Speaking of tricks, illusionist Penn Jillette seems to be the media left's replacement for the acrimonious misanthrope Richard "I'm not going to change the minds of many dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads" Dawkins, and I can't imagine a better swap. Unlike Dawkins, whose crude cracks require constant damage control of the "He never said that" variety, Jillette has no gentleman's image to maintain--he can, for instance, compare someone to Hitler and not have to insist that he didn't compare someone to Hitler. Plus, playing religion against science isn't Penn's primary goal--he's just doing the rock and roll thing by trashing faith, church-going, belonging to "middle America," and similar crimes against the entertainment industry. He's not desperate to be accepted as an important scientist--he's a magician/entertainer, and proud to be just that. I doubt he bristles at being called a jerk or blowhard, whereas his British counterpart can't figure out why people feel the need to fire back for being labeled morally and intellectually obsolete. No sense of humor, those folks.
Besides, as a high school-educated entertainer, Penn's the perfect spokesperson for education, logic, reason, science, etc., at least by the media left's standards. Don't get me wrong--in the actual left, as I call it, these things are highly regarded. In the media left, not so much. I mean, take a look at the people who pass for sages on the MSNBC and Current TV airwaves--comics, actors, animators, Penn Jillette, etc. Nothing against any of those groups, but the media left's take on smart culture often resembles, more than anything else, a swipe.
In a recent Los Angeles Times's op-ed, water-carrier Jillette trashed Christianity across the board, and some readers complained. Predictably, the paper pretended that the author's put-downs were qualified (they were not), and spent the space of an essay playing games with word use. It's possible that deputy Op-Ed editor Susan Brenneman doesn't realize that dissing something in whole is the essence of an unqualified judgment. Which, of course, raises the fascinating question of why not.
In that op-ed, Jillette talks about state/church separation in the usual careless MSNBC fashion, as if any mention of religion by a politician violates same. (By the way, clearly our nation was meant to have no state press, so why are reporters allowed in the White House, thus creating the danger of state and press coming in contact?) Ironically, the two presidents he gripes about--Carter and "church slut" Clinton--are Democrats. Will we lefties survive our media wing? That is the question.
Lee
4 comments:
Penn isn't exactly Far-Left; he and Teller made a hilarious video a few years ago debunking the 9/11 Truthers.
BTW, he IS a college grad-he graduated from Ringling Brothers' Clown College in 1974. Bill Irwin is a fellow alumni.
That's interesting. Thanks for that info.
Hey man;
Just wanted to say I dig this blog and you always dig up the wildest rarities every Halloween. The rest of the year, too, but Halloween is the best.
Also, Penn is actually a Libertarian which kind of puts him on the Ron Paul "Far Right"! Though that's misleading; the Libertarians have their own "left" wing (Native American activist Russell Means came close to being the Libertarian Party nominee for president in the late 80's, for example) and Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky have described themselves as "leftist libertarians" (Bill Maher would probably qualify too).
Keep on groovin'!
Thanks!
I've never known where to place Libertarians, left/right-wise. I tend to feel they automatically default to the right because of their government-stay-out stance, but that's just my take.
Mainly, the media left is looking for a kinder and gentler Dawkins--someone to pick on the average I.Q., but in a more people-friendly way. (How would you like to be stuck with that job?) As a lefty, I wish the media left would cool it with such stuff, given the inadvisability of dissing people whose votes we need. Not the best thought out tactic!
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