By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 14th, 2012 
Governor Romney’s selection of Congressman Ryan as his running mate assured the re-election of President Obama. Will Milberg already explained this from the point of view of the politics of economics a year and a half ago, while I first suggested my reasons in my review of Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address and Ryan’s official Republican response.
Romney has now firmly identified himself with a true-believing ideologist. The Ryan – Romney budget proposals, empowered by Ryan’s ideology, will hurt the guy who wanted Obama to keep his dirty, government hands off his Medicare, and many more people who depend on social programs in their daily lives. Thus, Milberg was quite sure when the Ryan plan was announced that the Republicans were finished.
And even though the nation is very divided, ideological extremism, even when it is in the name of the core American value of liberty, turns people, left, right and center, off, as the Republican nominee for president, Barry Goldwater learned in 1964.
Ryan’s ideology is not completely coherent. It has three sources: libertarian thought, a fundamentalist approach to the constitution, and a narrow understanding of natural law theory and the theological foundations of modern democracy. He recognizes tensions between these positions, but it doesn’t seem to bother him or slow him down. He still moves from theoretical certainty to practical policy as a true believer, and he does it with a happy and appealing smile on his face, which would be quite familiar to Milan Kundera, as he depicted such smiles in his novels A Book on Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The Congressman’s libertarianism comes via Ayn Rand, revealed in a speech he gave to the organization dedicated to keeping her flame, the Atlas Society. He explained:
I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about . . .
Read more: Paul Ryan: Ideologist-in-Chief (Obama Wins!)
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 19th, 2012 Is democracy sick of its own media? I seek to address the question before us, with a clear and forceful answer: yes, and no, but with no maybes. Yes, when it comes to certain emerging media conventions, revealed most vividly in the U.S. by Fox News (and its lesser imitators of the right and the left). But no, when it comes to an opposing and promising trend, the ongoing struggle to inform and constitute publics capable of deliberate discussion and informed actions, using a variety of media forms, new and old, but especially new. This trend is observable both in the central arena and, especially, on its margins, as a global development. I think that there are troubling trends in the dominant media, but I also think that it is important to pay attention to counter trends, and to take note of a new kind media war in political culture.
The conclusion of my presentation will highlight the counter trend, the “no” side of my answer to our question, doing so by linking two of my major projects, the study of the politics of small things and of reinventing political culture. I will suggest, further, the need to carefully consider Daniel Dayan’s ideas of monstration. In my conclusion, I will make a sort of book proposal for Dayan and me to work on, so that the weaknesses of my approach can be addressed. I will move toward the conclusion first by examining what I take to be the way a cable television network contributes to the sickness of democracy, specifically in the United States – the yes side of my answer to our question. I will then make my second move, to the no side, considering how social media and other new forms of electronic media open the opportunity for a counter trend, supporting the politics of small things. I analyze both tendencies as they are tied to significant social movements that define and redefine political culture, for better and for worse: the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. I want to be clear that I don’t see the problems and potentials I identify here as being primarily the consequence of media form, cable news, . . .
Read more: Fake vs. Fox News: OWS and Beyond
By Gary Alan Fine, January 5th, 2012 
We have just experienced the season of gifts, a moment at which images of plummy consumption dance in our heads. And I had a gift in mind. A magazine, or perhaps, a certain website.
I am a serial reader, and, sometimes, a reader of serials. As the Deliberately Considered audience knows – because I have admitted in cyber-print – I have ogled Glenn Beck: less as harassment or flirtation, and more as an imagined discourse. I promiscuously read conservatives and progressives – and others in left, right, and libertarian venues. I live by The New Yorker, I conserve the Weekly Standard, I reason with Reason, and Mother Jones is Mom. However, I have long regretted that I cannot get a daily dosage of civic nutriment in a single journalistic bowl. I hold to a somewhat eccentric contention that there are smart liberals (neo- and old-timey, pink and pinker), conservatives (neo- and paleo-), progressives, reactionaries, socialists, libertarians, and more. Is my generosity so bizarre?
It has been argued that one of the fundamental problems in American political culture is that citizens tend to read narrowly. Those who consider themselves conservatives will not squander their lives reading liberal intellectuals, and the same is true of liberals, should they even admit to such a creature as a conservative intellectual. The divide between red and blue is as evident in the library as in the voting booth. This argument was made most compellingly by the ever diverting Cass Sunstein in his 2001 book, Republic.Com. Sunstein argued that we feel comfortable in segregated domains of knowledge in which:
“People restrict themselves to their own points of view – liberals watching and reading mostly or only liberals; moderates, moderates; conservatives, conservatives; neo-Nazi, neo-Nazis.”
People reside in gated communities of knowledge. This is what the sociologist David Maines, referring to epistemic divisions between blacks and whites, described as racialized pools of knowledge. Our pools, suitable for private skinny dipping, are political. But if we are truly interested in the play of ideas, this chasm is a dispiriting reality. Of what are . . .
Read more: My Magazine
By Gary Alan Fine, November 21st, 2011 
 One of my first contributions to Deliberately Considered was an essay on Glenn Beck (“Beck and Call”), a commentator who at that moment (February 2, 2011) was riding high. But who hears Glenn Beck today? He has a website that requires a subscription. In the past year, Mr. Beck has become marginal to the public debate, and perhaps in becoming marginal, the sharp fringe of the Tea Party has become so as well. He was the tribune for the aggrieved during the Tea Party Summer.
Last winter – back in the day – Glenn Beck was a roaring tiger. His claws were thought so bloody that when he attacked Frances Fox Piven, one of the leading activist scholars of social movements, a string of professional organizations rose to the lady’s defense, including the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, many progressives concluded that Professor Piven was next in line for assassination from the rightists roiled and boiled by Beck.
Today we frame Glenn Beck’s symmetry as less fearful. Those who worried that Professor Piven was walking on a knife’s edge might be surprised that her latest book, published in August, is entitled Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate. Glenn Beck has become Professor Piven’s marketing tool. Without Glenn Beck’s opposition, Piven’s writings might seem less essential. (As a fellow former president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, I am pleased that her deservedly influential writings have become essential. I am attempting to find someone of equal stature to hate me. The placid readers of this flying seminar know that I try my best.)
However, my point is . . .
Read more: Glenn Beck, Prophet?
By E. Colin Ruggero, November 18th, 2011 
I spent the early evening of November 8th wandering around the Occupy Philadelphia (OP) encampment. I was trying to clear my head before a scheduled talk by well-known social movement scholar (and one of Glenn Beck’s “most wanted”), Frances Fox Piven.
Ten minutes before the talk was scheduled begin, I moved to the stage area and found a surprisingly large group of people had begun to gather. I was immediately struck by how out of place they looked based on my experience. They lacked the all-weather, busy or exhausted appearance that characterizes a lot of people I encounter at OP. But they also didn’t seem curious or confused. Their gaze took in the camp with understanding. They were nearly all white, young, and dressed similarly, most likely, college students.
I found a spot off to the side of the crowd as Piven was introduced and began to speak. Moments later, I was approached by a black couple, a woman and man, both in their late teens or early twenties, standing arm-in-arm, carrying shopping bags, with glowing faces. They appeared to be on a date and were clearly happy to be together, even in love.
Gesturing toward the stage, the young woman asked me, “What’s all this?” I began to reply that she, Piven, is an academic, but I was interrupted. “No,” the woman corrected me, “all this,” sweeping her arm across the entire encampment. I told her it was Philly’s answer to Occupy Wall Street, “You know, in New York.” She stared back at me, shaking her head slightly. The young man quickly said, “Oh, yeah, I think I heard about that, but I didn’t realize it was here too. Well, this is good because there are problems. I just didn’t know about it cause I didn’t see it on the news or anything.” I asked where they lived. “North Philly, like 21st and Cecil B. Moore.” This is less that 2 miles from where they stood now. Indeed, they live only blocks from Temple University, where Piven had spoken earlier in the day.
That evening, I . . .
Read more: Spirit of ’76: Occupy Philadelphia, Voicelessness, and the Challenge of Growing the Occupy Wall Street Movement
By Gary Alan Fine, November 4th, 2011 
 Grievance is the electricity of the powerless. It energizes masses. Yet, lacking bright vision, cursing the overlords cannot become a political program. Cures need calm confidence. Complaint awakens protest, but it is insufficient for transformation. Escaping dark plagues begins collective action; spying Canaan must follow.
In our dour moment in which citizens of all stripes are taking to the streets, the plazas, and the parks, we see accusing placards, but no persuasive manifestos. As sociologist William Gamson has pointed out, the first step is to demonstrate an “injustice frame” as a precursor to action. Point taken, but it is a start.
Despite their manifold and manifest differences, the polyester Tea Party and the scruffy Occupy Wall Street protests have at least this in common: palpable anger and resentment. We feel at the mercy of distant puppet masters, and elites in pinstripes and in gowns have much to answer for.
Neither the Partiers nor the Occupiers are wrong to recognize the sway of elites, even if they are not sufficiently aware of those powers that stand behind their own movements: David Koch, the Alliance for Global Justice, and FreedomWorks. Anti-elites are the playthings of the powerful.
Yet, despite their backers, both the Partiers and the Occupiers are solidly 99%’ers. Both radicals of the left and upstarts of the right think that there is not so much difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. The oil establishment and the financial services establishment could share breakfast of caviar and champagne, discussing whether their interests are better served by this president or the last one. Peasants with pitchforks are on no guest lists, whether they dress in denim or dacron. Despite partisan bickering, it is easy to feel that on the basic issues of security and capital the gap between competing establishments is small. I am struck by how little fundamental restructuring, hope and change has brought. The same powers will control health care, energy development, and financial services.
The fatal illusion of the Tea Party Movement is that America could . . .
Read more: The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street: Unhappy Warriors
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 7th, 2011 
This has been another eventful week, and for another week I am a bit late in posting the review. Thinking about the “news,” thinking about what is new in our world, I have been mesmerized by the remarkable drama in Egypt, the conclusion of which is far from certain. At DC, we have been trying to make sense of this, with side glances at related problems. I think in fact that the standard ways of understanding these revolutionary times require such glances, because conventional ways of thinking mislead. I am going to address this with a couple of short posts, the first today, the second tomorrow, thinking about the revolutionary moment by reviewing the posts of my colleagues. I will start by reflecting on an apparent comedy and move toward an examination of potential tragedy.
Some of the conventional responses to the events in Egypt would be funny, if they weren’t so serious. The prime example is that of Glenn Beck: “Islam wants a caliphate. Communists want a Communist, new world order. They’ll work together, and they’ll destabilize, because they both want chaos, period.” That this is what he gets out of the complex events in Egypt reveals the power of ideological thinking.
Beck, ever on the lookout for conspiracies and frightening analogies, normally distills a powerful brew. But it seems a bit weak when it comes to a major foreign affair, indeed quite foreign for him and his audience. I suspect that even the confirmed Fox News viewer is put off by Beck’s week long attempt to demonize the obviously well meaning Egyptian activists, who have appeared on our television, computer and mobile screens.
In fact, I wonder what Gary Alan Fine thinks. In his appreciation of Beck, he makes two strong observations, leading to a provocative conclusion: Beck is a talented communicator, expressing popular skepticism about elites who purport to know what is best for the people, better than the people. And he pays intellectuals the complement of taking them seriously. Therefore: “Glenn Beck is an endowed professor for the aggrieved, presenting . . .
Read more: Week in Review: Egypt, Glenn Beck and Democratic Transition
By Gary Alan Fine, February 2nd, 2011 
I am addicted to Glenn Beck. Don’t misunderstand, I do not love Glenn Beck, nor do I sing in his chorus of the righteous. But neither am I a Beck-hater, feeling that he is – as he speaks of mega-billionaire George Soros – a “spooky dude.” Further, I am no Beckaholic (Mr. Beck, a recovering alcoholic, might appreciate this). If I miss a night, don’t look for me on a ledge. If I watch too much, don’t search for me in the gutter. However, I prefer that my day ends with a shot of Beck and bourbon. (In California, my current home base, Beck’s show airs at 11:00 p.m.).
Academics often find themselves in deep shade, hidden from bright public debate. Despite our striving for impact, few pay us mind. We dream of celebrity, but on our own terms, and we worry that the unwashed masses will not understand (lecturing to unwashed students makes this concern more plausible). When academics reach the spotlight, it has sometimes been for plagiarism (Doris Kearns Goodwin), losing control (Henry Louis Gates), or political misdemeanors that suggest that a Ph.D. is no substitute for a heart (Newt Gingrich). Perhaps we should lust for dim obscurity. The attentions of Mr. Beck suggest a certain benefit of anonymity over infamy. Beck pays the academy the uncertain honor of believing that we count for something. He believes our writings can change the world, much as Jesse Helms insisted that contemporary art really, truly mattered enough to be censored. Beck scopes the intellectual barricades to find those he presents as cultural subversives, reporting to his million-man audience about the moral felonies of Edward Bernays, Stuart Chase, Walter Lippmann, and, the most dangerous man in America, Cass Sunstein, professor at Harvard Law School and Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Pre-Beck, such a list would seem eccentric. Post-Beck, the list seems alternatively mad, malevolent, and revelatory. Despite his biting attacks, Beck is insistent on proclaiming the mantra of non-violence. Gandhi is a hero. But on Beck’s website some responses are not so gentle. To be sure, . . .
Read more: Beck and Call
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 9th, 2010 
I present an analysis of the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” seeing the controversies around it as being about the status of fact and fiction in our politics, and making a call to action to DC readers.
I was enchanted by the idea of the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.” I have enjoyed Stewart’s and Colbert’s shows. Especially during the worst years of the Iraq war, I watched them to maintain my own sanity. In their rally, they accurately highlighted the strength of their satire, looking for sanity in insane times, using the form of the day, the great Washington Rally organized by cable television. I have principled problems with this new form of “Media Events,” but such is the world we now live in. Stewart and Colbert claimed that theirs wasn’t a response to the Glenn Beck organized event, but it clearly was. There is irony in their satire, which challenges political clarity but for good cultural reasons.
I was pleased by the turn out. It seems that more people attended the Stewart Colbert satirical event, than attended Beck’s earnest rally to restore honor. I appreciated that “we” saw ourselves as outnumbering “them,” and it felt good. But was there any more to it than that?
There indeed was concern in this regard. The ambiguity of the event’s meaning led to significant criticism after the fact, most vividly expressed in Bill Maher’s response.
The left and the right are not equally insane, the critics point out. The problem is not in the media portrayal of our politics, something that Colbert and especially Stewart seem to focus on, but the politics itself. The event energized a part of the public, but didn’t lead to specific political action. This, of course, just before the midterm elections which promised to lead to broad Democratic losses and Tea Party gains, and which proved to be the case. The only person to even allude to the elections was Tony Bennett in his closing performance, calling out to people “Vote!” after singing “America the Beautiful.” It was a political event about . . .
Read more: Fact versus “Fictoid” in the Age of Cable
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 8th, 2010 
Neil Postman was a famous media critic. He thought that the problem with television was not its content but its formal qualities as a medium. It presented a clear and present danger. Because of it, we were Amusing Ourselves to Death. In thinking about the role of television in contemporary politics, specifically as it is facilitating new kinds of major media events, I am struck by the fact that television’s effects may be quite the opposite, when it amuses us, it gives life. When it is deadly serious, it is just that, deadly. I am having these dark thoughts thinking about Glenn Beck, John Stewart and Steven Colbert, and their respective demonstrations on American sacred ground, the Washington Mall, between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials.
Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally, held on the Washington mall, with speakers on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial, was seen as a serious event, an abomination for those who were pained by the hijacking of the legacy of one of the great mass demonstrations in American history held on the same place, on the same day of the year, forty seven years ago, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, highlighted by “The I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. But viewed from the right, even from a skeptical conservative observer such as Ross Douthat of The New York Times, it was an encouraging development, affirming important cultural values, showing that the right was “free of rancor, racism or populist resentment, the atmosphere at the rally resembled that of a church picnic or a high school football game.” (link) Of course, on Fox the enthusiasm, the celebration, was less restrained.
Stewart and Colbert
On the other hand, the planned Rally to Restore Sanity, promoted by John Stewart, and the “counter demonstration,” the March to Keep Fear Alive, promoted by Stephen Colbert, are clearly meant to be funny, and there is truth in packaging, since both of the principals work for the cable network, Comedy Central. But it is being taken seriously. Arianna Huffington, . . .
Read more: Amusing Ourselves to Life
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