Writes Daniel Drezner, in "Goodbye, farewell and adieu to Spoiler Alerts/R.I.P. Spoiler Alerts, 2014-2022" (WaPo). "Spoiler Alerts" was the name of his column, which wasn't placed very conspicuously in the Washington Post, I don't think, because I read the Post every day, and I hadn't blogged anything by Drezner in years.
The Post is ending his column, and he's trying to explain or come to terms with this.
I was interested in his discussion of blogging. I know what it's like to blog and then to write columns that are published prominently. It's very stressful. You think you can take the spirit of blogging and spin it out into a column. But something is very different. You like the big platform, but it's also ruining everything. I can see thinking now I've got to be more thoughtful and mature.
As for his hostility to his own white-man voice... Is that self-awareness? Is he realizing that perhaps he doesn't deserve his position? I can't tell. There's also the fear of everyone who is not "a middle-aged straight White guy." They may catch him on anything — why didn't he say "cis"?! — and destroy his stature. But his column has been discontinued, so he's motivated to come up with reasons why that's all for the best.
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33 comments:
"as a middle-aged straight White guy"
Anyone who thinks in identity-political terms, for the purpose of mild retroactive self-denunciation, deserves to have a column stopped. Leave it to the Persons of Color or Persons of Periods.
How bad is it to say that acting (or writing) like a middle-aged straight white guy might occasionally be something to aspire to?
I guess it depends on the guy.
I remember him from back in the day but like you, I hadn't thought about him in years. Though we're all a bit of a closed loop here, the direction driven probably more strongly than we like to admit by Instapundit. If he decides to feature, say, Lileks less often, then you gradually start to have him fall out of your daily checks, then weekly checks, then you start to forget he is still around at all
Not all infractions are equal, and in some cases such behavior merits serious sanctions.
How revealing, even if unintentionally! "Such behavior" doesn't merit serious sanctions sometimes, but does others--wonder how ol' Dan decides which is which! What makes retweeting a tasteless joke no big deal in one case but a deserving of serious sanctions in another?
Damn. My quest for tasteless jokes just became more difficult.
Like Nebuchadnezzar, the poor slub could not read the handwriting on the wall. A middle-aged white guy writing in the WaPoo didn't see the end coming?
Would writers of the non-white, diversity universe, be more willing to write the kinds of stories that would advance a... brave new world narrative? Will the diversity universe be "self aware" enough to know that they owe their place in the big platforms to that new enterprise, thereby not show any willingness to stray from the brave new world narrative?
ESPN went thru it.
Wait a minute. Are we talking about "replacement theory", that got some US politicians in trouble? That's a taboo subject these days.
Weird. All my Boy Scout leaders and my Eagle Scout medal prepared me to act like a “middle-aged straight White guy.” Admittedly, the straight part didn’t take for some of my patrol mates, but hey, we’re still friends.”
The tenor of his final column is understandably a little valedictory. But not really that: elegiac. But not really that: defeated. Will the last old straight white male at the WaPo please turn out the lights?
Althouse said...
As for his hostility to his own white-man voice... Is that self-awareness? Is he realizing that perhaps he doesn't deserve his position? I can't tell. There's also the fear of everyone who is not "a middle-aged straight White guy." They may catch him on anything — why didn't he say "cis"?! — and destroy his stature. But his column has been discontinued, so he's motivated to come up with reasons why that's all for the best.
"Mmm, could be."
Dan Drezner said...
We need a more forgiving public discourse, one in which it is possible for mistakes to be made, apologies to be sincere, criticism to be tolerated, and respect to be preserved across genuine ideological disagreements.”
We live in an age in which retweeting a tasteless joke and then apologizing and deleting it 10 minutes later still winds up being on your permanent record. Not all infractions are equal, and in some cases such behavior merits serious sanctions.
I find the sanctions of which he speaks to be most unserious.
All jokes are not only tasteless, but odorless as well.
Althouse soldiers on.
Four columns a week "like blog posts." Our hostess does that in a single day .. often more! Amateur.
His farewell column snores. Self-censorship causes soporific writing.
I read the Post every day, and I hadn't blogged anything by Drezner in years.
The Post is ending his column, and he's trying to explain or come to terms with this.
Maybe the Post is ending his column because no one knew the column existed.
He's right about the inner cranky old man voice not always being wrong, and not always being right. It gets increasingly more insistent and intrusive, and hard to resist as one grows older. For that very reason, it's not always an accurate guide.
But intersectionality be damned. The idea that an affluent suburban woman or gay man or Asian and a doubly disdadvantaged urban or rural African-American would have more in common with each other than with a straight White male doesn't fly.
Intersectionality is a self-justifying theory. There isn't a natural common interest between women, African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and the LGBTQ, but because adherents of the theory say they do, they become one of two national political coalitions. The other being those "straight White males" who haven't been able to join or lead or direct the intersectional coalition, and "minorities" who perceive their own interest differently from the intersectionalists.
Drezner was a heterodox thinker early in his career. Once he got tenure he became just another indistinguishable establishment voice. Like Megan McArdle when she hit it big.
From enthusiasm to euthanasia: one straight white middle-aged guy explains his very personal decision to jump before he gets pushed. "The other day, I was at Belshazzar's Feast, feasting, and saw some writing on the wall. It may mean me; it may mean them. I'm out. Is there life outside The Bubble? There isn't life inside it, just packs of predatory Identi-Pocs looking for straight, white meat. I'm a joker and a dreamer but I'm no Zelensky nor was meant to be = the only stand I can imagine is to run away. Very quickly."
Probably, somewhere in the bowels of WaPo's management, someone asked the question of why they were paying someone like Drezner, a white middleaged cis-male, when they could be paying the next Nikole Hannah-Jones or Ibram X. Kendi.
Reading those excerpts of his last column, I can't do anything but also conclude that they shouldn't have been paying Drezner. Dan, don't forget to get management to give your testicles back before leaving the building.
Four columns per week. Heavy lift. For eight years.
And few people have ever heard of him.
The quote here are the first words of his I have ever read.
As for his hostility to his own white-man voice
That's the performative requirement for all the left wing "white guys" who dominate the press while talking about how everyone else needs to "make way for underrepresented voices."
IIRC, Dresser used to occasionally write something interesting, but Trump broke him, just like McArdle.
So I'm glad he's doing the right thing, and "eliminating his hateful white voice from the nation's conversation."
I just wish all the other whit male leftists in journalism, politics, and Twitter would do the same
Yancey Ward said...
Dan, don't forget to get management to give your testicles back before leaving the building.
Pretty sure Dan threw them away all by himself
Good riddance to a never-Trumper who has served his purpose. He'll resurface if Trump runs.
Why does he need permission to write?
If I hadn't been bad, Daddy wouldn't have broken my arm.
Apostates are the worst to the Trump cult. Similar to Islam.
Drezner was the most conventional, liberal establishment voice, ever. I never heard him say or write anything interesting. When he was on BHTV, he seemed like a smart guy, but narrow minded, smug, and dull as dishwater.
Some people think out-the-box. Drezner was so deep INSIDE the DC Beltway Box he couldn't understand anything that wasn't. Why he had a column or was on BHTV was a mystery. Did he know someone? Was he part of a Good ol' Boys network?
That he blames his firing on being a "Middle-aged white guy" is true to the extent that a boring black middle-aged aged black guy writing the same pap might still be employed. Remember Bob Herbert?
Don't I remember the name Drezner from about twenty years ago?
As a good read?
Then he went into a zone where I remember "wtf happened to Drezner?"
And I sort of put him in a category with Drudge. Or Paul Ryan.
No one reads left trending former good reads. The market is now dominated by right tending former bad reads. Taibbi. Weiss. And while she wasn't ever, in my experience a bad read, Althouse is among this latter category. And Maher of late. They're all liberals, pretty much unchanged since the Clinton era, who merged two goals of civilizing the Democratic party and attracting an audience who appreciates their creativity.
Drezner headed the other way, into oblivion.
He never quit his day job. Still tenured professor.
Not getting tenure at University of Chicago destroyed Drezner.
He was once rational and interesting. Sadly, he had to resort to writing for the Post.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-good-white-man-roster
Howard said...
Apostates are the worst to the Trump cult. Similar to Islam.
So now the WaPo management is part of the "Trump cult"? Wow, Howard, you need to get your meds checked
We're not the ones who fired him, WaPo management is.
We just ignored him, because he was boring
I thought I remembered reading a Drezner column about Joshua Bell playing his Stradivarius at one of the DC Metro stations (and being recognised by about half a dozen out of a thousand people) but am apparently wrong-- it was Gene Weingarten.
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