
Is there still room for debate? - bkohlmann
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/andrew-sullivan-is-there-still-room-for-debate.html
======
jimbob45
It started with not allowing anyone to agree or even argue that vaccines cause
autism because people can die if they believe they shouldn’t get vaccines.
Then, we couldn’t argue that the Holocaust didn’t happen because that could
give rise to a new Holocaust. Then, we couldn’t argue that Black crime was
self-inflicted. Now, we can’t argue that police brutality is overstated.

In each case, I tend to agree with the mainstream opinion. However, I only got
to be that way because I heard both sides’ arguments and came to my own
conclusion.

There is an idea that these ideas are inherently dangerous and that holding
these ideas could lead to lives lost. While that may be true, entirely
censoring one side of a discussion makes everyone feel like evidence is being
withheld and suspicion only grows. Even worse, ruining lives by doxxing is
what was sought to prevent by stifling discussion in the first place.

The only way forward is to accept that these ideas must be openly discussed,
no matter how dangerous the opposing conclusion may be. If the truth really is
self-evident, then there is nothing to fear, provided all sides are afforded
ample opportunity to make their case. Otherwise, perhaps those who seek to
censor are not, themselves, as correct and righteous as they might think.

Edit: Even the Amish let their kids roam free temporarily in Rumspringa so
that they don’t feel like they’re missing the truth.

~~~
Udik
I don't agree fully with your explanation as I don't think the problem has
been posed, in general, in terms of avoiding putting people's lives in danger.
The issue is instead that empathy has become the attitude and quality that
needs to take precedence over any other, including any amount of skepticism,
inquisitive attitude and reason.

We have become a world where the ultimate element of truth are someone's
subjective feelings (usually negative) as the person reports them. (Google
finds 3710 results for the exact phrase "I was in tears, shaking" which is not
a bad number for such a precise description of an extreme state of distress).
The problem with this is that of course, when you state a fact, it's possible
to debate its truth rationally; but no rational debate is possible about a
subjective feeling (short of calling the person reporting it a liar).

For example, the problem that led to the sacking of the NYT's opinion editor
over Tim Cotton's piece is not that the piece itself was putting lives in
danger- that could have been up for debate; it's that some people objected
that they _felt_ it was putting lives in danger. While you could argue that
stopping violent demonstrations is meant to preserve lives, the _feeling_ is
instead outside of any rational debate- you cannot argue that I'm not feeling
what I say I'm feeling.

So now whoever has a grievance or feels to have been wronged or is afraid of
something, can claim his or her own feelings as the ultimate proof of the
fact. It should be obvious to everyone that feeling something, being totally
certain of it, doesn't really prove anything, that the whole point of
discussion and rational inquiry is to separate what we feel from what is
actually true. But refusing to fully acknowledge someone's negative feeling
has become the ultimate sin.

We used to negotiate negative feelings with others; sometimes this would bring
acknowledgment, but other times sharing and debating them could actually help
seeing a different side and attenuate them, or even change our attitude and
make us grow. But when every single negative feeling is invariably received as
the ultimate proof of a valid grievance, a positive feedback cycle starts: I
only need to say how bad I feel to be comforted and assured that I am in the
right and something is owed to me. This cannot but lead to an explosion of
grivances. Which is what we're seeing now.

~~~
thunderbong
>> The issue is instead that empathy has become the attitude and quality that
needs to take precedence over any other, including any amount of skepticism,
inquisitive attitude and reason.

This is the key point.

What I don't get is how it ended up this way? A person might empathize, but
why should it take precedence? And if indeed it did, why doesn't that person's
skepticism or criticism hold the same weight? Why should that get disregarded?

~~~
Udik
From one side empathy is a very popular emotion; trash tv for example has
always been peddling in cheap empathy. I suspect that for a vast majority of
people empathy comes natural, while logical analysis requires an effort. We
had established venues in which rational discourse was the only acceptable way
of addressing issues, but social networks have lowered the bar of entry into
the public debate and given everyone the means to participate- all the
competence needed being that of clicking a like or retweet button.

Empathy also allows to hide your own personal issues behind the very handy
screen of someone else's emotions. "Will someone think of the children", "what
about the elderly" are a classic examples of a mechanism allowing you to
disguise your personal attitudes (for example homophobia, prudishness, fear of
change) as an altruistic attention to someone else's needs, again without the
need to provide any kind of rational explanation. So whoever has personal
issues with something doesn't need to argue for it any more, they can just
point to someone else's distress and ask to empathize with it.

~~~
thunderbong
So, essentially, as discourse becomes more visible to a larger section of
people, that discourse then has to pander to the more trivial, petty or rather
those emotions which require lesser effort.

The social networks rely mostly on network effects. There is really no way to,
for example, discern, prior to a person joining a network, whether they are
actually qualified to be able to participate in it. Sometimes, the network is
visible, for example, a forum whereas there is a very low barrier of entry in
terms of membership.

That is interesting to think about!

Your second point, I think, ties up to the first. Those people, who out of
inclination, capability or training, are unwilling, incapable or unable to
exert the effort rational analysis, will end up resorting to, as you say,
"hide personal issues behind a show of empathy".

There is one more point I'd like to add though. In circles where a high amount
of training is required, not only is it not possible to contribute in a
meaningful way, but also there was no inclination for anyone to opine about
others' comments. Whereas now, any statement, any remark, any comment, anybody
feels that they can comment, criticize, or debate about. That is, the earlier
inhibition, or should I say humility, seems to be disappearing. This is, in my
opinion, is another reason for deterioration of debate and discussion.

Probably along with this, I'd like to add this quote from another comment in a
different HN thread [0]. >> Cynicism tends to look smart to outside observers

Thank you for the wonderful and thought provoking discussion.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23137990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23137990)

------
SiVal
According to an African-American prof of history at Berkeley, the "marketplace
of ideas" in his department has become a totalitarian command economy:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20200611111027/https://pastebin.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20200611111027/https://pastebin.com/WBzAFDgA)

------
SI_Rob
nuance and complexity are self-censoring.

any position that doesn't losslessly compress into a chant or a rally cry or
240 characters is effectively censored by its own unfitness for the
infrastructure of mass propagation.

like the demotivation poster quip, none of us is as dumb as all of us.

it does not matter that there is structural promotion of epistemic shallowness
on both/all sides of hot-button issues, because there is, and it's getting
worse as the noise floor steadily rises. swing a dead cat and hit a dozen
informal fallacies in all directions.

what does matter is that, in most cases, only one side is openly indulging and
channeling our most degenerate impulses of cruel-mindedness and domination.
eventually the other side may be forced to do the same.

~~~
hellisothers
Great point on the self censoring of nuance, also that quip is hilarious :)

------
alisonatwork
I don't find this comparison of "cancel culture" or "performative wokeness" to
living in a totalitarian state very persuasive. People who are losing their
jobs over voicing a controversial opinion are not facing anywhere near the
same kind of oppression as those who face imprisonment for speaking out
against the state.

It's notable that the examples Sullivan cites held or hold fairly high-profile
positions in the first place. He's not exactly talking about the struggles of
the average person here. I understand that the intelligentsia is the
environment in which he lives, so it's natural he would be more familiar with
and identify with others in that class, but it still comes across as out of
touch to me. Most Americans did not attend university, and do not read the New
York Times.

Despite its many flaws, one thing that America very much still has going for
it - and I'm glad Sullivan at least recognizes this - is a free press. For
sure the press follows trends and reports on issues through some lens of bias,
but people can still publish independently, and they are largely free to say
whatever they like to whoever wants to listen. It's hard to overstate how much
of a difference that makes. The fact he is able to write his column and we are
able to discuss it shows that he is not - in fact - living in a totalitarian
state.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
It's mentioned at the beginning of the article, but Vaclav Havel's "Power of
the Powerless" and particularly its parable of the greengrocer is worth a
read:

[https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-
powerless-v...](https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-
vaclav-havel-2011-12-23)

------
scaredtobeme
This part seems true and seems to be easier for non-Americans than Americans
to see, which I suppose is not surprising.

 _Americans have always been good at policing uniformity by and among
themselves. The puritanical streak of shaming and stigmatizing and threatening
runs deep. This is the country of extraordinary political and cultural
freedom, but it is also the country of religious fanaticism, moral panics, and
crusades against vice. It’s the country of The Scarlet Letter and Prohibition
and the Hollywood blacklist and the Lavender Scare._

The "puritanical streak" is making one of its periodic historical comebacks
right now.

------
cpr
As usual, Matt Taibbi nails it.

[https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-
destroying-i...](https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-
itself)

------
lykr0n
Nope. We've lost the ability to criticize an idea without the other side
assuming it's an attack.

I say De-fund/Disband the Police is a stupid idea to the wrong person, I get
branded as a Republican/Trump Supporter/Nazi/Bootlicker. There is a chance my
professional career would end.

I say being transgender is weird or something to the wrong person, I get
branded as a homophobic bigot. There is a chance my professional career would
end.

Those are two hot button issues that I just came up with due to the news.
There's a reason I don't have a public profile associated with myself. The
wrong person sees something, and they're up their ass just enough, something
can be taken out of context and used to destroy my future.

I'd rather be two-faced then risk what I've built.

~~~
asciident
It depend on your position. Some sensitive topics are okay at some levels of
your career (like when you're a student or entry-level employee), while other
topics are basically fire-able offenses for people in semi-public roles like
startup executives, academics, politicians, directors of various non-profit
organizations including sports clubs, partner-level people at white shoe firms
including VC and law, or middle managers and above at larger companies.

For the latter group, more things are sensitive: the seriousness of the
pandemic, nature vs nurture for certain skills/intelligence, being dismissive
about ethical issues (robotics, computer vision, privacy, etc.), border
control and foreign policy in general, saying the wrong thing about
minimum/living wages, usual hot topics like abortion and gun rights
(especially during some news cycles), opinion about public funding for certain
institutions, agreement with diversity/inclusion initiatives, opinions about
laws around discrimination, and taxes and social welfare.

------
chkaloon
"that journalism needs to be rebuilt around that moral clarity, which means
ending its attempt to see all sides of a story, when there is only one, and
dropping even an attempt at objectivity"

So, what all encompassing media are they referring to here? Fox News? OAN?
Reason? Obviously not. Just the fact that FN itself is the most watched cable
news source makes this whole premise rather dubious.

------
fzeroracer
The short form, as an overall answer to his article: No.

The longer form answer: His article makes several mistakes about the US and
ignores the bloody and dark history that we have _today_. I frequently see
this sort of ignorance (whether feigned or not) in these sort of arguments
because people are convinced that we're somehow past a lot of these issues.
We're not. There's this terror of a new 'liberal orthodoxy' while we see black
men beaten and killed by the police, rights taken away from LGBT people and
more. Rather than fear the government boot coming down on people, they fear
the people showing rightful anger against the government doing something about
it.

One of his first claims is

>And we are not defined by black and white any longer

If you were to ask a black man this question, the answer would likely be far
different. He says that we have 'no secret police', but ask someone who's had
experiences dealing with ICE or someone who's been harassed by the police
solely because of the color of his skin. Ask any of the women who've had to
deal with sexual harassers and predators in their job. You'll find out that
there exists two Americas: One for a very specific type of citizen, and
another for the rest of us.

Anger is never simply the result of people living in luxury and opulence.
Anger is a build up of pressure among the people. And people are angrier than
ever because these problems have persisted for decades and have kept
persisting.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
> His article makes several mistakes about the US

Such as?

------
hackeraccount
People think that arguments gain status because they're heard outside of their
merit.

People also think that they're able to judge what arguments will fool other
people while still be fooled themselves.

------
wallacoloo
> The reason some New York Times staffers defenestrated op-ed page editor
> James Bennet was that he was, they claimed, endangering the lives of black
> staffers by running a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who called for federal
> troops to end looting, violence, and chaos, if the local authorities could
> not. This framing equated words on a page with a threat to physical life —
> the precise argument many students at elite colleges have been using to
> protect themselves from views that might upset them.

Hold on now: words _do_ incite violence. Media _does_ incite violence.
Remember how it became standard practice to not publish the names of mass-
shooters? That's because copycat crimes ARE a thing, and because quite a few
school shooters and the like mention getting their face in the news as one
REASON for doing the shooting.

So, as a journalist you ought to _inform_ me. Give me an accurate picture of
what people outside my bubble are seeing and thinking right now. But you
absolutely cannot claim to not be responsible for the consequences of your
words. That's why journalism has to be so nuanced.

> In these past two weeks, if you didn’t put up on Instagram or Facebook some
> kind of slogan or symbol displaying your wokeness, you were instantly
> suspect.

I didn't do any of these things. I wasn't harassed. Nobody cared.

> That’s why this past week has seen so many individuals issue public
> apologies as to their previous life and resolutions to “do the work” to more
> actively dismantle “structures of oppression.” It’s why corporate America
> has rushed to adopt every plank of this ideology and display its allegiance
> publicly.

What happens when a company doesn't voice support of BLM? Do they get harassed
on Twitter? Did you know that the tweets on Twitter only represent about 2% of
Americans [1]? I wonder how many sales you actually lose if 0.01% of those
Twitter users bash on you for a single day and then forget all about you by
the next day.

> We have employers demanding our attendance at seminars and workshops to
> teach this ideology.

This concern, I can appreciate. But in the same angle as my previous
paragraph, most employers haven't demanded these seminars. I imagine you're
looking at that 0.01% and letting it get to you again. Also, what happens when
you decide to silently not attend these seminars? I'll bet a lot of these
mandatory seminars become not-so-mandatory once you quit tolerating your
employer's BS.

But again, let's be nuanced. My work is my contribution to society. I
_absolutely_ want my contributions to society to be nuanced. You won't find me
working for the NSA. You won't find me working for a petro company. In fact,
I'd quite like it if the company I'm working for refused to sell their product
to either of those two things, because that's an easy thing I can do to limit
some of my greatly negative contributions to society.

So IF the majority of an organization wanted to focus on doing some small
thing to address police brutality or systemic racism (like, actually, and not
just as a show), and they go about it at an organization-wide level, would
that be a bad thing? That kind of just sounds like being principled, which I'm
pretty on board with. It'd be cool to have more opportunities to work for an
organization that care about their contributions to society beyond what's
measured by money.

> And then his tone-deaf, tin-pot dictator act in reaction to the Floyd
> protests and subsequent riots put him beyond the pale for many of the
> persuadables. Left-wing activists, for a change, didn’t play into his hands
> — although they’re doing their best in Minneapolis and Seattle.

Have you been to the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (in Seattle)? Or have you
only seen what's portrayed of it in the media (TV, Twitter, etc)? Spoiler
alert: I've watched what's on Fox, I've watched what's on Twitter, I've
watched what's on the local news, I've been there in person: each medium
portrays a significantly different view of things. You can't really put more
than 20% of the blame on the people on the ground for whatever image Seattle's
developed. The media is so much more responsible for what things look like to
everyone more than a mile away from events.

\-----

Anyway, my answer is yes: there is still room for debate. Do you have friends?
Do you talk to them? It turns out that most people I talk to in real life
actually have decently nuanced views! And a number of them are willing to
discuss those views with you, and they might even ask you for _your_ thoughts
if you show that you understand them.

Mass media is the problem. The one-to-many broadcast style of "dialogue" is
the problem. 280-character limits are the problem. Sending your thoughts _to
the whole world_ and then being surprised when more than a handful of people
disagree with you is the problem.

[1] [https://nypost.com/2019/04/24/twitter-doesnt-reflect-how-
mos...](https://nypost.com/2019/04/24/twitter-doesnt-reflect-how-most-
americans-think-study/)

~~~
Udik
> Hold on now: words do incite violence. Media does incite violence.

Words and media _can_ incite violence. Now that you've stated this fact, it's
still up to you to argue that a particular op-ed is inciting violence and, in
case, whether that violence can be worse than the violence its author says he
wants to prevent or stop.

See? Now we have a debate. You argue some facts, and you have to prove them
rationally. Convince others. Find answers to counter-arguments. Bring data.
Maybe discover you're wrong after all.

------
smacktoward
... he asks, in his column in a prominent national magazine.

~~~
scaredtobeme
That's not much of a counterargument. The question could be phrased as "How
much room is there still for debate?" and the answer is clearly: less and
less, and dwindling rapidly.

------
marsdepinski
No.

~~~
eplanit
The title of the article, with your reply, succinctly describe the time we're
in.

------
jdavis703
Why are we debating if anti-racism has gone too far? In the last two weeks
local, state and federal police and soldiers were tear gassing, firing rubber
bullets and beating peaceful protestors up.

Being assaulted and arrested by the police for free speech is a clear first
amendment violation. Being fired for saying something racist is much more
constitutionally (and morally) ambiguous.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
The author's point is that "racist" is being stretched to include being
neutral: if white silence = violence, then you're now a racist if you don't
actively plaster your social media with BLM slogans. "If you're not with us,
you're against us! Burn the witch!"

~~~
pdonis
_> Burn the witch!_

Indeed. The article makes the same comparison:

"It is the same circular argument that was once used to burn witches. And it
has the same religious undertones."

A lot of what is going on now can be seen as evidence that we are living in a
new Puritan theocracy.

