Eating One's Own

I tread lightly here as I know I'm picking a fight (albeit a one-sided one) with someone of great academic standing. This person also has connections to a place and people very dear to me; Fresno State's graduate program in history. However, I'm sick and tired of reading this man's op-ed pieces not because I disagree with them but because they're just stupid. The opinions, like anyone's of this ademician, are probably shot out quickly without much review or real thought put into them. Scary, especially that when one with an op-ed column hits 'enter', those thoughts are permanent. The man I'm talking about is Stanford classics professor (and adjunct prof at CSUF), Victor Davis Hanson.
When I went through the graduate program eleven years ago, Hanson's classical history course was the one that I opted not to take in return for an architectural history course. I loved the class I took but did regret not taking Hanson's course. My classmates loved it. I remember reading about this farmer-academic who wrote about his family's connections to the Valley, farming, the region's history and some odd bond that made him more in tune with the Romans and Greeks simply because it was frigging hot where they made wine and raised livestock.

Let's just get to the rant here: Last week, Hanson wrote a piece decrying "liberals" (in that bad connotation) and their whining that talk radio is slanted to the extreme right of the political spectrum. Statistically, roughly ninety percent of political talk on the radio (both AM and FM) lean right. Is this a big issue? I don't care here. Should the airwaves present a more politically-balanced amount of political banter on the airwaves? Probably. Why? Here's why: the airwaves are not that like television or print media outlets; the web is a different animal altogether. The government initially established the airwaves in the early 1920s as property of the public. Monopolies nor anything close could dominate the invisibility above the United States. While the next nine decades brought changes to those airwaves, radio is still a bastion of protection separate than other outlets for political perspective.
Where does Hanson's arguments go off the rails? Where to begin? First, he mocks liberals for simply losing a game that he claims they win in other media outlets (t.v., cable). Secondly, Hanson believes that political talk is simply another form of entertainment, like music or porn or anything else delivered across the airwaves. He then says that most entertainment with political value is liberal, a la the Daily Show. Hanson goes on to say that liberals have NPR and PBS. Last time I checked, weren't investigations carried out after Ken Tomlinson, a Bush appointee, was found to deliberately attempting to slant both media vehicles to the right in order to deliver conservative viewpoints. Tomlinson was also found guilty of attempting to bleed PBS and NPR dry financially in order to limit the impact of these outlets. Also, where does Hanson think that radio should remain fair game to the attention marketplace because "CBS, NBC and ABC are liberal bastions"? Does he offer proof to support this widely believed but evidentially weak urban legend? Yes; he continues to rail that "motion pictures and documentaries" also espouse liberal points of view. Yes, because I throw down my hard-earned $9.50 to see Ratatouille in order to indoctrinate myself of the belief that a nation's economy dominates the world when its people work forty percent of their waking time. Didn't you vote for John Kerry because of your penchant for Will Ferrell movies? Hanson's main argument is that the majority of voices nationwide are liberal and therefore liberals simply want to control the citizenry's thoughts and every actions. He even uses cliches as "Orwellian" though out of context and "liberal media" like the clause it tautological. "Should we demand [then] that Republicans match Democratic numbers on college faculties?" Yes, because the majority of the number of people with doctorates still equal less than two percent of the overal national population means therefore right-wing demagogues have the right to try to balance this by nearly controlling the nation's airwaves (again, something that still, in theory, is owned by the nation's populace). Is Hanson simply bitter that "liberals" can't have it all? Or that politically liberal voices might raise greater stinks about the last six years? Or that he's such the freemarketer that government regulation is simply yet another intrusion into the lives of the people (in the same vein as George Will, who believes that campaign finance reform equals the raping First Amendment free speech) though the point of the government regulating the public airwaves is to protect our 14th Amendment rights to due process. Hanson's arguments are weakly linked, poorly argued and couched in the verbage of conservatives that comes across as smug and pedantic all the while making anyone who questions his arguments as either ignorant or unpatriotic. I agree with him, I'm simply brilliant for understanding American history and western culture. I disagree with him, I'm the bleeding heart totalitarian fascist who obviously has been brainwashed by the very media I'd like to see not dominated by corporate interests.

Ultimately, what does this say about Hanson's scholarship? I have no proof that his academic work is shoddy or weak. However, if one flaunts oneself as an expert of all things (like I do since I get to print my thoughts in ways to make myself look smugly brilliant - see, I'm ruining by rant by being ironically ironical), one had better get his logic together. Faulty thinking is scary, especially when one sits on CATO, at a Stanford history chair or in any position of influence where one wags his or her credentials and intellectual prowess as flimisly as V.D. Hanson has in his last several op-ed pieces. Just wait until the next one - it's arguments will be so thin you'll be able to see through the newspaper.

Sidebar - I recently picked up a couple of country albums and right now they're all I'm listening to (other than this huge Beatles kick I've been on): Ryan Adams' "Easy Tiger" and a (believe this one) Waylon Jennings album from 1973. The Ryan Adams album's great though not perfect. I'm not sure he's ever banged out a perfect record even though "Gold" will always be his sprawling and sloppy Exile. Some of the record goes acoustic-folk and there's one insipid rocker there but the country tunes like the first three of the record are among the best of Adams' repetoire. Lyrically strong, musicially tight and as vital and relevant than anything else out there. I always hesitate buying a Ryan Adams record because I'm always afraid of everyone else suddenly buying him up like they've loved him for years but I'm perplexed about him. Why isn't he more popular and yet how come a lot of music rags find him to be the savior of modern music?
The Waylon Jennings record is incredible. I can't quote the source right now but in Eric Alterman's book on Springsteen, there's a quote that states that country music is music adults listen to the morning after. This album is full of that adult music; while it rocks and grooves like any good "rock" music, Waylon's record makes one genuflect, reminisce, mourn and pine all in ten short songs. I need to find more of this classic 60s/70s country music. Truly classic.