We have the First Amendment in this country, which is a good thing, since I don’t trust the government to tell people what not to say (setting aside clear and present danger, shouting fire in a crowded theater, etc.). I wouldn’t trust myself to tell people what not to say either.
Something I’ve been thinking about recently is when popular entertainers say things that are flat-out evil on news shows.
The complicating factor is that, now that we no longer have the rule on balanced broadcast speech, the lines have blurred between news, opinion, comedy, and performance art. Alex Jones, for example, is a sort of unfunny Andy Kaufman—OK, I guess Andy Kaufman was a sort of unfunny Andy Kaufman himself—but with the difference that Jones has some sort of role in the news media.
More recently there was Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who said:
Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it. What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it. If it’s your own children being abused, then act accordingly.
Let’s say your kid’s school emailed you to announce that every day after lunch, your sixth grader was going to get punched in the face by a teacher. How would you respond to that? That’s precisely how you should respond when they tell you that your kids have to wear masks on the soccer field.
I don’t usually comment on outrage-of-the-week stories, but this one really bothers me.
I coach in the West Side Soccer League and we had a rule that everyone—kids, coaches, parents, and everyone else—had to wear masks on the sidelines at all times. Kids were encouraged to wear masks when they’re playing but they weren’t required to do so. I didn’t make these rules: they were set up by the league, I think in response to strict rules by the city last fall.
The kids were fine with the mask rule. We had to remind them sometimes to put the masks back on, but it was no big deal.
I’ve also many times been in a situation where a child is hit by an adult. It’s much different. The child cries and screams, while the adult whacks away. It’s traumatic. Once I saw this happening on the subway. I didn’t say anything. Maybe I should’ve said something, but it just wasn’t clear that saying anything would do any good. And calling child protective services wouldn’t have worked, given that I had no idea who these people are, and it’s not like anyone there was in any position to detain them.
I don’t know anything about child protective services, but I can see that it could be helpful for them to be involved. If parents were afraid of getting in trouble when they hit their kids, maybe they’d do it less. I’m not sure, but I can certainly think of cases where this would help.
A mask rule at a soccer game . . . that’s not anything like that. I really think it’s evil to make this analogy, to equate happy children playing soccer and following an over-cautious rule, with kids being whacked, crying and screaming as they are betrayed by adults whom they love and trust.
And Carlson’s comment, “If it’s your own children being abused, then act accordingly,” is just fatuous. What are people supposed to do, call child protective services on themselves? I’d guess that the vast majority of cases of child abuse are perpetrated by the parents.
This loops us to the question posed in the title of this post: How do we think about this sort of behavior by a performer such as Carlson? What do we do about it?
On one hand, there’s the “don’t feed the trolls” rule. Carlson says evil things in part because expressing evil gets him attention.
On the other hand, it would seem horrible for this sort of hatred to be broadcast without comment, as if it’s ok to say this sort of thing.
But then Carlson is just an entertainer, right? It’s all satire, exaggeration, etc. Satire’s ok. We don’t get outraged at Jonathan Swift. I’ve seen some comedy routines with jokes about child abuse, and I don’t like it, but I don’t get outraged. After all, comedy is sometimes supposed to make us uncomfortable.
The challenge is that Carlson, Jones, etc., straddle the border between news, politics, and entertainment. I think it’s just horrible but I don’t know what to do about it. I also think child abuse is horrible and I don’t know what to do about that either. Carlson’s on-air persona is an ignorant yahoo who can’t tell the difference between happy kids playing soccer and screaming crying kids getting beaten. I’d say that in some ways he’s doing us outsiders a service by making us aware that such attitudes exist—but of course we already know that such attitudes exist, as when we see parents hitting their kids in public. By putting this on the national news, I guess that Carlson is sending the message that it’s ok to have such views. This is a standard trope in comedy or politics, to place an odious view out there and then act as if it’s perfectly normal.
The final complicating factor is that, historically, Carlson’s views are perfectly normal. There are lots of cultures where being required to follow the rules of outsiders is considered to be as bad, or even worse than, as child abuse. Consider this story, for example. So I can be outraged at this outrage-of-the-week story while recognizing that, to some extent, it’s a dog-bites-man story of a person (or perhaps a persona, if we consider the words as being spoken by “Tucker Carlson” the TV character, not Tucker Carlson the human being) who is led by us-versus-them partisan logic to a very unpleasant conclusion.
P.S. I put this one on lag to avoid some of the outrage-of-the-week aspects of this story. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be disturbed by this one, whenever the post appears.
I think it’s clear that Carlson, Jones and others want to be taken seriously their audience (whether they actually believe the stuff they say is another question). The “satire” thing is just a fig-leaf to shield themselves from legal trouble.
“Concept creep” means the term “abuse” gets applied to an ever wider range of things. People don’t face negative consequences for hyperbole, so they will continue to engage in it & degrade the language. That’s how the figurative use of “literally” gets to display the literal.
This specific case put me in mind of Peter Moskos’ “In Defense of Flogging” where he argues most prisoners would prefer some brief but painful corporal punishment to a long stretch of incarceration, and Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Torture vs Dust Specks” about a small annoyance multiplied vs a single instance of something more intense. Different kids could have different ratios of how much time masked they’d be willing to trade off against being hit a single time (although maskless time is presumably worth more if you & your friends all get to avoid it together rather than separately/individually).
I meant to write “displace” rather than “display” there.
I think that’s evil, too.
It’s evil that a variation in preferences would exist? Or that someone would be willing to hit a kid even if said kid prefers that outcome to the alternative?
What are you even talking about? There’s absolutely no reason to trade off wearing a mask vs being hit. That’s complete nonsense.
Moreover, wearing a mask is a non-punitive safety measure that is unequivocally necessary in some circumstances (and debatably necessary in other circumstances), but never designed to cause pain. Hitting is designed specifically to cause pain, is psychologically harmful and is completely unnecessary in all circumstances. That just shows what a bad-faith analogy Carlson is trying to draw.
The question is not what it’s designed to do but how it’s experienced by the subject. If I were being restricted to just my apartment because the local government was locking everything down (maybe this is China) for any non “essential” person, and a local corrupt official offered to give me a pass allowing me to travel during an extended period, I would be willing to pay money or (less plausibly, but maybe this is a sadist) get hit. I would want that even though the lockdown presumably isn’t DESIGNED to make me suffer. That it has a justification is a reason not to permit that corruption which gives me a private benefit at the expense of exposing the rest of society to that greater risk.
It is not true that hitting is psychologically harmful and unnecessary. Many studies have attempted to show that spanking is harmful, and have only shown extremes to be harmful. If you see hitting at Walmart or the subway, there is no reason to think it is harmful. It is the opinion of most parents that spanking is necessary.
Some people do not approve of spanking, but that is just an opinion. Many also disapprove of making kids wear masks. As the benefits to masks are marginal, this is also just an opinion.
This is simply not an accurate representation of the scientific literature on parental physical punishment and child development. Physical punishment of children is associated with increases in behaviour problems, and is not associated with increases in prosocial behaviour or compliance with social norms. Whatever beliefs people hold about parental physical punishment it is likely to be ineffective as well as harmful.
Here’s a recent review: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00582-1
That is a review by some anti-spanking zealots. It is true that some studies have found correlations between bad behavior and spanked. That is, kids get spanked for bad behavior. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that spanking is harmful.
There are people who call CPS when they see spanking. I think Tucker Carlson was implicitly referring to them. Calling CPS over child masks in not any crazier.
Calling names (zealot in this case) and making strong claims without even pointing in the direction of evidence is not convincing, Roger. These are not only correlational studies, it has also been shown repeatedly that spanking is associated with increases in problem behaviour over time. Should that not be the other way round if physical punishment was an effective intervention for externalising behaviour? With the current evidence, I think the burden of proof is clearly on the child spankers and child spanking advocates to show that spanking is both helpful and not harmful.
…so you don’t like Tucker Carlson and his opinions — and you would really kinda like to silence him in the media, but don’t know to do that legitimately.
Many honorable people share your view of Tucker and many do not.
Tucker’s offense seems rather mild relative to the flood of heated rhetoric routinely displayed in commercial and social media.
You lead off with a thinly masked characterization of Tucker as “evil”, which is a very severe moral indictment of just another TV media pundit among hundreds of such opinionated media people.
“Evil” is a religious or metaphysical concept that reveals more about you than Tucker in your use of that label.
Intolerance of contrary opinions is not a flattering pose.
Andrew has characterized a specific thought as evil, regardless of who expresses it. This is not about Carlson, this is about “mask mandates for children are akin to child abuse”.
It’s much stronger than that. It’s about “if you see a child wearing a mask, you have a moral obligation to call the authorities and try to have them separated from their parents.”
Cohen –
> Intolerance of contrary opinions is not a flattering pose.
Your making a huge leap there. I’d be willing to be that there are plenty of times that Andrew encounters contrary opinions to which he doesn’t respond in a similar way.
Just characterizing what Tucker does as simply expressing a “contrary opinion” in fact is pretty much, I’d guess, the feature in what Tucker does that he finds most objectionable.
Perhaps you could re-examine Ticker’s rhetoric with that in mind, mix in some cognitive empathy, and re-consider your reaction?
I’m not really trying to defedend the “evil” categorization. There’s a broad application of subjectivity there that I generally try to avoid.
But Tucker’s explicit weaponization of “just expressing opinions” in a way that aggravates antipathy and resonates with xenophobia and racism certainly at least merits consideration as to whether it’s “evil,” no?
Cohen:
1. You write that I “don’t like Tucker Carlson and his opinions.” I don’t know Tucker Carlson and I don’t really know what his opinions are. For reasons discussed in the above post, I’m repulsed by his trivialization of child abuse, and I find it evil for him to say what he says. I wouldn’t quite say he’s expressing his opinion, because, again, it’s not quite clear what opinion corresponds to that statement of his. It’s a kind of aggressive ignorance, I guess?
2. You write that I “would really kinda like to silence him in the media, but don’t know to do that legitimately.” I don’t know where you got that from. Indeed, if you read my very first paragraph above, “We have the First Amendment in this country, which is a good thing, since I don’t trust the government to tell people what not to say . . . I wouldn’t trust myself to tell people what not to say either,” you’ll see that my view is the exact opposite of “would really kinda like to silence him.” There are probably some people you could argue with on this one, but not me!
3. You write that I do not have “a flattering pose.” In my writings I try to express myself as directly as possible. I’m not trying to strike a flattering pose, and I consider myself fortunate that I don’t have to!
Andrew:
1. ?? You apparently dispute my surmise that you don’t like Tucker Carlson — then you instantly cite your repulsion at a specific viewpoint of his and then firmly state that “I find it evil for him to say what he says”.
Any neutral observer would indeed get the clear impression that you don’t like Tucker. Impossible to believe that you have not formed any personal opinion of Tucker.
2. Nobody even mentioned the ‘government’ censoring Tucker, but you brought that up immediately for some odd reason — so censorship seems to have at least been on your mind. The 1st Amendment was totally irrelevant to your Tucker analysis, but was perhaps intended as a subtle disclaimer to soften the blow of your main point.
3. I find you exceedingly tolerant of diverse and contrary viewpoints here, but you go astray occasionally, taking unreasonable subjective stances (from my perspective).
This Tucker stuff was unusual for you and I was moved to briefly comment. No personal insult intended.
Cohen:
This is really weird, but I’ll try one more time.
1. I really don’t know Carlson nor do I know what his opinions are. He’s an entertainer. I don’t like some of the things he says!
2. I explicitly wrote, “I wouldn’t trust myself to tell people what not to say either,” which seems like a direct contradiction of your statement that I “would really kinda like to silence him in the media, but don’t know to do that legitimately.” Also, beyond that, I know myself, and I don’t want to silence him. So, just to be clear: (a) I never said I wanted to silence Carlson, (b) I explicitly said the opposite, that I would not want the power to silence people, and (c) also, beyond what I wrote in the above post, I can assure you right here that I would not like to silence him. So your statement about what I want is (a, b) unsupported by anything I wrote before, and (c) also happens to be false, as I can assure you right here.
3. Yeah, some things just particularly bug me. I’m tolerant of a lot of the things that people say, even where I might disagree with them, but the child abuse just goes too far for me. I don’t think it’s funny even as a joke or as a theoretical slippery-slope argument. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, I recognize that other people have different takes, this is just how it affects me.
No, we shouldn’t get rid of the First Amendment. But one of the problems in contemporary society is that we have largely lost the ability to establish limits on behavior short of criminalizing it. Carlson and Jones and the people working with them make a lot of money from what they do. Just by virtue of that, like all celebrities, they are accorded a level of respect in society that they do not deserve. They should be ashamed of what they do–but the concept of shame has pretty much evaporated. Without a sense of social stigma attached to behaviors that are undesirable but shouldn’t be illegal, all hell is breaking loose. We need, as a society, to be more judgmental. Yes, that can be carried to excess, too, and was at times in the past. But the pendulum has swung completely the other way.
Next time you see a famous or wealthy person, don’t be impressed. Ask yourself how that person got their status. Then be impressed, or outraged, accordingly.
Within the media we could rely more on things like accuracy bonds. Media sources which post such bonds and pay them when they turn out to spread inaccuracies could then be legitimately more trusted and not just in terms of whether others you trust dislike them.
Not at all the main point of the post, but “shouting fire in a crowded theater” is a paraphrase of “falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic”, Holmes was saying speech that was dangerous and false wasn’t protected (and this was in the context of a case where the government was trying to convict a socialist of distributing fairly mundane pamphlets during WWI). This was later overturned and the current limit on this type of free speech is essentially that you will incite imminent crime or other lawless action. (https://www.thefire.org/a-reminder-about-shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater/)
The answer to the “how to think” question is probably to ask ourselves, “what do we want to do about it?”.
And that’s tough to answer.
I would suggest that if you need to threaten to hit your kids to get them to wear a mask, your problem lies deeper than the mask mandate.
The whole problem is deeper. Regulating behavior you think is “evil” eventually will lead to even worse outcomes. Of course, some regulation is necessary to avoid serious harm, but I’d rather keep it to a minimum. What really bothers me about Carlson et al (and the list gets longer by the day) is not that they are permitted to say these things, but that they want to in the first place. I understand that it gets them attention from their chosen audiences, but they seem at times, to be a different species than I am. What ethical standards do they have? Do they draw any lines regarding acceptable/unacceptable behavior at all? I think the answer is yes – they draw the line wherever it suits their tribe. And that is the moral standard I can’t relate to. It is wired in our genes, but I have always held the human ability to get beyond our genetic dispositions as perhaps the most valuable human trait of all. Carlson does not seem to possess that ability. What do I want to do about it? I have no idea – I used to think education was the answer, but that has become so politicized that it is part of the genetic arsenal.
Apparently Florida schools opened on Aug 10th when there was about 20k cases per day, after 1.5 months of no mask mandates there are now under 10k cases per day. At the same time deaths/day have dropped from about 200 to 50:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/
Meanwhile NY has a statewide mask mandate and their covid cases have stated flat at ~5k per day while deaths have tripled from ~13 to 40.
So as usual, the media makes a huge deal about some intervention that isn’t even worth talking about. Whatever the effect is (10%?), it is swamped by other factors.
Why don’t they start checking the vitamin C level since that has already been reported to be low in a bunch of covid patients and 100 years of science says to correct vitamin deficiencies with vitamins? In fact, before doing anything else, it should be normal to first check all the vitamin and mineral levels since we know they are crucial for a properly functioning body.
Anoneuoid –
> . At the same time deaths/day have dropped from about 200 to 50:
NIf you’re going to opine with such authority on these issues you should take the time to understand them better.
Florida has changed in how they repoet/record deaths. Over the next two weeks or so that “50” for today’s date will undoubtedly grow significantly
Anoneuoid –
> Apparently Florida schools opened on Aug 10th when there was about 20k cases per day, after 1.5 months of no mask mandates there are now under 10k cases per day. At the same time deaths/day have dropped from about 200 to 50.
>> Meanwhile NY has a statewide mask mandate and their covid cases have stated flat at ~5k per day while deaths have tripled from ~13 to 40.
From August 21 to Sept 7, Florida went from @45,513 deaths to 50,781 deaths.
From August 21 to Sept 7, New York went from @54,472 to 55,044 deaths.
So assuming that the difference in their deaths for that period doesn’t grow any more as more Florida reports come in (it may well grow more) during that period, Florida had about 4800 more deaths, or about 1600 a week more.
Anoneuoid –
-snip-
On Monday [August 30th], Florida death data would have shown an average of 262 daily deaths reported to the CDC over the previous week had the health department used its former reporting system, the Herald analysis showed. Instead, the Monday update from Florida showed just 46 “new deaths” per day over the previous seven days.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article253796898.html
As recently as Sept. 2nd, the 7-day rolling average for deaths in Florida was 352.
And you looked at that drop subsequent to around “50” some three weeks later, and didn’t think that there might be an explanation other than “seasonality?”
Anoneuoid –
Please also note:
While at that time the 7-day average in Florida for August 30 was reported to the CDC as 46, now at Worldometers the 7-day average in Florida for August 30 is listed as 352.
Thanks for the useful info. Unless there is an api somewhere showing the data that was published historically, the best way to look at it is probably the wayback machine. This is Florida from Aug 31st:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210831160550/https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/#graph-cases-daily
It looks like, in August, about 10% of deaths were reported with 1 day delay, 50% were reported with 1 week delay, and 70% within 2 weeks. So I would guess the final number for today is somewhere around 100-150 deaths.
The case numbers have only been getting updated by a few percent. So those values should be comparable with NY.
Florida and New York State have both approximately 20 million inhabitants.
What do you think is the cause the NY outperforms FL by a considerable margin, and why do you think school mask mandates are not part of the reason for this?
Fully vaccinated rate: NY 63% FL 57%
Cumulative COVID death
NY 2.84 per 1,000
FL 2.44 per 1,000
Furthermore, looking at excess deaths, it is pretty clear that there was a sizable number of deaths during the first wave (April 2020) in NY that were not properly attributed to COVID.
Also, FL has the 2nd highest senior population rate (21%) among the states in the US while NY is at 26th (16%) and we know COVID death is highly age-sensitive, implying that the cumulative infection rate is likely to differ by more than the cumulative death rate between the two states.
Overall, I don’t think it is particularly controversial to say prior to July 2021, more NY residents were infected with COVID than FL residents.
Combine that with the difference in vaccination, the proportion of immunologically naïve could be something like 20% in NY vs. 30% in FL.
To be clear, I believe mask (mandates) help, but school mask mandates are far from the most important difference between the two states.
Here is the graph I am looking at, it shows a very different picture.
https://covidactnow.org/share/48533/?redirectTo=%2Fexplore%2F48533
Anon:
Enough with filling up all our comments sections with these things! We already have a whole thread on that bet of yours. That should be sufficient.
Andrew,
The purpose of the news is to make people have an emotional response about largely irrelevant issues so their customers can sell the audience something. They even get to double down since the red team gets aroused by the original inflammatory statement and then the blue team gets aroused when they hear about the statement from some other source (and vice versa).
Why don’t they talk about something relevant like filtering the air in schools or testing the children for vitamin/mineral deficiencies (then correcting any that are present)? Eg, when I first worked in a hospital I was really surprised to see vending machines offering all the usual unhealthy junk. These policies would be beneficial in ways far beyond covid.
I posit it is because near everyone would agree with those policies. The news won’t talk about it other than in passing because it doesn’t make money for their customers.
Anon:
Just please keep comments on topic, or interesting in some other way. It is not good to spam all our threads with comments about covid trends. It reduces the value of the blog to readers and to other commenters.
It is on topic, though.
Forcing a girl to wear “girl clothes” when she doesn’t want to is abusive, same for forcing a boy to wear “boy clothes”. Forcing them to wear a mask since that is the new fad is also abusive.
But who cares? There are actually effective things the news could be talking about that they ignore and downplay because those are less inflammatory topics. That is the evil here.
Anon:
Carlson said, “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart.”
I think that parents hitting kids is much worse than kids wearing masks while playing. I don’t actually think kids wearing masks while playing is bad at all. The kids don’t seem to mind at all! In contrast, when kids are getting hit, I see them crying, screaming, it’s absolutely horrible. And I do think it’s evil for Carlson to trivialize this.
I agree with you that there are other evil things in the world too. My being bothered by what Carlson said should not be taken as approval of all the other things going on in the world. If you want to post endlessly about 7-day covid averages or whatever, please don’t fill up the blog with them. There are other places on the internet for that sort of thing. The occasional comment is fine, just keep it under control here.
My position is if they want to wear a mask let them wear a mask, if not then don’t force them. There is really no more reason than for making them follow any other dress code with those supposed benefits.
I woudn’t raise it to the level of regular physical abuse, but also wouldn’t downplay the long term effect of that type of psychological abuse either.
>The kids don’t seem to mind at all! In contrast, when kids are getting hit, I see them crying, screaming, it’s absolutely horrible.
Here’s a video of a kid being forced to wear a mask. I do not mean this as a statement as to whether this is better/worse than specific forms of child abuse, but I *do* want to say that this kind of mask is *far* more comfortable than e.g. a N95 mask (which kids in some places have been forced to wear in school). But I came accross this a while after commenting here and felt it was relevant:
Personally I don’t think the video needs a trigger warning, but for those who are easily distressed: it shows a toddler crying while an adult keeps putting a mask on his face he is trying to get off.
https://twitter.com/456trainMama/status/1439209826668658688
Matty– have you ever, say, tried to wash baby shampoo out of a toddler’s hair?
to quote the tweet: if so, “THIS IS CHILD ABUSE. … YOU ARE A CHILD ABUSER”
As someone else on twitter put it recently: there’s a word for forcing toddlers to do something for their safety and the safety of those around them, even when they protest. It’s called “parenting.”
Granted, there are better and worse ways to go about it, obviously. But to claim that because a toddler _strenuously_ objects to something means that you shouldn’t do it is, simply, unhinged.
What I find ironic is that (I would bet) the same kinds of people who claim that people forcing kids to wear masks are abusive also claim that liberals spoil their children by never saying no.
Adam:
Yes, exactly. To put it another way, when people hit their kids to punish them, the fact that the kid is crying and screaming and in pain, that’s an intended result, not an unfortunate side effect.
Matty –
> I do not mean this as a statement as to whether this is better/worse than specific forms of child abuse,
Really? I’m quite willing to say that isn’t nearly as bad as ANY form of child abuse.
For you to even suggest that there’s remotely any equivalence at all is effectively trivializing child abuse.
What next? Telling a crying kid they have to clean their plate of green beans before they get ice cream is potentially equivalent to child abuse?
I don’t think of Tucker Carlson as satire in the way that say, the Colbert Report was. If it were satire, then his program would be mocking the types of opinions he espouses, which are extremely Conservative ones. That clearly makes no sense. I wouldn’t think of it as serious either though–my impression is that its primary function is more a type of catharsis. If I were a far-right Conservative, it would be fun to say and hear these things, and it’d also be fun to imagine myself calling CPS on the parents of masked kids, even if I would never do that. Kind of like how it’s fun and cathartic to break traffic laws in GTA or listen to NWA say
even though I know why we need traffic laws in real life and NWA obviously never did those things. I do think there’s a moral difference in that the line between fiction and seriousness is kept intentionally blurry by Carlson’s presentation, a handsome-ish man in a bowtie talking seriously at a camera, seeming to seriously try and persuade you. Regardless, no matter how explicit of a call to action Carlson mounts, I’d argue that the vast majority of people who enjoy listening to him tell them to call CPS would never actually do that, and the purpose for them is therefore just a kind of cathartic fantasy.
somebody –
> and the purpose for them is therefore just a kind of cathartic fantasy.
I don’t think of it as a cathertic fantasy, so much as mocking libs (who in this fantasy were calling CPS on people for not wearing masks), in the popular fashion of “owning the libs.”
Closely related and not mutually exclusive, but maybe not quite the same.
Just curious – does anyone know if there is an AI moderating this blog? The reason I ask is that I submitted a comment which has not (yet) appeared, with the message that it was awaiting moderation. I don’t believe Andrew moderates all the comments. The only thing at all unusual about my comment is including particular words (that others have used). So, has this happened to anyone else and does anyone know what gets moderated and by whom?
Every post I’ve ever submitted here has gone through moderation. I don’t know why; my best guess is that I don’t fill out the Mail or Website fields.
Did your comment include links? That can trip a filter in some comment sections.
Dale:
I don’t know the rule by which some comments appear right away and some get held in moderation. Sometimes legitimate comments go straight into the spam file and I never see them; then the only way they appear is if the author of the comment emails me directly about it.
Why would I ever read this blog again after you said Andy Kaufman was “unfunny?” The days just keep getting weirder.
“everyone—kids, coaches, parents, and everyone else—had to wear masks on the sidelines at all times. Kids were encouraged to wear masks when they’re playing but they weren’t required to do so.”
Wow! This just about the most sensible policy you could possibly employ given the data on common masks! Well done.
Yes, Tucker said something incredibly stupid; but this post is about evil thoughts, not stupid thoughts. So, as long as we’re talking about evil thoughts expressed by media personalities, how about…
Kathy Griffin’s infamous decapitation fantasy gorily depicted in her Twitter feed, and repeated several years later.
Jack Morrison fantasizing about “MAGA kids,” going “screaming, hats first, into the woodchipper,” along with a gruesome animation depicting the act.
Vulture contributor Erik Abriss writing of the Covington School students, “I just want these people to die. Simple as that. Every single one of them. And their parents.”
I don’t recall any objection being expressed to those evil thoughts.
Kevin:
There were lots of objections to those evil thoughts! You might not recall these objections, but they’re out there. For example, I did a quick google and found this immediately.
Regarding Carlson: “evil” is a personal judgment. As I noted in my above post, I personally find the trivialization of child abuse to be evil, but I recognize that there are many cultures around the world (including my own here in the United States when I was growing up) where whacking kids was considered to be normal and ok. I guess most people from those cultures wouldn’t think of Carlson’s statement as evil. Each of us has things that particularly bother us, and statements such as Carlson’s bother me.
I was unclear: I don’t recall you writing a blog post objecting to them. I’ll gladly retract my comment if I am mistaken on this.
Kevin:
As I wrote in the above post, I don’t usually comment on outrage-of-the-week stories, but this one really bothered me.
> As I noted in my above post, I personally find the trivialization of child abuse to be evil,
Maybe I misunderstand what you’re saying, but I really hate this take. Its generalized form is: to respond to “A is bad, in analogy to B”, with “since A isn’t bad, stop trivializing B”. I have heard it lots of times, and I consider it a bad-faith argument. Tucker Carlson is (obviously) saying masks are really bad by comparing them to child abuse. Now (needless to say), this is really stupid, but it’s hardly “trivializing child abuse”. He’s saying “masks are really bad”, not “child abuse isn’t so bad”.
Comparing bad things to worse things is completely fine and has a long history! Consider e.g. the Talmudic/Islamic “destroying a life is like destroying the whole world”, and imagine saying “stop trivializing world-destruction, this is so evil”.
> I guess most people from those cultures wouldn’t think of Carlson’s statement as evil.
No, people from those cultures wouldn’t consider all instances of “hitting children” to be “abuse”. I mean Carlson uses the worlds “morally obligated to prevent” in the context of “abuse”, so it’s kind of weird to conclude that he thinks child abuse is fine. Carlson’s statement is (obviously) highly inflammatory, but it’s because he’s calling normal people bad parents who don’t love their kids. This is not something anyone should do, and doesn’t help anyone. But no use distorting what the guy says.
Keith –
> how about…
I don’t understand what is your argument here.
“Whataboutism” is rightfully criticized, imo. I suppose it’s a form of tu quoque, which is considered a fallacy.
If Kathy said something stupid/evil would it make Tucker’s comments any less stupid/evil?
If Andrew fails to criticize every stupid/evil argument uttered, does that mean he shouldn’t criticize stupid/evil shit Tucker says?
Kevin –
Sorry about that “Keith,” let alone twice. That I’m a 76ers hoops fan is my only excuse.
(It’s Kevin, not Keith.) Wanting to see high school students go “screaming, hats first, into the woodchipper” is far worse than a stupidly hyperbolic comment about masks. So the question is, why overlook very seriously evil comments and focus only on something that is more brain-dead than evil? It’s a case of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
Kevin:
I don’t think child abuse is a gnat. Obviously putting someone into a woodchipper is worse; it’s also something that’s extremely rare. Child abuse happens all the time. Anyway my point is not to defend the woodchipper statement. Different people are bothered by different things at different times.
I don’t think I know who Jack Morrison is, but I’m going to guess that he doesn’t _actually_ want to see children thrown head-first into a woodchopper. Or even feet-first! I think that is hyperbole and is intended to be understood as such. Whereas I think Carlsen really _does_ think making children wear masks is a form of child abuse, and that he wants people to report it to the cops etc. It’s certainly possible that he doesn’t actually believe that but is just saying it because his audience likes it when he’s outraged, but even in that case he would still be hoping or perhaps expecting that some members of his audience would act on what he’s saying.
It’s certainly fair to say that Morrison shouldn’t use such outrageous hyperbole if that’s how you feel about it, and it’s even possible to argue that an obviously hyperbolic statement can be ‘evil’, but I do think there’s an important distinction between using hyperbole for effect and saying an extreme statement because want your audience to act on it.
Kevin –
> (It’s Kevin, not Keith.) Wanting to see high school students go “screaming, hats first, into the woodchipper” is far worse than a stupidly hyperbolic comment about masks. So the question is, why overlook very seriously evil comments and focus only on something that is more brain-dead than evil? It’s a case of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
It seems to me you are leaving out very important parts of context. Tucker plays a highly influential role in our political landscape. Jack Morrison? I suspect probably isn’t even remotely anywhere as influential with only a tiny fraction of the reach of Tucker.
So when you’re considering the magnitude of the “evil” of the comments, seems to me that aspect of context (impacdt) becomes relevant. I’d say that your gnat vs. camel comparison would be flipped and multiplied many times over within such a lens.
That’s why, IMO, responding with “Someone else did it to” is a fairly useful was to approach these issues. With such an approach, of comparing stupid/evil statements of one person to another we can always select among metrics to diminish or amplify the importance of one statement or the other.
At what point do you think we should draw the line between a stupid and relatively meaningless statement and an evil, meaningful one? What is your operational criteria and how would it apply to Tucker’s statement? I think that would be a more useful way to look at it than to point out that someone else said something stupid/evil also.
Sorry.
Is a fairly useless way to approach these issues…
Keith –
> how about…
I don’t understand what is your argument here.
“Whataboutism” is rightfully criticized, imo. I suppose it’s a form of tu quoque, which is considered a fallacy.
If Kathy said something stupid/evil would it make Tucker’s comments any less stupid/evil?
If Andrew fails to criticize every stupid/evil argument uttered, does that mean he shouldn’t criticize stupid/evil shit Tucker says?
Evil? He’s comparing one kind of abuse to another. We’re a social species and our communication is largely non verbal so masking kids is not costless, especially when brains are plastic. The benefit is likely exceedingly low given that a) evidence for the effectiveness of masks is ambiguous (and commonly worn cloth masks worse than that); b) kids have a very low rate of serious illness and death from COVID19; and c) outdoor spread is an vanishingly low risk. The cost effectiveness relationship seems quite likely to be negative. So his claim that forcing masking of kids outdoors is abuse is not meritless.
The degrees and types are very different, so it’s a bad comparison but it certainly isn’t an “evil” utterance.
It seems like the oversensitive hysterical affliction of youth that Lukianoff and Haidt described in the Coddling of the American Mind has reached adults as well. It’s a shame, because it’s driven so many smart people crazy and further sunk the publics trust in institutions and experts, and turned us against each other.
chrisare –
> The benefit is likely exceedingly low given that a) evidence for the effectiveness of masks is ambiguous (and commonly worn cloth masks worse than that); b) kids have a very low rate of serious illness and death from COVID19; and c) outdoor spread is an vanishingly low risk. The cost effectiveness relationship seems quite likely to be negative. So his claim that forcing masking of kids outdoors is abuse is not meritless.
I’m struggling with your logic here. It seems to me that you’re saying since we aren’t certain of the benefit of kids wearing masks outdoors, therefoe likening it to abuse isn’t meritless.
I’m assuming I missed something. Could you elaborate?
On what basis do you go from since the benefit isn’t certain, the net effect must be negative, and not just mildly negative but negative to the point it could reasonably be considered “abuse? “
This is not about the net benefit of masks or no masks. This is about calling the police on someone and trying to have their child separated from them if you see that child wearing a mask.
Chrisare:
As I wrote in an above comment, these are personal judgments. It makes me sad that you think of a concern with child abuse is “oversensitive hysterical affliction,” but as stated in the above post, I recognize that a lot of people have the attitude that whacking kids is just fine, which oddly enough is sometimes held in conjunction with the attitude that wearing a mask is a form of abuse. Attitudes on child abuse vary a lot, which doesn’t make be happy but that’s how it is.
I have not had a TV for the past 50-60 years so I do not know too much about Tucker Carlson directly. However, unlike most of the participants in this blog, I am, and to my wife’s annoyance, rather an expert on Alex Jones because I have been following him diligently for the past few years. Jones lately has been referring glowingly to “Tucker” because Carlson is a smoother–or, at least a better-dressed–version of poison spewing. Jones is careful not to appear antisemitic–and a previous wife is Jewish–but today he slipped: In the midst of his usual harangue about the Covid vaccine being designed to depopulate the world and bring about slavery, he inadvertently threw in “Rothschild” to go along with George Soros, perpetrators who wish to enslave us. As far as I am aware, Jones is yet to claim that Fauci, despite being criticized constantly for being a Chinese agent, is part of this Semitic conspiracy.
You might not realize it, Andrew, but I think this whole COVID thing is nudging you more towards “let local groups and people make their own choices”. I think we have the next Hoover Institution Fellow on our hands!
The:
I dunno, all those fires and earthquakes, it doesn’t seem safe to me!
As stupid as Carlson’s statement is, calling it “evil” really misses the point IMO. The line between “evil” and “well-meaning but misguided” typically passes right next to/on top of the ingroup/outgroup one. I mean is the statement dumb and hyperbolic? Obviously. Can it be steelman-ed to something about as sensible as what passes for insight on show’s like John Oliver’s? I leave that question to other people, as I have no interest in getting drawn into a debate where I end up taking Tucker Carlson’s side.
Matty –
From above:
> Tucker Carlson is (obviously) saying masks are really bad by comparing them to child abuse. Now (needless to say), this is really stupid, but it’s hardly “trivializing child abuse”. He’s saying “masks are really bad”, not “child abuse isn’t so bad”.
I disagree. Comparing child abuse to wearing a mask is comparing child abuse to something (relatively) trivial. When you compare child abuse to something (relatively) trivial, as if they’re similar, you certainly are effectively trivializing child abuse.
Anyway, it wasn’t just Tucker’s statement that I think is the problem. Its his statement explicitly leverages and multiplies antipathy.
> The line between “evil” and “well-meaning but misguided” typically passes right next to/on top of the ingroup/outgroup one
Where do you draw the line between “evil” and “well-meaning but misguided?” How do you orient Tucker’s comments along that axis?
>Where do you draw the line between “evil” and “well-meaning but misguided”?
I try to treat the two as synonyms for most practical purposes.
> you certainly are effectively trivializing child abuse.
No, this is nonsense. And (as I have already said) a bad-faith argument. The statement “you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it” proves that Tucker Carlson does not consider masks “relatively trivial”. Honestly I don’t see how you can read the quote and not think “Tucker Carlson is trying to make a needlessly big deal out of children wearing masks”.
> his statement explicitly leverages and multiplies antipathy.
His statement is designed to stoke up anger, and judging by the responses here it is clear he has succeeded.
Matty –
> Honestly I don’t see how you can read the quote and not think “Tucker Carlson is trying to make a needlessly big deal out of children wearing masks”.
Because he likened it to child abuse!
If you think that putting a mask on a kid is tantamount to physical, psychological, emotional, or sexual abuse, then it’s not trivializing child abuse.
Have you put a mask on a kid? I have. Do you think I should be held accountable for child abuse?
If you think so, you are out of touch with our entire system of law enforcement and child protective services. You are out of touch with the vast majority of pediatricians or child advocates and child services workers who dedicate their lives to children. If I were found to be hitting or sexually abusing a child I’d easily be found guilty of child abuse. I don’t think that under any circumstance you’d find any place on the planet someone would be found guilty of child abuse for putting a mask on a child.
At some level, these definitions are subjective. And at some level you’re enough of an outlier that you’re running up against pretty much universal definitions.
If I see you hitting or sexually assaulting a kid I’m going to call the cops. If I see you putting a mask on a kid, I’ll likely say good on ya’.
>If you think that putting a mask on a kid is tantamount to physical, psychological, emotional, or sexual abuse, then it’s not trivializing child abuse.
Maybe it’s just a grammatical ambiguity, but I’m very confused why it sounds like you’re saying I believe these silly things. But this more or less the claim Carlson is making (though I’m a bit shocked that you would trivialize sexual abuse by comparing it to Carlson’s “getting punched in the face by a teacher”. Do you not think sexual abuse is more serious than that?).
> You are out of touch
I don’t believe anyone is claiming Carlson is “in touch”.
> I don’t think that under any circumstance you’d find any place on the planet someone would be found guilty of child abuse for putting a mask on a child.
Burqa mandates have been likened to abuse, and I find it funny that the overlap between te “burqas are horrible” and the “masks are great” crowds is so big. But it’s really a question of how you define “abuse” and how you feel about masks. Once again, I will explicitly not try to go into these questions and will *not* respond to any answers that presume I have done so.
Matty –
> i’m very confused why it sounds like you’re saying I believe these silly things.
I don’t know if you believe them. I think that you’re defending Tucker when he exploits hatred towards libz by saying that mask-wearing is tantamount to abuse. Because I think that isn’t just Tucker stating a believe, but Tucker using and cynically exploiting child abuse as a tool to motivate and foment hatred. Doing so enhances his brand value and attracts eyeballs and engenders loyalty.
> But this more or less the claim Carlson is making..
If course it ia!
> I don’t believe anyone is claiming Carlson is “in touch”.
People are saying that Tucker believes that putting a mask on a child is tantamount to child abuse. I don’t think he does believe that, really. But he’s cynically leveraging the fact that comparison to sell his product.
> Burqa mandates have been likened to abuse, and I find it funny that the overlap between te “burqas are horrible” and the “masks are great” crowds is so big.
I’m not sure where you see such a huge overlap. Seems to me that objections to (Muslims) forcing women to wear burqas runs pretty far across political divides.
> But it’s really a question of how you define “abuse” and how you feel about masks.
We agree about that. It’s about how you define abuse. And if you define putting a mask on a kid abuse you’re either an extreme outlier, someone just using that comparison (hyperbolically) to vent hate, or in Tucker’s case to deliberately exploit hatred.
> I think that you’re defending Tucker
I don’t see how anything I’ve written can be misconstrued as defending Tucker, given that I repeatedly have called his statements nonsense.
> Seems to me that objections to (Muslims) forcing women to wear burqas runs pretty far across political divides.
Yes, as does forcing people to wear masks. I don’t see how this isn’t a large overlap.
> you’re either an extreme outlier
What’s your point? “Child abuse” is notorious for being difficult to define; some people call any physical punishment “abuse” and some don’t. But this is getting pretty far off on a tangent.
Matty –
> I don’t see how anything I’ve written can be misconstrued as defending Tucker, given that I repeatedly have called his statements nonsense.
I think that Tucker trivializes the rap problem of child abuse by exploring it by comparing it to putting a mask on a kid. I think you’re defending him when you say he isn’t trivializing child abuse (and it’s nonsense to say he is).
Yes, child abuse is subjectively defined within some parameters. For example, is spanking a kid child abuse, or is there an amount of spanking that crosses the line into child abuse.
Anyone who actually thinks putting a mask on a kind is child abuse is an ezfew outlier. No law enforcement or child protective services anywhere will define it as such. Tucker knows this. He’s just exploiting a serous problem (child abuse) to own libz.
>I think you’re defending him when you say he isn’t trivializing child abuse (and it’s nonsense to say he is).
No, I am defending reasonable thought. It’s complete nonsense to make Tucker’s nonsense about child abuse, when really it is about masks.
Matty:
You write, “His statement is designed to stoke up anger, and judging by the responses here it is clear he has succeeded.” Indeed. See the discussion in my above post regarding the “Don’t feed the trolls” principle.
Matty –
I can guarantee that Tucker doesn’t really think that putting a mask on a kid is tantamount to child abuse.
It’s a shtick. He’s exploiting antipathy. Unfortunately, your defense that he’s “just expressing an opinion” (not quoting you, just paraphrasing your argument in a way I believe is accurate) is exactly what he anticipated, and counts on, and exploits.
> I can guarantee that Tucker doesn’t really think that putting a mask on a kid is tantamount to child abuse.
Go spend some time on “mask-skeptical Twitter” and maybe you’ll relativize your statement. When kids develop asthma after wearing a mask (note that I have made *no* causal claims), develop rashes because of masks, are asked to play sports in N95 masks, then naturally some parents will conclude that wearing masks are not in the best interest of their children. Whether or not that is true is another question, but it’s a bit strange to believe that crazy people can’t “really think” crazy opinions.
Matty –
> but it’s a bit strange to believe that crazy people can’t “really think” crazy opinions.
I’ve actually spent time in mask-skeptivsl Twitter.
In my experience, on these types of issues some people say a lot of identity-driven shit they, don’t really believe. Hate, such as hating libz, is a powerful “reasoning motivator” and “bias confirmer.”
That said, UK sure that there are people out there who think that mask wearing is “evil” and tantamount to child abuse.
Tucker doesn’t really believe that. He’s cynically exploiting lib-hatred to an audience of people who do believe it or at least willing to pretend to themselves they believe it because it satisfies their drive to hate in libz.
It’s a shtick. He developed this technique of populist rabble-rousing during his years as a shock jock. With a little searching you can find documentation of him on the record saying that feigning views is a deliberate technique, a tool of his trade (if you’d like, I’ll dig something up).
I think the “evil” part is that Tucker is telling people to call the authorities on people for their decisions in an ambiguous moment. “Comply or be subject to the state’s monopoly on violence” is pretty messed up, regardless of your take on masking.
>“Comply or be subject to the state’s monopoly on violence” is pretty messed up, regardless of your take on masking.
fwiw I’m pretty sure the quoted phrase is one of the predominant takes on masking.
The, Matty:
I refer you to Carlson’s quote, “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart.”
I think that parents hitting kids is much worse than kids wearing masks while playing. I don’t actually think kids wearing masks while playing is bad at all. The kids don’t seem to mind at all! In contrast, when kids are getting hit, I see them crying, screaming, it’s absolutely horrible.
Requiring kids to wear masks in certain settings is not violence; it’s a public health rule. It’s a rule that’s applied unevenly and sometimes in silly ways; that doesn’t make it violent. Hitting kids is violent. Calling the cops to take people’s kids away from them, I guess that’s in some intermediate stage of violence. I don’t think the state has any monopoly on violence; people hit their kids all the time.
I will clarify only my comment you are replying to, since I’m not sure the point came accross:
> Requiring kids to wear masks in certain settings is not violence; it’s a public health rule.
Public health rules (like other rules) carry with them the threat of violence (or force) for noncompliance. This is how laws are enforced, see any book on sociology post Max Weber. Violating mask mandates here in Europe currently carries a fine, payable under threat of violence. The “violence” that “the_real_tiddlydump” was talking about was that of the state employing its monopoly on force to take children away from parents, so in this context it has nothing to do with hitting kids.
> I don’t think the state has any monopoly on violence
People also go to boxing matches, or butcher animals, there are private security companies, etc…
In general, however, the reference is obviously to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
The state has a monopoly on the legal use of violence. If a parent hits their kid to get them to put on a mask, that’s illegal. If the police put you in an arm bar and walk you out of Walmart because you refuse to put on your mask, that’s legal, a legit use of their “right” to employ violence to enforce laws… At least that’s what’s meant in the phrase “Monopoly on violence”
I happen to disagree with Andrew, and lean towards masking children probably being worse for them than the alternative (sans those with compromising health conditions already). That’s really not the point, though, since I believe much more strongly in the freedom of association, of free expression, and of self-determination. I also know what *actual* abuse looks like.
Are Islamic customs of veiling women abusive, per se? Or are people free to make decisions savoy their own lives, subject to constraints by government when merited, and only then? It’s almost like this is a debate that can be had rationally, which I think none of us believe Tucker was doing.
>Are Islamic customs of veiling women abusive, per se? … It’s almost like this is a debate that can be had rationally,
Funny, because this is precisely a debate where it seems like half the people are completely irrational.
I’m really not seeing much leeway here.
With Kant, I’m equating “evil” with “treating a person as a means to an end”.
Tucker is instrumentalising everyone who suffered abuse as a kid to make a point about mask wearing.
That’s evil. It can’t be “well-meaning” because it is disrespectful of those people. It trivialises their plight.
The “kids in the wood chipper” thing, on the other hand, is pure hyperbole that doesn’t harm anyone because there’s no group of people who suffered from that, and it’s well understood to be an extreme; that’s just a tasteless way to express an opinion.
I like this blog and for that reason have a very positive view of the blogger. This particular post may not be a good idea ,not judged on substance but on reaction and Andrew might well have been better off to have aborted it.
FWIW I am not an American and Tucker’s views are not important for me.
Morris39:
Carlson’s views are not important to me either. I have no idea what his views are. He’s a performer. I’m bothered by what he said.
I am fortunate to have a secure job and I can say what I want. On this blog I can criticize Tucker Carlson or Cass Sunstein or anyone else without worrying about what will be good for my reputation or professional career or whatever. I think that’s a good thing.
I have a question for people who think that parents who make their kids wear masks are being abusive: instead of masks, how about soccer boots? Or shirts? Or shorts? Or underpants? Do parents have some “freedom of expression” right to let their kids go naked in a public playground or injure their feet in a soccer match?
I ask because I’ve never come across this belief before in relation to other items of clothing (religious beliefs excepted perhaps). I’m talking generic items here (not e.g. team uniforms).
Or have I answered my own question – is making your kid wear/not wear a mask is a (manifestation of a) religious belief?
I’m fascinated and puzzled by the fact that the intersection of “readers of this blog” and “fans of Tucker Carlson” is nonempty.
Given how many lurkers there are out there, and how motivated fans of Tucker would be to defend him against this post, the set of readers who are Tucker fans could be trivially small. I’d guess that a large fraction of readers of the blog who ARE fans of Tucker have made comments – which is only like around 5 people?
It’s incorrect to assume that people who question why Carlson is singled out in the current frenzy of media misinformation are “fans of Tucker Carlson”, but it’s pretty much the norm for “People who Hate Tucker Carlson”.
Those assumptions! So often wrong.
CLK –
That’s true. I’m sure that not everyone who defends him against Andrew’s post is a fan.
There’s probably a set of people who align with him ideologically but aren’t “fans.”
There’s probably a set of non-fans who really believe that putting a mask on a kid is “abuse.”
There might even be a set who disagree with him ideologically and don’t think that putting a mask on a kid is “abuse” but still feel motivated to write comments objecting to Andrew’s characterization. But I would be surprised if among readers of this blog it wasn’t a pretty small set.
Joshua:
On the plus side, there was only one commenter who expressed the view that it’s ok to hit kids.
“There’s probably a set of people who align with him ideologically but aren’t “fans.””
It’s incorrect to assume that “people who align with some of Tucker Carlson’s policy positions” are “people who align with him ideologically”, but again pretty much the norm for “People who Hate Tucker Carlson”.
More incorrect assumptions! Tsk tsk.
Assumptions can be dangerous in physical science but they’re like a roach infestation in social sciences – you think they’re under control until you turn the light on, then they’re scurrying everywhere, turning your models to a shambles with one quick flip of the insight switch.
CLK –
> It’s incorrect to assume that “people who align with some of Tucker Carlson’s policy positions” are “people who align with him ideologically”,
Hmmm. You mean as distinct from this?:
>> There might even be a set who disagree with him ideologically and don’t think that putting a mask on a kid is “abuse” but still feel motivated to write comments objecting to Andrew’s characterization.
So now we’re down to a set who aren’t fans, but agree with him on some policy positions, but who aren’t aligned with him ideologically, and don’t agree with him that putting a mask on a kid is child abuse, and are readers of the blog, and are motivated enough by Andrew’s characterization so as to write a post taking Andrew to task?
Yah. I still think that’s a pretty small set.
“It’s incorrect to assume that people who question why Carlson is singled out in the current frenzy of media misinformation are “fans of Tucker Carlson””
Good thing I didn’t assume that. But the middle-aged white man doth protest too much, methinks.
Man, that story in the link about child abuse in the Hasidic community, and the political cover-up. I did not remember at all what this post was about when I finished that…
Two points:
a) What is the relationship between free speech and toxic ideas in functioning democracies? How is it similar or dissimilar? (I really don’t know.)
b) I like the game of go. Here’s the strategy that I follow (and this took me a long time to learn). Start from the last move and then move backwards. That is, find all the places that you want to place your piece and all the places that you don’t want your opponents to place their piece.
Consider, in ’24, the GOP formally (again) tries to overthrow the federal government. This time they succeed. Elections are stopped. The constitution is suspended (or replaced). Moving backwards through the chain of events, it becomes (as clear as it can be) that people such as Tucker Carlson and their toxic ideas were to blame. Assuming that America was going to resume its democracy, what should happen? Should the first amendment be amended?
“What is the relationship between free speech and toxic ideas in functioning democracies? How is it similar or dissimilar? ”
“Toxic ideas” is just a new label for “ideas that you disagree with” – a way to convince yourself that ideas that you disagree with are somehow objectively less valid than your own views.
To me a “toxic idea” is to place a moratorium on evictions for a *year* – not to mention attempting to continue it indefinitely – which in my view constitutes simple and blatant theft of private property by the government and is a direct threat to the sanctity of the United States of America and the well-being of the overwhelming majority of its citizens. In that sense, it’s far more dangerous to far more children than Tucker Carlson’s nutty ranting ever could be.
Your effort to redefine “toxic” didn’t answer my question. Try again?
I find it interesting to put Andrew’s question in the context of the functioning of democracy.
The traditional idea always was that free speech ensures a fair competition of ideas, and the good ideas win and get voted into action. (One of the first things authoritarian regimes tend to do is to suppress or discredit the free press.)
The challenge is that social media’s filter bubbles and echo chambers have changed the press landscape and the nature of political discourse even worse than nationalism did in the 19th century; the attention economy rewards more extremist (more toxic) ideas; this blog post is an example of that.
One approach many democracies have taken is to put hate speech laws on the books.
Facing populist organisations that discredit established media, we hope for more effective remedies, but we may have to work with what we’ve got.
I would guess that the subtext here is that some of Carlson’s viewers think that kids ought to be spanked *more*
(e.g. “I was spanked as a kid and I turned out fine” “Kids these days aren’t taught any discipline” etc.)
For them, Carlson’s claim works in two ways:
– It trivializes spanking–i.e. “it’s no worse than forcing them to mask”
– It gives them a retort in the debate: “we’re not abusers, you are!” (i.e. “I know you are but what am I”)
– Bonus: it’s the liberals who want everyone to mask, so this is anti-liberal, too!