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[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think Delong sucks. Which I’ll reiterate here. But I’ll put that aside for now.

On substance, the Harper’s Letter May seem to be rubbish. But that’s because it’s gutless. It’s a gelded way of saying the following:

“These new voices are kind of dumb. They howl. They’re very righteous, and sanctimonious — all about emoting, demanding empathy. They’re a departure from the rational, the dispassionate. They are not voices of the salon. They are not even eloquent voices of protest. The are crowd. They confuse feelings with analysis, and defend their right to do so. They seem to think such error infuses their message with a special form of credibility. These are departures from what characterizes serious rhetoric, serious debate, serious thinking.

To engage with these voices is to enter a playing field where disagreement is met with venomous hostility. A playing field where the other side of the argument desires to not only refute a point made, but damage the maker’s ability to make another.

These are not debaters as much a scorch earth activists. A form of ‘suicide bomber’ advocates.

They care at a level those of us who choose to discuss issues in a cafe manner do not. There’s a level if heat they bring which makes the conversations uncomfortable. At any moment, one can be accused of offense and then the debate steered away from the subject at hand and toward the subject of appropriate punishment.

They’ll call this ‘accountability,’ but it’s almost always a child-like anger bubbling out of frustration. They often don’t make their points well, and they explode when that’s pointed out to them.”

By new voices you mean the people criticizing the well-established Harpers' writers? Folks like DeLong?

You can see the irrelevance of much of the Harpers crowed by their inability to engage with what's going on in places like Portland. The American cultural elite represented there are too busy figuring out which network to contract with for their commentary to actually play a leading role in a movement for change, something even a stick-in-the-mud like John Adams (a very good writer) managed in his time.