Keith Olbermann and Socratic Democracy

[Gloria]

A thread yesterday on Olbermann and dissent ties very nicely into a short book review I stumbled upon.

Keith Olbermann Proves That Dissent Has An Audience
By Daphne Evitar, The Nation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2845701

Take a look at this review---Is Keith Olbermann today's Socrates?

http://www.political-theory.org/books/reviews/villa.html
Socratic Citizenship
Dana Villa

Many critics bemoan the lack of civic engagement in America. Tocqueville's "nation of joiners" seems to have become a nation of alienated individuals, disinclined to fulfill the obligations of citizenship or the responsibilities of self-government. In response, the critics urge community involvement and renewed education in the civic virtues. But what kind of civic engagement do we want, and what sort of citizenship should we encourage? In Socratic Citizenship, Dana Villa takes issue with those who would reduce citizenship to community involvement or to political participation for its own sake. He argues that we need to place more value on a form of conscientious, moderately alienated citizenship invented by Socrates, one that is critical in orientation and dissident in practice.

Taking Plato's Apology of Socrates as his starting point, Villa argues that Socrates was the first to show, in his words and deeds, how moral and intellectual integrity can go hand in hand, and how they can constitute importantly civic--and not just philosophical or moral--virtues. More specifically, Socrates urged that good citizens should value this sort of integrity more highly than such apparent virtues as patriotism, political participation, piety, and unwavering obedience to the law. Yet Socrates' radical redefinition of citizenship has had relatively little influence on Western political thought. Villa considers how the Socratic idea of the thinking citizen is treated by five of the most influential political thinkers of the past two centuries--John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. In doing so, he not only deepens our understanding of these thinkers' work and of modern ideas of citizenship, he also shows how the fragile Socratic idea of citizenship has been lost through a persistent devaluation of independent thought and action in public life.

Engaging current debates among political and social theorists, this insightful book shows how we must reconceive the idea of good citizenship if we are to begin to address the shaky fundamentals of civic culture in America today.

[annabanana]

1. Civic engagement is essential.

(Richard Dreyfuss on Real Time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jAzhvq2jlk )

Nothing BUT an engaged citizenry is capable of running America properly.

[The Count]

2. KO is hardly the first, but luckily, the first to get recognized K&R

The mere fact that MSNBC didn't cancel his show is a very good sign that there's still hope for the future. Good article.

[grasswire]

3. personally, I hear a lot of Jean Shepherd in him.

The cadence, the wit, the color. I think he's a student of Shepherd.

[Gloria]

4. I grew up listening to Jean Shepherd every night on the old pink

radio....and then with a transistor radio under my pillow. A high point of my high school years was going to Town Hall on New Year's Eve to see him perform live...and we all got kazoos.

Shepherd was a great raconteur who spoke with great affection about everyday life. He was a master at evoking images in the listener's mind. I doubt he could make it on radio today because people don't listen or imagine in the same way. It takes time and they don't give themselves the time.

Olbermann is witty and humorous and if he was a student of Shepherd, he picked up some things well....Olbermann adds more irony to mix, IMOP.

[grasswire]

5. this is true about the irony

But we never knew a political Shepherd, did we?

Whether or not he could make it on radio today? I'm listening right now to Garrison Keiller, who created a world in the imagination of millions of listeners.

[Gloria]

8. Correct. Jean Shepherd didn't get into politics, per se....I think the

most political statement he made was in the title of his book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"....

I'm sure Shepherd would have an audience today, maybe on PBS (which did carry a show for awhile featuring Shepherd). As for radio, other than NPR, most commercial stations wouldn't pick him up...it's all sports or these political gasbags who dominate.

In some ways Malloy reminds me of him....of course, Malloy is loud, emotional, etc. But..Malloy knows how to modulate emotions and I find him almost theatrical in his presentation (and he does have a performance background, as well as CNN/news). Shepherd also was "theatrical" in a more understated, personal way. But he got up on stage and performed, too. He would have been great on Comeday Central, if CC could look beyond their young demographic....

[Berry Cool]

6. Olbermann is definitely a Shepherd acolyte.

It's why he used to sign off by saying "Keep your knees loose" before balling up his wad of paper and pitching it at the camera at the end of his show. That was a Shepherdism. He eventually replaced it when he decided to count up the number of days it has been since "Mission Accomplished."

on edit: I have a feeling that if someone told him he was "a modern-day Socrates," his first reaction would be "Really? Uh-oh. I better keep track of who fixes my drinks."

[Gloria]

7. LOL!! I'm sure he'd laugh over being called "Socrates"--then again,

I've read that he's not modest, so maybe he'd lap it up!!! :7