Rich Lowry is working as editor of National Review, and the
time has come for someone to tell him he has been an embarrassment to the
profession of journalism. It is time for him to look for something else to do; for
him to leave the profession he was never meant to be a part of, and go
somewhere else.
His latest foray in a territory that is as alien to him as a
planet that is yet to be discovered – comes in the form of an article he wrote
under the title: “The Brotherhood Delusion” and the subtitle: “Morsi
consolidates his dictatorship while the Obama administration tells itself
bedtime stories.” It was published on November 30, 2012 in National Review
Online.
Lowry starts the article by quoting a sentence that was
authored by Ambrose Bierce, and he ends the article this way: “The first step
is to … perhaps read more Ambrose Bierce.” In fact, it is the habit of this
young man to drop the name of someone and recommend that people read him as if
everything this person ever wrote was gospel truth. And if you follow the
writings of Lowry himself, you realize that he does not relate to ideas because
of what they mean or stand for; he relates to them according to the view he has
of the author. The way this happens is that if he likes something uttered by
someone, he gets to like him so much, he considers everything he wrote in the
past and everything he writes now to be the ultimate in high level knowledge
and great wisdom.
Rich Lowry reminds me of a number of students I had during
the years that I taught in a vocational school where students were generally
more difficult than those who went to a regular school. I first realized what
the problem was that impeded the progress of these students when one of them
asserted to me that he had all the books recommended for the course but then
admitted to something that flabbergasted me. After a long discussion during
which he tried to be evasive, he admitted that he did not yet open any of the
books even though we were three months into the school year.
While Rich Lowry may not be as extreme as that, he displays
a similar sort of tendency you see in young journalists these days. They treat
the acquisition of knowledge and of skills the same way they treat a political
ideology by sticking with what they like and by ignoring what they dislike. To
this end, they draw up two columns, one of which would be headed by the title:
“I like these” under which they list all the people they tolerate and would
read. As to the other column, it would be headed by the title: “I hate these”
under which they list all the people they do not tolerate, and would never
read. They only read what they like, but do so without turning up a critical
eye on them. And they do not bother checking if what they dislike contains
something worth knowing or at least something they should not miss.
What this does is that it turns them into a generation where
the best of them can only be considered half-baked intellectuals. The reason
for this is made easy to understand when you look at the analogous sayings that
exist in the other languages. For example, the southern Europeans use the
locution “a little education” instead of the half-baked one. As to the Arabs,
they prefer to use the “half-educated” locution. You sense from these examples
that the foreigners see a correlation between the effort that people make to
acquire knowledge, and the ability to process that knowledge creatively so as
to make good use of it whether it is the kind of knowledge that suit their taste
or it is the kind they find abhorring.
But how do people like Rich Lowry go on to draw up the list
of authors they like, and the list of authors they dislike? They do it through
a process that is very close to what happens to ducklings. When these birds hatch,
they consider the first thing they see move to be their mother, and so they
follow it till they die or it dies. In a similar way, the first set of ideas to
which the would-be journalists are exposed when they reach the age of reason
which is the age at which they begin to think independently – they stay with
that set of ideas and follow it for ever or follow it till something drastic
causes them to flip. They place the authors of these ideas in the “like”
column, and place everyone else in the “dislike” column.
The net result is that many of those journalists grow up to
be like Rich Lowry. Look what he does in his article. After quoting Ambrose
Bierce, he says this about him: “He would understand events in Egypt very
well.” How does Rich Lowry know that? you ask. And the answer is simple; it is
that he claims he knows both Bierce and Egypt very well. Great God! I
exclaim. I must brace myself for a magnificent lesson from this giant in the
field of intellectual gravitas.
So then, what do you want to teach me about Egypt , ye Rich
Lowry of the gravitas? And this is what he says he wants to teach me:
“Unfortunately, the Brotherhood's credo is: '...Jihad is our way.'” What? What
is that again? He says it is unfortunate that the Brotherhood's credo is that “jihad”
is the way of the Brotherhood?
Hey, listen to me you pathetic little ignoramus. I have two
brothers and two sisters, and all five of us grew up hearing our parents tell
us incessantly: “Gahed alashan tengah.” You know what that means you little asshole?
It means strive so that you may succeed. And do you know from where the word
gahed is derived? It is the Egyptian pronunciation of the imperative that is
derived from the noun guehad (or Jihad in classical Arabic).
Yes, you disgusting little cockroach calling yourself Rich
Lowry, our parents were telling us we can succeed in school and in life only if
we strove to learn hard and do our homework. And when the politicians in Egypt speak of
jihad – whether they use the colloquial or the classical – they mean the
striving to build the nation with hard work. If this is unfortunate to you who
are from the gravitas of the sewer, maybe you're telling the world why it is
that America
is going down the sewer as well being populated by people like you.
Go find another
profession and leave journalism to those who have the talent for it. You have
embarrassed us enough already.