Thread by @SamRochadotcom

The US Church is filled with shock jocks who have no other work that adds any value to anything other than promoting their own private self-made brand and seeking clout and grifting their shock jock wares as if they were serious artistic, intellectual, or cultural products.

These shock jock folks also insulate themselves from criticism under the guises of a certain moral and ideological purity. They are accountable to no but each other and these shock jock rivalries often create their own range or spectrum of grifting personas to choose from.

I call them shock jocks because they really are just the Howards Sterns and Rush Limbaughs of US Catholicism or the Dr. Laura, and so on. Whatever small drop of credibility they have, they inflate and spend well beyond its real currency and excel in provocation sold as analysis.

These are different types and kinds here and some have more or less credibility but the main point I want to highlight here is that these shock jocks are junk food, they offer easy comfort but no nutrition and will cause great harm over time if they are the only diet.

These grifting shock jocks often use rigorist-sounding rhetoric, facts and logic and Latin, and make their audiences think they are eating red wine and meat when, in fact, they are feeding on Captain Crunch and Mountain Dew and the results show, the fruits are anemic and weak.

The saddest thing to me is when otherwise good and decent and well intended Catholics treat the shock jocks or aspiring shock jocks as if they had redeeming, value-added qualities. Jordan Peterson was a hard test case which many failed but by their fruits ye shall know them.

And by the way, there are numerous good, smart, holy, and hard working people who are working in the vineyard who refuse this shock jock game. My own father did it for over 40 years as an evangelist. The shock jock celebrity insults, often directly, the apostolates of so many.

Part of the selling point of the shock jock is to distinguish themselves totally or on a very limited number of alliances. This keeps the pool small but the only way to do that is through dismissal and willful ignorance. It is all about funnelling attention and $ onto themselves.

One of the most odd defences shock jocks use against me is that I am envious of them, is that I am just another one of them, seeking my own portion of the pie. This has some ring to it, but I am ready to present all my receipts to show how different my public work is to theirs.

I do think many scholars are wise to not address a public or to allow that address to happen indirectly and through osmosis. But that has never been my approach. It is too alienating for me to work that way.

I do think there are some cases where people have different faces they wear for different kinds of work. I surely know how to code switch depending on my audience and the form of my work I am presenting, so this can be complex in some cases, but not all cases.

I should also clarify that there is a difference between a shock jock and a person who has a wild temperament, prone to excess, who is otherwise producing works. The shock jock is not a tortured artist or a diva. They have no or very few redeeming qualities.

On further thought, I should have said "filled"; this exaggerates and ultimately misrepresents that these shock jocks are an extreme minority with outsized influence due to the amplification of the internet.

*should not.

Forgive this and the other typos and stupidities.

Thanks for reading and sharing.