December 12, 2008

Why do we do this, anyway?

By: David Polansky

In a long, provocative post on Jews and dual loyalty (watch as I go right past the interesting controversial stuff and head straight for the ephemera!), Freddie remarks on how much of punditry is a matter of brand-building. In particular, he notes that Christopher Hitchens is primarily engaged in creating the persona of Christopher Hitchens.

Yes. Of course. He’s doing the boozy yet reliable Fleet Street scribbler who’s always up for a pint and you wouldn’t want to get on his bad side even when he’s four sheets to the wind. Freddie’s whole idea is spot-on, actually, and one I’ve thought for a long time without wholly articulating it.

Specifically, I’ve noticed that we Americans seem to have the capacity to tolerate approximately one journalistic representative from any given country on the planet. However, this one we will shower with accolades out of all proportion to their actual talent and generally treat as that nation’s gift to us. Nice work if you can get it.

Hitchens is obviously the honorary American English guy. Niall Ferguson’s the Scot. Bernard-Henri Levy’s the Frenchman whose shirts don’t button above his stomach and may have his way with your girlfriend while you’re busy processing his turgid prose, and so on.

What I don’t get is why we do this. Levy for example was brilliant at exploiting the whole Tocqueville for the 21st century thing when he did his sweep a few years ago. He’s more than welcome to leverage the opportunity as it presents himself, but in the midst of all the intellectual tea-bagging that went on during his sojourn here, nobody seemed to notice that he had almost nothing to say.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I were foreign so that I could come here and get in on the game. There are plenty of countries whose national stereotypes are ripe for exploitation in the interest of career advancement.