You are more charitable than I would be to those who are anti-Israel now. Yes, they do use the oppressor-oppressed language and cast Israel as the oppressor. But in this case one has to allow that this not the only narrative. Failure to even consider another narrative is dogmatic and discrediting.
So by "anti-Israel" at this point, do you include journalists like those who wrote this: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ and the "seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip" who provided them the information?
I think Russ should say why the oppressor-oppressed perspective with regard to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is accurate. Honestly, I’d like to hear or read an accurate history on this. Russ, we want to hear the facts. Where is Israel wrong? Where have Jews made mistakes? What history should we read that sheds lights on the truth of the Palestinian perspective? How have the Palestinians been oppressed?
I listened to maybe 8 hours of it, then stopped when I felt the author's sympathies shift toward the Palestinian narrative in ways that I did not feel were justified. The first part captured both narratives well but somewhere in the middle he changed and took a side. Disappointing. But if that's your side, you'll probably like it.
I think Cooper pretty loudly proclaims his own biases and makes a good effort to tell the story thru both lenses. FWIW, His section on the the Holocaust (maybe #4?) is especially gut wrenching. He constantly asks the listener to ask themselves, “What would you do if you were in this position, if this had been your life, etc?” Makes it very hard to hold only judgment.
Didn’t listen to all the early ones but did listen to the most recent published a couple weeks ago. It didn’t seem super biased. He seemed quite horrified of the extreme turn from the Palestinian side especially starting with Arafat. But the biggest thing I took away was how much energy they had put into propaganda and trying to shape the narrative from the early days.
I think that's an unfair take of the series, Russ. Clearly at various parts in a long 20+ hour narrative an objective and complete story is going to SOUND like it's favoring one side and then the other. But perhaps one good interview for your interview series would be Darryl Cooper.
I really appreciate Klings’ three-languages lens (and also appreciate Russ introducing me to it years ago). To help us avoid letting our lens govern our views, it is useful to understanding as much of this history as we can—and there is a lot of history!
They have WAY overplayed their hand with their trusty old anti-Semitic meme...it still worked fine in the age where newspapers and even Twitter dominated, but it is being utterly mocked on TikTok, as it has always deserved to be.
Whether Israel can recover and restore the virtual reality they had almost everyone living in remains to be seen, but I do not like their chances.
One aspect that shapes news narrative here is "access capture". This is an old trap. Gallons of ink have been spilled about a much milder form with President George W. Bush.
Hamas has made it very difficult for news Hamas does not approve of to leave Gaza and be widely read: I've heard too many stories of people who were "called in for questioning" by Hamas for reporting.
The Times knows that pictures and videos of Gaza are important (they're right) and valuable (also correct). They know that interviews with Hamas officials are important (probably true) and valuable (definitely true). Hamas reads The Times and will cut off access or even take retribution upon the newspaper's stringer. So NYT makes sure not to print aspects of that stringer's work that would open them to retribution. That's understandable but misleads the reader because Hamas knows the truth, the stringer knows the truth, and the NYT editor probably knows the truth, but the reader does not.
That's the old version of the trap: the source holds the local reporter accountable for the reporter's statements in the paper. We're now in a new stage of this trap: Hamas reads The Times and holds the local reporter accountable for ALL of the paper's statements regarding Hamas.
So why is there such mixed reporting on Israel? Because Israel's government won't imprison or kill your journalists if they don't like what you print.
This effect further shows up in NYT (and others) being very careful about what they say about Hamas. All statements must be objective and sourced - no conclusions, no history, no likelihood. Because they need to be able to say to an angry Hamas PR person, "look, you don't like it but the information is already out there. We're not your enemy."
This combines with other forces to produce a very distorted picture.
To be clear: Hamas is wrong to stifle free speech and threaten people. Their tactic here is only effective because news agencies are willing to go along - Russia tried the same tactic recently and it resulted in major news agencies dramatically changing the structure of their reporting on Russia. We should not copy this tactic.
The “both sides have valid points” is also a comforting message we like to believe even when it’s not true. Makes us feel evenhanded and supplies a narrative where there is no true evil, only misunderstanding.
The majority of conflicts people have have two valid sides, but not all.
There are times when the reluctance to recognize true evil is the prime motivating factor.
It would be a wonderful world where Netanyahu or Biden was the worst villain, not Sinwar the Ayatollah, Xi or Putin. A lot more comforting to pretend that the real war criminals were Kissinger and not Hitler.
If the bad guys are approachable and just like us, it’s easier to sleep at night.
I always remember this story when I think about the “both sides” argument. There were people with one viewpoint- they were on a plane and didn’t want to die, and people with another’s viewpoint- they wanted to shoot down a plane of civilians.
Many conflicts have two sides. Many incidents have two sides. Not all.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome against Trump has changed into Dem Derangement Syndrome against Jews. Not TDS, nor B, but DDS against a target. Mislabeled when it was DDS against Bush, and unnamed when it was DDS against Reagan , Nixon, even Goldwater, not to forget DDS against Palin, and Kavanaugh.
Plus hate is fun, outrage gives dopamine hits.
Ever since Dems in colleges began illegal discrimination against hiring Republican professors, their dominant support for selected oppressed people has been approaching the only allowed truth, with cancel culture enforcement.
The DDS against Jews is not merely misleading true statements like the attempted suicide bomber, but active lies, like the 500 killed in the hospital. Similar to the lies used against Trump, like the Collusion Hoax, or the lie about H. Biden’s laptop.
I'm a long-time listener of your podcast, and am generally am very Pro-Russ Roberts, except for one topic. I am familiar with the history of Israel, and you're going to hate this question, but "Why do you think the formation of Israel was a good thing?" To me the costs to the world clearly exceed its benefits.
I think it's a great question. It was a good thing for Jews who might otherwise have been killed or could be killed in the future if there is no Jewish homeland. It also has produced incredible technology (Waze and more) that benefit humanity. And if our Arab neighbors had been OK with our existence, the positives would wildly outweigh the negatives. But they're not OK with us being here. Now what? Your question could be asked about many nations. Makes for good dinner conversation. What is its relevance for right now?
We stopped the LA Times and NY Times because of their bias toward the Palestinians in this terrible war. I, too read the Opinion section in the WSJ first and usually agree with the writers. I also stopped giving donations to NPR and my University. Same reason. As a younger person, I was an activist during the 60’s and 70’s. I have always been a classical Democrat but with our political situation and the Trump years too, I have thrown my support in with Nikki Haley for the coming election. Thank you Russ for writing this very good analysis about the ways we read and listen to the Media. I try to read both sides, but it is difficult.
Bias is stronger than business just as blood is thicker than water.
Consider the true expression, "Get Woke, Go Broke" This expression is true because progressive elites in control of business entities - a control they exercise over most of the media and entertainment industry - are so biased that they frequently cannot resist the temptation to propagandize in support of The Cause, even though there is every reason to expect this will not just deviate from the optimal profit maximization strategy, but seriously hurt their bottom lines.
The senior leadership at universities all literally have one main job which is to know what their potential donors want in order maximize money-raising, and they still couldn't summon 1% of the moral clarity they expressed after Floyd's death in the wake of a thousand murders., even though they knew it would cost them lots of money, which in fact it actually did.
But for the sake of argument, even if we assume the "business case for bias", then this is a strong case *against* the media, not for it. Because, for anyone who wants to read the truth, the obvious implication of "The media says terrible things because its audiences demand those terrible things" - "Never ever trust anything the media says, because business logic means that it's all biased 'fanboy service' for their factional audience."
If it's "bias is just business, nothing personal", i.e., "Bias Is Our Business", then you can't believe it. If it's "Bias is personal, despite the business", i.e., "Get Woke, Go Broke", then, also, you can't believe it.
I agree there are incentives that push media to cater to their left and right extremes, especially commercial media in the US. But that doesn't fully explain it. Look at PBS in the US, and particularly the BBC in the UK. They are government backed, not for profit media, but yet are just as consistently anti-Israel, anti-Liberal, anti-western, and catering to an extreme POV in their reporting. Watching the BBC interviewers, they appear to be "true believers", not catering to an audience.
The Three Tribes of Politics is a very helpful book. Thank you for encouraging us to read it and for highlighting Arnold’s work over the years.
I’m trying to figure out what to do next, after reading Kling’s book. Here are some thoughts.
1. It seems to me that we need a great deal more character education in our lives, especially in K-12. We also very much need to make the pursuit of truth a higher priority. My best recommendation in this area is to look at the good work that Robert Luddy is doing with Thales Academy in North Carolina. (https://www.thalesacademy.org/assets/docs/the-thales-way-bob-luddy.pdf ) I know your work at Shalem is along a similar vein. I’m aware that Challenger School in California, Utah and surrounding states prioritizes truth seeking. (https://www.challengerschool.com ) These schools are a drop in the bucket though. We need more schools like these and we need to highlight the results of their work. Very important in these schools is a truthful account of American history and the truths espoused by Austrian economics. Let’s all sit down and read the Use of Knowledge in Society. Let’s talk about minimum wage. Let’s discuss Abraham Lincoln’s actual words regarding the his reasoning behind the Civil War.
2. I also applaud Greg Lukianoff’s work at FIRE (https://www.thefire.org ). FIRE encourages incentives for colleges to pursue truth by nurturing a culture of freedom of speech. His book The Canceling of the American Mind is just as helpful as Kling’s Three Languages in this regard. One of the most important and overlooked findings in FIRE’s college rankings is the viewpoint ratio (https://rankings.thefire.org/rank ). That is the ratio of progressive to conservative students at any one college. Greg and his team provide this ratio for each of the 250+ colleges in their college rankings. Pertaining to choosing a college, let’s start highlighting the trade-off between Average SAT Score vs Viewpoint Ratio. The higher the average SAT of the entering class the greater likelihood of a high progressive-to-conservative ratio. I think parents and students should be more attentive to this ratio. How is your social life going to be when there are two progressive students vs five progressive student for every conservative student? Is it really worth it to attend a top-ranked university if your social and intellectual life means seven progressive students for every conservative? Let’s stop sending our kids to schools that are so unbalanced in the Viewpoint Ratio.
3. In addition to Kling’s prescription described in Three Languages, we need to police our own tribes, especially churches. We libertarians and we conservatives need to push each other to be more accurate, to pursue truth and refine our narratives. Let’s not let our local churches get away with such blatant untruth. Let’s start talking about physics, evolution, and history of religion. Let’s admit that we need more character education and less supernatural dogma about Jesus. My favorite thinker in this vein is Richard Holloway. His book A Little History of Religion encourages us to see the Bible and the words of prophets metaphorically. His short YouTube videos are a great intro to his work. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5FFd4ezYLw and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEIkAG5sBfM
4. I also think we should listen more carefully to Dana Gioia and the power of poetry. His video What is Poetry? 10 Observations about the art is helpful in understanding that scripture’s power is largely because of its poetic nature. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6R6m5vKvc_w
5. And finally we should highlight the trade-off between truth and belonging. People have a tendency to shy away from the truth in order to fit in. Let’s highlight the good work of scholars trying to understand this phenomenon, and let’s develop a culture that prioritizes truth seeking over conformity. Here’s are some of my favorite thinkers in this area.
Of course I want comfort when I settle in with the morning papers. (Shameful secret revealed: I always start on the opinion page of the WSJ.) But shouldn’t I want something else? If so, what?
Of course. I should want the clearest possible view of the thing I’m looking at. That’s because I share your belief that there is such a thing as objective truth. Sometimes we can see the truth best by looking through different lenses, sometimes we need to say that one lens is just better than another.
But how many in the media share that view? How many think there is such a thing as objective truth? How many think that even if there is truth, that’s not what matters?
It’s become kind of a cliché for people who start with the opinion page of the WSJ to disparage the relativism we claim to see everywhere—it’s not just moral relativism and it’s not just in the Academy.
I think we might be right.
But let's be optimistic. If we have some capacity to choose our wants. Maybe with effort and education, we can choose better media.
I can't see how anyone could read much about Moral Foundations from Haidt, et al. and still think there is a right answer to any moral issue. Ignoring all the uncertainties, it is entirely based on one's preferences towards the moral foundations, or towards the three languages if you prefer that. One only goes astray if tilted entirely in one direction.
I can't pretend to understand all of Haidt's views but in The Righteous Mind he did not make a claim about moral objectivity. Moral foundations helps us understand moral intuitions and so it might help us understand why some people see the world so differently than we do. It doesn't argue that because two different people might come to a different conclusion about the morality of some acts, all morality is just a matter of opinion.
Consider the morality of some act, say, kidnapping and raping a 13 year old because she belongs to a group of people the rapist hates and want to eliminate from the face of the earth. To focus on the question of objective morality let's assume this is not some grotesque trolley problem (e.g., let's rule out a situation where the perp says, "this is the only way to keep 5 little girls who belong to my tribe from being raped"). It's just an act of pure tribal hatred. Is that immoral. I think so, and I'm pretty sure many people who fit in very different places on Haidt's foundations would agree.
"But the fact that truth feels more elusive than ever doesn’t mean there isn’t truth. There is."
You are right. There are some things that are for certain not moral. Not all morality is just a matter of opinion. I didn't say it well but that is part of what I meant by my last sentence. "One only goes astray if tilted entirely in one direction."
But as I see it most of life is trolley cars. The Israeli-Palestinian is too many trolley cars to count. And in many cases two people won't agree which situations are morally right, trolley car, or morally wrong.
The headline and subheadline...it always complicated when the left or the media is clearly on the wrong side of something.
Its hard to live in Gaza BECAUSE of Hamas. And they are barbarians as well. Yup both can be true.
This instinct people on the left to see anything redeemable in Hamas is ridiculous. Stop lying to yourself. If the political left in the USA would fall under their rule...well...the torture may not last long if they are busy with the war. But the heads being chopped off due to your insult to Allah (which is how you live your life) is a certainty, they will hold true to form They are reliable on that front.
Russ, Thanks for your, as always, thoughtful consideration of a very difficult and complex circumstance. I appreciate your vulnerability of thought. Stay safe.
As a not-Jew, not living in Israel I'm slightly more towards Palestinians but maybe not much. In no way pro-Hamas. With that said, I really liked everything you wrote and think you said it well with one little exception. I'm tangentially associated with some progressives who are decidedly against Israel, particularly the bombing. I'd like to send your piece to them but I'm doubtful they can get past the first ~ten paragraphs (before "it starts with us...") to what I think is extremely clear, balanced, enlightening, etc. I'm really envious of how well written this piece is and what I'm asking would make it that much more difficult but it's something for you to think about. What might cause someone who mostly disagrees with your worldview to not be open to any of the content?
You are more charitable than I would be to those who are anti-Israel now. Yes, they do use the oppressor-oppressed language and cast Israel as the oppressor. But in this case one has to allow that this not the only narrative. Failure to even consider another narrative is dogmatic and discrediting.
So by "anti-Israel" at this point, do you include journalists like those who wrote this: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ and the "seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip" who provided them the information?
I think Russ should say why the oppressor-oppressed perspective with regard to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is accurate. Honestly, I’d like to hear or read an accurate history on this. Russ, we want to hear the facts. Where is Israel wrong? Where have Jews made mistakes? What history should we read that sheds lights on the truth of the Palestinian perspective? How have the Palestinians been oppressed?
If you have two dozen hours to spare, you may enjoy this history of the region, the emergence of the state of Israel, the background that led up to it, the emergence of militant Islamist terrorism, etc etc etc. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SlbKi6HzLocQFbaJhq5Mj?si=GwWGZmgCSZ66njq18Fe36Q&pi=u--ZDjibu_TbGE
I listened to maybe 8 hours of it, then stopped when I felt the author's sympathies shift toward the Palestinian narrative in ways that I did not feel were justified. The first part captured both narratives well but somewhere in the middle he changed and took a side. Disappointing. But if that's your side, you'll probably like it.
Can you recommend a dispassionate history?
I think Cooper pretty loudly proclaims his own biases and makes a good effort to tell the story thru both lenses. FWIW, His section on the the Holocaust (maybe #4?) is especially gut wrenching. He constantly asks the listener to ask themselves, “What would you do if you were in this position, if this had been your life, etc?” Makes it very hard to hold only judgment.
Didn’t listen to all the early ones but did listen to the most recent published a couple weeks ago. It didn’t seem super biased. He seemed quite horrified of the extreme turn from the Palestinian side especially starting with Arafat. But the biggest thing I took away was how much energy they had put into propaganda and trying to shape the narrative from the early days.
I think that's an unfair take of the series, Russ. Clearly at various parts in a long 20+ hour narrative an objective and complete story is going to SOUND like it's favoring one side and then the other. But perhaps one good interview for your interview series would be Darryl Cooper.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
I really appreciate Klings’ three-languages lens (and also appreciate Russ introducing me to it years ago). To help us avoid letting our lens govern our views, it is useful to understanding as much of this history as we can—and there is a lot of history!
They have WAY overplayed their hand with their trusty old anti-Semitic meme...it still worked fine in the age where newspapers and even Twitter dominated, but it is being utterly mocked on TikTok, as it has always deserved to be.
Whether Israel can recover and restore the virtual reality they had almost everyone living in remains to be seen, but I do not like their chances.
This is the most helpful thing I’ve read on the non-military side of the conflict. Thanks for your thoughtful take.
One aspect that shapes news narrative here is "access capture". This is an old trap. Gallons of ink have been spilled about a much milder form with President George W. Bush.
Hamas has made it very difficult for news Hamas does not approve of to leave Gaza and be widely read: I've heard too many stories of people who were "called in for questioning" by Hamas for reporting.
The Times knows that pictures and videos of Gaza are important (they're right) and valuable (also correct). They know that interviews with Hamas officials are important (probably true) and valuable (definitely true). Hamas reads The Times and will cut off access or even take retribution upon the newspaper's stringer. So NYT makes sure not to print aspects of that stringer's work that would open them to retribution. That's understandable but misleads the reader because Hamas knows the truth, the stringer knows the truth, and the NYT editor probably knows the truth, but the reader does not.
That's the old version of the trap: the source holds the local reporter accountable for the reporter's statements in the paper. We're now in a new stage of this trap: Hamas reads The Times and holds the local reporter accountable for ALL of the paper's statements regarding Hamas.
So why is there such mixed reporting on Israel? Because Israel's government won't imprison or kill your journalists if they don't like what you print.
This effect further shows up in NYT (and others) being very careful about what they say about Hamas. All statements must be objective and sourced - no conclusions, no history, no likelihood. Because they need to be able to say to an angry Hamas PR person, "look, you don't like it but the information is already out there. We're not your enemy."
This combines with other forces to produce a very distorted picture.
I thought this interview provided a very good "behind the scenes" understanding: When Journalists Go Along with Hamas - The Dispatch https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/when-journalists-go-along-with-hamas/
To be clear: Hamas is wrong to stifle free speech and threaten people. Their tactic here is only effective because news agencies are willing to go along - Russia tried the same tactic recently and it resulted in major news agencies dramatically changing the structure of their reporting on Russia. We should not copy this tactic.
The “both sides have valid points” is also a comforting message we like to believe even when it’s not true. Makes us feel evenhanded and supplies a narrative where there is no true evil, only misunderstanding.
The majority of conflicts people have have two valid sides, but not all.
There are times when the reluctance to recognize true evil is the prime motivating factor.
It would be a wonderful world where Netanyahu or Biden was the worst villain, not Sinwar the Ayatollah, Xi or Putin. A lot more comforting to pretend that the real war criminals were Kissinger and not Hitler.
If the bad guys are approachable and just like us, it’s easier to sleep at night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
I always remember this story when I think about the “both sides” argument. There were people with one viewpoint- they were on a plane and didn’t want to die, and people with another’s viewpoint- they wanted to shoot down a plane of civilians.
Many conflicts have two sides. Many incidents have two sides. Not all.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome against Trump has changed into Dem Derangement Syndrome against Jews. Not TDS, nor B, but DDS against a target. Mislabeled when it was DDS against Bush, and unnamed when it was DDS against Reagan , Nixon, even Goldwater, not to forget DDS against Palin, and Kavanaugh.
Plus hate is fun, outrage gives dopamine hits.
Ever since Dems in colleges began illegal discrimination against hiring Republican professors, their dominant support for selected oppressed people has been approaching the only allowed truth, with cancel culture enforcement.
The DDS against Jews is not merely misleading true statements like the attempted suicide bomber, but active lies, like the 500 killed in the hospital. Similar to the lies used against Trump, like the Collusion Hoax, or the lie about H. Biden’s laptop.
I'm a long-time listener of your podcast, and am generally am very Pro-Russ Roberts, except for one topic. I am familiar with the history of Israel, and you're going to hate this question, but "Why do you think the formation of Israel was a good thing?" To me the costs to the world clearly exceed its benefits.
I think it's a great question. It was a good thing for Jews who might otherwise have been killed or could be killed in the future if there is no Jewish homeland. It also has produced incredible technology (Waze and more) that benefit humanity. And if our Arab neighbors had been OK with our existence, the positives would wildly outweigh the negatives. But they're not OK with us being here. Now what? Your question could be asked about many nations. Makes for good dinner conversation. What is its relevance for right now?
We stopped the LA Times and NY Times because of their bias toward the Palestinians in this terrible war. I, too read the Opinion section in the WSJ first and usually agree with the writers. I also stopped giving donations to NPR and my University. Same reason. As a younger person, I was an activist during the 60’s and 70’s. I have always been a classical Democrat but with our political situation and the Trump years too, I have thrown my support in with Nikki Haley for the coming election. Thank you Russ for writing this very good analysis about the ways we read and listen to the Media. I try to read both sides, but it is difficult.
Bias is stronger than business just as blood is thicker than water.
Consider the true expression, "Get Woke, Go Broke" This expression is true because progressive elites in control of business entities - a control they exercise over most of the media and entertainment industry - are so biased that they frequently cannot resist the temptation to propagandize in support of The Cause, even though there is every reason to expect this will not just deviate from the optimal profit maximization strategy, but seriously hurt their bottom lines.
The senior leadership at universities all literally have one main job which is to know what their potential donors want in order maximize money-raising, and they still couldn't summon 1% of the moral clarity they expressed after Floyd's death in the wake of a thousand murders., even though they knew it would cost them lots of money, which in fact it actually did.
But for the sake of argument, even if we assume the "business case for bias", then this is a strong case *against* the media, not for it. Because, for anyone who wants to read the truth, the obvious implication of "The media says terrible things because its audiences demand those terrible things" - "Never ever trust anything the media says, because business logic means that it's all biased 'fanboy service' for their factional audience."
If it's "bias is just business, nothing personal", i.e., "Bias Is Our Business", then you can't believe it. If it's "Bias is personal, despite the business", i.e., "Get Woke, Go Broke", then, also, you can't believe it.
I agree there are incentives that push media to cater to their left and right extremes, especially commercial media in the US. But that doesn't fully explain it. Look at PBS in the US, and particularly the BBC in the UK. They are government backed, not for profit media, but yet are just as consistently anti-Israel, anti-Liberal, anti-western, and catering to an extreme POV in their reporting. Watching the BBC interviewers, they appear to be "true believers", not catering to an audience.
Perhaps Israel and the west aren't actually perfect.
The Three Tribes of Politics is a very helpful book. Thank you for encouraging us to read it and for highlighting Arnold’s work over the years.
I’m trying to figure out what to do next, after reading Kling’s book. Here are some thoughts.
1. It seems to me that we need a great deal more character education in our lives, especially in K-12. We also very much need to make the pursuit of truth a higher priority. My best recommendation in this area is to look at the good work that Robert Luddy is doing with Thales Academy in North Carolina. (https://www.thalesacademy.org/assets/docs/the-thales-way-bob-luddy.pdf ) I know your work at Shalem is along a similar vein. I’m aware that Challenger School in California, Utah and surrounding states prioritizes truth seeking. (https://www.challengerschool.com ) These schools are a drop in the bucket though. We need more schools like these and we need to highlight the results of their work. Very important in these schools is a truthful account of American history and the truths espoused by Austrian economics. Let’s all sit down and read the Use of Knowledge in Society. Let’s talk about minimum wage. Let’s discuss Abraham Lincoln’s actual words regarding the his reasoning behind the Civil War.
2. I also applaud Greg Lukianoff’s work at FIRE (https://www.thefire.org ). FIRE encourages incentives for colleges to pursue truth by nurturing a culture of freedom of speech. His book The Canceling of the American Mind is just as helpful as Kling’s Three Languages in this regard. One of the most important and overlooked findings in FIRE’s college rankings is the viewpoint ratio (https://rankings.thefire.org/rank ). That is the ratio of progressive to conservative students at any one college. Greg and his team provide this ratio for each of the 250+ colleges in their college rankings. Pertaining to choosing a college, let’s start highlighting the trade-off between Average SAT Score vs Viewpoint Ratio. The higher the average SAT of the entering class the greater likelihood of a high progressive-to-conservative ratio. I think parents and students should be more attentive to this ratio. How is your social life going to be when there are two progressive students vs five progressive student for every conservative student? Is it really worth it to attend a top-ranked university if your social and intellectual life means seven progressive students for every conservative? Let’s stop sending our kids to schools that are so unbalanced in the Viewpoint Ratio.
3. In addition to Kling’s prescription described in Three Languages, we need to police our own tribes, especially churches. We libertarians and we conservatives need to push each other to be more accurate, to pursue truth and refine our narratives. Let’s not let our local churches get away with such blatant untruth. Let’s start talking about physics, evolution, and history of religion. Let’s admit that we need more character education and less supernatural dogma about Jesus. My favorite thinker in this vein is Richard Holloway. His book A Little History of Religion encourages us to see the Bible and the words of prophets metaphorically. His short YouTube videos are a great intro to his work. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5FFd4ezYLw and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEIkAG5sBfM
4. I also think we should listen more carefully to Dana Gioia and the power of poetry. His video What is Poetry? 10 Observations about the art is helpful in understanding that scripture’s power is largely because of its poetic nature. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6R6m5vKvc_w
5. And finally we should highlight the trade-off between truth and belonging. People have a tendency to shy away from the truth in order to fit in. Let’s highlight the good work of scholars trying to understand this phenomenon, and let’s develop a culture that prioritizes truth seeking over conformity. Here’s are some of my favorite thinkers in this area.
Sometimes group loyalty is valued over truth. (Dan Williams) https://danwilliamsphilosophy.com/2019/08/16/socially-adaptive-minds/
People often hesitate to speak truth if doing so will likely lower their status. (Rob Henderson) https://open.substack.com/pub/robkhenderson/p/how-dumb-ideas-capture-smart-and?r=nb3bl&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
In order to fit in, people gravitate towards saying and thinking, whatever sounds good. (Bryan Caplan) https://open.substack.com/pub/betonit/p/the-perfect-time-to-speak-your-mind?r=nb3bl&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
We adopt false beliefs that enable us to belong. (Arnold Kling). https://open.substack.com/pub/arnoldkling/p/is-the-overton-window-moving-to-the?r=nb3bl&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Of course I want comfort when I settle in with the morning papers. (Shameful secret revealed: I always start on the opinion page of the WSJ.) But shouldn’t I want something else? If so, what?
Of course. I should want the clearest possible view of the thing I’m looking at. That’s because I share your belief that there is such a thing as objective truth. Sometimes we can see the truth best by looking through different lenses, sometimes we need to say that one lens is just better than another.
But how many in the media share that view? How many think there is such a thing as objective truth? How many think that even if there is truth, that’s not what matters?
It’s become kind of a cliché for people who start with the opinion page of the WSJ to disparage the relativism we claim to see everywhere—it’s not just moral relativism and it’s not just in the Academy.
I think we might be right.
But let's be optimistic. If we have some capacity to choose our wants. Maybe with effort and education, we can choose better media.
I can't see how anyone could read much about Moral Foundations from Haidt, et al. and still think there is a right answer to any moral issue. Ignoring all the uncertainties, it is entirely based on one's preferences towards the moral foundations, or towards the three languages if you prefer that. One only goes astray if tilted entirely in one direction.
I can't pretend to understand all of Haidt's views but in The Righteous Mind he did not make a claim about moral objectivity. Moral foundations helps us understand moral intuitions and so it might help us understand why some people see the world so differently than we do. It doesn't argue that because two different people might come to a different conclusion about the morality of some acts, all morality is just a matter of opinion.
Consider the morality of some act, say, kidnapping and raping a 13 year old because she belongs to a group of people the rapist hates and want to eliminate from the face of the earth. To focus on the question of objective morality let's assume this is not some grotesque trolley problem (e.g., let's rule out a situation where the perp says, "this is the only way to keep 5 little girls who belong to my tribe from being raped"). It's just an act of pure tribal hatred. Is that immoral. I think so, and I'm pretty sure many people who fit in very different places on Haidt's foundations would agree.
"But the fact that truth feels more elusive than ever doesn’t mean there isn’t truth. There is."
You are right. There are some things that are for certain not moral. Not all morality is just a matter of opinion. I didn't say it well but that is part of what I meant by my last sentence. "One only goes astray if tilted entirely in one direction."
But as I see it most of life is trolley cars. The Israeli-Palestinian is too many trolley cars to count. And in many cases two people won't agree which situations are morally right, trolley car, or morally wrong.
The headline and subheadline...it always complicated when the left or the media is clearly on the wrong side of something.
Its hard to live in Gaza BECAUSE of Hamas. And they are barbarians as well. Yup both can be true.
This instinct people on the left to see anything redeemable in Hamas is ridiculous. Stop lying to yourself. If the political left in the USA would fall under their rule...well...the torture may not last long if they are busy with the war. But the heads being chopped off due to your insult to Allah (which is how you live your life) is a certainty, they will hold true to form They are reliable on that front.
Russ, Thanks for your, as always, thoughtful consideration of a very difficult and complex circumstance. I appreciate your vulnerability of thought. Stay safe.
As a not-Jew, not living in Israel I'm slightly more towards Palestinians but maybe not much. In no way pro-Hamas. With that said, I really liked everything you wrote and think you said it well with one little exception. I'm tangentially associated with some progressives who are decidedly against Israel, particularly the bombing. I'd like to send your piece to them but I'm doubtful they can get past the first ~ten paragraphs (before "it starts with us...") to what I think is extremely clear, balanced, enlightening, etc. I'm really envious of how well written this piece is and what I'm asking would make it that much more difficult but it's something for you to think about. What might cause someone who mostly disagrees with your worldview to not be open to any of the content?
Pretty brilliant. Thanks!
Very interesting article. Have you noticed that (broad brush) the Left talks about Palestinians and the Right talks about (K)Hamas?