Nicholas Kristof in today’s NYT, titled “Liberal Blind Spot”:
In a column a few weeks ago, I offered “a confession of liberal intolerance,” criticizing my fellow progressives for promoting all kinds of diversity on campuses — except ideological. I argued that universities risk becoming liberal echo chambers and hostile environments for conservatives, and especially for evangelical Christians.
As I see it, we are hypocritical: We welcome people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us.
It’s rare for a column to inspire widespread agreement, but that one led to a consensus: Almost every liberal agreed that I was dead wrong.
“You don’t diversify with idiots,” asserted the reader comment on The Times’s website that was most recommended by readers (1,099 of them). Another: Conservatives “are narrow-minded and are sure they have the right answers.”
Finally, this one recommended by readers: “I am grossly disappointed in you for this essay, Mr. Kristof. You have spent so much time in troubled places seemingly calling out misogyny and bigotry. And yet here you are, scolding and shaming progressives for not mindlessly accepting patriarchy, misogyny, complementarianism, and hateful, hateful bigotry against the LGBTQ community into the academy.”
I’d welcome any thoughts on how this may or may not apply to BMG. I’m not sure if posing this question itself is considered troll-like. That’s not my intent.
I’m curious particularly about the BMG founders – Charley, Bob, David. To what extent has BMG become what you’d hoped? To what extent if any are you concerned about what Kristof describes/argues?
appreciate your brief response on the rules.
i probably didn’t pose the question as adeptly as i might. i get that you defined early on what you’re going for. the rules mention that, and reality-based i assume alludes to it.
what i’m going for is a more authentically curious vibe of “over a beer with Bob and Charley, what do you say amongst yourselves on this topic?” surely you have a view, though of course no objection if you simply don’t feel like sharing a private view!
i was talking to an acquaintance we know in common from opera circles and we discussed this very question; then i saw the Kristof piece and it prompted me to post.
ie, i can imagine a scenario where the editors (and others) say “Here at BMG there is a productive exchange outside this tribe, plus a vigorous discussion within this tribe (ie, Hillary v Bernie).”
Or a version that says “Kristof has a point that applies in some ways to BMG.”
Or a version that says “I feel like many of the Kristof readers, per his column.”
errors. What’s a liberal and what’s tolerance? 1) Are we talking online? 2) What’s intolerance mean? What’s the scale? How far do you have to go before you’re intolerant?
1) Online discourse is by nature less tolerant. I’m much more assertive on BMG than I am in person. I like to see other people’s opinions, and if I disagree, as I do with GGW on charter schools or JTM on Bernie, I’ll argue, sometimes brutally. What would be the purpose of not doing so?
2) What’s intolerance? If the standard is, “We welcome people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us.” Kristof fails to define intolerance or provide a basis of measurement. What is intolerance? Does it mean not arguing? Not criticizing? Not name-calling? Is it like obscenity? Will I know it when I see it? And for that matter, what’s a liberal? I disagree with JTM on candidates and often reasoning, but agree on policy goals. I think Kristof confuses intolerance with rudeness because good manners often imply tolerance and acquiescence.
I think something else Kristof writes is more revealing,
It’s trendy among those no longer in college to complain about the degree of sensitivity and rudeness of college kids. The sensitivity seems new, but the rudeness–which largely slept through the 1980s and 1990s for the much of the left–was part and parcel of the 1960s. I do remember conservative rudeness in the 1980s. (When Geraldine Ferraro came to campus in 1984, one of my truly mild-mannered school mates was arrested for getting into a canoe on the pond at UMass. He and some UMass Republicans held up a sign that said, “Ditch the Bitch.”
Kristof has seized on an issue, but he really doesn’t understand it. I hope that’s not intolerant of me.
I think we are pretty welcoming of other views as long as they aren’t trolling. Examples IMO of conservatives who generally contribute constructively are Porcupine, Merrimack Guy, and Scott12Mass. CentralMassDad is also good at keeping us honest.
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Even polite, respectable, opposition is quelled there. If we can’t even listen to people with whom we disagree, any progress is doomed because compromise becomes impossible.
What kind of evidence is there that conservative or religious thinkers aren’t welcomed on campus? I’ve never seen any.
What I do see, though, is that college campuses have a wide variety of organizations and groups open to more conservative and/or religious thinking, from well funded and well organized college republican clubs, to religious groups on campus, to sororities and fraternaties with conservative slants and so on and so forth. My younger sister just graduated from the University of Arizona and was deeply involved in her sorority — and there was almost not a single economic liberal in it, and almost all of them identified as republicans. While that may be out of the norm of colleges around the country, it’s not out of the norm for the University of Arizona — a huge, academically-rigorous university.
And that’s not to mention all the many, many colleges out there with conservative and/or religious backgrounds.
This is a frankly baffling viewpoint to have considering our nation’s history on college campuses. There has never been any lack conservative or religious representation, and I don’t see any great evidence that this exists today.
The push for diversity on college campuses exists because for hundreds of years college campuses have lacked that, and many minority students on campus were made to feel unwelcomed. Pushing for diversity and respect for those minority students for these students in no way ‘takes away’ rights for other students on those campuses.
Every once in a while they will pick up on an instance of a controversial speaker being disinvited as “proof” that a side is being silenced.
And is it not proof, Christopher? Why the scare quotes?
The phenomenon is not universal; and other side is not silenced. What is happening though is that words are sometimes misinterpreted as physical abuse. What is needed – by some, not all – is more resilience against opposing views, more willingness to listen, debate, engage, learn and potentially change one’s view.
To deny this is happening in colleges – that is a bit laughable. Surely colleges are not high churches, and liberalism, conservatism, linertarianism are not religion. They should be strong enough to take a little criticism without folding over.
…or you answered your own question. You say the other side is not silenced which is my argument as well. I put “proof” in quotes precisely because the examples I referred to aren’t proof of anything.
See what Bill Maher has to say on this – comedians, he says, don’t risk going on campus anymore. It’s an example of being silenced on the campus – with plenty of opportunity to perform outside, but still this curtailing speech, or rather self imposed censorship is not normal.
I used to complain a lot about inane, frequent, and tiring conservative commentary that used to crop up in BMG. Thankfully JohnD and DanFromWaltham have departed. What I observed in both cases were commentators who were not just immune to social disapproval but who, in fact, thrived on it. The guidelines as implemented seemed to provide an enormous loophole that allowed such people to dominate discussions. If anything, their “contributions” reinforced a notion that all conservatives are idiots with nothing useful to offer.
On the other side, though, we’ve occasionally been visited by thoughtful conservatives. Thoughtful conservatives will at once be sensitive to social disapproval and hugely outnumbered. They can become easy targets. Easy targets disappear. If we want such conservative voices here, it takes some effort to keep them from being drummed out.
I’ve always thought that a comment rating system could help. Currently there’s no way to mark one’s appreciation for a well-stated opposing view, no check box that says, “I disagree with your comment but you stated it well and provided some useful evidence.” It would be nice if there were, for then one could give thoughtful conservatives the sort of positive social reinforcement that might encourage them to continue contributing.
n/t
to drive Dan From Waltham off of BMG. I liked JohnD okay.
Why the pride in driving someone away? That seems wrong, even if I don’t know Dan from Waltham too well.
only because you don’t know Dan From Waltham too well.
There’s such a thing as ‘useful foil’. Are you sure he did not serve that role?
At our town meetings, we used to have a guy who made a point to speak at the rear microphone, pounding on this, complaining about that, until he drove almost everybody nuts. Everybody thought he was 90-95% right in what he said, but the remaining 5-10% was far out there. He did this for a number of years, then he got bored and moved on. Leaving aside the interpersonal disputes, which I am afraid to say were quite harsh once he got to them, I think he served our town quite well, in his own way. But boy it took a lot of patience from a lot of people to put up with it.
1. He was never 90 – 95% right.
2. There were rarely links to back up arguments and not infrequently when they did appeared they did not back up the argument, they undercut it!
3. There was a tremendous amount of baiting.
4. There was a prolific profusion of posts and comments, and everything, absolutely everything, turned into DfW vs everyone else. Very tiresome.
Also, as I wrote above, this is totally toxic to having thoughtful conservatives contribute on the site: it trains the liberals to be dismissive of conservatives and so, when one appears who has actually read stuff and done some thinking, he or she gets treated like Son of Troll.
and he should never have been allowed to run rampant for as long as he did.
A: Who’s’ there?
Q: Interrupting cow.
A: Interrupting cow–
Q: Mooooooooo!
That was DFW without the humor.
I’ve never tried to drive away anyone who was a useful foil. DFW was the worst of the worst. He was unignorable comment pollution. He made the comments hard to bear, and he tended, not to pick his battles, but to pick every battle.
We have those people at town meeting too. As selectman, I will correct their information, but listen impatiently to them. But town meeting has a moderator, and BMG’s ethos is decidedly laissez-faire in the comments.
Back in 2004, 2005? I came to BMG via a link on a local progressive blog (remember them?) called Cape Cod Works written by Len Stewart. I had my own blog then called Peter Porcupine (a ghost of which floats on Blogger). I was intrigued by the claim of being Reality Based, and contacted an administrator, one Charley Blandy. I told him there was nothing reality based, that reality encompassed ideas that were not only unrepresented on BMG, they were unthought of, as the opinions were too homogeneous. I asked if he would mind having other ideas and points of view expressed, and I was cordially welcomed.
.
A decade later, that is not the norm. News, stories, and platforms have all become tribalistic, an echo chamber instead of a sounding board. We hear about events from social media and boutique cable channels tailored to our personal preconceived ideas. It is dangerous. It is what has given rise to Sanders and Trump. It used to be said that you can have your own opinions but not your own reality.
That is no longer the case.
but Sanders? Sanders’s vision for America is one that’s based off the successful implementations of visions from our country’s past and from other countries around the world.
It’s Sweden and Eisenhower and Finland and FDR.
I wouldn’t say there isn’t any tribalism within the Sanders community (there will always be some tribalism in every campaign), but it certainly isn’t what has fueled his campaign, and it certainly isn’t what fuels Sanders himself.
shafted on media, unlike Trump. He hasn’t even gotten a boost from MSNBC as far as I can tell.
Until now, he hasn’t had the profile to even develop a tribe.
This is true, and it also needs to be said that his own style, posture, and attitude is at least a contributing factor. The mainstream media is almost completely dominated by the 1% or 0.1% (because they own it). It is not surprising that they are not enthusiastic about the straight-ahead brute-force push of Mr. Sander’s campaign rhetoric.
Since there is nothing surprising about any of this, one of the disappointments of the campaign (in my opinion) has been the singular absence of creative responses to this obvious obstacle.
In my view, the most challenging aspect of this campaign is Donald Trump’s explicit contempt for facts, truth, and reason and the depressing number of Americans who apparently welcome and enthusiastically celebrate this denial. Media strategy is going to be increasingly important.
In my view, the attempt to conflate the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is woefully incorrect and even misleading. Mr. Trump willfully and explicitly lies to suit his own immediate short-term view of his own interests. Mr. Sanders, if anything, goes too far in the other direction.
If there is a learning about the mainstream media and its behavior over the past 30+ years, it is that dismantling the fairness doctrine and removing ALL constraints on broadcast content has been a disaster for those who value an informed electorate that makes decisions on rationality, facts, and informed debate.
Fox News is a case study in how a handful of well-funded extremists have been able to effectively destroy humanity’s most stable and effective Democracy.
though I don’t think the demise of the Fairness Doctrine had much to do with it, since that only applied in practice to broadcast communications and not to cable and internet sources.
Given that it is unlikely and probably undesirable for government regulation to help achieve the goal of an informed electorate, a big part of the job ought to be with the more responsible (i.e. professional, not explicitly ideological) media. But I think it’s fair to say that they are not doing a good job on this score.
Here at BMG and similar places, I think the best we can do is try to stay reality-based and avoid allowing our own inevitable biases cloud that commitment to reality and facts. That includes being willing to listen to our differently-winged friends and criticizing those on our own side on the occasions when they drift from reality.
had the fairness doctrine remained in place, the CNNs, Foxes and MSNBCs of the world would look very, very different, and they’d be staffed by people with very different views of the media.
And, while plenty of people watch cable news, their ratings are tiny compared to the number of people who watch broadcast news.
“The mainstream media is almost completely dominated by the 1% or 0.1% (because they own it).”
Wrong, Tom. The media prints what people want to read. Different media caters to different audiences. Cable TV is different than news print journals, which are different from the tabloids, etc.
Problem is, people’s tastes are imperfect. But the media is followed by much more than the top 0.1% or 1%. It’s a pretty Darwinian medium that evolves based on reader taste and preference (and forms it, to some extent).
I fear you miss my point.
The mainstream media exists to make money for its owners. The way it makes money for its owners is to generate advertising revenue. Ratings matter only to the extent that they can be converted to advertising dollars.
It has nothing to do with what the owners “follow”. The owners of the media strive to protect their portfolio and their wealth.
I’m fully cognizant of how the medium evolves. I’m not sure you realize the extent to which “reader taste and preference” is determined by the broadcast content that the media owners (that same 1/0.1%) select.
The media prints what it wants people to read, not, as you say “what people want to read”. It omits what it does not want the people to read. The media is owned by the .1%.
Responding to you both – no, the media, in general, does not strive to make money for its owners. The printed news media barely makes a profit; it’s certainly not a money making business. Cable news TV is into money making – news coverage, however, is driven by print media rather by cable TV media.
We have a pretty basic disagreement here. The media certainly does not print what it wants people to read, forcing stories unto them against their will. There’s a feedback cycle in terms of what other media is covering, what readers write to the editors, and – lately – what comments are posted on the newspaper web site.
Just look at the Trump coverage in the written press, and on TV, and use this as a test case for your theory – that the media is controlled, contents wise, by the top .01%. What drove coverage of Trump? On TV, pretty much, it was viewer ratings. Viewers wanted to see more Trump, and that made profit to the TV channels. On the written news press, it was outrage of news reporters finding Trump to be the most flawed candidate in a long time. This had nothing to do with what the top .01% wanted, in particular. On the tabloid circuit, People Magazine and such – what drove coverage of Trump was interest of their readership – which consists mostly of Trump fans. Again, not something the top .1% wanted, in particular.
…If a theory can’t be verified in particular circumstances, then I hope you agree that the theory is probably wrong.
Media makes its $$$ by selling ads. That’s part one. People buying the ads are corporations and business, that’s part two. If your media offends part two, there is no part one.
The top .1% just wants $$$, however it comes.
I agree that generally TV stations and big news papers are owned by very rich people. Whether or not that makes them totally biased depends on the integrity of the owners.
However, in the internet age there are many sites such as this one that are most certainly not “owned by the .1%”. Plus there is Twitter and Facebook etc. So I don’t think that the overall media narrative is controlled by any secret cabal. The fact that we are leaked hearing stories about how Sheldon Adelson is ordering reporters at the Las Vegas Review-Journal to write stories his way, should give us some small sense of security in that we are not hearing similar stories from other papers.
I supported Don Berwick and Bernie Sanders for the same reasons, their refusal to align with corporate interests and their firm position that the USA should have the same health care as the nations of the developed world. There’s been a lot of intolerance of me because of this – and not just in BMG. I this is not “liberal intolerance”, it’s intolerance of questioning the party insiders and intolerance of going for the risky but far more beneficial win instead of accepting the sure shot win without results, with the exception of a “D” after the office holder’s name on CNN.
No one has been disparaging you for your refusal to align with corporate interests.
I want corporate interests out of health insurance while Hillary and her base tells me that such things are pure fantasy and that I am just hurting her chances by suggesting that such a thing could be a reality instead of a theory that will never ever happen.
@johntmay – I would not describe it as intolerance, but as a normal dispute of ideas. Sanders, whom I support, may go to lose, but still he did well and it’s in the nature of the contest that the candidate with most votes will go forward, with her pluses and minuses.
please do not hijack the post.
that has been a problem–I doubt anyone disagrees with your general policy goals. It’s how you have asserted your opinion that rankles. You tend to see things in black and white, blame others for the candidate they support, and as KBusch says, play the victim. Your best posts have been the ones where you spoke from the heart and your experience.
I supported Don Berwick. I could have supported Bernie. I certainly gave him a lot of thought before I committed to Clinton. So what? I’m not completely sure, but I may have voted for Nader in a primary.
You tell that I deal in “Black and White” while your candidate insists that health care in the USA removed from corporate control will “Never Ever Happen…..”
Might I remind you that Mrs. Clinton has indicated she would sign a public option change to the ACA if it were passed?
I’m waiting to hear your — or anyone’s — plan to get Speaker Ryan to move single-payer health care forward in the House.
might I remind you that she has called the removal of corporate control of health care something that will never ever happen? And what does “Speaker Ryan” have to do with this?
If your reply is “We have to wait for the Republicans”, well, then I am in the wrong party and really ought to join the Republicans because according to you, they are the decision makers and we’re just followers….
1. With cities heavily Democratic and suburbs and rural mostly Republican, our electorate is distributed in such a way that House districts naturally tend to favor Republicans. Senate “districts” certainly do.
2. The Republican sweep in 2010 affected not just Congress but state legislatures causing House districts to be redrawn to favor Republicans even more heavily: witness, for example, how Republicans are over-represented in Pennsylvania’s delegation.
3. Consequently, for Democrats to retake Congress requires substantially more than a a majority of Americans to vote Democratic in Congressional elections. This was difficult to achieve — even in 2006 and 2008.
4. Anything less than a huge Democratic majority is woefully insufficient for enacting progressive legislation due to the filibuster in the Senate and to the substantial number of conservative Democrats in the House. Witness the inadequacy of the fiscal stimulus in 2009 and the inability of the Democrats to pass a public option as part of the ACA.
5. A Democratic President, even a highly charismatic President with boldly progressive values, must get Congress to pass legislation to bring about a public option in the ACA. Single-payer also requires legislation. (Hence the comment about Speaker Ryan. Speaker Ryan, to clarify, is the leader of the Republicans in the House. Bills do not get voted on in the House unless they accord with the rules that control the House. The Rules Committee, in its turn, almost always reflects the views of Speaker.)
6. The earlier attempt by the Clinton Administration to enact healthcare reform ran into very powerful opposition from the insurance industry that Democrats were unable to surmount.
*
So anyone suggesting that we can attain single-payer in the next Administration may certainly be telling you what you want to hear. (It’s what I’d want to hear.) However, it is about as achievable as moving Mumbai to Mars.
Given that, we’d want whoever is going to be the next President to have a robust agenda of achievable progressive goals. It’s not enough to have a presidency of promising hot air.
But while Team Clinton has tsked-tsked Bernie supporters about it since the beginning of the election, it’s a lecture that ignores one salient fact that has gone ignored or unanswered for the entire election within the Clinton campaign.
The Republicans in Congress aren’t going to be passing any of her progressive proposals, either.
And the things Hillary and the Republicans would compromise over should keep people up late at nights.
So, sorry, but no Hillary supporter should be bashing Bernie supporters about the achievability of their progressive visions — unless it comes with the admission that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have any.
I have a different takeaway from you:
1. This, to me, argues compellingly for the importance of taking back the Congress
2. Failing (1), it is just as important to ask how our next president will RESIST the Republican efforts to reverse virtually ALL the gains of modern government.
One the reasons I chose Ms. Clinton over Mr. Sanders is my observation that throughout this campaign the only political skill I saw him display was the angry tirade. Like a guitar player who has just one riff, and a riff that works only in heavy-metal blues, I see Mr. Sanders as a politician with just one political riff.
The prospect of enduring a full-bore GOP attack on the administration of a President Sanders (comparable to what we saw against Bill Clinton and again against Barack Obama) is FAR MORE likely to disturb my sleep than the same attack launched against President Hillary Clinton. I’ve watched her calmly stand firm against such attacks over and over — while I watched Mr. Sanders absolutely crumble under far more courteous pressure.
I suggest that we collectively will accomplish ONLY those progressive visions that we demand through our Congress. So long as we have the kind of elected legislators in Washington that we have today, your protestations about Ms. Clinton are a meaningless distraction.
Presidential politics is a lagging, not leading, indicator of public opinion.
Sure, but we’re not going to inspire vast amounts of people to register and turnout when we’re Republican-lite neoliberals, who’ll always have seats at the table for lobbyists and millionaires, but can’t give one measly seat to a labor leader on the platform committee for the national convention.
And what in the Clinton background makes you think this is at all a priority? Passing NAFTA? Banking deregulation? Not supporting some basic, super-duper popular efforts among Democrats today, like Fight for $15 or expanding Social Security?
The Clintons and elements of the party that the Clintons represent have a very long record of appointing executives to key government positions, dissing core constituencies within the Democratic Party when they view those constituencies as having no where else to go, etc. etc. etc.
Or is it the tens of millions they take in SuperPAC contributions, and hundreds of millions they’ve taken for the Clinton Foundation or as payments for making short speeches?
It’s tough to resist the Republicans in Congress when they’ll appoint corporate hacks who will do the GOP’s bidding at all levers of government, when they utterly refuse to take on the mantle of economic progressivism, giving a real alternative to the public come election time, and when they personally and politically depend on and are enriched by the very same sources of income that enrich and fund Republicans.
Or we could have elected someone to the Presidency who would use their vast (almost unimaginably huge) executive powers to enact progressive changes, and realize that Congress has a relatively small amount of power in comparison. Oh well.
Your views on this election have utterly divorced from any and all reality, and blind to the very real change an economic progressive President could accomplish through executive powers and changing the courts alone.
People should vote for Hillary in the general because she’s not unsafe around nukes, won’t insult and piss off leaders around the world, and won’t install reactionary conservatives who will walk back social progress to the courts… but not because she’ll help the Democrats win back Congress (LOL), or because she’ll somehow be some major force for resistance against the GOP. That ain’t the Clintons. Sorry.
the wrong candidate, but you’re black-and-white in equating my support with blind support. You confuse my support for Clinton with support for corporate America and opposition to single-payer healthcare.
That’s stupid. And it’s black and white.
my candidate. Repeat: I am not my candidate.
…I’m plenty tolerant of your support for said candidates, especially since I agree with a lot of their positions despite making other choices. I have quite a bit less tolerance for the holier-than-thou attitude you often bring to the discussion.
This is a disagreement about ideas. You’ve always been welcome to say what you want, and some agree, and some don’t. You’re making an argument about theory-of-change, which people on roughly the same side of the issue will always disagree about.
You come on strong and get strong pushback. That’s kind of what this site is for.
The question posed – does BMG have a liberal blind spot?
I can’t recall a subject we’ve debated recently where commenters did not pound on all sides of the arguments. Yes, if you put things to a vote, the liberal sentiment prevails. But it’s more a unity of purpose an than agreement about the means. There is no BMG ‘unified opinion’, thus the thing supposed to have a blind spot does not exist in the first place.
There’s a continuum of intolerance, and it’s hard to know what starts where … I remember a certain kind of leftist intolerance and closed-mindedness in college, in which not toeing a maximally leftist line and parroting a certain set of jargon terms left you open to social intimidation and threatened ostracism from a handful of self-appointed movement leaders. I say “intimidation” in a mostly interpersonal, not legalistic sense. But sometimes — rarely — there actually were personal, bodily threats. In any event, either form of intimidation is coercive: It doesn’t let an argument speak for itself, or respect an interlocutor’s free will and good faith. Believe x or there’s a penalty.
But … generally I think Kristoff’s (and others’) argument contains a category error: People should be tolerant of people, as an end in themselves. But one should not necessarily be forced to entertain bad ideas. Ideas can be kicked around and treated with whatever contempt they deserve. Open-minded, open-ended discourse can accomplish that, without resort to forms of coercion.
But however much we identify ideas with people, they are not intrinsic to people. People can and do change their ideas. When we talk with someone who has bad ideas, we have to hold out the possibility that they’re capable of changing their minds. To condemn a person as hopelessly reprobate is pointless. And we need to preserve the humility that we are all possessed of illogical, wishful or malicious ideas from time to time.
I keep thinking back to the line from Max Ehrmann’s little credo, Desiderata:
And sometimes the “dull and ignorant” one … is you.
… I found his article quite irritating, as it didn’t seem to describe any academic institution I have ever been at (and that is at least 10 institutions, with a few name brand ones mixed in there).
I remember back in the 90s when some kid from Williams wrote an article (in the Atlantic ?) revealing elite students’ deep dark secret — they would just parrot back whatever deconstructionist/Marxist/feminist/anticolonial theory was de rigueur at the time, get their A grades, and go off to work for investment banks.
There was always plenty of conservative opinion available on campus if you knew how to find it. The only people I feel sorry for are the students from certain backgrounds (perhaps working-class, rural, evangelical, etc) who hadn’t been told the rules of the “Glass Bead Game,” and maybe came away from college feeling alienated and confused. (If they didn’t decide to chuck the whole thing.)
It’s an irritating article because it has a kernel of truth.
irritating because it was typical punditry: spinning an ill-considered generality as a novel insight.
Its primary purpose is to help energize and enliven progressive politics in Massachusetts by providing a place for reality-based discussion (naturally, anyone fully educated about reality is progressive).
As to Kristof’s criticisms, I think they are poorly argued: there are thousands of universities in the U.S. with a wide range of ideological positions but he treats them all as one, he bases his argument on a few surveys, not all of which he identifies, and not all of which are focused on higher education, and he suggests user comments are powerful evidence. If he was more specific, he would be more constructive.
As to BMG, after 12 years of being an editor here and reading many thousands of posts the most constructive rule I think we have is: no personal attacks. When commenters keep discussions at the level of ideas the give and take can be educational and enjoyable. When it slips into invective it becomes annoying or destructive. A workable ethic has developed: we’ve only had to ban one person or so out of the hundreds of thousands who read the site each year, and I can’t remember the last time I deleted a comment. We give cautions out occasionally and most users wisely heed them. When many thousands of people effectively police themselves in the interest of discussing a political community of millions, I’d count that a success. It’s also been profitable since Day 1 because while its revenues are tiny its costs are even less.
Sometimes I alert people that I’m doing it, and sometimes not, but after all this time I don’t feel the need to wipe people’s butts for them.
And we are all happier for it. WRT my comment above, I should have noted “he suggests NYT user comments are powerful evidence.” BMG user comments, however, are worth their weight in gold.
And was my primary means of staying engaged with local politics while I lived out of state, for a longer period of time than I intended. It’s reach on local
politics could always be wider, and I hope after the presidential election we can really sink our teeth into what goes on under the Golden Dome and how to best make changes from inside and outside that institution.
Hester’s addition to the editorial team was a great step in that direction and I hope to see more direct collaboration with Raise Up, Progressive Mass, CommonCause and primary campaigns and the rare competitive general election campaigns.
My present position has taught me a great deal about the limits of sustaining these kinds of movements and how truly disconnected many of our fellow citizens are from their local and state government. So it’s a good bubble that has had an impact bringing many people together who wouldn’t have interacted otherwise, but I also think it’s time for us to step out of it more frequently and on more locally driven issues.
A good example is the trans rights bill. While it’s shameful committees can hold votes in secret to hide how our representatives feel about the rights of their fellow citizens, it is more shameful to see progressives defend this as a tactical necessity and even more shameful the vast majority of Bay Staters don’t have the first clue that it even happened or why it’s problematic. We got a lot of work yet to do.
I tend to stay out of the Dem vs Dem fights on here, but this is a little more theoretical. I am getting sick of the Bernie vs Hillary battle (thinking about a couple MA conundrums that could use a thread), and I see that even this thread has kept that going. Sidebar (with a hat tip to the liberal bias): my side has thought Debbie Wasserman Schultz was awful for years, but I bet if I said that a year ago I would have been roundly criticized and no one would have supported me. Okay, here goes:
Posters here have a bias. It’s like this. If you’re from MA you start with the point that Brady is the GOAT until proven differently. Better than any QB ever. Someone opposed to that is going to have to really come up with great points, and BTW as you argue nine other people are going to agree with the Brady poster and disparage your points. All ten of you are going to use “of course” facts, that are more opinions. “It’s much harder to play outside in the north,” Montana’s teams didn’t have salary caps, etc. The person on the other side can’t really make the point, or even have the pro-Brady side acknowledge that there might be others that are close. Then a new thread starts that is young Brady vs old Brady, Gronk is more important than Edelman or something like that, and it will be relatively balanced and go on ad nauseam. Everyone agrees that Pats fans are the best. I’d call it (this is from sports radio) the “homie” discussion framework.
A second problem is the never wrong syndrome. I’m talking about philosophy, not BMG arguments. Is there any possibility of that? I know my side is periodically wrong. I notice it here because whenever something makes anyone here uncomfortable (as it is inconsistent with their views)….. crickets. Maybe Joyce will post her thoughts on the whole labor union thing (joke).
A third problem is the unwillingness to admit a different path might work. Maybe the free market solution works better in one instance.
If I said “Baker’s doing a good job” I bet 98% of the BMG posters would disagree. Yet- 75% of the state feels that way. Are they stupid? Delusional? or are they maybe onto something. Does it matter? I tend to side with majorities when it doubt. Most of the people in MA want a blue (or blue-ish) state. I’m okay with that. But when people think that may having a little balance in this state would get the job done, no one here’s okay with that. If I cataloged all of the posts over the last year on the MBTA, here’s what it would say “it wasn’t Deval Patrick or his appointees fault,” the working class union heroes of the MBTA aren’t at fault. The MBTA’s problems are the fault of 1. Charlie Baker 2. Republican suburbanites who refuse to pay their fare share. Go check.
A fourth problem is the lack of ownership. DeLeo’s your guy (voted and given power by your elected officials). I actually consider him my guy because Patrick wanted $2 billion and DeLeo gave him $500 million. Obama’s your guy. I thought we were ending foreign wars and doing Sec Clinton will be your guy/girl. I make a distinction with Congress. None of us can control voters in some other (probably gerrymandered) district. Obviously if Trump wins he’s my guy, though I can at least hide behind the fact that he’s not my wing, and will be winning with a big chunk of voters outside my party. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
All in all BMG is a nice discussion forum not available elsewhere I’ve learned a lot here.
PS I’m glad DFW is gone as well. I really couldn’t stand that guy. IMO JTM, while no DFW, is starting to get on my nerves. Give it up dude.
I appreciate your commentary and now that I’m temporarily “outside the party” it’s easier for me to criticize the deficiencies in our local pols. I can’t emphasize this enough though. We need more competitive elections at the local level. I think this is the single easiest and most essential reform. It doesn’t matter if the UIP does it or someone else, but it’s gotta happen.
Mark Bail and Stomv can probably articulate how hard it is to campaign and govern even at that level, and they have a tremendous amount of my sympathy and respect. But it’s sad nobody is challenging Timilty, unrepentant anti-choicer and anti-equality corrupt Hackocrat to replace a hack like Joyce. Nobody is challenging Miceli.
And when there are challengers they often lose due to abysmal turnout or are a little too gadfly to be acceptable. So it’s tough. I give Cheung some credit for not waiting in line, (though I do question the timing and sincerity of his conviction the incumbent is no longer worthy). Wish someone would give Walsh a strong challenge next year. Whether we like our incumbents or hate her/him they all deserve one.
Baker gets a lot of credit from me for the EITC expansion, backing the trans bill and refusing to endorse Trump.
…I sometimes think YOUR blindspot is in assuming that every conservadem can and should be successfully challenged. Believe it or not Miceli’s district actually LIKES him. He has been challenged from time to time by GOPers who may be to his left on at least some things, but not successfully yet.
I believe I’m the one who explained in detail how difficult it is to take on folks like Miceli, down to the fact that Republicans more progressive than him wouldn’t get supported by the GOP base or Dems alike, and that his own relatives who hate him are too scared to take him on. Your former
boss in Dracut is far more vulnerable and I’d rather she lose to a Republican than continuing to sully the Democratic brand.
Your blind spot is loyalty to the party over loyalty to the progressive cause I’m these cases. You’d rather a conservative with the D next to their name like Garry than an R who’s actually more reasonable. Even an R who is just as bad would at least be a vote against DeLeo and enable the majority to actually be progressive.
There is no reason for a major civil rights vote to be held in secret. I get that it was tactically needed and I won’t even fault DeLeo since the bill will get to Bakers desk and be signed. But it enables committee members who did the wrong thing to lie and say they did the right thing or vice a versa. And the voters have no way of holding their elected officials accountable either way. That’s the dictionary definition of an undemocratic body. I read up on clinical Gov Andros during my honeymoon and he was tarred and feathered for his Star Chambers, I don’t see why we are allowing them in this century when we ostensibly have the most “Democratic” legislature in America.
…but my point is I’m not sure the district has. I’m just trying to remind you that we live in a politically pluralistic society. Not every district is going to trend our way, but guess what? THAT’s OKAY – REALLY!
It’s the best way for progressive policies to trickle up rather than hoping a white knight in the White House or a few in the senate make them trickle down. But I agree, there are some districts that are conservative and I would argue it’s better for progressives that they elect real conservatives in the GOP rather than fake ones on The Blue Team. This is why there is no risk in contested primaries, the supermajority will endure in perpetuity but shrinking it might make it more progressive and responsive to the broader electorate.
I feel like we have been a little antagonistic since I defected, and I’ll take my fair share of blame for that. I think it’s important you work your lane and I work mine and together from the inside and outside we can bring about the change we want to see.
You also have more experience with state wide organizing and a lot of insights I am sure you’d be happy to share more privately. Email me at jconway@unitedindependent.com and I’d be happy to pick up this conversation. I really don’t think we are as far apart on the issues or on what we want to see out of our local officials.
I agree with your characterization of that district.
In my view, our response should be to encourage the GOP to run as progressive a candidate as they can, and focus our resources on districts where we are able to elect true progressives.
A GOP representative from Dracut would take away one more vote from Bob DeLeo — that is far and away our most important progressive legislative priority.
I’ve been thinking about DeLeo lately and while there are things I wish he would do differently and on principle wish the Speakership weren’t so powerful, I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually don’t see him as quite as much the pariah as some here do.
In my view, Mr. DeLeo is dead wrong on the most important issues we face:
1. We desperately need to raise taxes on the wealthy, he says we do not
2. We desperately need to make an enormous investment in public transportation, he opposes such investment
3. We desperately need to reduce or eliminate our dependence on regressive taxes like the lottery and casino gambling, he is the leading proponent of increasing the latter.
While Deval Patrick was governor, we had a chance to make significant progress in the structural issues that beset our State. Mr. DeLeo actively sabotaged the efforts of Mr. Patrick accomplish (1) and (2), and turned Mr. Patrick to his regressive view on (3).
Now that Charlie Baker is governor, Mr. DeLeo appears to share a very similar of priorities to Mr. Baker.
Mr. DeLeo conducts his office like a moderate Republican, rather than like a progressive Democrat.
That is why he should be replaced.
had to google DWS.
Baker is doing a good job, but not all of the job I want him to do. As a manager, he’s pretty good. As a politician, he’s actually terrific. On the other hand, we have philosophical differences. I try not to confuse the two. The same with you, MG, you’re reality-based, even if we disagree. You also have a perspective I’m not privy to. Even if I were eventually to disagree with you, your perspective gives me info worth investigating.
We’re at the point where most of us are leaving the free-market solutions behind. Personally, I don’t want to interfere with things that work. So if something is working in business, I don’t want to interfere unless there’s a compelling reason.
Two principles I try to live by:
1. I’m not always right. No one is, so I can’t be.
2. It’s more important to change my opinion so it lines up with reality than it is to score cheap points in an argument.
can view the same event and all swear in court that they saw something different. It’s natural to have different views. If you and I were sitting down together we could hear each other out, maybe go down a path and really come out with a solution to something. I think for example (as this is one of your interests) our state government has done the towns of this state (cities are a separate discussion) wrong. Charlie Baker thinks this as well and seems to be on a path to fix that (it’s long and winding though). I don’t think Gov. Patrick thought about that much, and it will take a lot of legislation to unwind or fix what’s been done. Of course there are those that think that’s not right- so we’ll see. That challenge online is that people get strident and people take offense and lash back, maybe in ways they would never consider in person.
If there’s a blind spot on BMG, it’s the common assumption that the more conservative Democrats in the Massachusetts legislature just got there by inertia, and not because they reflect the views of their constituents. I don’t think it’s just an East/West divide either — look at the scorn heaped here on the voters who keep electing DeLeo or Lynch, for example. I do appreciate people like merrimackguy who keep coming back to engage in civil discourse.
Haidt, for example, and, before him, Lakoff argued that liberals and conservatives have different notions of morality. The difference, therefore, is not just observational.
… to ask of BMG?
Every human being has a blind spot. It’s actually part of the way each of our eyes is built. But we compensate with two eyes and a sophisticated brain. The answer to our blind spots has not been to bemoan we have one, but to put more brainpower to overcoming it.
I find it quite interesting that Kristof’s argument, at least in his earlier essay, centered around contretemps between ‘evangelicals’ and college campuses. What does he think should happen here? Evangelicals refute and repudiate the entirety of enlightenment thinking. That’s exactly what it means to hold the Gospels as sole authority. Present day colleges and universities are the sole remaining tatters of enlightenment thinking. Both ‘camps’, as it were, by their very existence, and at their very cores, deny the validity and viability of the other. How is that ever going to end well? Anybody, and everybody, who’s ever tried to navigate that terrain has only ever gained an uneasy truce… a precarious ‘tolerance’ And I’m not saying that one or the other side is right… but I am saying for one side to be right the other must be wrong… I know which one I prefer, but that might be an aesthetic choice, as much as a moral one… But my preference comes from deep involvement in and study of both sides… a deliberate avoidance of blind spots.
Instead of confronting that simple fact of incompatibility… and it’s not the same caliber of opposition as racism: the rather silly forced inferiority and arch ridiculousness of oppression for the sake of appearances… it’s more earnest, in a way… Kristof decides to scold the one and, in affect, victimize the other as though it were an exactly analogous form of intolerance. That’s neither blind spot nor blindness, but ignorance.
The thing is, I think Kristof is engaging in gladiatorial combat in its purest sense: forces beyond his ken have pitted him against others for the ‘entertainment’ of the masses. This is… ah… in media res, I guess.. His response is to try to claim some moral high ground, maybe to give himself the illusion of a control he doesn’t possess, and maybe also to win the fight… Which is the very strangeness which causes his argument to stick out so sorely: you can’t actually hope to use the fact that you aspire to be above the fray to try and win the fight…