French Rudness?

Initially, the wave of commentary about the David French-Sohrab Ahmari debate seemed to declare French the winner. He had better arguments, pressed his case more consistently, and posed questions Ahmari couldn't answer. 

Much of the subsequent comment wave, however, takes a different view. At Crisis, Austin Ruse, for example, found French's manner in the debate off-putting, decidedly uncivil. French, in Ruse's recollection, was frustrated, testy, and interrupting. Ahmari, by contrast, marked his performance by "consistently treating French not as an enemy or an opponent, but rather as a friend." French took the whole thing personally, treating his opponent with "dripping contempt." Ahmari, by contrast, argued peaceably. Ruse notes this ran counter his expectations. Since French generally argues for civility and Ahmari against it, Ruse writes, he expected the opposite of what he saw.

Writing for The Resurgent, Shaun Kenny flatly declares that Ahmari won the debate. On a large level, Kenny argues, French enjoys the support of the elite conservative intelligentsia who sponsored and attended the debate. Ahmari was always odd man out in that crowd, so if he won even one convert, he won the debate. Kenny also points to what he calls a "you could hear a pin drop" moment, where French brings up the fact that Christ urges his followers to "love their enemy." Ahmari responds by saying that this formulation requires that you recognize enemies as such. In Kenny's recollection, French had no response to that.

Based on the two-thirds of the debate I've seen so far, I disagree with both assessments. French did not in my view seem unnecessarily rude or testy. He was precise, lawyerly. He refused to let bad arguments or evasive answers stand. True, he did not hesitate to call ideas stupid or crap when he saw them as such. Then again, he was engaging with a guy who precipitated the debate by coining "Frenchism" as a slur (French would say a straw man) for a conservative philosophy he sees as moral (and mortal) cowardice. I've not yet encountered an unfortunate bit where apparently Ahmari calls French's courage into question, French brings up his wartime service. Ahmari responds by observing that French was a JAG officer, not an infantry soldier. French has a "how dare you" response. Not a great moment for either of them.

Neither did I see the "pin drop" moment. There wasn't much of a pause after Ahmari's "we have to see enemies as such" response. French returned to a core question--what follows from seeing them as enemies? That remains a question Ahmari (and other militancy advocates on the right and the left) often leave unanswered. OK, we now recognize the other side is an enemy. What's changed?

There are forces on the right and the left that have definite, lethal answers to that question. I join David French in sensing that Ahmari and his followers aren't up for living those answers out. What Ruse castigates as French's crudeness, I see as a well-earned, funny moment. "What did you do during the great culture war?" David French asked, joke-hypothetically. "I was an asshole on Twitter!" he answered in a cartoon-redneck voice.

I think I have one more post in me about this debate, and then on to other things (apparently there was a whole other debate on Friday?).

JF