I struggle a lot every time I see a Matt Walsh blog post being circulated. These are the unfiltered feelings I struggle with, and I would welcome discussion about them from anyone: Matt Walsh writes perhaps the worst blog on the internet. I expect half of my friends will cheer that statement, and half will disagree wildly. Here are a few of the many problems: -A huge portion of what he does consists of effectively telling women and minorities to stop whining. Thats a totally awful agenda. But the smug and dismissive way that he does it moves from totally awful to asshat (I dont use the word in public lightly). Hes as bad as Mark Driscoll ever was, except hes not apologizing for it. -My conservative friends, even if they largely agree with Matt Walsh, would never use the kind of smug and dismissive language that uses in his writing every day. They would (rightly) feel like it was over the top. -He writes as if hes absolutely certain that there is a radical liberal conspiracy deliberately trying to destroy truth and goodness. We should be wary of anyone, left or right, who is convinced that virtually everyone from the other side is malicious or stupid. Discussion goes much more smoothly when you assume intelligence and good-will on the part of the other side. Some times youll be forced to give up the assumption, but Matt Walsh gave it up at the first sign of resistance. -The occasional good point that he does make (more than occasional from a more conservative perspective) and the fact that he knows how to put a solid sentence together should not cancel out the insults, the accusations, or the derision. I promise that you can get every good point he makes (and better) from other conservative commentators who dont use the same invective. -People on the left and on the right should be careful not to be swept up in someones rhetoric just because they are already predisposed to agree with the points being made. This is a legitimate and difficult challenge for all of us. -If you find yourself really agreeing with Matt Walsh, do yourself a favour and go seek out solid commentary from the left. I dont say this to try to convert anyone to the left, I say it because it will result in better discussion for everyone. Go read some of the people Matt Walsh calls race-baiters and whiners. Youll be surprised at the difference it makes to read someones own words instead of getting them second-hand. Even if you still agree with Matt Walsh when youre done, youll be able to write a much more thoughtful blog post about it than he does. -There is a time for righteous anger, but Matt Walsh thinks that time is all the time. I suspect he thinks hes being prophetic. But if we want to preach to anyone but the choir, we owe it to our friends or readers to tone it down now and then (with that in mind, Ill be posting more cat pictures to my wall from now on :) ). And since when does righteous anger include insulting the dignity or the intelligence of those with whom we disagree? -It is very possible to break down his posts paragraph by paragraph and show what he ignores, what he gets wrong, what he assumes but shouldnt, and what he doesnt assume but should. His arguments are not rock solid. Intelligent critique is possible. When people disagree with Matt Walsh, it isnt because theyre uncomfortable with the inconvenient truth, its because they really do think hes, you know, wrong. -This is just a side point, but shouldnt it be troubling that the only other sites Matt Walsh links to are as radical as he is? Doesnt that kinda show he isnt really trying to weigh all the arguments? -This is the post that sparked all these questions for me again: theblaze/contributions/hey-ferguson-protestors-justice-has-been-done-but-you-never-wanted-justice/ If anyone is still reading, thank-you for your time! You rock!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 23:13:23 +0000
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