The Big Bluff

What does the Brian Williams fiasco tell us?

The public is gradually discovering that the authority of establishment media’s authority figures is largely bluff. The figures presented to us are no smarter, have no more character and integrity, than the rest of us. They may have less.

This realization applies not just to the world of network news, but also to the critical establishment. For instance, establishment film critics raved about David Fincher’s 2014 flick Gone Girl. Never mind that every character is an unlikable sociopath; that the movie is often incoherent; the cinematography and score are sullenly dark; the acting is robotic; there are plot holes one could drive a freight train through—the movie has not one redeeming quality that I could discover. Something about its technical accomplishment (?) caused the esteemed critics to laud it. One even found it a comedy—which itself is comedic.

The fault is in the critics themselves. When they praise garbage, then garbage is what we’ll continue to be handed as substitute for art.

The situation is no better in the literary field. Jonathan Franzen is the best novelist this great civilization can produce? Really?

Something smells. Something’s rotten—not in the walls of Denmark but more probably in the city of New York.