In politics and culture, the danger of living in a world of hyperbole

My wife and I recently finished HBO’s “The Night Of.” After about eight-and-a-half hours of film, we finally reached the grand finale, during which we found out that — spoiler alert — the girl actually stabbed herself 22 times. No, wait! She was murdered by Winnie-the-Pooh!

No, I’m kidding. The truth is we found out practically nothing. Eight-and-a-half hours to discover that, well, maybe this guy did it, maybe this one, who knows?

{mosads}Despite the letdown at this incomplete ending, I knew right away what most critics would say. After all, it was HBO, it had a great cast, there were cultural and political implications, it was at once very local (to New York) and very international (in appeal). They would say that it was great, amazing, terrific. And they did.

This is human nature. After all, very few people are willing to speak out and call something drek when everyone else is singing its praises.

Want to hear a story about children being forced to kill each other in a giant death-battle sponsored by the government? Then check out the Japanese book and film, “Battle Royale.” You thought I was going to say “The Hunger Games,” right? After all, that book and film were praised as brilliant and original and filled with moral and cultural implications.

The truth, of course, is that it’s actually more of a cheap reincarnation of “Lord of the Flies” and “The Running Man” and that the idea was neither original nor very meaningful. Nor, for that matter, very logical, as children don’t generally contain the capacity to turn instantly into killers, 17-year-old boys wouldn’t be paired up against 12-year-old girls if they did and a teenage girl is unlikely to make friends with a bunch of people helping send her to her impending death.

Yet it was somehow also great, amazing and terrific.

I once heard a reporter say to Eminem that he’s been referred to as the “Shakespeare of his generation.” My reaction was, “By whom?”

We’re often so blinded by things we may personally like that we can’t accurately put them in perspective. I myself like Jonathan Kellerman, who I think is a fantastic writer. But he’s not Charles Dickens, and his works probably won’t last. As a kid, I enjoyed the Beastie Boys. But they weren’t Shakespearean either, and those who have attempted to make them out to be great artists are merely fooling themselves. I’m not a big fan of Shakespeare, actually, but there’s a reason he lasted while others faded to the wayside.

Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger — all were noted in their time and all have lasted and will last because they had something to say and they said it well. But most things that are popular never survive the long, glaring eye of history. And other things that were largely obscure at the time prove to be classics: “Moby Dick” was a terrible failure upon its publication; Franz Kafka was so disappointed with his works that he instructed a friend to destroy all of them upon his death (which the friend obviously and fortunately did not); one of Henry David Thoreau’s works was so unpopular that he had to buy back copies, causing him to joke, “I now have a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.”

You ever hear of Winston Churchill, the statesman and prolific writer? No, no — not that Winston Churchill, who became prime minister of the United Kingdom, but the other Winston Churchill — the American — who was three years older and much more famous at the start of the 20th century. He wrote some of the most popular books of his era. But history has largely forgotten him, not simply because of this unfortunate coincidence of names, but because his writing simply didn’t last, despite its praise and popularity.

Yet it seems to be in vogue now to pretend that popular things are somehow great works of art that will stand the tests of time. NWA was a no-talent group that thrived on selling violence and graphic imagery. Yet, let some time go by, let its teenage fans grow into adults, and throw a movie together about them, and somehow they’re now “revolutionary artists” who “paved the way,” so to speak.

That’s not to give the elites a pass or claim that people who are remembered always deserve to be. Jackson Pollock threw paint and called it art. Anyone who claims that they can tell the difference between his work and that of a 10-year-old with enough colors and a large canvass is lying. There’s no way you can honestly look at a Rembrandt, then look at a work of Pollock’s and tell me that each of them was equally talented or even differently talented. One of them was talented; the other figured out an angle.

It’s really all part of the bandwagon effect: not wanting to appear stupid or close-minded, everyone pretends to “get it,” even if they don’t. So when “No Country for Old Men” is no movie for actual endings, they just go along, claiming that it was “clever” because the Coen brothers “broke the rules,” when really most people would’ve appreciated knowing what the heck actually happened to the main character or why Tommy Lee Jones needed to be in the movie at all, considering that he does nothing but speak in platitudes and not catch anyone whatsoever.

We live in a hyperbolic world now. Here are some of the tweets about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.

From actor Edward Norton: “@HamiltonMusical is one of the most audacious, brilliant, emotional and inspiring acts of creative genius…it’s just impossibly great.”

@HamiltonMusical is one of the most audacious, brilliant, emotional and inspiring acts of creative genius…it’s just impossibly great.

— Edward Norton (@EdwardNorton) November 3, 2015

Ben Stiller: “Still reeling after @HamiltonMusical. If you have feelings of any kind you will love this show. Or if you are human. Or both. Incredible.”

Still reeling after @HamiltonMusical. If you have feelings of any kind you will love this show. Or if you are human. Or both. Incredible.

— Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) September 12, 2015

I guess, then, that I’m not human.

But Stiller is not alone. The show has been praised by everyone from President Obama to Oprah to Amy Schumer, some even referring to it as a life-changing experience.

And while I think Miranda has talent, the truth is that the show is a largely inaccurate portrayal of a Founding Father with some good songs and a lot of very mediocre poetry. It’s not, as Lena Dunham said, going to make “every kid in America … thirst for historical knowledge and then show up to vote.”

If every kid in America could see Hamilton they would thirst for historical knowledge and then show up to vote.

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 9, 2015

First off, the show takes, let’s just say, a great deal of liberality with the truth, and so therefore historical knowledge is not its first priority. Secondly, it’s not going to lead to any revolution and will probably be long forgotten 100 or 200 years from now, as most popular but largely unrevealing things are.

But our hyperbole — forgive me for saying — seems to know no bounds. And now it’s ventured largely into the news and the political realms. Can CNN and Fox throw up enough graphics, do you think? How many stories can really be “breaking news”? How many mega-trials, medical breakthroughs, “game-changing” campaign stories and impending existential threats can we really possibly face every week?

We even have a Republican nominee who specializes in hyperbole. He’s going to “make America great again,” since “our politicians are stupid” and only he can fix it. He’ll build a great wall, banish 11 million undocumented immigrants (maybe), fix China good and even make everyone start saying “Merry Christmas” again.

In the past, we might’ve described him as simply a bigoted blowhard, but now he’s a “larger-than-life” figure who “speaks to people.”

Of course, part of the danger of living in a world filled with hyperbole is that it creates a lot of noise, and when people accurately describe Donald Trump as dangerous and possibly psychopathic, others dismiss it when they should take it seriously. Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s detractors mischaracterize her as evil and corrupt, reacting to her much like the townspeople of Hillsboro in “Inherit the Wind” react to Henry Drummond: as if he’s the devil incarnate. The truth is that Clinton is a mixed bag: She’s lied, has made too much money through politics and has also worked for some good causes throughout her life.

But hyperbolic talk allows people to believe what they want and to adjust reality to their personal preferences. You don’t like Obama? He must be a secret Muslim terrorist who helped start the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). You paid a thousand bucks to see Paul McCartney? Well, then, it has to be a life-changing experience that you were somehow fortunate to have and will never forget.

But that doesn’t make any of it true. And yet the consequences of hyperbolic language can be very, very real. In fact, I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this tendency is the greatest, most alarming, most spectacular threat the world has ever faced (unless you count slavery, the Nazis, World War I, the flu epidemic, AIDS, hunger and — OK — a few other things here and there).

Rosenfeld is an educator and historian who has done work for Scribner, Macmillan and Newsweek.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.