Gumption

Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemaker

By Nick Offerman

Consider Herbert A. Simon, a right sharp scientific thinker, who did his thinking most frequently at Carnegie Mellon, by which I mean this chap was smart as shit. Check out some of his smart-thinks: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious; it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, Slogan-worthy.

(Broach 2010, 100)

There is a difference in kindness, certainly, a most substantial difference, between your John Oliver and your Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh: The difference is that Oliver has it. When Oliver gets loud, he does so to condemn a person’s or organization’s actions. Also, his is a comedy show, including self-deprecation, lending the silly presentation a softening quality from the get-go, which I think makes a big distinction from the right wingers who are flatly mean and vicious without humor. They are so severe about “saving our country that their rants remind one of nothing so much as an angry child throwing a tantrum, which is often hilarious to the grown-ups around them, although we must contain our mirth lest we exacerbate their tiny tempests. Bill O’Reilly proves with ever-increasing desperation that when you take yourself that seriously, you are perceived as a joke.