Andrew Sullivan wrote an article about the Michael Jackson trial, explaining that, from the point of entertainment, "it's been a bit of a dud." He claimed that Americans "turned off" and explained why ("…because the Jackson trial focuses attention on features of American culture that most Americans simply don't want to acknowledge or handle.")
These authors write with such conviction. Of course they do. They've freed themselves from the burden of proof. Claim almost ANYTHING about Generation X or Black Urban Males and you're likely to be believable, as long as your claims are bold and unapologetic.
This idea that we just KNOW what goes on in other people's heads is terrifyingly pervasive. I suppose it's baked into our brains. It makes sense that, being social creatures, we need to make snap decisions about people so that we can act quickly. And we can get quite good are reading the tiniest signs and extrapolating reams of information from them. But this doesn't mean we're always right -- or even usually right. But it does mean that we FEEL like we're right.
What galls me the most is the condescension. It's always WE Americans or WE modern people, but you never get the sense that the author includes himself. Doesn't he really mean, "those stupid people who mindlessly follow trends -- a group to which I'm pleased to say I'm NOT a member"?
And how does he KNOW people aren't watching the Jackson trial? He doesn't cite data. What is he going by? The (flawed) Neilson Ratings -- which monitor only 100 households. Or is he just going by the general buzz of his friends and acquaintances.
I always wish, when I read these articles, that the author had rewritten it as a personal essay. I would have no objection -- indeed I would be thrilled -- if he said "I have stopped watching the Jackson trial because I am disturbed by stories about child molestation. In general, I'm a liberal guy -- not much shocks me -- but I can't deal with that one subject." But he doesn't say that. Maybe he doesn't do it because he feels that if he did so, the article wouldn't have enough weight. It would be "just" personal and not sociological. Or maybe -- more likely -- he feels like it would be dishonest. HE'S not uncomfortable. It's all those people who are less sophisticated than him (and, of course, less sophisticated than his readers) who fall prey to petty prejudices.
I'm sorry to pick on Andrew Sullivan. He's a good writer and it's was a well-written article in spite of my objections. But it's fiction. Sullivan has created a character -- and the fiction works (this is why all fiction works, isn't it), because it's easy to map that character onto real people that I know. That's its appeal. That's its danger.
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