Micha Goodman on Israel's political crisis; Bryan Caplan's media fantasy; Kevin Corcoran on Jeffrey Friedman's case against epistocracy; Amanda Ripley on a "dignity index" for political discourse
Re: "The mainstream media has to provoke conservatives day after day to keep them engaged and enraged. Conservatives’ natural state is complacency." - Bryan Caplan
My intuition is that Bryan underestimates conservative demand for news about wokeness, borders, etc. One must first tune in, in order to be provoked.a
MSM is also a business; and the customer is always right.
There is a glaring problem with the dignity index that immediately jumps out: What does a proper, dignified person do when there are political disputants actively promoting evil? To say that is never the case is to simply erase the notion of evil, to imagine people never do or promote evil things. Yet at the same time, it makes calling someone out for promoting evil the lowest of low status.
Now, in general I would agree that jumping right to someone having evil motives is a questionable move, but recognizing that what they are proposing, what they openly say and not what secretly motivates them, is evil is a question of judgement.
Bryan Caplan's comment is both an interesting hypothetical regarding reaction to the other side being less visible and a silly misunderstanding of what would happen. Clearly Fox would not go away and they'd still find plenty to complain about. And secondary liberal political news sources would fill the void left by (liberal) MSM anyhow. They tend to be even more outrageous so conceivably things would get worse, not better.
Surely 4 admits of degrees. It doesn't mean "has mocked or attacked the other side at least once." Do you think Obama mocked and attacked the other side as much as Trump did?
I notice there's no entry for "makes up shit about the other side's birth certificate being fake"
It’s a fantasy that people will give up profitable and influential business models and not just be replaced by someone that will pick up the $100 bill.
Still, I think Bryan is basically correct that if the MSM stopped trolling and pushing a narrative that it would be a better world.
I remember one of plenty of examples, the Nick Sandman affair. Some 16 year old kid became for the entire MSM “the worlds most punchable face”. Btw, Nick lost most of his defamation cases and got tiny settlements in two others. All for his life being destroyed by a lie.
It’s difficult for me to see how, had the MSM simply ignored the story, that wouldn’t have been a superior outcome.
On a less anecdote note, the NYTimes recently published a fawning biography of Fauci, urging the next generation of public health officials to emulate him. So clearly they learned nothing from two years of stoking pandemic fears.
Had the NYtimes not fear mongers covid it seems likely to me that the damage it caused would have been greatly reduced.
I don’t know if a crazed media is inevitable, but it seems to me that Bryan is correct that if they simply didn’t run with certain stories that it would improve public discourse.
I agree that Jordan Peterson tends to discuss evil promoted by liberals more than evil from conservatives but I'm not at all convinced he doesn't see as much or more evil from conservatives and I'm not at all convinced he sees liberals as the other side.
It seems worth noting that Jonathan Haidt also discusses evils promoted by liberals more than evils from conservatives. I don't think any reasonable person would argue he sees liberals as the other side.
I like the Dignity Index. I remember hearing John Boehner discuss his book on Book TV. He instructed his staff to follow this guidance: "You can disagree without being disagreeable." That sounds like a "6" on the Dignity Index. How many 6's are still out there?
Re: "The mainstream media has to provoke conservatives day after day to keep them engaged and enraged. Conservatives’ natural state is complacency." - Bryan Caplan
My intuition is that Bryan underestimates conservative demand for news about wokeness, borders, etc. One must first tune in, in order to be provoked.a
MSM is also a business; and the customer is always right.
There is a glaring problem with the dignity index that immediately jumps out: What does a proper, dignified person do when there are political disputants actively promoting evil? To say that is never the case is to simply erase the notion of evil, to imagine people never do or promote evil things. Yet at the same time, it makes calling someone out for promoting evil the lowest of low status.
Now, in general I would agree that jumping right to someone having evil motives is a questionable move, but recognizing that what they are proposing, what they openly say and not what secretly motivates them, is evil is a question of judgement.
Shorter Caplan:
"If the media would stop talking about the policies they want to implement, there would be less pushback on those policies."
I don't doubt that Caplan is correct, so I have to hope the media doesn't listen to him.
Whatever # is Thomas Sowell is what I desire to be.
Bryan Caplan's comment is both an interesting hypothetical regarding reaction to the other side being less visible and a silly misunderstanding of what would happen. Clearly Fox would not go away and they'd still find plenty to complain about. And secondary liberal political news sources would fill the void left by (liberal) MSM anyhow. They tend to be even more outrageous so conceivably things would get worse, not better.
Surely 4 admits of degrees. It doesn't mean "has mocked or attacked the other side at least once." Do you think Obama mocked and attacked the other side as much as Trump did?
I notice there's no entry for "makes up shit about the other side's birth certificate being fake"
It’s a fantasy that people will give up profitable and influential business models and not just be replaced by someone that will pick up the $100 bill.
Still, I think Bryan is basically correct that if the MSM stopped trolling and pushing a narrative that it would be a better world.
I remember one of plenty of examples, the Nick Sandman affair. Some 16 year old kid became for the entire MSM “the worlds most punchable face”. Btw, Nick lost most of his defamation cases and got tiny settlements in two others. All for his life being destroyed by a lie.
It’s difficult for me to see how, had the MSM simply ignored the story, that wouldn’t have been a superior outcome.
On a less anecdote note, the NYTimes recently published a fawning biography of Fauci, urging the next generation of public health officials to emulate him. So clearly they learned nothing from two years of stoking pandemic fears.
Had the NYtimes not fear mongers covid it seems likely to me that the damage it caused would have been greatly reduced.
I don’t know if a crazed media is inevitable, but it seems to me that Bryan is correct that if they simply didn’t run with certain stories that it would improve public discourse.
I agree that Jordan Peterson tends to discuss evil promoted by liberals more than evil from conservatives but I'm not at all convinced he doesn't see as much or more evil from conservatives and I'm not at all convinced he sees liberals as the other side.
It seems worth noting that Jonathan Haidt also discusses evils promoted by liberals more than evils from conservatives. I don't think any reasonable person would argue he sees liberals as the other side.
I like the Dignity Index. I remember hearing John Boehner discuss his book on Book TV. He instructed his staff to follow this guidance: "You can disagree without being disagreeable." That sounds like a "6" on the Dignity Index. How many 6's are still out there?