Dear Reader (Including those of you not cursed to endure the sweatpant-fog climate of Washington, D.C.),
Sometimes we use certain words only to describe the forms of that word we do not like.
Let me explain: Let’s imagine that my daughter says, “French food is awful.”
I respond: “What do you mean?”
She replies, “Snails, Daddy. They eat snails.”
To which I retort, “Oh, I agree. We never should have let them talk us out of those toasted cheese sandwiches, that time. But you love duck confit and croissants. That’s French food, too.”
Daughter: “That’s different.”
The same dynamic plays itself out in many political and policy debates.
My go-to example of this is the word “censorship.” Over my many years of debating with intense libertarians of the left and the right, I’ve heard many times that “all censorship is wrong” or “I am 100 percent against censorship.”
“Oh really?” I ask. “So riddle me this: The FCC prohibits hardcore child pornography on Saturday-morning TV. Are you against that?”
The answers tend to vary, but one very common retort is something like, “Oh come on. That’s not ...
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In Defense of Dogma
Jonah Goldberg
Dear Reader (Including those of you not cursed to endure the sweatpant-fog climate of Washington, D.C.),
Sometimes we use certain words only to describe the forms of that word we do not like.
Let me explain: Let’s imagine that my daughter says, “French food is awful.”
I respond: “What do you mean?”
She replies, “Snails, Daddy. They eat snails.”
To which I retort, “Oh, I agree. We never should have let them talk us out of those toasted cheese sandwiches, that time. But you love duck confit and croissants. That’s French food, too.”
Daughter: “That’s different.”
The same dynamic plays itself out in many political and policy debates.
My go-to example of this is the word “censorship.” Over my many years of debating with intense libertarians of the left and the right, I’ve heard many times that “all censorship is wrong” or “I am 100 percent against censorship.”
“Oh really?” I ask. “So riddle me this: The FCC prohibits hardcore child pornography on Saturday-morning TV. Are you against that?”
The answers tend to vary, but one very common retort is something like, “Oh come on. That’s not ...
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