In Defense of Throat Clearing
It's bad writing, but a necessary evil.
In a subscriber-only post on his Substack, Freddie deBoer reacts to a writer for something called Typebar Magazine beginning an endorsement of a piece deBoer wrote on abortion “People (justifiably) hate Freddie but . . . .”
One thing that has not changed in all my years of doing this has been the degree to which people who argue professionally for a living soil their fucking diapers at the thought of accidentally associating themselves with someone unclean. This tendency defines the trash-strewn sea of utter social cowardice I’ve been forced to swim in for almost twenty years now, simply to exist in this industry. And I just marvel at how deeply ingrained these behaviors are in this business, the absolute addiction to making sure that everyone knows that you are Good and that you know the Baddies are Bad and that you MOST CERTAINLY AREN’T praising a Baddie, you’re just maybe kinda sorta agreeing with some small part of a Baddie’s point, temporarily. Honestly, what is the fear here? What rational human being would ever look at this guy saying “Freddie makes a good point about abortion here” and then say “Ah, he’s endorsing deBoer as a human being in his totality, he must truly love Freddie deBoer and side with him on all matters of controversy?” It’s absurd. It’s asinine. It’s flagrantly inspired by fear of one’s peers. It’s constant in this world. And it never, ever changes.
There’s presumably more, but, while I’ve paid to read some of deBoer’s work, including his book The Cult of Smart, I am not a paid subscriber to his Substack. So, perhaps he deals with my reaction later in the piece.
While I fully agree that we ought to be able to evaluate arguments on their own merits without pro forma disclaimers, I would argue that there’s reason to do so beyond moral cowardice: almost nobody actually evaluates arguments on their own merits.
That’s most obvious in the pure politics space. We’ve seen time and again over the years that people will change their views on an issue 180 based on who a quote is attributed to. Hell, the entire Republican Party seems to have changed their opinion on every other issue simply because Donald Trump is now the head of the party.
But this is almost as true in the public intellectual space. I can’t quote, for instance, discuss a piece by Andrew Sullivan without the commentariat quickly dismissing it based on his decision to excerpt The Bell Curve when he edited TNR decades ago. This is true even if the issue being discussed has nothing to do with race or IQ. The same is true for even relatively innocuous columnists like Megan McArdle; any argument will be dismissed based on some random tweet from 2008 having nothing to do with the topic at hand. Hell, #NeverTrump Republicans making an argument that Democrats agree with will be dismissed because they once supported Mitt Romney or took the same position on the Iraq War as the entire 2008 Democratic primary field save Barack Obama.
In that environment, then, the only choices are to simply not cite those personalities or to attempt to preempt the reaction before doing so. Caveating likely objections makes for weaker prose, to be sure. But it’s a learned reaction if you’re publishing in a medium with immediate reader feedback.
********************@
I feel like if anybody in the whole world requires a thorough caveating prior to agreeing with them, it is Freddie.
And man thinking about him brought a smile to my face, so thank you for that 🙂
I can dismiss a number of never-Taco Republicans, because when t mattered they supported El Taco. I mean those who spent their every last pixel warning about how terrible a Taco regime would be, both in 2016 and 2024, but would advise either voting for a third party or not voting at all. I hardly need to explain how that benefits only El Taco.
This does not include people like Liz Cheney and George Conway, no matter if they supported Romney or sleep in Reagan themed jammies.
This annoys me to no end. Don’t we want people to change their minds? Don’t we want them to join our side? Or would we rather kick out anyone who has ever been wrong about anything?
I’m sometimes say “If the Iraq invasion comes up for a vote again, I promise not to follow their advice. But right now the topic is…” It doesn’t work, but it makes me feel better.
Indeed.
Yes, it’s extremely annoying.
It’s usually a dodge to avoid discussing actual arguments. It’s simply easier to engage in ad hominem than to actually think about and form a cogent response to whatever the point is. It’s also reflective of the annoying binary nature of our politics, where nuance and partial agreement/disagreement is actively discouraged and policed. It’s verboten heresy among the tribalists to say anything that might make your team look bad, or might make the other team look less than totally evil. In many ways, it’s the Robbers Cave experiment in the real world.
DeBoer, being who he is, misses, of course, the point entirely.
The issue isn’t that he is “unclean” (whatever that may mean), the issue is that he has proven himself – a long time ago – to be a lazy, sloppy thinker.
Assuming I agree with DeBoer on something, I would never mention that agreement because 1) I would be unaware of it; 2) what’s even the point of mentioning that a sloppy thinker like DeBoer agrees with me?
I could conceivably write something like “Krugman, too, thinks that…” because Krugman is more often right than wrong.
But DeBoer? Or Sullivan or McArdle? I trust myself quite a bit more than them. And justifiably so, I would add.
These people aren’t unclean, they’re jokes.
(Even if they happen to be right occasionally.)
I’m not a subscriber, but I enjoy reading FdB. He often writes about things that I find interesting (personally and professionally), and he does so in an entertaining manner.
Throat clearing is an interesting thing. I can honestly see both sides of the argument. It’s also interesting to observe when people throat clear.
Taking the OTB community as an example, commenters have engaged in some rather heated “discussion” over my relatively brief time here. Accused each other of all sorts of things, eg, advocating genocide, wishing trans people would die, etc.
And yet, I haven’t observed any throat clearing during later, tamer discussions involving these same commenters. I can think of some potential reasons for this, but I’m not very confident that they are accurate.
And some of the potential reasons are rather ungenerous and impolite, and I’m not particularly enthusiastic about putting more of that out into the world. Perhaps I’m denying myself the opportunity to be the future target of a throat clearing.
…not enough?
@Andy:
Do you carefully consider and check the sources of everything Connor writes here? Do you then get to zerohedge and carefully consider what the article out dear Connor is citing refers to, what the primary sources are, and whether there are other conclusions that can be made?
Some people have a track record of being useless or just plain lying. They aren’t worth anyone’s time, as the expected value (in a statistical sense, or a less rigorous analysis) of their contributions are negligible.
On the off chance that Connor has anything valuable to say, it’s very likely that someone else will bring it up.
@Gustopher:
Then why do so many people here engage so vigorously with Conner, if it’s not worth anyone’s time? Same for some of the other commentors who tend to increase engagement.
Also, I’d point out that I don’t engage with Connor (or the others) at all unless he asks me something directly (which is rare), so all your questions about checking sources and fact-checking what he says are irrelevant in my case.
@Kathy: First off, a lot of #NeverTrump types actually abandoned the party because of Trump. Many even voted for Hillary, Biden, and Harris. Second, even folks who initially voted for Trump but turned against him are valuable allies. Third, and more importantly, none of that matters in assessing the validity of a particular argument they’re advancing now.
@drj: So, let’s assume for the sake of argument that FdB has proven himself a “sloppy thinker” on past issues. That should naturally cause you to give additional scrutiny to an current argument he’s making. It doesn’t justify dismissing the argument.
@Gustopher: So, we largely agree. If a given individual has repeatedly proven themselves to be dishonest, then I’m going to take a going-in position that they’re being dishonest now. But if a person whose judgment you value says, “Hey, here’s an interesting argument from Proven Liar,” (which is analogous to the case being discussed here) you shouldn’t dismiss the argument out of hand. Valued Judger has independently filtered the essay and judged it worthwhile. You might have a somewhat skeptical eye, being more critical in looking for the sleight of hand from Proven Liar, but dismissing the argument simply because that’s who’s making it is just ad hominem.
@James Joyner:
But of course it does!
Not as untrue, but as unsupported.
@Andy:
Why does my cat bat a crumpled piece of paper across the floor? There’s no expectation of a tasty reward, it’s just the joy of hitting something and chasing it.
I wonder if it’s a function of being able to easily find/identify other dumb/bad stuff the person has said.
I’m Gen X, and did most of my stint in politics back before Googling was a thing. In order to find something dumb or horrible that someone said, you either had to search through endless hours of video (if the statement was recorded), or newspaper clippings (actual physical ones) to find it…if it was even recorded.
Now, every phone is a recording device and blogging and social media provide ample opportunities for making a fool of oneself by spouting off without thinking. Add to that the constant pressure to produce something worthy of sharing (either really smart or really ‘edgy’) and people are bound to become more colorful and less careful.
The TL;DR is that society is collectively training some to be less careful with what they say, and others to observe/rate/judge based on a much deeper pool of that un-careful content, resulting in the behavior covered in the OP. Not incidentally, it’s also now easier to find others who are potentially making the same points but with less baggage.
@James Joyner:
That’s why I excluded Cheney and Conway. And there are others.
And I’d welcome anyone who turns against El taco. But the duopoly menas elections are a zero-sum game. So those who keep saying “El Taco is awful and terrible and not even qualified to sort mail, but DON’T DARE VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT!” are morons.
@Jen: This is close. I have read papers that describe social media as shaping the behavior of users toward full-time identity defense. It is full of people who are very vigilant in looking for issues, and who will respond to certain keywords without any context at all. I’m sure y’all can think of some famous examples of this.
And movies, before their release, will have stories go around about how terrible this or that is in it – without anyone having seen the film in question. Or afterwards.
Honestly, it’s often so dumb I can’t stand it. It’s as if people don’t know the difference between what a character thinks and what an actor, or a writer, or a director thinks. Like they don’t know what fiction is.
We may be developing antibodies to this sort of thing as a culture, though that may expose us to other issues. For instance, there was a storm and outcry about the Barbie movie, and it grossed something like 1.6 billion. So the shitstorm did not accomplish much.
@James Joyner:
Ha! Boners is many things to many people, and a sloppy thinker is very much one of them.
@Andy:
In my case it’s basically sadism. There are limits on how mean I can get in kidlit. Even back when I had a restaurant review column and could be more of a prick, there were limits. But when someone shows up on the regular with a ‘kick me’ sign, I may well kick. Maybe not the best aspect of my personality, but Connor does seem to enjoy the beatings, so maybe I’m providing a service?
I wont reject an idea just because it came from someone in the other tribe. However, if it is someone I have read quite a bit like McArdle, and its in a field I know well, health care and health care policy/economics, I am perfectly happy ignoring anything she writes as she has been wrong so often. The SNR is not good. (I make it a point to read some right wing sources and listen to some right wing talk radio (where their real thought leaders hang out).
Steve
Amen to that, and it is tedious. One cannot discuss Israel, for example, without a paragraph laying out for the tenth time that Netanyahu is a POS and the Settlers are vicious fanatics, and so on and on. Ditto trans issues. Ditto any analysis of the last election. This is a ridiculous way to debate because it has nothing to do with the actual matter under consideration. It’s heretic hunters looking for someone to burn because that’s easy and actual discussion of complex issues is hard.
If there’s any one thing that irritates me about many of my issue allies it’s their inability to separate analysis from feelings. Well, that and not knowing when I’m just playing, of course that’s probably on me.
@Michael Reynolds:
Yes, troll feeding strangely does seem satisfying for both partners. And in an attention economy, engagement is always good.
Not my cup of tea.
Thats one reason why I often preface comments stating upfront that what follows is analysis not advocacy.
I came across the title of this post while looking for something else on OTB and wondered “what the heck is ‘Throat Clearing’?” and them read this:
I may be wrong, but I think that one might be aimed at me and, if so, you aren’t correct in my position. I don’t claim that McArdle can’t have a good argument, or even that it’s not worth engaging with an argument she makes. If you ever wrote, “Megan McArdle makes the following argument and I agree”, I would engage the argument on one side or the other based, but that would be because it was you commenting on it. What I have said, probably too frequently, is that McArdle is not worth reading, and I stick by that. If someone else wants to shoulder that burden and pluck the bits worth saving out of the dross, then more power to them. The year 2008 in particular makes me think of when she was at The Atlantic and I formed this opinion, because whenever she wrote about something I knew about (often technology) she was lazily ill-informed, overflowing with completely unearned certainty. Her writing was of the variety, “Let me lecture you about nation to nation economics based on the truth, obvious to all but idiots, that the US penny must be worth more than dime because it is bigger.”
@steve: I see you beat me to it! “Not worth the effort to read” doesn’t imply “Never right about anything”. In fact, I hear she gets the time right, twice a day
There seems to be (at least) two types of throat clearing that are being discussed. One – caveating before one agrees with a polarizing person who articulates a position. Two – caveating before one articulates a position on a polarizing topic.
Now that I think about it, I tend to feel the second type of throat clearing impulse more strongly/often. Part of me wants to attribute that to my tendency to discuss topics more than people. But that seems a little too self-serving, even if there’s some truth to it.
I suspect it’s driven more by an awareness of my stimulus value. What others see and don’t see, know and don’t know, about me. And how that collides with conversations about polarizing topics.
(bah, this is a self-referential post… ironically so)
I’d never heard of this deBoer* guy before. I tried to link the piece referenced in the link. I gave up about a third through, as it was all about facts I already knew about how pregnancy, IVF, and miscarriages work. IMO, you should get at least close to the point well before the one third mark, even if a lot of detailed explanations about complex subjects are required. At least tease it closer to the beginning.
So, I didn’t even get to find for myself whether he’s a sloppy thinker or not.
*I wondered briefly if he might be related to Nicole de Boer, aka Ezri Dax in the last season of DS9.
@Gustopher: I was going to note that some people live for conflict, but your explanation using your cat as the exemplar was both charming and accomplished the same end with grace and panache.
(Thinking about it more while on the bus, I realized that Andy didn’t ask the same question about Connor, but I think I understood why in that case.)
@Jay L Gischer:
And now, the beginnings of one about Juvenile Diabetes Barbie as well. Hopefully, that one will suffer the same fate.
@Kathy: Freddy was very popular in the blogosphere maybe 10 years ago? I think that as a general rule he had good writing skills and when writing on something he knew well he was interesting. However, he decided to write more broadly on many topics and was one of those who (my impression) tried to take contrarian positions occasionally just to kind of prove he wasn’t totally tribal. I think he was actually correct sometimes when he did that but sometimes his reasoning seemed forced so I think he got a reputation for sloppy thinking. I think he also got self obsessed a bit, like Scott Alexander if you ever read him. (Just imagine if James and Steve spent 1/3 of their time writing whiny, butt-hurt posts every time someone disagreed with them.)
Steve
@steve:..(where their real thought leaders hang out)
.
Who are these real right wing thought leaders?
@MarkedMan:
As former WaPo subscriber, I’ll attest the readership’s exasperation with McArdle is less about questionable tweets she wrote in 2008, more about questionably reasoned columns she writes right now today. I get that she’s not just a child of wealth and privilege but also apparently biased accordingly. Yet still there’s no excuse for being that far out-of-touch. Good grief lady.
On the road, so this will be short. Without a doubt no one is perfect, so I don’t think it’s possible to escape this issue. And with so many people out there writing on so many topics, it almost always possible to find someone else who makes more or less the same point and has fewer problematic viewpoints.
So my rule, especially when writing, is trying to amplify the writing and thoughts of people I think deserved to be amplified. I also try to resist the “even so and so thinks…”, where do and so is some I think is wrong most of the times, especially when it’s outside of their field of expertise (I think of this as the “Turley rule”).
Put a different way, while I think he occasionally has good analysis, you will probably never see me quote Richard Hanania.
@Andy:
Someone is wrong on the Internet is definitely a thing. Doubly so when they are intentionally or no coding to be an ass.
That said, I usually try to ignore him (I usually skip the daily open comment thread because it’s too tempting to reply).
When I do reply, it’s usually to post a rebuttal for others to read because it’s clear that he and other folks like him are not interested in a conversation.