Considering the Source
Can We Agree With People We Detest?
BONUS POST TO CELEBRATE MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ON SUBSTACK!
Every day for almost a decade I’ve posted a “Wisdom Quote of the Day” on my Facebook timeline. Usually I choose quotations on particular themes or life events going on in my world; most of the time they resonate with others for similar reasons. It’s become a part of my routine, and a thoughtful way to start the day.
It’s no mystery that I’m a confirmed individualist, free speech advocate and heterodox thinker. What you see is what you get with me. Friends often respond to my opinions with, “well, tell us how you really feel!” knowing, of course, that I always do. Heterodoxy, to me, is a strength these days. It allows me to dig into both sides of the political and ideological divide, read and listen to leading thinkers and commentators from left and right, and make my own mind up about things.
One of the consequences for the far left, particularly the social activist wing of the left, is that they deal in very extreme ideas and confusing, disorienting concepts; and since they’re intolerant of dissent, or indeed, any questioning of their agenda, there’s never a way for ordinary folks to truly understand. This has empowered the centrists and moderate right wingers by allowing them to be the reasonable voices in the conversation. They’re free to employ logic, scientific method and critical thinking, history, factual evidence. These better address the sensible concerns and convictions of the majority of average people.
Before the pandemic, I was a daily MSNBC watcher, and a genuine fan of commentators like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid. During the Trump presidency, I felt like they were speaking directly to me, mirroring and voicing my outrage at the degradation and erosion of American institutions and ideals. These days, I find my personal convictions about free speech, equality, and meritocracy mirrored by centrists, libertarians, and yeah, some conservatives—conservatives like the great Douglas Murray, who I find to be one of the greatest minds of his generation.
“Disagreement is not oppression. Argument is not assault. Words—even provocative or repugnant ones—are not violence. The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.” ~Douglas Murray
Other less-than-lefty voices I listen to: Heather MacDonald, Brendan O’Neill, Lionel Shriver, Glenn Loury, Thomas Sowell, Andrew Sullivan, Coleman Hughes, Yascha Mounck. Sometimes, you bet, the eccentric, genius ravings of Jordan Peterson. And sometimes, out of the mouths of the showboats and provocateurs comes wisdom.
This past week, I posted the following Wisdom Quote of the Day:
This quote is from an extensive interview Katie Hopkins did with Candace Owens. Oh, yes: two of the most reviled, right wing bitches on the planet in one place. I mean, the Queens of Mean, right? Equally exhibitionistic and provocative in their individual ways, they also happen to be brilliant, educated, and quite stunning speakers. As a speaker of words by trade, I have enormous appreciation for people who can extemporize using sheer fearless rhetorical power. Katie Hopkins, when she’s not insulting people, acting vulgar, spewing fat-phobic, anti-feminist, outrageous trash talk, is actually a superb public speaker. Her click bait, nasty Ann Coulter style shenanigans would have kept me from discovering Hopkins at all, but my first exposure to her was during a binge of Oxford Union debates on YouTube. Hopkins appeared for the opposition on the topic “We Should Support No Platforming,” and it is a dazzling master class in debate, persuasion and the force of personal charisma. But back to the quote. I actually made this meme, because to me, Katie was speaking an eternal truth here. In times of political tension, it’s tempting to try and make nice with destructive people who temporarily hold power in an to attempt to stay safe, and ward off their inevitable betrayal. I think it’s neither a right nor left wing idea—it’s the truth.
Don’t misunderstand me: I knew, if I posted a Katie Hopkins quote, I would have at least one friend comment on her repulsive character, or express their discomfort with my having quoted her (I quoted Jordan Peterson once and got a flurry of histrionic DMs from concerned friends). I was not disappointed. An esteemed friend, an educated, worldly person I know, commented:
Unfortunately Katie Hopkins is one of the most vile, racist, conspiracy-mongering right-wing extremists ever to crawl out of an English sewer.
Okay. I replied:
I do know who I'm quoting...her job is pushing buttons...but she's not always wrong. We can't afford, in these times of lies and manipulation, to dismiss wisdom or truth--wherever it comes from. I advise watching her appearance at the Oxford Union which is one of the most brilliant rhetorical performances I've ever seen.
And the answer came:
Well, enjoy her.
WOW. Two things at work here. First, they make vividly clear what they think of Ms. Hopkins—blithely ignoring the merits of the actual quote and its possible significance for our moment…you, know…the reason I posted it. They need me to know they know all about Ms. Hopkins—who is not to be tolerated! Ostensibly, they’re making sure I know this, in case I was innocently posting a quotation without knowing who said it. Rather unpleasant insinuation of my ignorance, I think. Secondly, there’s a veiled accusation. If I do know what kind of “sewer crawler” Hopkins is and am still quoting her…well, they want me to be aware that they think less of me and question my values (which of course props up their personal integrity and righteousness in the eyes of onlookers who might be like minded). Thus the snide "well, enjoy her.”
You know? I think I will. All due respect. Although, it’s not actually a question of enjoyment. It’s a question of whether the quote resonates with me; is true. Remember truth?
It’s ironic, in this context, that my introduction to Hopkins was the debate about No-Platforming. In the estimation of my friend here and those of like mind, Katie Hopkins is so vile that she must never be quoted, never watched, listened to, read, acknowledged in any way, ever, ever again—to the cornfield she goes! Because someone is too lazy and too prejudiced to look deeper than their X Feed to inform themselves, before this blanket condemnation and banishment of another human being.
I think when Hopkins is doing her “based bitch” act to get a rise out of people, she’s pretty damn odious, and often tasteless and unfunny. But when she lets that schtick go, she’s a very sharp intellect worth lending an ear to. Where’s the virtue in howling someone out of the town square? Or denying them a platform? How does that further someone’s cause or enhance one’s integrity and trustworthiness when it shows not only a deplorable lack of intellectual curiosity but a clear weakness of position? Screaming someone into retreating is, in actuality, the screamer cowardly retreating from engagement on the field of battle. As they howl their outrage, their censored adversaries regroup, gather their forces, and return tenfold.
In her brilliant peroration at the Oxford Union, Hopkins warns against the temptation to censor, cancel and de-platform voices one disagrees with, reminding the gathered members of their sacred trust at this temple of free speech and debate:
You know, for all your curiosities, I trust you guys. I trust you to know what you think, to form your own opinion, and I respect that you will either love me, hate me, loathe me, think I’m mentally deficient, whatever, when you choose to leave this debating chamber. But I afford you the courtesy of respecting your intellectual capability to decide that…You need to be standing up for the right to listen to people who you then go on to decide you do not agree with.
What part of any of that is vile? What part of any of that is right wing extremist? What part of any of that isn’t wise and well considered and democratic and fair?
We have to stop the tribalism. We have to stop sticking it to the other side, whether that’s “owning the libs” or denouncing the “deplorables.” Everyone who disagrees with us, even in the case of monumental, highly charged issues, is not a Nazi. If you feel that way, and if you scream down anything that you find uncomfortable or triggering or inconvenient to your agenda, that’s a helluva lot of Nazis, and you…?You’re just one of the Children of the Corn. Grow up.
The impending election will be hugely consequential, and we should all brace ourselves for the mayhem to come, no matter which old codger wins. These are insane, polarized times, and it will take many steady hands at the wheel to steer us through the coming storm. We can’t afford to utterly silence or disregard intelligent, reasoned, fact-based, respectable ideas and thoughts just because we detest the person uttering them, or we “heard” they were a transphobic-racist-misogynistic-homophobic-white supremacist-TERF Nazi. We have to be better than that.
Just for fun, I’ll leave you with a little quiz, just to show that bad people can sometimes say good things. Let’s call it…Guess Who Said It? Now, don’t cheat and scroll down yet (answers are at the very end of this post)!
Do you recognize any of these inspirational quotes? Who said these?
a. “He who stops being better stops being good.”
b. “It takes less courage to criticize the decisions of others than to stand by your own.”
c. “The real strong have no need to prove it to the phonies.”
d. “Countless millions who have walked this earth before us have gone through this, so this is just an experience we all share.”
e. “Words build bridges into unexplored regions.”
a. Oliver Cromwell
b. Attila the Hun
c. Charles Manson
d. Ted Bundy
e. Adolf Hitler
What’s especially wild is that a number of the opinions that can get a person dismissed out of consideration, unquotable forever, were completely standard and mainstream liberal views a mere 10-15 years ago.
it is a funny thing to discover that the people you "hated" without knowing anything about them, really have much more common sense views across a wide array of topics then the people "on your side." it's so easy to stop any conversation by accusing someone of being a nazi, a racist, a transphobe, a putin lover, an anti-vaxxer, a trump supporter. these are the arguments of people who have no arguments.
i listen to a lot of people these days who i had reflexively tuned out pre-covid. once i heard them speak for themselves, i realized that they weren't crazed right wing bigoted hitler lovers, that i actually agreed with many of the things they said and even "liked" them a lot more than i could ever "like" a joy reid type.
now tucker carlson is a "traitor" because he did an interview that every journalist worth their salt should have wanted to do. it waters down the meaning of the word "treason" just like the "me too victims" reduced "rape" to meaninglessness
i always thought Rachel Madcow was intelligent and her reporting nuanced. then she fell into russiagate and lectures about the efficacy of covid vaccines. you may not like trump but if russia didn't influence the 2016 election, then repeating a hundred times that it did merely makes you a liar.
it started with hillary tarring everyone who didn't vote for her as "deplorables." here is a completely unlikable woman who assumed her ascendancy was in the bag, was owed her in payment for the humiliation she endured in standing by her philandering husband. she still denies the outcome of the election which in her case is not a crime but in trump's case is. to see how the legal system is being distorted just to get one person, how democracy is being destroyed in the name of "saving our democracy" is the most frightening thing and actually makes me want to vote for him, something i have never before considered.
the most amazing thing to me in your story is that your intelligent and educated friend did not stop for a moment and ask himself "hmmm, i've known james for a long time and he's always been smart and honorable. and yet he quotes this woman who i find despicable. perhaps i need to look deeper, maybe ask him what he saw in her, maybe watch the debate he watched with an open mind, maybe even watch it with him." but no, he writes you off. "well, james went crazy, he's gone over to the dark side."
i've never been a sam harris fan. i find him to be an insufferable ego maniac but he does have a large following. i never listen to his podcasts but sometimes have heard him when he is a guest on other podcasts that i listen to and i'm never impressed with him. the one time i did listen to his podcast was when he had eric topol on. i have admired topol, bought his books. he was a whistle blower on VIOXX and lived through a hellish persecution by drug companies trying to destroy him. enter covid and here he is telling sam harris that bret weinstein is evil for telling people to not take the vaccine (which he never did) and he's "killing people" with his misinformation. does sam harris stick up for his long time friend? does he say "i really don't want you to bad mouth my friend on a public forum. i need to talk to him first and see why he's come to his conclusions. i know him to be a rational ethical man. maybe i can have you both on and you can debate your positions" no! he falls back on the old insanity plea as in "maybe bret has gone crazy."
since then he's justified his unjustifiable treatment of his former friend by piling on the charges- "i always thought bret was ethical but i was wrong." "his dangerous views may turn out to have been right but at the time, given what we knew, they were wrong." HUH? he'll say anything to avoid admitting that he was, not only wrong, but spineless!
this happened to us with a very old friend. my life partner had been his mentor. he always looked up to me with a kind of hero worship. a few months ago, we delivered something where he was working and my boyfriend was wearing an RFKjr hat. "oh, he's crazy" is how he dismissed us. he has no idea that i've followed the man for years, back when he was a hero in NYC for getting the Hudson River cleaned up, that i donate every year to the CHD, that i've read his books, listened to his lectures. at no point did he stop and think "john and carolyn are the smartest people i know. i would go over a cliff if john asked me to. so why would these two people i respect support this guy who i've been told is crazy? should i look into this?"
no, he simply said "wow, you guys have really changed since moving to the south" forgetting, i guess, that florida where he lives is considerably south of SC where we live. he repeated all the classic liberal tropes- "deathsantis," "anti-vaxxer," " if trump wins, it will be the end of democracy."
he didn't stop to wonder why i would give up my job of 40 years rather than take the vaccine, a job he knows meant everything in the world to me. nope, carolyn's gone crazy, that's all.
the hardest lessons are that most of the people you considered your closest friends actually weren't worth the paper they were printed on and that there are lots of people "on the other side" who you have more in common with, that all the people who said they would have sheltered anne frank would have in fact turned her in for a greater share of rations and that a lot of them have turned over their thinking to the state.