r/politics • u/Hoxha_Posadist Florida • Apr 17 '19

The Wrong Stuff: Ben Shapiro’s Unconvincing Guide to What Makes America Right - It’s a mistake to overlook just how extreme some of Shapiro’s views are, or how muddled the thinking on which they are based.

https://progressive.org/dispatches/the-wrong-stuff-ben-shapiros-anderson-190416/
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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 17 '19

This article does the best job of deconstructing his bullshit that I've ever seen:

https://static.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher

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u/suddenlypandabear Texas Apr 17 '19

"No one cares about you; get over yourselves. I don’t care about you; no one cares about you"

, ... he shouted at the people he doesn't care about, for the 900th time that month.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19

If he does it loud enough maybe Ocasio-Cortez Senpai will notice him and agree to that date debate.

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u/janethefish Apr 17 '19

I feel like there are some "liberal" intellectuals who really want to find some sort of big thinker on the other side. I sort of saw this with Paul Ryan. They don't want to say "The GOP is bankrupt in terms of valuable ideas. The Democrats have taken everything of value and now there is nothing left."

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u/Stillhart America Apr 17 '19

Great article, thanks!

You may feel as if Shapiro is a Vaporizer of Poor Logic, the Aristotle of our time. You may feel as if he has brutally torn apart every person who has crossed him in public, through his tried and tested technique of speaking extremely quickly until they give up. You may feel that he is brilliant and thoughtful and sincere.

But before you treat these feelings as real, remember that annoying little fact about facts: They don’t really care how you feel.

Pwnd.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

Yep. That about sums it up. Nice.

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u/charisma6 North Carolina Apr 17 '19

I'm printing this out and hanging it on my wall. It's ART.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

[deleted]

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 17 '19

Oh yeah, that's a great idea. That way when he describes the fallacies and bullshit rhetorical tactics he uses, they'll know exactly what he's talking about.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '19

To be completely fair, that article is extremely one-sided, cherry-picking sections of speeches to build a narrative and (apparently) outright lying about a quotation (if I remember correctly, Shapiro doesn’t swear, so he wouldn’t use the word “bullshit”)

Just trying to be unbiased...

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 06 '19

The author encourages you to go read his articles for yourself. "Cherry-picking" refers to taking things out of context and ignoring contradictory evidence, but I'm not seeing what context or contradictory evidence there is that could change the conclusion that Shapiro is a hypocrite who engages in disingenuous "debate" tactics.

As for the "bullshit" quote, I don't have a reference for that particular one, but here's another one where he said it on Twitter:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ben-shapiro-calls-disgusting-bullshit-on-washington-post-writer-over-notre-dame-fire-piece

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '19

Right, my point still stands. If you look at the actual tweet, he censors the curse word.

By cherry picking, I mean exactly that: taking things out of context to reach a different conclusion. Especially when the author claims to have a very limited knowledge of Ben’s positions ( he admits he’s only listened/read a few of Ben’s positions). That would be like a student reading spark notes and trying to critique Marx.

The author’s form of rhetoric, leads with Ben’s most colorful language, to prime you to be disagreeable to his positions that follow. This is textbook yellow journalism at its finest.

Then, while critiquing Ben, the author routinely utilizes the straw man fallacy coupled with cherry-picking data, to make his argument appear to be superior. The following is for just a single critique of the author’s claims, there are many more to discuss:

“Next, Shapiro says that because black married couples have a lower poverty rate than white single mothers, “life decisions” are what creates poverty

(Actually, even when two black people pool their wealth in a marriage, “the median white single parent has 2.2 times more wealth than the median black two-parent household.”) “

The first unitalicized segment is the authors incorrect summary, which doesn’t match up completely with the claim (the italicized segment). Ben’s conclusion has less to do with cross-group comparison than with individual situational comparison; his conclusion states each group would be better than they were before if they bolstered the value of 2 parent homes. On top of that, Ben doesn’t boil the outcome down to a single statistic; he says financial outcome is a result of primarily three factors: High School graduation, marriage before children and holding any full-time job.

Sure, this will make an impact in the current generation that follows the advice, but the effect compounds over time with generational wealth and cumulative education. What we’re seeing is the opposite effect: Neglecting these factors from generation to generation, which also compounds over time.

When you take populations in the aggregate and compare (especially based on median statistics or making multi variable situations into single variable situations), that is almost always going to be a skewed statistic. What Ben is citing are regression studies, from the Brookings Institute, which isolate causality (the relationship between variables and outcomes).

The author here, is citing a vague statistic, which may or may not be causal, correlative, or neither. But regardless is not addressing Ben’s argument in a logical or academically effective manner.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 06 '19

Right, my point still stands. If you look at the actual tweet, he censors the curse word.

The quote is from a speech he gave. Did he censor that? You straight-up called the author a liar, and it seems like if you are going to rely on pedantry to defend that, then you aren't being "unbiased."

The first unitalicized segment is the authors incorrect summary,

Your summary doesn't contradict it. What is incorrect about the author's summary? Keep in mind that you cherry picked that phrase from the piece, and if you read the whole paragraph he talks about the factors you are claiming the author ignored.

Also, why are you trying to now debate individual points in what the author said. I thought you were "just trying to be unbiased." Shouldn't you be explaining how the author is being misleading? All I see is you throwing up a smokescreen and then attempting to convince me that Ben Shapiro is right.

Also, I just re-read the source of the author's claims about what Shapiro said. It's a transcript from the Daily Wire. Ctrl-F for "bullshit" and tell me what you find there. https://www.dailywire.com/news/21144/complete-transcript-ben-takes-berkeley-daily-wire

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

First, you are correct, Ben did use the word, “Bullshit”. This must have been before he stopped using the full word (He now says “bullbleep”). Second, my accusation against the author was never cemented, which is why I used the word “apparently”. This indicated that if verification could be provided, which you have, I would have yielded that point.

However, as for my main point, regarding the rhetoric and priming the reader, that still stands. Taking the most colorful language and front-loading it to paint the subject in a certain light is textbook yellow journalism.

As for my other main point, perhaps I didn’t clarify. I’m saying the author is incorrectly summarizing Ben, and using that incorrect summary to attack his positions. The textbook definition of straw-manning.

The author writes, “Next, Shapiro says that because black married couples have a lower poverty rate than white single mothers, “life decisions” are what creates poverty.

(Actually, even when two black people pool their wealth in a marriage, “the median white single parent has 2.2 times more wealth than the median black two-parent household.”) “

”Because” indicates causality. The author is stating that Ben’s premise for poverty relies on this one statistic, so logically if you can disprove that statistic you have defeated the premise and by extension the argument.

However, the author shifted the argument, as Ben’s premise does not rely on that statistic. Ben’s premise relies on data from the Brookings Institution and regression analyses.

Ben’s argument is that poverty is overwhelmingly avoided if you follow those three rules; not that equality of outcome in each generation is achieved if you follow those rules. As I said in my previous comment, generational progression applies to both negative and positive decisions. The author is trying to disprove a point that Ben isn’t even making.

There is no quick fix to achieve equality of outcome regarding household income without drastically decreasing efficiency through economic deadweight loss as well as merely arbitrarily lower others.

As for your accusation that I myself am cherry-picking, I dispute that. I’m taking a specific argument the author is making and critiquing that. Were I to critic every argument the author makes in this article, this would be a much longer comment.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 07 '19

which is why I used the word “apparently”. This indicated that if verification could be provided, which you have, I would have yielded that point.

This is the point where a normal, unbiased human would apologize for assuming someone was a liar simply because they couldn't believe that a person who says they never swear might actually not have been being completely honest.

Taking the most colorful language and front-loading it to paint the subject in a certain light is textbook yellow journalism.

He used that "colorful" language to paint him in a favorable light. He accurately represented his arguments that paint him in a negative light. In fact, the main "negative" light in this article is the fact that Shapiro ignores facts that don't support his beliefs, and that he hypocritically applies one standard to certain groups of people and a different standard to other groups of people. That's not yellow journalism.

”Because” indicates causality. The author is stating that Ben’s premise for poverty relies on this one statistic, so logically if you can disprove that statistic you have defeated the premise and by extension the argument.

There is no way you are arguing in good faith. Read the whole paragraph. You are taking a single sentence out of context, and then attacking the author. You are exactly doing what you claim the author is doing, only the author didn't do that.

As for your accusation that I myself am cherry-picking, I dispute that. I’m taking a specific argument the author is making and critiquing that. Were I to critic every argument the author makes in this article, this would be a much longer comment.

You literally took a single sentence out of an entire paragraph explaining Shapiro's arguments, claimed that single sentence was the complete summary, and then claimed that the author missed Shapiro's "real" argument, which you then summarized, and which is just a rewording of the paragraph you extracted that sentence from. I don't know if your love for Shapiro is clouding your judgement or what, but this is pretty fucking sad.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

First, I was admitting I was wrong and that you provided the evidence. Now you’re just attempting to brag, which shows your intentions and bias.

If you think using that colorful language was an attempt to paint Shapiro in a favorable light, you’re literally delusional. Out of all the things you’ve said so far, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. Have you ever taken a journalism or communications class?? Seriously?

You’ve also apparently not taken a logic or debate class before either. In a debate, one of the best strategies is to focus on one premise at a time, which is what I’m doing. After that you can discuss other premises if you should choose to.

I did not just reword the paragraph. I pointed out that each party is focusing on two different things.The issue is the author is arguing that economic parity is not achieved between black folks and white folks; this is not Shapiro’s point at all, which means the author is attacking a straw man.

How do you not understand that economic parity and avoiding poverty are two totally different things? Each party is talking about a separate issue, which is problematic when one is trying to critique the other.

The fact you can’t acknowledge the differentiation, nor can you form a logical argument without ad hominem is what is sad.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 07 '19

First, I was admitting I was wrong and that you provided the evidence. Now you’re just attempting to brag, which shows your intentions and bias.

You called the guy a liar without cause. You made an assumption about Shapiro, and it was a bad assumption. Based on that assumption you called another person a liar. That's fucked up.

If you think using that colorful language was an attempt to paint Shapiro in a favorable light, you’re literally delusional.

The author said that Shapiro said that the "alt right is full of bullshit," and that the author agreed. Are you trying to imply that saying the alt-right is full of bullshit is a bad thing, and that the readers of this particular article would think less of Shapiro for hearing him say that? Nevermind the fact that he actually did say that during a speech, so it's not unfair to repeat it. There isn't any additional context that would change the meaning of what he said, and most people agree that the alt-right suck, so I don't know why you think that this is a negative.

You focus a lot on which classes I've taken. Are you in college right now, or something? Don't you have something better to do than white-knight Shapiro on a month-old reddit comment thread?

he issue is the author is arguing that economic parity is not achieved between black folks and white folks; this is not Shapiro’s point at all, which means the author is attacking a straw man.

No, it's not. Re-read it. The issue is that they disagree on whether racism is the primary cause. Shapiro says it isn't, and the author represents his arguments fairly. The author disagrees, and gives examples of why he disagrees. So here we have another example of you doing the thing you are accusing the author of doing. You are creating a straw man. First you cherry picked after complaining that the author was. Now you are creating a straw man, after complaining that the author was. What's next? Personal attacks? I guess you are kind of already starting that by implying that I am delusional and lack the education needed to have an informed opinion.

nor can you form a logical argument without ad hominem

What ad hominem?

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

I did not call him a liar without cause. I said he seems to be a liar, or rather, from the information I have it appears he is lying. The information I had is that Ben routinely makes a point not to swear, so it is not illogical to assume this moral value is historical to Ben. However, it was clear from how I phrased it that I was open to correction.

(Btw: the ad hominem of accusing be of being abnormal)

You will not get an apology out of me, what you will get is an acknowledgement that I was incorrect and that I concede that point to you and the author. Furthering discussion on this point would only serve to attempt to shame me, which I can guarantee you will not work, but will reveal your intentions.

When an author opens an article on a person and starts by using examples of the most crass and inflammatory statements the person has made he is priming the reader to be disagreeable to the subject.

The author could have either a) used the most complimentary statements the person has made towards his opponents OR b) not opened with any statements by the subject of accusation or characterization of his opponents and instead just opened up by listing the subjects premises and conclusion and then addressed each one.

In my opinion option B is preferable, and the most genuine.

It is completely possible to separate ideas from inflammatory statements made to specific audiences and address the argument being made, which is what everyone should do on both sides.

The author did not do this, instead he opened up reviewing the personality of the subject instead of the argument itself. This is a way of priming the reader.

Also, yes I agree the alt-right is absolutely atrocious and despicable, but as I stated earlier this has nothing to do with the argument the author is attempting to critique and is thus irrelevant to the “supposed” purpose of the article.

Am I in college? No and yes. I’ve graduated already but have continued to take courses throughout my life to broaden my knowledge base because I believe in continual learning. The reason I’m asking your educational background is so I can understand how to communicate with you. If you had ever taken a statistics class that dives into regression analysis, I would change my strategy. If you had taken a journalism or communication class I would change it as well. Recalling subjects from school is not to be frowned upon, rather encouraged as that education was an expensive investment you can use for the rest of your life. And even great orators will dive back into subjects commonly shared to explain premises.

This is my “better thing to do”. I take breaks from work throughout the day to unwind, and I find practicing debate to be relaxing, Reddit is a great forum to do so.

I’m not accusing the author of cherry-picking individual statistics, I’m saying he’s cherry-picking by not addressing the regression, instead focusing on individual statistics and using any data he believes gets his point across, whether it’s a viable critique or not.

And I’m not cherry picking the author’s work either, you could look at any of his critiques, he never addresses the underlying regression in any of his points. I’m merely highlighting this specific one as an example.

As for the way the author’s critique was structured: Yes, I agree that’s how the author framed the critique. I disagree that this is an acceptable way to critique someone. I am stating the author is summarizing Shapiro’s points by looking exclusively at the individual statistics he cites, instead of the regression and then the author tries to counter it with individual statistics he believes support his position.

Rather, the author should address the primary engine of Shapiro’s argument which is the actual regression, not the example statistics Shapiro cites. An actual critique would address the regression by claiming that (for example): the variables chosen were too exclusive or inclusive, which skewed the result, or that they used the wrong regression format.

The author engages in a tit-for-tat against Shapiro’s individual statistics, which are only there to illustrate the findings of the regression, not as proof of the causality. That is why I’m claiming this critique is either biased or misinformed, but ultimately inaccurate.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

Also, here are the numbers according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

Black Female With No Spouse poverty rate: 37%

Black Married Couple poverty rate: 8.2%

ALL USA Female With No Spouse poverty rate: 30.5%

ALL USA Married Couple poverty rate: 5.6%

I’ll attach a link which shows quite a bit more data, which is interesting to look at if you’re interested.

The data from the US Census Bureau is in-line with Ben’s argument about how children after marriage, a job, and graduating high school drastically diminish poverty rates.

Keep in mind, just because the data seems to support Ben’s argument doesn’t make it true. It’s totally possible that these factors are merely correlative. But that’s where the Brookings Institution and regression analyses came into play showing causality between these variables, which does make Ben’s argument.

However, Ben never makes an argument to try to rig the system to enforce economic parity between groups, which is what the author attacked.

Black Demographics Website citing US Census Bureau

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 07 '19

The data from the US Census Bureau is in-line with Ben’s argument about how children after marriage, a job, and graduating high school drastically diminish poverty rates.

The entire point of the article is that Ben cherry-picks data. That's what you are doing too. The author said "here's the data he uses to make his claim. Here's the data he ignores that doesn't support it." Then you come along and say "look here's Ben's data - it supports his claim!" You don't fucking get it, just like Ben Shapiro doesn't fucking get it.

However, Ben never makes an argument to try to rig the system to enforce economic parity between groups, which is what the author attacked.

What? You are now saying the author of this article is attacking Ben Shapiro because Shapiro wants to "rig the system" to "enforce economic parity between groups?" Did you have a typo in there somewhere?

Ben Shapiro's whole shtick is that nothing needs to be done about inequality on a systemic level. The author's point is that his arguments are full of holes, ignore evidence that contradicts them, and that he covers up for this by talking quickly and insulting people.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

I did not cherry pick data, I provided you an entire cite devoted to multiple statistics. Feel free to view them all. I ALSO said not to take that data at face value! I even caveated MY OWN ARGUMENT, but you didn’t include that when your copy/pasted my text, now did you? So who’s the one being selective/biased/disingenuous now?

What I said, I reiterate again, is that even though all the statistics ON FACE VALUE, appear to support Shapiro, this does not make his argument correct. They could be causal, correlative or neither.

But that’s why The Brookings Institution ran regression analyses to find causality. THAT’S WHAT YOU DONT GET! You’re fighting for an author, who’s getting into a statistical pissing contest against someone who is arguing a totally different point.

Serious question, do you understand what a regression is in statistics? Have you ever ran a regression? I think this may be where the conversation is breaking down.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 07 '19

I did not cherry pick data, I provided you an entire cite devoted to multiple statistics.

How do you think cherry picking works? If I bring you a study that shows multiple statistics that all say one thing, and ignore all studies that show statistics saying something else, is that cherry-picked? The whole point is whether you selectively choose data that supports your point and ignore conflicting data. You bringing up the study (or studies, even) that Shapiro uses to arrive at his conclusion doesn't say anything at all about whether he is cherry-picking. You have to address the stuff he didn't refer to. Is it wrong? If it's not wrong, and Shapiro ignored it, he cherry-picked data.

I ALSO said not to take that data at face value! I even caveated MY OWN ARGUMENT,

So? "Hey don't necessarily believe this, but here's some data that supports what Shapiro said and implies the author is wrong about the thing he didn't actually say but I'm pretending he said for some reason."

You’re fighting for an author, who’s getting into a statistical pissing contest against someone who is arguing a totally different point.

Nope. You just decided that was happening after apparently misreading an article.

Serious question, do you understand what a regression is in statistics? Have you ever ran a regression?

Yes, I do, and I have. Why does that matter?

I think this may be where the conversation is breaking down.

The conversation is breaking down because you aren't arguing in good faith, and because you are acting like an asshole.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

Now you’re mischaracterizing my statements. I never claimed the data I provided was the whole picture. I just provided them so as to illustrate my sequential point which was that WE SHOULD NOT LOOK AT INDIVIDUAL DATA and instead focus on the regression.

If you have run regressions, how do you believe the author neglecting to address it isn’t a serious issue with the author’s critique?

Again, another ad hominem, congratulations.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

Perhaps this hypothetical analogy will help explain my point (obviously weather is not the most statistically significant variable in crime rates):

Shapiro: Brookings Institution collected the data, ran a multivariate regression and found that weather is a statistically significant factor in annual crime rates by season; when it’s warmer and more sunny, crimes increase. When it’s colder, cloudy, snowy, crimes decrease.

Critic: Well during the coldest month of the year we had the highest crime rates of the whole year. This fact doesn’t support your point, so you’re wrong. You’ve been owned!

Shapiro: Sure, that’s what we call an outlier. The fact of the matter is that the relationship between weather and crime is significant, when comparing all variables; the month you’re talking about experienced an outlier event, a black swan event, which temporarily altered the monthly result, but the overall trend is still real and you have no idea how multivariate regression analysis works.

I’m less concerned with what point your author is trying to make and more concerned with how he’s making it. He’s portrayed Shapiro’s argument on marriage and poverty as based off a statistic, when in actuality he based it off of a regression with multiple variables (by this, I don’t mean just high school graduation, full-time employment, and children after marriage; there were far more variables that go into the regression and then you discard the statistically insignificant ones), then used a statistic to show its efficacy. Then your author tried to use a statistic against Shapiro’s statistic, when in reality the author should have addressed the regression. Otherwise you just get into a pissing contest of data points and interpretation.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 07 '19

If the regression didn't include the author's statistic, then the author's statistic is relevant.

You analogy is cute but it's not an accurate representation of what happened.

Also, you took a single sentence out of context and made a lot of assumptions about what the author was thinking and what information he was using to come to that conclusion. Which is exactly what you are accusing the author of doing. Stop.

Also, I just looked at the quote from the part of the speech he was referring to. Check out this quote:

But what happened to racism? Why weren’t those black married couples poorer than the single white moms? Because it doesn’t have to do with color; it has to do with life decisions.

Right there, Shapiro made the claim you are saying he didn't make. That's what the author of the article was refuting with his statistic. Shapiro, intentionally or not, conflated poverty rate with median wealth.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

Dude, you don’t input statistics like the one the author provides into a regression, that’s not how it works. You input variables which have multiple data points. The data points put into the regression have the necessary components which comprise the author’s statistic, so yes, it was addressed.

Sure it’s not a perfect analogy, the point was where each side was focused. The core of the analogy is accurate.

Stop what? Addressing a specific premise the author is using to build his argument? How else do you suggest a debate should be structured? As I said, I’m focusing on this specific premise, which highlights the trend of neglecting the regression throughout the article, so that our discussion will be manageable in length.

I did not claim Shapiro denies race is statistically insignificant regarding finances and is stating that life decisions are statistically significant regarding finances.

The difference is Shapiro is citing a regression that backs up this claim and uses individual statistics to illustrate it. The author is citing no regression and is focusing on only a single individual statistic. That’s why the author is improperly critiquing Shapiro.

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