My Thoughts on the Weiss Resignation

You may have heard that Bari Weiss has not-so-quietly resigned from her position at the New York Times. Her publicly-posted resignation letter is a wide-spanning critique of the culture at the Times and what she takes to be a narrowing of the bounds of acceptable opinion and intellectual curiosity.

I have a few thoughts, in no particular order of importance:

• I have never been particularly impressed with the bulk of Bari Weiss' work, or her general "cancel culture/fearlessly asking the questions" oeuvre. I've often found it to be lazy, self-satisfied, and/or hypocritical. I don't think she has a coherent theory distinguishing "criticism" (good) from "cancellation" (bad), and most damningly, I don't think she seems to even recognize that there's a tension here that appears to be resolved in a partisan way (my retort is criticism, yours is cancellation).

• That said, Weiss is not even close to the only major political pundit who embodies these vices. The degree to which she nonetheless became, for many, the public avatar of those sins always made me uncomfortable, because it always felt like it was tied up to her identity as a prominent Jewish woman. Call it misojewny, call it antisemisogyny, but it stunk.

• The eagerness with which people bring up Weiss' college escapades (she participated in projects which exposed the allegedly anti-Israel/antisemitic practices of several professors at Columbia, where she was a student) is a bit to gloating in nature for my tastes (again, many public figures have done things while in college that are not fully thought out or perfectly-tailored to keep a pristine PR file). However, consistent with my above sense that Weiss lacks a theory distinguishing "good" versus "bad" critical counterspeech, she isn't helped by the fact that she hasn't to my knowledge even seriously grappled with the tension in this issue close to her heart. A more thoughtful participant in these debates might have drawn upon her experience seeking to "cancel" figures for alleged antisemitism to be more sympathetic to other actors who seek to "cancel" figures for alleged racism. Weiss did not usually extend that sympathy, and so the juxtaposition is going to reflect poorly on her.

• In her letter, Weiss claims that the terms which describe what happened to her are "unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong." She is, indeed, no legal expert. The conduct she describes in the letter -- whether it is "wrong" or not -- would be very unlikely to sustain a legal complaint for unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, or constructive discharge. 

• Weiss' confusion is in line with something I've noticed from many conservative observers of anti-discrimination law. They wildly underestimate how high the barriers are to winning a discrimination claim -- probably because they're ideologically committed to the notion that minorities get their discrimination claims rubber-stamped (when the reality is such claims are overwhelmingly rejected by the courts, often before reaching a jury). So when they experience something that is in the family of discrimination, they assume that (a) it must be illegal ("if these whiny minorities are winning, surely my very real pain and trauma must present a winning case too!") and (b) if it isn't treated as illegal, that must be because of some latent anti-conservative(/white/male/whatever) bias, rather than the normal functioning of a legal system they generally endorse.

• On the other hand, if we step away from the legal aspect of it all I think few of the people mocking Weiss' contention that the environment at the Times had gotten so toxic that she had to resign take the same view when members of other minority groups write of toxic environments in their workplaces that end up driving them out of prestigious jobs. Surely, we on the left are familiar enough with, and historically expressed enough sympathy towards, this style of claim such that the current sneering mockery -- LOL, someone claims that coworkers being mean to them made working at their job impossible -- rings hollow. Of course, many of those sympathetic to Weiss would be derisive of claims of this sort when made by members of other minority groups. Hypocrisy, as always, is a double-edged sword.

• Weiss situates her initial hiring as an effort by the Times to understand Trump voters, and I've seen several writers lamenting her departure defending her presence along that line -- that it's important to have voices like her available to liberals because, after all, almost half the country backs Donald Trump. This argument is a bit odd, though, since Weiss was not herself a Trump-backer either. I've alluded to this problem before in relation to how one justifies hiring "conservative" voices at mainstream newspapers -- is the goal to reflect the views that are held by a large portion of the populace, or is the goal to legitimate certain views which are thought to present genuinely important and worthy contributions to public debate? Weiss' defenders effectively are claiming the former as a defense against the latter -- even if Weiss' opinions aren't objectively all that worthwhile, it's important to hear them lest liberal NYT readers silo themselves off from views which carry support in a considerable swath of the country. But the issue with Weiss is that she doesn't actually reflect the modal example of a pro-Trump opinion in American politics -- the modal pro-Trump perspective would level opinions far more grotesque than anything Weiss ever produced. Ironically, Weiss was hired by the Times because she misrepresents the average content of contemporary conservative viewpoints by giving them a patina of liberal plausibility that makes them more palatable to a liberal audience. Actual conservatives right now scarcely bother with the patina.

NYTimes Endorses Warren and Klobuchar

The New York Times has officially endorsed not one, but two candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary: Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Amy Klobuchar (MN). In essence, the Times' picked one candidate from the "moderate" lane and one candidate from the "progressive" lane, while suggesting that either one can and should be acceptable to any decent person seeking to defeat Trump.

The internet reaction, at least in my quarters of it, has been mostly disdainful. The NYT should have had the gumption to make an actual choice. Choosing two people was a cop out. Dismiss dismiss dismiss.

Most of this reaction has stemmed from more left-ward elements. And to be fair, on net the double-endorsement probably helps Klobuchar, who has struggled to gain traction, more than Warren. So it maybe isn't surprising that the left isn't wild about this choice, insofar as it probably does more to help an "establishment" candidate they dislike over a more progressive candidate they (well, some of "they") like or are at least fine with.

But I think there's another element in play here. Recent events notwithstanding, there remains some efforts on the left-side of the party to build a unified front along the axis of either Warren or Sanders, as against the "establishment" wing represented by Biden or Klobuchar. Key to their efforts is a strong distinction between these two wings, such that it is important to maintain progressive unity so we don't hand the nomination to a moderate because the left can't stop fighting amongst itself. This view is very much adverse to the sentiment, communicated by the Times, that all the Democrats (Klobuchar, Biden, Warren, Sanders ...) are fundamentally on the same side, so that we should all be content no matter which of them is picked. This aspect of the editorial is probably what got the most sustained mocking, at least in my feed.

It also is, as you probably know, a view I basically endorse, which is why the Times' double-endorsement didn't bother me all that much. I'm inclined to think that Warren is the best of the "progressive" wing, and Klobuchar probably the best of the "moderate" wing. There's a case to be made for nominating a progressive wing candidate, and a case for a moderate wing candidate, but if the nomination goes in the direction I disprefer I wouldn't view at as a betrayal. Either way, we'd still be getting a candidate who is more-or-less on my side.

What's the Catch of Clickbait?

Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig is suing the New York Times for defamation, stemming from a headline that read "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret". The lede of the article, in turn, opens by saying "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying."

Lessig contends that this grotesquely misrepresents the position he was taking, which is to not condemn fundraisers when some of the donors they solicit turn out to be unsavory or disreputable. He also asserts that the Times refused to alter its headline or lede after Lessig complained, preferring a flashy and provocative (albeit misleading) title to one that more accurately (but dully) reflects Lessig's actual view. While the article does give a more balanced presentation of his argument later on, Lessig contends that many people never read past the headline and so will only come away with a false picture.

This is all very interesting to defamation scholars, I'm sure. But I want to focus on what has to be the least important aspect of Lessig's complaint: What does "click-bait" mean?

Defendant's actions here are part of a growing journalistic culture of click-baiting. . . . Defendants are fully aware that many, if not most, readers never read past the clickbait...The use of this tactic represents a uniquely troubling media practice as it relates to the harm to and destruction of the reputation of the target of the clickbait.

Here's my bone of contention: clearly there is an issue whereby readers see only a headline and read no further, rendering moot the presence of a more complex depiction in the body text.

But it strikes me as weird to use "clickbait" to characterize the phenomenon. "Clickbait" literally refers to the use of a provocative or flashy headline as means of prompting ("baiting") readers to access ("click") the whole article. The idea is that the title is so juicy and irresistible that the person who sees it on, say, Facebook cannot help but click the link and read the article.

Now to be sure, part of the function of click-bait is that the site owner only cares about the click, that is, that the reader accessed the page (and thereby juices the site's hit rate for ad revenue purposes). The site probably doesn't care if the reader actually ends up reading any of the article text, much less if she completes it. Indeed, it seems likely that many of the readers who are attracted by the title ("oh man, this I've got to see!") will drift away disappointed once they encountered the more prosaic story underneath.

Nonetheless, it strikes me as a weird to say that "readers never read past the clickbait", because the whole purpose of the clickbait is to drive them to the site with the full article. If they only read the clickbait, then the clickbait has failed, because the actual "clickbait" is the content that one can see without ever clicking through to the site. If the New York Times runs a headline like this, the last thing they want is for me to see that headline on Facebook and then read nothing more. They want the bait to catch me -- for me to click the link and actually head over to the NYT site (where I will, presumably, read at least a little more of the article before realizing I've been, well, baited).

The End of Grading Conservatives on a Curve

The controversy over noted climate change denialist Bret Stephens' hiring by the New York Times appears to have taken the Grey Lady by surprise. They've quickly fallen into a stock set of responses regarding the need to hear "alternative points of view" and the importance of providing a range of conservative voices to match the liberals on their editorial page. Under this framework, persons protesting Stephens' appointment are symbolic of liberal intolerance; the inability to even stand in the same (virtual) room as persons who don't agree with them on every issue.

I do think we are seeing the end of a sort of liberal tolerance here. But it's not the tolerance that the NYT editorial board has in mind. It's the end of an era where liberals tolerate grading conservatives on a curve.

For the last several decades -- really as long as I've been politically aware -- liberals have been required to simply accept mediocrity out of conservatives. Mediocrity in science -- as when Stephens spitballs at widely accepted data, not for scientific reasons, but simply because it doesn't match his politics. Mediocrity in argument -- as when a prominent writer at one of the top "intellectual" conservative outlets excreted Liberal Fascism and then had the gall to promote it as "a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made  in such detail or with such care." Mediocrity in temperament -- as when conservative temper tantrums are accepted as simply a fact of political life; the responsibility of Democrats to dissipate by playing better babysitter.

There's no sin in mediocrity, of course. The problem is that it's coupled with a pervasive sense of entitlement. This mediocrity is supposed to earn them respected academic posts, earn them prominent editorial positions, earn them airtime on prestigious networks, earn them attention and thorough consideration. The problem isn't that liberals are asked to engage with good conservative arguments -- they should (although they in fact rarely are). The problem is that liberals are supposed to just close their eyes and agree for the sake of the camera that a terrible conservative argument is a good one; a thoughtful one; a demands-deep-consideration-and-serious-inquiry one. It's the political equivalent of social promotion. It's participation badges for Boomers and Gen-Xers.

And if you challenge that entitlement? Well, suddenly the right finds its post-modern streak. Can we really can know what a "good" argument is? Who's to say what is or isn't "true"? It's no accident that the straw that seemed to break the camel's back was Kellyanne Conway's blithe assertion that the White House was simply providing "alternative facts", and that a fair and just media shouldn't adjudicate the matter. It represented the explicit articulation from the right that merit no longer mattered -- and liberals were obligated to accept it as the apogee of liberality. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" indeed.

We're finally seeing a revolt. A world where one of the two major parties can simply claim an exemption from standards of argument and deliberation is what gave us a birther as president. It's not about intolerance towards different opinions. Those objecting to Stephens have been rather clear that they don't object to alternative opinions, but they absolutely object to alternative facts. An alternative opinion may be good or bad -- it depends on how well-reasoned and supported it is, the degree to which it engages with the best possible arguments on the other side, and other such considerations. Good alternative opinions are a great virtue in political society. An alternative fact -- when it comes from a politician or writer -- should never be thought of as anything more than being bad at your job. If enforcing that standard lands harder on contemporary conservatives, that should be a sign of their weakness, not of the injustice of meritocracy.

The New York Times is not an open-mic night. Being employed there -- whether as a journalist or as an opinion-writer -- should be a mark of outstanding talent. Their editorial team should consist of those rare souls -- of any political persuasion -- who can make solid, lucid, provocative, compelling, well-warranted arguments in an accessible form. We can obviously argue amongst ourselves about which NYT columnists do or don't meet that criteria. But what's distinctive about Stephens is that his place at the Times is explicitly justified and defended on the grounds that his mediocrity of scientific thought is actually the virtue of political disagreement. That degrades science and, in a better world, would degrade conservatism as well.

To be crystal clear -- no governmental or quasi-administrative entity (like a university) should ever ban any speech (good, mediocre, bad, controversial, racist, or otherwise). Those on the left (and they tend to be more left than liberal) who support censorship, disruption, or violent retaliation against persons for their speech deserve naught but scorn. And beyond legal entitlements, liberals should be exposed to and consider good conservative arguments, and vice versa. I've learned a ton from reading, e.g., Clarence Thomas and Robert Nozick; among my earliest blog sources were the right-leaning Volokh Conspiracy and Daniel Drezner. I'd be worse off if I wasn't exposed to them, because they are all outstanding thinkers even when I disagree with them. Anyone who can't conceive of an ideological adversary who is nonetheless capable of making great "alternative" arguments isn't thinking hard enough.

But the reaction to Stephens and his ilk isn't about juridical rights or some sort of blind antipathy to foreign points of view. It's a much more simple and straightforward matter of deliberative virtue. The only persons suggesting that the attack on Stephens represents an attack on all conservatives are those who think denial of basic scientific consensus is inherent to contemporary conservatism. It's their culture! How dare you impose your "truth" on the Other? Again, who is patronizing who here?

Enough is enough. Conservatives are not infants and it is no mark of respect to treat them such. They are perfectly capable of elevating their game. Maybe it will sting for a while. But both the right and the left, and America, will be better for it.

UPDATE: Just to gather up some sources to confirm my sense that this is a trend:

New Yorker fact checker Sean Lavery on how he'd handle Bret Stephens: "By all means publish Bret Stephens. But edit and factcheck him too. If his argument can't pass muster or the piece can't be fixed: goodbye!"

Jon Chait on how conservatives are shocked and angry that the media is finally accurately reporting that the Republican proposal for regressive tax cuts which primarily benefit the rich is a regressive tax cut which primarily benefits the rich.

Philosophy professor Jonathan Stokes on no longer letting people conflate the right to express an opinion with the right to have it taken seriously.

And finally, Matt Yglesias on Sebastian Gorka reportedly leaving the White House:

America getting to be so intolerant that a wildly unqualified guy can't even work in the White House if he's maybe a Nazi. https://t.co/elzbxkJY5H

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 1, 2017

The Epidemiology of Antisemitism

The New York Times has hired conservative columnist Bret Stephens, lately of the Wall Street Journal, to provide an additional conservative perspective to the Grey Lady. Controversy immediately erupted, first over Stephens status as a climate-change denier, and then more recently over a 2016 column that characterized antisemitism as "the disease of  the Arab mind" (it came in the context of an Egyptian Olympian who refused to shake the hand of his Israeli competitor).

NYT Cairo Bureau chief kicked off the discussion with this tweet:

Not cool: new NYT columnist @BretStephensNYT once wrote about the "disease of the Arab mind". https://t.co/duylYvCQSd (h/t @hahellyer)

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) April 15, 2017

And his colleague Max Fisher succinctly articulating what I think is our legitimate squeamishness at hearing an entire group of people characterized as possessing a "disease of the mind."

@declanwalsh @BretStephensNYT I guess we just all have to agree to disagree as to whether it is acceptable or correct to call racial groups pathologically "diseased."

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) April 16, 2017

Now, I've responded to a Bret Stephens column once, and it was not one I was impressed by -- a tiresome bit of neocolonialist claptrap seeking to establish which peoples are sufficiently civilized to deserve self-determination. So I don't have any particular interest in defending Stephens per se.

That said, this controversy did interest me because of an angle I don't think I've yet seen explored: the widespread literature on the "epidemiological" approach to racism. I first came across this view in an article by prominent Critical Race Theorist Charles Lawrence III, but it is hardly restricted to him. It is a perspective that is at least familiar to anyone who spends significant time in the literature on contemporary racism and prejudice.

The epidemiological view treats racism as, well, a disease -- a public health crisis that demands intervention. Among the motivations for articulating racism in this way is the belief that an epidemiological approach steps away from the focus on conscious choices (we don't choose to be infected) and with it, the politics of blame (we don't view cancer patients as being morally inferior because they have a disease). Rather, thinking of racism as a disease channels our focus onto (a) the devastating social consequences that can occur when racism is widespread and unchecked, and (b) what we can do to check the spread and, eventually, find a cure.

As it turns out, the use of the epidemiological approach for antisemitism has deep roots -- deeper, perhaps, than its use to analyze racism. Re-reading Lawrence's article while writing this post, I discovered that it actually contains a significant discussion of antisemitism as disease, as an epidemic -- and one that he investigates through the specific case of Black antisemitism right alongside the parallel case of Jewish racism.  Even more interestingly, a 1949 book by Carey McWilliams on "Anti-Semitism in America" claims to have found "hundreds" of examples of antisemitism being defined in epidemiological terms -- a "theme" that runs through descriptions of what antisemitism is. Among the statements he found was the claim that antisemitism is, simply, "a disease of Gentile peoples."

Under this view, then, the rhetoric of epidemiology and disease is meant to be gentler -- not stigmatizing to those it labels, not concerned with separating out the bad people from the good. But as Fisher observes, there is at the very least another set of tropes associated with "disease" rhetoric that is not so benign. Under the latter usage, "disease" connotes those groups which are dirty and mutated; those who need to be isolated, sequestered, or purged. Rhetoric of various outgroups -- including Jews, Arabs, immigrants of all backgrounds -- being "diseased" and therefore dangerous has a been a staple of racist fearmongering for generations. Again, it is not for nothing that we squirm when we hear talk of a group being "diseased".

I don't think that Stephens was intentionally referring to the literature on the epidemiology of racism. But leaving his particular case aside, here's my question: Do the concerns of Fisher et al mean that the epidemiological approach is inherently tainted and must be abandoned? If not, what interventions are necessary so as to use the method (and its necessarily attendant rhetoric of disease, infection, and so on) without triggering these problematic associations?

My familiarity with the epidemiological approach gives me some sympathy towards it -- I think it is at least a useful way of thinking through how racism and antisemitism operate, how they spread, and how they should be combatted. Yet at the same time, my familiarity with how rhetoric of disease is used to degrade and dehumanize means I am sympathetic to the concerns that it would do so here. The questions in the previous paragraph are those made entirely in earnest, and I in turn invite earnest replies.

Close That Gap

The NYT has a good profile on Elizabeth Warren, the highlight being this:

Congress remains only 16 percent female, and Massachusetts has an especially long and rotten history of women in politics. Since Puritans settled there in the early 17th century, more Massachusetts women have been hanged in the Salem witch trials (14) than have been elected to the House of Representatives (4), the Senate (0) or the governor’s mansion (0, though Jane Swift served as acting governor from 2001 to 2003)

I think Warren has to be favored against Brown. Because he's a Republican who won in Massachusetts, Brown has the rep as a great politician, but I think he benefited from a perfect storm of (a) a historically good year for Republicans and (b) an incredibly uninspiring Democratic opponent in Martha Coakley (see also: Robert Ehrlich winning the Maryland governor's mansion in 2002 against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend). Obviously, he's component, but I don't think he's anything special. And while inexperienced candidates always have the potential to flame out in spectacular fashion, I think Warren has a ton of upside. And in this time of economic crisis, it'd be good to have one of America's foremost experts on bankruptcy in a position of influence.

I Can't Wait To Hear What Else About the Holocaust the NYT Thinks is "Disputed"

New York Times: American Family Association's Bryan Fischer "trumpets the disputed theory that Adolph Hitler was a homosexual and that the Nazi Party was largely created by 'homosexual thugs.'"

The Missing Piece

David Bernstein complains about an excerpt from a "one-sided" NYT article about the McCain campaign's move towards distortions. Here's the offending passage:

On Friday on "The View," generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized [McCain's] new advertisements. "We know that those two ads are untrue," Ms. Behar said. "They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, 'I approve these messages.' Do you really approve them?"

The problem? The Times doesn't tell you that (gasp!) Behar's a liberal.

What Bernstein must have forgotten to write in his shock is anything that points to Behar being wrong in her accusation. Which makes sense, because she's absolutely right, and there is no real way to go about disputing it. The two ads in question are the one's in which he accuses Obama of supporting sex education for Kindergarterners, and of calling Sarah Palin a "pig" (as in, lipstick on a....). If you watch the relevant clip, it becomes painfully obvious that McCain has no real defense here. After being told by Behar that his ads are "lies", McCain awkwardly stumbles out "no they are not lies", before immediately trying to tell the hosts that Obama runs negative ads too. Then a different host reminds him that he himself used the "lipstick on a pig" phrase to describe Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan. McCain responded that he was talking about a policy, not Clinton herself, but the hosts reminded him that Obama was talking about change (and McCain's, not Palin's, change to boot!).

The point being that, Behar, liberal or not, levied an accurate charge. McCain's ads are lies. Phrasing it as a typical "liberals-say/conservatives-say" dispute obscures the truth of the matter, which is that John McCain released two ads that are flagrantly untrue, and when called on the matter, he continued to lie without reservation. And the article continues to give several "independent" speakers (and some not-so-independent ones, like Orrin Hatch) who verify that McCain is fabricating in his ads.

I'm sorry that Professor Bernstein doesn't think that the New York Times obfuscated the issue sufficiently -- but to my mind, clarity is a feature in journalism, not a bug.

Best of Links, Worst of Links

Checking my sitemeter stats, I discovered that I have recently been linked to by the The New York Times (specifically their "Lede" blog). Neat-o (even though they apparently confused me with Sherrilyn Ifill)! The NYT is now the second newspaper to have pointed traffic here -- the first being the Chicago Sun-Times.

On the other hand, the same perusal of sitemeter also revealed that I had been linked to by the White Supremacist site "Stormfront" (no link, google them if you want). So, that was less pleasing.

But I'm pretty sure the hits I'm getting from the NYT are significantly outweighing those of Stormfront, so I'm claiming a net benefit.

Be Aggressive!

NYT columnist Bob Herbert wants the Black community to start calling out the national GOP on their "anti-black" agenda. While the march on Jena was great, he writes, "what I’d really like to see is a million angry protesters marching on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington." Herbert cites Republican presidential candidates dodging debates on Black issues, and also brings up GOP operative Lee Atwater's summary of his Party's "southern strategy":

"You start out in 1954 by saying, Nigger, nigger, nigger,'" said Atwater. "By 1968, you can't say 'nigger' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."

This is what passes for progress.

Also, Kevin Drum links to a fantastic Vanity Fair essay on one of the original members of the Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth Eckford, and her relationship with the White student whose hate-filled face is the focus of one of the most famous civil rights photos of all time. As he says, it's worth the read.