One of us is a proud member of the Left. The other rejects the Left. One of us writes sympathetically of Jordan Peterson’s critique of postmodern neo-Marxism. The other does not. One of us is no fan of Marx. The other is. One of us hopes for the election of Bernie Sanders as president of the United States. The other would consider that a tragedy.
In today’s world, this should be enough to establish us as intellectual adversaries with no chance of bridging our divide. We disagree about a lot, and our disagreements hinge on some of the most contentious issues of the day, particularly right-wing populism and Social Justice activism. But after a recent, public 51-letter exchange, it was clear that this was not the case. Indeed, there was no reason that respectful engagement should ever have been foreclosed. This article explains why.
First, we don’t disagree about everything. In fact, in our letter exchange, we “gradually mov[ed] towards a position of unexpected agreement on the moral and methodological priority of the individual; though we … cash that out in very different ways.” Moreover, the one who rejects the Left has nonetheless been supportive of many progressive causes, as evidenced by his writings for The Good Men Project from 2016 to 2018. He is also not entirely unsympathetic to philosophers like Heidegger, Foucault and Nietzsche, who have influenced left-wing postmodern intellectuals over the last half century, and about whom the other has published several sympathetic essays.
In the summer of 2019, one of us proposed an exchange on Letter to discuss social, economic and political inequality, with a particular focus on the leftist mode of critique. The other accepted. During that exchange, we had an opportunity to learn more about our differences of opinion. As a result of our respectful and thoughtful correspondence, we also discovered a mutual commitment to honest intellectual inquiry and a mutual regard for the dignity of the individual and a recognition that social, economic and historical circumstances cannot be ignored when determining how to advance the cause of justice.
We share a vision of open and honest intellectual inquiry and a commitment to the dignity of the individual and the progressive pursuit of better social conditions, to promote human dignity and potential. Perhaps most importantly, in our current age of tumult, we believe that impossible conversations are, in fact, possible.
Reaching across the aisle can often seem like a thing of the past in this time of worldwide hyper-polarized political partisanship. Things have gotten to the point at which even calls for civility are interpreted as apologetics for right-wing or left-wing extremism, which cannot be tolerated in the age of Twitter and Trump. Yet both of us continue to engage with each other, in the belief that civility is not the same as delicacy. Indeed, one of us has also had contentious exchanges with philosophy professor Ben Burgis over capitalism, socialism and the war on terror. Like our own conflicting interpretations of Jordan Peterson’s diatribes against postmodern neo-Marxism, these debates and conversations have been civil, but certainly not delicate.
There is a critical difference between good faith and bad faith engagement. In the former, the goal is to think rigorously and defend one’s position as well as one can, while remaining open to the possibility that one might learn from an adversarial interlocutor. One should welcome critique. One should also strive to be open minded and attempt to engage when someone makes a good argument, even one with which one is not inclined to agree. So, we argue. In good faith and with an open mind.
We know how far apart we are in our outlooks. One of us is an aficionado of Machiavelli, inclined to be pessimistic about humanity’s commitment to dispassionate inquiry, truth and justice. The other is more optimistic, though he remains somewhat Beckettian in his outlook towards progressivism (his motto is fail, fail again, fail better). He feels that progressives need to acknowledge the substantial failure to secure economic fairness which marked the twentieth century, while commending the many victories for women, LGBT people and racial minorities. But in the future, he hopes for, and believes in, the establishment of a left-liberal democratic polity, where democratic deliberation is encouraged and resources are distributed in a more equitable manner to ensure all have a comparable and fair shot at the good life.
In our outrage-fueled age, it seems almost impossible to avoid turning political adversaries into caricatures. We aim to push against that tide, for the sake not only of making our own arguments stronger, but to demonstrate that it is possible to have impossible conversations. We are respectful and civil without being delicate or milquetoast in our arguments.
In the truth we trust—even if that truth remains elusive, and we cannot often agree on what it is.
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I first learned of Derek Black’s ideological odyssey from fanatical young white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and “Stormfronter” to ardent tolerance and diversity advocate in the Spring of 2018, when a friend of mine forwarded me a link to Utah Valley University (Orem, UT) philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen’s April 18, 2018 *AEON NEWSLETTER* piece “Why it’s as hard to escape an echo chamber as to flee a cult,” which he thought I might find interesting–as I indeed did. A few months later, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, I picked up their copy of the September 13, 2018 PEOPLE magazine for lack of anything better there to read, and serendipitously found “Derek Black Embraced White Nationalism Until Friends Opened His Eyes,” by PEOPLE staffer Johnny Dodd, based on a PEOPLE interview with Black, and also citing Pulitzer Prize-winning *Washington Post* reporter Eli Saslow’s book *Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist* (New York: Penguin Random House, 2018). When I got home from my appointment that afternoon, I then Googled a few on-line articles on Derek Black, including a *New York Times* review of Eli Saslow’s book.
As I wrote the other day, Derek Black’s story is an excellent object lesson about how even zealous bigots and extremist ideologues can be led to reconsider their dogmas and prejudices through patient, friendly, respectful conversations without insults, demonization, ostracism, or name-calling. When Black first “outed” himself as an anti-Semite and white nationalist at Sarasota’s very racially diverse and multicultural New College of Florida, his e-mail provoked over 1,000 furious replies from outraged fellow-students. However, a couple of Jewish students instead took him under his wing, including the Orthodox Jewish student Matthew Stevenson, who invited Black to Friday night Shabbat dinners at his dorm room, and Allison Gornik, who eventually became Black’s girl-friend and wife. Instead of shunning, denouncing, or demonizing Black, as most of their liberal and minority fellow-students at New College did, Matthew and Allison along with a few of their friends hoped rather to slowly and patiently gain his trust through kindness and generosity. In short, they provided a beautiful illustration of Dale Carnegie’s reminder that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
However, without scolding, berating, insulting, and name-calling Derek Black, they also did not let his prejudices and bigotries go unchallenged or uncorrected. They did not pass over his white supremacist and anti-Semitic views in polite silence, nor did they in any way pretend to condone, approve, or agree with his opinions, nor just shrug them off noncommitally as “different strokes for different folks” or “it takes all kinds to make a world” in a spirit of shapeless indifferent postmodern relativism. In a kind, friendly, courteous, and considerate yet clear, unambiguous, and forthright way, Derek Black’s New College friends let him definitely know that they thought his racist and anti-Semitic views were just plain wrong, no two ways about it–and patiently introduced him to specific rational and historical arguments about just exactly how and why they were wrong. They were polite, friendly, and respectful without being delicate, milquetoast, or squeamish. In the end, they gradually won him over to their own way of thinking–something which they could never have accomplished by shunning or name-calling, ostracism or denunciation.
There is also, by the way, I believe, a civil way of pointing to what one considers the essentially irrational origin and character of ideas one disagrees with, without resorting to insults or name-calling. You can argue in a civilized, rational, scholarly manner that your opponents’ views are not exactly flawless impartial conclusions of pure reason, without referring to those opponents as racists, bigots, sexists, fascists, Nazis, or deplorables. Thus, I think it is within the bounds of rational discourse, for instance, to analyze the supporters of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s to argue that his followers were largely recruited among insecurely, precariously upward-mobile groups in mid 20th century American society resenting what they felt was the smug snobbery of better-established groups–e.g., *nouveau riche* businessmen jealous of the “old money” rich, anf Irish Catholics similarly jealous of upper-status old-American Yankee WASP’s. Likewise, I think Barack Obama was making a perfectly serious and respectable sociological observation in his controversial 2008 reference to the plight of economically desperate working-class Whites in declining “rust belt” industrial communities who turned for consolation to religion, guns, and anti-immigrant prejudices.
A couple of years ago, I came across a wonderful story about how patient, friendly, respectful conversations can persuade even fanatical supporters of wrongheaded ideologies to reconsider their views and prejudices, without insults, demonization, or name-calling. In 2018, I happened to read a few articles–initially forwarded by a friend and serendipitously found in a magazine browsed in a doctor’s waiting room–describing the political and philosophical turnabout of a zealous young white nationalist activist gradually converted to liberalism and tolerance by a few college friends. The articles portrayed the ideological odyssey of 29-year-old (in 2018) white nationalist activist turned ardent tolerance and diversity advocate Derek Black, son of “Stormfront” founder Don Black and godson of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. They depicted the once anti-Semitic Black’s growing friendship in college, blossoming into romance, with Jewish fellow student Allison Gornik, one of the college friends chiefly involved in his turnabout!
The various articles and stories I read in 2018 described Black’s gradual abandonment of his almost lifelong white nationalist zealotry under the influence of patient, compassionate college friends not simply content to ostracize, denounce, or demonize a blatant, fanatical bigot despite their own utter abhorrence of their ideology. They portrayed his escape from the white nationalist echo chamber with the aid of patient, sympathetic college friends–beginning with Orthodox Jewish classmate Matthew Stevenson, who invited him to Friday-evening Shabbat dinners in his dorm room–willing to engage with him and his prejudices on a one-to-one basis.
Growing up in West Palm Beach, Florida, Derek Black, now 29, had few doubts about his adult future, feeling eager to carry on the decades-long white nationalist activism of his parents Don and Chloe (David Duke’s ex-wife) Black. Until age 22, Derek seemed to be a chosen heir of the movement as the son of Don Black, founder and webmaster of the anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi, White separatist, Holocaust denial and racialist “Stormfront” internet forum, as well as godson of one-time KKK Grand Wizard David Duke (Chloe Black’s ex-husband). Fearing he would be corrupted or harassed and persecuted in West Palm Beach’s multi-racial public schools, Derek’s parents home-schooled him, pulling him out of school in second or third grade, indoctrinating him in their racist belief system, teaching him that diversity was bad and that he was surrounded by an inferior gene pool. More than just passively accepting his parents’ beliefs and prejudices as all he ever knew ot heard, young Derek was an enthusiastic, active, self-motivated, and in his own way intellectually curious budding racist ideologue. At age 10, he created his own “Stormfront” offshoot website for “proud white children,” telling them “It is a shame how many White minds are wasted in” public schools, that system,” boasting that “I am no longer attacked by gangs of non whites. I am learning pride in myself, my family and my people.”In August 2008 at age 19 was elected to one of 111 seats on the Palm Beach County, Florida, Republican Committee, with 167 out of 287 votes–though he never actually took his seat, refusing to take a loyalty oath never to do anything to discredit the Republican Party (e.g., by openly espousing racism or anti-Semitism). By age 20, he had his daily own white nationalist program on a local radio station. He pioneered the idea of “white genocide,” the claim that white people in America are the victims and not the perpetrators of racism. “What’s happening right now is a genocide of our people, plain and simple,” Derek told his radio audience. “We are Europeans. We have a right to exist. We will not be replaced in our own country.” Duke hailed him as “the leading light of our movement.”
Derek Black’s life, however, underwent a dramatic change when he began studying German and medieval history at the notoriously liberal, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.), one of the 12 campuses of the State University of Florida system, in 2010. During his first semester at New College, Derek kept a low profile, never discussing his political or racial views and trying to fit in with his ethnically diverse fellow students. After a post on the college’s student message board revealed his politics, however, outing him as a white nationalist poster boy, he quickly found himself shunned and harassed by almost everyone on the ultra-liberal campus. The post outing him provoked over 1,000 furious replies–but also one unorthodox suggestion by an Orthodox Jewish student. Matthew Stevenson, the college’s only Orthodox Jew, who held Shabbat dinners in his dorm room on Friday nights, invited Black to a Shabbat dinner with a diverse group of friends, just to talk–instead of shunning, denouncing, or demonizing Black, as most of their liberal and minority fellow-students at New College did, in the hopes of slowly and patiently gaining his trust through kindness and generosity.
Black accepted Stevenson’s invitation, later explaining that “I was raised with the idea that race is only an issue in the aggregate. And I wanted to interact with people on a normal level.” He thus walked in to the dinner, carrying a bottle of red wine–and that one night turned into two years of regular meals of baked salmon and challah, during which genuine friendships blossomed. “There was sort of an unspoken rule that we’d never talk about my nationalism at dinner,” Black later recalled. After nearly an entire school year, however, his companions began asking questions. “I had a bunch of talking points—crime statistics and other things—that ‘proved’ my belief system,” he recalled, his “immediate reaction” being that “my friends were completely wrong.” Over time, “they made it personal,” asking him, ‘You hang out with Juan [a Peruvian student]—do you think he should be expelled from the country?’” It was “difficult,” he admitted, “to say, ‘No, I’m talking about federal policies, not Juan.’…I’m just here for gentlemanly debates.” However, he realized, “you can only maintain that for so long.”
Stevenson’s roommate Allison Gornik at first wanted nothing to fo with the white nationalist ideologue sitting, eating, and talking in their kitchen, but then decided she could rationally analyze and refute what she realized were Black’s very well-articulated reasons for his belief in the races needing to be separated. To dismantle Black’s arguments to rationalize white nationalism, she began immersing herself in numerous studies and statistics on race and immigration. During the next two years, as their friendship deepened into romance, she and Black—who began slowly distancing himself from “Stormfront” and his radio show—spent many hours discussing the findings. Black began to realize that the evidence he’d always used to support his racist views—such as alleged IQ differences between the races and immigrant crime rates—had been trumped up or misused by propagandists and “researchers.” of his movement. “We don’t have any evidence for race being biological, it’s purely cultural,” he told PEOPLE, while “advocating in favor of whites-only stuff is a real threat to everybody else.” That’s “what pushed me over to the point where I couldn’t advocate it anymore and I actually had to condemn it.”
In his sophomore year, Black was shocked to learn that his very presence on campus had led a Jewish student organization to temporarily shut down. “That’s probably the first moment where I realized that maybe I wasn’t being misunderstood,” he reflected. “That perhaps my beliefs negatively impacted people I liked and cared about. It wasn’t just, maybe sometimes I’m wrong. It was like, oh, maybe sometimes I’m making their lives inarguably worse.” Meanwhile, he was taking courses in mediaeval history and Jewish scripture, learning information that contradicted the doctrines he had been raised on.
In 2013, after visiting his parents, Black felt increasingly overwhelmed by the need to distance himself from their way of thinking. He thus wrote an e-mail to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading organization devoted to observing and exposing hate groups, disavowing his former beliefs and renouncing his white nationalist ties, and also sent a copy to his father. “I can’t support a movement that tells me I can’t be a friend to whomever I wish,” he wrote the SPLC and his father. The statement was published online, inciting death threats against Black; his father suggested he’d been brainwashed. His relationship with his family became increasingly strained , remaining “very tense” to this day, despite all his attempts to explain that he did not reject them as people, only their racial and political views. “Stormfront” members quickly branded him a “traitor.” Some invoked *cherchez la femme*, implying that a lonely, “horny” Derek might have been seduced by the wiles and charms of a Jewish, African-American, or Latina co-ed undermining his racial ptide and loyalty. His godfather David Duke, was especially outraged and dumbfounded by Derek’s decision to renounce the movement, accusing him of falling prey to the “Stockholm Syndrome” of kidnapping victims learning to love or identify with their captors. “I think he finds it very obnoxious and unpleasant,”
I fully, wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan Church and Matt McManus’ concluding advice to be “respectful and civil without being delicate or milquetoast in our arguments,” to “avoid turning political adversaries into caricatures.” And I applaud their essay’s title of “Civility Without Squeamishness.”
However, our contemporary political polarization makes it very difficult, on both sides, to be either respectful and civil without seeming delicate, milquetoast, or squeamish, or forthright and honest without seeming to caricature and demonize one’s opponents (or even just those one happens to disagree with). If you dare to mention or criticize injustices in our society or agree with even moderately liberal critics, you can be accused of “political correctness,” being a “social justice warrior,” or even “cultural Marxism,” while if you dare to question identity politics, “woke” tactics, “critical race/gender theory,” or “intersectionalist” dogmas you get accused of “white privilege,” “white fragility,” “mansplaining,” “sexism,” “racism,” or being one of the “deplorables.” Bernie Sanders, whose election to the U.S. presidency McManus would cheer and Church would lament, was virtually accused by ardent Hillary Clinton supporters in 2016 of being close to a white supremacist and a male chauvinist pig for failing to play the race and gender cards sufficiently in his campaign and focusing instead on economic inequality. It’s like the way even mild criticisms of Israeli government politics can provoke accusations of “anti-Semitism” in some quarters.
Politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle these days have forgotten the wisdom of Dale Carnegie’s reminder over 80 years ago that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar! Hillary Clinton certainly didn’t win any friends or influence any people among white working-class voters in 2016 by dismissing them as “a basket of deplorables”! Likewise, moderate liberals can hardly be won over to a thoughtful, nuanced critique of identity politics and “intersectionalism” by being accused of “political correctness” and lumped together with “social justice warriors” and “cultural Marxists.” Thus, for instance, someone like Jordan Peterson might perhaps almost be described as his own worst enemy with his sweeping denunciations of what he considers “cultural Marxism,” when he might win a more sympathetic hearing among liberals if, for instance, he offered the kind of nuanced, balanced criticism of “regressive left” identity politics posted on AREO in the last couple of years by Helen Pluckrose and by James Lindsay!
Criticizing political ideas or attitudes you disagree with, you should hate the sin but love the sinner. You shouldn’t insult or demonize your opponents, or call them names, but you also shouldn’t pretend to agree with them or ignore your genuine, honest differences with their views! These days, however, I’m afraid, all too many people find it easier to avoid offending voters or getting into unpleasant arguments by silently pretending to go along with views they really don’t accept.
To deserve to be taken at all seriously, today’s Leftists need to concede, about their fellow Leftists, a paraphrasing of Churchill:
Never (in the history of modern democratic governance, at least in a major country) have so many been so very vociferous about a public issue, only to have been so decisively refuted so quickly (by the Mueller and Horowitz Reports).
And, they must concede, that the “Obstruction of Congress” article vs. Trump was legally laughable, esp. with the recent Circuit Court ruling vs. the Dem demand for McGahn testimony.
To deserve to be taken at all seriously, today’s Leftists need to concede, about their fellow Leftists, a paraphrasing of Churchill:
Never (in the history of modern democratic governance, at least in a major country) have so many been so very vociferous about a public issue, only to have been so decisively refuted so quickly (by the Mueller and Horowitz Reports).
Someone tell this man to have a word with the Virginia state government, which seems hell-bent on using its power to utterly crush people who disagree with it.
That’s the problem with reasonable leftists; they are few and far between and have no real power. They can not persuade other leftists to be reasonable. They are nice to talk to once in a while, but that’s about it. They certainly have no pull on the Left.
That’s the problem with progressivism i.e. far leftism, and why it’s also de facto authoritarian fascism: if you don’t toe a very narrow line of party mandated beliefs, you embody everything that is morally reprehensible, regardless of any reasoning of how one got to that verdict. It is settled and there is no retrial in the Court of Progressive Opinion.
“They can not persuade other leftists to be reasonable.”
You bet, Heike.
This so, because most current Leftists are implicitly taught to hate Western Civ, the white race, and the male gender.
And, they were vociferously taught that, *of course*, Trump “colluded” with Russian hacking, and that Nunes’ charges about the Steele Dossier were BS.
Until a Lefty concedes, that the Dems/ MSM were horribly wrong on those basic facts, said Lefty isn’t remotely worth talking to.