I was watching an episode a few nights back and something peculiar caught my attention. I couldn't articulate it at the time, but after several days, it finally came to me (like Doc Brown and the Flux Capacitor): Charlie Rose was, indeed, the "answer" to the Spectacle of Hannity. I've had great affection for Charlie and the show for some time, but this cosmic revelation was a refreshingly new, visceral sense of enlightenment. It seems the molecules for this "Eureka!" had always been present in mind but, until this morning, had lingered deep under the surface, twinkling quietly in my subconscious like stars in a distant galaxy. As with any revelatory episode, I wanted to examine the causes and excavate for any truth- could I deconstruct the glow of the light bulb? Let us explore.
It so happened that the interviews featured on the particular program in question were with Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, and Malcolm Gladwell, of Blink, Tipping Point, et cetera. Both gentleman are highly celebrated for their uncanny ability to refine fascinating insights from seemingly banal human activity. They've carved out a wonderfully lucrative niche as venerable princes of pop-sociology. However, what struck me about their interviews (and what precipitated my epiphany) was that both men emphasized a central theme: the latent splendor of life. Levitt put it more inductively: "It's about asking the right questions." Gladwell put it succinctly: "you have to train yourself that everything is interesting". Then it hit me: this is the unspoken mantra of Charlie Rose- in precious few words, this is why I love the show.
Charlie Rose is a shining affirmation of this terribly unsung dictum. Everything is interesting, but only if you look closely and honestly, without pride or prejudice. As Charlie so effortlessly demonstrates, exploring the exceptional complexity of the world requires two critical assets: an open mind and the ability to listen- this is the Charlie Rose calling card. Not simply listening as in absorbing and processing sound waves, but listening in the much broader, more active sense: hearing, thinking, feeling, assessing, evaluating, studying, exploring and reacting in kind. The art and science of listening.
Similarly, Charlie is the embodiment of the open mind- but not simply an open mind in the sense of impartiality, but rather a governing ethos guided by a childlike curiosity for everything- an intellectual wanderlust. An insatiable appetite for all knowledge. Whether he's interviewing Warren Buffet, Charles Manson, LeBron James, or Jay Z, Charlie has an unmatched ability to elicit extraordinary stories from subjects of all stripes. The viewer doesn't need to avidly follow politics, sports, economics, film, or what-have-you in order to become engrossed in the program because, fundamentally, all people are interesting in some way- it only needs to be drawn out of them artfully. This is what Charlie does better than anyone else, but more still, he does it on every show, every night, across the breadth of the human stage. No agenda. Knowledge for its own sake.
Amid the intolerable din and tawdry bunting that comprise the phantasmagoria of modern television, Charlie Rose has somehow managed to preserve the fleeting virtues of nobility, integrity, and grace. The narcotic allure of Eden, with its Glenn Beck and its Girls Next Door, is strong but not absolute. His Tree of Knowledge continues to promise emancipation from the confining logic of the Spectacle and an escape from a captivity of diversion and exploitation. Those who partake in the forbidden fruit must submit to a new awareness and risk the retribution of God.
SHIG
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