Henry Rollins: The Problem of Argument From (Celebrity) Authority

Celeb blowhards are ubiquitous. In most cases, it's fine by me if they wanna chime in on the state of the world. After all they're outfitted with scads of personal assistants keeping them in loops, narrowing down endorsement opportunities and apprising them of trending cognoscenti. Use it or loose it logic, I suppose. Well, my friend Brian Clark is not feeling quite so generous. His reaction to discovering Vanity Fair employs Henry Rollins to write “Change You Don’t Have To Believe In, Just Deal With” is a well placed stick in the spokes of the authority vested in the Black Flag franchise's 4th singer.

Happening across ... Rollins’ column while sitting at my computer, sipping on a cold can of beer, I was shocked (yes, shocked!) at how mind-bogglingly terrible it was. How poorly written. How intellectually lazy and misguided. How directionless and pointless. How utterly juvenile. Most importantly, how undeserving of the imprimatur of legitimacy that comes with being a columnist for a magazine like Vanity Fair, having one’s work presented alongside that of real writers like Christopher Hitchens. Rollins’ piece was so bad that after I finished it I put down my beer and read it again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something the first time around (nope – it was still terrible).

Read Brian's essay {henry rollins, the problem of argument from celebrity authority & other stupid-yet-common logical fallacies} and then buy this book, Standing In Two Circles: The Collected Works of Boyd Rice.

Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie.