Word: truisms
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...candid-camera dating show Blind Date--there is a divide between those who will accept any act between consenting adults and those who will not. The criticism that VTV "reality" isn't "real"--it is edited, subjects adopt false faces--is absolutely valid. It is also, by now, a truism, widely acknowledged by viewers and many participants alike. This is part of why we enjoy laughing at these series: they let us feel superior not only to the people on them but to the medium itself. If these shows have made their viewers into savvier media critics, that...
...other, more imposing force working against Kanfer is the familiar truism: he who is funniest while performing is rarely appealing when the camera stops. In Groucho's case, his wit didn't abandon him off the set, but the man Kanfer discovers behind the joker is no fun at all. By the time he breaks up with Chico and Harpo, Groucho has become a crabby miser, shamefully manipulative of his wives and children. You wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have this guy as a member...
Rule 1: Pay attention to and avoid irritating the people with their names written on their belts, but especially if it's both in English and Korean. This is universally applicable. In Texas, we have a similar truism: avoid fighting with people who wear belt buckles you could eat cereal out of. Also, if their names (i.e. Bubba Ray or Merle) are branded into their leather belts, the rule applies...
...mention that this is a presidential election year--an invitation to nutcases ordinarily? This time everyone seems to have accepted the invitation, evidently having taken seriously the truism that anybody can grow up to be President. In addition to normally qualified candidates, those who have presented themselves as potential leaders of the free world include an apologist for Adolf Hitler; a professional wrestler who changed his name from the Body to the Mind; and a real estate magnate at once so ridiculous and self-confident that he is oddly mesmerizing. Indeed, watching the entire crop of Reform Party candidates...
...truism of the psychologizing age that a book tells us as much about its author as about its subject. And the authentic power of For Common Things resides not in the originality of Purdy's thesis but rather in the not-at-all-incidental portrait of Jedidiah Purdy. The book is filled with autobiographical detail, and with confessions that spring from a mind uninterested in artifice and concealment: it is the example of Purdy's love of common things, rather than his sometimes boring case studies in the downfall of public culture, that proves effective...