Glib Contrarianism

Earlier today, DougJ, business and economics editor of Balloon Juice, made the point that

Michael Kinsley [may not have begat]  Mickey Kaus, Charles Lane, Gregg Easterbrook, and Megan McArdle

but he did legitimate glib contrarians, who add little to public debate.  DougJ and his overlord, John Cole,  made the point that Andrew Sullivan is just not a serious person. Who is missing from the list?  Matt Yglesias that's who.  Is Yglesias a Neoliberal? Yes he is.  Is he glibly contrarian about important issues?  Yes he is.

What is interesting to me is that fact that the center-left has decided to give Yglesiasa pass on being a glib contrarian. For example, Krugman cites Yglesias today because he makes the entirely jejune point that Obama ought to hire someone competent to replace Summers. (As an aside, Tom Scocca makes the point that Summers is leaving to spend more time with his money.) Why  amnesty this case?  I have no idea. Think Progress produces some really marvelous work and, it's true, Yglesias works there. But ought his place of employment protect his silliness from criticism?  No, no it ought not.

Let's consider an example when Yglesias was just plain silly, dumb, and incoherent, and we can, along the way, wonder to ourselves why he continues to occupy a position of some importance in the realm of public "intellectuals."

 Back before he sort of recanted the basis of his support for the Invasion, Yglesias wrote:

AMIDST SOME UGLY AND ill-considered Catholic bashing, Julie Burchill makes a good meta-point in The Guardian that I think is very relevant to the current war. She writes

I don't have to respect anyone's religion on principle any more than I have to respect people's politics if I find them bigoted.

She's talking, as a leftist would be nowadays, about why she doesn't need to respect Catholicism, but the same could just as easily be said about Islam. During the course of the second half of the 20th century, racist views finally became unacceptable to air in public. At the same time, anti-semitism was seen as crucially related to anti-black and anti-asian racisms. All this was for the best, as was the general movement to be more tolerant of alternate ways of life and systems of belief.Nevertheless, it got forgotten somewhere along the way -- particularly by people on the left -- that a religion (especially a religion that's not judaism) is, fundamentally, a system of beliefs and beliefs that, as much as any other beliefs, can be criticized as false, harmful, or whatever. It is very important to let people live their lives as they see fit (provided, of course, that they don't harm anyone) but it's not necessary at all to refrain from criticizing other people's beliefs.
I think that if more people on the left appreciated Burchill's point and saw that it applies not only to Catholicism but to other religions as well, that far more would agree with me that the current war against terrorist fanatics is a cause that should be embraced enthusiastically by liberals everywhere.

This is just stupefyingly dumb and dishonest. In the first instance, Burchill wasn't bashing Catholicism.  She was, rather, attacking the position that Catholicism acts as a prophylactic against worst impulses of humanity when, as a matter of historical fact, lots of Catholics have done lots of horrid things. She erred in positing a causal connection between Catholicism and horrid acts, lots of Catholics aren't horrid; however, she was, after all, writing in response to Catholics insisting that their moral actions resulted from their Catholicism. Her point was disagreement about the role of religion in fostering restraint, which is an age old and perfectly legitimate argument.

What is more troubling is that Yglesias argued that  Liberals refused to recognize that some religious beliefs are open to criticism because, rather like Rorty's misrepresentation of Liberals and toleration, that when it comes to Islam Liberals have become so open minded that their brains have fallen out.  Really? Are we honestly to believe this right-wing slur concerning Liberals view of Islam?  Or that Liberal and Leftist opposition to Israeli policies toward Palestinians is based on their refusal to criticize Judaism instead of their refusal to equate policies with which they disagree with religious doctrine that they find absurd? In short, I, like most reasonable people, reject the notion that religious beliefs authorize political policies I find abhorrent, silly, and counter productive. Why?  Because I know of lots of religious people who work for policies I find the opposite of abhorrent, silly, and counter productive. What one does matters considerably more than what one claims to believe.  This leg of Ygelsias' argument, while profoundly stupid and ill considered, isn't the most pressing problem.

The most pressing problem is the next bit.  Yglesias claimed that if Liberals only understood that they could legitimately criticize Islamic beliefs then they would agree that they should kill those Muslim who are "terrorist fanatics" and, as so often happens in times of killing folks who belong to a larger group that behaves differently than the murderous minority, those standing in their vicinity. Because, after all, war is only a form of criticism. It seems to have passed Yglesias by that there are other methods of fighting terrorist fanatics that don't require bomb, bomb, bombing, and associated methods of killing lots of folks. And he seems unaware that arguing for critical engagement with horrid or questionable ideas and ideals does not legitimate violence against the object of critical engagement.

In short, he misrepresented his source material and then insisted that two incommensurable things, criticism and violence, are identical.  The mind boggles.

You might, and Yglesias did, insist that his idiotic arguments in favor of the Invasion were the fault of youth and other related whatnotery.  But has he eschewed these kind of idiotic arguments?  Well, no, no he has not. For example, he recently argued that

I think there are good things to be said about making the tax code more progressive. But I do think it’s important to note that it’s dangerous for liberals to embrace the view that revenue should come exclusively from the hyper-rich.

Why is it important to note this?  Are there Liberals arguing in favor of a tax policy that falls only on the hyper-rich? Does his source material, for example, call for this kind of exclusivity?  Well no, no there are not and no, no it doesn't. Is Yglesias engaging in dishonest, dumb, and just plain silly representations of nonexistent others to make some glib and idiotic contrarian point?  Well yes, yes he is.  Has he, in short, learned the lesson of his greatest failure?  No, no he has not.

Is tax policy less pressing than bomb, bomb, bombing?  Well yes, yes it is.  Is the fact that an arguer is engaging in the same mode of argumentation evidence that the arguer ought not be taken seriously? Yes, yes it is.

UPDATE:
Frequent commentator Anonymous suggests below that I misunderstood Yglesias who, A insists all evidence to the contrary, intended only "new revenue."  How then does one parse these sentences.

But I do think it’s important to note that it’s dangerous for liberals to embrace the view that revenue should come exclusively from the hyper-rich. 

But for another thing, there are a lot of tax changes you could make to the tax code that would make the system more progressive that don’t meet the standard of literally placing the entire burden on rich people.

If he meant new revenue, which is a key point, wouldn't he have been careful to make it?  Or correct it after the fact? Okay, sure, part of my point is that he is a sloppy and lazy thinker who fell into a glib contrarian mode of argumentation and can't get up. Maybe A is right and the fact that he left out a key word which fundamentally changes the claim Yglesias makes is just another example of the need for him to purchase some kind of LifeCall for pundits.  However, in the second he links soaking the rich by making them exclusive object of the taxman's attention with progressive attempts to reform the system. I'm still voting for glib contrarinism built on strawmen and misreading.