The Problem with Jon Stewart

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-jon-stewart

by xqcgrek2 • 4 years ago

53 51 4 years ago

andrewsullivan.substack.com

sahaskatta• 4 years ago

Here's the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cmnwbGmu7w

thenerdhead• 4 years ago

His show is really predictable. He always has voice of reason in-person and absurdity remotely.

I thought this specific episode was bad and poorly represents the problems. Stewart is all over the place with his views. I honestly didn't really understand what was trying to be said through the episode although many of his other episodes follow a single narrative.

Video in question to the article:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cmnwbGmu7w

sgt• 4 years ago

Yeah, he and a bunch of other talk show hosts and comedians. It's so cringy to watch. Other examples include Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Fallon. Can't we get Carson, Letterman and Conan back?

emerged2• 4 years ago

Conan can be pretty bad as well. Anytime he’s pressed he falls precisely in line with far left views and goes to great lengths to avoid the slightest controversy.

passivate5• 4 years ago

Everyone has a very narrow range of specialized knowledge, opinions and beliefs, and people overvalue their own approach as nuanced and balanced and see-all-sides. Even on HN, there are several times when conversations on economics, pubic policy, science, vaccines border on cringey for someone who is an expert in those fields.

I think the single most hardest thing to do is to escape ones own perspective.

dole• 4 years ago

Carson’s gonna be tough, he died in 2005.

kcplate2• 4 years ago

Stewart is all over the place with his views.

Good. That means he has the ability to think for himself and doesn’t feel the need to comply with some BS partisan orthodoxy.

chungy• 4 years ago

You can't eradicate evil with more evil. Jon Stewart didn't get the memo and he's embracing "more evil" (racism against whites) to combat evils committed historically (racism against blacks).

We are all homo sapiens and should be offered the same opportunities as everyone else. Do not discriminate against race, against gender, against religion, against political affiliation, or any other category that may be used to make people in an "other" category.

texaslonghorn5• 4 years ago

evils committed historically

To be fair, many of the evils committed historically never ceased to be committed.

colordrops5• 4 years ago

If you get enough organizations onboard and people screaming on social media, you can convince people otherwise, as evidenced by the last two years. You've got large swaths of the supposed left now supporting things they used to fight against, those being racism, war, and censorship, and you are called a fascist or a bigot or a *phobe if you challenge them. (Or just downvoted to oblivion)

It just goes to show that most people don't base their beliefs on first principles and ideals but rather subconscious social cues and pressure. The US right wing has been taking advantage of this for decades with Rupert Murdoch and FOX leading the way, and it was only a matter of time for the left wing to join in.

paulryanrogers3• 4 years ago

Where is the left calling for racism and war?

Sporktacular12• 4 years ago

Yeah, careful what you call left.

anantar• 4 years ago

"Racism against whites" does not exist on a systemic level in America and is not what John Stewart or any serious person is advocating for. Also, acting as though "racism against blacks" is an evil solely committed historically is very disingenuous when there remains a) widespread modern discrimination and b) unaddressed lasting impacts of earlier oppression.

jollybean5• 4 years ago

? 'Racism against Whites' not only exists at a systematic level, it's literally institutionalized.

NY State provides COVID antiviral therapies for 'people of colour' way ahead of 'white people'.

I fully accept that there's a strong component of social justice, in that some people of colour have less access to healthcare - the problem is it's very crude and unfair policy, and there are many (perhaps just as many in aggregate) 'white people' who have had limited access to healthcare. Notably they have been poor since the dawn of time, their ancestors 'serfs' for thousands of years, and now they are directly and actively discriminated against by their governments.

A 8-question form about 'health history and health coverage' would probably provide a really good - and fair - basis for access to antivirals, that would get those with 'historical limited access' they help they need. No doubt, people of colour would be more likely as a result of those questions to get treatment, but others would as well. That would be 'actual social justice'.

Cynically, a 'more fair policy' would not allow government officials to tout their specific reforms and programs targeting minorities to placate loud voices, and to tout their 'social justice credibility'.

This is one small example, there are many.

Not only that, casual crude bigotry against whites has become fundamentally acceptable.

There were 4 major publications including Forbes (unexpected) and the Guardian (expected) that lamented 'Will Smith's Slap' was really a problem of 'White Supremacy' - effectively indicting 'Whiteness' as the cause of all of this malaise.

This is ridiculous, anti-intellectual post-modern rubbish. Total bigotry - published in 'respectable' outlets, being passed of ass legitimate - and it's almost a daily occurrence.

'Classical' systematic (and even institutional racism) against people of colour obviously exists, but there is also obviously a war going on with cheating and 'Magical Bigoted Thinking' around every corner.

It's very obvious that some 'talking heads' seeking validation, fame, clicks and relevance make poor arguments in the name of something.

Since at least parts of the Left have gone 'post modern bullshit race war', by blaming literally everything including 'Oscar Slaps' on 'White Supremacy' - it's hard for anyone to keep up and stay on top of the clicks. Jon Stewart has to up his own 'magical thinking' in order to stir the pot.

The same thing can be seen on the 'other side' as Tucker Carlson has entered a bizarre 'Twilight Zone Reality' with his recent conspiratorial and insane rants about Putin's justification for war in Ukraine.

If you were to have shown 2022 Pro-Putin Tucker Carlson, and he Guardian rant faulting 'White Supremacy' for 'Will Smiths Oscar Slap', or any of Trump's Tweets to anyone from 2010 - nobody would have believed it'd be real.

Commercialized press, need for substack subs, huge pressure for ratings, etc pushes the system 'outward' in terms of opinions and makes the system toxic.

So try to contextualize almost everything in that whirlwind.

Take Europe: they have even more extreme political dialogue (they have actual Nazis there, not fake American ones, and they have actual Communist parties in almost every country, that get votes!) - but their population is not caught up in pop-culture wars, particularly about race. Admittedly, without a history of slavery in the same way that America has, it's going to be less sensitive. But they are far less nuts about most of these issues, at least on the Continent.

It's absurd not to be at least fairly cynical about the words of talking heads of any kind in the US these days, and any institution with a public facing element.

They are all subject to it. Take your 'favourite person' - and watch them fall into the cracks as they have to put up content incessantly, have a guest or opinion on a daily basis, that gets them the attention. That is a systematic problem inflaming all others.

awb3• 4 years ago

We are all homo sapiens and should be offered the same opportunities as everyone else. Do not discriminate against race, against gender, against religion, against political affiliation, or any other category that may be used to make people in an "other" category.

Right. But the problem is:

1) when that rule wasn’t followed initially, it creates an unequal playing field that can take generations to undo.

2) not everyone thinks that way.

It would be nice to just say: starting today no more bigotry against anyone for any reason, but that only works on paper.

jollybean5• 4 years ago

Yes, you have a good point.

But the problem is that actions to 'rehabilitate society using racial/gender lense' is just an excuse to bring out and institutionalize the casual bigotry of the ostensibly offended.

Examples abound.

Probably the only way to allow for such an approach to be taken is if there were constant oversight, and required 'sunset' in the clauses such that the rules had to be automatically rescinded after a period of time.

Aka: "UCLA has a diversity problem in the Business Program, so they're going to focus on bringing XYZ groups into the fold. This program is subject to oversight by outside 3rd party governance body, to which we must provide the data on the program that they request. After 3 years, the program must be sunset, and an after action report will be written by the independent oversight board"

If I were King, I would probably support those kinds of programs, even the slightly more radical ones knowing that at least there is oversight, data, that it can get shut down, and no matter what it will 'time out' eventually.

Sporktacular12• 4 years ago

"We are all homo sapiens and should be offered the same opportunities as everyone else."

Right so NOW we should have meritocracy? You're a little late to the debate.

tmcw• 4 years ago

If you aren't familiar with Andrew Sullivan, would recommend skimming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan

dnissley• 4 years ago

Some pieces from Sullivan that fill in more background:

We all live on campus now: https://archive.ph/r3hBu

What happened to you?: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-you-e...

Interview with Ezra Klein: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/andrew-sullivan-and-i-...

Sporktacular12• 4 years ago

Right. He talks about 'white anxiety' as a reason form limiting immigration, about being tactical about gender identity protections. All the arguments conservatives used against gay rights in the past.

He's the kind of gay conservative who promotes conservatism for everything, except where it would be a detriment to gays. He rides the progressive train until it's his stop, and then tries to derail it. It's ugly, cynical and selfish.

But agree the show could have taken and responded better to his viewpoints.

kcplate2• 4 years ago

He's the kind of gay conservative who promotes conservatism for everything, except where it would be a detriment to gays. He rides the progressive train until it's his stop, and then tries to derail it. It's ugly, cynical and selfish.

So…because he colors outside of the “established” lines it’s selfish? Honestly, this expectation for partisan political orthodoxy from people representing specific groups is so scary.

wffurr• 4 years ago

So this guy showed up to the taping completely unprepared, having not even read the invitation, and then was mad about it?

I would hope they learned from the experience, but sadly I doubt it.

lph• 4 years ago

So tired of the culture war infecting every corner of public discourse. This article: One culture war guy criticizes another culture war guy. Nothing to do with tech.

Why is it on Hacker News?

awb3• 4 years ago

Honestly, if I see a Substack URL on HN more often than not it’s going to be some biased outrage in reaction to someone else’s biased outrage.

Substack seems to be a pretty efficient echo chamber, having people subscribe to read individual journalists. In a newspaper or magazine, there are still editorial themes, but at least some minimal level of diversity in reporting and viewpoints.

But now you can just get 100% Andrew Sullivan content and read comments by fellow Andrew Sullivan readers.

Sadly, I’d imagine getting enough siloed reinforcement makes one think the article is valid enough to be valuable to HN.

Sporktacular12• 4 years ago

I agree, what does this post add? How is this more than one guy's opinion on a controversy?

What's next, Bannon's manifesto?

D13Fd• 4 years ago

I follow Andrew Sullivan generally, and read this article yesterday. Even so, I completely agree this has no place here.

The Problem with Jon Stewart

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