Dear Major Media,
Regarding that gig as a bigtime columnist I was saying you should give me? I have a few pledges to make. Unlike this character, I pledge that in my first column, I won't do any of the following:
- Quote an author with a well-demonstrated track record of inaccuracy in the service of an agenda designed to justify an American horror such as the Japanese internment.
- Mis-quote that author
- Use lots and lots of tired cliches (I don't promise to use none you understand, just to pace myself)
- Be boring.
So now you’re whining because a few neocons are more popular than you? More successful than you? More respected than you?
Seek help. Free D.Marvin!
You miss the point of columnists which is to allow readers to outsource their thinking.
There is no demand for outsourcing of the type of views you would provide. There are however rather a lot of people who want to have their bigotted prejudices reinforced (Peretz, Krautheimer) or be told that what is good for them is good for the country (Kudlow, Brooks) or that politicians are vain, superficial people to be treated with contempt (Dowd) or that the solution to every problem is to have the army blow something up (all right wing commentators).
In short the reason you cannot be a columnist is that their role is to reinforce and project the prejudices and interests of the Establishment which are first and foremost to protect the position of the Establishment in being able to project and reinforce such views.
PHB’s advice is not good. It is not good mental health to conjure up a convoluted theory as to how/why society has conspired to trample one’s dreams. I once counseled a young man, who apparently was a good high school basketball player, but had all sorts of conspiracy theories to explain why no college offered him a basketball scholarship. With my astute powers of observation, I noticed that the patient presented as 5’6″.
I believe scientists often defer to a theorem called “Acham’s Razor”? To be blunt, there are probably much simpler explanations as to why certain men live quiet lives of desperation. It is healthier to face these simpler, often correct explanations.
Fortunately, writing and thinking are skills which can be improved.
Free D.Marvin!
That would be “Occam’s razor“, my so-polite and erudite friend. (PS why not pick one ‘nym and stick to it? Ashamed of something?)
I think you do liberal_psychologist a disservice by claiming that he/she is using a pseudonym. IMHO the tag is simply and accurate description of the commenter, as evidenced by the standard diagnosis of “it is not good mental health”.