Is Bernie damaging Clinton's chances in November?

Well it's primary day, though the chances for Sanders winning the nomination look slim. This has led many to assert that, by staying in the race, Sanders is hurting Clinton's chances of beating Trump in the general election.

So I'll ask an honest question: Is there any evidence whatsoever that Sanders is damaging Clinton's chances at all by staying in the race? Or is it just pure speculation phrased in terms of what "everyone knows"? As far as I can tell, it's the former. This campaign has already lasted a year; let it last a few more months until the convention, and then let's talk about the general, OK?

Qualifications and Meritocracy, Part 1: The Case of Paul Krugman

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times op-ed writer Paul Krugman recently wrote a column titled "Sanders Over the Edge." Now, Krugman has been a strong backer of Clinton this primary, like he was in the 2008 primary, so it's not particularly notable that he's written another anti-Sanders column. What is notable is how astonishingly badly-researched and badly-reasoned this column is, to the extent that I was honestly astonished when I read it. As such, it has been roundly mocked on the internet. But I'm writing my own response for two reasons. One, the column was so bad it pissed me off and this is the only thing that can quell my internal demons, and two, his column actually provides a very good example of the problems inherent in our contemporary "meritocracy." In this post, I will focus mostly on showing why, in detail, Krugman is wrong. At some point in the future, I plan to write a post about the broader implications of his column.

The problems begin with Krugman's first sentence:

From the beginning, many and probably most liberal policy wonks were skeptical about Bernie Sanders.

Notice, first, that Krugman doesn't bother to give any evidence for this assertion. (As we'll see, this isn't the first time he'll do this.) There are, depending on your definition of the term, likely thousands of "liberal policy wonks" in America alone. Has Krugman read or spoken to 500 of them, or 100, or even 50? Has he conducted or read a study concerning the candidate preferences of liberal policy wonks? Of course not. Rather, he's generalizing from himself and a few others to make claims about an entire group.

What's particularly annoying about this is it's so unnecessary. He could simple have said, "I was skeptical about Bernie Sanders." Instead, he feels the need to appeal to an expert consensus, and without actually doing any research assumes that expert consensus agrees with him. Not merely in his candidate preference, either, but even in the reasons for that candidate preference:

On many major issues--including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform--he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking. And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic.

Once again, you'll notice he provides no evidence for either of these assertions. Unless Krugman is a psychic, he doesn't know how much thinking Sanders has done about financial reform (and no, you don't get to make wild speculations as long as you hedge with a "seems"). I talked about Sanders's theory of change extensively in my earlier post; claiming that it involves waving away limits is grossly misleading at best. This lack of research and understanding makes it especially ironic that Krugman accuses Sanders of not engaging in "hard thinking." But he's just getting warmed up.

After claiming that "some Sanders supporters" accuse "anyone expressing doubts about their hero [read: accuse me, Paul Krugman] of being corrupt if not actually criminal," once more not providing any evidence for this claim (even one link would suffice), Krugman makes the following rather hilarious statement:

Mr. Sanders is starting to sound like his worst followers. Bernie is becoming a Bernie Bro.

For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what a "Bernie Bro" is, I will attempt to explain. In February, Gawker had a good article discussing the various ways pundits and political commentators have used the term. In it, they link to the tweets of the term's inventor, Robinson Meyer, who said it has at least three different contemporary definitions: "a harmless guy who argued on Facebook in an ineffective if fairly specific way"; "a leftistish male who virulently disliked Clinton on arguably anti-woman grounds"; "a misogynist troll who attacks visible woman online for various perceived but baseless crimes."

Now Krugman is inventing a brand-new use for the term: someone who has different standards for who's qualified to be President than Paul Krugman. Perhaps one power the Nobel Prize grants is being able to redefine words at one's whims; that would certainly explain a lot about this column.

First though, Krugman decides to illustrate Bernie's Bro-ness by talking about bank reform (because, as we all know, there's nothing fraternity bros love more than bank reform). One of Sanders's main selling points is that he wants to break up the big banks. "But," Krugman asks ominously, "were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises?" I'm pretty sure Sanders has never actually claimed breaking up the banks would stop all future financial crises, but never mind! Krugman has socialists to slay:

Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on "shadow banks" like Lehman Brothers that weren't necessarily that big.

Let's start with the role of banking in the crisis. Yes, much blame deserves to go toward places like Countrywide who gave loans to people who couldn't hope to repay them. But the reason they lent so much money is that the banks were willing to buy up any loan they could. As the Economist, hardly a bastion of socialism, explains:

Loans were doled out to "subprime" borrowers with poor credit histories who struggled to repay them. These risky mortgages were passed on to financial engineers at the big banks, who turned them into supposedly low-risk securities by putting large numbers of them in pools. Pooling works when the risks of each loan are uncorrelated. The big banks argued that the property markets in different American cities would rise and fall independently of one another. But this proved wrong. Starting in 2006, America suffered a nationwide house-price slump.

In other words, on the basis of an incredibly bad argument and fancy mathematical tricks, the big banks bought up the bad loans, re-packaged them, and sold them to ignorant investors. If they hadn't had such willing buyers, the predatory lenders would have had no incentive to loan so much money to "subprime" borrowers. To be sure, the banks are not solely responsible for the crash, but they were one of the major players.

As for Lehman Brothers not being "necessarily that big," I'll quote from Alexis Goldstein, who responds (I've separated each tweet with a double backslash // and taken away her numbering):

As someone who worked across from the Lehman building for many years, I cannot begin to explain who central of a Wall St player they were // Nor how stunning & shocking was their fall. No one could believe Hank Paulson let them fail. Everyone lost their goddamn mind. // I was at Merrill Lynch at the time (no longer across the street from Lehman). We were quickly bought by BAC. Ppl feared nationalization // anyone who tries to understate that failure of Lehman by saying it was small is punking you. // 

&this idea that "they weren't a bank so breaking up banks isn't important"...ALL old white-shoe investment banks are now bank holding cos // there are no more pure investment banks like there were pre-crisis, unless you count the likes of Jefferies & let's be real: nobody does. // the banks are bigger than ever, they have no shame in asking for whatever they want, & DC still lets them literally write the law. // that is a problem & anyone who tells you otherwise is deluded. *rant over* // 

also Lehman was the biggest bankruptcy in history and was a complete, total mess. Creditor shitshow. Resolution STILL ongoing. // if anything, Lehman shows we need to break-up investment banks, too (tho few are left). Bankruptcy cannot handle them as they are now.

Moving on, Krugman defends the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill passed in 2010:

And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger . . .

How real is this effort? Let's let former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explain:

In its first major rule under Dodd-Frank, the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] considered 1,500 comments, largely generated by and from the Street. After several years the commission issued a proposed rule, including some of the loopholes and exceptions the Street sought. 

Wall Street still wasn't satisfied. So the CFTC agreed to delay enforcement of the rule, allowing the Street more time to voice its objections. Even this wasn't enough for the big banks, whose lawyers then filed a lawsuit in the federal courts, arguing that the commission's cost-benefit analysis wasn't adequate. 

As of now, only 249 of the 390 regulations required by Dodd-Frank have been finalized. And those final versions are shot through with loopholes big enough for Wall Street's top brass to drive their Ferrari's through.

In other words, the big banks are really powerful, so the regulators tend to work for them instead of for the public (especially since many regulators hope to work for the banks themselves eventually). This is not at all new. Regulations aren't particularly helpful if they aren't enforced. So it shouldn't be particularly surprising that "[b]anks today are bigger and more opaque than ever, and they continue to behave in many of the same ways they did before the crash."

In Krugman's defense, though, he merely said that Dodd-Frank "made a real effort," not that it actually succeeded.

To continue, Krugman next actually makes some very interesting points regarding the relationship between a politican's policy positions and their value/character--not just because of what he says, but because of what he doesn't say. I will extensively analyze this paragraph (the 8th in his column) in my follow-up post, so I'll skip over it for now. Afterward, Krugman says darkly that Sanders's current campaigning "raises serious character and value issues." Krugman supports this strong contention with two pieces of evidence. I'll quote his first proffered evidence in full:

It's one thing for the Sanders campaign to point to Hillary Clinton's Wall Street connections, which are real, although the question should be whether they have distorted her positions, a case the campaign has never even tried to make. But recent attacks on Mrs. Clinton as a tool of the fossil fuel industry are just plain dishonest, and speak of a campaign that has lost its ethical moorings.

First, let's note in passing Krugman's unquestioning acceptance of the absurd claim that, unless one has direct proof of Clinton changing her position due to Wall Street money, we don't have to worry about it. This is, of course, the very argument the conservative Supreme Court used as justification for Citizens United. It also misses the point, as Alex Pareene argues (in a different context):

Bernie Sanders' critique of Clinton is not that she's cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches, but that she's a creature of a fundamentally corrupt system, who comfortably operates within that system and accepts it as legitimate. Clinton has had trouble countering that critique because, well, it's true. It's not that she's been bought, it's that she bought in.

As for his "dishonest" attack on Clinton, read through the linked article yourself. Every single "fact checker" admits that it's totally accurate Clinton is receiving money from the oil and gas industries, it's just a small percentage of her overall fundraising. That may make the criticism irrelevant, but it's hardly dishonest. On the other hand, claiming that Sanders is accusing Clinton of being "a tool of the fossil fuel industry," which he never did, is perhaps dishonest.

It's also rather rich considering Krugman's own candidate implied Sanders didn't support the auto bailout before the Michigan primary (a misrepresentation so egregious that backlash to it may have contributed to her losing the state), is blaming Vermont for New York's gun problems (read this for the sordid details--she doesn't technically lie, but the argument is highly misleading), etc.

But all this is set-up for the real meat of his column, the discussion of what some person somewhere surely called "qualified-gate." For those blissfully unaware of this incident, a brief history.

On April 4, Sanders was interviewed by the New York Daily News. The media quickly decided he bombed the interview and showed a lack of policy knowledge, even though he actually didn't. Later, Clinton was interviewed by Joe Scarborough, who asked her several times if Sanders is qualified to be President. Clinton never gave a clear yes or no answer, but claimed he didn't really understand what he was talking about--which is, perhaps, an implication that he's not really qualified, but I suppose reasonable people can differ on this. (Krugman claims she was "careful in her choice of words," which is true as far as it goes.) Sanders himself then said Clinton claimed he was unqualified to be President, which is false (he was possibly misled by this Washington Post article--remember to always read past the headline!). Anyway, in response, Sanders argued that it's really Clinton who's not qualified, due to her voting for the Iraq War, trade agreements like NAFTA, and taking massive campaign contributions from Wall Street and other special interests.

If this sounds to you like a tempest in a teapot that almost everyone will forget about a week from now, you're right. But to Krugman, Sanders's recent statement is of earth-shattering importance. First, he claims that Sanders is "imposing a standard of purity, in which any compromise or misstep makes you the moral equivalent of the bad guys." For those keeping track, this is the third time Krugman has attributed to Sanders a position he's never actually stated, which is actually kind of impressive considering the space constraints of a New York Times column.

But it's the possible electoral consequences of Sanders's "qualifications" argument that really sets Krugman off. After all, Clinton is in the lead for the nomination, "based largely on the support of African-American voters, who respond to her pragmatism because history tells them to distrust extravagant promises." This is luckily the last time Krugman makes a grandiose claim with no evidence, but it's a doozy. It's really something special for a very white pundit like Krugman to make sweeping claims about why black Americans vote the way they do. Especially since, given the timing of the column, he almost certainly got this idea from Jonathan Chait, another very white pundit who made this claim on the basis of scanty evidence. (Seriously, read Chait's article--he offers literally no statistical evidence whatsoever.)

As a very white person myself, it really pisses me off when white people use people of color as props to support whatever political view they hold. Stand on your own fucking two feet instead of fetishizing marginalized communities.

Moving on, Krugman is thankfully almost done. He ends by wondering if Sanders will refuse to endorse Clinton in the general. (I guess he's forgotten the kinds of attacks Clinton made on Obama in 2008 before endorsing him.) Here's the last paragraph of his column:

The Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs. It has also, however, brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters. Has it brought out that streak in the candidate, too?

I suppose the message to Sanders supporters is: please bring lots of energy in support of the candidate I, Paul Krugman, support--but never, ever "self-righteously" think your political beliefs are more valid than mine. Speaking as a Sanders supporter, I'm honestly more annoyed by the condescension of the first sentence than by the hypocritical petulance of the second. And the less said about his final cowardly rhetorical question the better.

Note, finally, that nowhere does Krugman ever actually substantively respond to Sanders's argument that showing poor judgment by voting for the Iraq War and bad trade deals is disqualifying for the Presidency. So in his stead, I will discuss this topic in detail in my next post.

"Hillary Clinton will kill lots of people, but why do liberals hate her?"

Journalist for the New Republic Jeet Heer recommended an article, claiming it's "The best case for Hillary Clinton I've read." In this article, Elie Mystal states:

Hillary's foreign policy is terrifying. If elected, she will kill people. Many of them will be terrorists and some of them will be criminals, but all of them will be people and she will not let other, non-terrorist people, stand in the way of killing the people she thinks we need to kill. And when she's not killing people, she will be spying on people in case she needs to kill those people later. 

So... that's bad. 

But I don't understand liberals who hate Hillary Clinton.

I know and read a lot of socialists, and many of them have rather harsh things to say about "liberals." Most of the time, I think that's unfair. But Mystal's statement here represents the worst tendencies of liberalism as an ideology.

Seriously, read that again. "Hillary Clinton has a terrifying foreign policy"--foreign policy, of course, being the area where the President has by far the most power. "She will kill lots of people, many of whom are civilians. And she will be spying on many more. Anyway, on a completely unrelated note note, it appears many liberals don't like her for inexplicable reasons!"

Reading the article, you'll note that as justification for his Clinton vote despite his belief she'll kill lots of people, Mystal argues she's more likely to "make a deal (with the devil, no doubt)." In other words, Mystal is willing to elect someone who he admits will kill lots of foreigners if that means "a crappy law that has some positive outcomes" will get passed.

I don't mean to pick too hard on Mystal personally, and I actually don't hate Hillary Clinton myself--in general, I'm not sure if hating politicians is very helpful. But when even self-proclaimed liberals blithely slide past the prospect of tons of deaths just as long as it's foreigners who are dying, something is seriously wrong with our political culture.

Later tonight I'm going to make a post tearing apart Paul Krugman's latest column.

Postscript to Populism vs Technocracy

I spent my last post beating up on a Vox article, so as a postscript let me praise this one, where Ezra Klein interviews Obama's 2008 staffers about the similarities and differences between their campaigns. What particularly stood out to me was his email interview with Obama's speechwriter at the time, Jon Favreau. In 2008, one thing Obama said was, "It's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair." Favreau explains:

To me, this exemplifies the difference between Bernie and Obama. Bernie would never say something like that. He doesn't think insurance companies, or drug companies, or banks, or millionaires get any seats at the table. He doesn't talk about making progress by working with Republicans, or the political establishment, or the business establishment. I guess his plan is to build a mobilized grassroots that simply wrestles power away from those who have it. 

It's not just that Obama doesn't think that's feasible, it's that he doesn't think that's the right way to govern in a pluralistic democracy where everyone gets a voice. Obama believes that there's too many Americans who don't have a voice, and too many Americans who don't have opportunity, and that a big reason for that is the power of special interests and big corporations. But he also believes that there's a place for those interests and corporations in our system.

Note, again, that combination of criticisms: populism is both infeasible and undesirable. However, Favreau clearly isn't very interested in the feasibility critique. Instead, he explicitly says that Obama (and by extension Favreau) thinks special interests and big corporations should have some power, just not as much as they have right now. And Obama indeed enacted that policy as President; there are numerous examples I could site, but this secret deal he made with the pharmaceutical companies before the healthcare fight is the most blatant one.

This is technocracy in action. Favreau says that Bernie doesn't want special interests or big corporations to "get any seats of the table." That, though, is an exaggeration; it's not like Sanders is proposing to disenfranchise the rich. He doesn't want to deny seats to the big corporations, he just wants them to have the same seats as everyone else. Favreau (and according to him, Obama), on the other hand, want the rich and powerful to remain more powerful than the marginalized--just somewhat less powerful than they currently are. (Again, keep in mind he's arguing this state of affairs is desirable, not inevitable.) It's...interesting...that he claims to be defending "pluralistic democracy" while advocating an explicitly anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian worldview.

While Favreau doesn't justify his position, I think it's fair to say it comes from the technocratic attitude I discussed in my previous post. Consider his characterization of Sanders's proposal: "to build a mobilized grassroots that simply wrestles power away from those who have it." Favreau seems to conceive of populism as a kind of violence: wrestling power away from the powerful. And honestly, he's kind of right. As Klein says later in his article:

In this telling, the core difference between Obama and Sanders is that Obama's theory of political change was that American politics needed to become less ideological and less conflictual, while Sanders's theory of change is that American politics needs to be made more ideological and more conflictual.

This is precisely right. Mass movements are extremely ideological and conflictual. Sometimes they become literally violent, but even when they don't things like protests and boycotts are basically attempts to coerce others into doing what you want them to do. Technocracy by contrast, if only because there are far fewer people involved, is transactional, consensus-based, sometimes even polite. It is also, of course, undemocratic. But for some, that's a cost worth paying, or even perhaps not a cost at all.

I'll try to write something for this Sunday. Not sure what yet. Suggestions are welcome.

Hillary Clinton is not (just) a pragmatist: she's a technocrat

I

David Roberts of Vox recently wrote a post about the Democratic primary, inspired by the recent kerfuffle about whether Clinton is a "progressive." Roberts calls the idea that one cannot be both a moderate and a progressive an "illuminating error" which "helps expose a key source of misunderstanding between the Clinton and Sanders camps." Ironically, in explicating this "error," I think Roberts makes an illuminating error of his own in asserting that the main difference between Clinton and Sanders is the former is a pragmatist ("a progressive who gets things done," perhaps), and the latter isn't. In reality, though, they're both pragmatists, it's just their theories of change are different: Sanders is a populist, while Clinton is a technocrat. Before explaining what I mean by that, though, I want to summarize Roberts's argument.

Roberts argues that there are (at least) two ways one can assess a political candidate: their ideology and their "practicality." Roberts writes:

"Progressive" is an ideological term. It refers to a position on an ideological spectrum, namely to the left. A progressive's opposite is a conservative. 

"Moderate" is a practical term. . . . Broadly speaking, it refers to a candidate who focuses on consensus-building and incremental progress, someone who doesn't believe the US political system is capable of sudden, lurching change, or just doesn't want that kind of change. 

A moderate's opposite is a radical, someone who believes rapid, revolutionary change is both possible and necessary.

(Note how Roberts conflates two senses of "moderate": someone who believes rapid change is impossible, and someone who believes it's undesirable. I'll come back to this later.)

Roberts claims Sanders prefers talking about ideology (what he wants to do), while Clinton prefers talking about practicality (what it's possible to do). As a result of this, arguments between each faction tend to be unproductive. Sanders supporters "reject out of hand" the notion that "Clinton and her supporters might believe equally in the values of the left but differ on strategy." Similarly, Clinton supporters interpret any "expression of ambition" as "a lack of knowledge about How Politics Really Works."

Despite this try at even-handedness, Roberts's sympathy with the Clinton side of this debate is clear. He writes:

But over time, I have grown extremely skeptical, not to say cynical, about the capacity of US political institutions to deliver dramatic change. And I've witnessed the cycle of hyperbolic liberal hopes followed by melodramatic liberal despair too many times.

Roberts admits that the "reality" he's expecting liberals to accept is "creeping oligarchy and militarism," and that "on climate change alone, something like a revolution seems necessary." However, his final point is that even if we need a revolution, the President isn't the person we should look to for one:

The president is constrained by layer after layer of checks and balances, veto points, entrenched interests, and institutional inertia. For a president in polarized times, progress comes not with a bludgeon but with a chisel. 

The reason the left's revolution hasn't arrived isn't just that money has corrupted Washington, though it undoubtedly has. It's that half the country views massive new taxes and government spending programs with horror. . . . Resistance is not futile, but it is painstaking.

While I have some nitpicks with Roberts's argument--Sanders certainly has explained what he means by "political revolution" whether you agree or not, and a majority of the country supports (for example) single-payer health care--my biggest issue is with his starting distinction between ideology and practicality. This is the "illuminating error" I referred to, which I will now discuss in detail.

II

To begin with, recall that Roberts gave two different descriptions of a "moderate": one who believes radical change is impossible, and one who believes it's undesirable. Considering Roberts's overall article, he seems to put himself in the former camp. However, this camp is objectively incorrect. Here are just a few examples of radical change that have occurred throughout American history:

1) In the late 1700s, the entire system of American government (rule from Britain) was overthrown and a new one was drawn up from scratch.

2) In the mid to late 1800s, slavery, the foundation of the American economy, was abolished.

3) In the early 1900s, half of the population was given the right to vote for the first time, permanently affecting American politics to this day. (In 2012, Obama won the female vote 55% to 44%.)

4) In the mid 1900s, the economy was fundamentally transformed again, setting the stage for a massive rise in median family income.

5) In the mid to late 1900s, the system that had been set up to oppress black Americans after slavery, which had lasted for a century, was overthrown along with much of patriarchy.

6) In the late 1900s, a backlash occurred and we swung back to the right, a process that is currently ongoing.

To be fair, these changes were not always pretty; for example, the first two were ultimately accomplished by wars, and the New Deal would not have happened without the Great Depression. Furthermore, the successes were often mixed: after the American Revolution only white male property-owners could vote; racism and sexism continue to be pervasive; the New Deal often explicitly excluded people of color from its benefits. Nevertheless, they are surely far more radical than Sanders's major proposals, all of which already exist in other countries (and some of which, like free college, used to exist in this country). One is forced to wonder where Roberts's cynicism about fundamental change comes from, especially since the last one--the conservative revolution--is so recent.

Perhaps Roberts thinks the country has just fundamentally changed since the 1960s: it's too divided now, the special interests are too strong. However, this notion is ridiculous. Segregation was supported by half the country and centuries of history. Slavery was the backbone of the American economy, backed by some of the richest and most powerful individuals ever to exist. If anything, the enemies of progressivism's past were more powerful than the enemies of progressivism's present.

I suspect the source of Roberts's discomfort resides elsewhere. There is an important commonality between all six instances of radical change I cited: they were all accomplished by massive popular movements. This includes the American Revolution, which was preceded by decades of protest, boycotts, and rioting. (They looted the mansion of the pro-British lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.) Not coincidentally, this is precisely Sanders's strategy for enacting change:

"But if, on that very day, as an example," [Sanders] continued, "a million young people march in on Washington to say exactly what Colleen said a few moments ago, that all of our young people who have the ability deserve to get a college education regardless of the income of their families, suddenly, that gentleman will look out the window and say, 'Well, Mr. President, let's sit down and talk about how we can address this serious problem.'"

This strategy has its flaws. As the above Slate article points out, cheap fossil fuels benefit millions of Americans (not just oil companies), so it may be difficult to build a mass movement against global warming. More fundamentally, one could argue that the very notion of an anti-establishment movement led by the President of the United States is a contradiction in terms, and that to be truly independent and long-lasting we need to organize around issues, not personalities. While I am myself a Sanders supporter, I think both these objections are plausible and on-point. Nevertheless, it seems clear that a mass movement does have the capability of forcing radical change, and so the only way one can argue that only incremental change is possible is if one takes mass politics off the table.

And indeed Roberts, despite his disclaimers in support of activism, doesn't seem at all interested in the question of how to build a durable left-wing mass movement. I wonder, then, if Roberts might fall into the second camp of "moderate": someone who believes radical change is undesirable. Not necessarily because they disagree with radical change as an end goal, but because they disagree with the means necessary to achieve this.

Roberts argues that Sanders and Clinton both share the same goal, they just disagree on how to achieve it. Well, perhaps a Dictator Sanders and a Dictator Clinton wouldn't look very different. But who cares? Neither are running for dictator. In the actual world, it is impossible to draw such a clean line between someone's "ideology" and their "practicality." Sanders and Clinton disagree on tactics, yes, but this disagreement is based on a deeper ideological difference: Sanders believes that change should be achieved by a mass movement, while Clinton believes that change should be achieved by a small group of experts. In short, Sanders is a populist and Clinton is a technocrat. Their ideologies determine which tactics they consider acceptable.

III

My use of the terms "populist" and "technocrat" may be unclear and is probably idiosyncratic. So first I'll explain a bit what I take those terms to mean, and then I'll back up my claim that Clinton is a technocrat.

A technocrat believes that politics is, at bottom, a science. As such, in an ideal state, politics would be handled by trained experts. These experts would, non-ideologically, determine which policies would lead to the most benefit/greatest welfare for the country, and would then enact those policies. This is not to say that technocrats have no use for the public--however, by necessity the public must play a subordinate role. Namely, the purpose of sympathetic popular movements is to advocate for the policies that the experts come up with and to pressure those who oppose those policies (either through ignorance or maliciousness). What they must not do is pressure the experts themselves, because while the experts might not always be right, due to their expertise they are more likely to be right than the uneducated public.

I should note that, while I disagree with it, technocracy is not implausible on its face. After all, in most areas of our life (medicine, law, etc) we consult experts to decide what to do. Why should politics be any different?

I think the best way to describe the opposite view, populism, is that a populist thinks politics is at bottom a struggle. More specifically, it's a struggle between the powerful and the non-powerful, or marginalized. Since the marginalized are typically more numerous than the powerful, a populist's main task is to encourage the marginalized to unite and organize, in order to gain power and defeat the powerful. To a populist, the "non-ideological experts" the technocrat values so much are in fact part of the powerful--they are ultimately enemies, not saviors (though some may occasionally be tactical allies). In the populist's ideal state, the public, and not a small group of experts, would rule.

In my opinion, the best argument in favor of populism and against technocracy is that there's no such thing as a non-ideological expert. Depending on what you value, your theory on what counts as the "general welfare" will differ. So while technocrats claim to merely be non-ideologically--or "pragmatically," if you will--doing "what works," in reality they are imposing their own set of values on the rest of society. This, in my view, is really a form of tyranny. But then, as a Sanders supporter, I suppose I would think that. And technocracy has a long tradition, arguably starting with Plato, so it's not like all technocrats are evil or even ignorant. And to be fair, history shows that mass movements often end up supporting vile policies and politicians, so I can certainly understand the motivation behind technocracy even though I disagree.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that Sanders is a "populist" in my sense: he's explicitly calling for a mass movement to pressure both parties to enact his favored policies. What about Clinton, though?

Well, we can't peer into her soul, and as far as I know she hasn't explicitly endorsed either position. Nevertheless, I think she's almost certainly a technocrat, due in part to: her reliance on big donors, her rejection of radicalism and advocacy of incrementalism, and her alignment with the Democratic establishment. I will argue this next.

IV

Clinton giving speeches to banks for hundreds of thousands of dollars has become an issue recently, compounding the previous issue of her using a SuperPAC, fundraising from large corporations, etc. Her response has been, essentially, that she's never changed a vote due to a campaign contribution. This may be true, but it's essentially beside the point. As Alex Pareene points out in this excellent Gawker article:

Bernie Sanders' critique of Clinton is not that she's cartoonishly corrupt in the Tammany Hall style, capable of being fully bought with a couple well-compensated speeches, but that she's a creature of a fundamentally corrupt system, who comfortably operates within that system and accepts it as legitimate. Clinton has had trouble countering that critique because, well, it's true. It's not that she's been bought, it's that she bought in. [Emphasis added.]

Clinton took offense at the recent debate to being called part of the establishment. But the "establishment" isn't a single entity, it's a catch-all term to describe the powerful entities in a society, and as one of the most powerful people in the country Clinton is certainly a member of the establishment, at least the Democratic one. (Indeed, her pitch as being an "experienced progressive who gets things done" is based on this membership.) The Democratic establishment has decided that to succeed it must work with other powerful entities, like big corporations, rather than fight them. By relying on money from these powerful corporations, Clinton is clearly using the same strategy.

This strategy is a technocratic one, both for what it does and what it does not do. While CEOs and other rich individuals may not seem like "experts," according to modern capitalist mythology anyone who makes it big is intelligent, hard-working, knowledgeable, etc. This is the justification behind hiring rich employees of these firms to important government positions: they are the savvy ones who know what to do. The Platonic philosopher-king has become a CEO.

Even more importantly, though, is what the strategy doesn't do: namely, it's not even trying to rely on left movements. This is where incrementalism (and thus, the original Vox article by Roberts) come into play. Roberts asserts that only incremental change is possible in our modern political system. Clinton herself and many of her supporters agree. But as I've argued, this is only true if one preemptively declares mass politics--that is, populism--untenable. Since mass politics can clearly work, this makes sense only if Clinton believes populism is undesirable, that we shouldn't make a strong left mass movement even though it would be effective. Thus, while he might not be aware of it, Roberts is effectively advocating for technocracy in his article, and Clinton (who probably is aware of it) is advocating for technocracy in her campaign.

And this shouldn't be a surprise, because technocracy is the main strategy of the Democratic establishment. There are far too many examples of this to list, but the most revealing is the actions of Barack Obama, the President whom Clinton has more or less promised to be the 3rd term of. Obama got elected President partly on the back of a large and enthusiastic movement. But rather then try to build it into an independent force that could pressure Congress, even its Democratic members, even Obama himself, in a liberal direction, Obama basically put it on ice until he wanted to use it to advocate for the end result of his legislative sausage-making. Anyone remember this?

This image was all over the place in 2009, and while it's not used much anymore the sentiment that goes with it surely is. Let Obama handle things; our role as citizens, if anything, is merely to support whatever policies and laws he decides on. This is, of course, a fundamentally technocratic way of conceiving politics. And while it's possible that Clinton will repudiate it and enthusiastically support any left movement that might emerge, I'm not holding my breath.

(Disclaimer: It is true that Democrats have been largely respectful of the Black Lives Matter movement. This is because they have to be, as BLM has built for itself a lot of power, both political and cultural. But if BLM starts seriously going after Democrats who are recalcitrant on police reform [aside from disgraced mayor Rahm Emanuel], I expect this to change. But we'll see.)

V

So where does this leave us, then? Sanders is a populist while Clinton is a technocrat, and since populism is correct you should vote Sanders?

Not precisely. There is danger in a Sanders-led mass movement: even if Sanders were a perfect politician (which he's far from being), the movement would dissipate as soon as he leaves office. But it takes decades, at least, for a truly radical movement to succeed in even some of its goals. (The conservative movement began after WWII and only really "won" in 1980, if that. The Civil Rights movement arguably began shortly after the Civil War, which means it took almost a century of activism to tear down Jim Crow.) A left movement cannot be a "Sanders movement"; it needs to be independent of any politician.

Which leads to the question: assuming we can form a left mass movement, does it really matter that much who's President? Would a President Clinton under constant pressure from a left movement be that much different from a President Sanders under constant pressure from a left movement? Perhaps not--in which case, one could accept my entire analysis while still preferring Clinton for other reasons (electability, the symbolic value of a female President, etc).

Despite my clickbait title, though, this article is not ultimately about the Clinton/Sanders primary. What bothers me about Roberts's Vox article, and countless similar ones, is not that it's pro-Clinton but that it's pro-technocracy. A technocrat cannot change the status quo because they disdain the only thing they can. For anyone who believes the status quo is unacceptable, a mass movement is necessary and technocratic incrementalism must be rejected. No matter who wins this November.

Preview: The Left and Presidential Politics

This Sunday, I think I'm going to talk about Presidential politics; specifically, the attitudes the modern American Left take toward it, and how they are fundamentally mistaken. While there are many reasons behind the undeniable fact that the Right is much more effective at politics than the Left in America since at least the 1970s, the different ways they approach presidential elections (and elections more broadly) is at least the most easily fixable, so it seems a good place to begin.

In the meantime, let me share with you my predictions for the 2016 Presidential race:

-Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee.

-Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee.

-The general election will be close--much closer than the 2008 and 2012 ones were, at least.

I will argue for all three of these points on Sunday. For now, pause to consider that "President Ted Cruz" is a distinct possibility, and just what that says about the state of the modern American Left.

The Tone Argument: What counts as an insult?

I

A contentious issue, both within the "social justice community" (to the extent that's a thing) and in relations between the social justice community and the wider culture, is the "tone argument." The idea is that it's in some sense wrong to criticize the tone of people advocating for social justice, attacking bigotry, etc. As Geek Feminism wiki puts it:

A tone argument is an argument used in discussions, sometimes by Concern trolls and sometimes a Derailment, in which it is suggested that feminist would be more successful if only they expressed themselves in a more pleasant tone. . . . 

The tone argument is a form of derailment, or a red herring, because the tone of a statement is independent of the content of the statement in question, and calling attention to it distracts from the issue at hand. Drawing attention to the tone rather than the content of a statement can allow other parties to avoid engaging with sound arguments presented in that statement, thus undermining the original party's attempt to communicate and effectively shutting them down.

Or, as Katherine Cross puts it in this article:

In rule form, the tone argument might be expressed as follows: Any attempt to discuss or criticize the tone of an activist is a deliberate attempt at leveraging institutional power to silence the marginalized and must be avoided at all costs.

In other words: an argument's tone is separate from its content, so focusing on the former is distracting attention away from the latter. Combine this with the fact, also mentioned by Cross, that anti-bigotry activists (especially those from marginalized groups) are often dismissed as being e.g. too "angry" even when they have extremely valid points, and dismissing criticism of tone as an improper "tone argument" may seem quite reasonable.

However, some argue that the tone argument should not be dismissed out of hand, because sometimes the tone of a social justice activist really is improper, wrong, and hurtful. As Cross goes on to argue:

To put it simply: sometimes someone is being too angry. . . . Sometimes you are just being too loud, abusing people verbally, triggering them, and so forth. Sometimes you are just being a jerk and your tone is a fairly reliable indicator of this.

Or, as George R.R. Martin argued in the context of the Sad Puppies incident last year (which I'm not going to even attempt to summarize right now):

The way I have seen it work, dozens of times now, is that a debate or discussion starts out as a reasonable exchange of ideas, but then grows heated. Tempers fray, names are called, the posts get uglier and uglier... and someone, or maybe a bunch of someones, steps over the line and says something truly cruel or hurtful or just nasty. And the target, or maybe a bystander, objects and says, "no call for language like that" or "can't we all calm down" or something along that line... whereupon a loud cry of "Tone Argument, Tone Argument, Tone Argument" goes up, and person [sic] who called for calm is shouted down or torn apart. 

. . . . 

I applaud the Tone Argument. The Tone Argument is valid. Yay for the Tone Argument. 

We can disagree with each other without attacking each other. And no, I am not going to listen to you if you're screaming at me and calling me offensive names. You shouldn't either, no matter who you are. None of us should have to put up with that shit.

This, too, may seem quite reasonable. If X, in the course of an argument, tells Y to kill themselves, it appears that X has done something wrong and we should criticize X's tone regardless of the quality of their argument (and indeed, even regardless of the quality of Y's character).

Of course, with rare exception, I think most would agree that heartfelt violent rhetoric like that is inappropriate and wrong. One of the difficulties with the "tone argument" is that there are many types of "uncivil" tone, but discussions of the "tone argument" tend to ignore specifics and deal in generalities. Most would agree it is wrong to tell someone to kill themselves (much less to actually threaten violence, rape, etc), while most would agree it's legitimate to merely tell someone their opinion is wrong. The question, then, is where to draw the line.

However, in this post I will argue that it is wrong to draw this line based on what level of vitriolic tone we consider acceptable, and indeed, that insisting on a civil tone and lack of insults actually focuses on entirely the wrong issue. Contrary to the usual justifications for rejecting the tone argument, however, this is not because tone is separate from content and so focusing on tone is derailing. Rather, it is because tone is not separate from content: some kinds of argument are inherently insulting, and so insisting as Martin does that people "disagree with each other without attacking each other" is actually insisting that certain views not be expressed.

To argue this, I will first take a short detour.

II

After the 2008 election, indeed almost immediately after, one of the biggest issues of contention within liberal America became: do you generally support Barack Obama's presidency, or do you generally oppose it (from the left, of course)? The biggest online battlefield between these two camps was (and largely still is) the community blog DailyKos.

I will confess that, sometime during the healthcare reform fight in 2009, I started to lean strongly toward the "critic" camp. But the point of this detour is not that. Rather, I want to focus on one aspect of this fight: in what ways is it acceptable for Obama to be criticized? In particular, many in the "supporter" camp claimed (and still claim) that, while they have no problem with criticism of Obama's policies, they do have a problem with attacks on his character. For example, in a comment on DailyKos, SUNY Professor Ian Reifowitz said:

We should keep criticizing and pushing Obama left, but we must not demonize him, both because he is so closely identified with liberalism (and yes, he is, among the American people at large) and because of what he represents to African Americans as the first black president.

Seeing an opportunity to make a point I had wanted to make for a while (forgive the narcissistic self-citation), I replied:

[W]hat, in your view, is the difference between "criticism" and "demonization"?

Reifowitz replied that "calling him names is demonization," while "content-based criticism" is not. The problem with this, I felt, is that the line between "content-based criticism" and name-calling is not always so clear, so I responded:

For example, let's say one believes that the President's drone program constitutes a war crime. While technically being a content-based criticism, this line of attack essentially calls him a war criminal, which many would consider demonization. Similarly, if one critiques Obama's economic policies and calls them "corporatist," that's easily taken to mean one is calling Obama himself a "corporatist," which again is often taken to be demonization.

While I still think my point was sound (which Reifowitz never responded to, though I was just some nobody commenter so I can't blame him for not engaging in extended argument), I didn't state it as well as I should have. What I should have said is: calling Obama a war criminal is demonizing him; calling his economic policies corporatist (or pro-austerity, conservative, or whatever) just is calling Obama himself a corporatist (austerina, conservative), which--at least on a liberal blog--is also demonization. To put it in broader terms: any harsh criticism of Obama's policies is an insult to him, because if accusing a politician of promulgating evil through their policies is not an insult, nothing is. This means that calls to not insult Obama personally or to not demonize him, while seemingly "neutral" and targeted merely at rhetoric, are in reality calls to not make certain kinds of criticisms. Minor critiques of specific policies are probably OK; broad-based critiques of major policy initiatives are iffy; harsh criticisms are disallowed.

Now, perhaps one might justify such a dictum against too-harsh criticism of Obama, such as Reifowitz's arguments that he's the standard-bearer of liberalism, is symbolically important to black Americans, etc. But at the very least, we should be honest about what we're arguing for: not an end to certain types of rhetoric, but an end to certain kinds of criticism.

Now then, what does this detour have to do with the tone argument?

As I've said, one of the issues here is that people who discuss the tone argument tend to speak in generalities. Cross says that sometimes people are too angry, and are "being a jerk." But when, precisely, is this? Almost by definition, we can agree that it's wrong to be "too angry"--the entire debate is about what counts as being "too angry." Similarly, Martin says that we shouldn't "attack" each other, but what precisely counts as an "attack"?

I'm also speaking in generalities here, so let's get down to brass tacks. Is it wrong to call someone a sexist, or a racist?

As far as I can tell, there are three ways Cross and especially Martin can answer this question:
(a) No, it's not wrong, because "sexist" (or "racist," "homophobe," and the like) isn't an insult.
(b) Yes, it's wrong, but instead you should just say that someone "has sexist/racist views," and that's fine.
(c) Yes, it's always wrong to assert that the person you're talking to is sexist/racist/etc in any way, shape, or form.

I will discuss these possible responses in turn.

III

So the first way someone could answer my question is: "Calling someone a sexist (racist, etc) isn't an insult." To compare, Reifowitz could respond to me in a similar way, that calling Obama a war criminal is fine because that's not an insult.

This hypothetical response by Reifowitz, however, is self-evidently absurd. Calling someone a war criminal is extremely insulting. Indeed, it's safe to say that calling someone a war criminal is more insulting than calling them stupid, or ugly, or other obvious insults. Or, to put it another way, since war crimes are evil, accusing someone of being a war criminal is accusing them of being evil.

"Sexist," "racist," and the like are insults in a similar way. They're not mere labels for ideologies--at least, not anymore. Our modern culture assumes that sexism, racism, and the like are not merely wrong but evil--perhaps less evil than committing war crimes, but evil nonetheless. Thus, calling someone a racist is different in kind from calling someone, say, a "free trader" (outside of certain circles, at least). The latter is an economic policy that we (mostly) think is legitimate to defend; the former is (mostly) considered a scourge that should be wiped out, not debated calmly.

The best proof of the inherently insulting nature of these words is the reaction of those on the receiving end of them. Brad Torgersen, one of the "Sad Puppies" leaders Martin was arguing against, once said:

Words like "racist" and "misogynist" are presently code for "not part of the human equation" thus any man or woman who can be successfully labeled these things, is cut off from polite circles, perhaps even driven out of the workplace, or worse.

I didn't find a similar explicit quote from another major Sad Puppies leader, Larry Correia, but try perusing any of his posts on the topic (such as this one) and it's clear he shares the sentiment.

But really, it's not necessary to deluge you with examples. Observe any internet argument (or real-life argument for that matter) where one of the participants is called a racist or sexist. They will almost inevitably react as if they were insulted, and that's because they were insulted. Racism is frequently referred to as a "disease" or worse. If it's not insulting to call someone a racist, I'm not sure what an insult is.

To be clear: I fully agree that racism is a disease--indeed, that that analogy underplays it--and I think the fact that "racist" (and "sexist" etc) is considered an insult is a sign of great progress. But we need to face the fact that it is an insult. So the first possible response, that it's OK to call people racists because that's not an insult, is a complete non-starter.

IV

The second possible response is to argue that, while "sexist" or "racist" are insults and thus should not be used, instead you can merely say that someone "has sexist views" or similar. The motivation behind this might be something as follows: a racist is something you are, while racist views are something you hold; therefore, calling someone a "racist" is an insult (and thus wrong) while accusing someone of "holding racist views" is merely a description of their ideology. The analogy to the Obama case would be asserting that it's OK to say that Obama has "committed war crimes," you just can't call him a "war criminal."

That analogy should make the absurdity of this defense plain. If you've committed war crimes, you're a war criminal; there's no mysterious extra thing you need to gain to become one. Similarly, if you have racist views, you're a racist--there's no "extra" character trait or whatever that makes you one.

While I think this is essentially obvious, I'll back myself up by liberally quoting a fantastic 2013 post by the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. In this post, Coates argues against Wes Alwan, who in defending Alec Baldwin from being called a "bigot" (see this for some details) said:

In fact, the primary function of a word like "bigot" is to very precisely exclude more conflicted, doubtful states of mind, as in: a bigot is "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance" (Mirriam-Webster). . . . accusing someone of being close-minded and un-persuadable requires that they adamantly hold the beliefs in question in the first place: it cannot be the case that they're conflicted or akratic - that for example they sincerely favor gay rights as a matter of principle yet betray this principle during bouts of homophobic rage.

Coates responds (I'm giving a very long quote because it's great, but for my purposes the second and especially third paragraphs are the most important):

Very few white people in the 19th century--indeed very few slave-holders--were without conflict and without doubt when considering black people. Many of them were persuadable and akratic. (A great word, by the way.) Some manumitted the enslaved. Others taught them to read, even though it was against the law. Others bore children by them, and sometimes even loved those children. And others still argued that white people should be enslaved too. These people were conflicted, complicated and bigoted. I suspect that the same is true for many homophobic "love the sinner, hate the sin" bigots today. 

Perhaps we are now entering a new age wherein we will do violence to our language and Osama Bin Laden will no longer be a terrorist, but "a person who enjoyed a career killing innocent people." Rush Limbaugh will not be a racist, but "a man who has made a career saying racist things." Nathan Bedford Forrest will not have been a white supremacist but "someone who seemed to believe that things would be better if white people held most of the power in our society." Louis Farrakhan will not be an anti-Semite but "someone who exhibits a pattern of making comments against people who identify themselves as Jewish." 

I am doubtful that such an age is dawning. In the meantime, I hope a self-identified "self-critiquing liberal" like Alwan--and I mean this--will see that while some people reach for labels simply to conduct a mythical witch-hunt, others reach for labels because in their world witches are very real, and are not the hunted, but the hunters.

I will add one thing. What's important in the end is not the semantics of what "bigot," "racist," or "sexist" mean. What's important is the moral status of "making a career saying racist things," or more pertinently, believing racist/sexist/etc. things. As long as the latter is generally considered to be bad in itself (which I indeed believe it to be, but arguing for that here would take me too far afield), then accusing someone of holding racist views is very much an insult. So option (b), too, is a non-starter; no matter what your definition of "racist" is, it's impossible to say that someone's opinions and statements are racist without insulting them.

V

The final response--which, for reasons argued above, I believe is the only self-consistent position tone argument defenders can take--is: Yes, it's insulting to call someone a sexist/racist or a holder of sexist/racist views, and therefore you shouldn't do that. The analogy would be Reifowitz hypothetically arguing that, since it's insulting to call Obama a war criminal, you shouldn't call Obama a war criminal.

Let me clarify something. This hypothetical Reifowitz is not making the case that Obama isn't a war criminal. He is instead arguing that it's wrong even to make the case that Obama is a war criminal. Similarly, the tone argument defender here is not merely saying it's wrong to falsely accuse people of being sexists, which is so obvious as to be almost banal. Rather, they're saying that, even if you honestly believe someone is being sexist or racist, it is wrong to say so. Presumably, one should just make much more mild criticisms (perhaps "I disagree with your contention that whites are genetically more intelligent than blacks").

Now, Cross, Martin, and other tone argument defenders clearly believe their stance is "neutral," in that they'd likely insist they're not forbidding people from stating their opinions--they're merely requiring that those opinions not be insulting (as Martin says, "we can disagree with each other without attacking each other"). The problem is that some opinions are by their nature insulting; sometimes, it's impossible for us to say what we truly think about an argument without attacking the person who made it. As children, some of us (especially women) were taught "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." This admonition at least has the virtue of being honest in its intention to censor. At the very least, defenders of the tone argument should be similarly honest.

Well, that last bit was pretty insulting, so I guess I just violated the tone argument myself. Let me back up a bit, then, and give a less rhetorical argument against this third option--that is, I will defend calling people racist or sexist if one honestly believes them to be.

First of all, note that "racist" and "sexist" aren't the only words that, while theoretically referring to ideologies, are in reality insults. "Fascist" is similar in that these days it tends to mean "person who holds a political position I disagree with"--and it would clearly be disingenuous to call someone a fascist and then deny that you meant to insult them. Republicans insult Obama by calling him a "socialist" all the time, and "liberal" and "conservative" are certainly insults within certain circles. As implied above, "pro-censorship" is very insulting for many, and beyond politics, being a "creationist" is almost as bad as being a "racist" in much of the internet.

One way to understand what's going on here is the "Overton Window." The basic idea is that, in public discourse, we can consider each idea as having a certain degree of mass acceptability, ranging from "unthinkable" and "radical" to "popular" and "policy." All of these ideological terms that are also insults refer to beliefs that, either in the culture at large or in particular subcultures, fall in the "unthinkable" camp. In this regard, Torgersen is only somewhat exaggerating when he says calling someone a "racist" takes them out of the human condition. What you're really doing is accusing them of holding an unthinkable view, a view so out-there that only a bad person could possibly hold it. The goal, of course, is to use peer pressure in order to encourage them to abandon that view.

And you know what? It works. While racism and sexism are still massive problems in our society, it's much less common for people to be explicitly, unambiguously racist or sexist than it was 40 or 50 years ago. This is progress, of a sort. And it was accomplished precisely because it's no longer considered acceptable to (openly) hold these views, and people who express them in public are shamed for doing so. If this public shaming does not take place, if people who say racist or sexist things are met with a mere "I politely disagree with you," the Overton Window will shift and bigotry will move from being "unthinkable" to "radical" or even "acceptable." Indeed, we can see this process occurring in real time with Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Your average internet commenter is far less influential than Donald Trump, of course. Nevertheless, if people are not consistently called out and shamed for saying racist or sexist things, racism and sexism will become more acceptable to express. (Spend enough time looking at the chat of your average popular twitch stream if you want proof.) To put it bluntly: insults are one of the ways cultural standards are enforced, they are extremely effective at doing so, and it is morally justifiable to use them if those cultural standards are themselves good and essential. To oppose their use is not to be neutral, but to favor the views that the insults are targeting (because your position will move them toward the "acceptable" category). Sometimes, this is the right course of action; "atheist" used to be an insult par excellence, after all. But sometimes it isn't. Since anti-bigotry is an extremely important cultural standard, is is morally acceptable to insult people by calling them bigots.

VI

So am I advocating a free-for-all against suspected bigots? Is it OK to not merely call them bigots, but also to threaten violence, tell them to kill themselves, etc.? No, of course not. But the wrongness of that kind of rhetoric is not that it's insulting, but that it's unnecessarily insulting.

I will explain. The problem with the tone argument is that it blocks people from expressing certain views that are inherently insulting, under the guise of merely targeting rhetoric. But sometimes, insulting rhetoric is not used to express a view, but is merely substance-less rage.

Nothing is gained by telling someone to kill themselves or threatening violence against them. (Contrast this with something like "Fuck off," which makes clear that the bigot is not welcome in the community in a way nothing else can and is therefore an acceptable insult.) It is publicly shaming them, yes, but unnecessarily so; merely calling them a bigot is sufficient for that purpose. All they do is, maybe, allow the insulter to let off some steam while likely negatively impacting the mental state of the one being insulted. That is why it shouldn't be done.

The key point here is that the line between "you're a racist" and "kill yourself" is not that the latter is more insulting; calling someone "stupid," after all, is probably less insulting than "racist" but is still unnecessary. The line is: does your insult actually express a substantive opinion, or is it merely letting off steam? "Your'e a racist" expresses an opinion that cannot be stated in any other way. "You're stupid" is just pointless grandstanding.

Another important note here is that these substance-less insults are not different in kind from any other sort of shallow argument. If, while engaging in debate, I ignore my opponent's point to attack their spelling/grammar, or their username, or I bring up something entirely unrelated, I am similarly doing something wrong. Insubstantial insults are worse to the extent that they tend to hurt peoples' feelings (I mean this non-ironically for the record), but their insulting quality merely exacerbates their wrongness; the wrongness itself comes from their lack of substance.

To summarize: the tone argument is a bad argument because expressing certain opinions is inherently insulting. Insults are not necessarily bad, and are only bad if they do not express a substantive view.

The Tone Argument Preview: John Stuart Mill

I'm starting to realize posting twice a week was a bit ambitious, so I think I'm going to focus on posting once a week on Sundays. Instead, on Thursdays I'll offer brief "previews" for what I'll be writing about that week.

This week, I'm going to write about the tone argument. From reading articles on the internet about it, one might get the impression that criticism of the "tone argument," critique of the idea that we should always be civil, is something new, perhaps cooked up by those "SJWs" a bunch of people seem to be upset about these days. I believed this too (well, not the SJW part), which is why I was quite surprised when I re-read the British philosopher John Stuart Mill's famous defense of individual freedom of speech and action, On Liberty, and found he spoke on precisely this topic. Considering On Liberty was written in 1859, and is usually considered one of the chief achievements of liberal political theory, I think what Mill has to say on this matter is very much of interest. It can serve as a "teaser" for my own discussion of the issue in a few days. (Note: I've introduced paragraph breaks into the original text for reason of readability.)

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.

But this, though an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct.

With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions.

The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatise those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion.

It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side which a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favour. This si the real morality of public discussion: and if often violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously strive towards it.

(These are from pages 54-55 of On Liberty and other writings, edited by Stefan Collini, first published in 1989. For people with access to other editions, it's the last paragraph in Chapter 2.)

To end with, I will provide another quote from On Liberty, which may in its own way provide an even better view into Mill's views on the proper use of "invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like" (page 33, same edition):

What is boasted of at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of persecution.

Mill places a footnote at the end of this sentence. The footnote reads (page 33, same edition):

Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the passions of a persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the worst parts of our national character on the occasion of the Sepoy insurrection. The ravings of fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may be unworthy of notice; but the heads of the Evangelical party have announced as their principle for the government of Hindoos and Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which the Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public employment be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An Under-Secretary of State [William N. Massey], in a speech delivered to his constituents on the 12th of November, 1857, is reported to have said: 'Toleration of their faith' (the faith of a hundred millions of British subjects), 'the superstition which they called religion, by the British Government, had had the effect of retarding the ascendancy of the British name, and preventing the salutary growth of Christianity. . . . Toleration was the great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it, it meant the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, among Christians, who worshipped upon the same foundation. It meant toleration of all sects and denominations of Christians who believed in the one mediation.' I desire to call attention to the fact, that a man who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in the government of this country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the doctrine that all who do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the pale of toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?

GamerGate: Invasions of Gamer Culture

A few days ago I read this post by Alisha Karabinus about GamerGate. I highly recommend reading the entire post, but I was inspired by this part in particular:

I am sitting at my computer with too many tabs open. In one, a friend is telling me a story of a man he knew who lost his way, his only solace, when gaming conventions went too mainstream, when the only haven he knew turned into a reflection of the rest of his life: a place where a “freak” like him was no longer accepted, but instead subjected to the stares and whispers of “mean girls.” He talked about fake geek girls, my friend tells me, and for the first time, I understand, a little, where these accusations come from. I’m able to see the source of bitterness and anger.

My friend tells me he thinks this man is dead; he hasn’t heard from him in a long time, and at first I want to say, but you don’t know. I can’t say it, though. I can’t, because what did this man, the one my friend describes, have left? What would you do, if you felt there was no place for you at all? To what extremes would you be pushed? I suddenly overwhelmed with such a sense of horror and sadness that I have to look away.

Now, let me state from the outset: I am not a member of GamerGate; I think it's essentially a right-wing cultural backlash against the feminism, anti-racism, etc. which is increasingly gaining power and influence in "gamer" culture. I'm not going to defend this position here--probably I will in a later post. (If you have no idea what GamerGate is...well, consider yourself lucky, but if you'd like to take the plunge, this article I think provides a good introduction to the topic.) In this post, I'd like to use Karabinus's post as a jumping-off point to criticize a certain argument often made by anti-Gamergaters.

In an overall very good video (which I also highly recommend you watch), Dan Olson says (starting at 11:40; my own transcription):

The perception, the base assumption, is that these women [Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and Brianna Wu], none of whom are technically journalists, represent the invasion into the cultural space, an invasion of gender, race, sexuality and class issues, politics and awareness. They couch this idea in conspiratorial tones, assembling lists of supposed collaborators and drawing out complex webs of accusations implying that these minorities are all outsiders looking to hijack games as a platform for political ends.

This is, of course, all utter nonsense. Women, queer folk, trans folk, racial, ethnic, religious, and political minorities have been playing games all along. They have been here all along. They did not, as 4chan summarized with this image, suddenly start playing games in 2007. Also, as we've already discussed, games are and were already political in nature, because all culture is unavoidably political. What they see as an invasion is little more than the players who have been present all along finding a voice in the market to discuss politics that were already there.

What Olson says in the first paragraph (well, in the part I chose to isolate in its own paragraph while transcribing) is, I think, accurate. The second paragraph, however, isn't--or rather, it's based on a misunderstanding of what precisely GamerGaters think is being invaded. Olson seems to be implying that the "cultural space" being invaded is simply that of video games in general, or the playing of video games itself. In that sense, then of course non-"white cis- and heterosexual men" have been playing games all along so they're not invading anything. But this, from what I can tell, is not what most GamerGaters are upset about.

(Disclaimer before I move on to my main argument: I'm going to make generalizations about GamerGaters in the remainder of this post. They are based chiefly on my own impressions and knowledge about the usual GamerGate hangouts--4chan etc. They're certainly not based on any scientific data, since, well, there isn't any. So this may very well be inaccurate, and if anyone has a better explanation I'd love to hear it, no sarcasm.)

To understand the motivations of GamerGate, the precise cultural space that's being invaded, we must understand the average GamerGater. The movement was born on 4chan's /v/ board (before the website banned discussion of it so it moved to 8chan), and so that makes a natural starting point for analysis. I've been casually reading 4chan for a while now, and after enough time the website culture, and the likely personality of its average user, becomes fairly clear.

The best way to proceed, I think, is to tell a story of a "fictional GamerGater." I'm not claiming every detail of this story is accurate for all or even most GamerGaters. My intention is merely to give a sort of idea for what motivations I take to be in play here. My hope is that anyone familiar with this issue, or with gaming culture in general, will find this story largely familiar.

Imagine a young, white, cis- and heterosexual man. For various reasons, he has always been sort of an outcast--perhaps he lacks social skills or has social anxiety, maybe he comes from a bad household. For whatever reason, though, he spent much of his childhood without a significant peer group to accept him, to make him feel welcome and wanted--until, that is, he discovered "gamer culture." Not video games themselves, mind you, but the largely internet-based culture surrounding them.

To be sure, he most likely discovered this culture because he enjoyed playing video games and wanted to discuss it with others who shared the same hobby. But eventually, the importance of this culture grew far beyond just that. Perhaps for the first time, he discovered a group of people whom he connected with--who liked him, made him feel valued, gave him a place where he felt at home. As such, when he identifies as a "gamer," he doesn't just mean "someone who plays games." He means something more like this.

Seriously, read that entire comic closely. That comic (and I don't mean to pick on VG Cats, it's just a good example) is from 2009, but the attitude behind it has only gotten stronger since. If you think of "gamer" as just meaning "plays games," if you think the comic is expressing pride merely in how they "memorize the ultra combos" and "wrote down pages of passwords," the comic is obviously ridiculous. On the other hand, if you think of "gamer" as meaning "belongs to gamer culture," if you think that it's expressing pride in belonging to that culture, in going through its rites of passage, then it starts to make a lot more sense.

"Gamer" is an identity not because people identify a whole lot with their entertainment products. I mean, they do, but people also identify a lot with books, and "reader" isn't an identity; at least, not nearly to the same extent "gamer" is. "Gamer" is an identity because people identify with the culture that grew up around that entertainment product, a culture that gave them acceptance, belonging, and a place to call home.

Now, enter Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and Brianna Wu. They have been singled out for the most intense harassment not just because they're prominent women in gaming; they're not the only prominent women in gaming, after all. They've been singled out because they're among the most prominent women in gaming who criticize gamer culture. Let me explain what I mean, mainly focusing on Sarkeesian since I think she's the best example of this.

Sarkeesian makes videos discussing sexism in video games. Let me say that, as feminist criticism of media goes, her videos are very anodyne--that is, they're actually extremely light-handed, mostly sticking to the clearest cases of sexism and bigotry in games and being very polite and calm the entire time. So for a while, I didn't understand just why she gets all the hate she gets (and she's gotten a lot of hate for a long time). Now, though, I think I do, and it's largely thanks to this blog comment:

One of the things [Sarkeesian] says, is that you can criticize things, you can understand why they’re problematic and harmful and still enjoy them.

And just speaking for myself, although quite frankly this issue probably is a strict parallel in terms of personality type. No, just no.

If I thought games encouraged sexual/domestic violence or the oppression of women over and above baseline levels in society at large, I wouldn’t play them. I couldn’t play them. They would squick me the hell out. I’d feel guilt for enjoying that sort of thing. Games that are borderline in that, I don’t play (luckily I don’t believe there’s that many of them).

In other words, it's not that Sarkeesian is particularly extreme. It's that she criticizes the sexism in games at all (or at least claims that they're more sexist than "baseline levels in society at large"--though I'm not sure where this comes from since, in my experience, Sarkeesian never says games are more sexist than society at large). Because if games are sexist, that makes me a sexist for enjoying them. And sexism is bad, so if that was true I'd be a bad person.

By itself, this logic might appear strange. But let's broaden the scope of discussion. While Sarkeesian is only directly criticizing the games themselves, gamer culture is built around these games--that's why it's "gamer" culture, after all. One of the core assumptions of gamer culture is that while individual games may be bad, video games in general are good; they are things worth playing, discussing, being passionate about, etc. So when Sarkeesian criticizes video games for being sexist, I hear fairly soft-handed media critique. But gamers, or at least our hypothetical GamerGater, hears:

"That subculture you belong to, the one that gives you a sense of belonging, acceptance, and meaning? It is fundamentally wrong. It is sexist and hateful and oppresses women, and you oppress women by belonging to it. It needs to be changed from the ground up in order to become morally acceptable, and I'm going to do just that. Either join me or get out of the way."

And, contra Olson, that is very much an invasion into the cultural space of our hypothetical GamerGater.

Karabinus says:

I don’t want to destroy games. I want more games, better games.

But for our hypothetical GamerGater, it's not about the games. It's about the culture. And Karabinus, along with every other anti-GamerGater and "SJW" that GamerGaters hate, are trying to destroy--or at least fundamentally change--gamer culture.

Again, let me make this clear: I do not support GamerGate. Indeed, I think gamer culture is fundamentally sexist (and racist, homophobic, etc) and needs to be changed from the ground up to be morally acceptable. (The same, of course, is true for the wider culture.) But if this is going to happen, the opponents of GamerGate must understand the true nature of the battle being fought, and the true nature of the people on the other side of it.

At the end of her post, Karabinus says:

I want to remember that I am a gamer, too, and passionate about what I like and what I don’t. I want to talk about games with everyone and anyone, all the time, and all the ways we can make games even better, and how we can bring in those people who reject the label. I want to build a community again, but every piece I have is broken, and I don’t know how they can be fit together again, or even if they can. I don’t even know where to begin.

To be frank, I don't think there ever was, or is ever going to be, a single unitary gaming community. People have fundamentally opposed views as to what gaming culture should be. Or, to put it another way: it's not that the pieces broke; they were broken to begin with.

But this is nothing new. As Immanuel Kant wrote, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."