Wright and Wrong Ways to Debate
Why I'm frustrated with Bob
I don't know how you view this but on the left it's just taken for granted that the ADL is uh effectively part of the Israel Lobby they they they are one of their goals is to is to police speech around Israel in the guise of uh policing speech you know uh around kind of anti-Semitism and and I throw that in there because I could I could give you other examples where I I think that's relevant to what I see as has historically been on balance a pro-israel bias in uh mainstream media
—Bob Wright, podcast with Russ Roberts
I don’t like to get into personal flame wars. When I first wrote Wright and Wrong, the post that went up this morning, the title was a pun, no more than a gentle gibe.
But after I wrote it and before it went up, I had the painful experience of listening on Bob’s YouTube channel to his podcast with Russ Roberts. In my view, the podcast kept going off track, and I think it was mostly Bob’s fault. This morning, I expressed that in a couple of too-glib sentences.
To me, there is a disconnect between Bob’s desire for mutual understanding and his conduct during the podcast. I am going to try to spell it out.
I think the question at hand for Bob and Russ to discuss was this: What should Israel’s response have been to October 7? There are two opposite answers:
a) try to respond with force
b) try to respond with accommodation and appeals to the international community
I believe that there are risks and pitfalls with either approach. One cannot say with certainty that (a) will work and (b) would fail, or vice-versa. There is an interesting debate to be had.
A useful debate requires someone who prefers (a) to explain carefully the reasons to believe that (b) might go wrong and that (a) stands a good chance of working. And similarly the other side has to take the opposite view. In the podcast, there were occasional moments where such a discussion might be about to begin, but instead it veered into side issues and gripes of various sorts.
Bob is on the (b) side. I am on the other side1, but I am trying not to have that drive my reaction to the podcast. I do not question Bob’s motives. I may be wrong about the issue, and it may turn out that (b) was the better approach.
What I do take issue with is Bob’s conduct during the podcast. His remarks are sprinkled with Asymmetric Insights. You are expressing an asymmetric insight when you accuse someone of bad motives that differ from what they claim are their motives.
For example, if you were to claim that the goal of the pro-life movement is to repress women, that is an asymmetric insight. You can complain that the effect of banning abortion would be to repress women, but the pro-life movement is motivated by a sincere belief that abortion is murder.
As another example, if you were to claim that the goal of the Green movement is to ruin the economy, that is an asymmetric insight. Maybe the Green agenda would be economically disastrous, but the Green movement is motivated by a sincere belief that climate change is a mortal danger.
You can see why asymmetric insight would simplify your life. You spare yourself the trouble of facing the possibility that the other side might have a point. Instead, you assure yourself that they only have evil motives.
But asymmetric insight is not a stance that is suitable for peaceful understanding. For people to get along, they have to truly appreciate the motives of the other side, not believe the worst. Given that Bob is all about improving understanding across different groups, it is ironic that he could not refrain from lobbing asymmetric insights into a discussion of a topic on which people are very sensitive.
The example quoted above is an asymmetric insight. Bob is telling us that the true motive of the Anti-Defamation League is to protect Israel from receiving any negative press coverage.
Bob says “on the left it’s just taken for granted…,” which leaves him room to disavow believing the accusation himself. My guess is that he would be willing to stand up and own it. But either way, he puts the insinuation our there, and I do not think it helps to do so.
In any case, the issue of what might be the true motives of the ADL does not have much to do with the choice between (a) and (b). If you want to have a more constructive discussion, stay close to the main issue. And stay away from asymmetric insights.
And if you want to hear a serious discussion of the choice between (a) and (b), look for something other than this podcast.
Note that it seems natural to debate Israel’s choices. What might it look like to debate the choices of other actors, including Palestinian factions, NGOs, etc.?
So I watched the podcast, and here is my $0.02. I'm not going to comment on Robert Wright's conversation style, or the merit of each person's arguments. But I did observe the following. This is the first time I've seen Russ Roberts in what I would describe as a debate-like setting. As I recall, in the opening 15 minutes or so of that podcast, Robert Wright made about 3 or 4 statements/questions. Russ Roberts remembered every point, responded to each one in a coherent and compelling way, and I think in the process he even reordered the sequence of subjects to match the flow of his response. And he kept doing this during the entire 2-hour podcast. I was so impressed that at first I thought Roberts must be taking notes. So I watched the podcast a second time, and nope Roberts had not been taking notes.
My point is that, in my opinion and at least in this particular podcast, Roberts was in top form. I think part of what we saw may have been the challenge of almost any human being (it happened to be Robert Wright in this case) keeping pace with Russ Roberts. Wright strikes me as a very skilled debater, but I think he had his hands full with Russ Roberts.
Blaming America first is indeed a very common reaction, also in my own experience listening to Bob Wright and similar thinkers. However, there's another prevalent bias: the substantial overestimation of America's role and influence in general. This bias is not unique to them. NC-s also overestimate American influence, though their perspectives may differ. For instance, MH might argue that America's role and influence are significant and negative, while NC may view them as significant and positive. In reality, in many instances, whether American influence is bad or good is irrelevant because this influence is minor, insignificant, or nonexistent.
One specific example from the pre-2022 Russian-Ukrainian relations. The most important diplomatic effort was the so-called Minsk Process and Minsk agreements, which were multi-year diplomatic negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to resolve the issue of Russia-backed separatist movements in Eastern Ukraine. To understand how the 2022 war started, its causes, and what preceded it, one needs in-depth knowledge about the Minsk Process.
In several of his conversations, Bob Wright referred to the Minsk Process. He had heard of it, but something was off when I listened to him; initially, I wasn't sure what was going on. But then, during another conversation, everything fell into place. Wright stated, “You know, the Minsk Process and Minsk Agreements. All signed it. We Americans signed it, Russia signed it, Ukraine signed it, and Ukraine did not follow through.” Essentially, he blamed Ukraine and also the US, arguing that the US, as a co-signatory, should have forced Ukraine to adhere to the Minsk Agreements.
However, Wright made a fundamental and factual mistake. The US did not sign the Minsk Agreements and had no participation in the Minsk Process. In reality, these were negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the separatists, mediated by France and Germany. The US played no role in it. In fact, during the Obama and Trump years, the broader perspective was that Ukraine-Russia relations were a European affair, and the European Union (de facto Germany and France) should resolve it, with the US not involved politically, diplomatically, economically, or militarily.
But Wright was unaware of this. Having heard that the Minsk Process was an important series of events before the 2022 war between Ukraine and Russia, he automatically concluded: a) it was important, so Americans must have been involved; b) as Americans were involved, our involvement must have been negative. He could not conceive the correct answer: Americans were not involved at all.
When Wright discusses Russia and Ukraine, he makes many factual mistakes. While I also disagree with his interpretations, he consistently makes plain factual errors, always in the same direction: assuming US involvement and significant influence.
But like I said. Overestimation is not unique to him and other MH-s. NC do similar mistakes even if their interpretion is different.
(Full disclosure: I am from a small Eastern European country and have my own biases. Like most Eastern Europeans, I regard Russia as a threat. Like most Eastern Europeans, I am pro-American, pro-hawkish, and support US involvement.)
There are likely many factors contributing to the overestimation bias, but in this specific instance, I would like to point to one particularly aspect.
I am simplifying, but I think basically it goes like this. If you're someone like Bob Wright, engaging with political discourse in Russia or Ukraine pre-2022, your sources are likely mainstream Western media outlets like CNN and The New York Times. This perspective does not come from within; it lacks engagement with Russian debates, Russian newspapers, Russian blogosphere, etc. Basic reporting from NYT outlets typically was smth like this „Russian politicain X said something about America.” That's the extent of the exposure. You don't see the in-depth stories of "a Russian politician engaging with another Russian politician, making arguments based on Russian thought and philosophy." This is not an indictment of the media, but rather an observation.
However, if you understand the Russian language (as I do) and have followed political events in Russia and Ukraine professionally for years, you'll find that the discourse within Russian media space is overwhelmingly domestic. "A Russian politician talking to another Russian politician about Russia" constitutes more than 99% of the discourse. The essence here is that politics is inherently local; political thought, discourse, arguments, and references are primarily influenced by local contexts.
This is not exclusive to Russia; it applies to the US and even smaller countries. Coming from a small Eastern European country myself, with a border close to Russia, I can attest that even when discussing foreign or security policy, our debates, thought processes, and references are predominantly internal, not dictated by external actors. In a vast country like Russia, this inward focus is even more pronounced.
Bob Wright, and others relying on outlets like The New York Times for their understanding, miss this nuance. They see only sporadic mentions of Russian politicians commenting on the USA and mistakenly believe this to be the Russian political discourse or at least large part of Russian discourse. In reality, these instances are just a minuscule fraction of the broader conversation.