Thanks for this, but I want to address two scholars mentioned: Loury and McWhorter. I have read most of McWhorter's remarkable and sometimes controversial linguistic works but not his social criticism books (and should, I guess). There are clues in his writing as to how he became a conservative. Loury I heard speak and he said he is from the South Side of Chicago, yet he cited statistics on changes for the worse in social pathology in big northern cities - due to government social programs - without ever mentioning the loss of jobs in the 50s with concomitant lack of opportunity to follow the jobs due to residential segregation. I am happy to see that both scholars pulled back from endorsing The Fifth Column.
I've liked the times I've listened to the Fifth Column, it's been a while, and I like Welch, but it's good to see even the people I respect get called out when they're wrong.
Good grief - I have my issues with Bari Weiss and her tendency to spin narratives will claiming to be objective. But on the other hand, The Unpopulist's tendency to denounce anybody who's too critical of the progressive left, and especially, this made-up narrative you're spinning about the Fifth Column's on-balance critical coverage of TFoM is not a good look.
BTW, If you want to talk about platforming really bad, authoritarian ideas because they're broadly on "your side", you might start with the softball interview with Shane Burly on laughably-titled podcast (Re)Imagining Liberty. I guess this includes 'imagining' a 'liberty' that 'decenters' things like freedom of speech, among other things. For me, that kind of revisionism is a hard pass.
George Floyd was a useless POS! He single-handedly elevated a dangerous physical altercation while intoxicated and attempting to complete an additional crime. The undertrained police officer exercised poor judgment and was rightfully prosecuted. What's the rub? One POS dead, one bad cop in jail. Instead we got a year of property destruction, stolen property, ruined business districts, destroyed economies, and racial divide all because of one loaded useless POS named Floyd!
What I am saying is that he was largely responsible for creating an environment that placed his personal safety and the officers at great risk! I am not saying he 'got what he had coming', what I am saying is that he is a POS who created a tragic situation and it ruined a lot of lives. Does that excuse the poor judgment of the Officer involved? - No. But Floyd is neither a Saint, nor a Hero, nor a Martyr. He is just some irresponsible drug addict POS!
Okay, so you wouldn't say he deserved what happened to him, but it sounds like you're saying he was largely responsible for what happened to him and also the ensuing events that it sparked. Is that not a fair interpretation of your words?
Do you think Chauvin should have been held criminally responsible for Floyd's death? Do you think Floyd's character should factor into that decision?
Bernt - why do my words need more 'interpretation'? In life a myriad of decisions and actions merge to create an event. In this tragedy and I do believe this event to be a great tragedy, Floyd made a number of very poor decisions which brought him to a place where his personal safety was placed in serious risk. Were Floyd's actions the sole cause of his death? No. There was also the poor decision of Officer Chauvin to kneeled on Floyd's neck for an extended period of time. These choices and actions ultimately culminated in Floyd's death and Officer Chauvin's prison sentence. And then followed the next great tragedy - as the BLM 'protests' burnt down business districts and devastated entire cities the country took a profound leap backwards. This country has never been more racist in my lifetime than after the BLM Movement and it saddens me.
In order to reach a conclusion regarding whether Officer Chauvin is 'Guilty' of the crimes he was charged with I would have to review all of the evidence that was presented at trial and to review all of the documents, reports, etc.. I wish I had the time to sit down and review that material but unfortunately I do not. I respect the findings of the Court that found him criminally liable.
I think that Floyd's 'character' would have some relevance in a courtroom however as I stated before I have not reviewed all of the evidence. As far as the court of public opinion is concerned his character is in fact part of the narrative and relevant to the way that the public makes sense of what occurred. I think that for many people in America Floyd is a common criminal, an undesirable drug addict who died in an altercation with police (Not really noteworthy had it not been filmed). The policeman in question did not act in accordance with the requirements of his office and he was criminally prosecuted for his actions. In the minds of most Americans this equates to two men making bad decisions and suffering consequences. The BLM Movement however tried to press a false narrative of racism, institutional racism which greatly undermined the integrity of our most basic community institutions. All of this utilizing a premise that Floyd is a 'Hero' or a 'Martyr' and that racial discrimination is inherent and flourishes in the criminal justice system, a premise that cannot be supported by the empirical data.
At the end of the day - a bad man ran into a bad cop, one dead, one in jail. This is a story as old as time. Somehow it got twisted and distorted into the 'Great Racial Crime' of our generation. Why? Who benefits? Our communities, our relationships with our countrymen have all been profoundly damaged. Again I ask 'Why'?
Not here to try an misinterpret your words. Your initial comment leaves a lot of room for subtext. Thanks for clarifying. Glad to hear that you accept the courts decision on Derek Chauvin and you don't believe Floyd got what he deserved.
I am not here argue on whether or not Floyd is a "POS". I don't agree with calling him that because I think it is a loaded statement that in mind dehumanizes the man. But I also don't know what you mean by it exactly and I am not here to try and turn Floyd into saint or something he's not.
However, I do want to highlight the asymmetry in your assessment of the two individuals. You're willing to call Floyd a "POS irresponsible drug addict" but your assessment of Chauvin is that he's a "bad cop" who was "under trained" and "exercised poor judgment". The latter assessment to my ears makes this individual sound much more redeemable and human than the other.
And I think your right to say that this is not an uncommon opinion among a lot of people in this country. I think people view it as one guy being just a common low life criminal drug addict and the other is someone with hard job who maybe became too jaded and acted inappropriately. It just highlights how willing we are lend sympathy in one direction. People come from all walks of life in this country and I think we should be willing empathize with people from different walks of life before just assuming their just a "POS". And yes that goes for cops too. But it easy to fall into moral black and white thinking and I can get off my high horse now.
My deeper issue with what your saying here is that you think this event was not representative of larger issues in this country and the ensuing events were huge step backwards. Now I can actually agree with some of you sentiment. I too thought that the racial discourse following this event was at points regressive and I didn't support the burning of city buildings and wasn't really a fan of the abolish and defund movement. I remember reading a story about them brining a emotional support alpacas, or some shit like that, to Portland for the protestors to pet and my thought was what a bunch of snowflakes.
So I do get what you're coming from, but you should also recognize that there was a reason this event activated the country like it did. Police reforms were/are truly needed. Although George Floyd was one of the more egregious example, it wasn't just a one off and it is likely Chauvin wouldn't have been held accountable if not for the footage and outrage that followed. And it is not just in custody deaths that it shines a spotlight on, but also broader issues with our criminal justice system. If you have ever known someone who found themselves on wrong side of the law and is poor you probably know what nightmare it is. The vast majority people who get wrapped in that system are not irredeemable pieces of shit.
But much of the focus got placed on the riots and the sillier ideas. A lot of that came from right leaning media outlets trying to discredit the whole reform effort. And it was effective. I even fell for it a bit. The Fall of Minneapolis propaganda is kind of the accumulation of this effort. It is an effort to rollback actual reform efforts that have been positive and will likely reduce deaths during arrests, as well as discredit broader efforts towards criminal justice reforms.
These are complicated issues and there is a lot debate here, but I think it is huge mistake to just gloss over this event and paint everything in its wake as being a net negative for race relation and criminal justice reform in this country.
I characterize Chauvin as I do because he was at least to my understanding was not an addict, no criminal record, family man, public servant, employed person, the basic characteristics of someone trying to live a reasonably responsible life. Floyd was none of these things. He was unemployed, drug-addict, criminal, dead beat Dad... etc.. So, he is an undesirable. I think all human beings are loved in the eyes of God. But Floyd was acting like a POS.
Further, the empirical data does not support any systemic racism or racial violence directed towards African Americans in the criminal justice system. Any type of multi-varied analysis makes this clear. Can the Criminal Justice system improve - SURE. Things can always get better. First and foremost we need more police officers who are better trained in 'De-Escalation' and 'restraint techniques'. But what really needs to happen is a cultural shift within black communities. The musical anthems glorifying criminal behavior, poor treatment of women, drug use and violence have devoured generations of young men who adopt this as a world view. We have approximately 7% (African American Males between ages 15-35) of the population committing roughly 50% of all violent crime in America. That is not going to be fixed by any changes to the criminal justice system.
Is it easy to get chewed up in the criminal justice system? Yes. It chews everyone up and if you do not have financial resources or business connections to generate a new life when you are released it can be brutal. But it is brutal for EVERYONE who is poor. Not just one particular minority group. But each individual has the freedom, independence and agency to decide not to commit crime and therefore never wind up in this situation. I don't accept the premise that any group of people in America are victims and incapable of making decisions to direct their own life. The single biggest indicators of criminal behavior is low IQ and single-parent households. Society really can't do much about IQ but we can encourage people to form families and raise their children. That is what makes the problem so challenging - it is politically unpopular to even say the facts out loud. How can we address the problems if we are not willing to be honest about the problem.
The Race Relations here in America are AWFUL. The NY Times reported a couple of months ago that the result of all of the 'Inclusion Training' that was conducted by virtually every business in the wake of the BLM Movement only resulted in a sense of alienation by people, increased tension, decreased sense of solidarity or cohesion, increased complaints addressing ambiguous language. This identity politic narrative is fundamentally racist and is the single greatest fracture to race relations in 60 years.
I think this event is a tragedy and it has profoundly damaged race relations and the cohesion in this country that I am not sure how we recover from.
I think you are either willfully ignorant of what you’re talking about, or are being deliberately disingenuous about this. I follow you both. I love you both. But the fact that you take the least charitable interpretation of what they were saying is so disappointing. I have been a faithful listener of their podcast, and I honestly have been annoyed with them a bit for the last 6-8 months. However their followers know what you refuse to even entertain. They were so mad at you both because you were so wrong about what they meant/felt. Why was this such a big deal? It is because they so vehemently deny what you are painting them as. I have huge an annoyance with them for the last few months, but we speak their language. We are fans of them so we understand a lot of nuances that you don’t understand. I feel like you quoting their podcast in the written word is someone going in front of the court and talking out Lenny Bruce’s jokes. My only worry is that you did that knowing that you did that. And it really makes me sad.
And just for context, I’m a big fat lefty. A David Pakman-esque lefty. I think the fifth column dumbs itself down when going on the Megyn Kelly podcast. I hate almost every appearance they have on that show. Because they almost never challenge her (Walsh has). I wish they would have someone like David on their show.
And I also love Coleman. He is one of my favorite dudes. I think he is absolutely fair-minded and ALWAYS acts in good faith. People who disagree with him think he’s acting in bad faith. He’s not. Love that guy, and you would understand that if you paid any attention to him at all. Granted, I got duped by some of the “heterodox“ people. And I hate it. But you weed the James Linsays, Brett Weinsteins, and Jordan Petersons out. Even though I feel Coleman might be wrong on something, I believe him to be one of the most honest/good faith humans on the Earth. I’m having a hard time believing that you are acting in good faith, though. And again, it makes me bummed out.
(whispering: I am also not a great writer, so I might not have gotten my point across well enough. The TLDR is that I think that while you might believe you are correct, you don’t know them the way that their fans know them. we know what they were trying to say. It did not try me to that video. I’ve never watched it. I also wish they would have shit on it a little more than they did, but that’s not what they do. And What makes me the saddest is that you are wrong, saying that they are backtracking and lying. It’s horrible to me. And you are just wrong. A truth that is glaring to people who are familiar with them. )
I think you are 100% right that we do not understand them like their fans. But I think that’s why perhaps we can be useful in correcting some blind spots. The trouble is that their self understanding is formed by referencing thinkers within their orbit. So they see their differences from Loury on this and think "we didn’t go as far as him so we’re good and so why aren't we seen as standing apart." But if you pull back the lens and compare them within a wider universe of punditry then they and Loury appear more similar than dissimilar and you can see how they are all influencing each other and exacerbating each other's mutual blind spots, in this case accepting some pretty problematic evidence in this film that other people, who don't share their biases (but may have some of their own), didn't fall for.
The same could be said of Ibram X. Kendi, the 1619 project, and (by similar inference) the editors of The New York Times. (Add a few "woke" school boards to the mix, and it's almost enough to make one sympathize with Ron DeSantis.)
Indeed, if we similarly pull back the lens, you appear more similar than dissimilar to the aforementioned -- which might help explain your underlying antipathy toward people like Loury, McWhorter, and Hughes.
Yellow journalism! Right, and we're the ones doing the smearing!
You are commenting on a post that (a) extensively quoted the TFC hosts' own words during their podcast segment, (b) directly engaged the claims Welch made in his post, (c) attempted to go beyond mere cherry-picking of moments, which can be self-serving and distortive, and characterized the entirety of the discussion, and (d) compared their reactions to Balko's piece with others within TFC's broader discourse orbit (Loury, etc.). That's a model approach of how to respond to a dispute.
Feel free to grapple with any actual point that the piece made. Or, just, you know, keep tossing around words like "yellow journalism."
I actually communicated to the filmmakers of the Floyd flick last year and what quickly became clear to me is that their movie was in the mold of a Michael Moore doc. Now, I like Moore because he’s an entertaining activist. But I don’t go and watch his movies thinking I got the whole story. The Floyd film selectively quotes people over and over and allows Chauvin himself to lie about his training. MPD officers were taught to use a hobble device and put people being restrained on their side. That’s if, by the way, they are in need of restraint. Floyd never violently resisted and few cops around this country would even argue MRT was appropriate in this circumstance — and there’s no excuse for doing it as inaccurately as he did with a man who had some underlying health problems. Why did these filmmakers think it exonerated Chauvin for Floyd to tell them he couldn’t breathe before the restraint was used? One that was widely known and hardly an exclusive to this film — did anyone watch the trial? — and two that is even more reason not to use an emergency restraint against him.
I like the fifth column and everyone involved, but I think there’s a tendency over there at times to draw a line in the middle in a dispute and say “well they both make good points.” That’s not a bad tendency overall.
But it is a bad tendency when you have such a misleading propagandistic film out there that covers zero new ground to anyone who is familiar with the case. FWIW I don’t think Fifth Column guys are endorsing the film but their close friendship with Bari and Coleman (who have decided to lock arms with the far right in Israel but that’s another story) is probably leading them to equivocate a bit.
I don’t mind people mentioning the film but the appropriate follow up to mentioning the film is to say “it gets virtually everything wrong.”
Thanks! That's exactly what we (and I think I can speak for Radley here too) were getting at. One needs very, very strong evidence from solid sources to question the verdict in such a high profile case where the defendant is a police officer to boot, with all the resources at his disposal that ordinary defendants don't have. I really doubt that anyone would have relied on this jaundiced documentary if it didn't strongly fit their priors. It was a classic case of confirmation bias (which we are all vulnerable to). But Loury admitted it and was troubled by his own credulousness. The honest thing for the Fifth to do would have been to do an episode on Radley's series and discuss all the things on which they now stand corrected. THeir listeners had been given a faulty analysis based on their level of understanding then. But now that more information has come to light, set the record straight and move on. That's really all that was needed here.
The other thing that became clear from reading Radley's original series is that, from all of his experience as a reporter on related issues, he has a lot of specialized knowledge (how does evidence work in courts of law, cause vs manner of death, what were the elements of the murder charge Chauvin was convicted of, etc.) that one needs to have in order to interpret the evidence correctly. Bias + lack of specialized knowledge is a dangerous combination.
Funny you should say taht because as I was listening to the TFC podcast in light of Radley's work what was going through my mind was that they had just the right amount of knowledge to be dangerous because they weren't making stupid points on the show. They sounded reasonable from a lay point of view. Yet they were connecting the dots all wrong and their bias made them overlook some basic red flags -- like why did the defense not say that Chauvin used MRT, a technique he was allegedly taught. Or why did it not cross examine the police witnesses saying they didn't teach the technique that Chauvin was using? One could say hind sight is perfect but, I dunno, they suspended too much disbelief because the documentary just confirmed all their priors about how it was just not possible for Chauvin to get a fair trial.
Balko’s work was thoroughly damning. “The Fall of Minneapolis” is clearly a hack job, full of shameless lies, and I appreciate the work you’ve both done to drive that point forward.
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
>" Loury and McWhorter, to their immense credit, took back their original endorsement of the film and offered a mea culpa in light of Radley’s investigation."
I'd say that's true of Loury, McWhorter not so much. He pretty much doubled down and denied accountability, imo, by justifying their amplification of TFoM. At no point did he explicitly acknowledge their credulousness in amplifying such an obviously flawed and propagandistic film.
As for Loury, while it's great that he acknowledged credulousness, what really matters is whether he course corrects for jettisoning due academic diligence - that he amply demonstrates throughout his academic career - as he puts out hot takes on his podcast that align with his ideological orientation. I would say the evidence is that's not happening. In a follow-on podcast he had on a basically rando RWer who lives outside of Minny (he's not even a resident of Minny) to talk about police/community relations in Minny, who didn't even know that there was a DOJ report that documented a history or problems with police brutality.
I think the fact Loury has changed his mind throughout his career is evidence he course corrects. Nobody would’ve given him too much grief for not doing the 180 on this film. Bari Weiss isn’t apologizing (she seems quite comfortable in the space she is in rationalizing every human rights abuse under the sun lately). I think Glenn was sincere and we shouldn’t haze people for admitting error.
I don’t think Weiss is rationalizing human rights abuses. I think it is reasonable to question whether Israel’s response is proportional, which Weiss doesn’t. But some of us think the country attacked - whether Israel or Ukraine - can protect itself.
This is a strawman. Of course Israel can defend themsleves. Palestinians who’ve lived under Israeli occupation for 60 years can also defend themselves. Neither has a right to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity, though, and both you and Weiss have portrayed the situation dishonestly with the strawmen such as that above.
It is not. You obfuscate. Of course Palestinians in Gaza can defend themselves. It was not self defense to go into a neighboring nations with GoPros and murder, rape and terrorize. It’s savage to burn a woman’s dog alive outside her safe room to get her to leave, to murder a ninety year old woman’s family and pets in front of her and leave her alive, or murder young parents and leave their infants to wail for 14 hours to lure neighbors out to kill them.
I guess our disagreement is whether what the Palestinians did was self defense. I say no. I have no idea how you could think did act in self defense.
I have compassion for both sides. I am sure IDF are shook and do horrible things. Three hostages were shot by IDF after all - and one was chased into a refugee to be killed. But there is no straw man here.
I'll apologize in advance for a rant. I'm working through some thoughts here.
To be clear, I wasn't attempting to haze him. I gave him "kudos" on his Twitter for acknowledging his credulousness.
But I don't think that has to be mutually exclusive with criticizing him for much of his recent output which, imo, doesn't live up to the serious academic standards he has demonstrated throughout his career.
Glenn (and John) made a mistake with TFoM for a reason. And I think looking at the trend in Glenn's output over a couple of years what happened with TFoM was entirely predictable as a reflection of that trend. It wouldn't require a genius with deep background knowledge to see why TFoM was highly problematic. When they discussed whether Chauvin had his knee on Floyd's neck or his back, they never even questioned whether regardless, a jury watching video of him mashing Floyd into the ground for almost 9 minutes, 2 minutes after he was non-responsive, while onlookers say "You're killing him, bro," would likely lead to a guilty verdict regardless of the placement of his knee. Did they even look into the background of the filmmaker before having her on for an interview without any serious pushback on the arguments she was making?
Glenn interviews knowledgeable people on his podcast. Many I disagree with but that's not the point. The point is whether he interrogates views expressed by guests, with obvious counterarguments. I have seen Glenn interrogate views with great skill and integrity, even his own here:
I have an expectation for people to be consistent in that regard. I don't expect a Rogan or a Weinstein to uphold those standards because they've never even displayed the skill or the intention. But with Glenn it should be different. However, the pattern I've seen is a clear selectivity in which kinds of views he subjects to serious interrogation.
I don't like motive-impugning and reverse engineering to find a "grifter" causality there, to assume that someone is just surfing narratives for the fame and fortune. It's an unfalsifiable logic that can be applied pretty much across the board to dismiss any views you don't agree with. But it's hard to not see that Glenn is pumping out a sub-standard product, imo, given his skills and background. Not always, some of it is good. But some of it is pretty shockingly bad. Is it ideological capture and motivated reasoning? Is it audience capture and an understandable desire to keep putting out a product that is obviously lucrative and attracts much fame and public approval? I have no idea and I'm not sure that it matters except to the extent that what really matters is for Glenn to really dig into WHY he was so credulous so that he can correct for it. As I said above, he followed immediately afterwards with another podcast on a closely connected topic, that was perhaps even worse.
I suppose it's fine to say "It's just a podcast, where people get to express their opinions without doing a full on research project." I get that. I get that people like to get together and chat about things that they agree on, to talk about how much they don't like the people they disagree with. But I find it frustrating to see people so willing to put out a shallow product, especially when it's clear they have the ability and habit of doing much better.
This is just a long and rambling way of saying again that I agree with what Shikha wrote above about the structural problem with the podcast medium. Radley also got to the heart of the problem in the piece that he wrote on this platform. It's all well and good to criticize "the mainstream media" for many real flaws. But just tearing it down and substituting for it with crap isn't an improvement and actually I think it may well be worse. I just get really tired of all this hot take speculating from people when not only do they lack serious background for sustaining their analysis, but they don't even take it seriously enough to push themselves to really interrogate issues. And honestly, I just find a lot of this stuff to basically be very lazy - where people put hardly an work at all into crafting a product. I think that podcasts can be absolutely great when the "content creators" (I hate that term when they actually haven't done any work) share in the opportunity to work with their interlocutors to interrogate their own views. Here's what I thought was a great example:
I see what you're saying but even in Glenn's mea culpa he himself said that he was so eager to disprove a BLM narrative that he fell for the movie. Meaning that he even understands the dynamic you're describing, is honest about it, and is trying to do something about it.
I wish a lot more people could see when their thinking goes tribal/polarized and could overcome it.
Honestly I was more disappointed in John sort of defending their initial video by basically saying "we shouldn't be afraid to have conservatives on or voice conservative views." I absolutely agree with that, but the issue is not that the film is conservative but that it is dishonest.
Agreed on both points re John and Glenn, and in particular the problem with John's response (not being intimidated to speak on the issue isn't the same thing as being credulous; I know John has been heavily criticized but at some point I get tired of the whole 'courageous heretic standing up to speak the truth' narrative).
Yes, it's DEFINITELY worth noting that Glenn was direct in acknowledging the problem with no fluff. But again, I contend that ultimately the proof is in the pudding.
Lots of good points there, Joshua. It's great that Glenn did a mea culpa on this. It's also great that he did a deeper personal reflection on why he got this wrong (that already puts him a cut about 90% of pundits out there). But what remains to be seen whether he will genuinely implement the conclusion of his reflection and course correct. The structural incentives in the podcast model cut against because you are monetizing (a) the intellectual lane you have chosen (b) have to feed the beast and weigh in on areas outside your areas of expertise.
Agree. But the thing is it's possible to use a structure to engage on issues beyond your expertise with integrity. And Glenn knows well how to do it. He's been at this a long time on Blogging Heads. But the new explosion into podcasting explicitly monitizes working around those limiting guardrails.
I'm sure it's insidious and Glenn (and John) have had many years where they were attacked for expressing contrarian views when they mostly did respect the guardrails, so I can understand where there might be a kind of "Well, payback is a bitch" attitude as Roland Fryer expressed during that recent forum with Bari.
Probably more speculating on my part than is fair... but I keep trying to extend benefit of the doubt and then seeing worse material produced...and it's obviously been a pathway for enormous success that circumvents the limitations of academic accountability. For all the empty, self-sealing accountability of academia, it just makes me feel uncomfortable to see the enormous and ubiquitous success of outright snake oil selling. I'm not actually sure that it's worse than the pre-existing paradigm but I find it disconcerting, and I'll admit I find it kind of scary. And when it's so prevalent with a Rogan or a Weinstein somehow it makes me feel more desperate for someone like Glenn to differentiate himself.
Also, couldn't agree more about Weiss. She's on the path to discrediting herself. This piece by Hughes might be the most botched one (and it's also dismaying that TFC is not joining those of us asking her to take it back and accept some responsibility here). But she's been running a lot of inflammatory pieces including a recent one on how Islamists are in control in the UK .
I think a huge part of the problem is the pressure of daily/frequent podcasting where you have to quickly weigh in on everything under the sun, sometimes in the same episode, that you have neither any expertise in and not even the time to acquire any working understanding. I think podcasts serve a valuable purpose when the hosts interview experts or weigh in on areas where they have expertise or spend some time acquiring it. But when you have to comment on 5 topics in one show, the result is just some very shallow and often very flawed opining. That model has to change. Podcasts are a more flawed institution right now than legacy media yet instead of legacy media attacking them, they attack legacy media, which is all sort of lopsided and corrosive of the body politic.
Hard agree. Podcasts are bit entertaining and extremely annoying because so much of them amount to essentially hit takes from people who have gift of gab and strong ideological orientation who lack relevant background or deep insight.
And then the problem expands outward as Podcasters gain huge public profiles and venture forth into other venues, with the support of social media followers.
This was a perfect example of the problem, where someone with relevant domain-specific background (Radley) weighed in. What would be nice to see is for podcasters to make a more serious effort to ground their hot takes with input from people who do have relevant background. Unfortunately, the feedback loop of fame and fortune from podcasting in the current model doesn't incentivize such a development.
Because I do. And the context of the entire show really puts this into perspective. They’re not a policy show. Never have been. They mostly discuss media. And how media covers things and how media acts and the intersection of media and politics. Why wouldn’t this come up?
They’re not policy guys. They will talk policy sure and history and a bunch of other interesting stuff. But their perspective is usually the intersection of media and politics. They’re not playing a partisan game. They don’t have anything to apologize for or walk back because their goals aren’t to set out to find the absolute truth and report it. They didn’t “amplify” anything. I mean by the whole argument here Moynihan amplifies vice news every time takes potshots at its absolute collapse. That’s the podcast. Acerbic, conversational, wide ranging, inappropriate.
This is such a bizarre cherry to pick and smacks of a silly fight over someone not acquiescing to some made up moral standard that doesn’t actually exist anywhere.
Of course John and Glenn had to do a little
Backtracking. They sucked off the documentary. That’s a bit more than saying “eh. It’s not very convincing but there were some interesting bits”.
Then you have to take into accounts the actual whole of the personalities involved and that a lot of this is coming from kmele. Who is awesome. But also a fucking contrarian. In the most interesting way possible. Contrarians are important. Public defenders are professional contrarians. Contrarianism is important to every single honest conversation on the planet. But that’s what he is. Getting mad at him is like getting mad at lawyers who defend murderers (and some people do get mad at them) but someone has to do it.
It’s why it’s an interesting listen.
But then people have this patronizing idea. And it is so utterly patronizing. It’s essentially the same argument as “violence in video games is bad because….” Except that’s so patronizing to the consumer of the art. But the idea that if you are exposed to something, you soft brained imbecile, you will simply ingest it and it will now become part of your ethos. You will be forever changed. The reason I like the fifth is because they don’t treat their audience like empty headed recipients of “the good word.”
So I dunno. As a long time listener. And also someone not easily influenced by 15 minutes of light conversation about something that didn’t get me to excited about it as a “documentary” I can do nothing but really laugh at this whole thing and this need for them to, I dunno, lash themselves for straying from the path. Or whatever is being argued here.
This is not a good look for the unpopulist. There’s an incredibly quote from Terry Prathetts Disceirkd series. “Personal is not the same as important, people just think it is”. That pretty much nails this. This beef is personal. It is in no real world way important.
Radley Balko is to be commended for his detective work and superb journalism -- as are Glenn Loury and John McWhorter for their acknowledgement of same. Derek Chauvin was rightly convicted of murder, and that's the end of the story.
Nonetheless, I object to the way that this kerfluffle has been exploited as a "gotcha" (here and elsewhere) -- i.e., as an attack on the entire edifice of (self-described) "heterodoxy" and "anti-wokeness."
I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown with my own eyes, from my very window, during the Summer of Floyd. Many mom-and-pops were driven out of business, and the neighborhood remains graffiti-bombed and boarded up. Over a dozen Asian grandmas were mugged near my doorstep in the months thereafter. ("Root causes"? I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never been tempted to mug an elderly Chinese.)
In every single instance (captured on video), the perpetrator could be described with a capital "B." (When a cop shoots a Black man, that's the headline; when a perpetrator is Black, the "respectable" press won't even deign to show a mug shot.) A saintly George Floyd has displaced the (now-detested) Thomas Jefferson in the American pantheon, and a nation of immigrants (including "Latinxes" and "AAPIs," as known in the Berkeley dialect) is deemed "complicit" in an "original sin" that (while stemming from an overseas trade already based for centuries in Africa) is now dated indelibly to 1619.
And we're told that all this must be construed as a "racial reckoning." Reckoning, schmeckoning!
If the likes of Coleman Hughes and Bari Weiss -- and initially, McWhorter and Loury -- (understandably) occasionally get a little carried away, their detractors have done plenty more of the same.
I reckon that before you folks make too much of this "gotcha" moment, perhaps you need to be reminded that Barack Obama was elected for (in effect) preaching the gospel that ALL lives matter. (And now you're claiming "Oh, but that was only aspirational"? Who do you think you're fooling?)
In other words, you have some reckoning of your own to do. And you'd better start doing it fast, or you'll leave the field to the likes of Donald Trump.
The point isn't the gotcha and I think Radley made a mistake by allowing even a suggestion of "gotcha" into his articles and follow-up.
The point is having standards. Hughes in particular, but Glenn and John as well promote themselves as critiquing the failure to hold to standards in the part of people they disagree with ideologically. But this was an obvious (of far from unique) example then failing to hold that standard to (1) people they agree with ideologically and (2) more importantly, to themselves.
Thank you for (however hesitantly) acknowledging Balko's "mistake" in allowing "even a suggestion" of a "gotcha" in his articles and follow-up. Ironically, I'm willing to cut Balko some extra slack as a libertarian (on cultural issues), and especially considering that I'm no fan of cops. That's my own ideological bias at work.
Nonetheless, the "failure to hold to standards" that you criticize pales (and is almost trivial) in comparison to the far broader and more blatant failure (and ideological bias) in coverage of the BLM phenomenon and the so-called "racial reckoning" by "progressives," and pervasive in the mainstream press. The misdeeds of a couple of amateur propagandists are indeed trivial compared with the relentless barrage coming from places like NPR, the New Yorker, and (largely, except for McWhorter) the New York Times. And on that basis alone, I can forgive the "heterodox" types for getting a bit carried away.
"First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's."
PS: Incidentally -- speaking of bias -- why is Balko consistently referenced here on a first-name basis (as "Radley"), while every other journalist is called out by their last name? Talk about blatant!
Not sure what's going on. I'll try to repost here:
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
I absolutely intended the Biblical quote to apply to all concerned -- but first and foremost, to those to whom my comments are addressed. After all, they've already made it clear that it applies to those they criticize; indeed, that's their main point -- legitimate in its own right. :-)
Judging by the presentation, Radley Balko appears to be on a first-name basis with both you and the author; everybody else is "out there." Make of that what you will; in any event, it just doesn't seem very professional.
One side is resorting to ad hominem attacks and airing public grievance. The other is sticking to factual accounts and attempting to correct the record on factually inaccurate information disseminated by supposedly credible journalists. Your account of the situation has it completely backwards. But, there is a strong pull of group think that can really distort the reality, as is demonstrated by that fact the 5th column has a much larger and loyal audience to act as reply guys. This might affirm your perceptions, but it does nothing factually support your case. The fifth column guys lost complete credibility when it comes to this and if you read with an open mind it is plain to see. However, this pretty much landed exactly how it was expected and although it may have shrunk their audience ever so slightly among critical listeners, it also only cemented the their more ardent supporters.
Thanks for this, but I want to address two scholars mentioned: Loury and McWhorter. I have read most of McWhorter's remarkable and sometimes controversial linguistic works but not his social criticism books (and should, I guess). There are clues in his writing as to how he became a conservative. Loury I heard speak and he said he is from the South Side of Chicago, yet he cited statistics on changes for the worse in social pathology in big northern cities - due to government social programs - without ever mentioning the loss of jobs in the 50s with concomitant lack of opportunity to follow the jobs due to residential segregation. I am happy to see that both scholars pulled back from endorsing The Fifth Column.
I've liked the times I've listened to the Fifth Column, it's been a while, and I like Welch, but it's good to see even the people I respect get called out when they're wrong.
It finally tells the truth.
Nope
Good grief - I have my issues with Bari Weiss and her tendency to spin narratives will claiming to be objective. But on the other hand, The Unpopulist's tendency to denounce anybody who's too critical of the progressive left, and especially, this made-up narrative you're spinning about the Fifth Column's on-balance critical coverage of TFoM is not a good look.
BTW, If you want to talk about platforming really bad, authoritarian ideas because they're broadly on "your side", you might start with the softball interview with Shane Burly on laughably-titled podcast (Re)Imagining Liberty. I guess this includes 'imagining' a 'liberty' that 'decenters' things like freedom of speech, among other things. For me, that kind of revisionism is a hard pass.
George Floyd was a useless POS! He single-handedly elevated a dangerous physical altercation while intoxicated and attempting to complete an additional crime. The undertrained police officer exercised poor judgment and was rightfully prosecuted. What's the rub? One POS dead, one bad cop in jail. Instead we got a year of property destruction, stolen property, ruined business districts, destroyed economies, and racial divide all because of one loaded useless POS named Floyd!
George Floyd’s blood oxygen level was 90% at TOD.
There were no damage to his throat, breathing organs, no veins burst in his eyes, no brain damage indicating lack of oxygen.
I’ll repeat - his blood oxygen was 90%. How does that indicate suffocation?
And since when do we breathe out of our necks?
So is it fair to say that in your mind he got we had coming to him?
To be clear I think this a disgusting take, but at the very least you are honest in that you willing to say the quiet part out loud.
What I am saying is that he was largely responsible for creating an environment that placed his personal safety and the officers at great risk! I am not saying he 'got what he had coming', what I am saying is that he is a POS who created a tragic situation and it ruined a lot of lives. Does that excuse the poor judgment of the Officer involved? - No. But Floyd is neither a Saint, nor a Hero, nor a Martyr. He is just some irresponsible drug addict POS!
Okay, so you wouldn't say he deserved what happened to him, but it sounds like you're saying he was largely responsible for what happened to him and also the ensuing events that it sparked. Is that not a fair interpretation of your words?
Do you think Chauvin should have been held criminally responsible for Floyd's death? Do you think Floyd's character should factor into that decision?
Bernt - why do my words need more 'interpretation'? In life a myriad of decisions and actions merge to create an event. In this tragedy and I do believe this event to be a great tragedy, Floyd made a number of very poor decisions which brought him to a place where his personal safety was placed in serious risk. Were Floyd's actions the sole cause of his death? No. There was also the poor decision of Officer Chauvin to kneeled on Floyd's neck for an extended period of time. These choices and actions ultimately culminated in Floyd's death and Officer Chauvin's prison sentence. And then followed the next great tragedy - as the BLM 'protests' burnt down business districts and devastated entire cities the country took a profound leap backwards. This country has never been more racist in my lifetime than after the BLM Movement and it saddens me.
In order to reach a conclusion regarding whether Officer Chauvin is 'Guilty' of the crimes he was charged with I would have to review all of the evidence that was presented at trial and to review all of the documents, reports, etc.. I wish I had the time to sit down and review that material but unfortunately I do not. I respect the findings of the Court that found him criminally liable.
I think that Floyd's 'character' would have some relevance in a courtroom however as I stated before I have not reviewed all of the evidence. As far as the court of public opinion is concerned his character is in fact part of the narrative and relevant to the way that the public makes sense of what occurred. I think that for many people in America Floyd is a common criminal, an undesirable drug addict who died in an altercation with police (Not really noteworthy had it not been filmed). The policeman in question did not act in accordance with the requirements of his office and he was criminally prosecuted for his actions. In the minds of most Americans this equates to two men making bad decisions and suffering consequences. The BLM Movement however tried to press a false narrative of racism, institutional racism which greatly undermined the integrity of our most basic community institutions. All of this utilizing a premise that Floyd is a 'Hero' or a 'Martyr' and that racial discrimination is inherent and flourishes in the criminal justice system, a premise that cannot be supported by the empirical data.
At the end of the day - a bad man ran into a bad cop, one dead, one in jail. This is a story as old as time. Somehow it got twisted and distorted into the 'Great Racial Crime' of our generation. Why? Who benefits? Our communities, our relationships with our countrymen have all been profoundly damaged. Again I ask 'Why'?
Not here to try an misinterpret your words. Your initial comment leaves a lot of room for subtext. Thanks for clarifying. Glad to hear that you accept the courts decision on Derek Chauvin and you don't believe Floyd got what he deserved.
I am not here argue on whether or not Floyd is a "POS". I don't agree with calling him that because I think it is a loaded statement that in mind dehumanizes the man. But I also don't know what you mean by it exactly and I am not here to try and turn Floyd into saint or something he's not.
However, I do want to highlight the asymmetry in your assessment of the two individuals. You're willing to call Floyd a "POS irresponsible drug addict" but your assessment of Chauvin is that he's a "bad cop" who was "under trained" and "exercised poor judgment". The latter assessment to my ears makes this individual sound much more redeemable and human than the other.
And I think your right to say that this is not an uncommon opinion among a lot of people in this country. I think people view it as one guy being just a common low life criminal drug addict and the other is someone with hard job who maybe became too jaded and acted inappropriately. It just highlights how willing we are lend sympathy in one direction. People come from all walks of life in this country and I think we should be willing empathize with people from different walks of life before just assuming their just a "POS". And yes that goes for cops too. But it easy to fall into moral black and white thinking and I can get off my high horse now.
My deeper issue with what your saying here is that you think this event was not representative of larger issues in this country and the ensuing events were huge step backwards. Now I can actually agree with some of you sentiment. I too thought that the racial discourse following this event was at points regressive and I didn't support the burning of city buildings and wasn't really a fan of the abolish and defund movement. I remember reading a story about them brining a emotional support alpacas, or some shit like that, to Portland for the protestors to pet and my thought was what a bunch of snowflakes.
So I do get what you're coming from, but you should also recognize that there was a reason this event activated the country like it did. Police reforms were/are truly needed. Although George Floyd was one of the more egregious example, it wasn't just a one off and it is likely Chauvin wouldn't have been held accountable if not for the footage and outrage that followed. And it is not just in custody deaths that it shines a spotlight on, but also broader issues with our criminal justice system. If you have ever known someone who found themselves on wrong side of the law and is poor you probably know what nightmare it is. The vast majority people who get wrapped in that system are not irredeemable pieces of shit.
But much of the focus got placed on the riots and the sillier ideas. A lot of that came from right leaning media outlets trying to discredit the whole reform effort. And it was effective. I even fell for it a bit. The Fall of Minneapolis propaganda is kind of the accumulation of this effort. It is an effort to rollback actual reform efforts that have been positive and will likely reduce deaths during arrests, as well as discredit broader efforts towards criminal justice reforms.
These are complicated issues and there is a lot debate here, but I think it is huge mistake to just gloss over this event and paint everything in its wake as being a net negative for race relation and criminal justice reform in this country.
I characterize Chauvin as I do because he was at least to my understanding was not an addict, no criminal record, family man, public servant, employed person, the basic characteristics of someone trying to live a reasonably responsible life. Floyd was none of these things. He was unemployed, drug-addict, criminal, dead beat Dad... etc.. So, he is an undesirable. I think all human beings are loved in the eyes of God. But Floyd was acting like a POS.
Further, the empirical data does not support any systemic racism or racial violence directed towards African Americans in the criminal justice system. Any type of multi-varied analysis makes this clear. Can the Criminal Justice system improve - SURE. Things can always get better. First and foremost we need more police officers who are better trained in 'De-Escalation' and 'restraint techniques'. But what really needs to happen is a cultural shift within black communities. The musical anthems glorifying criminal behavior, poor treatment of women, drug use and violence have devoured generations of young men who adopt this as a world view. We have approximately 7% (African American Males between ages 15-35) of the population committing roughly 50% of all violent crime in America. That is not going to be fixed by any changes to the criminal justice system.
Is it easy to get chewed up in the criminal justice system? Yes. It chews everyone up and if you do not have financial resources or business connections to generate a new life when you are released it can be brutal. But it is brutal for EVERYONE who is poor. Not just one particular minority group. But each individual has the freedom, independence and agency to decide not to commit crime and therefore never wind up in this situation. I don't accept the premise that any group of people in America are victims and incapable of making decisions to direct their own life. The single biggest indicators of criminal behavior is low IQ and single-parent households. Society really can't do much about IQ but we can encourage people to form families and raise their children. That is what makes the problem so challenging - it is politically unpopular to even say the facts out loud. How can we address the problems if we are not willing to be honest about the problem.
The Race Relations here in America are AWFUL. The NY Times reported a couple of months ago that the result of all of the 'Inclusion Training' that was conducted by virtually every business in the wake of the BLM Movement only resulted in a sense of alienation by people, increased tension, decreased sense of solidarity or cohesion, increased complaints addressing ambiguous language. This identity politic narrative is fundamentally racist and is the single greatest fracture to race relations in 60 years.
I think this event is a tragedy and it has profoundly damaged race relations and the cohesion in this country that I am not sure how we recover from.
A great reminder: Defending Against Predatory Listening. https://www.tenpercent.com/meditationweeklyblog/defending-against-predatory-listening
I think you are either willfully ignorant of what you’re talking about, or are being deliberately disingenuous about this. I follow you both. I love you both. But the fact that you take the least charitable interpretation of what they were saying is so disappointing. I have been a faithful listener of their podcast, and I honestly have been annoyed with them a bit for the last 6-8 months. However their followers know what you refuse to even entertain. They were so mad at you both because you were so wrong about what they meant/felt. Why was this such a big deal? It is because they so vehemently deny what you are painting them as. I have huge an annoyance with them for the last few months, but we speak their language. We are fans of them so we understand a lot of nuances that you don’t understand. I feel like you quoting their podcast in the written word is someone going in front of the court and talking out Lenny Bruce’s jokes. My only worry is that you did that knowing that you did that. And it really makes me sad.
And just for context, I’m a big fat lefty. A David Pakman-esque lefty. I think the fifth column dumbs itself down when going on the Megyn Kelly podcast. I hate almost every appearance they have on that show. Because they almost never challenge her (Walsh has). I wish they would have someone like David on their show.
And I also love Coleman. He is one of my favorite dudes. I think he is absolutely fair-minded and ALWAYS acts in good faith. People who disagree with him think he’s acting in bad faith. He’s not. Love that guy, and you would understand that if you paid any attention to him at all. Granted, I got duped by some of the “heterodox“ people. And I hate it. But you weed the James Linsays, Brett Weinsteins, and Jordan Petersons out. Even though I feel Coleman might be wrong on something, I believe him to be one of the most honest/good faith humans on the Earth. I’m having a hard time believing that you are acting in good faith, though. And again, it makes me bummed out.
(whispering: I am also not a great writer, so I might not have gotten my point across well enough. The TLDR is that I think that while you might believe you are correct, you don’t know them the way that their fans know them. we know what they were trying to say. It did not try me to that video. I’ve never watched it. I also wish they would have shit on it a little more than they did, but that’s not what they do. And What makes me the saddest is that you are wrong, saying that they are backtracking and lying. It’s horrible to me. And you are just wrong. A truth that is glaring to people who are familiar with them. )
I think you are 100% right that we do not understand them like their fans. But I think that’s why perhaps we can be useful in correcting some blind spots. The trouble is that their self understanding is formed by referencing thinkers within their orbit. So they see their differences from Loury on this and think "we didn’t go as far as him so we’re good and so why aren't we seen as standing apart." But if you pull back the lens and compare them within a wider universe of punditry then they and Loury appear more similar than dissimilar and you can see how they are all influencing each other and exacerbating each other's mutual blind spots, in this case accepting some pretty problematic evidence in this film that other people, who don't share their biases (but may have some of their own), didn't fall for.
“didn't fall for” his patronizing.
The same could be said of Ibram X. Kendi, the 1619 project, and (by similar inference) the editors of The New York Times. (Add a few "woke" school boards to the mix, and it's almost enough to make one sympathize with Ron DeSantis.)
Indeed, if we similarly pull back the lens, you appear more similar than dissimilar to the aforementioned -- which might help explain your underlying antipathy toward people like Loury, McWhorter, and Hughes.
Embarrassing yellow journalism. Shame on you guys.
Yellow journalism! Right, and we're the ones doing the smearing!
You are commenting on a post that (a) extensively quoted the TFC hosts' own words during their podcast segment, (b) directly engaged the claims Welch made in his post, (c) attempted to go beyond mere cherry-picking of moments, which can be self-serving and distortive, and characterized the entirety of the discussion, and (d) compared their reactions to Balko's piece with others within TFC's broader discourse orbit (Loury, etc.). That's a model approach of how to respond to a dispute.
Feel free to grapple with any actual point that the piece made. Or, just, you know, keep tossing around words like "yellow journalism."
Yawn.
I actually communicated to the filmmakers of the Floyd flick last year and what quickly became clear to me is that their movie was in the mold of a Michael Moore doc. Now, I like Moore because he’s an entertaining activist. But I don’t go and watch his movies thinking I got the whole story. The Floyd film selectively quotes people over and over and allows Chauvin himself to lie about his training. MPD officers were taught to use a hobble device and put people being restrained on their side. That’s if, by the way, they are in need of restraint. Floyd never violently resisted and few cops around this country would even argue MRT was appropriate in this circumstance — and there’s no excuse for doing it as inaccurately as he did with a man who had some underlying health problems. Why did these filmmakers think it exonerated Chauvin for Floyd to tell them he couldn’t breathe before the restraint was used? One that was widely known and hardly an exclusive to this film — did anyone watch the trial? — and two that is even more reason not to use an emergency restraint against him.
I like the fifth column and everyone involved, but I think there’s a tendency over there at times to draw a line in the middle in a dispute and say “well they both make good points.” That’s not a bad tendency overall.
But it is a bad tendency when you have such a misleading propagandistic film out there that covers zero new ground to anyone who is familiar with the case. FWIW I don’t think Fifth Column guys are endorsing the film but their close friendship with Bari and Coleman (who have decided to lock arms with the far right in Israel but that’s another story) is probably leading them to equivocate a bit.
I don’t mind people mentioning the film but the appropriate follow up to mentioning the film is to say “it gets virtually everything wrong.”
Thanks! That's exactly what we (and I think I can speak for Radley here too) were getting at. One needs very, very strong evidence from solid sources to question the verdict in such a high profile case where the defendant is a police officer to boot, with all the resources at his disposal that ordinary defendants don't have. I really doubt that anyone would have relied on this jaundiced documentary if it didn't strongly fit their priors. It was a classic case of confirmation bias (which we are all vulnerable to). But Loury admitted it and was troubled by his own credulousness. The honest thing for the Fifth to do would have been to do an episode on Radley's series and discuss all the things on which they now stand corrected. THeir listeners had been given a faulty analysis based on their level of understanding then. But now that more information has come to light, set the record straight and move on. That's really all that was needed here.
The other thing that became clear from reading Radley's original series is that, from all of his experience as a reporter on related issues, he has a lot of specialized knowledge (how does evidence work in courts of law, cause vs manner of death, what were the elements of the murder charge Chauvin was convicted of, etc.) that one needs to have in order to interpret the evidence correctly. Bias + lack of specialized knowledge is a dangerous combination.
Funny you should say taht because as I was listening to the TFC podcast in light of Radley's work what was going through my mind was that they had just the right amount of knowledge to be dangerous because they weren't making stupid points on the show. They sounded reasonable from a lay point of view. Yet they were connecting the dots all wrong and their bias made them overlook some basic red flags -- like why did the defense not say that Chauvin used MRT, a technique he was allegedly taught. Or why did it not cross examine the police witnesses saying they didn't teach the technique that Chauvin was using? One could say hind sight is perfect but, I dunno, they suspended too much disbelief because the documentary just confirmed all their priors about how it was just not possible for Chauvin to get a fair trial.
lol.
No. It doesn’t.
Balko’s work was thoroughly damning. “The Fall of Minneapolis” is clearly a hack job, full of shameless lies, and I appreciate the work you’ve both done to drive that point forward.
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
Yeah, I didn’t mind the snark so much in the article, but hated him in the “debate.”
You say:
>" Loury and McWhorter, to their immense credit, took back their original endorsement of the film and offered a mea culpa in light of Radley’s investigation."
I'd say that's true of Loury, McWhorter not so much. He pretty much doubled down and denied accountability, imo, by justifying their amplification of TFoM. At no point did he explicitly acknowledge their credulousness in amplifying such an obviously flawed and propagandistic film.
As for Loury, while it's great that he acknowledged credulousness, what really matters is whether he course corrects for jettisoning due academic diligence - that he amply demonstrates throughout his academic career - as he puts out hot takes on his podcast that align with his ideological orientation. I would say the evidence is that's not happening. In a follow-on podcast he had on a basically rando RWer who lives outside of Minny (he's not even a resident of Minny) to talk about police/community relations in Minny, who didn't even know that there was a DOJ report that documented a history or problems with police brutality.
I think the fact Loury has changed his mind throughout his career is evidence he course corrects. Nobody would’ve given him too much grief for not doing the 180 on this film. Bari Weiss isn’t apologizing (she seems quite comfortable in the space she is in rationalizing every human rights abuse under the sun lately). I think Glenn was sincere and we shouldn’t haze people for admitting error.
I don’t think Weiss is rationalizing human rights abuses. I think it is reasonable to question whether Israel’s response is proportional, which Weiss doesn’t. But some of us think the country attacked - whether Israel or Ukraine - can protect itself.
This is a strawman. Of course Israel can defend themsleves. Palestinians who’ve lived under Israeli occupation for 60 years can also defend themselves. Neither has a right to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity, though, and both you and Weiss have portrayed the situation dishonestly with the strawmen such as that above.
It is not. You obfuscate. Of course Palestinians in Gaza can defend themselves. It was not self defense to go into a neighboring nations with GoPros and murder, rape and terrorize. It’s savage to burn a woman’s dog alive outside her safe room to get her to leave, to murder a ninety year old woman’s family and pets in front of her and leave her alive, or murder young parents and leave their infants to wail for 14 hours to lure neighbors out to kill them.
I guess our disagreement is whether what the Palestinians did was self defense. I say no. I have no idea how you could think did act in self defense.
I have compassion for both sides. I am sure IDF are shook and do horrible things. Three hostages were shot by IDF after all - and one was chased into a refugee to be killed. But there is no straw man here.
I'll apologize in advance for a rant. I'm working through some thoughts here.
To be clear, I wasn't attempting to haze him. I gave him "kudos" on his Twitter for acknowledging his credulousness.
But I don't think that has to be mutually exclusive with criticizing him for much of his recent output which, imo, doesn't live up to the serious academic standards he has demonstrated throughout his career.
Glenn (and John) made a mistake with TFoM for a reason. And I think looking at the trend in Glenn's output over a couple of years what happened with TFoM was entirely predictable as a reflection of that trend. It wouldn't require a genius with deep background knowledge to see why TFoM was highly problematic. When they discussed whether Chauvin had his knee on Floyd's neck or his back, they never even questioned whether regardless, a jury watching video of him mashing Floyd into the ground for almost 9 minutes, 2 minutes after he was non-responsive, while onlookers say "You're killing him, bro," would likely lead to a guilty verdict regardless of the placement of his knee. Did they even look into the background of the filmmaker before having her on for an interview without any serious pushback on the arguments she was making?
Glenn interviews knowledgeable people on his podcast. Many I disagree with but that's not the point. The point is whether he interrogates views expressed by guests, with obvious counterarguments. I have seen Glenn interrogate views with great skill and integrity, even his own here:
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/64028?in=27:23
I have an expectation for people to be consistent in that regard. I don't expect a Rogan or a Weinstein to uphold those standards because they've never even displayed the skill or the intention. But with Glenn it should be different. However, the pattern I've seen is a clear selectivity in which kinds of views he subjects to serious interrogation.
I don't like motive-impugning and reverse engineering to find a "grifter" causality there, to assume that someone is just surfing narratives for the fame and fortune. It's an unfalsifiable logic that can be applied pretty much across the board to dismiss any views you don't agree with. But it's hard to not see that Glenn is pumping out a sub-standard product, imo, given his skills and background. Not always, some of it is good. But some of it is pretty shockingly bad. Is it ideological capture and motivated reasoning? Is it audience capture and an understandable desire to keep putting out a product that is obviously lucrative and attracts much fame and public approval? I have no idea and I'm not sure that it matters except to the extent that what really matters is for Glenn to really dig into WHY he was so credulous so that he can correct for it. As I said above, he followed immediately afterwards with another podcast on a closely connected topic, that was perhaps even worse.
I suppose it's fine to say "It's just a podcast, where people get to express their opinions without doing a full on research project." I get that. I get that people like to get together and chat about things that they agree on, to talk about how much they don't like the people they disagree with. But I find it frustrating to see people so willing to put out a shallow product, especially when it's clear they have the ability and habit of doing much better.
This is just a long and rambling way of saying again that I agree with what Shikha wrote above about the structural problem with the podcast medium. Radley also got to the heart of the problem in the piece that he wrote on this platform. It's all well and good to criticize "the mainstream media" for many real flaws. But just tearing it down and substituting for it with crap isn't an improvement and actually I think it may well be worse. I just get really tired of all this hot take speculating from people when not only do they lack serious background for sustaining their analysis, but they don't even take it seriously enough to push themselves to really interrogate issues. And honestly, I just find a lot of this stuff to basically be very lazy - where people put hardly an work at all into crafting a product. I think that podcasts can be absolutely great when the "content creators" (I hate that term when they actually haven't done any work) share in the opportunity to work with their interlocutors to interrogate their own views. Here's what I thought was a great example:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/an-israeli-looks-at-gaza-robert-wright-russ-roberts/id505824847?i=1000643462573
I see what you're saying but even in Glenn's mea culpa he himself said that he was so eager to disprove a BLM narrative that he fell for the movie. Meaning that he even understands the dynamic you're describing, is honest about it, and is trying to do something about it.
I wish a lot more people could see when their thinking goes tribal/polarized and could overcome it.
Honestly I was more disappointed in John sort of defending their initial video by basically saying "we shouldn't be afraid to have conservatives on or voice conservative views." I absolutely agree with that, but the issue is not that the film is conservative but that it is dishonest.
Agreed on both points re John and Glenn, and in particular the problem with John's response (not being intimidated to speak on the issue isn't the same thing as being credulous; I know John has been heavily criticized but at some point I get tired of the whole 'courageous heretic standing up to speak the truth' narrative).
Yes, it's DEFINITELY worth noting that Glenn was direct in acknowledging the problem with no fluff. But again, I contend that ultimately the proof is in the pudding.
Lots of good points there, Joshua. It's great that Glenn did a mea culpa on this. It's also great that he did a deeper personal reflection on why he got this wrong (that already puts him a cut about 90% of pundits out there). But what remains to be seen whether he will genuinely implement the conclusion of his reflection and course correct. The structural incentives in the podcast model cut against because you are monetizing (a) the intellectual lane you have chosen (b) have to feed the beast and weigh in on areas outside your areas of expertise.
Agree. But the thing is it's possible to use a structure to engage on issues beyond your expertise with integrity. And Glenn knows well how to do it. He's been at this a long time on Blogging Heads. But the new explosion into podcasting explicitly monitizes working around those limiting guardrails.
I'm sure it's insidious and Glenn (and John) have had many years where they were attacked for expressing contrarian views when they mostly did respect the guardrails, so I can understand where there might be a kind of "Well, payback is a bitch" attitude as Roland Fryer expressed during that recent forum with Bari.
Probably more speculating on my part than is fair... but I keep trying to extend benefit of the doubt and then seeing worse material produced...and it's obviously been a pathway for enormous success that circumvents the limitations of academic accountability. For all the empty, self-sealing accountability of academia, it just makes me feel uncomfortable to see the enormous and ubiquitous success of outright snake oil selling. I'm not actually sure that it's worse than the pre-existing paradigm but I find it disconcerting, and I'll admit I find it kind of scary. And when it's so prevalent with a Rogan or a Weinstein somehow it makes me feel more desperate for someone like Glenn to differentiate himself.
No, we need to commend them, and I did. i really truly believe that is big of him. I even tweeted that I have mad respect for him.
Also, couldn't agree more about Weiss. She's on the path to discrediting herself. This piece by Hughes might be the most botched one (and it's also dismaying that TFC is not joining those of us asking her to take it back and accept some responsibility here). But she's been running a lot of inflammatory pieces including a recent one on how Islamists are in control in the UK .
I think a huge part of the problem is the pressure of daily/frequent podcasting where you have to quickly weigh in on everything under the sun, sometimes in the same episode, that you have neither any expertise in and not even the time to acquire any working understanding. I think podcasts serve a valuable purpose when the hosts interview experts or weigh in on areas where they have expertise or spend some time acquiring it. But when you have to comment on 5 topics in one show, the result is just some very shallow and often very flawed opining. That model has to change. Podcasts are a more flawed institution right now than legacy media yet instead of legacy media attacking them, they attack legacy media, which is all sort of lopsided and corrosive of the body politic.
Hard agree. Podcasts are bit entertaining and extremely annoying because so much of them amount to essentially hit takes from people who have gift of gab and strong ideological orientation who lack relevant background or deep insight.
And then the problem expands outward as Podcasters gain huge public profiles and venture forth into other venues, with the support of social media followers.
This was a perfect example of the problem, where someone with relevant domain-specific background (Radley) weighed in. What would be nice to see is for podcasters to make a more serious effort to ground their hot takes with input from people who do have relevant background. Unfortunately, the feedback loop of fame and fortune from podcasting in the current model doesn't incentivize such a development.
Do you listen to the fifth regularly?
No. Why?
Because I do. And the context of the entire show really puts this into perspective. They’re not a policy show. Never have been. They mostly discuss media. And how media covers things and how media acts and the intersection of media and politics. Why wouldn’t this come up?
They’re not policy guys. They will talk policy sure and history and a bunch of other interesting stuff. But their perspective is usually the intersection of media and politics. They’re not playing a partisan game. They don’t have anything to apologize for or walk back because their goals aren’t to set out to find the absolute truth and report it. They didn’t “amplify” anything. I mean by the whole argument here Moynihan amplifies vice news every time takes potshots at its absolute collapse. That’s the podcast. Acerbic, conversational, wide ranging, inappropriate.
This is such a bizarre cherry to pick and smacks of a silly fight over someone not acquiescing to some made up moral standard that doesn’t actually exist anywhere.
Of course John and Glenn had to do a little
Backtracking. They sucked off the documentary. That’s a bit more than saying “eh. It’s not very convincing but there were some interesting bits”.
Then you have to take into accounts the actual whole of the personalities involved and that a lot of this is coming from kmele. Who is awesome. But also a fucking contrarian. In the most interesting way possible. Contrarians are important. Public defenders are professional contrarians. Contrarianism is important to every single honest conversation on the planet. But that’s what he is. Getting mad at him is like getting mad at lawyers who defend murderers (and some people do get mad at them) but someone has to do it.
It’s why it’s an interesting listen.
But then people have this patronizing idea. And it is so utterly patronizing. It’s essentially the same argument as “violence in video games is bad because….” Except that’s so patronizing to the consumer of the art. But the idea that if you are exposed to something, you soft brained imbecile, you will simply ingest it and it will now become part of your ethos. You will be forever changed. The reason I like the fifth is because they don’t treat their audience like empty headed recipients of “the good word.”
So I dunno. As a long time listener. And also someone not easily influenced by 15 minutes of light conversation about something that didn’t get me to excited about it as a “documentary” I can do nothing but really laugh at this whole thing and this need for them to, I dunno, lash themselves for straying from the path. Or whatever is being argued here.
This is not a good look for the unpopulist. There’s an incredibly quote from Terry Prathetts Disceirkd series. “Personal is not the same as important, people just think it is”. That pretty much nails this. This beef is personal. It is in no real world way important.
@Bernie Belvedere this better kid?
Typos... "both entertaining" and "hot takes" (although hit takes isn't a bad typo/malaprop).
Couldn't agree more!
Radley Balko is to be commended for his detective work and superb journalism -- as are Glenn Loury and John McWhorter for their acknowledgement of same. Derek Chauvin was rightly convicted of murder, and that's the end of the story.
Nonetheless, I object to the way that this kerfluffle has been exploited as a "gotcha" (here and elsewhere) -- i.e., as an attack on the entire edifice of (self-described) "heterodoxy" and "anti-wokeness."
I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown with my own eyes, from my very window, during the Summer of Floyd. Many mom-and-pops were driven out of business, and the neighborhood remains graffiti-bombed and boarded up. Over a dozen Asian grandmas were mugged near my doorstep in the months thereafter. ("Root causes"? I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never been tempted to mug an elderly Chinese.)
In every single instance (captured on video), the perpetrator could be described with a capital "B." (When a cop shoots a Black man, that's the headline; when a perpetrator is Black, the "respectable" press won't even deign to show a mug shot.) A saintly George Floyd has displaced the (now-detested) Thomas Jefferson in the American pantheon, and a nation of immigrants (including "Latinxes" and "AAPIs," as known in the Berkeley dialect) is deemed "complicit" in an "original sin" that (while stemming from an overseas trade already based for centuries in Africa) is now dated indelibly to 1619.
And we're told that all this must be construed as a "racial reckoning." Reckoning, schmeckoning!
If the likes of Coleman Hughes and Bari Weiss -- and initially, McWhorter and Loury -- (understandably) occasionally get a little carried away, their detractors have done plenty more of the same.
I reckon that before you folks make too much of this "gotcha" moment, perhaps you need to be reminded that Barack Obama was elected for (in effect) preaching the gospel that ALL lives matter. (And now you're claiming "Oh, but that was only aspirational"? Who do you think you're fooling?)
In other words, you have some reckoning of your own to do. And you'd better start doing it fast, or you'll leave the field to the likes of Donald Trump.
The point isn't the gotcha and I think Radley made a mistake by allowing even a suggestion of "gotcha" into his articles and follow-up.
The point is having standards. Hughes in particular, but Glenn and John as well promote themselves as critiquing the failure to hold to standards in the part of people they disagree with ideologically. But this was an obvious (of far from unique) example then failing to hold that standard to (1) people they agree with ideologically and (2) more importantly, to themselves.
Thank you for (however hesitantly) acknowledging Balko's "mistake" in allowing "even a suggestion" of a "gotcha" in his articles and follow-up. Ironically, I'm willing to cut Balko some extra slack as a libertarian (on cultural issues), and especially considering that I'm no fan of cops. That's my own ideological bias at work.
Nonetheless, the "failure to hold to standards" that you criticize pales (and is almost trivial) in comparison to the far broader and more blatant failure (and ideological bias) in coverage of the BLM phenomenon and the so-called "racial reckoning" by "progressives," and pervasive in the mainstream press. The misdeeds of a couple of amateur propagandists are indeed trivial compared with the relentless barrage coming from places like NPR, the New Yorker, and (largely, except for McWhorter) the New York Times. And on that basis alone, I can forgive the "heterodox" types for getting a bit carried away.
"First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's."
PS: Incidentally -- speaking of bias -- why is Balko consistently referenced here on a first-name basis (as "Radley"), while every other journalist is called out by their last name? Talk about blatant!
Not sure what's going on. I'll try to repost here:
I'm not at all hesitant to criticize Radley for personalizing the focus. I think it's a mistake.
FWIW, I don't agree with that you see as some vast imbalance in the impact of biases from various sources. I see a general problem of identity-defensive/identity-aggressive cognition and I don't think the impact is disproportionate across some ideological taxonomy. Precisely, then, applying your biblical reference, seems to me, should but uniform. I think that a failure to hold standards is always problematic. I think that there's' a systemic problem within the ecosystem of heterodox podcasts just as there are within the legacy media. I think the important problem is the whole structure of cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning. Of course, by the very nature of those biases, people will naturally see the malignant impact of bias being greater from those they disagree with than those they identify with.
As for a bias in using first or last names, I'd say it's pretty random how it varies. Or if not random, I think it's pretty hard to tease out the causal mechanism behind some differential. Clearly, you think it reflects some obvious bias. So would that mean someone is being condescending, sycophantic, something else if they use Radley's first name? How do you know what sort of bias it reflects?
I absolutely intended the Biblical quote to apply to all concerned -- but first and foremost, to those to whom my comments are addressed. After all, they've already made it clear that it applies to those they criticize; indeed, that's their main point -- legitimate in its own right. :-)
Judging by the presentation, Radley Balko appears to be on a first-name basis with both you and the author; everybody else is "out there." Make of that what you will; in any event, it just doesn't seem very professional.
I'm on a first name basis with none of anyone involved. I don't particularly care about "professional" or other formalities.
Hahaha! One person's "formalities" are another person's "standards." LOL! ;-)
Sorry - looks like I misplaced my reply and put it above somehow...
You can delete the misplaced entry, as well as (in the properly-placed one) the line "Not sure what's going on. I'll try to repost here"
In both instances, if you click on the three little dots to the lower-right of your comment, you're able edit it. :-)
Thanks. Didn't know (or at least remember) there's an edit feature.
You're welcome! :-)
How is this journalism!? Lol
Drowning your credibility by expressing a personal grievance so publicly. Grow up!
One side is resorting to ad hominem attacks and airing public grievance. The other is sticking to factual accounts and attempting to correct the record on factually inaccurate information disseminated by supposedly credible journalists. Your account of the situation has it completely backwards. But, there is a strong pull of group think that can really distort the reality, as is demonstrated by that fact the 5th column has a much larger and loyal audience to act as reply guys. This might affirm your perceptions, but it does nothing factually support your case. The fifth column guys lost complete credibility when it comes to this and if you read with an open mind it is plain to see. However, this pretty much landed exactly how it was expected and although it may have shrunk their audience ever so slightly among critical listeners, it also only cemented the their more ardent supporters.