Stop calling them out for calling them nuts

Jon at a A Tiny Revolution had an  allergic reaction to this quote from Anita Esterday, the waitress at the center of the brain-smashingly inconsequential "Hillary Clinton doesn't tip" scandal:

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

The sirloin of his beef (titled "Stop Calling Them Nuts"):

But the people who work for the New York Times, ABC, and NBC aren't nuts, nor is Matt Drudge. Their actions are completely rational. They're just doing what their bosses want them to do, because they want to keep their jobs.

It's true they seem nuts if you believe their constant yammering about how their only motivation is the search for Truth and Beauty.

Now, I agree with 97.83% of what Jon writes, and on one level I agree with what he was saying here--but I think it was the right criticism at the wrong time.  Here was my response in comments:

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This quote (from Esterday) was one of the best things I've read in a while. In this celebrity-obsessed society she deserves a lot of credit for choosing to deflect rather than bask in the attention of the all-seeing eye, and especially for doing it with such righteous indignation. It was a beautiful slapdown, and I admire her for delivering it.

As for what she actually said, I agree with her completely, and I think your criticism is misplaced in this case. There's no contradiction between saying that the media is nuts to focus on such mindless trivia and realizing that they're rationally attending to their own self-interest; it's just a matter of which perspective you're speaking from at that moment. By the same token, from a strictly pragmatic viewpoint I can accept that it's perfectly rational for Chevron to continue pursuing its economic interests at the expense of destroying the planet. From a human perspective, though, it's crazy. And from a rational standpoint I can agree that boiling dissidents alive is a sensible and likely very effective strategy for Islam Karimov's government, but from a moral or ethical standpoint I think it's not only repulsive but insane.

It all comes down to the voice one is writing (or speaking) with at the moment. There's a time for speaking analytically and there's a time for speaking from the heart, and I think it's important to recognize the difference. In this case Esterday was clearly doing the second and not the first.

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There's actually a lot more to say on this topic, but it's late and I want to go finish World War Z, so I'll save it for another time.

Comments

[Scruggs]

The reaction he got on that was diverse and interesting.

You are right that Ms. Esterday's reaction to the journos was a beautiful slapdown -- especially because she delivered it directly to the reporter and especially because of the context in which she put it. I have no bone to pick on the rest either.

However, I also think Jon's post was an oblique approach to a difficult criticism that needs to be heard. The centrist reaction he got and the way it got so personal leads me to that way of thinking. One of these days the centrists who go to ATR will do an Invasion of the Body Snatchers freak-out on him, as they do to Dennis Perrin all the time. Eh, I'm rambling.

[John Caruso]

Yeah, what Jon was saying was important, but I think Esterday's quote was a poor springboard for it. She deserved praise, not nitpicking. Looks like we agree on that.

As for the centrist reaction, I take it you mean that Patrick Hayden guy? I actually agreed completely with his first paragraph, but his "deliberately insulting" / "rhetorical strategy" followup wasn't the least bit convincing to me. He was just trying to dress up ranting as some kind of carefully-crafted technique, which struck me as a bit self-aggrandizing (I'm so sophisticated that even my tantrums are sly political maneuvers!).

I think it's clear that Esterday wasn't deploying any "rhetorical strategy"; she was just pissed off, and justifiably so. And getting back to Jon's critique, my point is that there's nothing wrong with that kind of emotional/moral/ethical response, and it in no way contradicts a more rational analysis. I think the fact that Jon typically writes in an satirical/analytical voice (and rarely drops that mask to express straightforward moral outrage) makes him put a lesser value on that kind of response, but in my opinion it's no less important. Each type of reaction has its value and its place.

You're right about the centrist contingent on ATR...they pop up at odd times. I'm always interested to see what sets them off.

[Scruggs]

They have odd priorities. Their overarching issues seem to revolve around a very touchy sense of propriety and perceived threats to their authority/hierarchy structures. I think of them as apple polishers who get upset when Jon (or anyone else) plants a cream pie in the principal's face, or when someone cuts the ground out from under one of their narratives.

[Save the Oocytes]

It's funny, because ATR really isn't at all the ideal place for that particular group.

[John Caruso]

StO: I noticed this comment of yours over on ATR:

Not everyone who calls people in our government insane is speaking rhetorically, though. It needs to be emphasized that these people are not insane. The insane are not fully responsible for their actions in the eyes of the law. These people don't deserve an insanity plea.

My response there:

Actually I'd guess that most of them are speaking rhetorically, in the sense that very few of them mean that Bush or Cheney are clinically insane. It's used as the ultimate epithet to question their judgment and their values, not as a psychological diagnosis.

Like, say, for example, when Jonathan Schwarz called the Bush administration "insane", "crazy", and "nuts" in this posting, I'm sure he didn't mean it literally.

If you want to have more fun, take a look at this Google search.

[Save the Oocytes]

Yeah, I know most people don't really mean it; I just don't want it on the table. Not that Nuremberg will ever come for these people.