The Church of the Old Gray Lady

James Taranto said that it was arguably, “the most revealing quote ever published in the New York Times.” Link here.

To inaugurate her reign as Executive Editor of the Times, Jill Abramson opined that, “... as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like ‘ascending to Valhalla.’"

She continued: "'In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,’ she said. ‘If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth'."

Surely, it’s a revealing quote. So revealing that the New York Times has erased it, blotted it out, censored it. If you follow the link in the Journal you will find the story, minus the quote.
We are now dealing with the most revealing quote ever censored from the New York Times. It’s not an auspicious start to the Abramson era.

It looks like the Times can’t handle the truth.

Before we even try to wrestle with the gnarly concept of “absolute truth,” let’s say a few words about Abramson’s feeling of “ascending to Valhalla.”

Here is one of the great martial metaphors. In Norse mythology, soldiers who are killed in battle are transported to Valhalla, their final resting place.

Is Abramson telling us that she considers herself to be a warrior queen, fighting the culture wars against enemies far and near? If the Times is a substitute religion, she would be more crusader than culture warrior.

Let’s be charitable and excuse the less-than-coherent metaphor. I guess that Abramson was trying to express her overwhelming glee at being promoted. The standard idiom for such feelings is: I felt like I died and went to Heaven.

Admittedly, referring to Valhalla makes you sound like a true sophisticate, and a great fighter. Referring to Heaven would make you sound like a virtuous believer. Anyway, Times editors naturally try to avoid cliched expressions.

Yet, if you believe that the New York Times is Holy Writ, then clearly, you cannot  reference a competing religious tradition, this time the Judeo-Christian. It would be like Ford praising Chevrolet... you do not want to draw attention to the competition.

I assume that it is acceptable to refer to pagan religions because they are moribund, and thus not a threat to your religion.

To make yourself the arbiter of absolute truth, you need to diminish, demean and slander all competing religions. The war against religion, so dear to liberals, is not a war against superstition and prejudice; it is really an attempt to replace one belief system with another.

As Taranto explained: “The Times has of late acted a great deal like a corrupt religious institution. This column has chronicled its often vicious and dishonest attempts--both on the editorial page and in the news sections, which Abramson will head--to shore up its own authority by trying to tear down its competitors.”

But, let’s examine the statement that Jill Abramson wishes she had not uttered.

What does it mean to say that, in her family, the New York Times was a substitute for religion, and that it was taken to be reporting the “absolute truth.”

A substitute religion? Does this suggest that Times readers, the ones who consider themselves so sophisticated that they leave religious belief for the rubes in the American heartland, have made their liberalism into a set of unquestioned dogmas, something you had best take on faith, lest you become a heretic or an apostate.

If you are running a religion, and if you have convinced your readers that your reporting is Holy Writ, you have overcome any obligation to report objective fact or to encourage rational inquiry within the marketplace of ideas. Your sacred mission is to report higher truths.

If you are a religion, you want to proselytize the faith, to enforce dogma, and to privilege moral over factual truths.

Medieval theologians recognized that there were different ways ot interpreting Scripture. Some of it should be taken as literal or historical truth, while other portions should be read as moral allegory, setting standards for good behavior. Other portions contained anagogical truths, truths that were mystical and that referred to otherworldly matters.

Sometimes the Times gets the facts right. This is consistent with it’s being Scripture. But it also slants and distorts its news reporting in order to present allegorical or anagogical truths. That means that it presents liberal dogma as Holy Writ.

It also suggests that its stories cannot be questioned, criticized, or analyzed. They must be taken on faith.

But, Abramson’s censored remark does not just reveal the mindset that prevails in the Church of the Old Gray Lady. It also gives us an insight into the mind of the average Times reader. The insight it gives is none too flattering. .

I suspect that the offending quotation was scrubbed was because it made Times readers look just as bad as the Times itself.

I daresay that the average Times reader believes him or herself to be a cosmopolitan sophisticate, a free-thinking semi-intellectual type, a person who weighs all the objective facts before coming to a reasoned judgment.

Ha!

Now we know, from the mouth of the new Executive Editor of the Times, that the paper considers its readers to be gullible cult-followers, perfect dupes, so lacking in critical acumen that they bow down at the altar of the Church of the Old Gray Lady, to the point where they do not know the difference between an opinion and a fact.  

Anthony Weiner and the Mystery of Female Sexual Arousal

How old does a man have to be before he understands that women are not aroused by the sight of the male member in its erect glory?

If Anthony Weiner is an indication, 46 is not quite old enough. Since Weiner did admit yesterday that he has such pictures, one must assume that he is not just keeping them around so that he can look at them himself and remember past glories.

Nor is he alone in this camp. Brett Favre and Kanye West have done as much, apparently because they believe that women find such images irresistible. I have it on good authority that they are not alone.

I am happy to report on Monica Hesse’s story about research into female sexual arousal, but really, you do not need a laboratory filled with coed research subjects. All you need do is figure out how many women buy how much porn featuring erect male members.

The market does exist, but it is not a very large market at all. Men get addicted to porn; women become addicted to Harlequin romances.

Or, look at it in another way. More than a few women have offered public commentaries about Anthony Weiner’s now-famous bulge.

Whether in newspapers or on television or in the blogosphere, their remarkss have always been punctuated by giggles and snickers. To normal women Weiner's attempt at seduction elicits nothing more than ridicule.

We also know, or, at least we should, that when a man flashes his erect organ at a woman he does not know, she will, if she is within proximity of it, take it as a threatening gesture.

How could any man be so dense that he would believe that a woman would find such a vision attractive.

If you wanted to put a positive spin on the Weiner exhibitionism, it might be that some young men might learn from it that flashing such images does not make them look like dudes.

Naturally, we always prefer to have our intuitions confirmed by research. Monica Hesse explains: “Women, research increasingly shows, are nuanced sexual beings whose arousal depends on context, mood and a whole bunch of things they aren’t even aware of. Men are different. Men do tend to find the equivalent naked pictures of women titillating.”

She also offers the conclusions reached by Cindy Meston of the University of Texas at Austin: “Of the 237 reasons why women have sex, not one was looking at a man’s genitals.”

I hope you do not find it to be a absurd question, but how could men so completely misread women?

The real answer is simple: they’re men. Being men they’re in the business of misunderstanding women.

On that score the constant drumbeat of new information about female desire has not helped matters.

Some women have added to the confusion by insisting that, sexually speaking, they are just like men. You cannot hold it against a man for thinking that if he finds pictures of naked women alluring, then, naturally, a woman would find pictures of a naked man alluring.

Nor should you hold it against the male of the species for thinking that if men have an ever-so-slight tendency to fetishize parts of the female body, then women must, by the illogic that infests feminist thought, be equally prone to fetishize parts of the male body.

So says our gender-bent culture. Pity the man who thinks that feminists speak for women.

Of course, it’s also possible that these men have been watching too much porn. Women who star in porn are very likely to treat the male sexual organ as something of a fetish object.

And, given the free open discussion of female sexuality that is all over the media, most men have learned that women have a special attraction to certain kinds of toys. Compared to these toys, I am told that the famed Weiner member pales into insignificance. Perhaps some men are trying to compete.

Generally, speaking the erect male organ is the last taboo in Hollywood. I am not sure what this means and I am not even going to speculate.

If we do a little cross cultural research we will discover that Hindus worship something called a lingam, that being a sculpture shaped like a phallus. The lingam is ultimately a symbol of fertility.

I am guessing that Anthony Weiner was not taking pictures of his organ-- the one that he does not know when he sees it-- because he wanted to enhance its powers of fertilization.

And let us not forget the venerable Japanese ceremony called Kanamara Matsuri, or Phallus festival, where local villagers parade around town with gigantic sculpted versions of the offending organ. NSFW link here.

Reports have it that this is not a fertility ceremony; it was invented hundreds of years ago, before condoms were available in high schools, in order to prevent the transmission of STDs.

As it happens, and if this is your ultimate goal, the truth is, the modern invention of sexting has rendered this Phallus ceremony more or less superfluous. You cannot contract any STDs by sexting. It’s the ultimate in safe sex.

Of course, I am saving the best for last. Clearly, Weiner and his fellow exhibitionists are trying to say something to the young women who are the objects of their ardor.

If we are to believe the musings of feminist philosopher professor, Nancy Bauer, they do it to empower women.

Bauer famously wrote the following in the New York Times. Doing her best to encourage young coeds to hook up, Bauer pretends that a certain sexual experience empowers them: “When they’re on their knees in front of a worked-up guy they just met at a party, they genuinely do feel powerful.” I think this is one of those-- Speak for yourself, Nancy- moments.

Now we know that when a man flashes a feminist he is encouraging her to perform a certain unnamed sexual act-- you know, the one that resembles prayer. As it happens, such acts might be more enjoyable for the men than for women, but, that just shows that if women believe that feminists speak for them, they should think again.

Flashers Anonymous

By now Anthony Weiner has surely assembled a group of policy advisers who are tasked with rebuilding his flagging political fortunes.

Precious few public relations experts could resist the challenge of turning a laughing stock into a viable political candidate.

Given that Weiner is a Clintonian Democrat, he will surely try to ride out the storm. Were he a Republican he would have long since resigned from Congress.

Rep. Mike Lee was caught texting a picture of his bare  upper torso and was gone from Congress within a day or so.

As everyone knows by now, politics has a double standard. Democrats are allowed far more latitude than Republicans when it comes to moral turpitude.

What will Weiner’s next move be?

If I had to venture a guess, I would say that he will announce to the world that he has finally come to the painful realization that he has a problem, and that he will start on a course of treatment for his sex addiction.

He will appear with his dutiful wife, who will have an opportunity to show how much she learned working for Hillary Clinton.

Weiner will explain that he cannot abandon his constituents for the amount of time it would take to do a course of inpatient rehab, but that he will immediately start attending meetings of Flashers Anonymous.

Or something of the sort.

The Last Psychoanalyst

Next Thursday, June 9, I will be lecturing in Warsaw, Poland.

My title: The Last Psychoanalyst. I will be offering a jargon-free explanation of Jacques Lacan's theories and an analysis of his place within the history of psychoanalysis. I will also be explaining why psychoanalysis is fast disappearing as a clinical practice.

Place: Centrum Kultury Nowy Wspaniały Swiat.

Ul. Nowy Swiat 63, Warszawa

Time: 7:00 p. m.

Admission: Free.

Poster: Link here. The poster is beautifully designed, and worth a look even if you do not understand Polish.

The Weiner Uncertainty Principle

Trying to clarify things today, Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted that he “can’t say with certitude” that the offending organ pictured in the offending tweet that someone sent to the comely young lady in Washington was his.

Certainly, this confirms that Mad Anthony does keep pictures of his manhood on file in his cell phone. Why, pray tell, would he ever do that?

Be that as it may, Weiner has just demonstrated that there are cases where a man does not know it when he sees it.

Feel better, now?

Robert Gates on Leadership

Over at the Commentary Contentions blog, Peter Wehner reprints some passages from a speech that outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave to the graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy. Link here.

At a time when the male of the human species is increasingly subject to withering criticism for bad and sometimes appalling behavior, it is refreshing to read about the positive side of the masculine ethos.

As it happens, Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield comments on the same question here.

I have posted a bit about commencement advice, and I find that Gates’ words are among the more interesting and compelling that I have seen.

While touching some of the most salient, and not self-evident points about leadership, Gates also offers a primer in basic ethical principles.

He begins with self-confidence, which should not be confused with self-esteem or the other kinds of self-puffery that the therapy culture has been promoting.

Gates explains: “Self-confidence is still another quality of leadership. Not the chest-thumping, strutting egotism we see and read about all the time. Rather, it is the quiet self-assurance that allows a leader to give others both real responsibility and real credit for success. The ability to stand in the shadow and let others receive attention and accolades. A leader is able to make decisions but then delegate and trust others to make things happen. This doesn’t mean turning your back after making a decision and hoping for the best. It does mean trusting in people at the same time you hold them accountable. The bottom line: a self-confident leader doesn’t cast such a large shadow that no one else can grow.”

A good point, but who do you think he had in mind when he was talking about the “chest-thumping, strutting egotism” that refuses to stand in the shadow? Could he be referring to his boss?

Next, courage: “A further quality of leadership is courage: not just the physical courage of the seas, of the skies and of the trenches, but moral courage. The courage to chart a new course; the courage to do what is right and not just what is popular; the courage to stand alone; the courage to act; the courage as a military officer to ‘speak truth to power.’

“In most academic curricula today, and in most business, government, and military training programs, there is great emphasis on team-building, on working together, on building consensus, on group dynamics. You have learned a lot about that. But, for everyone who would become a leader, the time will inevitably come when you must stand alone. When alone you must say, ‘This is wrong’ or ‘I disagree with all of you and, because I have the responsibility, this is what we will do.’ Don’t kid yourself—that takes real courage.”

What better advice could he give to Annapolis graduates? First, that leadership has a vertical and a horizontal dimension. Team building and consensus are well and good, but eventually someone has to take charge. Don't get suckered into thinking that organizations can function effectively by following the circle-of-feelings model.

Also, Gates emphasizes that true courage does not involve macho displays of derring-do, but the ability to stand alone as a leader, to chart a new course, to set a new policy, to do what is right even when it is not expedient, and to risk disagreeing with those who have more power.

Then, Gates addresses integrity: “Another essential quality of leadership is integrity. Without this, real leadership is not possible. Nowadays, it seems like integrity—or honor or character—is kind of quaint, a curious, old-fashioned notion. We read of too many successful and intelligent people in and out of government who succumb to the easy wrong rather than the hard right—whether from inattention or a sense of entitlement, the notion that rules are not for them. But for a real leader, personal virtues – self-reliance, self control, honor, truthfulness, morality—are absolute. These are the building blocks of character, of integrity – and only on that foundation can real leadership be built.”

Integrity means following the rules even when you don’t have to, even when you can get away with not following them. It means having strong character, an ability to overcome all personal considerations in order to identify fully with your mission.

And then there is common decency: “A final quality of real leadership, I believe, is simply common decency: treating those around you – and, above all, your subordinates – with fairness and respect. An acid test of leadership is how you treat those you outrank, or as President Truman once said, ‘how you treat those who can’t talk back.’

“Whatever your military specialty might be, use your authority over others for constructive purposes, to help them – to watch out and care for them and their families, to help them improve their skills and advance, to ease their hardships whenever possible. All of this can be done without compromising discipline or mission or authority. Common decency builds respect and, in a democratic society, respect is what prompts people to give their all for a leader, even at great personal sacrifice.”

This is a variant on an old principle. If you are looking for a job you should know that you will be judged according to how you treat the waiter in the restaurant or the company receptionist.

People who lack decency talk down to their subordinates, because they can get away with it.

Always keep in mind, that if you fail to treat your subordinates with respect a time will come when you need them to do something for you, and you will discover that they are not there.

Mad Anthony Weiner Mis-Tweets

If it should be true that Rep. Anthony Weiner tweeted the image of his package to a comely young lady in Washington, the only word that truly describes his action is: Clintonian.

Given that Weiner married Hillary Clinton’s most trusted aide, Huma Abedin, in a ceremony conducted by none other than Bill Clinton, Weiner’s tweeting or mis-tweeting of his wiener is so rich in political associations and comedic potential that no one in the media has been able to resist it.

As everyone knows, and as Jon Stewart admitted last night, the Weiner story provides so much excellent comic material that it is simply unavoidable, even for Stewart, who counts himself among the Congressman’s personal friends. Link here.

From my perspective, the real question is how to find an angle-- pun intended-- on the scandal that has not already been fully explored.

As it happens, I found one lesson in it all, and, happily enough, you do not have to cover your eyes.

It feels a bit like vindication, but several months ago I dubbed the Congressman, Mad Anthony Weiner. Link here.

I had been inspired by a tirade that Mad Anthony had thrown on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

One afternoon Mad Anthony just plain lost it. He went off; he ranted and raved; he became totally unhinged.

It was certainly not his finest hour. It did no honor to the great deliberative body called the United States House of Representatives.

As it happened, Weiner felt neither regret nor remorse. He actually tried to justify his appalling behavior on the grounds that he felt so strongly about the topic that he simply could not control his emotions.

Thereby, Weiner was falling back on an excuse that has been enshrined by the therapy culture.

That culture tells you that you should not repress your emotions. Thus it encourages and values the full and open expression of emotion, come what may.

Do not fear offending people; do not fear being overly dramatic. If you feel very strongly about something, let fly, let ‘er rip, give ‘em hell.

On that fateful afternoon on the House floor Mad Anthony did just that.

As the slightly dated vernacular would have it, he let it all hang out.

By the therapy culture’s moral standards, he did the right thing. Not only that, but he did the strong thing.

Within the therapy culture, people are said to be strong if their emotions, feelings, and impulses are uncontrollable. As long as your impulses do not tend toward criminal behavior, of course.

Still and all, when you tell people that the way to be “strong” is to make such a pathetic display of your feelings, you are telling them that intemperance is a virtue. Thus, it is weak and bad to suppress your feelings, not to give them full voice.

This represents a fundamental reversal of ethical values.

Classical ethics tells us that we need to have sufficient self-discipline to control the expression of our emotions. If we can, we have strong character. If we lack such discipline, we have weak character.

It has become easy to caricature this ethic. So, let's be clear. It is not saying that you should never express an emotion. It does say that you expression should be fitting to the circumstances. Otherwise you will draw all attention to yourself and drown your message.

If you suffer from the same bad character as Anthony Weiner does, you should get to working building your character.

I fully respect those who have set themselves the task of ferreting out the truth of Mad Anthony’s apparent mis-tweet, but, in a sense we do not really need to know the unvarnished truth.

Regardless of whether he did it, we know enough from his public behavior to judge the content of his character.