Electric Kool Aid Conservatism
October 21, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
Responding to a recent post of mine, Christopher links to a post by Kathy Shaidle that takes issue with a column by Conor Friedersdorf, a rising conservative journalist/writer/blogger/thinker. (Mr. Friedersdorf is a contributor to The American Scene, The Daily Beast and True/Slant.)
At The league of Ordinary Gentlemen, Scott H. Payne has a great interview with Mr. Friedersdorf (Scott also has some good interviews with other prominent bloggers). Here’s a tease:
In Electric Kool-Aid Conservatism, I argue a few things: a) certain conservative insights and core critiques of liberalism intrinsically resist the narrative form. b) As the right’s echo chamber grows, the ideas that reverberate weaken. Ghettoizing smart writers within rally-the-base publications is something the left can afford, given the present media landscape, while the scarcity of journalists who grasp right-of-center ideas make their isolation particularly costly. c) The right doesn’t need more activists, it needs more journalists — folks who buy into and excel at the journalistic project, rather than folks intent on trying to destroy it. Unlike the Doublethink piece, in which I am offering advice to the right, however, my criticism of talk radio hosts is grounded not in the accurate notion that they are bad for the right, but in the larger conviction that they are bad for healthy political discussion, and thus the country. Put another way, all my work is predicated on a belief that public discourse is important, that journalism properly executed improves it, and that various journalistic benefits are undervalued on the right. But I’d say that Electric Kool-Aid Conservatism and my criticism of talk radio folks are overlapping projects, not identical ones.
The entire interview is a must read for those of us on the right who participate in political discourse… actually, it’s a worthwhile read for anyone interested in honest political debate.
Very interesting.
I’m finding a growing chasm among conservative political bloggers these days. There are a handful that still welcome dissent and discussion – Jay Currie is usually one – but most of the others are simply self congratulatory echo chambers.
Here’s a simple challenge. Find a single thread on any of the following blogs – Small Dead Animals, Blazing Cat Fur, Halls of Macademia, Dodo, Sentinel – in which people of divergent views debate an idea thoughtfully and with civility. Let me save you some time. You won’t,
The kind of culture of dialogue that Dr. Dawg, on the progressive side, is trying to foster on his blog- where is it happening on the right?
To give credit where credit is due, by the way – after a long and depressing hiatus, The Politic is becoming an interesting site again, for just that reason – some new posters and some new commenters actually interested in discussion. Kudos.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
stopped reading after the first ten words. why do these pretentious gits always try to sound like one of the Inklings fer f*ck’s sake?
“All my work”? He was going on like that in his loser email to me. The guy is TWELVE!
“certain conservative insights and core critiques of liberalism intrinsically resist the narrative form.”
Mr. McLeod, perhaps you could explain this passage for poor dumb me?
The Inklings. …. ha ha ha
Now Kathy, I’m not sure even the Inklings would be interested in greater “discourse” in the blogosphere. For one thing, it’s not face to face. For another, there’s no beer. And even if the first two conditions were met, with some jokers present, it’s doubtful there would be much talking at all. … Bar brawl!
The problem with the notion of greater “discourse”—which is not to discredit conversation that is conducted with civility—is that there is no accounting for trying to talk to people who are intellectual swindlers, people who aren’t interested in the truth, but, rather, SIMPLY GETTING THEIR WAY, by whatever means.
Sometimes a clever insult, or what your opponent always calls “ad hominem argument”—as though I didn’t know that when I levelled it!—is the only way to force your opponent to face the truth. When you insult someone, if they want to carry on conversing with you, they have to make a come back. And in making a come back, they have to actually think about why, or how, what you just called them isn’t true.
Often it takes a while, but the result is always the same: either your opponent shuts up and goes somewhere else (sometimes directly to a human rights tribunal) or they STOP LYING and the conversation continues.
A few years back I purchased a small book by C.S. Lewis entitled, “Paved With Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map To Your Soul.” The great insight of this book is that there are individuals that you can’t talk to because they are “hellish” creatures.
There’s a quote inside the cover of this book from another of Lewis’s writings:
“I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved; just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Jiminy,
That was asked on the original post, and I’ll just quote the response – which itself is an excerpt from Electric Kool Aid Conservatism.
That seems like a good explanation to me.