DougJ: I honestly don’t know why people at official publications are so excessively polite to one another (perhaps they save it for the listserves?).
True/Slant quite explicitly stated that we were not to insult other True/Slant writers. I don’t agree with that policy one iota, but there it is.
I can’t really speak for other publications.
But I do imagine that a lot of writers and bloggers who actually live in the same area, go to the same parties, and run in similar social circles, might temper their writing a little to keep the peace. I don’t know. At The League we had a specific mission in mind: to engage in conversation, attempt to see things from other perspectives, and get past the noise of typical political dispute. But I’m not sure that means you have to be polite, or can’t tell someone when they’re being really bloody stupid.
There are certainly plenty of places around the internet where you can find good ol’ fashioned brawls. Much of the right-wing blogosphere is dominated by sneering and name-calling. I suppose a fair portion of the left-wing blogosphere is, too.
I’ve had my moments of invective myself – and to be honest, it’s just not my cup of tea. Maybe a lot of these publications say it’s not their cup of tea either. I can do it, and sometimes I think I even do it fairly well, but I always end up feeling a sense of futility at the end of a good polemic. The trick is doing it well. If you can’t make your invective entertaining, what’s the point?
me
Such low hanging fruit. Anyone who doesn’t get irritated with Andrew Schlafly is dead or a moran.
El Tiburon
I can understand this practice to some extent, especially the higher you go up the media food-chain.
I don’t expect Rachel Maddow to tear Joe Scarborough a new a-hole every day. I can accept that Rachel and Keith have to play nice to that extent.
It does appear that Rachel has put the kabosh on Cranky-Racist Unkle Pat from appearing on her show.
But I would think at publications like the Atlantic or sites like Salon, the rules would be different and that the ‘talent’ were able to call-out their associates as needed.
It would definitely drive some traffic at least to see an intra-mural take down of McArdle.
But then again I don’t really expect the bloggers here to rip into one another, it just doesn’t seem right.
It’s definitely an interesting dynamic.
Amanda in the South Bay
One of the things I like about this blog is that people frequently are called out for writing stupid shit-yeah, sometimes things get overheated, (I may be one of the few people here who thinks you are actually a sane conservative :) ) but quite frankly there’s some shit that needs to be aired.
Like, I have no problem with people calling out McArdle for being a dumbass, or people calling out well known liberal bloggers like Drum and Yglesias for linking to her so goddamned much.
Hawes
Sneering and invective in Left Blogistan?
Never!
Why we all know that John is not really in Wisconsin, but is holed up with Jane Hamsher and/or Andrew Sullivan planning their next faux-spat to increase traffic.
arguingwithsignposts
And True/Slant is no more. Perhaps there’s a lesson there.
I, for one, would love it if Eugene Robinson would drop the f-bomb on Charles Fucking Krauthamer or George Fucking Will from time to time.
CorgiFan
I agree with E.D. Kain here. Like everything else, name-calling and sneering have quickly diminishing marginal utility. Using such rhetoric rarely but effectively makes it all the more pointed and efficacious.
Asshole
How about if we replace the f-word with something family-friendlier, like “smurf”?
“Smurf you, you stupid smurfing smurf McCardle. I hope some smurf smurfs you in your smurf some day. Smurf-hole smurf.”
(If I ever get bored of the pie filter, I want to learn how to design a smurf filter.)
xochi
I honestly don’t care if bloggers are overly polite to one another or not. Not every writer needs to be Matt Taibbi. And some of the best takedowns have been unfailingly polite (TNC is pretty good at this).
CorgiFan
@xochi:
Hear! Hear!
Ramiah Ariya
I think more than the politeness, I think DougJ is talking about going out of the way to backscratch. You could just say Megan is wrong; instead of saying “Megan is usually good, but this time…”.
But what bothers me more than anything is not the politeness. What bothers me, on the part of people like David Frum, is that he would say something like: “There is a new Israel Advocacy Group, headed by my good friend XXX”. It is always my good friend this or good friend that – that just does not seem appropriate. I have not seen John Cole or Glenn Greenwald or Markos displaying such familiarity, even though they all have links offline. When Greenwald refers to the ACLU chairman he does not say “My good friend XXX”.
To me it seems like a feature of right wing power to call each other friends and name-drop. (I am not saying conservative, merely the current right wing). These are people who value power from personal connections for its own sake.
Paul in KY
@Asshole: I sometime use ‘Flack’ when speaking verbally in a location where an F-Bomb would be out of place.
I have no fucking problem using fuckity fuck here in Balloon Juice (and Salon), fucking however :-)
Frank
@CorgiFan:
I think this is one of the reasons the tea baggers don’t have as much influence as the MSM think they do. Their over the top signs, using the N-word etc has had the effect of turning rational people off.
There recently was a ridiculous billboard sign in Iowa that compared Obama to Hitler and Stalin. The tea party group that had put it up quickly took it down as it generated a backlash instead of support.
Roger Moore
@Asshole:
Will it automatically change your screen name to “Smurfhole”?
eemom
I like the title of this post a lot. Fuck yeah.
MBunge
“I honestly don’t care if bloggers are overly polite to one another or not.”
The problem is that politeness is what allows fools and fanatics to stink up the public discourse.
Mike
me
@eemom: Cocaine is, after all, a hell of a drug.
burnspbesq
Just so. This is a lesson that some around here could usefully learn.
For myself, I think there’s a big difference between “that’s a fucking stupid idea” and “you’re a fucking moron.” I plead guilty to not always observing my own rule, but would like the pre-sentencing report to note that there is often justification for the crime.
We ought to be able to disagree (vehemently when vehemence is appropriate) without descending to being jerks about it (you know who you are).
Turgidson
I agree there’s no particular need for people to just call someone else an idiot, but there’s a whole lot of ground between the backslapping that happens now and a poo flinging contest. What’s wrong with calmly and politely describing why someone is full of shit, without just coming out and saying it in those terms?
McArdle is an obvious example of this. Nearly everything she posts is terrible, but only the saints at firemeganmcardle.com and a number of commenters here bother to really examine just how full of shit she really is on a regular basis. Too many link to her and nod sagely in agreement. Why not just politely explain why she’s so utterly, horribly wrong – about almost everything?
daveNYC
It’s not just that they are polite, it’s that they never say that the other person is wrong. You get mealy-mouthed crap like “I disagree with them on point X.” or “I think person X might be on the wrong track”.
It reminds me of Hirohito’s line in the surrender anouncement “…the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.” This after having nearly all of her major cities firebombed, and then having two nukes dropped on them.
My theory for this behavior is that there is a quid pro quo setup in place between the pundits where nobody is allowed to come out and say the other person is just flat out wrong. Like the Emperor and his new clothes in a way, because if this arrangement was ever broken, then it might become obvious to the masses just how little these pundits actually know.
Which, IMO, is why Krugman and some others ignore this arrangement. They are actually punditing (it’s a cromulent word) about something they have expertise on, and/or are mature enough to be able to admit if they’ve made a mistake.
Tom Hilton
A while back TNC quoted James Fallows as saying you should never write anything about someone that you would be unwilling to say to his or her face. I think that’s not an unreasonable standard; it doesn’t wholly preclude moments of invective, but it does (or should) make them few and carefully considered.
People who are habitually uncivil do so, as far as I can tell, not because it’s useful (although they may tell themselves it is) but because it feels good.
And lest I be accused of hypocrisy, I will freely acknowledge that I have my own moments of savagery–but they are nearly always directed at people who have themselves been gratuitously uncivil.
LGRooney
That’s the whole point, though. It would be nice if we could all engage publicly in polemics without invective but there is so much deliberate fatuousness coming in from the right these days. The fact that there is so little public mockery of this lunacy from the moderate a/o intelligent a/o reality-based conservatives has allowed the crazies to take over the conservative wing, all the more so since the only derision is coming in from the left allowing entrenchment by the crazies in a collective right-wing martyrdom.
Until honest conservatives with a voice stop coddling this martyr’s complex, even if only implicitly through their silence, I will have little use for my erstwhile colleagues.
“Ignorance when it is voluntary is criminal.” – Samuel Johnson
Asshole
@Paul in KY:
I don’t mind cussing either, but it would be fun to have the excuse to use the word “smurf-hole.” I’d like to see a pundit call another pundit that on television. If that happened, I’d be able to die a happy man, knowing I’d lived a complete life.
Midnight Marauder
@CorgiFan:
But that’s not even what DougJ is talking about in his post. He’s talking about a very particular kind of behavior that enables proven Know-Nothings to have more stature and credibility than they deserve given their record of statements they actually made and ideas they actually endorsed.
I think it’s more about calling out inanity and obsequious bullshit for what it explicitly is, rather than conferring some kind of scholarly nobility to people who have empirically proven themselves to be idiots.
Asshole
@Roger Moore:
If it doesn’t, I will.
LGRooney
@Midnight Marauder:
5 stars, mate!!!
Roger Moore
The problem isn’t with them “tempering their writing a little”, it’s with them refusing to call out crass stupidity and outright lies. You can’t engage in polite debate when some participants are free to make things up and ignore it when they’re caught. If that happens, it means that it’s time to give up polite debate and start calling the liars out. Anyone who refuses to do so and treats the liars as members of the community in good standing is helping to destroy polite argument, not facilitating it.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts:
oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please
Batocchio
@Ramiah Ariya:
Yeah, it’s the flattery that’s annoying. Why not just say “I disagree with Jeffrey Goldberg on this one, because…”….?
I like substantive debunks/rebuttals/dissents, and mocking someone on top of that is generally more a style choice than anything else. Good snark is entertaining, and artful mocking of idiots and assholes is good for morale and keeping one’s sanity. It can also be good politics. If the person generally does good work and just got something wrong, shoot them an e-mail or write a polite post, sure, but we’re talking about serial bullshitters, gleeful imperialists and the like. It’s standard wingnut practice to ignore the substantive part of a snarky post and cry ad hominem. (One recent example – the responses of Spuriell of National Review to Tintin at Sadly, No.)
So sure, you don’t need to personally insult the person, and can stick to the substantive critique. I don’t have a problem with a writer softening the blow a bit if it’s a colleague. But is the Goldberg or McArdle ego so fragile all that fluffing is necessary? (Honestly, it probably is – and if the boss luvs them, internal politics come into play.)
When I was writing on a group blog, the owner instituted a rule that any criticism of a fellow blogger on the site be handled internally in e-mails versus in comment threads. It made a certain sense. (It came about because one blogger at the site ran an odd conspiracy story without bothering to fact-check it, and took all dissents, no matter how professional, as personal attacks. E-mail only hid the crazy from the threads, btw.)
Mark
If you’re incapable of calling out (or unwilling to call out) stupidity, then you shouldn’t be writing about public policy. And you should be able to stand up for what’s right and tell someone they’re wrong to their face at a party. If you ran into John Yoo socially, you should be willing to punch him in the testicles. Anything less would be uncivilized.
Megan McArdle has some of the stupidest ideas ever to grace the internet. If she worked at my company (and hadn’t been fired), people would do their best to avoid having her on their project. But the world of punditry enables her stupidity.
Cathie from Canada
“Jane, you ignorant slut” still sets the standard for witty Point-Counterpoint repartee.
EvanSchenck
@daveNYC:
This. There are plenty of pundits, both in print and on the networks, whose authority comes mostly or entirely from their institutional position. They’ve been hired by a Serious Media Outlet, therefore they are validated as a Serious Person. Calling out another pundit for being stupid damages the prestige not only of their particular institution but of the entire profession. Criticizing Megan McArdle is the first step to your job becoming no more prestigious than anonymous blogging.
Mark
Incidentally, my girlfriend has a writing fellowship this year and is stuck at the moment trying to flesh out her sample chapter. I told her the key was to be like Gladwell or Friedman or Brooks or McArdle – completely disingenuous and unshamed when people call them out on it. Of course, she’s too good of a human being to be so shameless.
CorgiFan
@Midnight Marauder:
Yes, there is no need to frame disagreement with some kind of softening rhetoric such as “Megan is usually right” because she almost never is. It is a useful frame when talking about someone who is (see Krugman re: Rogoff & Reinhart), though, because you make it clear that your post isn’t just a knee-jerk response.
Frank is exactly correct, though, that the Tea Party / Republican right wing handed over all credibility, despite the MSM’s fascination with them, as soon as they started with the “communist/socialist/Hitler/[substitute other racist language here]’ invectives. AND SO DOES ANYONE ELSE who insists on using such extreme and inflammatory rhetoric (are you listening, Sarah Palin?).
Incidentally, dropping the f-bomb doesn’t just have diminishing utility, though; it has no utility, simply for the fact that so many people stop listening to you after you’ve dropped it.
sherifffruitfly
It’s all about being a member of the kewlkidzclub.
And then they’ll grow up and become former-liberals a la WaPo’s Broder and Cohen.
It’s all perfectly predictable.
ksmiami
in general, one should use rage very sparingly; cutting remarks and ridicule (of McArdle, or Cantor) tends to be highly effective. See Stewart, John
Mark Thompson
Might it also have something to do with how certain the writer is about their position? Writing something along the lines of “I respect _____, but think he’s wrong on this one,” connotes that you acknowledge that you yourself could be wrong. Writing “______ is wrong,” or better yet, “this is a fucking moronic argument,” basically says that not only is the other person wrong, you’re not even willing to consider that he might be right. If the goal of your writing a particular piece is to actually create a discussion with the other person than you have to acknowledge going in that you’re willing to be convinced, otherwise why the hell is your adversary even going to bother? OTOH if you’re not interested in an actual discussion and will accept nothing but total surrender, then there’s not much sense in holding back.
I don’t think either style is necessarily more persuasive than the other, although when the latter tactic fails to persuade it also has a bad tendency to just further entrench the other guy.
That said, the need to preface things with “I respect ____, but….” adds absolutely nothing. I’d be all outraged about this if it weren’t for the fact that it’s one of my own annoying habits.
burnspbesq
@Mark:
If you run into John Yoo socially, be sure to have bail money with you. What you are advocating is a criminal offense. As you well know.
It should also be pointed out that there is no reliable empirical evidence that what you are proposing is anatomically possible.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain:
Sometime the point isn’t invective, or to entertain, but simply to express anger, frustration, or rage.
In fact, I don’t even think we do a lot of name-calling or sneering on the left. I think we may argue amongst ourselves more than the right, with a greater use of obscenities (fucked up), vulgarities (shit), and profanities (goddamn stupid), but not as much of the name-calling or sneering.
Amongst ourselves, anyway. We name-call and sneer pretty frequently at the right, I guess.
.
JGabriel
daveNYC:
To be fair, it’s kind of easier to admit mistakes when you don’t make them very often. People who are wrong most of the time can’t even recognize it, because it’s their very premises that are flawed.
.
maus
@Ramiah Ariya:
I don’t think these are ever stated as a professional disclaimer (as a conflict of interest would), so why do they bother? I don’t even know if it’s so much a name-drop as an expression of affection, or a call-out so the others know they “care”.
Mark
@burnspbesq
Actually, I hold in my hands a legal opinion that states that a private citizen in the state of California may legally punch John Yoo in the testicles. It’s a bit of a complex process – you must go through the motions of making it seem like an accident, and afterward, you must say “My bad, dude…No homo…”
HyperIon
How about our esteemed legislators who are always referring to each other as “the honorable” when they often actually hate each others’ guts?
I hate fawning forms of address. Let’s all be polite and then maybe we can ignore the fucking wheels falling off the wagon.
Smurfhole
@HyperIon:
Of course, those crazy bastards can always take disrespect to an extreme as well- caning Senator Sumner half to death for bad-mouthing slaver Congresscritters, for example…
cmorenc
If you are rude, abrasive, and nasty in criticizing someone else’s actions, assertions, or positions – then the only people to whom you tend to be truly persuasive are already members of the same choir you belong to, who probably weren’t inclined to give the particular people excoriated very much credibility to begin with. OTOH, the most prominent thing people undecided or unfamiliar with your object of criticism are likely to pick up on is what an arrogant, unpleasant asshole you are, that tends to add lots of distracting static to their ability to pay attention to your substantive reasons why the person criticized is so badly wrong, deluded, or mendacious. They may quickly tire of reading/listening to you, and simply turn you off.
IF OTOH you clearly, calmly explain the facts and reasons why the person criticized is so badly wrong, deluded, or mendacious, you tend to get people’s attention lots better, and have a MUCH better chance of persuading them. Let people draw the inference themselves from your presentation that the person criticized is a mendacious idiot. Krugman much more often uses this tack, and is much more persuasive when he uses it, than the times he indulges in more overt rude-boy mode.
QUERY: Is Rush Limbaugh, the uber-rude-boy, ever truly persuasive to anyone who’s not already strongly inclined to be a knuckle-dragging right-wing Neandrethal?
scottinnj
I think there is something different about being a tenured college professor than, say, a blogger/reporter/analyst for a news gathering/news commentary organization. Krugman and Brad DeLong as another example do not suffer fools lightly and they don’t have to in their positions.
As the Weigal incident and True/Slant shows you are one email leak away from being sacked or at risk of losing your job because the internet is a tough business model and the cash can run out quickly through no fault of your own. It is a small world, you could be on the street quickly, and you never know when you might need another job or who you may ask.
If you are working in any field where there is a lot of upheaval, many businesses around you are failing, and it is a clubby and small field to find your next job, burning bridges with potential future employers isn’t an optimal long term career strategy. Clearly on line and print journalism meet these foregoing criteria. Yes these people go into this on their own volition but they also have to eat. It may be lame but I don’t think it is irrational.
les
I think this misses the point. It’s not so much about invective; it’s supporting, or refusing to contradict, the position and influence of people who habitually degrade the public discourse by lying, misrepresenting or as mcmegan, just being fucking wrong all the time. The respect of “peers” maintains the destructive fiction that such people should, you know, be listened to and valued even if, this time, they’re just a teeny bit off.
Tom Hilton
@JGabriel:
Politics isn’t therapy. It isn’t about expressing your feelings. It’s about getting things done.
DPirate
It’s called kissing ass. Duh
DougJ
Thanks for this answer.
Though it doesn’t explain why you link approvingly to Megan McArdle.
E.D. Kain
@DougJ: I’m pretty sure if you blockquote my link to Megan I was disagreeing with her – at least mostly. Am I missing something?