Does anybody remember Professor Singer of Princeton?
Ten years ago he was in the news all the time. The last time I remember him speaking publicly within the media was when I was visiting my mother for Thanksgiving many years ago.
On the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, I prayed to the Lord.
I said to the Lord: Please Lord protect me from my evil ways. Help me to be fair to the Ivy League graduate. Surely I must be too vehement. Forgive me for being unfair to them and for criticizing them for the stupid things that they say and do. Please don’t send me to hell.
I felt pretty good when I went to bed that night. I felt as if I had absolved myself of my sins through prayer.
I woke up the next morning and walked outside my mother’s front door to pick up the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I turned to the sports page for relaxation.
At the time if you will recall, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, Michael Vick, was having a dog issue.
Apparently, he and some friends had mistreated dogs which were to be trained for fighting. Michael Vick had to go to jail.
There were many people criticizing Michael Vick.
Professor Singer decided to weigh in.
Professor Singer was (and still is) a “sage” from the Ivy League who gets in the press simply because he is a professor from the Ivy League.
Princeton seems to occupy a special place in the media’s mind.
Our minds also.
When people thank of Princeton, immediately the image of Woodrow Wilson in academic garb comes to mind. Or perhaps Booth Tarkington writing a novel. Or maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Princeton conjures up the image of an intellectual school where great minds think great thoughts.
Didn’t Albert Einstein teach at Princeton? Wasn’t he spotted walking through the leafy lawns of this Elysium on earth?
Even the name Princeton sounds noble.
No brutes come from Princeton.
Why, Plato and Aristotle attended Princeton.
As with many other Ivy League graduates and professors it doesn’t matter to the media what drivel comes out of Professor Singer’s mouth. The only thing that counts for the main stream media is that he comes from Princeton. Therefore anything he says is of note.
I thumbed down to the article on Michael Vick and here’s what Professor Singer had to say. And I will paraphrase.
He said that people who eat bacon, sausage, and scrapple in the morning for breakfast had no right to denounce or speak harshly about Michael Vick, because they were no better than he.
In other words, because they were eating meat from animals that had been slaughtered by humans, they were on the same shaky moral ground as Michael Vick.
When I read that my hands began trembling. I started to shake much as John Cassavetes begin to shake at the end of the movie, The Fury.
Do you remember that movie?
At the end of the movie, Brian De Palma, the director, blew up John Cassavetes. His body exploded and his head was seen tumbling into the camera lens.
That’s what happened to me after I read Professor Singer’s comments.
Do you see what I’m talking about here? Do you see what I mean about the Ivy League professor, the media, the ridiculous access that these Ivy League graduates and professors have to the media?
In this case Professor Singer’s access to the media applied to a relatively inconsequential matter as far as world affairs are concerned.
Yet it’s the same mentality, to immediately reach out to someone who supposedly has credentials, that expresses itself in essential affairs also.
Until this cycle is broken, until we stop reaching out to people because they come from a certain school, we will always be mired in ignorance.
Sincerely,
Archer Crosley
Copyright 2021 Archer Crosley All Rights Reserved
Cowboy Archer 