Rally for Sanity at the Cost of Respect

Editor’s note: Julia Rusina is manager of the Michigan Ethics Bowl and a senior majoring in Brain Behavior and Cognitive Science.

AskMen.com recently published their Top 49 Most Influential Men of 2010 list. The highest ranking man may surprise you. Maybe it is my liberal college town upbringing, maybe it’s because he was the first president I helped elect, or maybe it is because Forbes just named the first lady the world’s most powerful woman, but I thoroughly expected to see President Obama on top. He wasn’t. Actually, our Commander-in-Chief didn’t even make the Top Five… in fact, he barely scraped by in the Top 30. Obama’s actual ranking?  Lucky number 29.  So who holds the number one spot?

Jon Stewart.

To be up front, I like Jon Stewart as much as the next college student, though I watch The Daily Show far less frequently than most. However, I think that naming Jon Stewart the most influential man in the country this year says a lot about who we are as Americans. It shows that we are as a society more interested in receiving news through the filter of a comedy show or sensationalized broadcasting than through more traditional humor-and-subjectivity-lacking news venues like The New York Times or ABC News.

So how does our sensationalized, subjective, satirical, and all-encompassing media hunger affect us? Isn’t the unbridled expression of ideas a good thing? Yes. Mostly yes.

But sometimes no.  More people, especially those in younger generations, watch The Daily Show than the evening news. Far fewer actually pick up a newspaper. We turn to the those more fun but less objective news sources for most, if not nearly all, of the information we take in about current events and politics. This has several quite serious implications.

Consider this: Timothy Noah of Slate Magazine reports that he is hosting more people in his DC home for the upcoming “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” than in the last presidential inauguration.  This rally, originally just the “Rally to Restore Sanity” was proposed by Jon Stewart as a means to give a voice to Americans who do not fall in to the more vocally extreme minority who tend to control the conversation in Washington. It was meant to express more moderate opinions and accomplishes this with such droll statements as “Take it down a notch for America” and “I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.” Stephen Colbert responded with a rally to be held on the same day meant to turn Stewart’s effort comically on its head. The rally expresses this aim with a “Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom!” slogan.

Funny? Yes. But what does this accomplish? Many feel that this rally is an anti-Tea party demonstration, despite Jon Stewart’s denial of this suggestion. I have to agree with Timothy Noah when he says that the “spectacle of affluent 18-to-34-year-olds blanketing the Mall to snicker at jokes about wingnut ignoramuses and Bible thumpers will, I fear, have the effect of a red cape waved before a bull.”  Basically, there is a fine line between private opinions or jeering at those you perceive to be ignorant or poorly educated on your living room couch and going out and doing so publically, in a politically charged way. Political correctness exists for a reason. Again in agreement with Noah, I would have to say that the politically responsible thing to do would be to try to persuade others with discussion and mutual respect.  As Timothy Noah points out, “Colbert and Stewart should cancel the march, and stick to the excellent gigs they’ve already got. They are brilliant comedians. They make lousy leaders.”

–Julia Rusina