Off in Bizarroworld, the Stupidest Man Alive Contest Continues...

Jonah Goldberg writes:

The Corner on National Review Online : WANTED: HERBERT SPENCER EXPERT [Jonah Goldberg]I'm working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer. There's simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to. But if there are any real experts on Spencer out there -- regardless of ideological affiliation -- I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something.

Ummm... Jonah, perhaps you should consider writing a book about stuff you know, rather than about stuff you don't know? I mean, shouldn't books that require that the author have read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer--and thought about it--be written by people... who have read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer, and thought about it?

Am I missing something here?

Comments

[ccobb]

Yes you are missing something Brad. Jonah is not now and has never been a member of the reality-based community. In his world facts are not the point; the use to which they can be bent and twisted is.

[RSA]

I suspect that a Web site with a name like "Custom Term Papers" is about to make a $50 sale. . .

[David Moles]

I'm sure the NRO style guide clearly separates "need" and "require".

[P O'Neill]

I have lowered my expectations so much when reading the Corner that I just glossed over that one. But seeing such stark stupidity is funny, although also frightening. Remember, Mickey Kaus has said that Jonah Goldberg is "incredibly talented."

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/07/my-name-is-jonah.html

[save_the_rustbelt]

I know nothing about Herbert Spencer, so maybe I could write the chapter for him (?).

Didn't someone write a book about the decline of public intellectuals (not to imply Goldberg is an intellectual). Apparently anyone can be a commentator these days.

May be Ann Coulter could help him, she doesn't know much either.

[Cal]

For some reason -- possibly the fact that Mommy got him the job of conservative television personality -- of all the silly, dumb-assed talking heads on Fox, CNN and MSNBC, I really really dislike Jonah more than any of them. I simply like to curse at the screen, or change the station, when I see the others. However, when I see Jonah on television, I am overwhelmed with the urge to reach into the television, haul him out and b**** slap him until he agrees to quit and never make a public utterance again and suck his thumb in the corner for the next ten years.

[ogmb]

I can only conclude from this that Jonah Goldberg is extremely good looking and tends to wear very revealing outfits in public.

[Tom Hilton]

Brad, have you ever considered writing a textbook on the chemistry of metals? I'm sure you could ask your readers to provide whatever information you need...

[Best Trousers]

What, exactly, is Jonah's book about? Any ideas?

Best Trousers

[Paul Philp]

Brad,

What you are missing is a sense of fairness and basic decency.

You put other people down to make yourself look smarter.

Paul

[pgl]

Jonah opined on the Frist sale of HCA stock only to admit he has no clue about insider trading. He has opined on DeLay's legal troubles without having a clue what they are about. Same with Karl Rove and Plamegate. It seems he opines on a lot of topics even if he has no clue on any of them. So if Jonah followed your advice, he'd stop writing entirely.

[paul]

I'm not esp. interested in being fair or decent to JG, but I can imagine a situation where some detail in the chapter requires understanding Spencer, and thus... I suppose that doesn't really explain needing to "read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer," just a bit. Oh well.

[Quacks like a duck]

All that is code language. Herbert Spencer was a handy guy for Gilded Age-conservatives enjoying the fruits of scandalous prosperity. All the conservatives know his arguments were bunkum and have since been debunked. Goldberg wants to know, how do conservatives speak credibly about this once-useful person today? He knows that there is someone out there to feed him the proper talking points.

[dsquared]

hahahaha, an expert on Herbert Spencer "regardless of ideological predisposition". there goes the curve ...

[weco]

What does fairness have to do with doing your homework and write your own book?

Put it this way -- what Jonah is doing is equivalent to asking an older sister to explain everything he needs to know about, say chemistry of metals, summarise it and presents it as his own work. Not strictly plagirism, but why should someone paid for a book written by an author who just summarises other people's words?

What's shocking is that Goldberg doesn't think he's doing anything wrong ... I guess that's how Bush got through Yale --

[David]

seems to me that the real question is what BizarroWorld publisher would put a cobbled piece ("chapter") or book by JG into print, and what BizarroWorld public will part with some cash to read it. Maybe Say's Law really holds in BizarroWorld?

[Bruce Moomaw]

The answer is: Regnery, which has published MUCH stranger things than that. (I tend to think of it as Rancid House.) Just keep in mind that Goldberg's request makes perfect sense if he's writing a deliberate propaganda tome, although obviously it doesn't make any sense if he's trying to write an honest study.

[Bruce Moomaw]

I spoke too fast. (Cue Patrick Sullivan entrance.) Goldberg DIDN'T say that he wasn't going to read "a lot about and by Spencer". He just said that he couldn't read EVERYTHING about and by Spencer, and asked for aid from someone -- "regardless of ideological affiliation", as desquared points out -- who might be able to point him toward any important points he was missing.

In short, while there are plenty of good reasons to bash Goldberg, Delong and I picked an unfair one. (My comments about Regnery, however, stand; it's a reliable stinkbomb of a publishing house, and if nobody else publishes Goldberg's book they certainy will.)

[dj moonbat]

Hell, yes, you're missing something here, Brad: The wave of the future!

Think of how many books (wo)mankind missed out on because the author spent countless hours doing superfluous research, instead of just plowing ahead. Pioneers like Jonah, though, are blazing new trails. Soon, he'll be writing a book a day--maybe more.

[howard]

Bruce, don't be too generous: Jonah's writing (unsurprisingly) isn't clear on the matter.

First sentence: the book "requires" him to "read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer."

Second sentence: there's no way Jonah can read "all" of "it." What in the world is the antecedent of "it" in this sentence?

Third sentence: can an expert answer a few questions in case he's missing "something."

Not present in any sentence: a clear statement by Jonah that he's reading anything. Maybe he is, at which point his second sentence should have said "of course, there's an enormous amount to read, and i don't need to read it all for my purposes, but i do want to make sure i read the important stuff." Then the third sentence would make sense as a means of asking his readership what the important stuff is.

And maybe he isn't, at which point the second sentence could more carefully have been written as "of course, even reading a lot about and by Spencer strikes me as a poor use of my time." Then the third sentence would make sense as a means of asking his readership to substitute for his own unwillingness to read.

But i certainly can't tell - can you?

[rod]

a few years ago, I worked in a law firm with an intercom system. Anyone remember intercom? Okay, nuf about memory lane. At any rate, one night, late at night, in a world that predated pizza delivery, one lawyer got on the Intercom and said, "hey anyone hear know anything about antitrust?" Well, anyhow, the Internet it turns out subsumes all previous communications, including desperate and inane ones.

[Unstable Isotope]

Not knowing anything hasn't stopped Goldberg (or other conservatives) from speaking on subjects in the past. Remember Jonah's spanking from Juan Cole regarding Iraq?

So, when is Brad's book about the chemistry of metals coming out?

[s9]

"Am I missing something here?"

Yes. You're failing to notice that Jonah and his pals are operating under New Rules for who is qualified to speak with authority on a given subject. It used to be that authority was a function of knowledge, ability to communicate and reputation of merit. Now, it is primarily a function of having a reputation for loyalty.

When Jonah asks for experts on Herbert Spencer to help him with his homework, the obvious implication is that he plans to write the book that those experts would be able to publish if only they had the reputation for loyalty that he possesses. Since they don't, and they must rely on people like him to serve as intermediaries for their expertise to be of any use, it would make sense to broadcast as far and wide as possible an advertisement for candidates in need of some favor to curry to provide him with the material he requires for his project.

You're welcome. I was happy to help you out with this.

[alan]

> Not knowing anything hasn't stopped Goldberg
> (or other conservatives) from speaking on
> subjects in the past. Remember Jonah's spanking
> from Juan Cole regarding Iraq?

I was going to bring that up. That was one of the most ruthless dissections in writing I have ever seen on a real subject. In any reality based forum that would have been more like an execution than any mere corporal punishment, and Goldberg would never have been heard from again.

Alas, it is not such a community we live in, and Goldberg continues to spout sophomoric opinions and gets paid pretty well for it.

[Egg]

Why not just buy "Herbert Spencer for Dummies"?

[Buce]

Some this makes me recall:

"Prof, I missed class this morning, did we do anything important?"

Or

--I'll have coffee without cream.
--We're all out of cream, you'll have to have it without sugar.

[Unstable Isotope]

For those curious about Cole vs. Goldberg, here is a link:

http://www.juancole.com/2005/02/goldberg-v.html

[Dano]

shouldn't books that require that the author have read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer--and thought about it--be written by people... who have read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer, and thought about it?

Do you mean ideologically-driven books, or fact-driven books?

D

[Name]

Yes, Brad - what you are missing is that young Jonah is only semi-literate. Reading therefore takes him a long time. Why should he not use a shortcut, like his idols? He can't fathom the possible losses that result from an ignorance of nuance.

[Kathleen]

I think we are missing Jonah's differentiation between "require" and "need". Apparently working off of Bizarro Dictionary.

[MTC]

Mr. Goldberg's brazenness amazes. Or perhaps it is his inability to be his own man. How was it not possible for him to say, "I'm sorry. I cannot write this chapter. I know nothing about Spencer."

After reading his plea, we are confronted with the possibility that in these dark times both knowledge and personal integrity are empty, only noise and dust.

[rea]

Somewhere, there's probably a blog post by Harriet Meirs--"if there are any real experts on constitutional law out there -- regardless of ideological affiliation -- I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something."

Or maybe Michael Brown--"if there are any real experts on disaster relief out there -- regardless of ideological affiliation -- I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something."

Or maybe John Snow--"if there are any real experts on economics out there -- regardless of ideological affiliation -- I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something."

Or maybe--well, you get the point . . .

[Derelict]

Before attempting to parse Goldberg's latest, we must consider his track record as a whole. Even if we ignore all the times he has spoken out on subjects about which he has less than no knowledge, we can still look to all the previous examples of his literary efforts.

Doing so, we find that Goldberg has a modus operandi--he ALWAYS asks his reader to do his research for him. He has made it clear that even using Google is far, far too much effort for him. Thus, no matter the topic, Goldberg gets others to do his research and then simply regurgitates whatever information he is given. (And, as has been shown repeatedly, he is actually too stupid to differentiate between good and bad information, so whatever he writes invariably leads to a later retraction.)

[J Thomas]

Rea, I would be pleasantly surprised if those government officials asked for advice.

They seem to think they know all they need to already....