March 6, 2002
Justin Slotman, March 3:
LAY ODDS WITH ME: That Josh Marshall ever responds to Natalija Radic. 30-to-1? 50-to-1? Not good odds.Glenn Reynolds, March 4:
JUSTIN SLOTMAN DOUBTS THAT Josh Marshall will ever respond to Natalija Radic.Josh Marshall’s response to Natalija Radic, March 6: here.
Now, LAY ODDS WITH ME: That Justin Slotman and Glenn Reynolds will ever note that they were wrong.
Well, actually, I suspect they will, probably not too long after reading Marshall’s post. (Whatever position they take on the argument over Croatia, which is separate from the issue under discussion here.) Online discussion is famously asynchronous; human beings don’t always have schedules that allow them to drop everything in favor of instantly answering an online criticism or inquiry. I would think anyone would be inclined to cut Slotman and Reynolds slack. My question is, why was it reasonable to cut Marshall so little? [01:55 PM]
While I was happy to see Josh Marshall respond to his critics (with more grace than I probably would've managed, given the pissy tone of some of the calls for an answer), I'm happier still to see someone calling the complainers on their quick-trigger disapproval. One of the great flaws in the constant declarations that weblogging is some sort of Revolution in Journalism (tm) is that it's really easy for webloggers to simply blow off criticism that they can't answer with a sneer and a zinger. You wouldn't know it from reading Instapundit, but there are some people out there with devastating counter-arguments to most of the Libertoonian nostrums offered in the higher-profile blogs.aaWhile we're laying odds, I'd like to see some bets on when Andrew Sullivan will answer this criticism of his sniping at Tom Daschle:aahttp://letterfromgotham.blogspot.com/?/2002_03_03_letterfromgotham_archive.html#10413447aaOr when someone will take up the question of what groups like the Pinkertons mean for the assertion that only government can use force:aahttp://www.whiterose.org/ginger/archives/week_2002_03_03.html#001196aaOr when His Instapunditness will get around to addressing the issues of blogging economics:aahttp://www.whiterose.org/ginger/archives/week_2002_02_10.html#001069aahttp://www.whiterose.org/ginger/archives/week_2002_01_27.html#000508aahttp://soundbitten.com/020129.htmlaaThere are probably a dozen more specific things I'm not remembering at the moment, but I'll throw in a plug for Through the Looking Glass:aahttp://thelookingglass.blogspot.com/aawhich is one of the best weblogs out there at taking up and poking holes in arguments that others leave hanging. I'd like to see more of this done, but as with Usenet, there seems to be an unwritten law that anybody with a halfway decent argument is ignored in favor of pumping a few more rounds into the barrelled fish.
Ginger Stampley has a substantial and interesting post that takes off from Chad's comments above. Check it out; it's well worth your time.aaI do second Chad's recommendation of Through the Looking Glass. Another good independent-liberal-ish blog I don't link to often enough is tedbarlow.aaRegarding the libertarian tendency among bloggers, though, I do want to say this. I self-identified as a libertarian for a while in my late teens; in fact, Teresa and I met while working for a pair of libertarian magazines, Freedom Today and the International Shortage Reporter in the mid-1970s. I've met Murray Rothbard and I've had a pistol pointed at my head by a libertarian lawyer in a breakfast dispute over custody of a post-office box key. One of the pleasures of the blog world, for me, has been making the acquaintance of some modern libertarians, and realizing that, say, some of these folks are a lot smarter than we used to be. I may not agree with their position on everything, but (to choose two very different personalities) neither Jim Henley or Virginia Postrel are fools or bores; in fact, the quality of their blog work and their willingness to dissent from anyone's orthodoxy (including, quite notably, the shibboleths and fetishes of the conservative cheering section) makes me repent having helped popularize the dismissive term "libertoonian" in SF fandom. These people aren't the braying con-suite bores I got fed up with. I just wanted to make that distinction.aaFinally, as to the assertion that "as with Usenet, there seems to be an unwritten law that anybody with a halfway decent argument is ignored in favor of pumping a few more rounds into the barrelled fish" -- well, if I really believed that, I wouldn't bother. In fact I think people react to some things immediately and other things more slowly, and it's not always possible to establish what is and isn't being "ignored." I think that life is real and earnest and the grave is not our goal. So I reject what looks to me like a counsel of despair. (I also reject the idea that Usenet is inherently depraved; in my experience, it has its good places and bad places, and good days and bad days.)
I actually agree with you about Usenet-- by judiciously choosing where to hang out, who to killfile, and who to read, you can get some pretty good and thought-provoking discussions on Usenet. But the sad fact remains that, in general, it's easier to get a big response on Usenet by saying something obnoxious and manifestly stupid than by saying something polite and thoughtful. I think this is a variant of Furr's Law, which you cited recently.aaIn the same way, we get dozens upon dozens of responses from the blogging heavyweights to the cracked bleatings of Sontag and Chomsky and Rall, but you won't often see Instapundit posting a carefully reasoned response to something on Through the Looking Glass, or Andrew Sullivan taking note of substantive criticism of his rantings. And given the huge numbers of people who think that Instapundit was the first weblog ever, and the fact that when the Major Media Outlets decide to do a story on the phenomenon, it's those two they turn to first (with Mickey Kaus and Josh Marshall a few steps behind), I think that's a shame and a missed opportunity. It's also a general blow to blogger triumphalism of the "Revolution in Journalism" sort-- this isn't a revolution in anything, it's the same echo-chambered blather we've had since the dawn of time (note that Socrates surrounded himself with people whose primary contributions to the dialogue were "Yes, Socrates" and "Of course, Socrates, and "That's brilliant, Socrates"...).aa(I'm not counselling anything, by the way, let alone despair (unless you find yourself forced to grade some of the lab reports I've been grading. I that case, run, don't walk to the Pit of Despair...). I'm just bitching about the way things are. Another time-honored Usenet tradition...)aaAs far as Libertarianism goes, well, that's a rant of a different color. I was never heavily into it, but any chance that I would ever really support the hard-core Libertarian position was dashed when I spent six years in graduate school sharing a house with exceptionally stupid people (who were not, I hasten to add, fellow graduate students. Long story.). A better argument you'll never find for some government intervention to protect individuals from themselves.aaWhich is not to say that there aren't thoughtful Libertarians out there, who actually do grapple with the issues that bother me. You cite Jim Henley, who I agree does a pretty good job of meeting reasonable objections with reasonable arguments. Virginia Postrel is another writer who's frequently cited, but I haven't read much of her stuff (there are, after all, only so many hours in the day, and a big stack of lab reports to grade...).aaI use the term "Libertoonian" not to refer to these folks, but to the knee-jerk thoughtless Libertarianism of many of the other blogs out there-- the people who see market economics and smaller government as the twin Magic Black Boxes to fix everything, but who walk away whistling loudly when anyone mentions the less savory consequencess of those ideals. Through the Looking Glass is a wonderful repository of well-stated counter-examples to the Libertoonian ideals. What I mean when I say "Libertoonian" isn't exactly Libertarianism as it might strictly be defined, but since most of the people I tag that way can't be bothered to distinguish between Tom Daschle, Noam Chomsky, and Mao Tse-tung, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over missing the finer philosophical distinctions on their end.
I laid my money down because Josh Marshall never links to other blogs and figured he never would this time either, but Glenn in his Glenn-wisdom decided it was worth linking to so there you are. It had nothing to do with his comments, just with him acting like other blogs do not exist. I mean, half the fun of blogging is getting into arguments with your fellow bloggers, and Josh is a non-participant to the nth degree in this regard.
Fair enough, but there's a distinction: running a weblog about one's thoughts and views doesn't mean you gotta plunge into the heady world of blog-on-blog commentary. (Andrew Sullivan doesn't do a lot of that, either, as Chad points out above.) I'm glad to have Marshall's blog anyway. (And Sullivan's.)aaOf course, wizened veterans of the freemasonry of science fiction fanzine fandom (hi, Alison, Gary) will readily recognize this as Argument #46,3720-sub8D. Next on the agenda: Has Stephanie Dupont met JoanW Carr?
I know, I know, I'm probably wrong to care and it's all something petty or something. I'm glad to have his blog too. But the one time he linked to Rand Simberg he couldn't even call him by name and that has irked me ever since, probably irrationally. The major source of my irrational Marshall-hate is that picture: Josh, pondering, over his computer, collecting his thoughts, Princeton pedigree at the ready, as he prepares us, his Gentle Readers, with his Wit and Wisdom. I mean come on. But that's just a stylistic preference (and I enjoy my stylistic preferences) and has nothing to do with the content of his thoughts or character, and why I continue to read TPM.
I know, I know, I'm probably wrong to care and it's all something petty or something. I'm glad to have his blog too. But the one time he linked to Rand Simberg he couldn't even call him by name and that has irked me ever since, probably irrationally. The major source of my irrational Marshall-hate is that picture: Josh, pondering, over his computer, collecting his thoughts, Princeton pedigree at the ready, as he prepares us, his Gentle Readers, with his Wit and Wisdom. I mean come on. But that's just a stylistic preference (and I enjoy my stylistic preferences) and has nothing to do with the content of his thoughts or character, and why I continue to read TPM.
I know, I know, I'm probably wrong to care and it's all something petty or something. I'm glad to have his blog too. But the one time he linked to Rand Simberg he couldn't even call him by name and that has irked me ever since, probably irrationally. The major source of my irrational Marshall-hate is that picture: Josh, pondering, over his computer, collecting his thoughts, Princeton pedigree at the ready, as he prepares us, his Gentle Readers, with his Wit and Wisdom. I mean come on. But that's just a stylistic preference (and I enjoy my stylistic preferences) and has nothing to do with the content of his thoughts or character, and why I continue to read TPM.
I swear I didn't post that three times.
aI'm not even necessarily looking for blog-on-blog commentary-- as noted above, Josh Marshall hardly ever links to other weblogs, but I think he's one of the best in the... hobby, I guess, unless putting out a tip jar makes weblogging a business. What Marshall _does_ do, though, is seek out some of the better arguments in favor of conservative positions, and attempt to debunk those. Contrast this to the Andrew Sullivan approach of seeking out and beating on the most comically extreme caricatures of liberal arguments, while implicitly pretending there aren't any better arguments out there.aaThe problem is, there _are_ better arguments out there, and they're being ignored in favor of ambulatory straw persons like Chomsky and Sontag and Rall. The fact that better liberal (or at least anti-conservative) arguments can be found within the larger blogging community just makes it even more obnoxious to ignore them. Particularly for those bloggers who take such pleasure in counting coup against the New York Times when it misstates or ignores some point of conservative/ libertarian orthodoxy.
Gee, and I was all set to post my own Josh Marshall-type picture, too. I have the sweatshirt, the carefully rumpled look, the loyal dog, the kangaroo...aaOkay, I made some of that up. I rented the sweatshirt.
May I just say that "blog-on-blog" is a really unfortunate turn of phrase? aa(Or is that demonstrating just what a sick mind I have?)
"aNow, LAY ODDS WITH ME: That Justin Slotman and Glenn Reynolds will ever note that they were wrong.aaWell, actually, I suspect they will,a"aaWas Reynolds wrong? His statement -- which was about Slotman, not Marshall -- still looks accurate. And yes, he has noted that Marshall "also has a long and thoughtful response to Natalija Radic."a.
Patrick: No no no, paste whatever picture you want. You linked to me so I'll kiss your butt and call it ice cream. And if you don't like it --I can change! "Feisty, yet spineless. I like that."aaI mean, did I explain myself sufficiently as to why I wasn't cutting Marshall much slack, as you put it?aaKate: I thought "hot blog-on-blog action" right away so it isn't just you.
My blog is the hottiest. It's like, plasma, man.
We frequently engage people who challenge positions on the Libertarian Samizdata (the 'Inter-blog Gun Wars' and the 'Inter-blog Karl Popper Wars' for example). Likewise I have challenged Chad Orzel's favourite advocate of centrist orthodoxy Ginger Stampley on a couple issues.aaIf we do not always rebut contrary views it can be for 4 main reasons:aa1. Unlike us who *always* notifies by e-mail any site/blog we mention in a posting, we often have no idea we are being written about. There are a lot of blogs and I do have a life other than checking them all every day.aa2. The counter argument is coherent but is the same old same old and we cannot be bothered given it has been done a zillion times before at length either elsewhere or by us earlier.aa3. The article is just idiotic crap and is not worth a reply. A few I probably *should* have ignored were a couple of the 'answers' to Natalija Radic's remarks and my rude remarks about a couple people were just a reaction to their cretinous remarks about her. Josh Marshall however was gentlemen both in his posts and via e-mail and thus deserved a civil answer.aa4. Sheer laziness.aaGenerally if someone makes a genuinely challenging retort then we reply. Most just do not warrant it or would require such a regression to first principles first that no one has the time or inclination. Blogging is a hobby, not a way of life!
I should note first that I have no intention of posting itemized lists of weblogs which I think do the right thing by addressing the best arguments of their opposition, and those which consume a lot of bandwidth beating up straw men. If you care, there's a short list of sites I read on a regular basis (which probably ought to be expanded to include Jim Henley's Unqualified Offerings, Grim Amusements and Thomas Nephew's Newsrack, and Derek Lowe's Lagniappe), with oh-so-witty comments which should tell you what I think of them. ("Libertarian Samizdata" isn't in the regular rotation, mostly because you deal too much in the "spherical, frictionless humanoids" end of things, which I just don't find that interesting...)aaThat said, the "Inter-Blog Gun Wars," at least toward the Charles Dodgson/ Ginger Stampley end of them, are, perhaps, the best example of what I'd like to see more of in the blogging community. Though, for my money, the chief role of the Samizdata crowd in that one was to stand up and be shredded by Dodgson and Stampley...aaI have no problem with most of the reasons for non-responsiveness listed above (#2 I'm not wild about), and for any given topic out there, I'd be willing to accept one of those as explanation for why the "A-list" bloggers don't respond to any given argument. But through statistics we begin to build certainty, and there's a pretty clear pattern of people whipping up on Noam Chomsky while ignoring thoughtful and nuanced commentary elsewhere. And using exactly the same sort of sloppy reasoning and disingenous argument that they so loudly decry in the New York Times op-ed page. Denouncing the trasparent bias of the Times' editors while pretending that the Wall Street Journal's op-eds are models of reason and objectivity is ludicrous. aaWere it not for the fact that righteous indignation serves much the same role as caffeine in preparing me to meet the day, both Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds would've dropped out of my regular reading list. They may yet-- if nothing else, it'd make Kate happy...
I know I quote Matt Welch too much, but fuck it. This is exactly pertinent:aa
a[T]he bloggings of a freelancer should be treated differently, for good and ill, than the way in which a full-time national columnist utilizes his/her prominent op-ed slot. Maybe I92m wrong about that. But I firmly believe I92m right in being hostile to judging writers92 records in addressing this or that particular topic, weighed against various political spectrums and suspected motivations (though I've certainly been guilty of the practice). To use Ben92s analogy, nothing irritates me more than a rock critic assuming they just know why a band has chosen to sound a certain way, or write a certain type of song. It almost always says more about the biases of the critic than those being criticized. It92s also duller than a box of hair. aaaIn other words, yes, it can be interesting and sometimes pertinent to call people on what arguments they do and don't choose to address, but at the end of the day these things are fanzines, not plinths, and that's what's good about them.
Funny that. Yet another case of 'what you see rather depends on where you stand'. I certainly agree there was 'shredding' going on.aaStill, I rarely bother with the socialist blogs (with a couple worthy exceptions) as I tend to see just the same old recycled stuff, hence #2. I find it more fun to poke the pointy stick at dependable conservatives whose economic views actually have some relevance to the real world but who tends to be nice and exposed on civil liberty issues. Of course all blogs have their preferred prey in the blogosphere ecosystem.
aWe keep going around in circles with this, and the original post is destined to move off the front page soon, so perhaps it would be better to let the matter drop, or move on to some other set of comments. aaI'll say one more time, though, that my complaint with some weblogs, and particularly what might be termed the "A-list" weblogs (the sort of weblogs which get email thanking them for coming up with the whole weblogging idea in November of 2000...), is with the combination of immunity to criticism and blogger triumphalism. It's a hobby, yes, but the constant braying about "fact-checking" the asses of major media outlets rings a bit hollow when it's coupled with exactly the same sort of isolation from criticism that torques the bloggers off in the first place.aaThe combination ends up being sort of like a Usenet post containing no quoted material, with nary a capital letter to be seen, and spelling which reveals no familiarity with the English language, which complains that nobody takes the author seriously. If you're going to promote yourself as part of a new way of doing journalism (which, I hasten to add, I haven't seen anybody in this comment thread doing), you shouldn't be writing from the Rush Limbaugh Guide to Political Debate at the same time. aaWriting political commentary in a new medium while using the same idiotic tactics isn't transformative in any way. It's like being in the early days of television, and broadcasting a production of a radio drama-- an hour's worth of pictures of actors standing in front of microphones reading their lines. aaI don't mind people saying "It's only a hobby, so you can't expect me to answer all my mail" as long as they don't turn around three posts later and slam the New York Times for failing to address points raised in its vastly greater mailbags. Playing "gotcha!" games with the text of others while claiming immunity from similar criticism on the grounds that "this is just my hobby" is disingenuous.aaI'm currently engaged in teaching physics to future scientists and engineers. If I'm going to deduct points from their lab reports for spelling and proofreading errors (which I do), I've got to put up with a fair bit of criticism when I've got a typo in the PowerPoint slides I lecture from. Which is a fair cop-- if I'm going to hold them to a particular standard, I'm obliged to hold myself to at least the same standard. aaThat's what I'm asking of the triumphalist bloggers. I'd like to see more accountability from everyone (though the pure hobbyist sector is probably better on this count than the Name bloggers are), but in particular, I'd say that those throwing the greatest number of stones at the mainstream media have an obligation to do so outdoors.
We do keep going around on it, partly because the more you explain what you mean, the less I agree with it.aaFor one thing, because (in SF fandom, back in the Pleistocene) I've been on the receiving end of exactly these sorts of hostile generalizations about some kind of unspecified clique, levelled by people who consistently dodge rebuttal by careful imprecision as to exactly who they're attacking. And it's left me permanently suspicious of arguments that depend on insinuating the existence of cliques (with lots of nudge-nudge: "the A-list weblogs," "triumphalist bloggers") but fail to specify which individuals are and aren't under discussion. Who are these people? Are they all "triumphalist"? Have they all made overweening claims for blogging as a "new way of doing journalism"? Do they all "bray"? Or are you, perhaps, using that rhetorical technique whereby each individual's sins are accounted to the whole, while each individual's virtues are posted to their account alone?aaFor another thing, I fundamentally don't agree with this:a
aI don't mind people saying "It's only a hobby, so you can't expect me to answer all my mail" as long as they don't turn around three posts later and slam the New York Times for failing to address points raised in its vastly greater mailbags. Playing "gotcha!" games with the text of others while claiming immunity from similar criticism on the grounds that "this is just my hobby" is disingenuous.aaaIn fact, I think this is nonsense; it's a variant of the wrongheaded assertion that one shouldn't (for instance) criticize a singer unless one can sing, or criticize software design unless one can design software, or criticize nuclear deterrence unless one is a global superpower with several thousand retargetable ICBMs under one's command. We oughtn't criticize the New York Times unless we're willing to adopt all the accountability policies of a publicly-traded corporation? Well, that's certainly a handy way to devalue and discredit all those upstart individual voices, since precious few of us have the time or the scratch to meet that exacting standard.aaAnd that's what I'm increasingly seeing here: an extension of the "professional" ethos into individual speech. Just as only some people ought to be lawyers or doctors, only some individuals ought to have our respect as commentators--those who can muster the resources to maintain a giant organization's level of responsiveness and "accountability". The rest of us are just being "disingenuous" and "idiotic." Bob at the corner store--why, he criticized the New York Times just the other day, and yet it turns out he's unwilling to listen to the recommendations of an in-house ombudsman as to what he should say and who he should say it to! Clearly, Bob is a hypocrite, and very brave we are for pointing it out.aaIn other words, while I credit you with all the good intentions in the world, it seems to me that the arguments you're using are among those commonly used to privilege the powerful's claim to be anointed spokesthings of the "mainstream." And when the powerful use them, these arguments aren't actually about fairness; and the application of their program doesn't actually yield fairness. What the arguments and the program yield are acquiescence and silence.
In fact, I'm _not_ trying to say that tone-deaf people can't critique singing. what I'm saying is that tone-deaf people who critique singing aren't allowed to say "Well, I'm not a professional singer, after all..." when other people comment on that fact that they can't carry a tune in a bucket. The fact that they're not professionals does not in any way obviate their criticism, but it also doesn't exempt them from criticism when they try their hand at the same thing.aaWhich is what I think we've got going on here. If you want specific names, take Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan (as the two worst offenders among the blogs I read regularly). They're essentially pundits, and they harp on the fact that a professional pundit such as the much-maligned Paul Krugman doesn't respond to their specific criticisms of his business dealings, and crow about catching him in minor errors. But when others, in turn, criticize Reynolds for, say, ignoring the steel tariff issue in his own punditry, he responds with the lame "I'm not interested in that" answer. This is essentially the same thing he's wasted countless electrons bashing Krugman for, and that's sleazy. Sullivan plays the same game, completely ignoring anyone with substantive criticisms of his loopier rantings.aaThese are people who, acting as pundits, demand a standard of behavior from other pundits which they then claim exemption from because they're not _really_ pundits. They're tone-deaf singers complaining about professionals, but denying the right of their neighbors to ask them to stop wailing "Hotel California" from their back porch.aaThe fact that they do this at the same time they spend numerous posts talking about the utter wondrousness of blogging, and appearing in magazine profiles as the public face of the phenomenon, talking about the wonderfully transformative nature of weblogging is particularly galling. This isn't transformative, or revolutionary, it's the same set of cheesy shenaningans that Rush Limbaugh has thrived on for years, nit-picking every utterance by a Democrat to death, but brushing aside questions about his own light regard for the facts. Or, to balance the political scales, it's the same game played by Ted Rall, who says stunningly offensive things, while claiming exemption from criticism on the grounds that anything's fair game for satire.aaThey're hiding behind "Well, I'm just a hobbyist" in the same way that Rall hides behind "Well, I'm just a satirist" or Limbaugh hides behind "Well, I'm just running a radio show." Amateurism isn't a "get out of criticism free" card. If Bob at the corner store criticizes the New York Times for blatantly lying, but uses fabricated data to make that claim, he doesn't get to say "I'm not a professional journalist" when his neighbor Ed calls him on it.aaYou don't have to be a professional pundit to make comments, but if you demand that professionals hold to a certain standard of ethics, you ought to hold to at least the same standard of ethics in your amateur activities. You don't have to be President to criticize the President, but if you're going to criticize the President for sleeping with his interns, you shouldn't do it while cheating on your wife.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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