arguing, attacking, exposing, refuting
Ed Whelan writes:
When I first ran across publius’s Friday post, I decided just to ignore his latest act in a pattern of irresponsible conduct. But I changed my mind when I discovered that John Blevins is a law professor. I think that law professors especially ought to be held to minimal standards. As regular Bench Memos readers know, I have developed a particular antipathy towards law professors who behave badly—or, rather, who argue poorly: who don’t present opposing arguments fairly, who don’t get the facts right, who don’t reason logically, and who don’t acknowledge and correct their errors.
But — and this is a kind of follow-up to the comment I made on Conor’s first post on the subject — how does revealing the blogger’s name show that he treats opposing arguments unfairly, or reveal what facts he gets wrong, or indicate his errors in logic, or illustrate his failure to acknowledge and correct his errors?
The answer is that it does none of those things. Perhaps Ed Whelan feels that he has responded to publius’s arguments elsewhere, but even if he has, no one will notice that now. Everyone — or rather, everyone who’s not already firmly on Whelan’s side on the issues concerned — will see Whelan as a guy who simply tried to humiliate his interlocutor, and will assume that he did so because he had no substantive arguments to make.
That’s why personal attacks on the opposition rarely do anything more than rally the base. And if you only care about the base, or want the base to be even smaller than it already is — e.g., if you’re Mark Levin — then you won't have a problem with that. (When Sarah Palin told the people at her rallies that they constituted the "real America," what did that say to people who weren't inclined to attend Sarah Palin rallies?) But if you want to win a few folks over to your way of thinking, Ed Whelan’s tactics are not the ideal ones to employ. Whelan keeps talking about “exposing” publius, but what he fails to see is that exposure is not refutation.
UPDATE: Ed Whelan has very graciously apologized to publius.
I think it’s much better to focus on how revealing publius’ identity does nothing to refute his criticisms or support Whelen’s position than to decry how Whelen has violated some sacred bit of netiquette.
Mike
— MBunge · Jun 8, 07:48 PM · #
“I think it’s much better to focus on how revealing publius’ identity does nothing to refute his criticisms or support Whelen’s position than to decry how Whelen has violated some sacred bit of netiquette.”
I’m sure I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I’ve read, on this very blog (let along elsewhere) arguments that opprobrium is a good and necessary thing for governing the space between law and license, not to mention moaning and growing along the lines of “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should; and just because you’ve got a hardon to hump your rights, doesn’t mean the exercise of your rights is – as Martha would put it – a good thing
Do we need more hysterical shrieking about netiquette? I’m sure we don’t. Does Alan make a good point about the shoot yourself in the foot aspects of Whelan’s tactic? I’m he does.
All well and good.
But aside from a tactical blunder, Whelan’s tactics are quite simply across the line boorish; and a good old fashioned shaming is in order.
And that’s just what he’s getting.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 08:30 PM · #
I believe I’m all for calling Whelan’s actions boorish, but if you do not acknowledge that Blevins is also a boor, then it seems an awful lot like special pleading disguised as outrage.
— Blar · Jun 8, 08:57 PM · #
I think the point is more subtle than that.
Part of the reason why Conor’s attacks on Levin are somewhat devastating is that Levin is also a best selling author and claims to drive the future of conservatism, etc. His tactics, while perhaps the norm for the world of talk radio, are unbecoming a person with bigger aspirations. If Levin wrote his books and articles using his real name, but did his talk radio gig pseudonymously, it might be worthwhile for someone who disagreese with one to link them.
I think this is part of Whelan’s point, that Publius uses anonymity to make arguments he could never get away with under his real name. He wants to have his cake and eat it to, to maintain his respectable position as a law professor while engaging in agruments that would ordinarily get him laughed out of the room.
—-
I don’t think this means that “outing” him was a prudent thing to do, but I think there are good and bad uses for anonymity, and Whelan believes this was a bad use.
— JohnMcG · Jun 8, 09:22 PM · #
No, I do not acknowledge that Publius is a boor. The post in question, in addition to being accurate, was well within the bounds of acceptable discourse. It has a bit of brio, but he didn’t even approach the line, let alone cross it.
— salacious · Jun 8, 09:33 PM · #
The post endorsed the view that Whelan is a “legal hitman.” It also called the argument between Volkoh and Whelan an “evisceration” when it was much more genteel, as Whelan’s post recounts. I call these boorish mischaracterizations.
— Blar · Jun 8, 09:54 PM · #
This is surreal. Obsidian Wings is the soft-spoken younger brother of center-left blogdom. We are totally through the looking glass if Publius is the poster child for the abuse of pseudonymity on the internet—I’ll repeat that, ON THE INTERNET.
Let’s not dance around it: your outrage is a sham, a prop conveniently adopted for the purposes of this controversy, and just as conveniently discarded the next time some republican stalwart gets outed.
— salacious · Jun 8, 10:01 PM · #
I didn’t say that Publius was a poster-child for abuse of pseudonymity, merely an example. Surely I could find worse examples, but we are not talking about them.
As for this…
I am now thinking something similar.
— Blar · Jun 8, 10:06 PM · #
I don’t get the Sarah Palin part. When Obama told his audiences that they represented hope and change, what did that say to people who aren’t inclined to attend Obama rallies? That they represent gloom and stasis? Was Sarah Palin’s remark somehow different from Reagan saying that the Democrats were so far left, they’d left America?
But hey, Prof. Jacobs, you courageous iconoclast, you go on with the Sarah Palin jibes. Speaking truth to power, that’s you. And Joe Biden, what an inspiration to us all, with his inspirational rhetoric, seasoned wisdom, and breathtaking personal generosity.
— y81 · Jun 8, 10:09 PM · #
Nope, I’ve always been against outing. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but generally speaking, people’s wishes on this stuff should be respected. (For what it’s worth, this extends to the outing of gay politicians.)
Similarly, I guess I could understand a position which said that people shouldn’t write behind a pseudonym, that if someone wants to say something they need to own up to it. It’s a strange view to have, and I disagree with it, but at least it’s plausible.
No, what I find objectionable is trying to split the difference: oh, pseudonymity is just peachy, but Publius abused the privilege and Whelan was just giving him his comeuppance. First, the factual premise is simply incorrect, Publius didn’t overstep any boundaries. Furthermore, there is no chance people advocating this line of reasoning have any intention of applying it consistently. Hence my disdain.
— salacious · Jun 8, 10:20 PM · #
Well..if Whelan’s outing of Publius was an attempt to scare law professors into conservatism….I guess that was another epic fail.
Whelan just looks like another retard Anger Whigga that couldn’t win an intellectual duel with a “pointy-headed intellectual.”
Acadame is saturated with liberals…….do you change that by looking like a clumsy fool that has no substantive intellectual counter-argument?
— matoko_chan · Jun 8, 11:15 PM · #
And hey, y81, that was a valid point about Palin.
And guess what? Shez running, the GOP leadership can’t stop her, and shez gonna get the nom.
And you’re gonna get another righteous kerbstomping at the polls.
Sarah Palin has killed the GOP.
Game ovah.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jun 8, 11:21 PM · #
Whelan exposed himself far more than he exposed publius.
I find it hard to believe anyone serious about ethics will be able to do anything but giggle, or perhaps snort derisively, at the name of Whelan’s think tank from this point on.
— Erik Siegrist · Jun 9, 01:20 AM · #
THere was big market for conservative loudmouth doofuses that maybe Rush pioneered. I think that market may be drying up. What I don’t get is why hard core conservatives are so drawn to doofuses (or to use the term above, boors). Their previous icon was the eriudite William F. Buckly, not a loudmouth or a doofus at all. Why couldn’t they choose a Ghandi like character to model there talkshow hosts after? OR a comedian, like the liberals. Why do thier icons have to be so personally unpleasant (at least on occasion)? Are these current guys projections of hard core conservatives’ self-images? Do they want to be Rush or Dr. LEvin (he’s a Dr. of LAw)? Obviously the loudmouth doofus is some sort of archtype for conservatives, representing something, or else there wouldn’t be so many of them.
— cw · Jun 9, 01:45 AM · #
@sal, for my part, the affair leaves me with little sense of outrage, but my sense was that Blevins and Whelan alike were being boorish, to use the word of the day, for reasons I explained in my post above. You chose not to respond to what I had written, but to accuse me of ginning up false outrage to prop up my partisan heroes. That’s kind of insulting, and poor form in argument. What’s so hard about addressing arguments instead of speculating on the motives behind them?
@cw: I could name half a dozen liberal icons who easily out-boor Whelan at his most boorishingly boorest. Whatever this occasion teaches us, it says nothing unique about the state of modern conservatism.
— Blar · Jun 9, 05:31 AM · #
And I meant to add: You heard it hear first!
I’ll add that Whelan owning up to his bad behavior doesn’t absolve Blevins of his, any more than Blevins’ bad behavior excused Whelan in the first place.
— Blar · Jun 9, 05:35 AM · #
It sounds like I’m missing some context here, but looking at this post, Jacobs is being unfair: In the quote from Whelan, Whelan doesn’t say any of the things Jacobs accuses him of saying in the first paragraph. Rather, Whelan is arguing that whether or not someone is a law professor matters for whether they are worth responding to, whether they are worth chastising. That’s a reasonable view, even if Whelan carried it out in the wrong way, and regardless of what else Whelan may be wrong about.
— The Uncredible Hallq · Jun 9, 08:49 AM · #
“I could name half a dozen liberal icons who easily out-boor Whelan at his most boorishingly boorest”
Go for it. And my point was boorishness was a common characteristic in popular conservative mouthpieces. So you have to out-boor Rush, Levin, Hannity, and Beck, too. That is if you want to refute my point.
— cw · Jun 9, 03:07 PM · #
Kind of off-topic, but…
If I were King of Internet Blogging, I’d come up with a way to bifurcate discussion threads into Section A and Section B. Technology would determine which section a comment would go into. Into Section B would go all posts that use pejoratives such as “idiot”, “moron”, “Nazi/Hitler”, “fool”, “bastard”, “retard/retarded”, “brain dead”, “scumsucker’, “slimeball” etc. Give me an hour, and I’ll come up with a pretty complete list.
As things stand now, I pretty much disregard the posts that use such labels, and I doubt I am missing much. I figure that whatever valid point might be hiding behind the name-calling will probably be brought to light by someone else.
There was a time when I thought time would take care of the name-calling, on the theory that it is tedious and so “predictable” as to lose whatever effect it may have once had (“shock value” or whatever). But no… seems I was wrong on that.
— Terry Ott · Jun 9, 04:11 PM · #
UPDATE: Ed Whelan has very graciously apologized to publius.
This is a great conservative victory, no? Proof-positive that public shaming works as a method of enforcing pro-social norms!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 05:23 PM · #