I've briefly noted before that old-before-his-age conservative commentator Currency Lad, who has resumed blogging, has developed into wordy, muddled, quasi-opaqueness in his writing. I offer an example this piece about the retirement of Alan Jones, which seems to me to swing wildly between praise and condemnation of his "skills", only to finally settle on "he'll be missed". Mind you, I saw on Youtube Andrew Bolt doing his farewell to Jones, and it was somewhat similar. Seems a lot of his defenders have quite a lot of mixed feelings about how he operates.
Let there be no lack of clarity from me - he's a long time disgrace and done more harm to the country than good, by far. I find his personality extremely grating, and have no understanding of how such a bombastic, thinks-he-knows-it-all-but-doesn't style succeeded for so long in media.
Jones was an ugly man in all parts of that word
ReplyDeleteand have no understanding of how such a bombastic, thinks-he-knows-it-all-but-doesn't style succeeded for so long in media.
ReplyDeleteThat is the world we now live in. It is not that surprising Steve and was perceived long ago with the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." We live in the age of clickbait.
Today I started reading Pinker's Rationality. He makes an important point:
"... some of today's florid outbursts of irrationality may be understood as the rational pursuit of goals other than the objective understanding of the world."
That nails where we are at with so much political debate. I glimpse at Sky News at night and the talking heads there are in the pursuit of political goals not an objective understanding of the world. The same problem happens in many MSM outlets. For many talking heads today the goal is to beat your opponent rather than speak the truth.