THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2023
Discussions like that aren't allowed: We want to take at least one more look at the disordered being known as Tucker Carlson, late of the Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson Tonight.
For starters, consider the way Ellison and Barr began their front-page report in this morning's Washington Post:
ELLISON AND BARR (4/27/23): Tucker Carlson had dinner with his ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch, two weeks ago in Los Angeles, and everything seemed just fine.
But according to people familiar with their conversation and Murdoch’s thinking, the 92-year-old billionaire founder of Fox News had grown weary of some of Carlson’s increasingly far-right commentary on his nightly prime-time show—as well as some of the swaggering host’s behind-the-scenes attitude.
At that particular moment, he was disturbed by Carlson’s stance on Ukraine. A graphic on Carlson’s show had referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, president of the besieged nation, as a “Ukrainian pimp,” and the host had repeatedly excoriated the U.S. government for providing aid to its defense against Russian attacks.
A graphic on Carlson’s show had referred to Zelensky as a “Ukrainian pimp!” Also, the sky is blue around mid-day if there aren't any clouds in the sky!
Stating the obvious, there's no reason why an analyst has to admire Zelensky. Also, no one is required to agree with the approach to the war on Ukraine which has been taken by the United States and our NATO allies.
That said, the absurdly childish Master Carlson engaged in endless name-calling aimed at Zelensky over the course of the past year. He rarely bothered with standard types of evidence and argument as he directed his various insults at the Ukrainian president.
This peculiar behavior tended to pass with little outside analysis, aside from the standard claim that Carlson was repeating Russian propaganda. The technical inanity of his journalistic behavior tended to go unremarked.
Simply put, you can't be so journalistically deranged that other journos will notice!
Night after night, the angry Carlson performed a virtual parody of logic- and evidence-based analysis. Our tribe tended to respond by calling him names, to the extent that we bothered citing his conduct at all.
Is something "wrong" with this famous person? In this morning's New York Times, we're offered this account of Carlson's first public statement since he was sent home by Fox:
RUTENBERG ET AL (4/27/23): On Wednesday night, Mr. Carlson posted a video on Twitter, speaking publicly for the first time since getting pushed out. Mr. Carlson did not address his exit from Fox, but railed against “completely irrelevant” debates on TV and said: “Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it.”
He added: “When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who have been trying to silence them shrink. They become weaker.”
Assuming the tiniest bit of competence on Carlson's part, his behavior on the air wouldn't likely be described by many people as "honest." Seeing that highlighted self-assessment, we'll ask our question again:
Is it possible that something is "wrong" with this very strange, very angry, deeply entitled fellow?
We lost a chunk of time today. For that reason, we're forced to substitute this observation for a fuller bit of thought:
We've said it many times with respect to the disordered behavior of Donald J. Trump. It's hard to have a serious discussion of such wildly disordered behavior without asking (carefully selected) medical specialists to speak to the matter at hand.
By the rules of modern journalism, such discussions aren't allowed. We simply haven't evolved to the point where such obvious questions can be asked within our mainstream discourse.
We've often noted the fact that a significant percentage of American men could be diagnosed as "sociopaths," according to medical authorities. (Could be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.)
Within our high-end mainstream journalism, we're allowed to speak about "mental health" and "mental illness" issues involving certain types of people. We aren't allowed to stage such discissions with respect to people like Carlson.
Instead, we rail and call them liars and racists. This tends to bring discussion to an end. Also, it tends to bestow power on the people we angrily name-call.
In our view, Carlson seems like a genuine, stone-cold nut. We're curious how his behavior would look to a medical specialist—to someone trained and experienced in the realm of abnormal psychology.
Given our primitive way of life, such discussions really aren't possible. Also, they aren't allowed.
For the record, we've recommended pity for people like Carlson—after they've been disarmed.
Tomorrow afternoon: Charles Blow's account of that challenging speech by Harry Belafonte
A note on the Washington Post: That report by Ellison and Barr appeared on the front page of this morning's (print edition) Washington Post.
As of 1 P.M. today, the article didn't appear anywhere on the nearly endless front page of the online Washington Post.
That nearly endless online front page was larded with braindead articles about LIFESTYLE, WELL+BEING, FOOD, and of course ADVICE.
Meanwhile, that front-page report about Tucker Carlson had vanished from the earth. It seems to us that something is wrong with a discourse which functions like this.
"A graphic on Carlson’s show had referred to Zelensky as a “Ukrainian pimp!” Also, the sky is blue around mid-day if there aren't any clouds in the sky! "
ReplyDeleteIn other words, ho hum, what else is new about Carlson's behavior? This is what he does.
Then shortly after this, Somerby says:
"This peculiar behavior tended to pass with little outside analysis, aside from the standard claim that Carlson was repeating Russian propaganda. The technical inanity of his journalistic behavior tended to go unremarked."
Somerby himself refers to Carlson's behavior as business as usual for him -- but he expects journalists observing that same behavior to get worked up about it?
One standard for Somerby, a different one for journalists. But if Somerby considers this stuff old hat, unremarkable, himself, why should journalists have to pretend it is news?
And then there is the fact that journalists are not in the business of policing each other's behavior. They are oriented outward, towards the world of current events, and journalists report news, they don't make it, not even Tucker Carlson, when he call a world leader a "pimp".
Good evening Madame,
DeleteI am writing to provide feedback on this comment. While I appreciated your perspective, I noticed several logical errors in your argument that I feel weaken your position.
First, you present a false dilemma when you imply that journalists must either be indifferent to Tucker Carlson's behavior or pretend that it is news. There are other options available, such as acknowledging Carlson's behavior but not devoting excessive attention to it.
Second, you engage in an ad hominem fallacy when you criticize Somerby for holding journalists to a different standard without addressing the substance of his argument. This detracts from the strength of your position and makes it less persuasive.
Third, you set up a straw man argument by suggesting that Somerby is demanding that journalists police each other's behavior when he is simply pointing out the double standard that exists in the media. This misrepresents Somerby's position and weakens your own argument.
Finally, you use a false analogy by comparing Carlson's behavior to the world of current events that journalists report on, implying that the two are unrelated. Carlson's behavior is itself a newsworthy event, particularly given his influence and reach.
I hope that you will take this feedback into account as you continue to develop your ideas on this topic. Thank you for your consideration.
Somerby is really tipping his hand today, exclaiming that Zelensky being a pimp for Ukraine is as obvious as the sky is blue.
DeleteOne could easily interpret such an exclamation as indicating that Zelensky is abusing Ukraine for his own personal benefit - this is what a pimp does.
Somerby neglects to provide any evidence to support his claim.
That’s what she do
Deletehttps://youtu.be/59o3VhOOdnQ
Greetings 3:49. The thing jumping out in your stupid comments is your consistent misunderstanding of what a straw man argument is. Did someone tell you as a child what that is make you feel very clever? You should have paid better attention because you don’t really get it.
DeleteI was thinking that the awkward semi-archaic phrasing of the logic bot's English was because it was an AI, but now I think it is Mao mimicking software. No one calls a woman Madame -- that's French or European. In English it is Madam.
DeleteThe best hominems are ad hominems.
Delete"Night after night, the angry Carlson performed a virtual parody of logic- and evidence-based analysis."
ReplyDeleteJust like our trolls have been doing!
"Is it possible that something is "wrong" with this very strange, very angry, deeply entitled fellow?"
ReplyDeleteIf something is wrong with Carlson, you don't figure that out using his public statements. There is no reason to assume that anything such a person says in public is honest, on air or off.
Those on the autism spectrum may struggle to distinguish when someone is being genuine or not; in Somerby’s case I think it is more likely that he is willfully being excessively literate when it suits his attempts to manufacture ignorance.
Delete*excessively literal
DeleteBrother please, Somerby is as literate as mud is clear.
Carlson says: “When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who have been trying to silence them shrink. They become weaker.”
ReplyDeleteThen shortly after, Somerby says: "Instead, we rail and call them liars and racists. This tends to bring discussion to an end. Also, it tends to bestow power on the people we angrily name-call."
Calling someone mentally ill is also a form of name calling, especially without an actual diagnosis by a (carefully selected) medical professional.
If you, in all sincerity, honestly called them mentally ill, wouldn't you be acquiring power, as Carlson said? But if by calling someone mentally ill, you are name-calling, aren't you then bestowing power on them, as Somerby said?
This idea of labeling whatever behavior you dislike to be power-bestowing strikes me as silly. People gain and lose power from other things, but not so much the words they say about themselves or others. Did calling Zelensky give Carlson power, and if not, was it because Zelensky isn't actually a pimp (thus the name-calling was dishonest)? Or is it because what Carlson calls Zelensky has no impact on anything real in the world, because these are just words, recognized as being what Carlson did, and not anything real? Or maybe Carlson was real to right-wingers but not to people who know the truth about Zelensky. In that case, it is the truth that gives people power, not the names called. Or did Carlson have power because of Murdoch's patronage and not because of his loony toon followers?
One report is that Carlson lost his job because he didn't attract advertisers because of his whacky show, despite his audience. It was a business decision. Did the absence of truth on his show then decrease his power? That would make more sense than his name-calling giving Zelensky power.
I don't think Carlson or Somerby have any idea what creates power. Certainly wealth does, because Murdoch had more power than Carlson and that is why Carlson is gone. But Dominion prevailed over Fox, and that suggests that the truth of the election gave Dominion more power than Fox, who told lies. Truth may win because there will be more people who see it and support it, not because of any inherent power it holds beyond those who choose to speak it. Perhaps the power comes from the fact that there are more Democrats who prefer the truth than there are Republicans who prefer lies. And that power at the ballot box may be the only thing that matters to those of us who are not rich.
Somerby is especially goofy today. Shall we all propose diagnoses based on his silly words?
Very well written comment.
DeleteIn most of the animal kingdom, power comes from might. For humans, due to our brain capabilities and the resultant tool technology, power comes from hierarchy and dominance.
DeleteHierarchy and dominance enables and manifests through oppression, thus power. It is nonsensical to suggest that resisting oppression - calling out liars, racists, etc - bestows power, since it does just the opposite.
Even if it were the case that fighting oppression does bestow some kind of power, so what. The notion that we could “all get along” is immoral, as we would live in a world with slavery and no Jews.
The second amendment is evil.
DeleteThe second amendment is a means to express hierarchy and dominance.
DeleteParticularly since the 2008 Heller decision.
Great example, thank you 3:55.
When animals or people feel threatened but lack control over their circumstances, they have heightened levels of cortisol (the stress hormone). Cortisol numbs anxiety and prepares an organism for pain and death. When animals or people feel they can do something to save themselves, they struggle, aided by adrenaline, in a fight or flight response. When they feel they have the power to fight back against a threat, they have not only adrenaline but also higher testosterone. It is the sense of control over circumstances that makes the difference between standing to fight rather than flight (avoidance of threat, running away). The absence of control engenders a sense of helplessness that inhibits struggling, passivity, a giving up, the body responds with cortisol and the organism feels stress. See Sapolsky for a review of this in animals and humans.
DeleteDominence and hierarchy are not only linked to power but to a sense of control. When Republicans are told to fear change and modern thinking and a variety of new situations in the world, they feel out of control. The fear results in renewed efforts to exert control and make life predictable, familiar, unthreatening. Oppressing others is a way of exerting control on nebulous abstract threats from change, beyond a person's control. Global warming is scary and we don't know what to do about it, but I can tell my wife what to do and make my kids obey. I don't know if I will lose my job and I'm nearing 50, but I can at least push my subordinates around and make them do their jobs the way I want. Unrecognized anxieties make a person cling to the things they can control, no matter that they have nothing to do with addressing those unconscious fears.
On the left, engaging in action to combat wrongs and deal with problems also exerts control over those situations. Fighting makes a person feel more in control, even if they objectively are doing little to help a problem. Cortisol goes down, adrenaline and testosterone increase and the person feels better. Threats abound for both conservatives and liberals (maybe not perceived the same way), but they use different methods to exert control and try to combat threat and feel safe, lower stress, relax and enjoy life. Fighting to win elections, being anti-racist, marching at protests, helps liberals feel more in control of the things that scare them. Dominating others, keeping upstarts in their traditional places, appealing to God for help, owning the libs, repealing liberal achievements (Obamacare), helps conservatives feel more in control of the things that scare them.
Actually working to solve problems in real life is a healthier way to deal with anxiety and stress than fighting against imaginary fears whipped up by political opportunists. That's why it matters that people stay in touch with reality. The right uses disinformation to enact dominance and hierarchy, so those using such tools cannot let go of them without feeling threatened. However, they know they are telling lies, as surely as Tucker and Trump both did. That isn't healthy for our society either because of the wasted effort, the counterproductiveness, and the fact that those manipulated by the right are never able to feel less stress because the noise machine never stops. Perhaps the dominant never feel fully in control either, because people are hard to control, because of resistance from the left and competition with others striving to be at the top.
It could be that massive doses of xanax might calm everyone down long enough to engage in some cooperative effort to actually address real threats such as global warming. I am not hopeful about that, given the way people reacted to covid. Right now, people are protecting themselves from this cycle by disengaging from politics and refusing to worry about long-term threats, such as climate change. I think the increased prominence of stories about well-being and lifestyle may be part of such a reaction to the constant stress-inducing fight between the left and right.
DeleteThere are interesting analyses of the effects on health that occur when someone is in a subordinate position in society with very little control over what happens to them. This is the position of many African Americans. Fighting racism and for social justice causes are a way for them to exert more control, even via the striving if not through progress, and feel less powerless. That has positive health benefits, increases people's self-esteem, provides hope and supports cooperative relationships in a community. Even without changing bigots' minds.
Did calling Zelensky give Carlson power
Delete—>
Did calling Zelensky a pimp give Carlson power
"In our view, Carlson seems like a genuine, stone-cold nut."
ReplyDeleteSo, why then did Somerby spend so much time watching Carlson's show, and why did he recommend that us liberals go over and watch it too, because he had better facts than we do? (Yes, Somerby did do these things.)
Because Carlson formerly presented himself as a simp, and a pimp, for Trump; when it was revealed that Carlson detests Trump, Somerby did a 180 and now we get daily posts about what a moron Carlson is. Somerby, in this, is transparent.
DeleteCarlson is a hot nut.
Delete"We're curious how his behavior would look to a medical specialist—to someone trained and experienced in the realm of abnormal psychology."
ReplyDeleteHe would look like a Machiavellian sociopath narcissist, pursuing wealth by deliberately telling lies, with a hatred of women and a genuine bigotry. But you cannot call him any of those things without an appropriate diagnosis, if you are a medical professional. It is explicitly part of the ethics of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists (the people who practice abnormal psychology). None of these personality disorders are considered mental illness. Carlson has been functioning in life, so he would not rise to the level of requiring clinical intervention.
Dr Bandy Lee, a specialist trained in abnormal psychology, is now saying that Republican behavior is not motivated by ideology, but because they are in constant survival mode, and therefore are impervious to persuasion, and that they are leading our country down a death spiral - she calls it the Trump Contagion.
DeleteSomerby was a champion of Dr Bandy Lee for years, but is now silent on her current assessment of Republicans, acting as if she doesn’t exist. Interesting.
"That nearly endless online front page was larded with braindead articles about LIFESTYLE, WELL+BEING, FOOD, and of course ADVICE."
ReplyDeleteGosh, who are all those braindead evil people who want to read articles about how to live a better life? If newspapers help people avoid becoming like Tucker Carlson, aren't they doing a good thing for humanity?
Why does Somerby begrudge people better recipes for making avocado toast? Is he really not aware that newspapers have always included such material, right there alongside other types of news? It is Somerby's right to skip any article that doesn't pique his interest. Obviously he skips the ones about relationships and girly stuff, but one could complain that there is too much sports in the newspapers, too much financial news, too few comics.
It is odd Somerby conveys such scorn for everyday people and their interests, then tells the blue tribe they face an existential threat for their supposed scorn of everyday people, which, it should be noted, is a made up circumstance.
DeleteWhere is Mao? Haven't seen a comment from him in the past few days. Need a daily reminder of brain-dead dembots mindlessly guzzling woke narratives promulgated by their Hitlerian/Goebbelsian cult leaders.
ReplyDeleteMao has been posting here for over twenty years. Maybe he got old and died. Certainly has been in cognitive decline over that time.
DeleteI’m now posting anonymously.
DeleteNo, I am.
DeleteObviously Trump and Carlson are crazy, or at least half crazy all the way to the bank. Being half nuts does not mean you are also not creepy and corrupt in another hundred awful ways.
ReplyDeleteBob has insisted all their followers must be treated as sane, good hearted people. That stating basic facts about those two is somehow offensive to their followers. On the legal front, Bob had gone to ludicrous extents to defend Trump.
"We're curious how his behavior would look to a medical specialist—to someone trained and experienced in the realm of abnormal psychology."
ReplyDelete"It's hard to have a serious discussion of such wildly disordered behavior without asking (carefully selected) medical specialists to speak to the matter at hand."
Somerby continues to promote intervention by some kind of "carefully selected" psychological police force that would issue rulings on the behavior and discourse of politicians and media political talkers.
Fine with me. But it seems obvious they would immediately be labeled and elitist and there would be no power of enforcement since the 1st Amendment includes the right to say stupid and crazy things.
Since it's never going happen, Bob should drop this type of lazy non-analysis and instead start asking some serious questions.
Why can Republican pols and propagandists say crazy things and still win elections? What does this say about the typical Republican voter. What do they really want from their elected officials? Etc.
Thank you for saying this.
DeleteRepublicans should support statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
ReplyDeletesupreme
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