October
9th 2012
Posted under Media & Paleoconservatism
Here is a somewhat cryptic post from Daniel McCarthy on the comment policy at TAC. I have to say I’m a little bit baffled by it. I think I’m normally pretty good at reading between the lines, but I’m not sure what is being referred to here. As I said in my own comment, I don’t detect a lot of trollish comments at TAC, although I obviously don’t see the ones that don’t get through. What I do see is a lot comments from liberals and perhaps moderates who seem to come to TAC to pile on conservatives. I see a lot less of the “all good conservatives must support Romney” type comments.
Anyone have any ideas/intel what McCarthy is getting at?
ALS84 on 10 Oct 2012 at 4:20 am #
Too many liberal comments can’t be the problem when Scott McConnell begins a State of the Union post with this: “I’m a huge [Daily] Dish fan and Andrew [Sullivan] may reflect my views more than any pundit out there.”
I think having an aesthetic or intellectual standard (like Auster) is a good idea, but it requires more engagement from the TAC bloggers than most are willing to offer. And it’s also unclear how that sort of standard fits in with the subpar and incoherent blogging of someone like Jordan Bloom, for example.
RedPhillips on 10 Oct 2012 at 4:29 am #
I wasn’t suggesting that TAC thinks there are too many liberal commenters. I think there are too many liberal commenters. That said, McCarthy specifically says he is worried about the impression others get when they come to the site. My hunch is that this has more to do with tone than content, but I don’t know for sure.
Kirt Higdon on 10 Oct 2012 at 10:44 am #
What I don’t get, Red, is the fascination (approaching obsession?) here with what is or is not going on with TAC. A number of sites will be occasionally mentioned or cited here or on any blog. But only TAC is ceaselessly critiqued and analyzed.
Matt Weber on 10 Oct 2012 at 1:37 pm #
The fascination comes from a few things
The legacy of being Pat Buchanan’s magazine
The general lack of any coherent identity
The 95/5 ratio of criticism of conservatives vs liberals
The apparent need to obey and reinforce prevailing PC norms
The apparent lack of any sympathy or understanding for the conservative ‘red state’ population
I could go on, but it all boils down to no one having any idea what TAC is supposed to be. It’s really a mess. “Here’s some random viewpoints, enjoy. Aren’t we open-minded?” It is fascinating, because it isn’t as though Buchanan-style conservatism is an oversaturated niche, where they just had to do something different.
That said, I think the comments thing is about it being an election season, and they probably get a lot of comments from people annoyed that they attack Romney 30 times for every time they attack Obama.
RedPhillips on 10 Oct 2012 at 4:35 pm #
Kirt, Matt is exactly right in the reasons he states for this “fascination.”
Also, I think it is paleo inside baseball so to speak, so it is the kind of thing you would discuss on a paleo blog. Where else are you going to discuss it? Huff Post? That said, I think you are probably right that we let it bother us too much. TAC is going to do what TAC is going to do, and there is very little we can do about it.
Rollo on 10 Oct 2012 at 5:21 pm #
Again, I think a simple name change would end the fascination with TAC. Anti Israel Journal or American Left Review would be more honest.
Matt Weber on 10 Oct 2012 at 5:57 pm #
How about The American Anti-war Sorta-Libertarian Anarcho-Leftist
I definitely let it bother me too much, but dang it it does bother me. TAC is like that guy you think is a good friend, but then one day the cool kids start making fun of you and he happily piles on.
Savrola on 11 Oct 2012 at 1:14 am #
As a sometime writer, and full-time troll, let me note that the American Conservative was intended to supplant the Weekly Standard in the offices of Beltway Bureaucrats, and it has fulfilled its purpose.
The fact that the Paleo-inclined writers never even tried to dialogue with Unz, is inconsequential, as are most comments on most political commentary sites, in general.
So greater censorship is probably a good idea, for everyone all around.
Feltan on 11 Oct 2012 at 3:40 am #
We all lament what TAC was, and what it should have been. I also lament what happened to NR after Buckley passed on. These publications are a shadow of their former self.
Perhaps we should all dwell on the future instead of the past.
Regards,
Feltan
Sean Scallon on 11 Oct 2012 at 8:30 pm #
I think what Jerry Sayler had mentioned to us in correspondence is generally true, TAC wishes to be able to reach out to persons across all spectrums of thought whether it’s politically or ideologically feasible. For the most part it has worked as they draw a lot of comments (especially Dreher, which is why they pay him the big bucks if true). If said comments are mostly liberals I suspect it because they would like to find conservatives and libertarians to have conversations with instead of flame wars and would rather not venture into the Fortress Right if they can avoid it. You may not like it, but I think TAC prefers to have its Comment sections not become like Free Republic.
Are we saying that we would run off any liberal or neocon who wished to comment here on CHT? I would hope not.
RedPhillips on 11 Oct 2012 at 8:45 pm #
“Are we saying that we would run off any liberal or neocon who wished to comment here on CHT? I would hope not.”
No, not at all. In fact, I would welcome some because I know we would have a reasonable conversation with them unlike the name calling they would get at Free Republic or we would get at Huff Post.
My point is that I think the number of liberal commenters is indicative of the tone of the site. It feels like a place that liberals come to to pile on “mindless” conservatives along with “thoughtful” conservatives.”
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 12 Oct 2012 at 12:39 am #
Mr. Scallon;
Anyone who was on-line in the 2003-05 period knows what the core composition of rightish anti-war thinking that might subscribe to a magazine was. AmConMag washed their hands of it early with Derbs writing a negative review of Kevin McDonald’s Culture of Critique.
It was more or less over after that, and then Sam Francis died.
If Sailer had looked at CoC, that would have been one thing (and to this day, would be a well trafficked article), but to pull an NR scribe to job out was an insult to the on-line work going on at freedomunderground, libertyforum and others that were generating solid traffic with activists and gadflies alike before the blog-mentality set in. We were learning to work together at the time, to talk to one another–the proof was in the 07-08 Ron Paul Campaigns.
AmConMag has a point about ‘conservatism’, in all its flaws, but as an entrepreneurial venture I wholly reject they want a wide range of opinion–they want the enlightened ‘Independent’ whose self-identifies in the mirror with being above it all. They wheeled out Paul Weyrich of Arrow-Cross bundler fame to write about the new “conservatism” for goodness sake (see how that contradicts…oh, whatever, nevermind.)
This might be useful for the elite–I have no idea, I am being generous–but down in the trenches, nobody has ever heard of AmConMag.
Just to offer an alternative, guys like ‘aware’ and myself came of age during R. Emmett Tyrells “crazy” 1990s AmSpec years that catered to a diverse Rightwing–Taki was part of that and a funder, he knew how to get the job done, not to mention that we have learned that AmSpec reviewed Anthony Sutton’s view on the Cold War in a positive light in the 70s.
AmConMag never tried to harness the Right with what they want–a free speech zone with a good editor, and there is no Left anymore. Could have been a contender…
Hence my point that Bacevich is all they have, at the end of the day.
Aaron on 13 Oct 2012 at 10:10 am #
I’ve been reading TAC (mostly the website) since it was launched about a decade ago. I think the current incarnation is the most thoughtful and the best, largely because it’s the least ideological and the least polemic. Somehow the original TAC managed to be hyper-ideological while at the same time publishing authors from different ideologies (Ralph Nader, Gore Vidal, and so on).
Red, I don’t think there’s any hidden meaning to the comments policy. TAC wants to attract, not repel, first-time readers, so they don’t want kooks.
I’ve posted some comments at TAC, on the topic of race, that were definitely way outside the boundaries of Unzism, and they were all published. So I don’t see any substantive censorship of comments.
Karen on 13 Oct 2012 at 8:11 pm #
I actually think there is a meaning that goes beyond face value on the TAC comment article. They made a point of calling out “long time commenters” are being special, because one thing you don’t want at a blog is new and engaged readers! New readers could be the kiss of death for any blog – better to stick with a narrow audience that only dies over time. Particularly since TAC seems to promote an immigration policy that will lead to a country made up largely of uneducated people who are collectivist in mindset, and not prone to reading blogs, let alone conservative blogs. But Matt is right, one more series of daily TAC articles on how bad Romney is doesn’t exactly make TAC “required reading.” It’s ironic that the comment article notes that they won’t or don’t post comments from readers who repeat themselves….they should take that advice before they publish one more anti-Romney article. Isn’t there anything else to talk about?