What is up with the second to last issue on that Harvard list!? Last I checked "employers should be able to refuse to cover birth control and other health services that violate their religious beliefs" was NOT the "liberal orthodoxy" on that subject but rather the right wing position. I'm shocked that their chart says 72% of Obama voters agreed with it, shocked that the Obama voters number is (much!) higher than the general population number, suspicious of how the question was asked and whether confusion was somehow introduced, and curious as to the correlation they saw between that question and the others. In particular I'm very interested in whether their main point still holds true if you pull that question out. It's the only thing on the list I disagreed with (although a couple others made me go "well....yeah sorta, but") and I dare say a lot of strong progressives would be in the same place.
Thanks for writing this. I’m quite progressive but also concerned about our culture of shunning, and there aren’t a lot of people out there talking about this in good faith and from an actually progressive standpoint. I know it’s much, much easier to stay silent on this stuff, so thanks for actually being brave and speaking your mind.
I feel like some people are just really misunderstanding what the strategy should be for people like Joe Rogan. Going on Joe Rogan's podcast does not significantly increase his audience or reach, so the argument that going on his podcast helps indoctrinate more people in his nihilistic views doesn't make much sense.
But I think there would be justified outrage if The Weeds brough Joe Rogan onto their show, and especially if they didn't press him on his transphobia. Afterall, the biggest problem with Joe Rogan, is that he brings right wing radicals like Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes and White Supremacists like Stefan Molyneux and Milo Yiannopoulos, onto his show and aids their effort to recruit new people to their causes.
I think that shunning works in a lot of situations. Banning these kinds of toxic people from platforms or the shows you control is admirable, but at the same time it makes sense to engage them where they already are. I think that Spotify should be ashamed of paying Joe Rogan as much money as they have, and the people at that company should think about the fact that they are working for a company that rewards the spread of hatred.
But from the perspective of a pundit, then it is not immoral to meet these people where they are and try to convince them. I am sure that the white supremacists are angry that Joe Rogan has all these Jewish people on his show, but they keep on trying to get back on because they want to recruit more people to their cause. The left should want to do the same, they shouldn't encourage their audience to listen to Joe Rogan, but should go on his show to reach his audience.
But I think the nuance of being angry at Spotify for hosting Joe Rogan's irresponsible promotion of white supremacists, but not be angry at left wing or center-left pundits that go on these shows is difficult for a lot of people to process.
“They “read the room” and don’t point out that the shunning tactics advocated by a minority are wrong and counterproductive.” And, this is one of the reasons progressives keep losing elections even as a majority of the public basically agrees with most of their positions.
One way to lose is to exclude anyone who isn’t just the right political coloration.
The sole job of a political party is to win elections. It it can’t win, then it’s a social club, not a political party. That’s particularly true in a two party system whose entire premise is based upon building diverse coalitions.
Too many people in the left just don’t get this basis reality.
This does not apply to Joe Rohan and I’m surprised at the push back here, though I get it. But I would also love to hear more commentary in this on the work of Whitney Phillips and the oxygen of amplification. Do you support her work regarding reporting on extremist hate groups?
On an ironic note, I liked the embedded David Shor tweet and wanted to see more context, so I clicked through to Twitter, only to be told that "This account owner limits who can view their Tweets."
I've never interacted with David Shor on Twitter, but for some reason he's already blocked me. How? Why?
Well... it's exactly the phenomenon Matt wrote about here. Years ago, I was added to some Twitter auto-block lists, because I followed some people who the creators of those lists wanted to shun. Those creators were influential enough to get their block lists promoted in various progressive spaces as a must-have for engaging on Twitter, even though they were drawn up using literally nothing but "guilt by association" -- who followed whom.
And now today, as a result, they've made it harder for people like David Shor to get their messages out to people like me. I'm a committed Democrat who probably agrees with 100% of what Shor has written, but the shunning movement that sprung up in 2014 still limits his ability to communicate his views to me, while still exposing me to the views of everyone who disagreed with that movement.
I listened to the entire Joe Rogan interview. I thought Matt did well and it was good, and though I had not ever listened to Joe I liked him more than I thought I would. I can just totally ignore his terrible opinions of trans people just like I ignore Matt's bad takes on gun control!
Regarding Matt's four bullets on trans rights: It's worth pointing out that Rowling would agree with bullets one, two, and four. As for bullet three, almost *no one* wants mixed-sex public bathrooms, and it's also unclear to me what existing problem such a policy would solve.
Let me turn this around. When is it OK to have people from the other side come onto the civilized world's shows to explain their case? After Jan. 20, should Bill Barr and Stephen Miller be allowed on, say, "Meet the Press" or the new Ezra Klein podcast to have a civilized discussion and airing of views?
I say no. Not a tough call. But when does the call become tough?
To what extent are the politics of shunning an alternate version of the, "work the refs" theory? The last 30 years have demonstrated that media and political figures will shift their behavior if faced with a continuous pressure of ideological complaint (even if the specific complaints are often irrational or poorly thought out).
What if the goal of people saying, "why would you support Joe Rogan by going on his podcast" are to pressure Bernie (or you) to be more vocal about supporting Trans rights in another context (to "make up" for the slight of having been on the Joe Rogan podcast).
As a tactic that is emotionally exhausting for everyone involved, but it also _works_.
I ask this question genuinely not sure whether I hope that's an accurate description. In general I would prefer that political culture and political dialogue was less emotionally exhausting, but I'm not sure how to get there (this is a question that has come up a couple of times on the Ezra Klein show).
I don't think there's an option to build a discourse based on, "everybody should always address people in good faith and just focus on articulating their own concerns rather than trying to explain that when somebody else says "X" they actually mean "Y" (or, "somebody said "x" but the meta-message of how, and where, and when they said it means "Y"). We can't get there from here and, even if we could, it wouldn't work very well anyway.
I don't mean to be too cynical. The other way to frame my point is that people who talk about shunning Joe Rogan many be trying to communicate, "understand that going on the Joe Rogan show is an action which will be concerning to some people concerned about trans rights, and you might want to (a) take that into account in your decision making and (b) perhaps make clear that you do support trans rights."
That's a perfectly reasonable message to send! But the only way to convince people that "this will be concerning to some people" is to emphasize that Joe Rogan is problematic. If somebody just said, "Joe Rogan seems like a good guy but has said some really problematical things in the past" it's unlikely that message would get any traction or influence people's behavior. They would think, "if Joe Rogan is a good guy, why make a big deal out of it at all?" The meta-message would be, "I care about this, but I understand if you don't" which is true, but not going to convince people to care.
Good lord, there is nothing I can say here that hasn't been said 50 times. So just a couple quick points. First, I think Joe Rogan is pro trans rights and wants to support trans people as people. He has a specific view about sporting competitions that activate his human sense of unfairness. And he has a thing about letting kids, who are notorious dummies, make permanent life-altering decisions. Second, Joe knows that he is wrong about some things and he is open about it. I tend to think he is wrong about 30% of everything he says. Matt's post here talks about how important it is for people (who are wrong about 30% of everything) to engage with other people (who are wrong about 30% of everything) and I agree. But I think that misses an important point about Joe Rogan that he is a role model for good public discourse by admitting that he is often wrong, but wrong while still remaining curious and engaged.
I think many of us listen to JRE specifically because it is a space where you can be wrong.
My view back then on them is the same I have with people complaining about trans athletes: fine, you can have the same advantage; just amputate your legs. You think these trans folks have unfair advantage? Fine, you adopt the trans life permanently, and we'll give you a head start in your races.
Mind you, I don't know Rogan's position here. I've never listened to him.
Given how society is these days, I think people who find they are trans have to deal with obstacles most of us can't begin to contemplate. I don't have much sympathy for the athletes they compete against complaining about the "unfairness" they have to face against them as competitors.
You, sir, are responding to my point with logic and reason. This wounds me deeply. :-)
IOW, I haven't thought through the details (clearly!) But my point stands as in my comment above that I have limited sympathy for those who whine about the unfair advantage in athletic competitions gained by those who in the entirety of the rest of their lives are pretty screwed.
Purity tests help nobody. One additional benefit to allowing a heterodox mix of people is the importance of discourse. Just because an idea is orthodoxy for a group now does not mean it always will remain so, or that it should. Parties and coalitions should be open to the idea that they're wrong.
Matt this is the first time I read something you wrote and think you're not being 100% honest to protect yourself from criticism. You are implying that Rogan/JKR have diff views than what you described, Re: the rights of trans people. Where are the concrete differences?
(and you can believe, btw, in gender-segregated bathrooms while still having trans people use the one that matches their gender identity).
The fact that they have been called TERFs doesn't mean much in today's climate. I do not believe it's fair to posit them as wanting to deny basic rights from trans individuals.
I feel like the second wave feminists have been continually marginalized. I’m most familiar with some of the troubles Laura Kipnis has had at Northwestern. I don’t get it.
This desire to “shun” further leads me to believe that wokeism is actually just another religion. Except unlike Catholicism or Islam, there isn’t an actual dogma to follow, but rather a game of Calvinball where the rules of what is considered righteous are always changing. Most people (i.e those not on twitter) have no interest in this woke stuff just like they don’t have any interest in joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons in my neighborhood always send out nice hand-written letters rather than try to shun me.
What is up with the second to last issue on that Harvard list!? Last I checked "employers should be able to refuse to cover birth control and other health services that violate their religious beliefs" was NOT the "liberal orthodoxy" on that subject but rather the right wing position. I'm shocked that their chart says 72% of Obama voters agreed with it, shocked that the Obama voters number is (much!) higher than the general population number, suspicious of how the question was asked and whether confusion was somehow introduced, and curious as to the correlation they saw between that question and the others. In particular I'm very interested in whether their main point still holds true if you pull that question out. It's the only thing on the list I disagreed with (although a couple others made me go "well....yeah sorta, but") and I dare say a lot of strong progressives would be in the same place.
Rogan is spot on with his view about transgender athletes.
Thanks for writing this. I’m quite progressive but also concerned about our culture of shunning, and there aren’t a lot of people out there talking about this in good faith and from an actually progressive standpoint. I know it’s much, much easier to stay silent on this stuff, so thanks for actually being brave and speaking your mind.
I feel like some people are just really misunderstanding what the strategy should be for people like Joe Rogan. Going on Joe Rogan's podcast does not significantly increase his audience or reach, so the argument that going on his podcast helps indoctrinate more people in his nihilistic views doesn't make much sense.
But I think there would be justified outrage if The Weeds brough Joe Rogan onto their show, and especially if they didn't press him on his transphobia. Afterall, the biggest problem with Joe Rogan, is that he brings right wing radicals like Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes and White Supremacists like Stefan Molyneux and Milo Yiannopoulos, onto his show and aids their effort to recruit new people to their causes.
I think that shunning works in a lot of situations. Banning these kinds of toxic people from platforms or the shows you control is admirable, but at the same time it makes sense to engage them where they already are. I think that Spotify should be ashamed of paying Joe Rogan as much money as they have, and the people at that company should think about the fact that they are working for a company that rewards the spread of hatred.
But from the perspective of a pundit, then it is not immoral to meet these people where they are and try to convince them. I am sure that the white supremacists are angry that Joe Rogan has all these Jewish people on his show, but they keep on trying to get back on because they want to recruit more people to their cause. The left should want to do the same, they shouldn't encourage their audience to listen to Joe Rogan, but should go on his show to reach his audience.
But I think the nuance of being angry at Spotify for hosting Joe Rogan's irresponsible promotion of white supremacists, but not be angry at left wing or center-left pundits that go on these shows is difficult for a lot of people to process.
“They “read the room” and don’t point out that the shunning tactics advocated by a minority are wrong and counterproductive.” And, this is one of the reasons progressives keep losing elections even as a majority of the public basically agrees with most of their positions.
One way to lose is to exclude anyone who isn’t just the right political coloration.
The sole job of a political party is to win elections. It it can’t win, then it’s a social club, not a political party. That’s particularly true in a two party system whose entire premise is based upon building diverse coalitions.
Too many people in the left just don’t get this basis reality.
This does not apply to Joe Rohan and I’m surprised at the push back here, though I get it. But I would also love to hear more commentary in this on the work of Whitney Phillips and the oxygen of amplification. Do you support her work regarding reporting on extremist hate groups?
On an ironic note, I liked the embedded David Shor tweet and wanted to see more context, so I clicked through to Twitter, only to be told that "This account owner limits who can view their Tweets."
I've never interacted with David Shor on Twitter, but for some reason he's already blocked me. How? Why?
Well... it's exactly the phenomenon Matt wrote about here. Years ago, I was added to some Twitter auto-block lists, because I followed some people who the creators of those lists wanted to shun. Those creators were influential enough to get their block lists promoted in various progressive spaces as a must-have for engaging on Twitter, even though they were drawn up using literally nothing but "guilt by association" -- who followed whom.
And now today, as a result, they've made it harder for people like David Shor to get their messages out to people like me. I'm a committed Democrat who probably agrees with 100% of what Shor has written, but the shunning movement that sprung up in 2014 still limits his ability to communicate his views to me, while still exposing me to the views of everyone who disagreed with that movement.
I listened to the entire Joe Rogan interview. I thought Matt did well and it was good, and though I had not ever listened to Joe I liked him more than I thought I would. I can just totally ignore his terrible opinions of trans people just like I ignore Matt's bad takes on gun control!
Regarding Matt's four bullets on trans rights: It's worth pointing out that Rowling would agree with bullets one, two, and four. As for bullet three, almost *no one* wants mixed-sex public bathrooms, and it's also unclear to me what existing problem such a policy would solve.
Let me turn this around. When is it OK to have people from the other side come onto the civilized world's shows to explain their case? After Jan. 20, should Bill Barr and Stephen Miller be allowed on, say, "Meet the Press" or the new Ezra Klein podcast to have a civilized discussion and airing of views?
I say no. Not a tough call. But when does the call become tough?
To what extent are the politics of shunning an alternate version of the, "work the refs" theory? The last 30 years have demonstrated that media and political figures will shift their behavior if faced with a continuous pressure of ideological complaint (even if the specific complaints are often irrational or poorly thought out).
What if the goal of people saying, "why would you support Joe Rogan by going on his podcast" are to pressure Bernie (or you) to be more vocal about supporting Trans rights in another context (to "make up" for the slight of having been on the Joe Rogan podcast).
As a tactic that is emotionally exhausting for everyone involved, but it also _works_.
I ask this question genuinely not sure whether I hope that's an accurate description. In general I would prefer that political culture and political dialogue was less emotionally exhausting, but I'm not sure how to get there (this is a question that has come up a couple of times on the Ezra Klein show).
I don't think there's an option to build a discourse based on, "everybody should always address people in good faith and just focus on articulating their own concerns rather than trying to explain that when somebody else says "X" they actually mean "Y" (or, "somebody said "x" but the meta-message of how, and where, and when they said it means "Y"). We can't get there from here and, even if we could, it wouldn't work very well anyway.
But the status quo isn't great.
I don't mean to be too cynical. The other way to frame my point is that people who talk about shunning Joe Rogan many be trying to communicate, "understand that going on the Joe Rogan show is an action which will be concerning to some people concerned about trans rights, and you might want to (a) take that into account in your decision making and (b) perhaps make clear that you do support trans rights."
That's a perfectly reasonable message to send! But the only way to convince people that "this will be concerning to some people" is to emphasize that Joe Rogan is problematic. If somebody just said, "Joe Rogan seems like a good guy but has said some really problematical things in the past" it's unlikely that message would get any traction or influence people's behavior. They would think, "if Joe Rogan is a good guy, why make a big deal out of it at all?" The meta-message would be, "I care about this, but I understand if you don't" which is true, but not going to convince people to care.
Good lord, there is nothing I can say here that hasn't been said 50 times. So just a couple quick points. First, I think Joe Rogan is pro trans rights and wants to support trans people as people. He has a specific view about sporting competitions that activate his human sense of unfairness. And he has a thing about letting kids, who are notorious dummies, make permanent life-altering decisions. Second, Joe knows that he is wrong about some things and he is open about it. I tend to think he is wrong about 30% of everything he says. Matt's post here talks about how important it is for people (who are wrong about 30% of everything) to engage with other people (who are wrong about 30% of everything) and I agree. But I think that misses an important point about Joe Rogan that he is a role model for good public discourse by admitting that he is often wrong, but wrong while still remaining curious and engaged.
I think many of us listen to JRE specifically because it is a space where you can be wrong.
I remember when runners complained about the unfair advantage Oscar Pistorius had because of his prosthetic legs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#:~:text=Updated%20on%2029%20August%202018,due%20to%20a%20congenital%20defect)
My view back then on them is the same I have with people complaining about trans athletes: fine, you can have the same advantage; just amputate your legs. You think these trans folks have unfair advantage? Fine, you adopt the trans life permanently, and we'll give you a head start in your races.
Mind you, I don't know Rogan's position here. I've never listened to him.
Nope, no motorcycle. Has to be human-powered.
Given how society is these days, I think people who find they are trans have to deal with obstacles most of us can't begin to contemplate. I don't have much sympathy for the athletes they compete against complaining about the "unfairness" they have to face against them as competitors.
You, sir, are responding to my point with logic and reason. This wounds me deeply. :-)
IOW, I haven't thought through the details (clearly!) But my point stands as in my comment above that I have limited sympathy for those who whine about the unfair advantage in athletic competitions gained by those who in the entirety of the rest of their lives are pretty screwed.
Purity tests help nobody. One additional benefit to allowing a heterodox mix of people is the importance of discourse. Just because an idea is orthodoxy for a group now does not mean it always will remain so, or that it should. Parties and coalitions should be open to the idea that they're wrong.
Matt this is the first time I read something you wrote and think you're not being 100% honest to protect yourself from criticism. You are implying that Rogan/JKR have diff views than what you described, Re: the rights of trans people. Where are the concrete differences?
(and you can believe, btw, in gender-segregated bathrooms while still having trans people use the one that matches their gender identity).
The fact that they have been called TERFs doesn't mean much in today's climate. I do not believe it's fair to posit them as wanting to deny basic rights from trans individuals.
I feel like the second wave feminists have been continually marginalized. I’m most familiar with some of the troubles Laura Kipnis has had at Northwestern. I don’t get it.
It's also just bad for society. We need to be able to talk to each other.
This desire to “shun” further leads me to believe that wokeism is actually just another religion. Except unlike Catholicism or Islam, there isn’t an actual dogma to follow, but rather a game of Calvinball where the rules of what is considered righteous are always changing. Most people (i.e those not on twitter) have no interest in this woke stuff just like they don’t have any interest in joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons in my neighborhood always send out nice hand-written letters rather than try to shun me.