The Current State of Discourse is Through Indirect Media Sniping

Looking through the news this week:

Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry turned her back on the National Anthem and prominent Republican voices like US Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Sen. Tom Cotton consider that unpatriotic. Berry has been firing back at her and mobilizing the currents by which people already consider anyone with an R next to their name. Meanwhile, the worst of cancel culture has come after her for every slightly off-color thing she’s ever written on Twitter.

If celebrity psychologist Sharon Marcus posits that the way we talk about celebrities is a way we indirectly negotiate societal values, then we have a troubling set of societal values. Our current mode of dealing with conflicting view points is to indirectly discredit our opponents rather than engaging with the points themselves. This ranges from digging up unseemly things they’ve spoken about on other topics, judging people by who they’ve associated with (Case in point: Chris Pratt and the church he attends https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/chris-pratt-hollywood-christians-under-fire-for-attending-bible-believing-churches.html), or judging on the color of their skin (in the opposite way that they used to).

Why doesn’t Crenshaw and Berry just go on the View or Face the Nation or Oprah and have a face-to-face chat. Aside from the ratings that it would pull, wouldn’t it be a more productive conversation for the participants? Since celebrities represent the values that we negotiate, wouldn’t this be a better model of dialogue we should be having?

Some might argue that Dan Crenshaw and Tom Cotton are not making the case that Gwen Berry should be removed from the U.S. Olympic Team in good faith anyway. They are merely amoral culture warriors who are attacking others for cheap points with their base.

First, that still doesn’t mean amoral people still can’t have a good point here or there. While I don’t believe there’s such a thing as being “anti-American” (unless you’re actively trying to break the constitution which, ironically, encompasses people on January 6th who, if I’m not mistaken, are from Dan Crenshaw’s party), perhaps there’s something to be said for Crenshaw’s point that “the bare minimum requirement [for Olympic participation] is that you believe in the country you are representing.”

Some might also argue that Gwen Berry’s not doing herself any favors by blaming…