Posted on 07/25/2017 5:21:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Bret Stephens devoted his New York Times column last week to admonishing me for my tweet from two weeks ago and critiquing my follow-up column last week explaining the tweet.
The tweet reads, "The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does."
Since he wrote the column as a "Dear Dennis" letter to me, I will respond in kind.
Dear Bret: I'll try to respond to the most salient arguments you made. I'll begin with one of the most troubling.
You wrote: "Wiser conservatives -- and I count you among them, Dennis -- also know that when we speak of 'the West,' what we're talking about is a particular strain within it. Marx and Lenin, after all, are also part of the Western tradition, as are Heidegger and Hitler."
I was taken aback that such a serious thinker could write that nihilist communists and nihilist Nazis are all "part of the Western tradition."
That's what the vast majority of professors in the social sciences teach: There's nothing morally superior about Western civilization -- it's as much about Hitler and Lenin as it is about Moses and Thomas Jefferson. And, anyway, Moses never existed and Jefferson was a slaveholding rapist. Among those professors' students are virtually all those who dominate the Western news media.
Am I wrong? Do you think your colleagues at the Times or the Washington Post or Le Monde or BBC believe in the moral superiority of the West?
Of course they don't. Most believe in multiculturalism -- the doctrine that all cultures are equal -- and it is therefore nothing more than white racism to hold that Western civilization is superior. Didn't nearly all of your (nonconservative) colleagues who commented on President Trump's speech in Warsaw call it a dog whistle to white supremacists?
On those grounds alone, my tweet was accurate.
I am surprised that anyone -- especially you -- thinks Vladimir Putin's Russia poses a greater threat to the survival of Western civilization than the Western left. No external force can destroy a civilization as effectively as an internal one -- especially one as powerful and wealthy as the West. The Western left (not Western liberals) is such a force. Western liberals always adored the West.
I was also stunned by your saying, "I'm not sure that Justin Trudeau declaring there is 'no core identity, no mainstream in Canada' counts as a Spenglerian moment in the story of Western decline."
The prime minister of Canada announces with pride that his country has no core identity and you don't think that counts as an example of a declining civilization?
And here's another upsetting sentence: "To suggest that Vladimir Putin is a distant nuisance but Maggie Haberman or David Sanger is an existential threat to our civilization isn't seeing things plain, to put it mildly."
The reason I found that troubling is I never cited Haberman or Sanger, and you well know that no generalization includes every possible example -- that's what makes it a generalization. But I did specifically cite the writers in The Atlantic who equated Western civilization with white supremacy, and your substitution of your New York Times colleagues for The Atlantic commentators allowed you to avoid dealing with The Atlantic writers' and others media attacks on Western civilization.
Despite the fact that neither my tweet nor my column said a word about Trump, you devoted almost half your column to denouncing the president. Yet, as I wrote in the column, my tweet would have been just as accurate had I sent it out during former President Obama's administration or Hillary Clinton's, if she were president.
Bret, to your great credit, you are a lonely voice of strong support for Israel at your newspaper (your readers should see the videos on the Middle East you made for Prager University; they have eight million views for good reason). Doesn't the almost uniform hostility toward Israel in the media and academia trouble you? Does it trouble you that most Democrats in America hold a negative view of Israel? That Jewish students at many American, not to mention European, universities fear expressing support for Israel or just wearing a yarmulke on campus? That so many young American Jews, influenced by the media and their professors, loathe Israel? I am certain all of that greatly troubles you. Is any of that Putin's doing? Or is it all the result of the media and academia?
You mentioned that you will be sending me a birthday gift, a book about Putin's Russia, "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible" by Peter Pomerantsev. I promise to read it. And I request a promise in return: Read the book I am sending you, "The Strange Death of Europe" by the eminent British thinker Douglas Murray. The book describes Europe's suicide at the hands of its progressive elites -- in particular, its multiculturalism-affirming political leaders and mendacious news media. To the best of my recollection, in describing the death of European civilization, Murray doesn't mention Putin once. (Regarding the mendacious media, read the report published this week in Germany about the dishonesty in the German media, which routinely substitutes left-wing opinion for facts in reporting the immigrant crisis in Germany.)
Perhaps the most troubling part of your response was your penultimate line: "Don't be a hater, Dennis."
Where did that come from? You cite not a single hateful word in my column -- because there are none to cite. And "hater" has become the all-purpose left-wing epithet to dismiss all conservatives. Why would my friend Bret Stephens use it?
“and you well know that no generalization includes every possible example — “
Then don’t speak in generalizations. You will not only have better points to make but you will make them more clearly.
A fantastic response from Prager.
Unfortunately also a complete waste of time when it comes to dealing with people like Stephens.
Bret Stephens has made his bed. These days the NYT will publish anyone as long as they are sufficiently anti-American and Stephens qualifies.
Bret Stephens is a pig.
“Why would my friend Bret Stephens use it?”
Great googly moogly, Prager: no liberal is ever a friend to a conservative. Haven’t you gotten that by now?
Prager scores ....
Again
Now lets try to imagjne a world where the liberals cannot blame Putin and Assad for the world’s evil ... Think of some names they will be forced to substitute ...
North Korea or Iran? Saudi Arabia, China and their totally non-Western human values ?
Nevermind, they will still have the GOP and perhaps, Donald Trump
“Then don’t speak in generalizations. You will not only have better points to make but you will make them more clearly.”
I see you’re a newbie so I’ll give you some advice. Ridiculous comments like yours get mocked on FR.
Or do you have a problem with that generalization??
It really is amazing to read/listen to these limp wristed “conservatives”. I caught a few minutes of Medved’s show while on the road last week. Some lib called up and repeated the lie that the GOP was going to kill people. Medved just breezily moved on like the caller never said such an outrageous thing. People like Stephens and Medved far prefer progressive Democrats to Trump and his voters. Nothing principled or conservative about that.
The fact that generalizations are never complete and easily countered with specific contrary examples is a rhetorical truth studied since Ancient Rome.
Mock it if you want. I’m not bovvered.
Spare me. You can’t talk about big, complex issues in the world without using some generalizations.
Ex - In the Middle East issue, the Israelis are the ones who truly want a peaceful, 2 state solution, while the Palestinians just care about destroying the state of Israel.
This is perfectly acceptable statement (generalization!!) to make in an analysis of this issue.
BUT WAIT, I bet SOMEWHERE there is SOME Palestinian who REALLY wants peace with Israel, and SOMEWHERE there is SOME Israeli who would like to see the all the Palis. dead.
See how ridiculous your comment is now?
Bret Stephens is a fake name...
“Ex - In the Middle East issue, the Israelis are the ones who truly want a peaceful, 2 state solution”
Counter example: The sitting cabinet members of Zionist parties that explicitly reject a two-state solution.
See also: Netanyahu’s boosting of these cabinet ministers.
Result: Cabinet level rejection seems like “Israelis” don’t want a two-state solution. Some Israelis might but that sometimes loses Big in elections as years come and go.
As someone who has lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Canada, I have to take issue with this statement by Prager.
Canada's lack of a core identity isn't an example of a declining civilization at all. It's an example of a nation that isn't really a nation. It's really just a cobbled-together remnant of the British empire on a huge land mass with a small population ... and with large French and Inuit regions that function almost like nations unto themselves.
I was actually pleased to hear Prime Minister Trudeau make that statement that Canada has no core identity. I thought for sure he'd say that "diversity" -- or some other pile of nonsense -- is Canada's one core characteristic.
I'm really disappointed that people who post regularly on FreeRepublic even listen to that @sshole.
I was driving through rural Pennsylvania and Medved’s show popped up on the radio. I don’t think his progressive butt kissing show is even on the radio here in Jacksonville, FL.
... and the last time I heard him was when I was out in Pittsburgh last month. LOL.
As soon as I realized it was Medved I turned on something I'd prefer to hear ... like Barry Manilow or something. :-P
This is BS and has been debunked numerous times. You should ashamed for posting this garbage.
Stephens was born in New York City, the son of Xenia and Charles J. Stephens, a former vice president of General Products, a chemical company in Mexico. His parents were both secular Jews. His paternal grandfather had changed the family surname from Ehrlich to Stephens (after poet James Stephens). He was raised in Mexico City, where his father was born and worked. In his adolescence, he attended boarding school at Middlesex School in Massachusetts. Stephens received an undergraduate degree in political philosophy from the University of Chicago before earning a master's degree in comparative politics at the London School of Economics.Bret Louis Stephens (born November 21, 1973) is a neoconservative American political commentator who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2013. Stephens began working as a contributing columnist at The New York Times in late April 2017 and as a senior political contributor for NBC News in June 2017. He formerly worked for The Wall Street Journal as the foreign-affairs columnist and the deputy editorial page editor and was responsible for the editorial pages of its European and Asian editions. From 2002 to 2004, he was editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post.
In addition to his neoconservative foreign policy opinions, Stephens is known for being part of the right-wing opposition to Donald Trump, and for his contrarian views on climate change.
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