“they had literally no idea who Karl Rove was, and were frantically typing into Google “Reasons Karl Rove sucks,” as we spoke. “
This is not debate. This is young children, deprived of rational education, arguing on a playground whose fictional superhero would win in a fictional contest.
Once upon a time I was a speech and debate coach who made students write arguments for both sides. I guess I couldn’t do that anymore. It is a brave new world indeed.
Who cares? There are oodles and kabilijions of people dying of malaria and starvation and acute interaction with Henry Kissinger. Why write about some microscopic speck of the culture war that will never be won.
Well, I think I might actually have more influence here, given that I'm going to appear on Bari Weiss' Substack to talk about debate in a few days. But I think it's fun to write about, especially given that some of my most widely read articles are about debate. Finally, I think you don't have to write about issues in order of their importance, you can talk about unimportant stuff sometimes. As I say in the article you linked
"Now, if people recognize this and don’t care, that’s fine. If people’s general attitude towards watching videos talking about the horrors of whatever irrelevant culture war bullshit was “it’s fun to watch, and I’ve already masturbated today,” that would be one thing. But people act like these are the most important issues in the world, as though random flamboyant kindergarten teachers are Atlas, holding the world on their shoulders."
EVERYONE should care. The "culture war" reflects people's values - and most values can be linked or interrelated in some way. The best example of this is the success of the left in indoctrinating young people to so called "cultural Marxism" and critical race theory. Secular humanism and socialism are joined at the hip.
The root causes of large-scale material problems are the absurd mentalities that drive the people causing them. We can't combat disease if the Cult of Left refuses to allow serious inquiry.
Just became a subscriber to FP. Great but disturbing, article. The debate class I took in college (mid 80's) was nothing like this article describes. It was more like a sport with offense and defense. There was a prompt or topic that you had to advocate or defend. Many times, you didn't know what side you were advocating for.
You had to know both sides of the argument. It didn't matter what you "felt" was right. Your team presented a case with facts (offense)that the opponents had to counter (defense to stop your offense). If they failed to provide a defense, ie address our arguments than we scored regardless of how weak, inane or incoherent our argument was.
As a result, your team had to have an understanding of what the counter arguments could/ would be. You could lay bare your opponent's referencing only one article from "Fanatics for genocide" for their entire argument, and then go on presenting your offense/case. You couldn't just give your case with out countering their points with facts and reason.
What Bentham described is akin to football team not fielding a defense just an offensive team that throws the ball around without bothering score a touchdown. Th
Leftists project. They always, only, ever project. The tweet image in the article is a fine example, and the rest of the article alludes to a host of other examples.
When Leftists whine "Venezuela iPhone", do any of them actually have a counter to either of those arguments?
Well, I think the iPhone point is easy to reply to--it's not hypocritical to use things produced by economic systems you oppose. It would not, for example, be hypocritical to purchase things from communist countries.
Leftists happily enjoy products that are ONLY produced by free markets and that aren't remotely feasible in command economies, which never allocate any resources to advancing "frivolities" like consumer goods because they don't appreciate second-order consequences.
Command economies don't merely fail to solve the information problem that the price mechanism solves; they're largely oblivious to its existence. The vast contrast between the material wellbeing of US citizens vs Soviet citizens in the 1980s attests to this. It wasn't just greater dollar wealth - the Americans enjoyed a host of consumer products that the Soviets couldn't imagine, and this despite being on a level playing field 50 years earlier.
It is not remotely so hypocritical to purchase something (a banana?) that both societies produce because you happen to be in the disliked one, nor is it nearly so hypocritical to receive a product that you are compelled to pay for (such as Social Security, if you oppose it). Choosing optional, voluntary services that do not exist under your preferred system is a different animal.
Well, I think some would have arguments for why socialist countries would be better at producing such products. But it's not hypocritical to use an Iphone, unless you think that Iphones are bad, which they don't have to think to be a socialist.
You allude to the existence of good arguments, but don't make them. You're back to my original point - these people say "Venezuala iPhone" but never actually bother to rebut either argument. They're just complaining that they're once again hearing an argument that they haven't rebutted, as though it's somehow inappropriate for their critics to reuse a winning argument so long as it wins.
It is hypocritical to say "System 2 is better, but I require things that ONLY SYSTEM 1 CAN DO."
Wait, sorry, what is the argument supposed to be for why it's hypocritical to use an IPhone? It's not hypocritical to use it--they might be mistaken about whether it would exist under socialism, but being mistaken is not the same as being hypocritical. If a person lives in a house that wouldn't exist absent zoning regulations, it wouldn't be hypocritical to still oppose zoning regulations. You can think that the things that resulted in something are wrong, while thinking that the thing itself is good.
“they had literally no idea who Karl Rove was, and were frantically typing into Google “Reasons Karl Rove sucks,” as we spoke. “
This is not debate. This is young children, deprived of rational education, arguing on a playground whose fictional superhero would win in a fictional contest.
Congratulations on the podcast slot. Well deserved
Thanks.
I’m excited to here what you have to say with Bari. Good luck.
Once upon a time I was a speech and debate coach who made students write arguments for both sides. I guess I couldn’t do that anymore. It is a brave new world indeed.
Why is the debate space so far to the left to begin with?
Ted Cruz used to be a debate champion in college, and he is definitely not on the left. Did something happen?
I discuss this a bit here. https://benthams.substack.com/p/phenomenal-conservatism-vs-words
Who cares? There are oodles and kabilijions of people dying of malaria and starvation and acute interaction with Henry Kissinger. Why write about some microscopic speck of the culture war that will never be won.
An acquaintance of mine actually wrote a recent article on the subject: https://benthams.substack.com/p/there-is-lots-of-stuff-much-more
Well, I think I might actually have more influence here, given that I'm going to appear on Bari Weiss' Substack to talk about debate in a few days. But I think it's fun to write about, especially given that some of my most widely read articles are about debate. Finally, I think you don't have to write about issues in order of their importance, you can talk about unimportant stuff sometimes. As I say in the article you linked
"Now, if people recognize this and don’t care, that’s fine. If people’s general attitude towards watching videos talking about the horrors of whatever irrelevant culture war bullshit was “it’s fun to watch, and I’ve already masturbated today,” that would be one thing. But people act like these are the most important issues in the world, as though random flamboyant kindergarten teachers are Atlas, holding the world on their shoulders."
EVERYONE should care. The "culture war" reflects people's values - and most values can be linked or interrelated in some way. The best example of this is the success of the left in indoctrinating young people to so called "cultural Marxism" and critical race theory. Secular humanism and socialism are joined at the hip.
The root causes of large-scale material problems are the absurd mentalities that drive the people causing them. We can't combat disease if the Cult of Left refuses to allow serious inquiry.
Great job kid.
I think you and James should pitch this to Matt Walsh for the subject of the next DW documentary.
Just became a subscriber to FP. Great but disturbing, article. The debate class I took in college (mid 80's) was nothing like this article describes. It was more like a sport with offense and defense. There was a prompt or topic that you had to advocate or defend. Many times, you didn't know what side you were advocating for.
You had to know both sides of the argument. It didn't matter what you "felt" was right. Your team presented a case with facts (offense)that the opponents had to counter (defense to stop your offense). If they failed to provide a defense, ie address our arguments than we scored regardless of how weak, inane or incoherent our argument was.
As a result, your team had to have an understanding of what the counter arguments could/ would be. You could lay bare your opponent's referencing only one article from "Fanatics for genocide" for their entire argument, and then go on presenting your offense/case. You couldn't just give your case with out countering their points with facts and reason.
What Bentham described is akin to football team not fielding a defense just an offensive team that throws the ball around without bothering score a touchdown. Th
This one good, I declare.
Leftists project. They always, only, ever project. The tweet image in the article is a fine example, and the rest of the article alludes to a host of other examples.
When Leftists whine "Venezuela iPhone", do any of them actually have a counter to either of those arguments?
Well, I think the iPhone point is easy to reply to--it's not hypocritical to use things produced by economic systems you oppose. It would not, for example, be hypocritical to purchase things from communist countries.
The argument isn't that simple.
Leftists happily enjoy products that are ONLY produced by free markets and that aren't remotely feasible in command economies, which never allocate any resources to advancing "frivolities" like consumer goods because they don't appreciate second-order consequences.
Command economies don't merely fail to solve the information problem that the price mechanism solves; they're largely oblivious to its existence. The vast contrast between the material wellbeing of US citizens vs Soviet citizens in the 1980s attests to this. It wasn't just greater dollar wealth - the Americans enjoyed a host of consumer products that the Soviets couldn't imagine, and this despite being on a level playing field 50 years earlier.
It is not remotely so hypocritical to purchase something (a banana?) that both societies produce because you happen to be in the disliked one, nor is it nearly so hypocritical to receive a product that you are compelled to pay for (such as Social Security, if you oppose it). Choosing optional, voluntary services that do not exist under your preferred system is a different animal.
Well, I think some would have arguments for why socialist countries would be better at producing such products. But it's not hypocritical to use an Iphone, unless you think that Iphones are bad, which they don't have to think to be a socialist.
You allude to the existence of good arguments, but don't make them. You're back to my original point - these people say "Venezuala iPhone" but never actually bother to rebut either argument. They're just complaining that they're once again hearing an argument that they haven't rebutted, as though it's somehow inappropriate for their critics to reuse a winning argument so long as it wins.
It is hypocritical to say "System 2 is better, but I require things that ONLY SYSTEM 1 CAN DO."
Wait, sorry, what is the argument supposed to be for why it's hypocritical to use an IPhone? It's not hypocritical to use it--they might be mistaken about whether it would exist under socialism, but being mistaken is not the same as being hypocritical. If a person lives in a house that wouldn't exist absent zoning regulations, it wouldn't be hypocritical to still oppose zoning regulations. You can think that the things that resulted in something are wrong, while thinking that the thing itself is good.