Virtue and Pessimism at the Birth of New Media

We've paid quite a bit of attention lately to the ongoing meltdown of the old media order. Wilfred McClay's thoughtful post has garnered significant attention, and if you haven't read it yet I urge you to do so. This morning's WSJ ($) carries a Glenn Reynolds op-ed with the wonderful title "Godzilla vs. the 'Blogosphere,'" wherein he calls the mainstream media "lazy, and biased," something media bigs should take as blunt advice rather than insult. Jonah Goldberg has an insightful column up this morning on the press's herding instincts.

The pessimism of big media and other, more openly partisan leftists, is remarkable not so much for its existence -- when was the New York Times ever bullish on America? -- but for its petulance. Matt Drudge has photos of Al Franken screaming and shaking his finger at a talk radio producer at the Garden yesterday (more on the details at Wizbang, via Captain Ed); and the far left Indymedia has more links to juvenile protesters and far left gatherings than anyone could follow (a NY radio station was reporting over 800 arrests last night and ongoing accosting of GOP conventioneers by protesters).

Hugh Hewitt has choice words for Terry McAuliffe: "[H]e will not answer questions, he pretends ignorance of well-known controversies surrounding Kerry's repeated tale-telling of secret missions into Cambodia, and he got surly when pressed to answer questions. I am amazed at his thin-skinned reactions and attempt to get me upset by sneering 'Hughie' at least three times after it became clear that I would not be deterred or intimidated."

Of course, the left's embrace of sneer politics is nothing new, as anyone who's spent some time with liberal academics knows. But thanks to their intellectual bankruptcy, the nation's (and world's) growing affluence, and the new media, the left has reached levels of puerile silliness not seen since the golden days of Nam protests and Woodstock. When you're out of ideas, you launch ad hominems; when huge parts of the world are going middle class (leaving you fewer proletarians to speak for, whether they like it or not), your stunts and rhetorical flourishes seem increasingly like the squealing of a dying species. And when your pals in the mainstream press no longer control the flow of information, the significantly larger percentage of the population that learns of your antics thanks to new media gets fed up.

One of the most lamentable casualties of the left's embrace of jejune nihilism is the concept of virtue. The elite left can't claim the moral high ground, as they could during the civil rights protests, when they no longer believe in (or even know of) the ontological precepts underlying the virtues. Absent a grasp of who we are as a species, they're thrown back to a theater of the absurd in which the starring roles go to their leaders.

So it's little wonder that they're so damnably pessimistic about the future or, for that matter, the present. They lack the learning, or perhaps even the common sense, to use their reason to form a coherent, mature view of the world they inhabit. I don't want to go too far here, since high learning is hardly a prerequisite for exercising one's common sense (it isn't called "common" sense for nothing). But leadership demands mental discipline and considerable erudition, and both are conspicuously lacking on the modern left.

Let me close with an observation on the mainstream press and its meltdown. Through its irresponsible, disingenuous lack of professionalism and, at times, common honesty, the elite media have enabled the left to escape the consequences of its rhetoric and actions. The left (and far right) could take for granted the affluence that allowed them to sneer in comfort at those whose work and sacrifices stabilized their world. With little fear of being called to account, elite journalists and their supporters in the academic, artistic, and professional worlds could grind away at the body politic to their delight.

But the rise of the new media, which supplements the more traditional conservative press but greatly expands the reach of alternative voices, has forced the hand of the old guard. Given the intellectual incoherence of the left, they have little choice but to scream, protest, shout, and hurl insults. It's past time for some soul-searching among leftists, not to mention some leadership and maturity. I suspect that any reform we see will bubble up from the ranks, as their leadership has been discredited by their own actions, and before our eyes. Reformers could do worse than return to a foundational belief in the possibility of virtue, the decency of the American people, and the certainty that pessimism and anger are poor substitutes for a coherent and reasoned worldview.