MSNBC News Anchor Choice Really Is News
Demonstrates a Cultural Shift from Joe-The-Plumber to Morning Joe
Hooray! MSNBC hired another brainy TV host, Melissa Harris-Perry in addition to Rachel Maddow. Next there will be a Rhodes Scholar (well, Clinton was) or better still a President who made Harvard Law Review (President Obama did).
I can’t help but think that this new hire really is news and here’s why. Not because she’s black and it’s Black History Month but perhaps it is because it signals a cultural shift away from the anti-intellectualism of Joe-the-Plumber and perhaps, one that favors Morning Joe or Current TV’sThe Young Turks with Cenk Uygur. Seismic in comparison to the long sleep of reactionary thinking or the even larger legacy of an anti-intellectual pioneer mentality.
Could it be that America is growing up? Evolving into a country that chooses to think (and know) more, deeply about news? That shows signs of a respect for learning, education, and teaching? Is it a sign our collective spots are changing from black and white, bottom-line thinking to entertaining the idea of open-ended shades of gray? This comes not a moment too soon, when the problems of the world are not getting any simpler.
How We View Time May Be Changing
This new kind of anchor devotes more time to news segments, like journalists in other countries. I like to think that it sounds the death knell of the sound bite. One cannot hope to report about the complexities of climate change or the economy, much less about human rights, literacy, poverty and hunger in 45 seconds adequately. Real world problems do not get resolved at the end of a 30-minute sitcom because life is too messy and unwieldy for that kind of thinking.
Cowboy swift cowboy certainty is the mother of fools. The only thing that is certain in life is that nothing is certain. This is an unapologetically philosophical French mindset. The American slice and dice marketing mentality influences how we think too and it precludes the opportunity to hold two opposing ideas at once. It compels us to think categorically. To atomize and simplify into right and wrong, black and white, good and bad, yes and no; whom we elect, what we buy and consume.
This all stems from my email to a local gardening expert Pat Kenschaft. I was thinking about how much I enjoy reading her missives because they are so well written. Then I realized she taught math at Montclair State University. How can she do both? Come to find out she had nine books published. Owed it all to Maxine Hoffer, her creative writing teacher at Nutley High School who she said had students write a 250-word essay every day for the first semester and a 2000 word essay every week the second semester. She graded them all over night every night. If she had had to meet today's testing standards, she never would have had time to teach this course along with an otherwise normal load of English classes.
Black and White Thinking Was Not the Gold Standard
Early American leaders were many things (good and bad) but they valued a well-educated person with a high level of skills and interests. They were articulate and capable of reading and writing in several languages (including the dead ones). The Renaissance Man who was an accomplished musician, writer, scientist, inventor, and politician, simultaneously.
Modern American culture values the opposite. Too many skills, interests, hobbies or talents may get you an ADD diagnosis and medicated. Not that it’s a bad idea to learn how to do one thing and do it well. Just seems like it can be at the expense of learning (or knowing about) the joy of doing (and knowing) other things.
That’s where the pioneer legacy comes in. Out with the old in with the new because early settlers often had to make quick life and death decisions to survive the harsh new world. It also may explain why we separates academics from the rest of us. Sometimes ridiculed and called pointy headed, we don’t really value teachers, do we? We certainly don’t pay them much and they are segregated to the ivory tower ghetto because they think they know too much and the rest of us seem to think we know it all.
Lisa La Valle-Finan is obsessed with culture. She writes about local and current events with a global eye. All comments are welcome at llfinan@live.com. More information can be found on her website www.MeetUp.com/FleaMarketFanatics
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