CNN’s boss displays a deeply ideological belief in his own superior objectivity that is pervasive among America’s elites – and makes him a willing henchman of a reactionary political project
Other than Thomas' articles warning of the dangers of the authoritarian right, this is rather a smear piece. I can't understand his obsession with "reactionary centrists", he should rather focus his ire on the real enemy from the ultra-right.
In this lengthy article there is not a single argument against claims of the scolded "objectivists" (of course Thomas has to use "objectivity" in quotes as a true intersectional standpoint theorist), rather he paints them as powerful white male reactionaries in disguise who want to keep their unearned privileges.
Has it occurred to Thomas that some of them actually might have legitimate concerns about today's left tendencies to fetishize group identity and group equity (as opposed to individual equity as the old day's left), to found criticism of the opponent not conceptionally but positionally (pointing out the whiteness/maleness in every claim as Thomas does) and about the censoriousness with which core dogmas are enforced (as well-documented by FIRE, the NYT and others)?
What Thomas absolutely lacks is a charitable interpretation of his opponent's speech. That is even true in some of his articles pointed against the right, which I otherwise support. He should accept that not all of them are driven by sinister or subconscious self-interests (though some are), but that sometimes people just have different points of view.
Now Chris has some time on his hands, I'd like to see him and Matthew Goodwin team up for a podcast - working title The Center Cannot Fold - where they bring their diverse, righteous and uniquely objective opinions and tell the simple truth, underpinned by facts that just, you know, feel right, white man to white man.
It would he helpful to learn about the steps between (an elite white male) "asking questions" and the questioner trending toward the RW "anti-woke" trope. I see the effect, and I have a guess as to the cause, but it's one of the points Prof. Zimmer leaves in outline here, probably in the interest of readability.
Also, I appreciate reading here and would like to see more attention paid elsewhere to the RW hacking of postmodernist academic criticism. Without using that outmoded academic language here, Prof. Zimmer makes the point that Licht represents the authoritative perspective that describes itself as "objective" (formerly proponents called these views "modern and scientific," encompassing such insights as determining intelligence from the shapes and sizes of skulls, and Charles Murray's Bell Curve ). Like merit, objectivity thereby degrades into whatever the observer / speaker is comfortable with.
I connect this with the programming community's tendency to do stupid stuff like train facial recognition software on pasty-white, twentysomething males and not anticipate any problem because their faces are the norm, the standard, the Platonic ideal of which all other faces are mere shadows. Except, by not even thinking that, they are the residents of Plato's Cave rather than Plato himself. Licht and so many of our political and financial elites are stuck in their cave of objectivity, unaware they are the ones watching the shadows.
There is objectivity and there are people claiming to be objective. If some people claiming to be objective turn out not to be objective, that does not entail objectivity itself is wrong. That's a fallacy most antirealists (from constructivists to feminist epistemologists) commit.
The example with facial recognition has nothing to do with objectivity. It's just bad programming.
Hi Martin - Thanks for the interesting thought! I disagree, however. The programming (writing and testing code to achieve a result) doesn't seem to be the issue, since (as I learned from my comp sci teachers early on) computers do exactly what we tell them. The fault I and others have seen in the facial recognition is the socioeconomic isolation of the programming community. This leads to (and many object to) a particular argument for diversity, which is that a community of diverse perspectives and life experience is more likely to anticipate all possible challenges and therefore prepare a response. The facial recognition example was my self-indulgent way of taking a dig at friends and family in the computer science profession. We can see similar effects in school curriculum design (warning: hornet's nest), urban planning, and business operations. As a former student of African history and teacher of world history, I saw the decentering of colonial narratives, often disguised or expressed as objective, modern, and scientific, leading to more accurate representations of that objective reality. The key term I learned for this is "intersubjectivity," which is dangerously close to constructivism in that, in contrast with the Manichaean opposition of objectivity and subjectivity, it accommodates the scientific method and the mistakes of scientists and whole scientific communities by arguing that we construct theories (not truths) to explain the world, and test them against the world and competing ideas, and refresh our understanding of the world, not in binary leaps between truth and falsity, but in incremental and sometimes gigantic shifts of consensus. I think plenty of examples exist of this, but I last studied the really juicy ones in the 90s, so I will leave this unsupported.
I strongly recommend not bothering getting into a discussion with this Martin Lloyd fellow. He’s a troll. Went through all my recent pieces and left disparaging comments - all about how I’m just writing leftwing smear propaganda blah blah blah. I have decided to block him. Trying not to do that here. But what’s the point? I think I get it, he doesn’t like my writing. Ok.
Great points. Maybe a fundamental argument is that people in power don't want to understand the power dynamics they are a part of. If you're in power, you're responsible for things that happen, but if you can find another more powerful group to blame, you can absolve yourself.
I always thought I was pretty liberal, but I must say I’m feeling uncomfortable about these calls for equality and respect, especially when they question my superior judgment and societal status.” To be fair, from an elite perspective – and that of a white male elite, in particular – this kind of status-quo fundamentalism is indeed rational and it makes sense to regard the “Left” as the bigger immediate status threat. It is true that an agenda seeking to move America from being a restricted, white men’s democracy that left existing hierarchies largely intact to a functioning multiracial, pluralistic, social democracy is a losing proposition for people who have traditionally been at the top. So, while I don’t think Chris Licht is a MAGA Republican, his perspective on American politics is shaped by an underlying ideology that makes it just much more plausible to see the Right as not that big of a threat – and the Left as radical, unreasonable, and acutely dangerous. We could have a much more fruitful political discussion if Licht and others like him could just acknowledge that – and spare us all the grandiose nonsense about “saving journalism” and defending “the truth” itself.
The fight for equality and equity has gone on in this country since its beginning. Thank you for clarifying the fight. Those who want to maintain white supremacy vs those that want “a functioning multiracial, pluralistic social democracy”. There is no middle of the road. Everyone needs to pick the outcome they want and work towards it.
Excellent comment. As much as many (me included) would like there to be a middle road, we need to face the reality of enabling fascism or working toward a multiracial, social democracy.
The comment about three people who graduated from Harvard is a poorly thought out attempt to get at something real, I think. Some people go to Harvard on full scholarship, while others get there with the help of family money and connections. It's silly to lump them all together as privileged elites. But it does seem to me there is a tendency among some on the left to focus entirely on race and forget about class, or, because there's a lot of overlap, to conflate the two. "We should support student debt relief because it helps Black people" -- I can get pretty boring about that, but I try not to nitpick the left too much since the right is so much scarier.
Meant to say in my comment, Seamus Khan’s book Privilege does a good job on the intersection of class and race. It’s a great book in so many ways, I highly recommend it.
Yeah I looked at the intersection of class and race for admissions to elite schools and the result is as you surmise; we need to address class disparities but first we need to admit class is an issue! People love to pretend America is a classless society as much as they love to pretend it’s not racist.
Thank you for putting Licht into a perspective I can more easily understand, because I just couldn't understand how he justifies his actions at CNN. Now if you could just deconstruct Anderson Cooper's rationale defending the Town Hall ("Don't you feel better seeing what will be coming at you if the former President "wins" the 2024 election?" As if we didn't know.). Other than trying to keep his job (which is understandable), why has he destroyed his reputation as a straight shooter in defense of Licht. Anderson Cooper addressed a graduating class at American University I attended, and he was intelligent, emotionally open, and seemingly honest about his life and his work. Consequently, his defense of Licht caused me to lose all hope that people can be strong and ethical in the face of dark power. I'm sure there were many Germans who also couldn't believe what was happening in front of their eyes, but felt helpless to do anything outside the laws and norms of their time.
Excellent commentary. I haven’t watched one minute of CNN since Licht took the reins. It’s obvious that they plan to “both sides” us into full blown fascism, then pretend they have no idea how it happened.
Other than Thomas' articles warning of the dangers of the authoritarian right, this is rather a smear piece. I can't understand his obsession with "reactionary centrists", he should rather focus his ire on the real enemy from the ultra-right.
In this lengthy article there is not a single argument against claims of the scolded "objectivists" (of course Thomas has to use "objectivity" in quotes as a true intersectional standpoint theorist), rather he paints them as powerful white male reactionaries in disguise who want to keep their unearned privileges.
Has it occurred to Thomas that some of them actually might have legitimate concerns about today's left tendencies to fetishize group identity and group equity (as opposed to individual equity as the old day's left), to found criticism of the opponent not conceptionally but positionally (pointing out the whiteness/maleness in every claim as Thomas does) and about the censoriousness with which core dogmas are enforced (as well-documented by FIRE, the NYT and others)?
What Thomas absolutely lacks is a charitable interpretation of his opponent's speech. That is even true in some of his articles pointed against the right, which I otherwise support. He should accept that not all of them are driven by sinister or subconscious self-interests (though some are), but that sometimes people just have different points of view.
Fantastic piece, thanks.
Now Chris has some time on his hands, I'd like to see him and Matthew Goodwin team up for a podcast - working title The Center Cannot Fold - where they bring their diverse, righteous and uniquely objective opinions and tell the simple truth, underpinned by facts that just, you know, feel right, white man to white man.
It would he helpful to learn about the steps between (an elite white male) "asking questions" and the questioner trending toward the RW "anti-woke" trope. I see the effect, and I have a guess as to the cause, but it's one of the points Prof. Zimmer leaves in outline here, probably in the interest of readability.
Also, I appreciate reading here and would like to see more attention paid elsewhere to the RW hacking of postmodernist academic criticism. Without using that outmoded academic language here, Prof. Zimmer makes the point that Licht represents the authoritative perspective that describes itself as "objective" (formerly proponents called these views "modern and scientific," encompassing such insights as determining intelligence from the shapes and sizes of skulls, and Charles Murray's Bell Curve ). Like merit, objectivity thereby degrades into whatever the observer / speaker is comfortable with.
I connect this with the programming community's tendency to do stupid stuff like train facial recognition software on pasty-white, twentysomething males and not anticipate any problem because their faces are the norm, the standard, the Platonic ideal of which all other faces are mere shadows. Except, by not even thinking that, they are the residents of Plato's Cave rather than Plato himself. Licht and so many of our political and financial elites are stuck in their cave of objectivity, unaware they are the ones watching the shadows.
There is objectivity and there are people claiming to be objective. If some people claiming to be objective turn out not to be objective, that does not entail objectivity itself is wrong. That's a fallacy most antirealists (from constructivists to feminist epistemologists) commit.
The example with facial recognition has nothing to do with objectivity. It's just bad programming.
Hi Martin - Thanks for the interesting thought! I disagree, however. The programming (writing and testing code to achieve a result) doesn't seem to be the issue, since (as I learned from my comp sci teachers early on) computers do exactly what we tell them. The fault I and others have seen in the facial recognition is the socioeconomic isolation of the programming community. This leads to (and many object to) a particular argument for diversity, which is that a community of diverse perspectives and life experience is more likely to anticipate all possible challenges and therefore prepare a response. The facial recognition example was my self-indulgent way of taking a dig at friends and family in the computer science profession. We can see similar effects in school curriculum design (warning: hornet's nest), urban planning, and business operations. As a former student of African history and teacher of world history, I saw the decentering of colonial narratives, often disguised or expressed as objective, modern, and scientific, leading to more accurate representations of that objective reality. The key term I learned for this is "intersubjectivity," which is dangerously close to constructivism in that, in contrast with the Manichaean opposition of objectivity and subjectivity, it accommodates the scientific method and the mistakes of scientists and whole scientific communities by arguing that we construct theories (not truths) to explain the world, and test them against the world and competing ideas, and refresh our understanding of the world, not in binary leaps between truth and falsity, but in incremental and sometimes gigantic shifts of consensus. I think plenty of examples exist of this, but I last studied the really juicy ones in the 90s, so I will leave this unsupported.
I strongly recommend not bothering getting into a discussion with this Martin Lloyd fellow. He’s a troll. Went through all my recent pieces and left disparaging comments - all about how I’m just writing leftwing smear propaganda blah blah blah. I have decided to block him. Trying not to do that here. But what’s the point? I think I get it, he doesn’t like my writing. Ok.
Great points. Maybe a fundamental argument is that people in power don't want to understand the power dynamics they are a part of. If you're in power, you're responsible for things that happen, but if you can find another more powerful group to blame, you can absolve yourself.
My favorite lines:
I always thought I was pretty liberal, but I must say I’m feeling uncomfortable about these calls for equality and respect, especially when they question my superior judgment and societal status.” To be fair, from an elite perspective – and that of a white male elite, in particular – this kind of status-quo fundamentalism is indeed rational and it makes sense to regard the “Left” as the bigger immediate status threat. It is true that an agenda seeking to move America from being a restricted, white men’s democracy that left existing hierarchies largely intact to a functioning multiracial, pluralistic, social democracy is a losing proposition for people who have traditionally been at the top. So, while I don’t think Chris Licht is a MAGA Republican, his perspective on American politics is shaped by an underlying ideology that makes it just much more plausible to see the Right as not that big of a threat – and the Left as radical, unreasonable, and acutely dangerous. We could have a much more fruitful political discussion if Licht and others like him could just acknowledge that – and spare us all the grandiose nonsense about “saving journalism” and defending “the truth” itself.
The fight for equality and equity has gone on in this country since its beginning. Thank you for clarifying the fight. Those who want to maintain white supremacy vs those that want “a functioning multiracial, pluralistic social democracy”. There is no middle of the road. Everyone needs to pick the outcome they want and work towards it.
Excellent comment. As much as many (me included) would like there to be a middle road, we need to face the reality of enabling fascism or working toward a multiracial, social democracy.
This is a terrific thought piece, and a welcome departure from the status quo. Thank you.
Prior to CNN, Licht produced Colbert, which was unabashedly anti-Trump. I wonder what Stephen thinks of his transition to the MAGA useful idiot at CNN
Right on - another fine essay. Thank you!
The comment about three people who graduated from Harvard is a poorly thought out attempt to get at something real, I think. Some people go to Harvard on full scholarship, while others get there with the help of family money and connections. It's silly to lump them all together as privileged elites. But it does seem to me there is a tendency among some on the left to focus entirely on race and forget about class, or, because there's a lot of overlap, to conflate the two. "We should support student debt relief because it helps Black people" -- I can get pretty boring about that, but I try not to nitpick the left too much since the right is so much scarier.
Meant to say in my comment, Seamus Khan’s book Privilege does a good job on the intersection of class and race. It’s a great book in so many ways, I highly recommend it.
*Shamus. Lol, I’m a mess!
Yeah I looked at the intersection of class and race for admissions to elite schools and the result is as you surmise; we need to address class disparities but first we need to admit class is an issue! People love to pretend America is a classless society as much as they love to pretend it’s not racist.
I should have said "equally privileged."
Tim Alberta's profile of Licht is contextually better understood -- motives, method, meaning -- after I read your analysis.
Thank you, Prof Zimmer.
Thank you for putting Licht into a perspective I can more easily understand, because I just couldn't understand how he justifies his actions at CNN. Now if you could just deconstruct Anderson Cooper's rationale defending the Town Hall ("Don't you feel better seeing what will be coming at you if the former President "wins" the 2024 election?" As if we didn't know.). Other than trying to keep his job (which is understandable), why has he destroyed his reputation as a straight shooter in defense of Licht. Anderson Cooper addressed a graduating class at American University I attended, and he was intelligent, emotionally open, and seemingly honest about his life and his work. Consequently, his defense of Licht caused me to lose all hope that people can be strong and ethical in the face of dark power. I'm sure there were many Germans who also couldn't believe what was happening in front of their eyes, but felt helpless to do anything outside the laws and norms of their time.
Excellent commentary. I haven’t watched one minute of CNN since Licht took the reins. It’s obvious that they plan to “both sides” us into full blown fascism, then pretend they have no idea how it happened.