(no subject)

[proximoception]

Wow to Greenwald v. Harris.

Love them both but this dispute doesn't show either at his best.

Harris left himself open to misrepresentation, basically from philosophical haughtiness, laudable enough in a different context: here is what the facts suggest must be the case, uncomfortable as it may sound, and it's on you to disprove it, students. And, it's true, didn't speak out against what America was doing very loudly or clearly. You could be forgiven for connecting the dots of some of his statements and seeing a neocon.

Less so if you read his actual book though. He left a lot of mineable quotes about, but after you get through his extensive endnotes you're not really in the dark regarding how he feels about, like, anything.

Greenwald attacked pretty much on the basis of hearsay, or anyway quotes others had mined, then when Harris responded with characteristic inflexible testiness Greenwald's lawyer training took over - you never make the other side's case for them once you've chosen yours. Which doesn't look so good in protest journalism. Greenwald's fun when you hate who he's hating to pieces but this has always been his little problem, and gets big fast when he word-wars with someone with a case. Because he'll never see that case, though he'll never be dishonest about the facts.

If you ever argue with Greenwald be very nice to him. If you ever argue with Harris there won't be a point. He'll act like an asshole. And he won't listen to you closely enough, and he won't let you change him. But he won't scrape every last hanging flap off your skeleton.

As for who's right...I dunno. Harris' foundational terror is of things ending, Greenwald's is of silent complicity with evil. So it's that do I drive to the gym to use exercise machines or stay home and avoid accidents problem. Rather than consequentialism versus justice ethics, though that often boils down to this other. That it would be fun to see them fight out! But they're unlikely to ever speak to one another again.

Comments

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

I think there's a certain amount of interpretive variation we need to accept. Harris is at an extreme end of the acceptable, for me: for eleven years he's cared about exactly one scenario - people who actually buy holy war coming to power in a destabilized Islamic state that possesses nuclear weapons. Not a likely eventuality in the near term but not impossible. If there's a border zone between recognizable phobia and sensible fear he's in it. Chomsky and Greenwald are sensitized to less hypothetical evils, but that too can be blinding. Fight one fight too long and you'll feel it's the only one.

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

Quite true. I'd like to think it's a necessary myopia but my instincts tell me it is not. More likely there is simply a selection pressure for it, one that propels this particular type of thinker forward. No one wants hear of a great ill among many others, or even less, that an ill can be worth caring about while being dwarfed by others.