawk accent greatly amused me, as did the fact that his miracle hair grow product had its own newsletter.  Remember, he's not just the president, he's also a client.  I'm sure that gave a lot of balding men great confidence in the product.



Before Alfonso Ribeiro was Carlton, he was a break-dancing machine.  Not only did you get an instructional book and double-lp dance music compilation with your order, but a sweet breakin' pad too.  I have to admit I found this product rather tempting.

What "Socially Liberal But Fiscally Conservative" Really Means

Since my teen years I've noticed that behind all of the partisan warfare at the top of the political spectrum, there is a certain kind of untapped consensus.  I don't know how many people I've met who describe themselves as "socially liberal but fiscally conservative."  I usually hear this from people who are rather disengaged from politics, mostly because their opinion is so embedded in the way things are done that there's no reason for them to get involved.  On the one hand, gay marriage is becoming the law of the land, on the other, state governments have been slashing social spending, with Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Kansas being recent notable examples.  Sure there are anti-abortion fanatics and social democrats still out there, but both groups are highly marginal these days.

I am currently reading Matthew Lassiter's The Silent Majority, a history of suburban politics in the postwar South, and I am beginning to see the historical antecedents of the modern day "socially liberal but politically conservative" cliche.  He focuses in on affluent white suburbanites in cities like Atlanta and Charlotte who opposed the white supremacist "massive resistance" policy intending to halt school desegregation by closing down all of the public schools.  These suburbanites instead proposed to save the public schools by allowing for only token integration while maintaining residential segregation.  They found the out and out bigoted racism of Lester Maddox and his ilk to be distasteful, but were themselves not inclined to challenge the structures of institutional racism.  In fact, by maintaining local school districts in highly segregated living areas, they were actively maintaining institutional racism, all while proclaiming its "colorblind" nature.

When I hear the socially liberal/fiscally conservative crowd today, I can't help but to see the similarities.  They are okay with legalized marijuana, abortion rights, and gay rights, mostly because that does not cost them a thing.  At the same time, they are not at all interested in income inequality, institutional racism, lack of health care access, and any other social injustice that would require wealth redistribution to rectify.  The ghettoes do not concern them, nor does the fact that students who live in poorer areas have a much lower quality of education than their own children bother them.  In fact, they secretly like it that way.  Deep down they just want to maintain their middle class existence with as little bother and as low of taxes as possible, all while keeping others below them at bay.  (I've never heard anyone who is socially liberal/politically conservative ever complain about the costs of policing or imprisonment.)  They can then turn around and pat themselves on the back for not hating gays and being cool with weed.

This new silent consensus is of monumental importance, and people have been getting away with this purposefully obfuscating belief for quite some time.  They need to be called on it.  When someone tells you, with the usual glint of pride "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative," ask them what they really mean by that.

Is It Time To Bring Back Multipurpose Stadiums?

Olympic Stadium in Montreal, what the future looked like in 1976

While baseball fans tend to debate new innovations to the game, there is one recent change that has received almost universal acclaim: the growth of baseball-specific stadiums.  When I first started following baseball as a child the game was played in so-called "ashtray" stadiums like Busch, Veterans, Three Rivers, Jack Murphy, and Riverfront, and in domes like the Kingdome, Metrodome, Astrodome,   The Chicago White Sox started the trend towards baseball specific stadiums with their new park in the early 90s, but things really took off after the Orioles built Camden Yards, a beauty that made retro touches all the rage.

Having been there, it is easy to see why.  It feels like a much older park than it is, and the brick warehouse behind the stadium gives it an old-timey backdrop.  Of all the parks I've been to, Wrigley is the only one with a better character.  Several other teams followed suit, some with more success than others.  However, it is taken as an article of faith that fan experience has been improved by most teams with new parks, and I have little reason to doubt it based on the ones I've been to.

At times, however, I wonder if this has come at too high a price.  Owners have used the new stadium arms race to demand that cities build them new parks, or else.  How many cities and states have financed stadiums while cutting back on essential services?  How many of those parks will be considered "obsolete" in twenty years, bringing a new round of debt and threats?  Just look at Atlanta, where the Braves will be moving into a new stadium in Cobb County before Turner Field is even twenty years old.  I am willing to bet that before too long many of the teams who had new parks built for them will want either major renovations or new stadiums.

For some perspective, think about the politics and values that multipurpose stadiums represent, versus the new ones.  Those multipurpose structures were built during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when belief in publicly-owned institutions had yet to waver.  They also reflected a midcentury belief in emphasizing efficiency through maximum usefulness.  This philosophy did have its drawbacks, just look at Penn Station, an afterthought sitting beneath Madison Square Garden and an office building.  However, think about the cost savings of not having to build multiple stadiums.  Yes the sight lines aren't as nice, but perhaps money for a better baseball fan experience is better spent on roads and schools.

The new stadiums coincide with the ascendance of our current neoliberal model.  While the public still finances the new stadiums, they don't really see the profits from them.  As always, the debts are public and the profits are private.  Just as companies threaten to move to the Sun Belt or overseas if they aren't paid ransom, baseball teams threaten to find a more gullible city if they don't get a free stadium.

Do I prefer watching games at, say Minute Maid Park rather than the Astrodome?  You bet.  It's just that if teams want that cute new ballpark with a flagpole in the outfield and train that toots after home runs, they should pay for it.  If not, they should accept playing in a bland, multipurpose venue that will save the city money.  If the last few years of economic turmoil have shown us anything, it's that our sense of priorities is completely out of whack.

What Teaching High School Students Has Taught Me About College Students

I taught in higher education for almost ten years before becoming a high school teacher: three and a half as a TA, one year as a graduate instructor, two years as a visiting assistant professor, and three years as an assistant professor.  I taught at large state institutions, a flagship Big Ten school in grad school and regional state universities afterward.  While I loved teaching undergraduates, I was often amazed at how students approached their increasingly pricey education with a mix of apathy, contempt, and disengagement.  Many failed classes simply because they could not be bothered to show up or complete their work.  The biggest moment of despair came sometime in the second half of the fall semester, when the once bright-eyed, eager freshmen of the start of the year became just as jaded and cynical as the older students.

While the small, independent school where I teach now is very different from those state institutions, I've found that teaching high school students has given me great insight into the frustrations I once had with undergraduates.  I have learned that on the one hand, universities are expecting too much of many of their students (though not in the classroom, necessarily.)  I have learned that the attitudes that many students have towards college have been fostered well before they showed up.  I have also learned that universities foster an environment that squelches the remaining love of learning that many students have left.

As far as the first point goes, high school students receive a great deal of care.  When they start doing poorly in their classes, their teacher might take them aside, their parents might come in or at least put pressure on their children.  High school students get a lot of attention, and the educational methods used to teach high school students are getting increasingly rigid and structured with the advent of greater standardized testing.  (Gladly this is not an issue at my school.)  These 18 year olds get to college, and they do not know how to function without said structure.  No one is making sure they go to class, and they are free to get blitzed on a Thursday night and blow off their Friday classes and studying.  For students raised with helicopter parents (which is increasingly the case), they have been given unprecedented freedom without any of the tools necessary to use it responsibly.  No wonder failure rates, especially for first year students, are so high.  If colleges want to increase graduation rates, and the quality of education more generally, they are going to have to take a hands on approach with their students.  They show up to school effectively still teenagers, and with current parenting and educational trends, it is ridiculous to expect them to act like responsible adults who can manage on their own.

On the second point, students come into college with a certain understanding of what college is supposed to be for.  From the most elite schools on down, the majority of students view their college education as completely instrumental.  Among the undergraduates I once taught, many didn't even seem to know why they were even there, other than some vague sense that going to college was just what one did after high school.  They and others more highly placed see their schooling simply as a stepping stone to employment.  The college application process, which has become even more arduous and ridiculous in affluent sections of society, reinforces the instrumentality of college education.  In this world the selectivity of a school is an indicator of one's merit and ability.  The point is not to learn something at an elite college, but merely to get accepted.  Everything that comes after showing up on campus is merely icing on the cake.  The idea that a college education exists to make one a better, more rounded person is taken to heart by a minority of incoming students.

Lastly, colleges and universities themselves are to blame for the cynical student attitudes that treat each class as a useless chore/obstacle to be completed with as little work as possible.  Students are often presented with a dizzying array of required courses, courses that students have little interest in, and which they often take in their first year.  The main goal seems less learning than making it through an obstacle course.  Many universities show so little interest in undergraduate education -especially in introductory courses- that the students can obviously see it, and respond accordingly.  Being jammed with 600 people in a giant auditorium while a professor gives an incoherent lecture taking the most obscure angle on a particular course is as sure a sign of the university's contempt for the students as anything else.  I've taught high school students at both public and private schools, and their enthusiasm for learning never fails to hearten me.  Yes, many students approach college in a mercenary way, but most universities do little to suggest an alternate viewpoint.  Those students who see their education as the tool to get a future job often do have a reservoir of interest in learning that gets tapped more often in more personal high schools than in impersonal colleges.  Universities need to focus more intently on their undergraduate population, and to understand that the 18 year olds coming to campus need more guidance and attention, and that if they are treated like cogs in a machine, that's exactly the expectation they will conform themselves to.

Track of the Week: The Roches "Hammond Song"

Last week I was re-immersing myself in late 70s-early 80s Bowie, and got to wondering about other artists that the great guitarist Robert Fripp had collaborated with.  With the wonderful power of the interwebs at my fingertips, I found out he had produced the Roches first album, and played guitar on "Hammond Song."  I listened to it, and was immediately blown away.  I'd seen that first Roches record in stores a few time, and a vague sense that it was good, but had never listened to it.  I feel embarrassed about it now, since I have been listening to it constantly for a week.

In case you didn't know, the group are three sisters from New Jersey with folk-inflected songs full of beautiful harmonies.  There's something about close harmonies sung by brothers or sisters that really gets to me.  The genetic closeness of the voices allows them to do some spooky things that you just can't get out of other groups.

The song starts with beautiful simplicity, light, atmospheric organ and a sweetly strummed acoustic guitar starts things off, and then the gorgeous harmonies come in.  At various times Fripp brings in his guitar, with his signature "Frippertronic" effects giving it a ghostly presence.  The song glows so much I swear it warms me up like a blanket, and has been a welcome addition to my rotation this winter, when I need all the warmth I can get.