What follows is the email I sent you yesterday, and I'm happy to share it here. Was I one of the "vicious and savage" ones? (And is there anything you want to contribute to the liberal marketplace of ideas in response to the points I raised?)
And for heaven's sake, please don't even try to gaslight us about where your tongue was relative to your cheek. It's obvious that you never once thought about what it meant to be a friend to Dr. Kissinger until Mr. Chotiner made a point of it. Your status as an economic and educational elite has obviously rendered you incapable of serious moral reflection. Your livelihood and career are definitionally premised against what is "fairer and better" for all people.
Yours in the cause of free speech and democratic pluralism,
—Jim Nugent
Dear Dr. Sunstein:
I read your new interview with Isaac Chotiner in today's /New Yorker/ with great interest. I was especially struck by your implied view that it's acceptable to be friends with murderous folks like Dr. Henry Kissinger provided they say nice things about your /Star Wars/ book. Your lack of self-introspection is astounding and your moral vacuity is flabbergasting.
I read in online financial disclosures that you made some $800,000 in 2021. Your financial success must be a source of exculpatory comfort for you, much as I imagine your proximity to prominent figures like Dr. Kissinger was. Congratulations on making a lucrative career of it!
But those aren't the characteristics of great scholars and thinkers, but rather mere truffle pigs for power and money. I doubt you can ever be made understand the moral and intellectual impoverishment of your elitism, though, so I'll just end with this request:
Going forward, could you at least keep the word /liberalism/ out of your rancid mouth?
I don't begrudge Chotiner's asking tough-but-fair questions, but I found his plan of attack increasingly shallow and obtuse the more I read on, culminating in the absurd Kissinger diversion that clearly generated more heat than light and did you a disservice. For what it's worth, I found your responses characteristically generous, thoughtful, and compelling.
He resorted multiple times to the form of question, "You say this guy is on your liberal team, and yet he said or did this or that bad thing." You thus stood accused of appreciating some big ideas of people who sometimes said bad things. But it's not the bad things you're defending, and so his list of gotchas -- Hayek once said this, and this, Rothbard said that, Reagan opposed anti-discrimination laws -- seemed beside the point. This style of argument -- a sort of historical ad hominem -- is depressingly common now, depressing because it avoids good-faith engagement with ideas in favor of throwing stink.
I can barely glimpse in the stinky fog the outlines of a fair question. That question might go along the lines of, "You count conservatives like Reagan as liberals in the broad sense. And yet the conservative movement was in part grounded in opposition to civil rights. Reagan, for example, once voiced opposition to anti-discrimination laws on ostensibly libertarian grounds. The recent Buckley biography reminds us once again of his early support for formal white supremacy in the south, and not white supremacy in the woke sense but in the old-fashioned sense. Aren't civil rights a fundamental liberal value? Doesn't opposition to them put one outside even the big tent?" (Lots to say there; you said much of it in the interview.) But that wasn't his approach.
Other aspects bothered me. He seemed unfamiliar with the usage of "human rights" as referring to individual rights in relation to the state, of the sort found in the Bill of Rights, FDR's Second Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He seemed to think about it only in terms of foreign affairs. I also found striking his apparent resistance to the very idea of big-tent liberalism, an idea I certainly cherish, now more than ever insofar as it clarifies what's under threat and reminds us of what we should all agree on as Americans. It's as though he doesn't want to find agreement. He wants to say, they're bad, we're good, and the bad goes back to conservatives you say nice things about. What's this common ground b.s.? I mean, conservatives are liberals? Alito and Thomas aren't fascists? I find that "hard to believe"!
I used to be a lawyer. For many years now, I've been a high school teacher. I remember drawing a traditional left-right political spectrum on the board once -- the far right was fascism, the far left was communism, there were a few other labels, liberalism was in the middle, and, within that liberal center resided American conservatives and American liberals. Part of the idea was to highlight the relative lack of extremism in U.S. politics (this was some years ago), to highlight the liberal values we tended to share in practice, a sharing we took for granted amid the battles. Not that those battles were pointless food fights, far from it. They were important and interesting. But they took place under a big tent. We dismantle that tent at our peril.
The Second Bill of Rights is among my favorite books on the era, on FDR, on liberalism, on politics. This new one is on the way and I look forward to reading it.
Thanks so much for this! I didn’t mind the questions, but I found the Kissinger ones baffling, which accounts for my emphasis on Star Wars. I probably should have said much more about Star Wars (or maybe Fantastic Four or Daredevil, or Captain Kirk). Thanks for the thoughts and All best.
I think you know that being baffled by the Kissinger questions is itself the problem, and it all comes down to your frightening inability to tell a murderous war criminal from an A-list dinner guest. But what your answers really show us is your interest in a project that makes liberalism out to be as toothless, expansive, inert, and historically disconnected as possible. Your version of liberalism has to make room for some pretty big monsters because you know so many of them personally.
Some of them are your prestigious colleagues and peers. They're the people in the social spheres and halls of power that your opportunistic, careerist self has always wanted to occupy. They include patently illiberal figures like Justices Alito and Thomas who you (still. still!) feel compelled to be generous to.
Could it be that your high-minded meditation on liberalism is actually just a self-interested attempt to rebrand sinners as saints? And could it be that your life's chief project—ostensibly advancing the cause of moderation—turned out to be a reactionary one all along? What if you were nudging in the wrong direction all this time without realizing it, lending illiberal monsters the cover of respectability and serving as a useful idiot for reactionaries and authoritarians?
You once held up Justice Roberts as a minimalist and, sheesh, were you ever wrong about that. But at the end of the day, you still helped him attain his power. You and your lack of moral discernment helped deliver us to this historical moment, objectively speaking. Which brings us to the thing you probably need most from your version of liberalism: the inability for anyone in your polite circles to say at a dinner party, "Cass Sunstein sure fucked that up. He was wrong and now people will die."
I have a hunch history's judgement is going to be that you did embarrassingly little to stop what's coming next. At the end of the day, I think you're just the efete, amoral centrist that the contemporary observer @dril characterized in his famous Tweet:
"the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: 'theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron'"
(And ffs, could you please stop insulting our intelligence by implying that you were caught off guard or were being tongue-in-cheek in response to those fully anticipatable layup questions? That was definitely your ass you showed. Please stop gaslighting us about what we saw.)
Dr. Sunstein:
What follows is the email I sent you yesterday, and I'm happy to share it here. Was I one of the "vicious and savage" ones? (And is there anything you want to contribute to the liberal marketplace of ideas in response to the points I raised?)
And for heaven's sake, please don't even try to gaslight us about where your tongue was relative to your cheek. It's obvious that you never once thought about what it meant to be a friend to Dr. Kissinger until Mr. Chotiner made a point of it. Your status as an economic and educational elite has obviously rendered you incapable of serious moral reflection. Your livelihood and career are definitionally premised against what is "fairer and better" for all people.
Yours in the cause of free speech and democratic pluralism,
—Jim Nugent
Dear Dr. Sunstein:
I read your new interview with Isaac Chotiner in today's /New Yorker/ with great interest. I was especially struck by your implied view that it's acceptable to be friends with murderous folks like Dr. Henry Kissinger provided they say nice things about your /Star Wars/ book. Your lack of self-introspection is astounding and your moral vacuity is flabbergasting.
I read in online financial disclosures that you made some $800,000 in 2021. Your financial success must be a source of exculpatory comfort for you, much as I imagine your proximity to prominent figures like Dr. Kissinger was. Congratulations on making a lucrative career of it!
But those aren't the characteristics of great scholars and thinkers, but rather mere truffle pigs for power and money. I doubt you can ever be made understand the moral and intellectual impoverishment of your elitism, though, so I'll just end with this request:
Going forward, could you at least keep the word /liberalism/ out of your rancid mouth?
Sincerely,
Jim Nugent
I don't begrudge Chotiner's asking tough-but-fair questions, but I found his plan of attack increasingly shallow and obtuse the more I read on, culminating in the absurd Kissinger diversion that clearly generated more heat than light and did you a disservice. For what it's worth, I found your responses characteristically generous, thoughtful, and compelling.
He resorted multiple times to the form of question, "You say this guy is on your liberal team, and yet he said or did this or that bad thing." You thus stood accused of appreciating some big ideas of people who sometimes said bad things. But it's not the bad things you're defending, and so his list of gotchas -- Hayek once said this, and this, Rothbard said that, Reagan opposed anti-discrimination laws -- seemed beside the point. This style of argument -- a sort of historical ad hominem -- is depressingly common now, depressing because it avoids good-faith engagement with ideas in favor of throwing stink.
I can barely glimpse in the stinky fog the outlines of a fair question. That question might go along the lines of, "You count conservatives like Reagan as liberals in the broad sense. And yet the conservative movement was in part grounded in opposition to civil rights. Reagan, for example, once voiced opposition to anti-discrimination laws on ostensibly libertarian grounds. The recent Buckley biography reminds us once again of his early support for formal white supremacy in the south, and not white supremacy in the woke sense but in the old-fashioned sense. Aren't civil rights a fundamental liberal value? Doesn't opposition to them put one outside even the big tent?" (Lots to say there; you said much of it in the interview.) But that wasn't his approach.
Other aspects bothered me. He seemed unfamiliar with the usage of "human rights" as referring to individual rights in relation to the state, of the sort found in the Bill of Rights, FDR's Second Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He seemed to think about it only in terms of foreign affairs. I also found striking his apparent resistance to the very idea of big-tent liberalism, an idea I certainly cherish, now more than ever insofar as it clarifies what's under threat and reminds us of what we should all agree on as Americans. It's as though he doesn't want to find agreement. He wants to say, they're bad, we're good, and the bad goes back to conservatives you say nice things about. What's this common ground b.s.? I mean, conservatives are liberals? Alito and Thomas aren't fascists? I find that "hard to believe"!
I used to be a lawyer. For many years now, I've been a high school teacher. I remember drawing a traditional left-right political spectrum on the board once -- the far right was fascism, the far left was communism, there were a few other labels, liberalism was in the middle, and, within that liberal center resided American conservatives and American liberals. Part of the idea was to highlight the relative lack of extremism in U.S. politics (this was some years ago), to highlight the liberal values we tended to share in practice, a sharing we took for granted amid the battles. Not that those battles were pointless food fights, far from it. They were important and interesting. But they took place under a big tent. We dismantle that tent at our peril.
The Second Bill of Rights is among my favorite books on the era, on FDR, on liberalism, on politics. This new one is on the way and I look forward to reading it.
Cheers
Thanks so much for this! I didn’t mind the questions, but I found the Kissinger ones baffling, which accounts for my emphasis on Star Wars. I probably should have said much more about Star Wars (or maybe Fantastic Four or Daredevil, or Captain Kirk). Thanks for the thoughts and All best.
I think you know that being baffled by the Kissinger questions is itself the problem, and it all comes down to your frightening inability to tell a murderous war criminal from an A-list dinner guest. But what your answers really show us is your interest in a project that makes liberalism out to be as toothless, expansive, inert, and historically disconnected as possible. Your version of liberalism has to make room for some pretty big monsters because you know so many of them personally.
Some of them are your prestigious colleagues and peers. They're the people in the social spheres and halls of power that your opportunistic, careerist self has always wanted to occupy. They include patently illiberal figures like Justices Alito and Thomas who you (still. still!) feel compelled to be generous to.
Could it be that your high-minded meditation on liberalism is actually just a self-interested attempt to rebrand sinners as saints? And could it be that your life's chief project—ostensibly advancing the cause of moderation—turned out to be a reactionary one all along? What if you were nudging in the wrong direction all this time without realizing it, lending illiberal monsters the cover of respectability and serving as a useful idiot for reactionaries and authoritarians?
You once held up Justice Roberts as a minimalist and, sheesh, were you ever wrong about that. But at the end of the day, you still helped him attain his power. You and your lack of moral discernment helped deliver us to this historical moment, objectively speaking. Which brings us to the thing you probably need most from your version of liberalism: the inability for anyone in your polite circles to say at a dinner party, "Cass Sunstein sure fucked that up. He was wrong and now people will die."
I have a hunch history's judgement is going to be that you did embarrassingly little to stop what's coming next. At the end of the day, I think you're just the efete, amoral centrist that the contemporary observer @dril characterized in his famous Tweet:
"the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: 'theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron'"
(And ffs, could you please stop insulting our intelligence by implying that you were caught off guard or were being tongue-in-cheek in response to those fully anticipatable layup questions? That was definitely your ass you showed. Please stop gaslighting us about what we saw.)