From the Archives
So this is just too weird for words. Like Daniel, I published and otherwise committed myself to a great many claims during my undergraduate years, though in my instance many of those claims involved positions on matters of great substance on which my youthful hacwkishness was simply inexcusable; in any case, though, the notion that one could shed some light on my present thought, or on the kind of thinker and writer I would be in the event that someone offered me a slot as an opinion columnist, by digging through the archives of The Tower, is flat-out comical. Some much more useful insight might, of course, be gleaned through a perusal of other things I’ve written more recently in various publications or, you know, on my blog, and given that Ross has been quite a prolific writer for a number of years now and has been blogging approximately since the beginning of time, one would think that those who are familiar with the body of his work and have judged him to be something more than a “boilerplate conservative” would feel very little pressure to alter their considered view of his opinions in the light of some things he wrote during his late teens and early twenties. Or maybe that’s just what I would think.
Filed under: media/culture, personal
I’m sorry, but I completely disagree. He was a big boy, he wanted to put his ideas out there, and he did. Should we judge him solely or mostly or importantly through stuff he published in college? No. Should we pretend like it doesn’t exist? No.
When did I imply that we should “pretend like it doesn’t exist”? The question is whether it actually reveals anything about the kind of writer and thinker that Ross is right now; if you think you can make the case that it can, I’d love to see it.
The question is whether it actually reveals anything about the kind of writer and thinker that Ross is right now; if you think you can make the case that it can, I’d love to see it.
So, to use a recent example, should I be able to say that Chas Freeman’s comments about Tiananmen Square, by virtue of being years old– older than Ross’s pieces at Harvard– reveals nothing about the kind of thinker he is now?
Sure. Or at least they reveal very little. Isn’t that what you think about Freeman, actually?
I’m not even particularly shocked by anything in those quotes, which are apparently supposed to be damning. It seems the Douthat held substantially similar positions then to what he holds now, but expressed them more stridently. Not surprising considering his age. Why do some liberals persist in expressing shock and horror that conservatives even exist?
Because it is SHOCKING! And HORRIBLE!
And because doing half-assed gotcha journalism for the likes of Campus Progress is bound to be a great way to advance a wannabe pundit’s budding career.
All this silliness has brought back some really bad memories of some things I wrote during and shortly after college. Rest assured, what I wrote was far, far worse than anything Ross is now being reminded about. Especially one piece. It’s actually making me shudder just thinking about it – not just because I disagree with my 22 year old self, but because of the way I expressed it. If this was the worst Ross did in college, he’s a lot better off than most of us, I think.
Mark -
I’ve always suspected you were a crypto-racist, and now I have the proof. Where did you say I could find a copy of your college paper trail?
By the way, am I the only one who finds this stuff totally engrossing? It’s like we’ve got our hands on an incomplete genealogy of Douthat’s political evolution, which happens to be absolutely fascinating.
My guess is the Campus Progress folk belong to the “The only good conservative is a liberal” school of politics.
Why do some liberals persist in expressing shock and horror that conservatives even exist?
This liberal is merely saying that an adult is responsible for the things he says. Everyone is allowed evolution; everyone is allowed to change his mind; and I take this stuff with very little weight. But I can’t understand how Campus Progress accurately reporting or simply linking to old writing by someone is somehow construed as beyond the pale.
Also, in light of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, or any of the vast deluge of conservatives using precisely the same tactics, accusing liberals of doing this is a really immense hypocrisy. Really. I’ll scour the archives to find everyone currently criticizing Campus Progress for the posts where they said that Jeremiah Wright’s past comments are just off limits.
But who ever said anything was “beyond the pale” or “off limits”, Freddie? The point is just that the piece was RIDICULOUS, not that it was in any way unethical.
Well, now all this makes me wonder (and worry) just what I’m going to think of my recent writing in 5-10 years… Of course, I already look back on columns I wrote two years ago and shudder (which is why I don’t link to them), though that has to do with “bad prose” as well as “what was I thinking?”
Heh. I’ve left some not-so-subtle hints of where I went to college in the past. Thankfully, I think the archives for the Maroon don’t go back quite that far. And it wasn’t so much crypto-racist as it was really, really anti-California (Caliphobic?).
There’s also something particularly amusing about the suggestion that Douthat was a typical boilerplate conservative because he said good things about GWB & Co. two and a half weeks after 9/11.
Oh, don’t worry JL. In 5-10 years you’ll be displeased with pretty much everything you’ve recently written. Probably sooner than that, actually.
(No offense meant to your – really quite excellent! – writing, by the way. It’s just a fact.)
http://www.or2ak.com/my-pages/oregonjoke.html
Chuckle.
Chuckle is right.
I think what bothers me the most about it is that it’s all too typical of what passes for political journalism. John is spot-on to characterize it as “gotcha” journalism: the method is simply to point to what your opponents say as if they are just so evidently nuts that no engagement with their arguments (much less any attempt to sympathetically understand the position) is necessary. It’s really no excuse to say that the other side did it first (or worse); if it’s wrong, it’s wrong no matter who does it.
Now, it’s possible I should just be more shocked by what Douthat wrote. Then again, I wasn’t much shocked by what Jeremiah Wright said either, so maybe I just have a high tolerance for shockingness.
(p.s. I apologize if this comment isn’t in the correct spot; I don’t really grasp the whole threaded comments concept yet.)
Freddie that dodges the point. If the article had dredged up both writing from his college days and more recent writing, and provided perhaps some sort of analysis of the process or evolution of Ross’s writing, then it would have been perfectly fair. As it focused solely on writing from long, long ago it seems a little bit more like a form of hackery.
Well Mark, at least you were sober enough to write during your college years. As a two-time college drop-out (I did finish, but it took 7 years) and former stoner extrordinaire, I can tell you that the best I could come up with those days was a lot of hit-and-miss poetry and some pretty decent guitar licks. But coherent articles? political diatribes of any stripe? Not a one….