Political Blogging and Its Infinite F'ing Discontents

You may remember a couple of weeks ago when I posted a little something about how Jeff Goldstein is a more intellectually substantial opponent than most people think.  Not that Jeff hasn't said some ape-shit stupid things.  He certainly has.  I wonder though if that isn't our fault. 

How did my fellow far-leftists respond to my original post?  By continuing the parade of (perhaps deserved) calumny which has characterized the "debate" from the start.  I deleted well over 100 comments which were beyond beyond the pale. 

They accused Jeff of being things in the very language typical of the thing they accused him of being.  He was called a "misogynist" by people who insisted he was a "pussy."  He was labelled a "homophobe" by people who called him a "faggot."  All of which hinted that there's some disconnect among his leftist critics.  Somehow "brain" failed to connect to "words" in some crucial fashion. 

People who wouldn't dare share a room with Michael Bérubé and call someone "retarded" wrote that Jeff was a "paste-eating 'tard."  I would say they "wrote it without a second thought"—but this particular commenter wrote it four times before drawing the conclusion that I would continue to punch "delete" no matter how many times he posted it. 

And you know what?  I'm disgusted.  This hypocritical posturing of my compatriots on the left momentarily stuns me to silence.

Into it I say, "This cannot continue."

The problem with the political blogosphere parallels one I see everywhere in academia.  Those who speak have done so to the choir for so long that they are unable to acclimate themselves to criticism.  They equate it with hostility and respond with hypocritical stupidity.  Why else would someone who fights for gay rights call someone else a "faggot"?  (I'm not interested in subterranean homophobia here.  That's too obvious.  I'm more interested in the clueless things self-identified progressives say.)  Why am I suddenly so apoplectic about the political blogosphere?

I'm glad you asked.

I've spent the past few days vigorously disagreeing with Jeff and his commenters.  (I first intervene here.)  And what does my stern but vehement objection to his opinion earn me?  Emails which encouraged me to write the following form letter:

Dear _____,

I appreciate your email and think highly of the untainted leftist politics you ostentatiously practice.  Their purity confirms your purchase in "the reality-based community."  Thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that I am a "servile cunt."  Indeed!  I understand that my calm contradiction of the arguments proferred by Jeff Goldstein and his commenters disturbs you and find your desire to cut to my quick commendable.  As I imagine the placid expression you countenanced as you wrote that I email, I am ashamed, I say, ashamed at my behavior.  My decision to oppose Jeff sans invocation of the increasingly funny appellation "paste-eater" clearly shows a lack of requisite creativity on my part.  For that I apologize.  I will preface any future interaction with Jeff or his "retarded fucking mongoloids" with ritual invective and perfunctory incantation.  I am sorry for any thought my unwarranted intellectual engagement with Goldstein may have caused you.  If there is any tired truism I can repeat ad nauseam which will ease your mental burden all you need to do is ask.

Yours in Gore (2008!),

Scott

In the thread those "liberal" lurkers castigated me for my participation in, a "Ric Locke" attacked what he thought the identitarian bias informing my opinion thus:

Scott and his like-minded associates need to move to the South and take up tractor repair as a profession. If he could learn the proper etiquette for a fight in a honky-tonk in Meridian, Mississippi, he’d be a long way up in understanding what’s going on. Failing that, he ought to be looking for interpreters. Us rednecks understand this shit from years of experience, and we can give pointers—we are, after all, at least notionally on the same side.

How else could I respond? 

You mean I ought to move back to the South, where I spent most of my life?  I’ve never been in a fight in Meridian, but I’ve been sucker-punched by a couple of good ol’ drunks in Bunkie, Louisiana after a long day on the Muddy Mile.

I only mention this (and allude to the further spanking I deliver) to make a simple point:

My fellow leftists who read political blogs have never actually had to befriend someone with whom they "shared" damn near tangible differences.  They have never had to interact daily with people whose politics they found repulsive.  They have never been close to someone they would have given a kidney to and spent whisky-soaked nights debating the fundaments.  They live in an echo-chamber which demands ideological conformity at the gate.  And you know what?  The "intellectual" environment in which they live breeds the stupidity they so regularly evince.  You know what I say? 

All hail the profound commitment to the dialectic! 

You know why?  Because it makes thinkers of us all.  I'm tempted to shame shame shame the rest of my "new friends" into knowledge.  I was almost tempted to publish their email addresses here so everyone could shame shame shame them into something resembling self-awareness.  But I think I'll let them silently seethe instead.  These ignorant fucks know who they are and that they do a disservice to the politics they share with me.  Something tells me though that "shame" ain't on their emotional rainbow anymore. 

How else could they have hit "Send" in the first place?

Comments

[Jeff G]

Well, in their defense, I am pretty stupid. Thankfully, though, I'm hung like a Clydesdale.

The Lord giveth, &tc...

[Rich Puchalsky]

"Not that Jeff hasn't said some ape-shit stupid things. He certainly has. I wonder though if that isn't our fault."

Nope. Everyone is responsible for what they write. "But they taunted me!" is not an excuse available to an adult, nor should you apply it on someone else's behalf.

"The problem with the political blogosphere parallels one I see everywhere in academia. Those who speak have done so to the choir for so long that they are unable to acclimate themselves to criticism."

Hmm, I don't really have the same impression. The liberal blogosphere is strident right now not because people are used to speaking to the choir, but because they are conciously attempting to become as crude, unsympathetic, and radical as the Republicans, out of a feeling that this is necessary in order to regain parity if not advantage. Liberals speaking to the choir don't use words like "pussy" or "tard" that often. It's mimicry.

I don't think that this is so bad, as a mass phenomenon. So people are being unfair and stupid. Politics isn't primarily about being fair or brilliant. The same characteristics that make academic "argument" with these characteristics so useless when someone is e.g. defending Theory can be a positive boon if an actually political conflict is about to occur.

[A White Bear]

This reminds me of something I've been wondering lately about the way the leftosphere responds to Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin by immediately rushing for the words "c*nt" and "bitch," and even racial slurs in Malkin's case. How many times have I read people on the left making "hilarious" jokes about raping and torturing these women?

Yes, they are horrible people who support horrible ideas, and yes, it might feel really good to "put them in their place" by attacking their gender, appearance, and color to show them what hypocrites they are. But can it really be responsible to threaten sexual assault, even as a joke, and use sexist and racist language to attack them?

I fear that the desire to attack Coulter and Malkin this way is a manifestation of the sexism and racism liberals often pretend not to have.

[CR]

Oh, I should so not get involved in this.

But...

(how to say this compactly???)

It's starting to look like you're leading with antipathy toward elements of the left that you disagree with rather than engagement with the ultimate issues that "leftists" should want to take on.

(This, of course, has something to do with what we were talking about before...)

Parabolically: back in the run up to the war, arguing with my colleagues who supported the war, it became increasingly clear to me that many of them were much more interested in avoiding (what they perceived to be my) cliched left position, reflexive pacifism etc than actually figuring out whether this war in itself was something to be supported or not. In other words, I feel that they supported the war because of a sort left self-hatred / avant gardism. "Contrarianism" is one word you could use.

(I baited Holbo about this a little while ago, and never followed up. The relationship between support of the war and his wider project... Obviously, no need to reply for Holbo...)

Parallel: WBM's anti-race based affirmative action column in the NYT. It is so hard for me not to feel that that sort of thing is motivated first by antipathy toward the identitarian left and only in distant second place by pursuit of an actual goal (class based affirmative action). Why? Because it's so bloodly clear what service that sort of piece will provide in the current US cultural atmosphere...

I'm not quite saying "no enemies on the left." But we should keep our eyes on the prize, no? And strange bedfellows, like the ones you're keeping of late, should at least merit a pause, some self-reflection.

[David R. Block]

Malkin has previously posted her hate mail, vile stuff that it is. You would think that people wouldn't try to prove the point of the author of "Unhinged" and give her yet MORE e-mail spewings to include in the revised edition, but, sadly no.

And there are probably right leaning counterparts who have done the same thing to liberal bloggers. She just seems to get the more vile and nasty ones, for reasons that escape me.

Every e-mail of that ilk that she recieves, she can use as fresh evidence that she's right. "Be sure brain is engaged before putting send button into gear." Or something like that. It's something we all need to remember.

[David R. Block]

Strange bedfellows?? Interesting term. As it stands now, the political blogosphere is a polarized as ever and each side is coccooned (sp?) as ever. I don't consider a few comments over there as making Scott a "bedfellow." Your mileage may vary, but I think that was part of his point: We don't talk, we don't associate, we yell insults and scream. Insinuating a trip to the right by Scott on a few comments?? Surely it takes more than that.

The main point of Scott's post stands, without question (it stands even if it wasn't the main point). Someone on either side attempting to ACTUALLY DISCUSS (oh, the horrors!!) issues with the other, not only has to deal with the people they are trading comments with, but the occasional "friendly fire." Please give him credit for more integrity than that. Sheesh.

And I left off the sarcasm tags on my parenthetical above, because some comment systems don't like them.

[CR]

Oh, and JG, while you're here...

Now, if there’s nothing else, I’d like to finish putting up the bunting and getting the 6’ sub ready for the party. Which, I decided to go with ham. Because I so enjoy the irony.

Even better than backyard BBQ and booze, "hooting" on yr pajama blog, is enlistment. Seriously... Lock n' Load, babycakes. Varmits in dem hills und so weiter.

(Given the prodigous size of yr equipment, let's hope Rummy's on the body armor issue, kevlar cups etc. Saw Baghdad ER the other day... And when BER Duo debuts I'd rather not watch them stitch yr python back into commission, kay?)

[CR]

Hi David,

My point wasn't about talking to rightwingers. It was about orienting yourself primarily according to methodological affiliation rather than political intention.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for recycling those Rovian talking points above, about the intolerance and hypocrisy of the left. Because the racism and misogyny of atrios readers is assuredly the most important issue facing our nation today.

[bitchphd]

God, I don't want to get into this. Good for you, Scott, and I haven't been following the thing at all; I thought that JG was a partisan apologist when D/ignan was threatening me, and so I don't read his stuff.

But I have to point out the irony (and I agree with you: there are a surprising number of idiots in academia) that you're using similar invective here to what made you angry when people used it against JG. Every one of us is capable of losing our cool in assholish ways when we feel attacked. And for folks whose politics are tied up in identity (feminists, queer theorists), of course there's going to be a perception that attacks on their politics are attacks on them. Yeah, we should try not to lose our cool, and yeah, we should try to be dispassionate about it. Most of us, I wager, do that most of the time, especially in the classroom, and probably some of the pent-up frustration comes out on the web.

I'm not excusing it, because I agree with you that it's not really excusable, especially the whole sending private abusive emails thing; that's really shitty. I'm just pointing out that your losing your cool is pretty much of a piece with others losing theirs, and that writing off "your fellow leftists" because of it is pretty much of a piece with said fellows writing of JG because of some of the abuse on his site towards them.

A final note: what you said earlier about differentiating between him and his commenters only goes so far--for better or worse, things on a person's site are going to be associated with that person (which is how my name got dragged into the whole fucking D/ignan thing). The more so if the site owner does NOT (as I did) try to differentiate themselves from their commenters, e.g. by deleting comments (as you did, for those very reasons, I assume) or correcting their more rabid "supporters" or whatever.

I think we *do* have to be responsible for correcting our fellows when they get out of hand, and so on balance, I think what you're saying in this post is correct. And I absolutely think that it's important to make personal friendly connections with people one is politically opposed to, precisely because such friendships can go a very long way towards reining one in from saying outrageously offensive things. (And, hopefully, when one does lose one's cool, one's friends can refrain from taking it personally.) So yeah, I support what you're saying. But there is a li'l irony in it.

[Dr. Virago]

Scott, I'm really not going to enter the substance of this discussion, since I haven't followed the discussions alluded and linked to, and haven't read most of the comments yet.

However, I did want to comment and say I thought this piece was really beautifully written and composed. And I firmly believe that whatever irony it contains (as Bitch Ph.D. points out, for example) was intentional. Really lovely. And in general -- though, again, I don't know the specifics -- I tend to agree with you, too. But even if I didn't, if every argument and comment in the political blogosphere were so lovingly written as this (or, as lovely as most of what goes on at M. Berube's blogs -- with the exception of those oddball trolls), then the dialectic, at least here in the blogospere, would deserve championing again.

[Peter Jackson]

Scott!

I've found that people who get the most irrational on websites tend to be the ones who have their egos most fully invested in their political opinions. Such individuals, be they from the left or the right, simply cannot be wrong, for if they are wrong then it naturally follows that there is something wrong with them personally. In other words, they have literally everything to lose by being wrong.

That being said, as a long-time libertarian familiar with the premises of both the left and the right, I'd have to say that the left, simply due to their basic premises concerning the nature of human knowledge and the efficacy of human power that knowledge affords us, are more prone to bad faith. Where the will is the deed, the deed is necessarily the will.

The right on the other hand, in whose understanding of the world error and ignorance are far more of a given, being wrong doesn't imply nearly such dire moral consequence. Where the will does not equal the deed, the deed does not equal the will, thus from the perspective of the right, those who disagree with them are more likely to be considered merely ignorant and less likely to be considered morally evil.

yours/
peter.

[jholbo]

CR: "The relationship between support of the war and his wider project... Obviously, no need to reply for Holbo..."

Holbo: ?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Rich:

Everyone is responsible for what they write. "But they taunted me!" is not an excuse available to an adult, nor should you apply it on someone else's behalf.

Fair enough. I suppose--and this speaks to some of CR's complaints as well--that I just expect more from self-identified progressives. That's why this idea of "becoming the thing you oppose" bothers me; I don't want, nor do I believe we need to be, Karl Rove to gain purchase in American politics. Sure, that's one way to do so, but it's not the only one.

A White Bear, you've already expounded more eloquently than I could on the matter. I encourage everyone to follow that link.

CR:

It's starting to look like you're leading with antipathy toward elements of the left that you disagree with rather than engagement with the ultimate issues that "leftists" should want to take on.

That's because I expect more from them; I mean, when we see our positions so grossly distorted in another, it's disturbing.

Parabolically: back in the run up to the war, arguing with my colleagues who supported the war, it became increasingly clear to me that many of them were much more interested in avoiding (what they perceived to be my) cliched left position, reflexive pacifism etc than actually figuring out whether this war in itself was something to be supported or not. In other words, I feel that they supported the war because of a sort left self-hatred / avant gardism. "Contrarianism" is one word you could use.

Back in the run-up to the war, I didn't support it out of some idea of contrarianism. No, I just hadn't realized the extent of this Administration's moral bankruptcy. Remember the old Bill Hicks joke: "How do we know he has weapons of mass destruction? We kept the receipts. That was my initial thinking, and had this war been prosecuted by someone with a brain, I could still see the ouster of Saddam as a global positive. Naive? To a point, but it's a bit more like why I'd support a military operation in the Sudan right now: sometimes military force is necessary to remove tyrants from power--yes, tyrants we installed and supported, and yes, tyrants we could've uninstalled in the early '90s had Bush I cared more for Iraqi Kurds than winning an election. But I looked at a pragmatically--ironic, then, that I so commonly argue for an intentionalist position, since the one I advocated was "for the wrong reason, at the wrong time, but still possibly one in the win column." It wasn't rank contrarianism; not that I'm not guilty of it at times, and for the very reasons Adam outlines in the link above.

Parallel: WBM's anti-race based affirmative action column in the NYT. It is so hard for me not to feel that that sort of thing is motivated first by antipathy toward the identitarian left and only in distant second place by pursuit of an actual goal (class based affirmative action). Why? Because it's so bloodly clear what service that sort of piece will provide in the current US cultural atmosphere...

I don't think WBM's anti-race based affirmative action is primarily motivated by antipathy toward the identitarian left; I think it's motivated by his support for a class-based affirmative action which he believes would benefit those who support the race-based more than the currently-being-dismantled-system. He says as much in both that article and the one in n+1. We could debate his actual intent, but then we'd be too busy trying to stifle laughter from both sides of our mouths to push that discussion in some productive direction.

I'm not quite saying "no enemies on the left." But we should keep our eyes on the prize, no? And strange bedfellows, like the ones you're keeping of late, should at least merit a pause, some self-reflection.

By "bedfellows" you mean "the people I vehemently disagree and argue with," no? This is, no offense intended, a bit of what I mean by "ideological purity" above. I mean, if things have devolved to the point that vigorously arguing against someone's position results in some irreducible taint, then the possibility of any real political discourse is shot to hell, no?

David:

We don't talk, we don't associate, we yell insults and scream. Insinuating a trip to the right by Scott on a few comments?

Exactly. (Although I should note, CR and I are friends, so I don't seriously believes I've "turned to the dark side." His comments have an undercurrent produced by a longer, far more ranging debate about the relation of academic politics to practical ones. Berube's recent series of posts on proceduralism capture it in part.)

[Sorry to stop midstream, but I've more drafts to mark. I'll address the rest of the comments shortly.]

[Adam Kotsko]

In all fairness, CR, I think that Holbo did respond, at least once that I saw -- the substance of his response being, "I'm not sure exactly how my mistake on the Iraq War reflects on my broader intellectual approach to the world; I'm concerned about this matter and I'm giving it some serious thought." I don't know what else you could really ask.

In a situation such as the present, where the US is so evenly divided between the two major parties, does it represent a major stretch of the imagination to assume that the jingoistic assholes are roughly evenly divided between the two poles as well? I say that people can spout off vitriol in obscure corners of the blogosphere all they want, as long as they're not voting Republican. After all, these left-wingers that you excoriate are at least hypocritical -- but the current agenda of the Republicans is inherently morally bankrupt.

[A White Bear]

I guess it depends where you think the strongest platform of the Democratic party lies. I don't support Democrats because they're powerful and on my side economically. I support them because they sometimes at least pretend to care about human rights. Of course, anyone on the blogosphere has the right to use hate speech, no matter what political party they support. No one's talking about censorship. But it becomes apparent the more I read self-identified liberals using hate speech to belittle political enemies that those individuals do not care about the issues I fight for. They care about feeling powerful.

I'm sure there are many people on the Right who are embarrassed that people like Coulter use hate speech in the name of their own cause. This language is powerful because it gets one's innermost repressions churning. Coulter uses it to get ignorant racist assholes in her camp. Those who use it on the left apparently think they need more sexist homophobic supporters on their side. I'm inclined to think we have plenty of those already.

[David R. Block]

I fully realize that I may be taking this all wrong, but I cannot tell the tone of CR above (that's part of the whole deal, too, reading tone in this medium bites, because most people-me, too-don't give enough clues as to tone).

Quote from CR:

"Oh, and by the way, thanks for recycling those Rovian talking points above, about the intolerance and hypocrisy of the left. Because the racism and misogyny of atrios readers is assuredly the most important issue facing our nation today."

Good grief. Personal experience is "Rovian talking points." I don't know whether or not to believe you, or my lying eyes. Sadly, this is the level of discussion that I typically get. I hate to disappoint you, but crediting me with "Rovian talking points" is just the thing to get the obligitory "eye roll" for surely he has better things to do than to e-mail his talking points to me. The whole thing is rediculous. But be rediculous. That way you talk me out of taking you seriously. That is what you want, no??

And I did not mention its pecking order in the issues facing the nation today. Why? Well, you'll do that for me. Nothing I would say or agree with, but go ahead, put your words in my mouth. Even less of a reason to dialogue with you: I know in advance that you will hear what you want to hear, even if I say something different or don't mention it at all. How? Easy, you just did it.

So considering that I got the condecension and the totally wrong mind-reading (that is all too frequent), why bother? Is it worth the effort and time if what comes back is so distorted that you can't recognize it? And it leaves me wondering how it got that way.

Dr. Bitch, well put. (Of all the things I don't want to call people, you have to pick it for a handle. Oh, well, your choice.)

Peter Jackson: A libertarian! No wonder I like what you say.

White Bear: Your post over on your blog was excellent. Disagree with me or whomever, but be civil about it. Your personal experience sounded pretty rough.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Dr. B.:

But I have to point out the irony (and I agree with you: there are a surprising number of idiots in academia) that you're using similar invective here to what made you angry when people used it against JG.

I've been thinking about this all afternoon, in part because I'm not sure where it applies. I mean, I know it applies in the form-letter-I-didn't-send, and that there it was intentional; but the rest, well, the rest is pure frustration. That said, I suppose one of the reasons I pointed out that we bear some of the responsibility for the invective of our opponent's is that, as you point out, their invective can drive us to be assholes, so it's only fair to acknowledge that the opposite holds true. Some people may not have been quite the assholes they are now before they started participating in online political discussions. As one person wrote me:

"The medium, you see, has destroyed the message."

I think, to build on what What Bear posted about, that the medium may limit the kinds of political discussions which take place online; it seems perfectly suited to creating and re-re-re-inforcing group-think of all political stripes. Kos can invade Vegas because he's taken advantage of the power echo-chambers have to make one feel very good about one's self and beliefs.

But to return to the point: yes, a little irony, unfortunately not entirely intentional.

Yeah, we should try not to lose our cool, and yeah, we should try to be dispassionate about it. Most of us, I wager, do that most of the time, especially in the classroom, and probably some of the pent-up frustration comes out on the web.

This is something I haven't thought about before, but I think there may be something to it: perhaps we, being teachers, don't vent and/or should be expected not to vent because we're trained to treat outrageous statements as an opportunity for discussion. If a student says some untenable nonsense, we can't simply blow up at them; in fact, while I had to choke down the anger my first couple of quarters teaching, I realize that now I don't even feel it. I'm so focused on turning stupidity around for some pedagogical gain that I don't react emotionally to it. The reason I did here was simply the number of emails I received and my inability to manage the situation; in a classroom, I may have one or two students who need more management than others, but I'm always firmly in control of the classroom. If they try to take it, then I assert authority, but for the past few days my inbox has been the pedagogical equivalent of every student in the class simultaneously disrepecting me, each other, and common decency.

(Of course, this whole theory's somewhat invalidated by the fact that Thersites was an English professor who manifestly couldn't keep his cool, not just in that situation, but generally speaking. I mean, even his sidebar was stocked with profane, puerile insultage. So maybe I should limit this theory to "good teachers.")

what you said earlier about differentiating between him and his commenters only goes so far--for better or worse, things on a person's site are going to be associated with that person (which is how my name got dragged into the whole fucking D/ignan thing). The more so if the site owner does NOT (as I did) try to differentiate themselves from their commenters, e.g. by deleting comments (as you did, for those very reasons, I assume) or correcting their more rabid "supporters" or whatever.

That's a damn fine point. But I think it's different for people with readerships as large as you and Jeff's, i.e. that makes your attempt to control the quality of the discussion commendable, and Jeff's willingness to let it degenerate a little disturbing. I hate to think about site-management preferences as being so reflective, but since at a basic level we're talking about caretaking the public face of a particular community, I don't see how we can't. So I'm retracting that first "but" clause up there.

Dr. V.,

Thanks for the kind words. As I noted above, I don't think it was entirely intentional, but I appreciate the benefit of the doubt. It's been in short supply of late. I also find it funny that you thought it well-written, since I've barely resisted the urge to tinker with the bits which've been bothering me. That said, I wonder whether we couldn't create an online political community which would be worth defending? It would be an incredible amount of work. (About 99% percent of it moderation.) And I've got my hands in too many other pies to do it myself, but I'd love to create a place where conservatives and socialists could argue without hearing tell of Stalin or Karl Rove (unless they were immediately germane).

Peter, I'm not sure I buy into your schematization, if only because off-line the blowhards seem evenly divided between left and right. Then there's the not-so-sly dig at conservatives built into this complaint: they're not hypocritical when they call someone a "pussy," they're just expressing their misogyny. (Not all conservatives are misogynists, obviously, but you see my point.)

John, I think he's talking about you.

[More grading, then more responding. Thanks to everyone who's responded so far. Working through these issues today, even if only on the back-burner, has been restorative. I'm almost not angry anymore. Feel free to hum it to yourself, too.]

[CR]

Lots to respond to.

First, Adam (and John): I meant that I never responded to John's response about the war, not him. Sorry for the confusion. I was satisfied with, actually fascinated by, John's response at the time.

Scott:

To a point, but it's a bit more like why I'd support a military operation in the Sudan right now:

Yes, the Sudan, but didn't you smell the non-sequitur illogic around Iraq, starting, oh a couple of days after 9/11? This is what always baffled me about left support for the war... How people couldn't seem to stop and ask themselves "Wait a minute. Why this, why now?" Or, if they were saying that to themselves, the horrible cynicism and naivete of thinking "Well, maybe it will go all right anyway..."

Author's intention indeed. Why, in the context of "the war on terror," one would say "Iraq's next...."

Dunno. Seemed so clear to me. So clear that I can't help but look for other reasons why everyone was up for this.

Anyway....

By "bedfellows" you mean "the people I vehemently disagree and argue with," no?

Maybe I'm not reading you carefully enough, but since you started this little JG venture, seems to me that most of what you've reported back has been along the lines "Interacting JG, with whom I disagree on some points but not on others, has really clarified how horribly wrong everyone ostensibly on my side is..." I've not followed your comments on his site carefully at all, but what I've scanned here and at the V leaves that impression. "Vehemently disagree" is what you do, in the last several posts, with the left, not with JG.

And, no, of course, I don't think you've turned to the dark side. But just that this is a wrong turn, and one fruitful for our continuing discussion of parallel matters.

David,

Um, no, I don't think you're getting the daily RNC email. But you have drained the kool aid, have become parasitically inhabited by the meme, artfully deployed in every medium and every forum during the last 5 or so years, of rampant left intolerance. It is a meme that allows you to translate foul mouthed blog comments into a generalization about the left. (Scott's guilty too, in this post, of course...) The meme produces the sound bite for sound bite balancing act that renders equivalent, say, Bush trotting out the defense of marriage amendment and some atrios troll calling Condi a dyke. Or calling Malkin a cunt while the admin. manipulates the FDA approval process on the morning after pill, etc etc...

And it is a meme which has branched and flowered into the "left needs to stop dissing religion" trope, which we hear all the time now but, seriously, when was the last time you heard a single democratic candidate disparage religion? And earlier than that, the "media bias" doublethink mindfuck.

"Sure, the right changes the subject from the real reasons for the widening gap between economic classes to the dirty mexican illegals, but I heard Barbara Streisand didn't invite any evangelicals to her memorial day cookout!"

This sort of thing. What I meant by talking point. What's going on here.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

CR:

Yes, the Sudan, but didn't you smell the non-sequitur illogic around Iraq, starting, oh a couple of days after 9/11? This is what always baffled me about left support for the war... How people couldn't seem to stop and ask themselves "Wait a minute. Why this, why now?"

Imagine oil was discovered in the Sudan yesterday. All of the sudden, an administration which hasn't care a whit about the past three years suddenly wants to go after the Sudanese government and the janjaweed militias. Would you support it such an action? I never stopped to ask myself "Why this, why now?" because I knew precisely why this administration acted when it acted. I thought there could be, I don't know what to call it, "collateral progress"? That the humanitarian intervention which Clinton rejected in the Balkans and Rwanda could be an ancillary circumstance of this administration's calculated ploy. Naive in some respects, I certainly was; but as I said before, I thought that if the hawks could do anything, they could fight a war. I didn't realize the magnitude of the corruption, the willful disregard for the reality being reported by the military, &c. In retrospect, it's easy to say "I was appropriately cynical, I understood that depths of this unprecedented corruption before solid evidence of it surfaced." Fair enough. I never wanted to be as cynical as I've become, but then again, I never had reason to before.

Maybe I'm not reading you carefully enough, but since you started this little JG venture, seems to me that most of what you've reported back has been along the lines "Interacting JG, with whom I disagree on some points but not on others, has really clarified how horribly wrong everyone ostensibly on my side is..." I've not followed your comments on his site carefully at all, but what I've scanned here and at the V leaves that impression. "Vehemently disagree" is what you do, in the last several posts, with the left, not with JG.

Actually, what I thought intellectually interesting was the fact that, despite both of us being convinced by WBM's argument, we took off in opposite directions. I took, and take, WBM to be opposing identitarian thought because he believes that it's being deployed by, for example, wealthy African-American fundamentalists to claim, falsely, that race shouldn't matter. You know the dance, the one that's sweeping Ohio, in which a prominent African-American claims that that race isn't an issue because he's living proof, and that what we really need is a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. WBM criticizes the left identitarianism because it's so easily co-opted, because it's been backfiring since the Clarence Thomas hearings and will continue to backfire so long as the Republicans can trot up a black man whose skin refutes the arguments of all those shrill leftists. Race, WBM argues, is easily manipulated to political ends; class, however, isn't. Or at the very least, the current politicos aren't so adept at manipulating it and it's a better tactic for the moment.

Am I disagreeing with elements of the left? Certainly. Why am I doing it? Because I want them to win and I see them adopting a strategy which damn near ensures they won't. Not that they're not correct, mind you; obviously, race as a social construct has been significant, but really, has it been a successful political platform of late? Or has it been easily countered by conservatives who are trained to exploit it for their own profit? More to the point, do conservatives salivate when they see their opponent has a distinct identitarian gleam in his or her eye? I think this is where you and I differ: not in terms of actual beliefs, but in how we're willing to see them realized. I'd rather they be realized, even if we have to wade through a river of shit to do so. And that's what I'm advocating: wading through a river of shit. Not because it's pleasant, but because I believe it's necessary. You don't. Fine. I only hope that whatever happens, we're both satisfied in the end 'cause, you know, we're both rooting for the same team now.

Finally, one of the reasons I'm more critical of the left than the right is the simple fact that, as a leftist, I'm more invested in the procedural thought of the left. I'm more interested in smacking our brain-dead, culture-deaf "tacticians" in the head. I can see how this may create the impression that I'm a self-loathing leftist, but I'm more like a Mets fan who loathes Randolph's bullpen management. I don't want the Mets to lose, but Jesus Christ, if he brings in Feliciano again to face three righties again, I may just have a stroke.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

And like a gift from above, Publius' comment on White Bear's brilliant post makes WBM's point for me. That is the kind of rhetoric WBM and I feel identitarian thought empowers.

P.S. Those two "agains" were intentional, but you know what, in retrospect it doesn't work. I just wanted to hammer home how terribly Randolph manages a 'pen.