I'm not sure what it says about me, a Democrat, that I actually enjoy your insightful but cruel commentaries, but keep it up. My main criticism would be that your writing is a little too in-crowd for my taste... kind of a substack version of inside the beltway.
This article helped clarify where we disagree. I think politics is the result of structures and institutions. You think institutions are important too, but see them as the emergent result of individual people. So the inherent qualities of individuals are what’s most important. That’s what the exchange on blsky was about, and your belief in a ruling elite. You emphasize agency, I structure. So I still think you’re wrong on that level but it also means we can agree a lot on outcomes, if not causes.
Switching to being an earnest Democrat because you think the Republicans are a bunch of corrupt morons and you expect them to fail is status seeking, just with a slightly higher time preference than those who would want to flourish in the brief reign of MAGA.
I'm a leftist (a communist, even), but I like your matter-of-fact style. I enjoy disagreeing with you most of the time about many things (but not all). I don't hate you, because I think hate is bad both from a purely moral (thus relatively uninteresting) standpoint, but also hate is completely inefficient. If we can agree to build something together, we don't need to agree on anything but what's needed to actually complete the project. THAT'S democracy : we discuss about what we need or want to achieve, find a form on consensus, discuss on how to achieve it, then work at it. We don't need to agree on anything else to reach success.
I can play music with right-wingers. I can develop software with libertarians. We certainly don't need to agree on trans rights to fight efficiently climate change, and the reverse is true, too. It's actually pretty surprising how many people believe that you must agree on a whole bunch of unrelated things to simply work on THAT ONE thing, and that hinders almost every collective endeavour.
I think Matty was inconsistent cause he also sometimes do the association crime thing that his haters do, like when Mehdi Hasan said a particular style of interviewing that Tucker Carlson does is good and that on Israel mainstream media has failed to use it.
Matty quoted him for association crimes saying something "Mehdi agrees tucker is bad yet is praising something about him". This is similar to his association with you, which yes, the left still gets hung over your past racist views, but that never stops Mattu from quoting you on other stuff, yet matty will conviniently pull the same trick his haters do when convinient.
I'm not sure what it says about me, a Democrat, that I actually enjoy your insightful but cruel commentaries, but keep it up. My main criticism would be that your writing is a little too in-crowd for my taste... kind of a substack version of inside the beltway.
This piece does a nice job explicating various political factions. It also does a good job as making someone like Andrew Sullivan appear humble.
This article helped clarify where we disagree. I think politics is the result of structures and institutions. You think institutions are important too, but see them as the emergent result of individual people. So the inherent qualities of individuals are what’s most important. That’s what the exchange on blsky was about, and your belief in a ruling elite. You emphasize agency, I structure. So I still think you’re wrong on that level but it also means we can agree a lot on outcomes, if not causes.
Switching to being an earnest Democrat because you think the Republicans are a bunch of corrupt morons and you expect them to fail is status seeking, just with a slightly higher time preference than those who would want to flourish in the brief reign of MAGA.
Richard's explanation of the reasons why some people hate his writing helps to explain why I like his writing.
I'm a leftist (a communist, even), but I like your matter-of-fact style. I enjoy disagreeing with you most of the time about many things (but not all). I don't hate you, because I think hate is bad both from a purely moral (thus relatively uninteresting) standpoint, but also hate is completely inefficient. If we can agree to build something together, we don't need to agree on anything but what's needed to actually complete the project. THAT'S democracy : we discuss about what we need or want to achieve, find a form on consensus, discuss on how to achieve it, then work at it. We don't need to agree on anything else to reach success.
I can play music with right-wingers. I can develop software with libertarians. We certainly don't need to agree on trans rights to fight efficiently climate change, and the reverse is true, too. It's actually pretty surprising how many people believe that you must agree on a whole bunch of unrelated things to simply work on THAT ONE thing, and that hinders almost every collective endeavour.
I think Matty was inconsistent cause he also sometimes do the association crime thing that his haters do, like when Mehdi Hasan said a particular style of interviewing that Tucker Carlson does is good and that on Israel mainstream media has failed to use it.
Matty quoted him for association crimes saying something "Mehdi agrees tucker is bad yet is praising something about him". This is similar to his association with you, which yes, the left still gets hung over your past racist views, but that never stops Mattu from quoting you on other stuff, yet matty will conviniently pull the same trick his haters do when convinient.