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December 03, 2004
Moral Obligations to Oneself
The highly witty, knowledgeable, and thoughtful (or is that the highly thoughtful, knowledgeable, and witty?) Gary Farber believes that I am under a moral obligation to myself to read the Volokh Conspiracy. For in response to my question:
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: The Volokh Conspiracy Needs Better Quality Control : "Suggestions for what should replace the Volokh Conspiracy on my regular reading list?
He answered:
The Volokh Conspiracy. Irritating opinions are among the most worth reading. Life gets much worse than that, with far less benefit.
Let's back up. It seemed to me that there have to be better right-wing things to read than a Volokh Conspiracy that issues blanket anathemas against those of us who use the term "Likudnik":
The Volokh Conspiracy Needs Better Quality Control : Folks on the Left have been throwing around the term "Likudnik.... "Likudnik" has become a term of disapprobium analogous to the term "Uncle Tom" for non-left-wing blacks. Just like it's assumed that moderate, conservative, and libertarian blacks must not be thinking for themselves, but instead serving "the Man," so moderate, conservative, and libertarian Jews must be serving the interests of right-wing Israelis (the obvious difference is that left-wing culture values African American self-interest and nationalism, while left-wing culture values Jews and Judaism only to the extent they are put in the service of internationalism and humanist causes.)... Well, the Left (along with the Washington Post, which used the term in a major article attacking Bush Admnistration neonconservatives) has let this particular anti-Semitic genie out of the bottle, and it's their responsibility to put it back in...
As a card-carrying left-wing neoliberal, my reaction to this was the same as my reaction the time that a... let's call him a well-known Harvard sociologist... sent me an email insinuating that I was a racist because I said that he should treat his graduate students more kindly. My reaction was, "Why am I reading this? Smears like this are witless, ignorant, and thoughtless. There must be better ways to spend my time, aren't there?"
Gary thinks that I have a duty to myself to persevere precisely because I find things like this "irritating." I disagree. When the messenger is sufficiently irritating--witless, ignorant, and thoughtless--it cannot but reflect back on their message, and lead me to discount the message at too high a rate. I think I have a positive duty to seek out the best exemplars of each intellectual position--the wittiest, knowledgeablest, and thoughtfulest--and to read them. And people who play identity politics smear cards don't qualify.
UPDATE: I just noticed that Daniel Davies (from whom I had falsely thought I got the term "Likudnik") writes:
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: The Volokh Conspiracy Needs Better Quality Control :
Hmmmm ... I think I was one of the original advocates of "Likudist" as a replacement for "Zionist".I don't like "Likudnik" myself, as I don't understand what a Russian suffix is doing on the end of a Hebrew word used in an English sentence, and suspect that "nik" is doing work as a careless piece of stereotyping of Russian Jews.
But I think that the pretence that there isn't such a thing as the Likud Party in Israel, or indeed that the Likud Party could fairly be described as "moderate", "conservative" or (good christ) "libertarian", is silly. Bogus accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely contemptible, and coming from Bernstein they are hypocritical as well, because every post of his that isn't about shouting "boojums!" on anti-Semitism is obsessed with promoting his damnable book "You Can't Say That!", which is, more or less, aimed at defending the Constitutional right of Americans to call black people niggers.
However, it has to be noted that even the freaking Likud Party is more or less evenly divided on the question of the settlements, and its leadership are pursuing an agenda which is clearly and visibly more moderate than that of many rightwing bloggers, and it is possibly unfair to the Likud party to smear them by connection with genuine loonies.
Posted by DeLong at December 3, 2004 04:19 AM
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Comments
perhaps we need an anti-Semitic variation on Godwins Law?
Once the conversation has degenerated to calling the other party anti-Semetic (even if that happens in the opening paragraph) its usefulness is over.
Posted by: flory at December 4, 2004 09:54 AM
Brad wrote:
" It seemed to me that there have to be better right-wing things to read than a Volokh Conspiracy ..."
Like my blog for instance ;o)
Posted by: mark safranski at December 4, 2004 08:18 PM
"However, it has to be noted that even the freaking Likud Party is more or less evenly divided on the question of the settlements, and its leadership are pursuing an agenda which is clearly and visibly more moderate than that of many rightwing bloggers"
This made me laugh. Too true Too True.
Posted by: Scott McArthur at December 7, 2004 02:11 PM
I realize no one is reading this now, but for the record, I never ever ever came close to suggesting a "moral obligation" in this regard, and I'm ever so faintly, in a purely friendly way, irritated, Brad, that you'd say I did, um, falsely.
I engaged in a bit of debatable advocacy, but don't think I brought any moral obligations into it.
Posted by: Gary Farber at December 11, 2004 10:56 PM