I believe Spinoza said that only free human beings can live harmoniously with one another and even tolerate and progress past the mistakes of others. Discord exists in the space between divergent and changeable passions. I began with “I believe,” because the brain-wrinkle responsible for Spinoza-related content is inherent to my existence. I believe that Spinoza actually delivered this message and I believe in the message. The belief that hate exists in our conflicting distinctions is important to me. Hate, then becomes something we can control, something we can work to overcome. Hate is also then easily propagated by people with practiced discourse and fervent fear. The fervent fear is assigned, that is the most generic interpretation of Spinoza’s work, that our fears are our creation. If fear is based in hate and hate is based in opinion and opinion is a world of our creation, then why not battle the opinions and silence the sources. I could be targeting politicians bent on diverting blame from their doorsteps and onto the lower-class or I could be targeting religious leaders fomenting suicide bombings and gay bashing. Although, I wholeheartedly believe that most governments and all religions have been negative counterweights to any idealistic society, my arrow is pointed directly at Andy Rooney.
“I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn’t realize they thought,” Rooney told the Associated Press in 1998. This is where I disagree with Rooney. I don’t believe all the people who found themselves in agreement with him held those beliefs before he delivered his weekly sermons. I believe he did a significant amount of convincing, he was a gifted disputant, and like many other convincing cranks before him, he convinced people to rank and file alongside. Rooney has been lauded as a truth teller, an unfiltered voice of common sense, but I think he was a hate-monger. I have watched 60 Minutes since I was a little kid and since my adolescence I felt attacked by Rooney. And with every passing week and every subsequent essay he convinced more and more people to hate me. To look at me as if I were the very reason they grew wrinkly, as if I were the reason time’s spotlight refocused from past generations, as if my existence was solely responsible for their finite timeline. Since this fear manifests from one man’s hate, and that man used his position to propagate that hate, then I will use my minor voice to applaud his silence. Rooney has been applauded for the simplicity he used to give a detailed analysis of a mundane event and for never making the essay about anything more than the mundane ostensive subject. But there was always either an undertone or in some cases an overtone in his work that pointed a finger. The ostensive issue was at the center of his commentary but he was attacking the creator of that issue. He was attacking an entity focused on marginalizing the greatest generation. I found him arrogant, I didn’t find his dismissive tone cute because he was part of the “greatest generation,” I found him more entitled that any of the youth he regularly attacked. I found an old bitter man’s weekly complaints about the weak complaints of others hypocritical and irresponsible. There is a great clip of Andy Rooney dealing with Sasha Baron Cohen’s character Ali G; Rooney is a pompous asshole during the entire clip. It was clear that he thought Ali G was a barely sentient being and he treated him like one. If Ali G were truly a mentally challenged news reporter, as he attempted to portray, then Rooney’s attitude takes on a much darker tone than the adorable-crotchety old man we assign to it. Ali G’s interview with Noam Chomsky, a man much smarter and more accomplished than Rooney, was civil and polite even though Chomsky is a genius and Ali G was still mildly handicapped. There was a difference and that difference is important.
His incessant complaints grew more and more ridiculous with his dwindling talent. His shock that 15-year-old girls were all of a sudden the target demo, the “average American,” instead of a 90-year-old sourpuss was the final droplet of kerosene onto a fire he started so many years prior. The commentary he offered to all the sad grunge kids was full of more anger and annoyance than any Kurt Cobain song would ever offer. His analysis of Cobain’s suicide was offensive because it was people like Rooney who wished for the death of people like Cobain. The sense of entitlement that people assign to youth is not an invention of the young, it is a barrier built by the old to retain as much relevancy as possible. Politicians do it all the time, discredit your opponent, and make them fight an imaginary issue so they tire before the substantive issue. Rooney was riling up an octogenarian army against Gen-X and millennials and Bieliebers and any other umbrella term for young people sociologists will make up by the time I finish this sentence. Rooney attacked Pat Robertson, justifiably, but they are the same person. Pat blames faggots, Muslims, and faggot Muslims for his faults. Rooney blames pop-culture, music, and anyone born post-1940 for his faults. Rooney, like Robertson, delivered Sunday sermons, convincing a congregation consisting of individuals looking for a message to hate something or someone. So, to counteract Rooney’s hatred I hate him back.
This essay should end with a sarcastic comment like, “I think it is appropriate to reference Rooney’s life and work with a dry essay.” But that would be a complete about-face, identify me as a hypocrite, and give credence to an essayist I choose to discredit. Rooney was a harmful force pumping negativity into society’s ether. As sarcasm melts off these pages, cheers to Rooney’s silence. Unlike Spinoza I don’t see the need to examine both sets of attributes individually or in tandem. I will continue to loathe old-people who blame the young for the problems they have created; I just hope the worms chewing up Rooney’s bitter carcass choke on the irony.
For more from Rosicky, click some of the fun buttons below…
Past work on FlipCollective.com.
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Ruiney, by Rosicky Jones
I believe Spinoza said that only free human beings can live harmoniously with one another and even tolerate and progress past the mistakes of others. Discord exists in the space between divergent and changeable passions. I began with “I believe,” because the brain-wrinkle responsible for Spinoza-related content is inherent to my existence. I believe that Spinoza actually delivered this message and I believe in the message. The belief that hate exists in our conflicting distinctions is important to me. Hate, then becomes something we can control, something we can work to overcome. Hate is also then easily propagated by people with practiced discourse and fervent fear. The fervent fear is assigned, that is the most generic interpretation of Spinoza’s work, that our fears are our creation. If fear is based in hate and hate is based in opinion and opinion is a world of our creation, then why not battle the opinions and silence the sources. I could be targeting politicians bent on diverting blame from their doorsteps and onto the lower-class or I could be targeting religious leaders fomenting suicide bombings and gay bashing. Although, I wholeheartedly believe that most governments and all religions have been negative counterweights to any idealistic society, my arrow is pointed directly at Andy Rooney.
“I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn’t realize they thought,” Rooney told the Associated Press in 1998. This is where I disagree with Rooney. I don’t believe all the people who found themselves in agreement with him held those beliefs before he delivered his weekly sermons. I believe he did a significant amount of convincing, he was a gifted disputant, and like many other convincing cranks before him, he convinced people to rank and file alongside. Rooney has been lauded as a truth teller, an unfiltered voice of common sense, but I think he was a hate-monger. I have watched 60 Minutes since I was a little kid and since my adolescence I felt attacked by Rooney. And with every passing week and every subsequent essay he convinced more and more people to hate me. To look at me as if I were the very reason they grew wrinkly, as if I were the reason time’s spotlight refocused from past generations, as if my existence was solely responsible for their finite timeline. Since this fear manifests from one man’s hate, and that man used his position to propagate that hate, then I will use my minor voice to applaud his silence. Rooney has been applauded for the simplicity he used to give a detailed analysis of a mundane event and for never making the essay about anything more than the mundane ostensive subject. But there was always either an undertone or in some cases an overtone in his work that pointed a finger. The ostensive issue was at the center of his commentary but he was attacking the creator of that issue. He was attacking an entity focused on marginalizing the greatest generation. I found him arrogant, I didn’t find his dismissive tone cute because he was part of the “greatest generation,” I found him more entitled that any of the youth he regularly attacked. I found an old bitter man’s weekly complaints about the weak complaints of others hypocritical and irresponsible. There is a great clip of Andy Rooney dealing with Sasha Baron Cohen’s character Ali G; Rooney is a pompous asshole during the entire clip. It was clear that he thought Ali G was a barely sentient being and he treated him like one. If Ali G were truly a mentally challenged news reporter, as he attempted to portray, then Rooney’s attitude takes on a much darker tone than the adorable-crotchety old man we assign to it. Ali G’s interview with Noam Chomsky, a man much smarter and more accomplished than Rooney, was civil and polite even though Chomsky is a genius and Ali G was still mildly handicapped. There was a difference and that difference is important.
His incessant complaints grew more and more ridiculous with his dwindling talent. His shock that 15-year-old girls were all of a sudden the target demo, the “average American,” instead of a 90-year-old sourpuss was the final droplet of kerosene onto a fire he started so many years prior. The commentary he offered to all the sad grunge kids was full of more anger and annoyance than any Kurt Cobain song would ever offer. His analysis of Cobain’s suicide was offensive because it was people like Rooney who wished for the death of people like Cobain. The sense of entitlement that people assign to youth is not an invention of the young, it is a barrier built by the old to retain as much relevancy as possible. Politicians do it all the time, discredit your opponent, and make them fight an imaginary issue so they tire before the substantive issue. Rooney was riling up an octogenarian army against Gen-X and millennials and Bieliebers and any other umbrella term for young people sociologists will make up by the time I finish this sentence. Rooney attacked Pat Robertson, justifiably, but they are the same person. Pat blames faggots, Muslims, and faggot Muslims for his faults. Rooney blames pop-culture, music, and anyone born post-1940 for his faults. Rooney, like Robertson, delivered Sunday sermons, convincing a congregation consisting of individuals looking for a message to hate something or someone. So, to counteract Rooney’s hatred I hate him back.
This essay should end with a sarcastic comment like, “I think it is appropriate to reference Rooney’s life and work with a dry essay.” But that would be a complete about-face, identify me as a hypocrite, and give credence to an essayist I choose to discredit. Rooney was a harmful force pumping negativity into society’s ether. As sarcasm melts off these pages, cheers to Rooney’s silence. Unlike Spinoza I don’t see the need to examine both sets of attributes individually or in tandem. I will continue to loathe old-people who blame the young for the problems they have created; I just hope the worms chewing up Rooney’s bitter carcass choke on the irony.
For more from Rosicky, click some of the fun buttons below…
Past work on FlipCollective.com.
To follow him on Twitter.
To send him an email.
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