Feldman Surrenders
David is taken to the woodshed by Jimmy Dore, and then begs for mercy after alienating all his progressive listeners.
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About Jimmy Dore
Great show David.
This is really starting to get to be a more refined product that I think is moving in a very interesting direction. Jimmy is still a bit quick to go on the offensive and try to get his points in, but this was much more balanced. I don’t want to see him lose that aspect as I think it brings a nice balance with him being more aggressive and you being more of a moderating influence, but it got out of hand in some of the past shows. Either a moderate discussion, or a fierce debate can be interesting, but you can’t have one of each at the same time.
The strategy of laying out “ground rules” seems to be working very well and led to some interesting discussion here where both parties knew how much time they would have in advance and what the “rules of engagement” would be. Courtesy is not just not interrupting, it is also being clear about where you are going so that the other party doesn’t feel they need to interrupt. I think you still could be a bit clearer upfront to try to avoid this misunderstanding.
(Related to this is the issue that Jimmy can’t seem to hear you while he talks and vice versa, skype can be funny like that, make sure both parties are using headphones to avoid echoing and it will work better, also make sure your computers are not running other things like a web browser at the same time you are skyping as that can eat into your bandwith and cause problems. If you are going to keep using skype, you should sit down off air with Jimmy and really play around with the skype setup to get the bugs worked out).
I really thought your point about “not everyone needs to have an opinion about everything” is very good notion, and would like to see this explored further. I think this is where you and Jimmy are much closer in your thinking than you realize. When Jimmy complains about what he call “false equivalency” it is actually along very similar lines to the point you were trying to make. Since the modern punditry based news shows always have two guests on for “balance” both sides feel that they need to have an opinion on every topic and that their position needs to oppose that of the other guest’s so they don’t let the other side pull the debate their way, so they end up inventing a position just to oppose the other side. From Jimmy’s point of view, the solution to this is to stop acknowledging that both sides points are equally valid, whereas your solution is that both sides do not necessaarily need to take a position, that you can just air your ideas and leave it at that for people to “mull over”, that just because one side doesn’t immediately respond doesn’t mean they have “lost”.
You are both recognizing the same fundamental flaw in our discourse, you just have differing ideas about exactly how to resolve it. I think this is a discussion that is very much worth having. You are trying to “lead by example” and have a discussion that may not come to a conclusion in a single show but may take a long time to resolve. I think Jimmy’s concern is that in the media environment we have, you don’t want to leave something unresolved as that could mean leaving bad ideas out to gain traction. Basically you are trying to move discourse to the world you want, and Jimmy is trying to have discourse in the world we have. You don’t fundamentally disagree on the problem, just on what is the best solution to it. Although it sounds like this puts your discussion at an impasse, I think that significant progress is being made and I look forward to seeing how this evolves.
I hope you can do a couple more shows like this (and some with the panel) and really try to hash out a good format like the one that seems to be evolving, and then after you get all that worked out, then have “Unknown” back on with Jimmy or with the panel for a good discussion. Also, I don’t know how many of these shows Unknown has heard, but I think before he comes back on he should listen to this chain of shows and have a read through the comments after hearing each show, so he can see how and why this discussion has proceeded. If he doesn’t know the level of discourse you are seeking to achieve he can’t really be blamed for not playing an appropriate part in it.
-Buck
Thanks Buck.
Listening to the last unknown conservative’s podcast I can see the same playbook being played that my father uses. And Jimmy hit it right on the head, they use a different fact book than the real one. And I think at times found myself in the same positions that david was in, like with when ‘Tip O’neal screwed Regan on the cuts’ comment and ‘where are they spending their money’. It is not something I have heard before and so it throws you off guard, like I think David was. Then later you find out that wasn’t true, and it is too late to re-argue that point once it is over. They will flat out deny the fact is true usually. What the new strategy is to actually call the fact false which boggles the mind. you see they change their strategy, what is upsetting when I hear these unknown conservative podcast is, I think David is very smart and I want to hear him corner a real conservative on his idea’s. I have found that most conservatives don’t even know they are argueing for trickle down economics, or privatization. I think I am just projecting what I want David to do instead of accepting what how he is running the show. And acceptance is the key lol
Anyway David thanks for the great show. i can see that you and I have a mutual friend. And like me you think people can wake up like we did when evidence of our wrong thoughts and actions where presented to us. But I think you are dealing with people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. Just KISS my friend and forget the socratic method.
“But I think you are dealing with people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”
Alas, you may be right.
I think that probably 90% of the show’s problems would be solved if David would consistently ask one question: “On what basis?”
To me, the recent problem has been that guests get away with delivering monologues that are really just unsupported statements of their policy preferences as if their opinions were the law of gravity. That’s when a thinking person’s bullshit detector goes off and as the host, David ought to play the role of the bullshit detector by identifying underlying assumptions and soliciting explanations. Don’t “rebut” the Unknown Conservative’s conservative bullshit with liberal bullshit OR just let him ramble on, ask some good questions and the argument will crumble or hold up under pressure on its merits.
Credit where credit is due: David did a LOT better job with this trying to pry some facts and reasons for opinions out of Jimmy Dore, who surprised me by actually having some facts and reasons.
Much better show David, thank you. I wrote before criticizing you for your unknown conservative show. I took your reply as patronizing and was ready to just stop listening. Listening to this show made me this your response was brief but probably sincere.
Just a couple comments that I hope come off constructive and not as angry as last time. First, talking a lot does not mean you are saying a lot. You were very gracious in giving Jimmy the opening segment fairly well uninterrupted. Your segment however seems to me though you took your 20 minutes it could have been done in five. You decry interruptions that take you off point but you did a pretty good job of derailing your own argument with asides and tangents. The one example that comes to mind was your comment about Harvard. I think you made some good points but you took so long to get there I didn’t really care by the time you did.
You argue that you can’t keep interrupting the smaller points that are leading to a bigger point. One you never get to due to the interruptions. However if your big point is built on a foundation of fraudulent or erroneous smaller points then there is no big point to debate. Instead of your grand big idea being on a solid foundation of logic and facts it is sitting atop a house of cards that the first attempt at rebuttal, or as Jimmy says a google search can bring it toppling down. Why sit through the construction when you know it will crumble to rubble before your done.
You lament that when you make that ridiculous statement about conservatives following Hitler and Liberals following Stalin at the Thanksgiving table that you get interrupted or that everyone feels they had to comment or offer an opinion. First let me say that if you do say that at Thanksgiving dinner I hope you started when they pulled the turkey out to thaw so that the turkey wasn’t too long out of the over by the time you were done. Second, are you having a conversation or delivering a lecture? As far as I know when it is a conversation people are expected to reply to a statement with a question, comment, or related opinion. If you are having a conversation you can’t resent someone responding to your statement.
Having erroneous statements in something like a socratic dialog does not necessarily derail the argument like having erroneous statements in a proof would. The arguments that Jimmy sometimes tries to correct are in fact wrong, however David is not laying them out in support of a conclusion, but rather to illustrate the chain of “logic” that some people use to arrive at their positions. The idea is to show the argument the conservatives are using, and then show at the end why it is wrong; and also (and this is the more important point from David’s perspective) to show how they were able to arrive at the wrong conclusion in the first place. Simply correcting a wrong conclusion is good, finding out why the wrong conclusion was arrived in the first place is better.
If you are constantly rebutting and correcting the points along the way then you don’t get to the conclusion and understanding at the end that was intended. He should probably be more clear in putting up a “warning” when he is going to use this kind of a method so that it is not mis-interpreted, but it is not a fundamentally wrong approach. Basically when someone is using the socratic method you have to be willing to give them a lot of room to work out an argument, and give them the benefit of the doubt until they have finished their entire statement (which can be very very long) and then respond at the end after it is clear what the intended purpose was. It only works with people who are intelligent and patient enough to keep the whole argument in their head at once, which is why the interruptions are a problem, you have to keep those in your head now too and it makes a long statement even longer than it would have been.
I do however agree with you that the arguments could be “tightened up” a lot though, by cutting down on some of the sidetracks, and saying the ideas more succinctly. I think his monologues are interesting and really make you think about things in a way that is new and interesting, but they can be kind of hard to stick with at times.
-Buck
While not yet ready to give up on the idea that “The Unknown Conservative” was not, in fact, a Feldman plant designed to stir the pot ….
I have mixed feelings on these shows. Both sides attempted to control, with Jimmy’s style to be to talk over and be louder and David’s to filibuster … but both seemed to me to be ways to bully/dominate the other, though I doubt either of you planned it as it is just who you are.
For all of the common ground you two share, I do tire of Jimmy repeating the same points multiple times but I also tire of David acting as if something which is obviously false deserves to be heard without question out of respect for “the conversation” or what may be learned or whatever. That may be why I like Kevin Rooney so much as he’s concise, but does not suffer fools … if he hears it, he calls it and moves on.
Nonetheless, I will continue to listen and contribute to both shows. I thank you for everything, David. Keep fighting the good fight.
I don’t think you can micromanage a conversation like you do in this episode. Or you can, and you did, but I found it painful to listen to. I get what you are trying to do, but a conversation is living and is much more give and take than you are allowing. Again, look to Bill Moyers. I find that’s the answer to a lot of things.
I wish I had listened to this episode before responding to the Thanksgiving Ruined episode (the 2nd uninformed conservative episode).
Jimmy, where in the world did you get the idea that Bill Clinton was ever remotely leftist? He was always the avatar of neoliberalism, “Reinventing Government” so as to make government run like big business…I’ve always thought that the remarkably half-assed performance in attempting to nationalize health insurance was meant to fail…
Wow. Well, I’d suggest that you’re equating countries with their governments, in your assessments of the successes of Libya and Egypt…very qualified successes, at best, and not so much the result of the US quagmire in Iraq, much less Afghanistan, as it was the growing resentment of the governments by their people. The Orange Revolution and other similar activity in Eastern Europe, Greece and elsewhere to the Arab nations’ north, and some of the efforts to reform governments after and through popular protest in various African nations to the Arabs’ south, seem like much better inspirations than the US managing to re-install a fair amount of the Bat’athist regime after so much bloodshed in Iraq.
And paleoconservatives are feeling pretty alienated in the GOP at the moment–a number, particularly those who were fervent supporters of Ron Paul, voted Libertarian this time in protest of the treatment they and Paul had at the hands of the more neocon and corporatist Republicans. Not that they won’t continue to attempt to have a larger voice in the GOP, particularly after the last election’s reversal of fortunes for both the Establishment GOP and the Tea Partisans, but it will be interesting to see how the power struggles play out. Paleos are less concerned with regulating big business than they are with making sure it doesn’t try to profit from subversion of Traditional Values…they differ from libertarians in that while the capitalist libertarian often will argue against any sort of government regulation, but often will have no problem with theoretically free markets allowing big business to do what it will (as long as it isn’t in collaboration with government)…what big or small business does to the individual or the society it’s in, or big business to small business, is all fine, no matter how shortsighted or driven by profit at any expense. Meanwhile, the paleocon can usually overlook the depredations of big business as long as big business doesn’t challenge the subjugation of women, usually of minorities and other less-empowered people, and anyone else who doesn’t support their vision of traditional values…paleocons can be comfortable with a much weaker federal government, particularly if it allows for a much stronger and more reactionary local government.
Just checked out your site cool. I’m posting Oops in our video section. Cool.
Thanks! I’m about to buy that concert video, now that I’m aware of its availability. I wouldn’t be surprised if you know Judith Owen, who sings along with or instead of Thompson on some of the songs in the show…married to Harry Shearer and they occasionally tour together, of course. Nearly lifelong early Fairport fan, here.
I think you are doing a good thing here, David. A conversation between liberals and conservatives is possible. 20 years ago I was a naive ignorant dittohead. If it weren’t for calm and patient liberals clearly articulating their arguments, I might still be one today.
The extreme anger and intolerance from the right AND the left accomplishes little.