THE PLANK NOVEMBER 9, 2007
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Michelle notes, below, that David Brooks devotes his entire New York Times column today to refuting an argument made by Paul Krugman without mentioning that it's Krugman he's refuting. Usually, it's Krugman doing this to Brooks. Indeed, spotting these swipes is one of the most fun things about the Times op-ed page.
For instance, in his column last Monday, Krugman wrote as an aside,
So much, by the way, for pundits who claim that Americans don’t care about economic inequality.
What pundits? Why, it must be Brooks, who wrote the previous week,
Third, don’t expect people to cast votes according to their income. Democrats do as well among top earners as Republicans.
(In fact, Krugman is correct about this point, and Brooks is wrong.)
Of course, intellectual debate typically requires you to name who you're disagreeing with, and to quote your opponent's argument. The Times seems to have an off rule forbidding columnists from disagreeing with each other by name. I assume this is some kind of genteel tradition. But it ends up lowering the quality of the debate. Only readers who are paying very close attention can figure out who is making the arguments that are being challenged. And because the columnists can't name each other, they can't quote each other, so the reader doesn't know if the columnist is rebutting a real argument or a straw man.
--Jonathan Chait
9 comments
Hey, Jon ... does intellectual writing "requir" one to spell correctly? ;)
- epackard-02
November 9, 2007 at 3:14pm
Why shud it?
- J.J. Gould
November 9, 2007 at 3:24pm
Man, this new Talkback is really giving me the s***s, and I'm not going to shut up about it.
I feel like a junkie, all sweaty and nauseated with withdrawal,hobbling down to the corner every half hour to see whether my man has finally scored some smack from his supplier.
PLEASE FIX TALKBACK AFTER THE FEATURE ARTICLES.
This blog stuff is nonsense, the attention span way too short.
And as its constituted now, Talkback after the magazine articles is to the old Talkback what ten guys beating off simultaneously in the dark his to an orgy.
- aeromonas
November 9, 2007 at 3:26pm
Jonathan -- It's a good point. Is this a Times issue, though, or a cultural norm among U.S. newspapers generally? Mags like TNR, to their credit, occasionally benefit readers by permitting, or even promoting, open debate in their pages -- or on their websites -- with free use of names, quotations, etc. But I don't recall ever seeing much of that in the Washington Post, or the L.A. Times, or the Journal ... or the Miami Herald, or the Times-Picayune ...
- J.J. Gould
November 9, 2007 at 3:41pm
Right, Jon. We're better off with the "Jane, you ignorant slut..." form of discourse. And not so fast ruling Brooks' statement "wrong". Republicans get more millionaires, but the Dems are way ahead in billionaires.
- Robert Powell
November 9, 2007 at 6:16pm
Jonathan -- thanks for the fix on "requires".
- epackard-02
November 9, 2007 at 6:21pm
Meanwhile, over at Slate:
www.slate.com/.../2177252
- J.J. Gould
November 9, 2007 at 8:09pm
"It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale."
Sounds like David Brooks was talking about his own columns.
- norcal
November 10, 2007 at 1:23am
The bizarre cat fight among NYT opiners has a new combatant. Today, Bob Herbert argues that Ronald Reagan's
- Anonymous
November 13, 2007 at 2:00pm