I am currently reading The Master and His Emissary , which appears to be an excellent book. ("Appears" because I don't know the neuroscience literature well enough to say for sure, yet.) But then on page 186 I find: "Asking cognition, however, to give a perspective on the relationship between cognition and affect is like asking astronomer in the pre-Galilean geocentric world, whether, in his opinion, the sun moves round the earth of the earth around the sun. To ask a question alone would be enough to label one as mad." OK, this is garbage. First of all, it should be pre-Copernican, not pre-Galilean. But much worse is that people have seriously been considering heliocentrism for many centuries before Copernicus. Aristarchus had proposed a heliocentric model in the 4th-century BC. It had generally been considered wrong, but not "mad." (And wrong for scientific reasons: Why, for instance, did we not observe stellar parallax?) And when Copernicus propose...
I think sometimes Krauthammer is shrewd, but yeah, Colbert destroys him on this. Blood on the walls.
ReplyDeleteNext ugliest? I'd vote for Colbert myself, or Stewart. They encourage the kind of approach to debate you often decry. They have raised ad hominem to an art.
Come on Ken: they don't always play fair, but at least they are humorous, rather than snarling, like much of the Fox News crew.
DeleteIf I wanted to pick someone from the left, I'd pick someone like Madow or Garafalo.
Well I don't watch Fox so I don't know how snarling. But from what I have seen these past 10 years these guys are the most effective and influential corruptors of debate.
DeleteA friend in Canada asked me what I thought was the biggest problem in the US these days. My answer was that ad hominem is widely believed to be a valid argument. That and the idea that sneering is a good argument, which you just highlighted a few days ago with that New Yorker writer. But I agree those two you name are more like Coulter (who stands alone and incomparable) than my two.
I'm having trouble remembering a single thing Ann Coulter ever said, but my impression is that she talks sense from time to time. I suspect that she understands the world pretty clearly but is "in character" as a movement conservative commentator most of the time and so the things she says are her character's dialogue. At her worst, maybe she's worse that Krauthammer; I don't really know.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if Krauthammer is similarly "in character", but, if so, I don't remember him ever letting the mask slip. He's been my personal least favorite since I was a teenager ... can't believe he's still a public figure!
Yes. She first hit TV during the OJ trial, where she was sharp and insightful. Then she needed a new gig, and crazed wolverine was available. I think she was serious after 9/11 when she wanted to invade the muslim world , kill their leaders and convert them, but she's smart when it serves her.
DeleteYou really don't like Fox News conservatives, do you?
ReplyDelete