{"id":267376,"date":"2018-03-13T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=267376"},"modified":"2018-03-14T16:12:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:12:08","slug":"andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/13\/andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Sullivan on Liberal Misery"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I have another story near the top of the Stack here. It\u2019s by Andrew Sullivan. Here it is: “The World Is Better than Ever. Why Are We Miserable?<\/a>” He\u2019s writing for himself and his leftist buddies. It is kind of paradoxical, because we are living in many ways in the best times ever, in many ways. Technological advancement, economic advancement. Poverty is way down. Violence is actually way down around the world. More people have been rescued from poverty worldwide than at any time in world history, and yet none of this is…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s reported statistically, but it is never hyped.<\/p>\n

What is hyped is all the negatives. Let me read the opening paragraph \u2019cause it\u2019s really all you need to get the idea of this piece. Again, Andrew Sullivan. It\u2019s in New York Magazine. “Earlier this week, I went to a lecture given by Steven Pinker on his latest book, Enlightenment Now. I\u2019m a huge and longtime fan of Pinker\u2019s, and his book The Blank Slate was, for me, a revelation. [Pinker]\u2019s become a deep and important critic of the visceral hostility to nature and science now so sadly prevalent on the left and right, a defender of reason and the Enlightenment against the ‘social justice\u2019 movements on campus, and his new book is a near-relentless defense of modernity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“I sat there for an hour slowly being buried in a fast-accumulating snowdrift of irrefutable statistics showing [amazing] human progress: the decline of violence and war, the rise and rise of democracy, the astonishing gains against poverty of the last couple of decades, the rise of tolerance and erosion of cruelty, lengthening lifespans, revolutions in health, huge increases in safety, and on and on. It was one emphatic graph after another that bludgeoned my current depression into a kind of forced rational cheeriness.” In other words, this guy Pinker had been accumulating data to show that — in a universal way all over the world — all of our problems are getting better.<\/p>\n

But how many of you when I said, “The decline of violence and war,” responded, “Wait a minute! There is not any decline…”? That\u2019s your instinct reaction, because what\u2019s on your mind is in Parkland, and we\u2019ve been at war in Afghanistan for seemingly, what, 18 years? “We\u2019ve been at the war in the Middle East 18 years. What do you mean less war? What do you mean less violence?” Well, statistically, worldwide war is happening much less — so is violence — according to the stats.<\/p>\n

But in your living experience, it\u2019s kind of contradictory because it doesn\u2019t seem so, but that\u2019s the point. After looking at the evidence of how much improvement in the areas of squalor of life, you kind of have to do a check and say, “Wait a minute. This doesn\u2019t… This doesn\u2019t jibe with how I feel. It doesn\u2019t jibe with what I think I\u2019m seeing.” Here\u2019s the last sentence of the paragraph: “There were no real trade-offs here; our gloom is largely self-imposed; and is entirely a function of our media and news diets.” Bingo!<\/p>\n

One other paragraph. “As we have slowly and surely attained more progress, we have lost something that undergirds all of it: meaning, cohesion, and a different, deeper kind of happiness than the satiation of all our earthly needs. We\u2019ve forgotten the human flourishing that comes from a common idea of virtue, and a concept of virtue that is based on our nature.”<\/p>\n

Now, that may sound like deep stuff, but let me tell you what that means. What that means is we have forgotten the human flourishing, we\u2019ve forgotten the goodness, we have forgotten the happiness, the contentment that comes from a common idea of morality. My word in this case for virtue, and a concept of morality that is based our nature.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

These two paragraphs to me are dynamite. In the first place, “our gloom is largely self-imposed and is entirely a function of our media and news diets.” I could not agree more! That\u2019s why I have often suggested, if you want to change your life turn off news for a week and just see. Just do it. Turn off the news, do not watch any news. Do not watch any cable news anywhere for a week! You can do it. Don\u2019t be afraid. You can do it. You can listen to me because I do not make people feel unhappy or fill them with doom or gloom.<\/p>\n

Quite the opposite. This program lifts people up, makes people laugh. You know, we\u2019ve got this new thing we\u2019re doing at RushLimbaugh.com where we are actively responding to people. We\u2019re inviting people to get in touch with us, listeners, members of the audience, who we then establish a video connection with and we interview them and find out what is it about the program they like. It\u2019s revealing some of the best stuff.<\/p>\n

And people who participate in this, you can find where to do it at RushLimbaugh.com<\/a>, in exchange for their participation people are allowed to ask me any kind of question they want and I\u2019ll answer it somehow, some way, either here or on another video that we put on the website or whatever. It\u2019s a work in progress.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the things that we are learning, the questions people want to ask me are better than any I have been asked by anybody on TV, by far, both personal and professional. And they\u2019re a joy to deal with. I answered one of these questions on a video last week. I hope we\u2019re able to post it this week. I\u2019m making no guarantees \u2019cause it\u2019s a new project that we\u2019re just getting up and running. But it is fabulous to actually learn and meet those of you in this audience who are participating in this. And it\u2019s a video conference that we set up with you, if you pass our tests. Well, \u2019cause we can\u2019t do everybody, got some fun little tests.<\/p>\n

But the point is, you know, there\u2019s a common thing these people say. And I would not have even thought to mention this today had it not been for this paragraph of Andrew Sullivan\u2019s. There\u2019s a common, almost everybody that we\u2019ve talked to — and there\u2019s been a lot of them now — are saying one variation or another that this program lets them know every day it\u2019s okay, that things are okay. And that has so much meaning to people. And the people that we\u2019re interviewing are all ages. They are all religions. They are all orientations, sexual orientations, gender.<\/p>\n

\"\"The demographic spread is amazing. It\u2019s fabulous to learn and see those of you who are participating in our little program here. Well, it\u2019s actually gonna get very big. But this is why I have said turn off the news. It is the most negative, particularly if you\u2019re a Republican or conservative or Trump supporter, it can ruin you. It can ruin your day. It can destroy a good mood. It can destroy contentment. And it shouldn\u2019t. But that\u2019s what it does. And if you turn it off for a week, you will see exactly what I\u2019m talking about. Turn it off for a week, but don\u2019t stop listening here.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t make you feel gloomy. We don\u2019t make you feel like everything\u2019s doom and gloom and the end is near or anything like that at all. Quite the opposite. And then the admission here that we\u2019ve lost a common virtue, we\u2019ve lost a common morality, we\u2019ve lost a common base that unites us, that binds us together. The world is better than ever. Why are we so miserable? Social media plays a role in this too. But I don\u2019t know that social media is the cause of it. Social media just serves as a way to see it and to amplify it.<\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t think Trump hatred is hatred of Trump. I think it\u2019s hatred of all of us. If you think Trump vanished tomorrow that The hate would stop? No way. Their hate is never going to end. That\u2019s the point. And the more you subject yourself to it by watching the news or the stuff they produce as entertainment programming, the more it\u2019s gonna affect you, when it need not. Because they\u2019re the ones at making things look as bad as they are when they really aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Let me read the opening paragraph 'cause it's really all you need to get the idea of this piece. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":267417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAndrew Sullivan on Liberal Misery - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/13\/andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Andrew Sullivan on Liberal Misery - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Let me read the opening paragraph 'cause it's really all you need to get the idea of this piece.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-031318-Andrew-Sullivan.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"keith doherty\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"description\":\"Excellence In Broadcasting\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/13\/andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-031318-Andrew-Sullivan.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-031318-Andrew-Sullivan.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":360},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/13\/andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/13\/andrew-sullivan-on-liberal-misery\/\",\"name\":\"Andrew Sullivan on Liberal Misery - 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