Really bad prose often reflects really loud people with really diminished mental capacities. Read Chicago Tribune's Heidi Stevens, Rex Hupke, Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich, or anything printed in the Chicago Sun Times and you will have a clear understanding of just what I mean.
Sticking to Chicago's two daily propaganda organs for American oligarchy, one may sample the weak tea and the cacophonous idiocy of the howler-monkey media that is just a part of the monolithic oligarchy propaganda machine that is hotly circuited to academia, corporate fascists ( Gates, Bezos, Musk et al) and the former Democratic Party. First the weak tea - Heidi Stevens on Joseph Epstein's Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on Dr. Jill Biden, "But what really rankled a lot of us wasn’t just the cloying style. It was the utter disdain for education and educators, expertise and experts, in a time when such commodities couldn’t be more precious."
Joseph Epstein did not bash educators, teachers, or scholars. Mr. Epstein spanked the oafishly insecure and that hit a nerve across this nation that is addicted to cant.
I accuse Heidi Stevens of Jew-baiting. She says, Epstein's cloying style is off-putting?
Cloying style? My Yiddishe Mama! That is dog-whistle anti-Semitism! Did a room-temperature I.Q. unmask a religious Jewish conspiracy led by "lecturer Epstein" to undermine Secular, Globalist Precious Education?
I do not honestly believe that poor Heidi Stevens knows the meaning of the participle - cloying.
Precious educators like Chicago Teachers Union Commissar Jesse Sharkey are hard at work keeping CPS pay-rollers home and away from their precious charges, while demanding an additional $5,000 for hazardous duty pay during these challenging times.
No, Joseph Epstein rightly challenges the oafish and insecure to cease demanding the honorific usually agreed upon to be medical practitioners.
Dr. Bill Cosby, Ed.D , a nationally recognized roofie-practitioner demanded the title doctor
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D. held and earned degree in philology which helped make millions of people to wear cloth coverings all over Europe. Imagine, what he could have done to stop the current pandemic.
François Duvalier earned a degree in medicine from the University of Haiti and spent a year at University of Michigan studying public health before returning home to torture and eviscerate the people of his native land, who called him "Papa Doc."
Joseph Epstein, a scholar of the first waters and gentleman to the backbone, would not allow me call him " Professor Epstein" in our chats, interviews and correspondences. The essayist chided, " You call the piano player in a Bradley Illinois cathouse, Professor. Call me Joe." That is a decent man.
Dr. Jill Biden is married to a priapic plagiarist who becomes America's 46th President in the new year.
Joseph Epstein is America's Montaigne
Heidi Stevens is a very dim-bulb with a license to shoot her mouth off.
The howler monkeys of American oligarchy have been set loose on Joseph Epstein, because he exposed the oafish insecurity of another mediocrity demanding to be called Doctor. Northwestern University immediately abandoned the man who brought honor to that school, when it's journalism department was helping to rig phony convictions. Northwestern University is a disgrace. They ran up the yellowing white flag and promptly.
If you like fascism, keep nodding when sycophants like Heidi Stevens and her ilk go to print to harm defenders of sense, honor and truth, like Joseph Epstein - America's Greatest Essayist.
If you like the American way of life, read Joseph Epstein and behave accordingly.