Quick Notes
1) Helen Rittelmeyer offers a fascinating post on molasses.
2) Over at True/Slant I react to news that Jonah Goldberg got a $1 million book deal.
UPDATE: In comments, a few people reacted to this post as though I expressed an enduring contempt for everything Jonah Goldberg does. Actually, I think his work is quite good sometimes, which I’ve said repeatedly in print, and he seems like a perfectly nice guy. If memory serves, the last time I mentioned him at The American Scene I was defending him.
It is possible to think all these things, and to think the column I mentioned has serious enough flaws that it’s weird for it to generate a seven figure book advance. That doesn’t mean I hate Mr. Goldberg. Quite the contrary. I think his arguments are wrongheaded sometimes, and other times that they are quite good. He seems to me like the kind of guy who can dish it out and take it, so I am a bit perplexed that folks reacted so strongly.
Why are you obsessed with Jonah Goldberg?
— Phil · Dec 8, 01:30 PM · #
He’s obsessed with Jonah Goldberg because Jonah Goldberg makes actual money as a writer, and makes money doing what Condorf considers to be terrible writing (I guess because he doesn’t sound enough like an overearnest, cloying, self-absorbed grad student).
— anonymous · Dec 8, 02:36 PM · #
I have to agree with Phil and anonymous. But the problem goes beyond an obsession with Jonah. Conor’s posts have become so “meta” that it sounds like he’s writing for about four of his friends – probably college flatmates who are also involved in the media biz. This is not what I started coming to The American Scene for, but his conservative-media criticism posts account for an ever-increasing proportion of the writing here.
For all his ranting that conservative pundits lack substance, Conor’s obsessions themselves run largely to questions of style and presentation. He’s not so much interested in discussing ideas as he is in discussing the paucity of ideas in the conservative movement. But one wonders why he keeps at it: Surely he has to be aware of the vacuity of performing the role of a critic about a field of discourse he’s convinced contains no substance, both for himself and for his readers. I’ve never read more than an essay or two written by Ann Coulter, but I imagine that reading criticism of her has got to be one of the few things less worthwhile and pleasurable than reading her essays themselves: At least she’s got a semblance of a sense of humor to make the task less painful. If you’re going to tell me what a boor (or bore) Jonah Goldberg is, at least do it with enough panache and style to make reading your critique of him more pleasurable than reading the man directly. Better yet, why not move back to the substantive discussions that used to characterize this blog.
— Richard · Dec 8, 02:39 PM · #
A review of a book that hasn’t even been written? Valuable stuff.
— Adam Greenwood · Dec 8, 03:37 PM · #
Why is Phil so obsessed with Conor that he has to comment on Conor’s “obsession” with Jonah Goldberg?
I would think if you clicked through to his piece, you would easily understand why Conor occasionally feels the need to put some wood to Goldberg. It should be hard for any conservative to accept that a pompous 1/4wit like Goldberg is one of the more prominent right wing commentators of the day.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 8, 04:58 PM · #
Why am I obsessed with Conor? Because he’s dreamy. Duh.
— Phil · Dec 8, 05:25 PM · #
Once there was this great bar that had $2 32oz Miller Lite, a loud jukebox and free hot dogs forever. Then new management happened. After a while they dropped the hot dogs. Then they raised the price of the Miller Lite to $4.50 and lowered the volume on the music.
Memory fades, new bars open and life goes on. But once there was this great bar…
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 8, 06:47 PM · #
Any time Jonah Goldberg is discussed, all kinds of preliminaries are necessary. So, here’s my recitation: 1) I read the first half of Liberal Fascism, 2) I could not finish Liberal Fascism, but I also generally hate pop political books, and think it is better than most of the crap currently selling, and 3) I no longer subscribe to NR, think much of the content therein is insipid, and cannot stand most of the other bloggers on “The Corner.”
Now that that is out of the way; I would like to offer a defense of Jonah Goldberg. I’m sure all of my fellow commenters on The American Scene are geniuses. We together suffer daily the banality of professional political writers and marvel that they can even feed themselves with their scribbles. But, setting the bar at the level of his peers, calling Jonah Goldberg a “1/4wit” says a lot more about you than it does about him.
I like Jonah. He’s no genius. But he offers interesting perspective at a higher rate than most other pop political writers. His primary appeal is that he’s one of the few well-known political commenters who truly engages opponents, considers their arguments, and sometimes even changes his mind in response. Anyone who regularly reads the Corner could attest to this. It’s particularly glaring because he’s the only one on the blog doing it.
Moreover, his distilled understanding/criticism of pragmatism is both reasonable and well within the mainstream of professional philosophical criticism. Today, he wrote a post on Dewey’s non-ideological stance vs. Burkean anti-ideology. It’s better than 95% of what appears on political blogs.
If you click that link, you might read it and decide you disagree with him. But if you deny that this off-the-cuff blog post was more thought provoking than anything else to appear on The Corner today (and probably more thought provoking than anything that has appeared on The American Scene in the past week — where are Alan Jacobs, Jim Manzi, and Noah Millman?!), well, frankly you are either a liar or a “1/4wit.”
— Jay Daniel · Dec 8, 07:04 PM · #
Sure. I imagine that if you were to completely divorce your intellect from facts, logic, and reality, you could probably offer an “interesting perspective” as well, Jay.
Also – now that it’s emerged that James O’Keefe not only edited the ACORN “sting” tapes, but actually redubbed them, such that ACORN employees appeared to answer questions they were not actually asked at the time, I wonder how many of TAS contributors are prepared to revise their statements and conclusions – you know, the ones who wondered about the banality of evil, the ones who lauded Andrew Breitbart, the ones who took a joke about murder at face value instead of checking to see that the woman’s husband was alive and well.
Oh, wait. That was all just Conor. Oh, wow. Don’t you feel pretty fucking stupid! Well, it’s certainly a vindication for all of us who suggested that this was all selective editing of people who were obviously not serious. Oh, wait. That was just me.
— Chet · Dec 8, 07:25 PM · #
“His primary appeal is that he’s one of the few well-known political commenters who truly engages opponents, considers their arguments, and sometimes even changes his mind in response. Anyone who regularly reads the Corner could attest to this.”
Anyone who reads The Corner regularly knows the above statement is laughably false.
Goldberg’s “writing” consists almost entirely of “liberals suck”. He’s a bore.
— Socrates · Dec 8, 08:37 PM · #
Truly engages his opponents?
Goldberg comes in for a lot of criticism from conservatives like Daniel Larison, John Schwenkler, and I guess Conor too.
I’ve never seen him respond.
— Socrates · Dec 8, 08:46 PM · #
“But he offers interesting perspective at a higher rate than most other pop political writers.”
What the hell is a “pop” political writer? I could understand it if it meant someone who wrote about politics as though it were sports or entertainment, but how does that definition fit Goldberg? Does lame, obvious and dunderheaded political commentary somehow become acceptable if you call it “pop”?
Although, anyone impressed at the reguritation of some trite analysis that was trite BEFORE I WAS BORN might not understand what aggravates me about Goldberg.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 8, 09:19 PM · #
What’s really obnoxious about that Goldberg post is that a large part of his complaints aren’t about cliches at all. So when he complains about the phrase “when any one of us is unfree, we all are” his complaint can be summed up as “this statement is not literally true.” But aside from the fact that it’s daft to criticize hyperbole and metaphors for being figurative language, that has nothing to do with whether or not they’re cliches.
— Justin · Dec 8, 09:39 PM · #
Socrates — I don’t believe you read the Corner. The most obvious example is Jonah’s frequent posting of reader emails that are respectfully critical or questioning and wrestling with them (see, e.g., the link I posted above). He also regularly does bloggingheads and public debates with Peter Beinart, with whom he remains cordial and friendly. Also, he’s one of the only posters on the Corner who is willing to disagree or debate with one of the other Cornerites. Finally, I don’t know if Jonah knows who John Schwenkler or Conor are, but I have read him engage with Larison. He frequently engages with others, although he tends to argue with writers who are more well-known to the general public (like other syndicated columnists).
MBunge — I only meant “pop” to mean “writing for the general public.” He’s a syndicated columnist and regularly appears on tv political talk shows. He’s not a policy analyst at a think tank or an academic. I think we can both agree that almost all of the people who write syndicated political columns or appear on political talk shows could not get a job as a professional political scientist or philosopher (there may be a few exceptions, but they are becoming increasingly rare).
As far as the trite comment, well, I’ve already acknowledged you are a genius. Perhaps I should also add that you are, like apparently every other commenter here, very well-read and extremely informed. But I guarantee that Jonah’s critique of progressivism is not something that most of his audience (meaning, most of the people who elect our rulers) have thought about. So I guess you might say he’s smart enough to know his audience, at least.
— Jay Daniel · Dec 8, 09:42 PM · #
One more thing: I do agree with Conor — and any commenter similarly critical — on the specific piece. Jonah’s article about political tropes is pretty banal. It was written 7 years ago, and it should have stayed in the dustbin of history. It would probably be difficult to turn down $1m to write a book on a topic that he can apparently write while asleep. But I wish he had.
— Jay Daniel · Dec 8, 09:48 PM · #
All that said, I do agree that Jonah’s article about political tropes is banal. I wish he hadn’t agreed to write a whole book on it. But I guess $1m is a lot of money, especially if he can write it in his sleep.
— Jay Daniel · Dec 8, 09:50 PM · #
“But I guarantee that Jonah’s critique of progressivism is not something that most of his audience (meaning, most of the people who elect our rulers) have thought about. So I guess you might say he’s smart enough to know his audience, at least.”
The problem is that Goldberg’s writing, far from enlightening his supposed audience of morons, actually makes then even stupider than they may have been before. For instance, his book LIBERAL FASCISM will make you dumber about both liberalism and facism. That’s because while you may learn a few things about both, the information is presented in a way that profoundly mischaracterizes liberalism and facism. You’ll come away from that book understanding less than you did before, assuming you’re not forced stop reading it because you’re laughling uncontrolably.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 8, 09:58 PM · #
Sorry about the duplicate comments. My comment didn’t show up for several minutes, and I rewrote it twice. I am a relatively inexperienced blog commenter. If there is an editor, please feel free to delete my mess.
— Jay Daniel · Dec 8, 10:07 PM · #
I think Goldberg’s basic point is pretty good, the question will come down to execution. Alan Dershowitz wrote a great piece about 20 years ago taking on what he called the “folk legalism” that “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater.” It used why the trope was wrong as a launching point to talk about free speech and its limits, and was (IIRC) awesome.
Thinking using cliches is a reasonable, conservative strategy — you intuitively know that you aren’t smart enough or don’t have enough time to solve a problem on its merits, so if confronted with a question about whether it’s a good idea to censor political speech in the month before an election, you say “Well, you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater, after all.”
Still, I’m all for the prospect of examining cliches, and think it’s a decent idea.
— J Mann · Dec 8, 10:13 PM · #
Conor, I only wish you didn’t feel the need to SOFTEN your criticism of Jonah. The man is nothing more than a partisan player who uses the cover of “Defender of Conservatism”. He’s a cruder version of Bill Kristol.
— Frank Montague · Dec 9, 03:11 AM · #
Conor writes: “it’s weird for it to generate a seven figure book advance.”
Well, maybe the advance had NOTHING to do with the nature of Goldberg’s argument about cliches and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that Goldberg is a well-known national columnist and that his previous book was a bestseller.
— Conrad · Dec 9, 02:30 PM · #
Conor is …shocked, shocked that folks reacted so strongly. Please. It’s turned into a very good gig for Conor. He has the folks on the left who hate Goldberg and all conservatives, and the folks on the right who think Conor is piggybacking on the success of Goldberg, Beck, Limbaugh….
Conor’s a good writer. He has his logic cannon loaded for bear and he’s ready to blast to smithereens any lowflying conservative he can find. I’m sure he’d pick on liberals, but conservatives are generally too busy to fill up comment threads like the moonbats who comment here. People like Chet and M.(that’s Mike)Bunge have probably used more bandwidth here than most of the contributors to The American Scene.
— jd · Dec 9, 08:50 PM · #
Why are you obsessed with Helen Rittelmeyer?
— Not Phil · Dec 10, 09:29 AM · #