Following the whole “Max Cleland, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn controversy”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001352.html the other day, I was struck by the fact that the defenders of the smearers thought it a sufficient reply to their critics to say that what was said was literally true. (Whether it was literally true is, of course, another matter.) For once, it seems to me, philosophy can be of some use in showing that such a reply is inadequate.
Speech act theory is a pretty unsexy branch of philosophy of language these days (though elsewhere people like Habermas keep it above the visibility threshold, and there have been some daft attempts to deploy it in defence of the idea that pornography silences women). Indeed I’m not even sure that students get taught the basic distinctions on phil lang courses (which tend to be post-Davidsonian in content). But when it comes to thinking about what is going on in political discourse, it isn’t half helpful.
In his book, “How to Do Things With Words”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674411528/junius-20 , J.L. Austin famously distinguishes among three aspects of an act of communication by a person:
(1) Locutionary content — the literal meaning of what is said or written.
(2) Illocution — what they are trying to do in speaking or writing. So they may be warning, threatening, insulting, smearing, praising or whatever.
(3) Perlocutionary effect — what they manage to achieve chez the hearer or reader. So they may be trying to threaten me but, if I just burst out laughing then the perlocutionary effect is somewhat different to the one they intended by their illocutionary act.
Now it is plain, I think, that most human discourse, and especially most op-ed comment, doesn’t take the form of simply informing the reader of the literal meaning of a series of sentences. Indeed, its principal goal is, to put things in rather 18th-century terms, the inflammation of the passions. The purpose of Coulter and Steyn in writing the sentences they wrote wasn’t to convey an accurate picture of Cleland’s military and political career (a task which would have taken many, no doubt tedious, volumes). It was rather to demean and belittle him in the eyes of their readers and to neutralize him as a critic of the US Republican Party and the Bush administration. To appeal to the literal truth of the few sentences they wrote is as disingenuous here as Marc Antony saying that Brutus was an honourable man and is no defence at all to the charge that they were engaged in a foul smear. At least, it is nowhere close to being suffient to rebut that charge partly because of the inevitably selective nature of the “facts” they chose to recount.
As luck would have it, the perlocutionary effects of Coulter’s and Steyn’s acts of smearing have been to provoke ridicule and to lower Steyn’s reputation yet further in the eyes of his readers (an effect not possible in Coulter’s case for rather obvious reasons).
{ 60 comments }
john s 02.24.04 at 11:48 am
I don’t think Steyn had a perlocutionary effect with the article you refer to, lowering his reputation further in the eyes of his readers. I bet not one person who criticised Steyn in that post liked him before. Similarly, I bet not one person who supported him in that post changed their view about him as a result of his article.
Chris Bertram 02.24.04 at 11:54 am
Probably not true John. I know people who enjoyed reading Steyn after 9/11 and during the Afghan war who can’t stomach him now. For each of them, there was some article which disgusted them to the point of making them dislike him. I’d be surprised if there weren’t people who have found Steyn funny and have persevered for whom this article turned out to be the one where they stopped reading him.
jholbo 02.24.04 at 12:33 pm
Chris is right. It wasn’t this straw that broke my back, as it so happens. (This was really the nail in the coffin of the straw that broke my back.) But I used to read and enjoy Steyn and no longer do precisely because of things like this.
Mike 02.24.04 at 12:47 pm
Right after 9/11, Steyn wrote a piece arguing, among other things, that the deaths of handicapped people who couldn’t get down the stairs at the World Trade Center showed the wrong headedness of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That was the one that disgusted me to the point of not reading him.
Jeremy Osner 02.24.04 at 1:24 pm
Chris — is a “illocutionary act” the same thing as an “intended/hoped-for perlocutionary effect”?
Jeremy Osner 02.24.04 at 1:26 pm
Oh and BTW — the perlocutionary (meta-perlocutionary?) effect of this article on me was to lower my opinion of Steyn: I had never heard of him before, so had I seen an article by him I might have glanced at it to see if it caught my interest; after this second-hand exposure I will avoid doing so.
Ophelia Benson 02.24.04 at 1:29 pm
That’s interesting. This is a bit off-topic – or off the main topic, but on the sub-topic. I’ve been getting that response lately: that it’s pointless talking about theism and atheism because no one ever changes her mind: theists just remain convinced and so do atheists. But I always disagree with that line, because there always are people who change their minds – obviously: people do change their minds about things, after all! A book, an article, a conversation or argument, can change a mind or minds, it happens all the time, that’s kind of why we read and talk. Otherwise why bother?
So, here’s another example.
(Of course, people like the people here, people who like to blather and write, have a vested interest in the thought that such activities can make something happen. But all the same…)
john s 02.24.04 at 1:35 pm
Oh alright, I was wrong. Still, Mark Steyn sets out to be outrageous. It’s inevitable that it won’t always work: ie, it’ll be outrageous outrageous rather than interesting outrageous or funny outrageous.
I’ll come clean: I do like Steyn – which doesn’t mean that I much agree with him. I’m going to carry on reading him because I know that he’ll come up with an article that makes it worthwhile persevering. For example, Mike, and accepting that this is all very subjective, I think his article which compares the last French Presidential election to the last Zimbabwean one great. You’ll have missed that if you stopped reading him when you did.
Chris Bertram 02.24.04 at 1:43 pm
Jeremy,
Thanks for asking the question, which tells me that I haven’t expressed the illocutionary/perlocutionary distinction quite correctly above.
The illocutionary focuses on what I do in performing a speech act; the perlocutionary on the effects I (aim to) achieve by performing it.
Sometimes these can be the same (as with an explicit warning), but not always. What I do in uttering sentence S may be to tell a joke, the intended perlocutionary effect will be to convulse you with laughter (I take it that I can succeed in telling a joke even if you don’t find it funny). In uttering a performative such as a promise, I do that very thing IN the utterance of the promise.
So, yes, there is a dist between the illocutionary act and the intended effects.
mandarin 02.24.04 at 2:00 pm
The word “smear” carries strong connotations of falsehood. I think you’d be better served by the word “attack,” Chris — except that of course you’re trying to smear Coulter and Steyn, by claiming (falsely, as demonstrated in the earlier thread) that what they said was false. If their case is so weak, why isn’t the truth sufficient to take them down?
It was rather to demean and belittle him in the eyes of their readers and to neutralize him as a critic of the US Republican Party and the Bush administration.
Oh, I see — you’re appealing to a HIGHER truth: the truth of political usefulness. In order to pass judgment on a speech act, all you need to know is its partisan affiliation. Well, thanks for presenting your bona fides.
It ought to go without saying – though it doesn’t, in this forum – that both left and right are capable of a) smearing their opponents with falsehoods and b) telling inconvenient truths.
Ophelia Benson 02.24.04 at 2:37 pm
Uh…Mandarin? The folks here at Twisty Sticks do tend to point that out rather a lot. Browse a bit and you’ll see a fair bit of dissent from particular leftish arguments.
Ah well, yet another clash between accuracy and rhetoric, or as Austin would have put it – oh never mind.
Odd Ray of Hope 02.24.04 at 2:40 pm
Chris — “The illocutionary focuses on what I do in performing a speech act; the perlocutionary on the effects I (aim to) achieve by performing it.”
I’m confused; your first post said that illocution is “what they are trying to do in speaking or writing”, as opposed to perlocution, “what they manage to achieve”
I agree that Coulter’s intent to was to diminish the gravity of Senator Cleland’s sacrifice, and I think it’s objectionable.
But doesn’t the intention of the Kerry campaign in putting him on the stage with the candidate also bear analysis? It seems pretty clear that the campaign intends to deflect all discussion of policy to discussions of the candidate’s history, and that Senator Cleland is deployed in that effort. I’m not sure that is so admirable.
Ophelia wrote:
“A book, an article, a conversation or argument, can change a mind or minds, it happens all the time, that’s kind of why we read and talk.”
But that is what is so depressing about political discourse. Every one has basically made up their minds, and every fact and event and statement must be interpreted in a fashion that is at least consistent with that fundamental decision. No one admits error, no one changes their mind, no one admits the validity of any argument inconsistent with their world view.
GMT 02.24.04 at 2:48 pm
Well, i don’t know what Mandarin’s been smoking, but Ann’s takedown has certainly been taken down by little things called “facts.” This has been her problem all along, cf. her weird fantasies about a certain GOP Senator from the 50s…
It doesn’t matter that the story doesn’t fit the facts, so long as it confirms the prejudices of the choir you’re preaching to. This man assails conservatives, conservatives seem to think those in uniform are all their poster children, and so a non-conservative in uniform has to be taken down. And, in true “Clinton body count” fashion, the facts don’t matter.
Is there an anthropologist in the house?
Ophelia Benson 02.24.04 at 2:48 pm
“But that is what is so depressing about political discourse. Every one has basically made up their minds, and every fact and event and statement must be interpreted in a fashion that is at least consistent with that fundamental decision. No one admits error, no one changes their mind, no one admits the validity of any argument inconsistent with their world view.”
I know. That’s why, for instance, I almost never listen to (let alone watch) ‘mainstream’ news coverage any more.
And that ideological entrenchment and the resulting one-eyed views is exactly what B&W was started in order to criticize (she said pompously – but it was, and anyway I’m not the one who started it).
But it’s not quite true that no one does. Some do.
And possibly if the word gets out that that kind of entrenchment is not all that good for thought – the fashion for climbing out of the trench will spread a bit. One can only try, eh?
T. Gracchus 02.24.04 at 2:48 pm
mandarin says:
The word “smear†carries strong connotations of falsehood. I think you’d be better served by the word “attack,†Chris — except that of course you’re trying to smear Coulter and Steyn, by claiming (falsely, as demonstrated in the earlier thread) that what they said was false.
I looked at the earlier thread and what Coulter and Steyn said was false. What thread exactly is it that has Coulter being truthful?
T. Gracchus 02.24.04 at 2:49 pm
mandarin says:
The word “smear†carries strong connotations of falsehood. I think you’d be better served by the word “attack,†Chris — except that of course you’re trying to smear Coulter and Steyn, by claiming (falsely, as demonstrated in the earlier thread) that what they said was false.
I looked at the earlier thread and what Coulter and Steyn said was false. What thread exactly is it that has Coulter being truthful?
LizardBreath 02.24.04 at 3:34 pm
I found myself wishing that the undergraduate course in philosophy of language I took fifteen years ago were fresher in my mind back when the argument about whether the Bush administration had ever described Iraq as an ‘imminent threat’ or had attributed responsibility for 9-11 to Iraq was at its peak. My vague recollection of Grice’s axioms of communication, and how those axioms can be exploited by apparently violating them, suggested that it would be a useful method of analysis for the administration’s statements.
Never found the time to do the refresher reading necessary to actually construct an argument on that basis, though.
mandarin 02.24.04 at 3:42 pm
Browse a bit and you’ll see a fair bit of dissent from particular leftish arguments.
Fair cop.
Thorley Winston 02.24.04 at 5:57 pm
Chris Bertram wrote:
Except that there was nothing in Coulter post regarding Max Cleland, which could legitimately be considered a “smear.†Coulter accurately stated the origins of Cleland’s injuries and that some on the Left had tried to give the impression that he received them from enemy fire rather than as a result of an accident which could have occurred to a national guardsman who served stateside. An example of a smear would be trying to misstate the facts or trying to mislead people about them such as:
No it was not. Here is what her purpose was:
This is consistent throughout the text of both Coulter’s original piece and her follow-up (which substantiated her first one) which was to debunk the criticism being levied at those who served in the National Guard during Vietnam. In so far, as Cleland was one such critic of the “weekend warriors” while his own standing as a critic was largely part based on the misperception that he lost his limbs in combat rather than as a result of an accident which could just as easily have happened to any National Guardsman, makes it perfectly fair to point this out.
GMT 02.24.04 at 6:03 pm
I wouldn’t press the point except that Democrats have deliberately “sexed up†the circumstances of Cleland’s accident in the service of slandering the people of Georgia, the National Guard and George Bush.
Well, someone’s come to this debate a little late. You might want to refer to how Cleland became a FORMER member of govt., and then try ringing the changes on your little talking points again.
Thorley Winston 02.24.04 at 6:33 pm
GMT wrote:
Actually, I was part of the previous debate on Ted Barlowe’s previous thread, which is how I know that the charges levied that Ann Coulter “lied†in her February columns are themselves lies.
Which has nothing to do with the issue at hand, since he was already a “former member of government†by the time Coulter wrote her column.
The definition of “talking points†evidently being “actual facts about what actually happened.â€
GMT 02.24.04 at 6:41 pm
As I’ve said, winston, you’re late. These attacks on Cleland are over a year old. All Ann did was recylce some truly awful stuff from AM Radio and deploy it as covering fire for George’s self-inflicted Guard disaster.
This is very similar to the way you have claimed that people are attacking the Guard or the people of Georgia. Those kinds of talking points.
If you want to hide behind an improvised chronology, then I will leave you there.
GMT 02.24.04 at 6:43 pm
deploy, not deploying, obviously
Thorley Winston 02.24.04 at 7:08 pm
GMT wrote:
Actually, GMT is wrong. Here were the sources for Ann Coulter’s report of the cause of Max Cleland’s injuries:
It looks like then, according to GMT, that the Boston Globe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Baltimore Sun, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution constitute “AM radio.â€
CJS 02.24.04 at 7:21 pm
Chris,
I agree that it’s useful to think about Austin to rebut the view that speaking truly is the only moral norm in political (or other) discourse. I’ve often thought that Grice on conversational implicatures is also useful in this context, to a similar end. Someone can say something true but conversationally implicate something false, which is furthermore objectionable for some reason. Polticians do this all the time. Bush’s speeches on the tax cuts, for instance, are full or this sort of thing–saying that the average tax cut will be $X, which is strictly speaking true, (for some X at any rate, which I don’t remember offhand) even though the average or typical tax payer gets much less than X back. (I think we can stretch Grice to accommodate this case, so that it is implicated that the average or typical taxpayer gets $X back). People are very good at picking up pragmatic implicatures. That is, there really is some phenomenon out there that philosophers of language and linguists are trying to explain. Yet there’s this popular presumption that people aren’t committed to what they implicate, or that there’s simply no saying what someone suggested or hinted at when he or she made a particular utterance in a particular context.
Strictly speaking, the application of Grice here doesn’t call into question the claim that truth is the relevant moral norm for discourse. Rather it supports the view that Ann Coulter et al. are not off the hook, even if what they literally express is true (a rare occurence in any case). It also matters what they implicate.
GMT 02.24.04 at 7:24 pm
Or perhaps I’m referring to AM Radio that actuall is, you know, AM Radio. Making light of his injuries, and insinuating they were not combat related goes back to when Cleland was being compared to bin Laden. If you’re going to do that to that straw man, please wear a condom.
I am, however, glad to see that Coulter has fixed her citations problem, after all the footnotes that went nowhere and manufactured quotes.
Let’s try reinjecting some humor into this
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_tbogg_archive.html#107657374803670239
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_tbogg_archive.html#107747975424989741
You do know that lying by ommission is still lying right? Coulter doesn’t, but she shot her credibility long ago. Do you know where Cleland was and what he was doing when he said what you’ve quoted above? What they were doing and where they were doing it?
Quoth the Coulter:
ut he didn’t “give his limbs for his country,” or leave them “on the battlefield.” There was no bravery involved in dropping a grenade on himself with no enemy troops in sight.
I count three lies.
cjs 02.24.04 at 7:25 pm
right. As lizardbreath also suggested above. Sorry to miss that on my initial thread-scan
LizardBreath 02.24.04 at 8:03 pm
Thanks, that was pretty much exactly the argument I wanted to make but didn’t have a clear enough memory of Grice to.
Sigivald 02.24.04 at 9:19 pm
GMT: Re. “talking points”?
Pot. Kettle.
cjs: You imply that Bush is “lying” when he says that the average tax refund wil be X, when the refund of the taxpayer with average income will be Y (wher Y < X). Now, the question is, why is this a "lie"? Because some people who aren’t actually paying attention, and are ignorant of the simple linguistic fact that the “average tax refund” is not the same as the “tax refund gotten by people of average income” will become confused?
Do you mean to suggest that the only way to not lie when talking about (eg) a tax cut is to intentionally state things in language fit for fifth-graders, and where such language states the case in the way most hostile to his own agenda? Because I certainly don’t see any intent to deceive here. (I don’t see the “implication” of “taxpayers of average INCOME getting this break”; but maybe that’s because I am aware that rich people pay far more tax than the “average” taxpayer. Also, perhaps, I don’t put enough stock in the alleged stupidity of the masses.)
marky 02.24.04 at 10:00 pm
I don’t know what Thorley Winston has been smoking, but Coulter’s piece was riddled with errors.
LizardBreath 02.24.04 at 10:18 pm
Now, the question is, why is this a “lie”? Because some people who aren’t actually paying attention, and are ignorant of the simple linguistic fact that the “average tax refund” is not the same as the “tax refund gotten by people of average income” will become confused?
Dragging my desperately vague memory of Grice out of the back of my head in order to make the argument even more explicit: In conversation generally, people, rather than simply producing truths, obey a number of axioms which aid communication, among which is the axiom of relevance. If I say, “Nice day outside” and you reply “Dolphins are mammals”, even though what you said is true, we don’t appear to be engaging in normal conversation because your remark is entirely irrelevant to mine.
One thing that these axioms allow, is that parties can appear to violate them as an aid to communication — the conversational partner can deduce that an apparently irrelevant response is in some way relevant, and get additional information that way. If I say “Nice day out,” and you reply “I’m going to bring a blanket to the ball game tonight,” one way to interpret that would be that you have made an entirely irrelevant rejoinder, changing the subject from the weather to a sporting event. By applying the axiom of relevance, I can reject the hypothesis that you have abruptly changed the subject, and search for ways to interpret your remark as applying to the weather. I can therefore deduce that your comment was meant as a prediction of tonight’s probable temperature. Although you did not state it explicitly, the statement “I believe it will be cold tonight,” was the implicature of your remark.
Applying this to Bush: ‘Average tax refund’ is a statistic that is of very little interest to anyone — without a seriously detailed knowledge of the tax structure and income distributions, no one is likely to be able to predict which tax payers will receive an average tax refund. (Note: I’m not saying that you need to know that much to know that the taxpayer of average income doesn’t get the average refund, that is fairly elementary. I’m saying that there is basically no one out there with enough knowledge to say truly “At my income level, I should get just about exactly the average refund — I’d be interested to know how much that is.”) As useful information, or support for an argument, it is a completely pointless statistic to cite.
“Tax refund gotten by people of average income”, on the other hand, is quite interesting and useful to most people. Given some variation of a normal distribution of incomes, most people have an income that is close to average, and so most people will get a tax refund close to the refund gotten by people of average income.
When Bush refers to “average tax refund” in a speech, some people will simply misunderstand, and believe he is referring to “tax refund received by the tax payer of average income”. More people, however, will be aware of some distinction, but will follow a version of the following train of thought: “Bush appears to be trying to convince me that I should approve of his tax cut — and to that end he’s talking about the ‘average tax refund’. If ‘average tax refund’ were a useless and uninformative statistic, he would be violating the axiom of relevance. Therefore, it must be informative in a way that supports his argument. Probably, it’s just about the same for practical purposes as the ‘tax refund received by the taxpayer of average income’, which is what I really need to know about.” Bush’s reference to the “average tax refund” violates the axiom of relevance, and thus causes his listeners to believe an untrue implicature of his statement, even though the statement itself is true.
Marky 02.24.04 at 10:20 pm
I’m hardly a Coulter “expert”—frankly the stench of Le Skank’s writings is too much for me to even read her, but let’s just take one paragraph:
Ann: Cleland wore the uniform, he was in Vietnam, and he has shown courage by going on to lead a productive life. But he didn’t “give his limbs for his country,” or leave them “on the battlefield.” There was no bravery involved in dropping a grenade on himself with no enemy troops in sight.
——
I count one outright falsehood, two smears and one questionable assertion just in these three sentences.
First, Cleland did not drop a grenade on himself. He picked up a grenade that another soldier had left. This is the falsehoold. I don’t find this trivial, because she aims to make Cleland look like the victim of his own clumsiness here. So this is both a lie and a smear.
Second, to say that he didn’t
“give his limbs for his country” seems false to me, but I’ll give Le Skank a pass and just call her for another smear here. IF he didn’t give his limbs for his country, what did he give them for–chopped liver? He was serving in the military, doing combat duty and he lost his limbs during this service. End of story.
Third, she claims there was no bravery involved. As soon as she picks up a live grenade herself, not knowing when the timer is set for, I’ll accept that statement. As it stands, it’s another smear.
Finally, she claims there were “no enemy troops in sight”. I’m sure that her research on this point is up to the same rigorous standards as the rest of her article, but I really wonder how she can be so certain of the point. I wonder if Cleland knew for a fact that there were no enemy soldiers around.
The battle lines were often not clearly drawn, so I am reluctant to accept Le Skank’s word here.
I’ll just put this one in the
“tendentious” category.
*unplugs nose*
Ok, that’s enough for me.
(Skanky excerpted graf courtesy of Tbogg)
John S 02.24.04 at 10:52 pm
Well Chris, I’m not so sure I was wrong after all that Steyn’s article has had no perlocutionary effect: noone here gives the impression of having an opinion of Steyn which has gone down as a result of his Cleland article. Two people (jholbo and mike) have experienced a change of opinion about Steyn, but they started detesting him some time and many articles ago; Jeremy Osner hadn’t heard of him – which means his view of Steyn couldn’t really go down.
zizka 02.25.04 at 4:28 am
I’m the only Stalinist here. The CT people are far, far too nice to the creepy moron shits like Thorley and Mandarin. Fortinately, being what they are, Mandarin and Thorley quite adequately punish CT for their excessive collective niceness. “Too nice” is not in any sense an oxymoron.
If someone says that my mother is a stinky midget whore, what is the correct response? As it happens, my mother is very, very short, and maybe some days she has bad breath. As far as I know, she was never a whore, but I’m really in no position to check up on her early days, so I can’t prove anything. So I guess I should just keep my mouth shut.
Every single moron fuck who relays the Cleland story mentions that he was planning to drink a few beers later. He never did drink those beers, because he was otherwise occupied. But the seed have doubt has been planted: maybe he was drunk. Or pre-drunk. (NOTE: It is a FACT that he was planning to drink those beers! I’m not denying that! He was GUILTY!)
I think that the supposedly-leftist relativist, amoral, acontextual mood of the university, within which the person who makes the most far-fetched argument the most successfully is the winner, serves to enable creepy fucks like thorley and mandarin.
While accuracy is regarded as an adequate defense by Cleland’s accusers, in fact inaccuracies are present in all versions of the story I’ve heard them tell so far. They really don’t care.
For connoisseurs of fuckery, go to Snopes.com and search Kerry. They’ve got a misrepresentation of his Vietnam service circulating.
Can’t stay. Off to murder some kulaks.
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 5:13 am
Zizka:
Are you really under the impression that this sort of rhetoric (“creepy moron shits”…”moron fuck”…”creepy fucks”…”connoisseurs of fuckery”) is going to change the mind of anyone who doesn’t already agree with you?
Presumably you are not that stupid. So why do you do it?
I mean, seriously: why do you do it?
Are you totally drunk out of your mind?
And then to fault CT for being “too nice” to Thorley Winston and Mandarin…presumably because they haven’t banned them yet? As if *anything* they had said was *half* as offensive and insubstantial as your own repugnant ejaculations?
Get a grip, darling.
Zizka 02.25.04 at 5:56 am
Figure it out for yourself, vinteuil. I rarely come here because CT allows its comment boards to be taken over by Thorley and a few others of that ilk, with whom no productive conversation is possible. When I come to CT, the conversation I end up having is normally with Thorley. Not with the smart people who run the blog.
Trolls presume on the goodwill of nice academic types, many of whom seem to think that anyone who bothers to show up is owed respect as long as they meet certain very minimum standards.
My responses here were based in part on things said in the previous thread on the topic of Cleland, which I believe were bad enough to put about six commenters on that thread beyond the pale. At a certain point in a conversation, it can be reasonable to conclude that certain people are not people you ever want to listen to again.
And in conclusion, vinteuil, eat my shorts. And have a nice day.
am 02.25.04 at 9:00 am
It is amusing that you post a seemingly high-minded article with big words like “Locutionary content” and yet at the outset you attempt to delegitimize substantive criticisms of Democrats hypocrisy by peremptorily framing them as “smears”.
marky 02.25.04 at 3:09 pm
I have to agree with zizka here..
there are some very high quality posters in the comment threads, but they seem to disappear when the brownshirts arrive. I wouldn’t mind the CT gang editing more vigorously.
And AM—-what are you smoking?
The last time Ann Coulter had a substantive criticism of the Democrats…. must have been in a previous lifetime because she sure as hell hasn’t offered one in her current incarnation.
consigliere 02.25.04 at 3:54 pm
I, too, am with Zizka on this one. Though I often disagree with him, he is always thoughtful. And today I learned from him that there is a term for a common malady: pre-drunk. Coupled with Baudelaire, it’s pre-drunken ceaselessly, I imagine.
DJW 02.25.04 at 4:20 pm
Weighing with the pro-Zizka crowd. There are some productive, civil non-mendacious libertarian/conservatives around that post around here occasionally (Micha Ghertner, Sebastian Holsclaw, various volokhs, and others) and they often (not always, but that’s a high standard) enrich the discussions. The specimens we see here are a different breed altogether, and do make serious discussion more or less impossible. I completely understand the reluctance to ban/delete posts, and I’m not sure exactly how to delineate the proper location of ‘the limit,’ but I sure think I know it when I see it.
mandarin 02.25.04 at 5:05 pm
I completely understand the reluctance to ban/delete posts, and I’m not sure exactly how to delineate the proper location of ‘the limit,’ but I sure think I know it when I see it.
Could you look through this thread and give us an example, djw, of a post that ought to be deleted because it isn’t, in your words, “productive, civil, [and] non-mendacious”?
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 6:11 pm
I suggest that Zizka’s defenders go back and reread Thorley Winston’s and Mandarin’s contributions to this thread, and to the “Mark Steyn” thread which it references.
Now. Can *anyone* explain to me how those contributions justify deletion, banning, and obscene denunciations?
Is this really your idea of fascistic “brownshirts?”
What sheltered little lives you all must lead. How naturally the totalitarian turn of mind comes to you.
Shame.
marky 02.25.04 at 6:18 pm
Well, vint, Thorley and his ilk are also terminally stupid, which is another reason I wouldn’t mind seeing them edited out.
Repeating the same points over and over and refusing to accept factual correction may not be brownshirtism (it may be though), but it’s damn annoying.
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 6:43 pm
By the way, Mark Steyn posts fifteen letters attacking him on this issue (including Ted Barlow and William Kaminsky) plus a brief reply here
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 6:59 pm
Marky:
Heaven forfend that you should ever have to be annoyed. How awful for you!
Still, if it wouldn’t annoy you too much, could you point out the particular “factual correction[s]” that the “brownshirts” refuse to accept?
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 7:17 pm
Hmmm…the mysteries of HTML.
Let’s try that again:
Steyn on Cleland
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 7:19 pm
O.K., I give up. Cut and paste.
http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=66
marky 02.25.04 at 7:46 pm
Vint,
Apparently you haven’t read the thread.
There are several corrections listed in there, including one post by me.
marky 02.25.04 at 7:55 pm
Well, i went to your link, Vint.
I can’t say it any better than one of the letter-writers did:
” Mr Steyn, Max Cleland is allowed to say he’s no hero. But do you have any idea what a cad you make of yourself when you say it?”
Exactly.
marky 02.25.04 at 8:00 pm
And finally, I’m more concerned with the effect TW et. al. have on the quality of the thread
(they always drag the discussion down).
CT has some of the best comment threads around, and I would much rather they prune some low quality comments (including mine if they like) to give the readers a better experience.
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 8:22 pm
Well, Marky, I guess it *would* annoy you too much.
I count one, and only one, “correction.” Cleland did not “drop” the grenade. I don’t see anyone refusing to accept that correction. Relatively trivial as it is.
Am I missing something?
marky 02.25.04 at 8:29 pm
You need more, vint? Slow learner.
Coulter: Bush’s National Guard service is the most thoroughly investigated event since the Kennedy assassination
there’s one
Coulter: Thirty years ago, Bush was granted an honorable discharge from the National Guard, which would seem to put the matter to rest.
That’s misleading at best. No need to go into detail here, as others have done such a fine job, but A) honorable discharges don’t mean squat. The DC sniper got one; B)The records we have of Bush’s service leave numerous serious unanswered questions.
Now, you may dismiss these lies as also trivial, but you are missing the role they play in creating the desired perlocutionary effect.
Face it, Le Skank couldn’t write a truthful column if her next hit of cocaine depended on it.
marky 02.25.04 at 8:35 pm
And yes, I’m smearing Coulter (Gasp!).
However, almost everyone I know who does drugs thinks she is on something. My non-expert opinion is the same. The strange affect and disjointed speaking style are evidence of something being wrong.
Vinteuil 02.25.04 at 8:56 pm
Marky: yeah, whatever. I guess I thought we were talking about other things. My mistake. Nite nite.
john c. halasz 02.25.04 at 10:18 pm
Before drifting off into sleep yesterday morning, I thought of posting in response to Zizka:” Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?”
I’ve never understood why Ann Coulter gets published and afforded forums in which to spout off. (I’m just naive, I guess.) I guess, the commodification of malignant idiocy knows no bounds. Ann Coulter is the Jerry Springer of the New Right. Moral pornography.
Zizka 02.26.04 at 4:42 am
Coulter also neglected to mention that Cleland had won a Silver Star and a Bronze Star before his accident. Her manner of expression suggested that Cleland was at fault in the accident, which he was not. She suggested that he was in an entirely safe, non-combat area, which he was not. And she took a commendably modest and accurate statement by Cleland as a sort of confession of guilt.
In earlier CT threads I have suggested that posters can be banned for other reasons than incivility. You might just decide that someone doesn’t contribute much, doesn’t stay on topic, is too verbose, or have any number of reasons. A left-liberal site like this one (American terminology) might well decide that it doesn’t want to host interminable conservative critiques of left-liberalism, for example, or the automatic contradiction of anything that any liberal ever says.
The peculiar vehemence of my outburst came from the fact that I’d already been dealing with attacks on Kerry and Cleland for some time. (Context, vinteuil!) These attacks are purely political (getback for the Bush AWOL story) , and they’re on the gutter side of politics, and it’s a waste of time to try to have a civil debate about the merits of the cases. (I’m perfectly happy to get in the gutter, as I showed. As for mandarin and thorley, they were simply acting as the civil auxilary for the guttersnipes.)
I think that when someone (Coulter) is operating at the level of smears and misrepresentation, the obligation of civility is made inoperative. And other, harsher responses are not only permitted, but highly advisable.
Here in the U.S. we are entering into what I expect to be as dirty a political campaign as has ever been seen here, and my intention is to encourage the Democrats respond with adequate ferocity. I’m really not trying to convince thorley or mandarin, supposing such a thing to be possible, but to get them out of my face and whip their sorry asses.
I use the sports metaphor far too often — ethnic American peculiarity — but when someone talks trash to you during a hard-fought game you don’t even pay attention to the truth-value of what they’re saying. (Cf. the example of my mother above). In certain contexts, fighting words are just fighting words.
Since my last post here I have gathered the current and recent Kerry and Cleland smears. Their truth-value ranges from moderate to none, but functionally they’re just trash-talk and should be treated as such. Probably I will keep adding to the collection throughout the campaign.
CASE IN POINT:
What’s the truth about Kerry? 1. He didn’t especially want to go to Vietnam and tried for a deferment. 2. When he went into the military and to to Vietnam, he didn’t especially want to go into combat. 3. When he did go into combat, he was brave to the point of recklessness and received a Silver Star and a Bronze Star; his men seemed to have admired him. 4. Of his three Purple Hearts, two wounds were not very serious wounds and one was moderately serious. 5. He asked to be sent from Vietnam when he was able to do so.
This adds up to honorable and superior service by someone who almost certainly had doubts about the war before he went there. But it’s something which can be written up by a political hack with a certain slant and a few misrepresentations to be suspect. I do not think that a civil response if appropriate.
Vinteuil 02.26.04 at 6:17 am
Hmmm, Zizka, that’s one “neglected to mention” and three “suggested”‘s. Even if I accept your assessment (which I guess I’d better do, lest you throw another hissy-fit) that’s pretty small beer.
How eager you are to ban people! You obviously need a blog of your very own.
robbo 02.26.04 at 9:27 am
As noted aptly by zizka and others, it’s really no use explaining the obvious to folks like vinteuil. They, like Coulter, obviously know who would lose in a straight-up comparison between Bush and Cleland or Kerry. Hence their dogged insistence on focusing on Coulter’s carefully chosen words and discussing the topic only under the wildly biased argumentative structure that Coulter so carefully established.
Once people finally yield to the temptation of pointing out the quite literal falsehoods in Coulter’s labored screed — e.g., Cleland didn’t actually drop the grenade on his foot — her defenders predictably respond as though the larger arguments have been conceded to Coulter, leaving only the “small beer” that they are magnanimous enough to concede. This tactic is lame, self-deluding, and frustrating. Much like the entire Bush presidency.
Fortunately, the larger effect of Coulter’s smears on Cleland is to prolong the attention finally being devoted to Bush’s patently embarrassing Vietnam history. So keep it up, intellectual giants of the right.
Zizka 02.27.04 at 6:53 am
I have two blogs, one with comments. Don’t even think of it.
I have had several potentially interesting conversations here aborted by thorley and his ilk.
Person of Choler 02.27.04 at 10:24 am
We certainly can’t allow truth to interfere with the noble task of mythmaking.
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