Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Because I think it’s quite useful to let people who say dumb things as Cotton did have those things criticized in a mainstream medium.
Cotton would just get atta boys on Brietbart or Fox. Here, he was savaged by those who thought his views dumb and repugnant.
I think less siloing is needed. Sunlight eradicates a lot of our tribalism.
|
One more time, with feeling: The NYT can put a lot of sunlight on Cotton's ideas without doing what it did, and without relaxing its ordinary editorial standards.
Quote:
|
ETA: I do not think Taibbi pushes dumb ideas. I think his personal website is one where he exercises his pen and plays with concepts. His RS articles are much tighter and often pull in bits of his earlier personal website work. Others have done something similar, using web material as a rough draft or to test popularity of a subject with the audience.
|
His personal site seems to be a place where he throws up wooly, ragged pieces that ramble from point to point without every developing one at length or responding in good faith to someone who he disagrees with. A editor might have said, gee, that doesn't sound like a fair characterization of what White Fragility is arguing. Can you quote a whole sentence from the book? Can you figure out what its author would say to you in her own defense? He's not stupid, but he's self-indulgent. If he's posting rough drafts to gauge his audience's appetite for lulz, that sounds like a business plan, not a path to good writing.
