Leftist Group-Think Personified…all the while sporting a Hairdo and Lip Gloss.
The economist F.A. Hayek defined an intellectual as a “professional secondhand dealer in ideas” with secondhand meaning second in the order of the transmission of ideas. Experts – academics, scholars, or other original thinkers – are the source of ideas. For Thomas Sowell, an intellectual is someone whose job is to deal in words*. The job begins and ends with ideas and/or the words used to convey ideas. Implicit in both definitions of intellectual is the job of a journalist – someone who conveys the new events of the day, a.k.a. the news. It is an unfortunate condition of the modern era that the role of journalism also encompasses the conveyance of attitudes, i.e. how one is supposed to think or feel about current events.
In this respect, the objectivity and impartiality of journalism has been kicked to the curb. It may be constitutionally impossible for any one person to be impartial, even highly trained people with that expectation in their job description such as judge or scientist. This is why systematic processes are brought to bear on any one person’s observations of the world through judicial review in the case of judges and peer-review in the case of scientists. The process is supposed to be impartial, not necessarily the person. This systemic review has been tossed aside completely in the case of journalism. The journalistic ethos now includes the attitude that bias cannot be removed, so why even try. This has led to the proliferation of unhinged and unfiltered personalities being thrown at the public, particularly in the electronic formats of news conveyance. Recognizing this deficiency, TV and the internet have taken to putting experts, or more highly trained individuals in the role of journalists. Hence, the utilization of lawyers, academics and even doctors/psychiatrists as conveyors of news, as if their impartiality can be brought with them outside their field of specialized training.
Enter Megyn Kelly. Or, as we like to call her…a cultural Marxist wearing high heels with nicely turned ankles – like a FOX News pretty-boy or pretty-girl should be. Her ongoing feud with Donald Trump originates in the Presidential candidate’s ungentlemanly comments towards women. He has insulted individual women which Kelly takes personally, as if he has insulted the entire race of women and she is their defender. If Trump makes an unflattering comment about a man, that is not news. But it becomes news when aimed at a woman because women are politically special and protected; with half the US population immune from having their feelings hurt in the workplace and on TV.
In the fullness of the feminist ideal, women and men are the same. Except they are not. It is a difference that cannot be reconciled through the political process. Nor can women and men be made the same by legislative or judicial fiat. And, with the standard of reasonable doubt in mind, Donald Trump has not committed the crime of sexual assault. If the women making accusations are serious, they would go to the police and make a formal complaint. But this being campaign season, none will. Because it is not possible to hash out the basic differences between men and women through civilizational devices like law courts and legislatures, it spills out into the public arena and becomes personal between celebrities like Trump and Kelly. The same dynamic is on display between Kelly and Trump surrogates like Newt Gingrich. If Kelly applied the impartial version of Journalism rather than the version she does employ, there would be no Megyn Kelly / Donald Trump feud. She is not acting like a journalist. She is acting like the cultural Marxist she is. She has brought the attitude with her from college and law school where people are regarded as an abstraction, subject to all manner of goofy theorizing. Such is the way with Marxism whether it’s the original economic version or today’s cultural versions. When the ideological abstraction comes face to face with the concrete and inescapable realities of the world…well…the only people to come out ahead are the makers of Prozac. Way ahead.
Besides Kelly’s feud with Trump, another example of her Cultural Marxism and hypocrisy (they are in many respects the same thing) is her 2010 appearance on the Howard Stern program talking about sexual relations with her husband. With her graphic descriptions, she objectified herself. She objectified her husband. And she made their most intimate marital moments a matter of public concern. Morally, this is no different than posting a sex-tape on the internet. Then there is the entire issue of being a divorced and remarried Catholic.
We will appropriate a quote from a 2014 interview in Elle magazine to emphasize our point: “So—no, Virginia, Megyn Kelly is no liberal Trojan horse at FOX News Channel.” Indeed. Megyn Kelly is much worse than a liberal Trojan horse. She is a typical product of her background – overweening, overachieving, and overly-magnified by the distorting lens of television.
* Intellectuals and Society; Sowell, Thomas; Basic Books, New York; 2011