Joy McCann’s post agreeing with my take on Patrick Frey’s latest inquisition netted two very interesting comments, the first from one of Patrick’s readers, the second from Mr Frey himself.
First, this, from Patterico reader Dustin:
Last time I checked, old Patterico had a dozen cop killing gang members on his docket. He’s a legitimate badass when it comes to dealing with fictions in the LA Times, or death threatening private investigators. He probably swallows hard when he turns his car on, but I don’t think he gives a crap about whether Jeff Goldstein agrees with him. In case you hadn’t heard, Jeff was banned from Patterico’s blog after making some lame Internet Tough Guy jokes.
[my emphasis]
That, naturally, is a repugnant revision of history, and one that Frey, who shows up soon after, doesn’t bother to correct.
The fact of the matter is, I was banned from Patterico’s site for allegedly making a “death threat”. Only, the “death threat” involved the lyching of me. For which I offered to bring the rope.
– Which, I suppose, means I made a death threat against myself.
But be that as it may — and regardless of how Frey’s non-correction of what is most certainly a bald-faced lie calls into question his frequent claims that he strives for truth — what compelled me to comment was the following, which shows just how pernicious are certain ideas about how language functions in a communication chain. Writes Patterico, in full-on defensive / backpedal mode (which seems to be a permanent gear on his intellectual dump truck):
Calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist are not the same thing.I am comfortable that the statement is racist.
Got that? He hasn’t suggested RS McCain is a racist. Instead, he’s only suggested that the statement, written by RS McCain, is racist, and he’s comfortable with the distinction.
Which is hardly surprising given that the distinction raised is what provides the out people who make such distinctions are looking for — just as it did with Oliver Willis and co., back when they went after Ed Morrisey for his use of the term “articulate.” Such a maneuver allows one to disavow the charge that he is condemning the speaker by laying blame on the speech. So you see? Nothing personal.
But ask yourself: how can a statement (which, detached from agency is just a collection of marks) be, in and of itself, “racist”? Racist how? Racist to whom?
To wit: if you believe a statement, as a linguistic entity (which always presumes intent somewhere along the interpretive chain), is somehow, say, inadvertently racist — that is, if you don’t think RS McCain really meant it as a racist statement — then on what basis are you calling it a racist statement in the first place, especially if you admit to believing it was not intended as such? Alternately, if you believe the statement is racist, but that its utterer is not racist, where, precisely, does the “racism” come from in that particular formulation?
And the answer to that is that it comes from the person interpreting, the person or persons who, for whatever their reasons, decide that the statement is racist, but yet won’t to commit to the full-on charge of racism against the the statement’s utterer. It’s a cowardly argument; it hasn’t balls; it lacks confidence in its convictions.
And I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. If you believe the statement is racist, you believe that it was uttered with racist intent. If you don’t believe it was uttered with racist intent, the statement is not racist, unless the intent to see racism comes from another source, in this case, from some agency who imbues the statement with a meaning that he doesn’t attribute to the original utterer.
That’d be Patterico.
So in fact, calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist is the same thing. Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere.
Thus endeth the lesson.
****
update: Joe points to this Patterico follow-up:
I have read on the Internet today that I called Robert Stacy McCain a racist. I did not. I said that he said something that is in my opinion racist. That is not the same thing.Some of the people saying these things did not read what I wrote. Some read it but did not pay attention. And some are just liars.
I said: “I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.” I have seen many people speak well of him and that certainly speaks well of him.
If what Patterico is arguing here is that he is not calling RS McCain a racist now, but that at one time RS McCain must have been a racist, having written something that is, in Patterico’s estimation, racist (and so intended as such), then we don’t really have an intellectual quarrel, save for Patterico’s refusal to square the circle: he believes McCain was a racist, as evidenced by his having made racist statements (the logic being that you would not believe a statement racist unless it sprung from racist intent, which is what properly describes racism to begin with). So if he no longer believes him to be a racist, why spend several posts going over and over McCain’s “racist” past?
Surely that can only open old wounds, yes?
****
update 2: In the comments at Joy’s place, Patterico couches his argument thusly:
What I have said is that I do not believe that a single racist sentiment brands one as a racist for all time.
To which I respond, sure, but then why keep asking RS McCain to answer for an old piece written in a completely different context for a different audience nearly 14-years ago?
If Patterico believes McCain’s 1996 statement a racist one, but he doesn’t believe RS McCain a racist now, why the fuss? Why the several posts? Why this purported effort to find the “truth,” to “scrutinize” something he no longer believes extant? Why the “direct questions” to RS McCain about a racist past if he believes people can change, indeed, that McCain HAS changed, and that he shouldn’t be judged on a paragraph from 1996?
Of course, these are all rhetorical questions.
No need to pursue them any further.
****
update the last: The latest from Frey: “Nor have I said that I believe [McCain] is not a racist. I just don’t know.”
Left unstated: “So, you know, I figured I’d throw the question out there publicly, spend a few days writing about it, digging into it, and letting you guys speculate about it on my public forum, and then we’ll go from there.
“I mean, it’s not like people on the internet are real or anything, right? So who’s it gonna hurt?”
****
See also, “Is Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey anti-semitic”?
Comment by Molon Labe on 12/9 @ 8:28 pm #
A-fucking-men
Comment by BumperStickerist on 12/9 @ 8:29 pm #
Racist statements make Patterico comfortable?
That explains so much.
Thanks for clearning that up, Pat!
-
(you see what I did there?)
Comment by Rich Cox on 12/9 @ 8:39 pm #
Or give it projection and state that neither the original statement or speaker were racist but that Patterico did see the statement as racist and only because he is capable of seeing something as such…. projection would even state it is because he is the racist. Or is just what you were teaching us?
Comment by cynn on 12/9 @ 8:42 pm #
Jeff, I don’t get you. You would place all blame and responsibility on the receiver of the message? You would allow the speaker of any message to distance him or herself entirely by saying “That’s not what I meant”? What a cop-out. I have read and admired you for a while, but I simply cannot buy into this Sender as God crap. Perception is reality; we don’t live in a cave full of shadows.
Comment by mcgruder on 12/9 @ 8:43 pm #
well done.
Anything that captures what Oliver Willis does is a good post.
Comment by Darleen on 12/9 @ 8:44 pm #
cynn
go back and read what Jeff actually writes, not what your brief skimming makes it.
SHEESH.
Comment by SBP on 12/9 @ 8:47 pm #
old Patterico had a dozen cop killing gang members
Unfortunately for him, debating Jeff Goldstein is a little bit more challenging than browbeating some 16 year old high school dropout with a public defender. ‘
one that Frey, who shows up soon after, doesn’t bother to correct.
Of course not. In the amoral world in which he (and most other lawyers) operate, it’s all about “winning”. Truth and morality don’t enter into it. Any tactic that can be used to sway twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty is fair game. By any means necessary, baby.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 8:47 pm #
“Perception is reality”
I hope you know that most people, when they say that, don’t mean it literally.
Because, it’s bat shit crazy talk. Hey, you hear the one about the deaf and blind man who negated the existence of sound waves and photons?
Comment by ThomasD on 12/9 @ 8:49 pm #
Smash the statement!
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 8:50 pm #
Oh, really?
No, really?
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 8:52 pm #
Let’s see how I can make this more clear.
The receiver’s job is to decode the author’s intent. That’s what interpretation means. A receiver who says, “I don’t care what the author’s intent was, the statement means X regardless,” is therefore not interpreting. S/he is adding his or her own signifieds to the marks the writer / utterer provided. A reader who says, “I don’t care what the author says he meant, I believe he meant X” IS engaging in interpretation — the difference being, the receiver here believes that the author / utterer’s second-order explanation of his or her intent doesn’t match the intent of the original utterance as it was interpreted initially.
In the first instance, the receiver is saying, in effect, I don’t care about intent — and then supplying his or her own intent. Not interpretation. In the second instance, the receiver is doing his or her job.
The biggest problems arise when, after disconnecting the utterance from authorial intent, the receiver goes on to write a new text, one based around his or her own intentions, yet s/he thne attributes it to the original utterer.
I’ll leave it to you all to tease out what’s being done here.
Trackback by Snapped Shot on 12/9 @ 8:56 pm #
Random Ramblings on Racism…
Ahem, I mean “Raaaaacism!”
An interesting conversation on the “Racism” charge, hosted by Jeff Goldstein. Key takeaway:
But — and here’s the rub — at what point is one justified in opening up a public examination on high profile we…
Comment by Darleen on 12/9 @ 8:58 pm #
SBP
I wouldn’t discount the danger of gangbangers; however Dusty acts like Pat is a character from Law n Order
The ten years I clerked the DA office my gang dda’s put away a lot of “bad asses” but never worried about driving their cars because they always listened to the training provided by our BofI staff on the rudimentary security measures we ALL needed to take.
The only dda we had that did get threatened wasn’t a gangbanger case, but a particularly nasty baby-killing case and the family of the perp was after the dda.
Dusty should stop trying to polish so hard in public.
Comment by ThomasD on 12/9 @ 9:00 pm #
I’ve never found Jeff to be vague about anything.
Cryptic is something else entirely.
Comment by SBP on 12/9 @ 9:00 pm #
I wouldn’t discount the danger of gangbangers
Oh, I didn’t say they weren’t dangerous. Just not in an intellectual sense.
Patterico simply isn’t very good at the “honest debate” thing. In fact, he sucks at it.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:01 pm #
Man, I’ve netted a school of RD fish tonight. Fried every last one of ‘em and polished ‘em off with my big bottle of “breafast scotch”. Whatever that is.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/9 @ 9:05 pm #
Cynn
Patterico isn’t interpreting anything, he’s writing a whole different story based on what he thinks mcain meant even if its not what mcain may have actually meant.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:05 pm #
I think most people understand that a person can make a racially prejudiced or racist statement without being a racist. To me, you need to show a pattern to say someone is a racist.
Comment by EJ D on 12/9 @ 9:06 pm #
I have a caveat to your theory, and here’s an example.
Someone can say something, oh I don’t know, like ’several kilometers down the Earth is a couple million degrees.’ Now, the speaker intended for that to be an intelligent, accurate statement with which to inform the public. I, on the other hand, completely ignore his intention and claim that the statement means the author is just plain stupid.
How does that square?
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/9 @ 9:09 pm #
Oh damn. Cynn, read what Jeff said. My phone didn’t refresh.
Comment by BumperStickerist on 12/9 @ 9:10 pm #
quick question – is there a CACC defense against a cock-slap?
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:10 pm #
EJ D,
Good one! I bet that someone also invented the internet.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:11 pm #
How?
And remember, “most people understand” / believe is not an answer.
A person has to be at least somewhat racist to utter something racist that isn’t irony or parody. Are you saying that we need to keep a tally on the number of racist remarks in order to determine acceptable/unacceptable degrees of racism?
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/9 @ 9:15 pm #
hey Porkys is on Faux Movie Channel. I’m off for a bit.
Comment by EJ D on 12/9 @ 9:17 pm #
I would actually make the counter-claim that anyone who uses the word cognoscenti in a sentence is a vain, obsessive loser.
But that’s just me.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:17 pm #
Well, for one thing, if you ignore intent, you could miss things like irony or parody. Which most likely means we’ll see you in Bruno II.
Other than that, I’m not sure how intending and being right or wrong in your assertions are being joined for the purposes of this discussion. Other than poorly, I mean.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:19 pm #
7 more RD gems lost to the ages.
The literati, they weep.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:22 pm #
JeffG,
People say and do cruel, racist, sexist, etc., things but that doesn’t prevent them from acknowledging that, changing their attitudes, and trying to do better.
Comment by EJ D on 12/9 @ 9:22 pm #
I think it was because my intention was parody :) But I guess I suck at it.
Comment by cranky-d on 12/9 @ 9:23 pm #
I’ve seen comment threads shrink with time rather than grow. It’s quite interesting.
Do keep commenting, Really Dumb.
Comment by literati on 12/9 @ 9:25 pm #
Some people have a sort of mental block where they think intentionalism is applied as “if they say X, it means X, regardless of clues, context, or cues”.
Which would be what, extreme literalism or something?
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 9:26 pm #
literati was me. Was going to make a “We don’t know any RD” joke.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 9:27 pm #
There, however, you pit a past intention in a given statement against a future intention in a modified stance independent of the past statement. So a change, but a change from something (racist) to something (not-so-racist), no?
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:28 pm #
Which means people are cruel, racist, and sexist. That they can change means that they can later be kind and inclusive. Presumably, they could be kind and inclusive prior to being cruel, racist, sexist, etc., as well. Which doesn’t mean that they what they said isn’t cruel, racist, sexist, etc. — and so therefore, they are cruel, racist, and sexist for saying them. It only means that they aren’t fated to remain such.
If what Pat wants to say is that RS McCain was racist then but may not be racist now, he’d be getting closer to a degree of intellectual honesty that his current argument lacks.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:28 pm #
Oops. Sdferr already has it covered.
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 9:29 pm #
Charles Johnson is focusing his jihad today at Hot Air, I am sure the RSM saga will be the follow up tomorrow, and Patterico played right into it. Hot Air is racist because it has racist commentators.
Comment by Molon Labe on 12/9 @ 9:29 pm #
This is rich. Patterico: “I am responsible for what I say. If you misread it that is your problem, not mine. I was very clear and it is not a distinction without a difference.”
OMFG.
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 9:29 pm #
I won’t bother with an LGF link.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:31 pm #
Clues, context, cues, etc., all serve to signal intent. Language isn’t language until marks are signified. The process of signification is intent.
One uses clues, context, cues, etc., to try to divine intent. That is the function of such things. It’s the artifice we surrounded language with to make communication available in the absence of the utterer / writer. But none of that changes that X means what X meant at the time of signification, and the person doing the signifying is either the sender or the receiver (or both). Appeals to the intent of the utterer are interpretation; appeals to your own intent is linguistic onanism.
Do try harder, RD.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:32 pm #
JeffG:
I’m not sure how to do blockquotes here, so I apologize if the formatting looks off.
I don’t know how to label someone a racist but I would do it very sparingly and I’d have to think about it more.
My first thought it that, because it is a harsh label, labeling someone a racist should only be applied when it’s apparent to a reasonable person. I’m tempted to fall back on the classic “I know it when I see it” but I admit that’s not satisfying. Nevertheless, I think there should definitely be a pattern — a history that persists — for someone to be labeled a racist. And I also think it should be a label a person can escape with changed behavior. I suspect that liberals would claim Senator Robert Byrd falls into that category.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 12/9 @ 9:35 pm #
The irony, it burns…
Comment by cynn on 12/9 @ 9:35 pm #
Jeff: So what you’re saying is we have to perpetually suspend belief until we can verify what some asshole is saying. Sorry, no sale.
Comment by RD on 12/9 @ 9:35 pm #
Listen: So what if the GOP is racist.
We all know it. It’s a given. The only reason it’s not acknowledged openly is some vestigial sense of this being generally Bad for Business in modern terms.
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 9:36 pm #
Intent! Patterico would have made a hell of a Catholic Bishop in the 16th Century. All RSM needs to do is seek an indulgence and everything will be made okay.
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 9:37 pm #
And that quote above is from Patterico.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:38 pm #
I’ve already thoroughly critiqued the “reasonable person” standard, DRJ, so I don’t want to do it again here just now. I’m happy to answer questions on the critique once you have them, however.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 9:38 pm #
Again, my bad. I posted under literati because I was about to make an RD joke but then changed my mind.
Was just saying that intentionalism doesn’t mean you believe lies or ignore other information. That would be something else and entirely weird, like extreme literalism.
Comment by Molon Labe on 12/9 @ 9:39 pm #
cynn: Clues, context, and cues are available immediately. Maybe you are just slow in the uptake?
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:39 pm #
Yeah. How terribly inconvenient to actually verify if someone is a racist before calling him one. Slows down teh Hate!
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:41 pm #
Ah. See? No one said interpretation was easy.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:41 pm #
I don’t think isolated instances of cruelty, racism or sexism defines someone as cruel, racist or sexist anymore than isolated instances of humor or charity makes a person a comedian or a philanthropist. However, I’m more willing to see that pattern in the latter instances than in the former.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 12/9 @ 9:44 pm #
DRJ
Sadly, the term has become so debased from overuse, it is practically meaningless.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 9:44 pm #
I’m beginning to get a distinctly “depends on what the meaning of is — is” feeling about these proceedings.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 9:46 pm #
Kinda relevant in a way, Jeff, I mucked up my name. Used one that sounded like one of RD’s lame comebacks given your joke.
Then, the “some people” sounds like it refers to you.
See, an example of an intentionalist paying attention to clues and context. So, no, it’s not extreme literalism, which, I think cynn still kinda thinks it is.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:46 pm #
I’m familiar with your essay, Jeff G, but thank you for refreshing my recollection. The reasonable man standard is so ingrained in law that it’s hard for me to set it aside, but I understand that you have a different perspective on words and meanings based on your profession. I think they both have value but I also agree this isn’t the time or place to rehash that topic.
Comment by Darleen on 12/9 @ 9:46 pm #
DRJ
I’m not going to speak for Jeff, he’s the one with the academic creds, I’m just going to come at it from someone who has lived long enough that my late grandparents were born at the beginning of 1900’s. Neither one had a racist bone in their body … indeed, their daughter (my mother) dated other races before she married my dad. But sometimes their language could be jarring to my ears because by the time of the 70’s what was considered “acceptable” or not had changed. I could interpret their statements as “racist” but I would be wrong because that was neither their intention nor, in the context of the era they came from such language was not considered racist.
I’m sure you are aware that in many locales Mark Twain is banned because the language in his books makes him a “racist”?
Comment by Spiny Norman on 12/9 @ 9:46 pm #
I’m getting a distinctly “depends on who RD is trying to pick a fight with” feeling…
Comment by Spiny Norman on 12/9 @ 9:47 pm #
Wow. Fast moving topic. My #57 was a response to sdferr’s #53…
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 9:49 pm #
I think most people understand that a person can make a racially prejudiced or racist statement without being a racist.
A racially prejudiced-sounding statement, you mean. In the sense that someone can be misunderstood.
For example, if you hear someone say, “Hey, n*gga! Get off my lawn,” that sounds racist.
But then you look and see that it’s one black man goofing on his black friend.
So it isn’t racist, even if it sounded like it.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 9:50 pm #
So DRJ, RSM was a racist when he wrote the statement defined as a racist statement, but he has changed and is not found a racist now because no particularly racist pattern in his current behavior is perceivable? Is that a fair reading of your stance?
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 9:51 pm #
I don’t mind the term of art “reasonable person” in a legal setting in the least. I still haven’t the slightest idea what it means towards interpretation though.
Why not use “the man on the Clapham omnibus”? It’d sound odd out of its realm, that’s why.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:54 pm #
It defines them as cruel, racist, and sexist / funny and giving in those instances. What it DOESN’T do is suggest that the humor or charity somehow stands outside them — that the act can be divorced from the person who committed it.
Comment by Darleen on 12/9 @ 9:54 pm #
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:41
DRJ
On this blog many times I’ve spoken of a moral “bank account”…. good deeds are deposits, etc.
When I was reading the original listserve conversation that RSM’s quote was snipped from, he spent much more time countering Wheeler’s separatist/supremacist assertions.
Pat made a showing of going after SEK for his assertions against Capt. Ed vis a vis “anything Ed writes IS race-baiting because it always attracts racists” (while ignoring that I and William Jacobson were labled racists in the same posts. Funny how that rolls, eh?) where Pat seems to understand that Ed’s intentions were/are not race-baiting due to the mere perception of some commenters.
Yet he has a different standard for himself in assessing RSM’s writings.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:54 pm #
sdferr: No.
Darleen: Good point, and I think it’s unfair to evaluate Twain’s writings based on modern notions of appropriate discourse. I would be open to that argument vis a vis Mr. McCain’s statement but, to my knowledge, he hasn’t made that argument.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 12/9 @ 9:55 pm #
Huckleberry Finn hasn’t been banned as much as myth would make it, but believe the new line of attack against it is not the use of a certain word, but that it is “condescending”.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 9:57 pm #
DRJ:
This isn’t about when it is appropriate to decide that someone is a racist.
This is about what you do with other people’s words.
Patterico has accused RSM of saying something racist, which, Pat’s protestations to the contrary, is the same as saying that RSM’s words sprang forth from a fountain of racism in RSM’s heart, at least at the time of the utterance.
Jeff’s beef with all of this (and mine, and that of most of the amino acids around here) is that the Left is Very Adept at willfully misinterpreting a conservative’s words as racist (regardless of intent) and then considering that misinterpretation as evidence of the utterer’s racism.
They do this in literary theory at the uni all day long. Both Jeff and I endured it until we couldn’t anymore and Got Out.
And if that kind of malarkey stayed at the uni, who would care? But now it’s a tool to bludgeon the Enemies Of Humanity(ies) in the public square, and conservatives let them get away with it.
That Patterico uses it too is distressing, to say the least, and he needs to stop.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 9:58 pm #
JeffG:
I agree that certain acts may be “cruel, racist, and sexist / funny and giving in those instances” but I’m not convinced a person’s character should be labeled based on isolated instances.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 9:59 pm #
Post has been updated.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 10:00 pm #
So what is your stance DRJ? That RSM can make a racist statement defined as such, and have no racist intent as he does so, thus being free of the charge of being himself a racist?
But what makes the statement racist then? Is there a special quality or meaning imbued in the words alone, a quality of which the utterer must be entirely unaware in order to remain free of any charge?
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:02 pm #
I think it’s unfair to evaluate Twain’s writings based on modern notions of appropriate discourse.
Unfair? It’s downright stupid.
The whole idea behind Huck Finn was to criticize contemporary attitudes about race by showing Jim as fully human, his lack of education and “refinement” notwithstanding.
If they now want to call Twain condescending, then What. Ever. Maybe he was, by today’s standards. But by Twain’s standards, most literary critics today are craven ignoramuses.
Sixes, pretty much.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:02 pm #
Who is labeling their character? What’s being labeled is their intent based on a fair intepretation of their actions / utterances.
If someone makes a racist statement, it is racist precisely because that’s how it was intended. Otherwise it’s not racist, because it was never meant as racist. And if someone made a racist statement, that person intended racism, and so is, it follows, racist — at least in that limited instance.
Comment by baxtrice on 12/9 @ 10:03 pm #
So if Patterico doesn’t think RSM is a racist, just the statement is racist, why out this on a blog? Why not just *email* him and ask if he meant it racially? The most despicable thing about this is the way Patterico went about this. It’s a page out of Chucky J’s book and it’s not nice.
Comment by ThomasD on 12/9 @ 10:03 pm #
I believe you, partially because I’m charitable. Therefore I believe you also to be charitable, even though I don’t agree with you.
I believe any time anyone says something humorous it makes them a comedian. I believe any time anyone attempts to say something funny it also makes them a comedian, just not a very successful one.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:05 pm #
Actually, it’s not sixes.
It’s a full baker’s dozen for Twain and negative 1 for the whole lot of today’s “intellectuals.”
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:06 pm #
Darleen #63,
I didn’t follow the SEK exchange much but had I seen you and Prof. Jacobson called racists, I would have defended you. You aren’t at all.
In addition, like you, the McCain-Wheeler dialogue struck me as McCain trying to rebut racism. Frankly, I expected Mr. McCain to respond that he framed his language in words that he thought his audience would accept without condemnation of their views — because condemning them would shut down the discussion. But he hasn’t said that.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 12/9 @ 10:11 pm #
Someone’s never hung out at a Union Hall.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:13 pm #
dicentra,
I don’t like it when conservatives disagree. I wish we wouldn’t do that but sometimes it happens and sometimes it’s even necessary and beneficial. I know there is a history between Jeff G and Patterico on topics like this and I don’t like that fact, but I learn something each time I read their posts and discussions.
So we’ve got that going for us.
Comment by cynn on 12/9 @ 10:14 pm #
Jeff 71: Who gets to make the determination that the intent was racist, sexist, incoherent, or just stupid? You? Or is it the after the fact claim of the uttering idiot. You really have nothing much to hang a hat on here.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:15 pm #
ThomasD,
You may be right about comedians, although even in that case I’m still a very bad one, but I just can’t call someone a racist for isolated statements.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 10:16 pm #
“But he hasn’t said that.”
DRJ, have you ever been in a circumstance where you were simply offended by the question and felt no need to answer it?
To take an extreme example, if you asked me whether or not I thought the Holocaust was a hoax, I wouldn’t answer your question. I’d call you a vulgarity. I could clear my name (sullied by the question alone) by answering but I’d think so little of you that I’d do nothing but insult you.
Silence means little but silence. You can’t determine if it’s silent contempt or silent guilt. You don’t have enough information to extrapolate based on silence so don’t pretend that variations of “he could simply answer my question” means anything but badgering on the questioners part.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:17 pm #
I don’t like it when conservatives disagree.
It’s not that they disagree. We MUST disagree on some things or else half of us are redundant.
You’re bothered by “friendly fire,” is what, and that can be pretty nasty sometimes, especially when you don’t want to choose sides because you like both parties.
But we really can’t be afraid to squabble amongst ourselves, even vigorously, or we don’t get the kinks worked out or certain stances and issues clarified. There’s no reason fort the starboard side of the blogosphere to be utterly united in order for us to go after the Real Enemy.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:18 pm #
Jeff G:
I think calling someone a racist is a slur on their character in today’s world.
By the way, isn’t a “fair interpretation” very similar to the reasonable man standard?
Comment by mcgruder on 12/9 @ 10:18 pm #
Proving racism to the reasonable doubt standard is pretty impossible.
RSM seems pretty damn smart and has written some pretty damn ugly stuff….in the past.
he may have grown up, he may not have, but he also, as darleen says, done some stand-up things, like debating the ass-clown Wheeler and defeating him.
RSM is just a guy whose opinions I’ll avoid.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:19 pm #
dicentra,
Heh. I thought I was the one arguing that while I don’t always like it, sometimes we need to disagree. So I guess we agree, but if you want we can agree to disagree.
Comment by Lazarus Long on 12/9 @ 10:20 pm #
“But by Twain’s standards, most literary critics today are craven ignoramuses.”
Again with the Robert A. Heinlein: he once described “critics” as “people who can’t understand a simple English declarative sentence.”
Smart man, RAH.
Comment by cynn on 12/9 @ 10:20 pm #
bh, you are an officious, slimy fuckface for that greasy response. Ugh.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:22 pm #
sdferr #69,
I think people make cruel, racist, sexist, etc., comments but that doesn’t make them cruel, racist, sexist, etc., absent a pattern.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 10:23 pm #
“bh, you are an officious, slimy fuckface for that greasy response. Ugh.”
That’s not nice, cynn. On my part, I think you’re just confused.
Comment by Lazarus Long on 12/9 @ 10:23 pm #
Comment by RD on 12/9 @ 10:20 pm #
Don’t read much, do you?
So you really are an ignorant fuck.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 10:24 pm #
Are you communicating something cynn, or at least in your own estimation trying to do so? What would that communication be other than yours to determine as you choose? And all that, one may reasonably assume, in the hope that your intent is understood by your intended recipient? In the alternative, what? We wouldn’t suppose you write with the intent not to communicate at all, would we? Or write with the intent to miscommunicate? Though a dedicated absurdist might take such a stance (briefly) I suppose, babbling to no purpose but to have no purpose.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:26 pm #
Who gets to make the determination that the intent was racist, sexist, incoherent, or just stupid?
See how you’re making it a question of power? That’s what the “who gets to” question is always about.
The intent is the intent. Either you figure out what it is or you don’t. But it’s an act of malice to decide that your interpretation of someone’s words can be used as evidence of what a person IS. That you can pounce on some bad-sounding statement, isolate it, and then use it as evidence of bad faith on the part of the speaker.
We’ve seen people called horrible things because they mentioned two terms that sound bad (when put together) in the same paragraph. Even if it’s clear from the context (and from clearly stated disclaimers) that the intent is NOT “X,” they insist that because they can rearrange the words to spell “X,” the person is guilty (cf. Bill Bennett).
Remember that scene in M*A*S*H when Col. Flagg said “Reader’s Digest” was a commie rag because you could eliminate the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh letters and get “Red Digest”?
That’s the kind of crap we’re talking about: willful (or uncharitable) misreadings of other people’s words and being satisfied that the conclusion is as good as true.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 10:26 pm #
But DRJ, still, what makes the statement, as opposed to the utterer, a racist statement? I take your meaning that you don’t want to label some innocent person with an odious label on little evidence, and that is fine. Yet return to labeling a statement while at the same time denying any agency in its production, if you will?
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:26 pm #
In the sense that I do the decoding, sure. Of course, in instances where my interpretation is disputed, I’d have to make the case for why my interpretation is best. In some instances this is more revealing than in others. For example, if we are both interpreting the instruction manual for an espresso machine, and I’m able to make espresso while you wind up awash in hot foam, the chances are good that I more correctly divined the intent of the writer of the manual. With cases like the one we’ve been talking about today, being assured of one’s interpretation is far more difficult.
But then, that’s not what we’re arguing about here.
Second order explanations of intent can perhaps shed light on intent, if you happen to trust the utterer. But there’s always the chance that person is either lying or isn’t able to articulate that original intent in the same way the original text does. That’s called the authorial fallacy. And no, I’m not pushing that as anything other than one of a vast array of potential clues, cues, indices, intertexts, intratexts, contexts, et al, that we use to try to re-construct original intent.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:28 pm #
bh:
Yes, and I respect that, but it’s my impression that Mr. MCain has written quite a bit on this topic. Nevertheless, I would accept it if he refused to discuss this because it is old news.
Similarly, at some point I’m going to stop reading here and go to bed. I probably won’t see any follow-up comments unless someone follows me over to Patterico’s and asks me to explain. But if you ask for clarification and I see it, I will try to answer the best I can.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:31 pm #
I think people make cruel, racist, sexist, etc., comments but that doesn’t make them cruel, racist, sexist, etc., absent a pattern.
You’ve been on the Internet HOW long? :D
The Left does not use that standard. If you make one racist-sounding comment ever (or if they fabricate a few and attribute them to you), they feel justified in publicly pillorying you.
Of course, nowadays, they’ll do it just if you show up to a Tea Party. The whole party could be non-white, and you could be coal-black, but they’d still bludgeon you to death as a racist.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:32 pm #
True. Which is why one shouldn’t be so quick to throw around the accusation. But we’re not talking about character. We’re talking about a person who made a statement. For that statement to be “racist,” the person making it must have intended it to be racist, else it’s not a racist statement, and we have no one to label a racist.
Not at all. The “reasonable man” standard is based on a formalist approach to language: the statement exists outside of the person who uttered it, and is “reasonably” interpreted when it can be shown to mean something that a group of people believe it could reasonably mean, regardless of what the utterer intended. It is not an interpretation at all, in fact, unless it appeals to what the utterer intended.
A fair interpretation does just that: it appeals to what it believes the utterer’s intent to be, and uses the clues provide by text and context to try to reconstruct that intent.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 10:32 pm #
Thanks for the reply, DRJ. Hail fellow well met and good night.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 10:36 pm #
“That’s called the authorial fallacy.”
Jeff, is that the proper term for what I’ve been groping at with extreme literalism?
Extreme literalism sounds like something on ESPN I don’t want to watch so I’d like to ditch it.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:37 pm #
All it means is that an author can lie or misremember.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:38 pm #
sdferr #93:
I suppose we each make that determination for ourselves. Basing an opinion solely on the color of a person’s skin — as it seemed to me Mr. McCain’s statement did — is IMO an example of racial prejudice. But doing this once or twice in a year, a decade or a lifetime simply doesn’t make that person a racist in my book.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:39 pm #
The “reasonable man” is used in court to determine whether someone incited violence or something similar. It has nothing to do with determining what someone actually meant, because the focus in court is the effect on the listener, not the intent of the speaker.
If you’re trying to divine intent in a criminal act, the court looks at much more than “I’m gonna kill him,” see. And even then the court is determining the intent behind an action, not an utterance.
Which is prolly why Pat has such a hard time of it: The court never tries to figure out what someone’s words meant by appealing only to the utterer’s intent. They have to make a ruling, and the ruling is not based on the same criteria you use to interpret a poem.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:40 pm #
I suppose we each make that determination for ourselves.
Jeff is asking whether you can say that RSM said something racist, and that’s different from saying that he is racist, as Pat claims.
Jeff asserts that you can’t split that hair. Jeff is right.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 10:41 pm #
Ok, thanks DRJ.
Comment by cynn on 12/9 @ 10:43 pm #
Jeff, you’re trying to scrub the language. But it won’t work.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:43 pm #
Because Pat is saying: “LOOK AT THIS RACIST THING RSM SAID!”
And then when people assert that Pat called RSM a racist, Pat says he did no such thing.
Is that even possible?
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 10:44 pm #
Jeff, you’re trying to scrub the language.
Hardly. But you aren’t thinking at the same level as Jeff is. Until you get what he’s saying, you can’t argue back very effectively.
Comment by Dennis D on 12/9 @ 10:44 pm #
I experienced similar treatment at REDSTATE a few months back. Redstate was bashing Boxer for her questioning of Black Chamber of Commerce President Alford. I will never defend a racist organization such as the Black Chamber and said they limit membership according to skin color. Moe Lane then produced their rules which of course mention no such discrimination ( Even though we know it exists). Moe demanded I retract. I asked him to produce one white member of the Chamber. He banned me from Redstate.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:45 pm #
How am I trying to scrub the language, cynn? In fact, I’m doing just the opposite. Next time I dig in my garden, I can call my spade a spade — and there’s not a damned thing you can do to take it away from me.
And if my spade happens to be as articulate as, say, my oatmeal, I’ll say that, as well.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 10:46 pm #
Having seen the intentionalism argument go around a few times, the same initial mistakes seem to be made each time. Intentionalism is wrong because: the speaker could be lying, the speaker might be unintentionally wrong, the speaker might speak nonsense, and on and on.
Trying to come up with a quick term for what people seem to think intentionalism means when they come up with those objections. Okay. I’m sticking with extreme literalism.
Comment by Dennis D on 12/9 @ 10:46 pm #
Thinking one race is superior to others is racist. Wanting your grandkids to have red hair and freckles just like you have is a preference.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 10:51 pm #
Patterico’s latest, from over at Little Miss Attila’s site:
Surely. Then why keep asking RS McCain to answer for it?
If you believed it a racist statement, but you don’t believe RS McCain a racist now, why the fuss? Why the several posts? Why this purported effort to find the “truth,” to “scrutinize” something you no longer believe extant? Why the “direct questions” to RS McCain about a racist past if you believe people can change, and that they shouldn’t be judged on their one statement from 1996?
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:52 pm #
JeffG,
That makes a lot of sense but some see the objective ‘reasonable man standard’ as a valuable curb on the arbitrariness of subjective decision-making, especially when it comes to judicial decision-making. In other words, it’s not an ‘either-or’ situation, it’s a blend.
Comment by DRJ on 12/9 @ 10:54 pm #
Thank you, bh, and good night to our host Jeff G and his commenters. I appreciate the discussion.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 10:56 pm #
“The jural rudiments of the reasonable person can be traced to the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, and theology”
Hee-ha-haw. No squabbling disagreements in those three disciplines, no sir.
Comment by RD on 12/9 @ 10:56 pm #
Is scrubbing posts from trolls who use IP proxies and a host of user names the same as “scrubbing language”?
No, I guess not. Which is too bad, because I had a bitchin’ little bon mot to throw out were that the case.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 11:00 pm #
The New Critics thought they were democratizing interpretation. Thing is, interpretation is and should be an exercise in totalitarianism. One can reach a happy consensus and still be wrong. The law forgiving that wrongness doesn’t make it any less wrong.
Comment by bour3 on 12/9 @ 11:00 pm #
We’ve seen several incidents recently that are similar to this case that convince me the person making the charge of racism is actually the person with the interpretative problem so resolute that no amount of clarifying communication could possible penetrate much less correct. And further, the problem with racism resides in the person making the interpretation and not with the original intent.
An English cartoonist depicts George Bush as a monkey in a suit, with monkey ears with bowed chimpanzee legs descending the flight steps of AF1 and the speech balloon read “Is this Yurp? Are these Yurpeans?” Europeans award the cartoon Cartoon of the Year.
A year later a hapless American cartoonist depicts Obama as a monkey in a suit with monkey ears and is immediately condemned as racist — racist cartoon = racist cartoonist, because in the cartoon interpreting mind black man + monkey = racism, and nothing, absolutely NOTHING in the language of satire will ever convince them otherwise. In so doing expose themselves as the people with the problem of racism, seeing it everywhere, seeing it where it’s not intended, seeing it where it doesn’t exist except for in their own minds.
Later an early photo, not a Photoshop, an actual yearbook photo, unflattering but nonetheless real is condemned as racist simply for being dug out and posted. I’ve seen the photo and it’s actually not that bad. But racist nonetheless because it comes up early on image search (or it did) and that connotes racism — in the minds of the interpreters of racist intent who themselves are the ones with the problem of race and project it onto everyone around them.
Later Joy Behar suggests calling black Friday black is racist because her comedic-trained mined does not embrace black=profit red=loss, oh no, in her mind the only interpretation for black is negative therefore any phrase with black in it is also negative and therefore RACIST!!!!¡¡¡¡¡111one, and there’ll be no telling her otherwise. No degree of cogent persuasion will convince her otherwise. And because it’s negative and it’s proven to be racist, it’s automatically Republican, for Christ’ssake, it’s axiomatic!
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 11:02 pm #
Hawthorne addressed the subject of redeeming a past sin. So RSM gets to play Hester Prynne and Patterico does a pretty good job as Arthur Dimmesdale or maybe Roger Chillingworth.
Who would have guessed Southern California to be so puritanical?
Comment by Robert Stacy McCain on 12/9 @ 11:09 pm #
Jeff, it’s like when Holly Sampson calls Tiger Woods a “black boy.”
You have to judge the words by the action, you see?
Er . . . NTTAWWT, I hasten to add!
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 11:11 pm #
Holy shit, talk about playing with your little [Charles] Johnson:
Patterico’s job is the clear out the competition. Whatever it takes to do so!
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 11:18 pm #
Funny. Patterico didn’t seem to embrace that stance when I called him out for HIS bad argument, did he?
And that one wasn’t even a decade and a half old, and uttered in an entirely different context!
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 11:22 pm #
Translation: Somebody had to stand up and demand an account of what was in RSM’s heart 14 years ago. Otherwise…
…Uh, let me get back to you on that one, if you don’t mind.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 11:23 pm #
I’m sticking with extreme literalism.
Try extreme narcissism. “If it sounds racist to me, then it’s racist!”
Or extreme thickitude.
some see the objective ‘reasonable man standard’ as a valuable curb on the arbitrariness of subjective decision-making
Pat’s blog is a court of law? Who knew?
We’re leaving that whole paradigm aside, DRJ. It’s hard, I know, but we’re talking about where the locus of meaning actually resides, and it resides in the intent of the utterer.
Example:
Say I don’t speak a word of English, and I’m in a movie theater with a bunch of people who do. I see something funny on-screen, so I yell out what means “hey, that’s pretty funny” in my language but that sounds exactly like “fire!”
Several are trampled in the ensuing stampede.
What did “fire!” mean? Did it mean that there was a fire in the theater and I was loudly identifying it?
No, but everyone else thought so. It was reasonable for them to think so. But they were all wrong. Tragically wrong, but wrong nonetheless. “Fire!” meant “that was damn funny.”
As for “scrubbing the language,” that’s when you decide ordinary English words have a private meaning all to yourself, which makes the words useless as a means to communicate.
That’s not what Jeff’s doing.
Comment by dicentra on 12/9 @ 11:27 pm #
To which I respond, sure, but then why keep asking RS McCain to answer for an old piece written in a completely different context for a different audience nearly 14-years ago?
As a way of countering Charles Johnson’s accusation that RSM is a white supremacist?
Well, OK. But maybe Pat could have done his investigation off-line first, then reported back.
Comment by sdferr on 12/9 @ 11:32 pm #
That’s another of the great things about leftists: they just know all things about all people. When your time is better spent changing a tire or brushing your teeth, say. Just ask them, they know stuff, important stuff and aren’t the least shy about telling it.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/9 @ 11:38 pm #
Why? He’s just made the argument that a single piece doesn’t make one a racist, and that he doesn’t believe RS McCain to be a racist now.
So by that logic, there’s no reason to pursue the matter at all. Or is he now going to argue that he was pursuing this in order to aid RS McCain?
Because I’m sure Stacy will want to thank him personally.
Comment by bh on 12/9 @ 11:38 pm #
I like the movie theater example as a counter for the reasonable man argument.
Comment by Joe on 12/9 @ 11:44 pm #
Meanwhile Charles Johnson and his flock of flying henchbitches are all over Hot Air at the momement, decrying their commentators as racists, but I suspect it will be RSM on the menu tomorrow. Then Ace for not cleaning ship good enough for Charles Johnson’s liking.
Thank you Patterico for promoting conservative principals! You are one of the good ones.
Comment by Wm T Sherman on 12/9 @ 11:44 pm #
A man in the D.C. city government got forced to resign (i.e. fired) for using the word “niggardly” correctly in a discussion about the city budget. In a small city in Texas an uproar broke out at a city council meeting over the use of the term “black hole” in a discussion about, again, a budget. Pea-brain Joy Behar flagellated her white self over the racist implications of the term “Black Friday.”
None of these terms have accepted racial meanings, none of them were uttered with racial intent, but the uproar ensued anyway, based on what ignorant people imagined was being said, not what was actually meant according to any “reasonable interpretation.”
Another thing – as has been noted many times, campus speech codes are for the most part fatally flawed, because they are generally based on how words make people feel, and not on anything observable. Or, more accurately, how somebody claims some words made them feel.
Have you noticed that the overall effect of this institutionalized hypersensitivity is that it dumbs everything way down? It rewards stupidity, rewards dishonesty, and punishes honesty. You can actually be stupid enough to be the intended beneficiary, or play at stupid to game the system, or just keep your head down, or call it out for what it is and become the designated villain that the system craves.
Comment by psycho... on 12/9 @ 11:54 pm #
I was reading on the toilet just now.
In David Foster Wallace’s telling (“David Lynch Keeps His Head”), in the movie Wild At Heart, Sailor says his snakeskin jacket is “‘a symbol of my belief in freedom and individual choice.’” In the movie Wild At Heart, Sailor says his snakeskin jacket is “a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.”
Errors are unintended (unless they aren’t). But they don’t not signify.
“David Foster Wallace’s editors are incompetent.”
“David Foster Wallace is bad at remembering things, and/or his editors are incompetent.”
“David Foster Wallace is bad at remembering things and thinks he’s too awesome to check things, and/or his editors are incompetent.”
“David Foster Wallace, as a person very unlike Sailor, is bad at remembering things that are said in an alien voice like Sailor’s, and/or his editors are incompetent.”
“David Foster Wallace, as the kind of sheltered MFA dweeb in whom mindless shibboleths like ‘individual choice’ have displaced U-S-A! gaucheries like ‘personal freedom,’ occults in memory things that are said in voices other than those of sheltered MFA dweebs with his own internal stream of mindless shibboleths, and/or his editors are incompetent.”
“David Foster Wallace, as a crazy person, doesn’t really hear things that are said in voices outside his head, so he can’t very well remember them right, can he? and/or his editors are incompetent.”
Etc.
Wallace’s being dead makes him no less able than he would be if he were right here right now to answer inquiries into, or even to understand–says Freud, still, dead–what his error signified. People just can’t know how their own minds work when they’re fucking up. Another repression will step in to save the faltering one, or they’ll just deny they ever said what the page says they said. There’s no point asking, unless you’re Freud.
So, absent an intending utterer to quiz, I’ll pick a reading from whatever possibilities I can contrive based on what kind of person I think the writer is and what kind of person I am and what I’m doing and to whom I’m trying to do it and for whose approval I’m doing that.
Etc.
I have some undying beefs with that corpse, so I’ll pick a reading that makes him sound like a dead asshole. But for some unsaid-by-me reasons, I can’t go full “dead asshole” on him, so I’ll contrive a frame for the “dead asshole” business that “ironizes it out of existence,” as Wallace would say–even though it’s still there, workin’. This frame, for example.
I didn’t say anyone was an asshole.
Comment by ThomasD on 12/10 @ 12:05 am #
I didn’t say anyone was an asshole.
No, you did not. And why ever would you?
Comment by Americaneocon on 12/10 @ 12:09 am #
American Power tracked-back with, ‘Patrick Frey Attempts Walk-Back of Racist Insinuations Against Robert Stacy McCain’.
Comment by bh on 12/10 @ 12:11 am #
Pynchon – banana, Wallace – strawberry, and DeLillo – ?
I’m going with cumquat. Just a hunch.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/10 @ 12:27 am #
Brautigan is the cumquat. Robbins is the beet.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/10 @ 12:30 am #
I was gonna watch Third Man. But Nic Cage singing Elvis in Wild At Heart may prove too damn irresistible to pass up.
As for DFW, I used to teach Girl w/ Curious Hair (and Others). He was a passing phase. I now use Cryptonomicon as my bridge from Eco to Pynchon.
Comment by Joe on 12/10 @ 12:39 am #
Doubt is on. Meryl Streep’s character is Patterico made flesh.
Comment by bh on 12/10 @ 12:52 am #
Always some damn wacky juxtapositions to be found here.
Time to drink myself to sleep with some breafast scotch. Damn you, RD, what with your brutal cutting to the quick and all.
Comment by geoffb on 12/10 @ 12:55 am #
Goodnight bh. Sleep well.
Comment by bh on 12/10 @ 12:58 am #
Night, Geoff.
Comment by Irony on 12/10 @ 12:59 am #
Night, RD.
Comment by Adriane on 12/10 @ 1:06 am #
Good Night, John Male Child …
Comment by Jack on 12/10 @ 1:10 am #
It isn’t racist if it is true.
Obama’s teleprompter is clean and articulate.
Comment by geoffb on 12/10 @ 1:18 am #
“Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.”
Comment by Darleen on 12/10 @ 1:41 am #
oh for pity’s sake…latest from Pat
Comment by Adjoran on 12/10 @ 1:43 am #
All the philosophical musings over hypotheticals is quite edifying – no, really! – but we ought to remember we aren’t dealing with hypotheticals here: it is a specific quote, a specific case with its own set of facts. We need not construct a paradigm for interpreting all statements of all people in all circumstances in order to understand what’s going on here.
When most people use the “context” defense, they merely practice damage control. But sometimes statements are indeed taken completely out of context, which must be considered to comprehend them clearly.
What occurred here was an argument on an old-style bulletin board regarding the future of an organization of Southern conservatives. McCain was arguing against the “racist” guy’s attempts to set priorities and positions for the group, in effect taking it over. In the course of the argument, one of McCain’s points was to the effect that not every ethnic sentiment among people is properly called “racist” and he gave an example which has been “Exhibit A” against him.
McCain was not arguing those sentiments were right or just, and he did not advocate for them, just said they could be understood. If he phrased it before the few dozen people on that board at the time in a way which might be misconstrued by a mass internet audience fed by the destruction of reputations, he had very poor foresight. If he was wrong, disagree.
But DO NOT DARE to take the words, assign to them your own interpretation as if they were painted on a billboard by themselves, pass such an emotionally-charged verdict as “racist” upon them, and then pretend you are not imputing those sentiments to the author and impugning him for holding them. That is simply dishonest.
Do not put Patterico in the “Charles Johnson” wing of the asylum just yet, though. He certainly has his limitations, as do we all, but they do not approach psychoses yet.
Comment by geoffb on 12/10 @ 2:33 am #
Is there some New, New Age therapy going round in LA?
I’m okay
Of you I’ll say
You might be a racist
Any old way
Comment by Carin on 12/10 @ 2:38 am #
As for DFW, I used to teach Girl w/ Curious Hair (and Others). He was a passing phase. I now use Cryptonomicon as my bridge from Eco to Pynchon.
I just picked up Snow Crash. Can I use that as a bridge to Cryptonomicon?
I don’t know if I’ll ever (be able to) tackle Pynchon.
Comment by Patrick Chester on 12/10 @ 3:03 am #
Jeff G wrote:
The fact of the matter is, I was banned from Patterico’s site for allegedly making a “death threat”. Only, the “death threat” involved the lyching of me. For which I offered to bring the rope.
– Which, I suppose, means I made a death threat against myself.
A Sheriff Bart taking himself hostage sort of thing?
Comment by BumperStickerist on 12/10 @ 5:36 am #
fwiw, and it may not be much, if anything — these sorts of exercises remind me of this quote:
U.S. Colonel to North Vietnamese Colonel after the [Vietnam] War:
“You know, we never lost a battle.”
The North Vietnamese Colonel thought a moment, then replied:
“That is true. It is also irrelevant.”
[cite" Colonel Harry Summers, ‘On Strategy’]
A case in point;
Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is, in my opinion, one of the greatest affirmations of the greatness of America … all textual analyses to the contrary may be true, but irrelevant.
.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/10 @ 6:45 am #
Anyone else wake up this morning and look for the post titled “Why is Jeff defending this racist statement?”. It’s out there somewhere…
Comment by Mr. W on 12/10 @ 7:11 am #
update 2: In the comments at Joy’s place, Patterico couches his argument thusly:
What I have said is that I do not believe that a single racist sentiment brands one as a racist for all time.
Democratic Sentator, Robert ‘Grand Kleagle’ Byrd will be so relieved to hear that.
Comment by Dr Carlo Lombardi on 12/10 @ 7:55 am #
“Basing an opinion solely on the color of a person’s skin — as it seemed to me Mr. McCain’s statement did — is IMO an example of racial prejudice. But doing this once or twice in a year, a decade or a lifetime simply doesn’t make that person a racist in my book.”
If you’re making ‘racist’ statements “once or twice in a year, a decade” it indicates a continuing, omni-present thought process of latent , but occasionally expressed racism.
One doesn’t make infrequent ‘drive
by’ racist statements without being pre-disposed toward those beliefs.
If you’re accusing some one of making rare , infrequent yet racist statements, you are still calling them a racist.
Comment by Pablo on 12/10 @ 8:15 am #
No, you offered to bring the tree. LIAR!!!
You outlaws just can’t be trusted.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 12/10 @ 8:21 am #
Sure. But realize that Snow Crash was still Stephenson dipping his foot into fiction. Cryptonomicon is a monolith. One that you shouldn’t have trouble following, but it’s pretty amazing/ridiculous how much is sewn into that book. But it itself is more of a warmup for The Baroque Cycle.
Cryptonomicon is still my favorite. Stephenson writes like my younger brother would write, if my brother were curious about pretty much everything. The passage describing the Galvanick Lucifer is one of my favorites.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/10 @ 8:26 am #
Oh, that’s right. I offered to bring the tree.
My bad.
Meanwhile, that latest update from Frey? Scary. “Oh, I haven’t yet decided, after my several days of putting on a public trial addressing the question, whether or not McCain is racist. I’ll let you all know when I figure it out. Meantime, enjoy the intimation!”
Comment by Joe on 12/10 @ 8:38 am #
The latest from Patterico: “Nor have I said that I believe [McCain] is not a racist. I just don’t know.”
Does he do this sort of shit as a District Attorney?
Comment by Matt on 12/10 @ 8:57 am #
I’ve said this before but the word racist has been used primarily by the left to replace “prejudice” which is a much more accurate description of what RSM may be expressing. Racism, to me, is simply a hatred of someone due to their race. Prejudice is a lesser feeling- possibly “dislike” and is much more limited than racism. I can be prejudice against someone because of their skin color and demeanor – for example, I cross the street to avoid a black gang banger but I’m not avoiding that person simply because he’s black. The converse example, a racist would avoid a black man dressed in a business suit on the street, simply because the racist cannot stand black individuals.
What the left has done is turned normal prejudice, which I think most people have some degree of (not necessarily only towards racial classes either, one can be prejudiced against rednecks or liberals or what have you) into racism, so everyone with a prejudice that can be tracked back to color of skin or nationality means you hate translates into racism, meaning you hate everyone of that particular nationality or skin color.
Comment by Smarty on 12/10 @ 9:04 am #
Dude, seriously, Patterico is a lawyer, they have 47 ways to lie, but conveniently for them, they also have 47 variations on the word “lie”. They play word games for a living, and winning the game becomes more important to them than the truth.
The left loves it when people at least to the right of Joe Leiberman start gathering up into circular firing squads over racism and the like. Less work for them if folks like RSM and Peckerico squabble or try to each out prove how non-racist they are. It is all part of the game, and the right loses just by playing it.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/10 @ 9:11 am #
Lesee “RSM – vile hate-filled spewer of vile racist hate? Or just a simple white person wrestling with his inner vile, hate-filled racist, who said something once that sounds like something a vile, hate-filled spewer of racist hate would have said? Discuss.”
Comment by John Bradley on 12/10 @ 9:11 am #
Does he do this sort of shit as a District Attorney?
Don’t know – but it’s a fine old lawyerin’ technique:
“The accused is a low-down father-raping son-of-a-bitch!”
“Objection!”
“Sustained. The jury with disregard that comment.”
But of course the jury won’t really disregard the comment. I thing heard can’t be un-heard, after all. And in this particular case, all the good people now know that RSM is a nasty racist-man, even if P. has had to walk back the accusation because he can’t prove it.
Point scored.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/10 @ 9:14 am #
Does he do this sort of shit as a District Attorney?
I don’t know, but based on some of the things I see posted here, that he may or may not have said…well,
I’d leave that up to the Jury to decide…
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 12/10 @ 9:15 am #
Sorry mr bradley beat me to it.
Pingback by The Recent Unpleasantness (and happyfeet) on 12/10 @ 9:38 am #
[...] has a cogent analysis of the dialogical dynamics here, and revisits the linguistic issues here. Attila and Mike also weigh in on Stacy’s [...]
Comment by Joe on 12/10 @ 9:38 am #
I am not sure RSM scrubbed those posts or not. The Other McCain site is pretty slow on posting because RSM does it when he gets a chance to check moderation. Basically you get posted unless you make fun of Mrs. McCain or use abusive language.
Funny how Patterico is so thin skinned about posting comments?
Comment by Squid on 12/10 @ 9:58 am #
Judge: Mr. Frey, are you ready to give your summation?
P-co: [stepping out] It’s just “Pat”, your Honor.. and, yes, I’m ready. [approaches the jury box] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes when I fly to Europe on the Concorde, I wonder, am I inside some sort of giant bird? Am I gonna be digested? I don’t know, because I’m a caveman, and that’s the way I think! When I’m courtside at a Knicks game, I wonder if the ball is some sort of food they’re fighting over. When I see my image on the security camera at the country club, I wonder, are they stealing my soul? I get so upset, I hop out of my Range Rover, and run across the fairway to to the clubhouse, where I get Carlos to make me one of those martinis he’s so famous for, to soothe my primitive caveman brain. But whatever world you’re from, I do know one thing – back in the 90s, on at least one occasion, the accused — did I say accused? I meant “the subject of our investigation” — said something that might be construed as racist, in the middle of a long conversation that was anything but. And, for that reason, I ask that you find him…maybe racist. Thank you.
Comment by ThomasD on 12/10 @ 10:15 am #
Squid, that was poetry.
Well, no not really. I’m fairly certain it was ridicule.
And that’s ok by me.
Comment by Squid on 12/10 @ 10:53 am #
I miss Phil Hartman. A lot of people say he was overrated, but I disagree. I’m not saying that those people are racist, mind you. Or not. I don’t know. I’m just an unfrozen caveman lawyer.
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/10 @ 11:03 am #
Heh.
Comment by Naftali on 12/10 @ 2:45 pm #
I care for the ideas couched in this current event, but not about the event itself or about the principals. I also care about Mr. Goldstein’s writing.
One side: uttering a racist comment does necessarily indicate that the utterer is (a?) racist.
One side: a racist comment requires a racist intent, which requires that the utterer be racist.
Inquiry: What do I mean when I say someone is (a?) racist?
I think reasonable people can disagree on the answer to this question.
That the Label is so broad and undefined is among the reasons for its condemnatory power: A person who holds all men equal before G-d and with respect to G-d’s laws governing men but holds black skin to be uglier than white skin, for instance, can be lumped in to the same ideological category with someone who holds black people to be despised by G-d and destined for eternal subservience but protected by G-d’s laws governing men, who in turn can be lumped in with one who holds that black people can and should be enslaved whenever possible. It depends on how the term is defined, and one who uses the label is rarely if ever asked to clarify what he means by the term.
Comment by Naftali on 12/10 @ 3:06 pm #
To be clear, I do agree that in today’s interpretive environment, calling a comment racist is in effect, at least, calling its utterer racist.
And the second paragraph in my comment above should read, “One side: uttering a racist comment does [not] necessarily indicate that the utterer is (a?) racist.”
Comment by bastiches on 12/10 @ 3:25 pm #
Is there an election for Chief Magistrate of Internet Racism? Or is it self-appointed?
Sure sounds like a sweet gig whatever the case. You don’t really have to prove anything.
“Hey, I was merely asking my peanut gallery about the murderous glint in your eyes. I wasn’t actually calling you a murderer.”
I wonder what the pay is like … other than the satisfaction of purifying my ’side.’
Comment by Christoph on 12/10 @ 4:47 pm #
I’ve never found RS McCain was one of my favourite conservative bloggers at all so maybe I was predisposed to be critical. Mind you, I’m just talking about what I often perceived to be the hysterical and shallow nature of his hyped-up analysis, not anything on an ethical level.
What that opinion out of the way…
I agree that what McCain said why back then was racist. It certainly qualifies in my books, as a person who is staying in Australia at the home of a woman I am best friends with and was recently in a 6-year long interracial relationship with.
It also appears that way from my shoes as a person who would not be alive today, typing these words, and enjoying the excitement of the pending date with a new and lovely woman I just set up… if it weren’t for interracial relationships.
I would not exist. (Neither would my best friend. Nor her brothers and sisters.)
Come to think of it, I don’t know the racial history of said new woman. She (and her 1-year old daughter) possibly wouldn’t exist either.
So I’m beyond less than sympathetic, I am indeed quite critical of RS McCain, and justly so.
That said, Patterico is doing his usual thing where he (justly) stirs up a bunch of shit, then when it has actual, hard-hitting consequences against the other person, he throws his hands up in the air and tries to minimize his role in it.
Because I don’t want to increase the (just) price he’s already payed, I won’t mention the individual name, but there was that reporter who “sock puppetted” on Patterico’s site years back. Patterico proved this and got the man fired from his paper where he’d previously enjoyed status, awards, and an established career.
This was entirely predictable as — selectively or not — the paper was following its stated written policies in firing this reporter.
But could Patterico just say, “Hey, he deserved that,” and leave it at something NEAR that.
No. He had to go on and on about how he thought the man shouldn’t have been fired and he never wanted him to be.
What holier than thou rubbish.
That man deserved to be fired, McCain’s past statements were awful, and Patterico isn’t holier than thou, he just acts like you and I and most importantly himself should think he is.
Comment by Christoph on 12/10 @ 4:48 pm #
*… what McCain said way back
Comment by Jeff G. on 12/10 @ 5:19 pm #
Christoph –
Before reaching conclusions, you should read this, from McCain, which specifically addresses the 1996 statement in question.
Comment by Christoph on 12/10 @ 5:40 pm #
I’m going to tell a personal story about race that may help in some way to mitigate what McCain said.
I despise racism. It, alongside abortion, are things which passionately motivate me, as Patterico himself could attest, often to his annoyance for while he more or less shares my views, he thinks I am far too uncompromising in how I express them.
Yet when I was a minor I bought into the naive notion that while abortion may be wrong, I as a man should have no voice in whether it was legal or not as I had no right to tell a woman what to do. Even though the full sentence should be, “I had no write to tell a woman what to do to a child,” where I most definitely have a right and an obligation, indeed a duty to speak up.
On the relevant topic, when I was but a young child, here is how I expressed a “natural revulsion” in a way I am not proud of, and was not proud of before the Sun set.
I grew up in a city where at that time dark faces were rare.
I personally knew no black people.
I visited a friend one day who did have a black friend as it turned out. While perhaps I’d learned racist thoughts from some of my schoolmates, I don’t remember doing so so it would be disingenuous for me to blame them.
Instead, I felt a shameful feeling of disgust, said something nasty to this older, bigger boy, and ran home where I told my dad about it.
My dad beat me.
He hated violence. He always spanked me and my sister with the greatest of reluctance when admonished — correctly I’m sure — to do so by my mom.
Yet on that occasion, he was angry and disgusted by me and I got the biggest whooping of my childhood.
I think it was knowing how much my dad hated doing that, and how deeply I had disappointed him, that, more than the passing physical pain, caused me to instantly set aside racism that day.
I’m glad he did. It’s 7:20 AM here in Western Australia and my best friend just sat down in front of me to write a card in preparation for a wedding we’re going to today. She has brown skin. Whereas her mom is white from England, dad has darker skin and his lineage will include African slaves (not those sent to America).
For 6 years the woman across fro me was my love and lover, the woman I thought I would marry.
And yet, without being taught that I’m aware of, my first reaction to a dark-skinner person was not commendable.
The sad truth is religious beliefs aside, we are mammals.
We’re animals.
Primates.
Related (as “cousins”, not descendants) to chimpanzees, themselves a sometimes warlike species that have been known to wipe out other chimpanzee groups in their entirety.
Bigotry may well be natural, and this may have been the point McCain was making.
I’m not completely convinced that that’s what he was saying, but I can see where the argument could be made, and perhaps I owe him the benefit of the doubt, despite not liking the quality of his writing as much as I do others.
Indeed as much as I do Patterico’s.
So my hypothesis based on my own experience is that racism may indeed have a major natural component, i.e., a sad, regrettable, and shameful “natural revulsion”.
We are a tribal species not just about skin colour, but about nation, creed, beliefs, even on many occasions, dress, jewellery, language accent and choice of vocabulary.
The Bible itself is complete with tails of Moses leading genocide against the Medianites, genocide (child rape and slavery) so brutal and effective it would have made Hitler ecstatic. Sadly, and while not a believer in the divine sourcing and inerrancy of the Bible, I think that has the ring of truth.
But I digress.
Fortunately more enlightened people have moved beyond that and taught us all, taught me personally, that this is wrong. DNA evidence backs up their beliefs… there is effectively no critical difference between races to justify racism.
My own experience backs up that belief too. The woman across from me is, in all candour, a better person than myself. My eyes water at would could have been, and I smile for the friendship that is.
So McCain may have been trying to express a point similar to mine. Where I would disagree with him is that I strongly feel my “natural revulsion” that I experienced on one occasion while about 7 years old WAS racist. It may or may not have been “natural”, but it was racist.
And I am grateful my father disabused me of that notion. The funny thing is he’s such a gentle man, when I remind him of what I believe is the best parenting he ever did, he regrets hitting me.
Last related thought…
My father at the time worked with troubled youth sent to something like a halfway house reform school. He became lifelong friends with 2 of them, one of whom is black.
By age 8 or 9 the black teenager (now out of the home and “going straight”, a change which lasted in his case) was a regular feature of my and my sister’s life, a friend of the family, and took us to fairs, video arcades, and so forth.
He was an incredibly nice person and is to this day a loving father and grandfather.
We called him “Fuzzy” due to his big afro.
Comment by Christoph on 12/10 @ 5:43 pm #
Jeff G., I hadn’t read your new comment before typing my last long comment. This morning, I will read the link you’ve given me. I’ll return to give you my opinion on it and thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Comment by Michael Adams on 12/10 @ 5:53 pm #
Well, I have read the “offending words.” Of course, they are not racist. Further, Mr. McCain is from the South, as am I. He is over ten years younger than I am, but he still would have memories of genuine racists, as do I. These silly discussions about, “Who’s a racist” look really stupid to most Southerners, Black and White. (Unless they are trying to tar someone with the racist brush for political reasons. E.G Jimmy Carter, claiming that opposition to Obamacare is motivated by a belief that a Black man should not be President.) McCain knows, as do I, that racism is the belief in the inferiority of an ethnic group. We were very carefully taught in school that that is nonsense. To say that we believe it anyway is to accuse of ignorance or stupidity, a bit like accusing someone of not being able to understand a simple declarative sentence. For us, it’s rarely a question of some kind of moral purity. Most of the South, again, Black and White, is Christian. Our varied sorts of sinfulness are part of our mental wallpaper. We very rarely even try to make an argument that we have some moral virtue, or lack some vice. It’s assumed that we do, and we feel a bit of vicarious embarrassment for people who try to argue otherwise.
Comment by Christoph on 12/10 @ 6:15 pm #
Having read McCain’s response and now understanding the context in which he made his original statement, I am only partly convinced.
I am convinced that McCain was even then on the side of tolerance (which is a big deal in this whole thing), as he was opposing a white supremacist.
But, at the same time, I believe that not accepting a black bank clerk as your sister in-law is racist.
How can not “accepting” someone based on their skin colour be anything other than racist?
Now if a person — ’cause of latent racist feelings or even particular sexual peccadillos — doesn’t want to have a romantic/sexual relationship whites, or orientals, or blacks, or Australian Aboriginals, or whatever else…
… because they prefer some other types.
Like, say, South American Spanish-speaking dark-haired babes…
… and I for one like all of the above…
… then that is there personal choice. It may or may not be racist. Sometimes a person just has a type they prefer.
But not to “accept” someone SOMEONE ELSE IS MATING WITH because that person isn’t YOUR type makes no sense.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. I like blondes. I fancy them. Therefore, I can’t accept the fact that you’re going to marry a redhead.”
No one would ever say anything like it, because its absurd.
Yes, a person can choose for themselves who they’re attracted to, but to go around not accepting others’ choices of mates because of the race IS racism.
McCain is perhaps guilty of being too tolerant. He’s being tolerant of a minor form of bigotry, which is admittedly less severe than other forms.
Some bigotry calls for genocide and slavery. Some limits job opportunities and reduces opportunities for advancement.
And some can’t “accept” that their sister in-law would marry a black.
That is racist despite that McCain asserts it isn’t.
If anyone I personally knew couldn’t “accept” that I had a 6-year romantic relationship with a woman with darker skin, I would be mightily pissed off. I might get over it, but you can be assured the epithet racist would pass my lips at least once.
Comment by maggie katzen on 12/11 @ 2:04 am #
well, no, because this isn’t about how you feel.
Comment by Michael Adams on 12/11 @ 7:15 am #
Oops! Bumped the post button prematurely. We don’t try to claim that we lack the vice of racism, mainly because we think of it more in terms of education than morality. We just don’t try to claim that we are “good” people because our education has taught us not to think stupid and outdated ideas. I can’t speak here for Mr. McCain, but I am quite as interested in the sociological roots of racism as I am in the social causes of, say, bank robbery. We get regular sermons in church against racism, but it always seems like a Baptist preacher running on about the evils of alcohol, to a congregation of mostly teetotalers.The congregation listening to the sermon is, more likely than not, multiracial. I always come out of church after a sermon like that, chewing on the idea that the preacher is wasting his breath and our time. Those terribly self conscious “Brotherhood Sundays” are a bit embarrassing, too. Whatever racism was in times past, it now appears to be something like superstition or paranoia, symptoms exhibited by people in intolerable and conflicting stress. Professional ball players, for example, who must win games to make a living, will get an idea that their lucky shirt should not be washed as long as their winning streak lasts. This makes no rational sense, just bubbles up from the unconscious, which tries to give us control over the uncontrollable. Likewise, believing that I was unemployed because some Black, Hispanic, Chinese, etc “stole my my job” does not come from the rational part of the brain.
Given that outlook, trying to claim a moral superiority based on the lack of this particular vice (racism) appears especially foolish.