Alex Berenson is one of the former Axis journalists (Matt Taibbi is another) whose conscience and cerebrum just couldn’t take the lies and craziness of the Left any more and went rogue. He’s done yeoman work for Truth, Justice and the American Way on Twitter/X and on his substack. Berenson’s latest post there gives readers a glimpse into his ethical orientation, and it’s nothing if not thought-provoking.
Berenson makes statements that make me wonder if he’s worth paying attention to at all, however. A prime one is this: “I am pro-choice, though I find abortion personally abhorrent…Those are medical decisions, and they are governed by a principle of near-absolute autonomy.”
Why does he find abortion “abhorent”? Presumably it is because abortion most frequently involves the killing of a nascent human being who would have a shot at a long, exciting, productive and possibly consequential life were it not for another individual, his or her mother, deciding that her life would be easier if this separate individual’s existence were sacrificed.
Well, that’s not just a “medical decision,” I say in the tone Matt Hooper uses when he says, “This was no boating accident!” I’m wrestling with the question of whether such a belief shows that the believer is so influenced by peers and incapable of detecting nonsense that nothing he says is worth taking seriously.
Then Berenson writes this:
When it comes to vices — activities in the pursuit of personal pleasure — I believe society has a greater theoretical right to intervene… I believe our increasing permissiveness toward drugs and outright promotion of gambling have had hugely negative societal effects — for users, for society, and most important for the people closest to users.
That is exactly right, and is my position on the issue from an ethics and legal perspective. He also says that public figures have an ethical obligation not to encourage conduct that has “negative societal effects” by flaunting their own vices in public. That I also believe.
I’m not going to subscribe to Berenson’s substack, but “On drugs, Glenn Greenwald, and serious jobs” is interesting reading. One reason I’m not subscribing is that my experience with substacks has been discouraging, notably with Greenwald’s, ironically.
The other reason is that I have a hard time justifying paying for the analysis of anyone who could offer such a facile, self-contradictory, unethical rationalization for abortion.
Ethics Alarms 
Perhaps somewhat similarly and quite a bit to my surprise, I’ve given up on John McWhorter and Glenn Loury. McWhorter said he’d have been fine with Trump having died as a result of either of the assassination attempts because it would have simply removed Trump as a problem. Glenn’s earlier days as revealed in his autobiography, in my mind, render him not a serious person whose ideas carry any weight. Anyone who’s created that much chaos in his life and the lives of others has disqualified himself as a public intellectual.
“The intellectual cannot operate at room temperature.” –Eric Hoffer
I had to look up the attestation of the quote. It really does sound like something Eric Hoffer would say.
Glenn Loury likes to tease John McWhorter, saying John needs to signal his bona fides as a right-thinking liberal. Do you see? John has to maintain his liberal credentials in order to keep getting invited to the right sort of dinner parties in NYC. How terrible it would be to step over some invisible line (admitting that Trump might actually provide some useful service to the republic, or that normal people could vote for the guy) and get drummed out of polite Manhattan (Brooklyn, too!) society.
Additionally, a lot of intellectuals, when thinking out loud, think that a well targeted assassination can’t but help to “solve the problem.” Yes, John…maybe you should stick to linguistics. The Spanish Civil War finally kicked off when Jose Calvo Sotelo died in the custody of a kidnapping ring. The Nigerian Civil War was essentially triggered, after six years of political incompetence in a poorly designed federation, from the assassination of six civilian and military leaders and a poorly implemented follow up.
But a fortuitous assassination here in the great USA couldn’t possibly lead to a downward spiral now, could it? How could anyone possibly think such a thing was possible? As Bismarck said, or may have, “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”
= – = – = – =
Glenn Loury is a serious thinker–erratic, contrary, ornery, disputatious, articulate. definitely contrary. I don’t think Loury’s myriad misbehaviors disqualify him from being taken seriously. I think we have too few people with Loury’s sort of personal history in the tenured professoriate.
But that’s coming from me–my intellectual models include Arthur Koestler and Robert Trivers. And Mencken, of course. M
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: I think Loury’s autobiography is of durable sociological value. I see less than half of all episodes of The Glenn Show. Despite being a paying subscriber.
It’s been interesting following this thing on Twitter. I haven’t seen Tabbi in months, but all of a sudden he’s back in serious defense of his friend. I find it somewhat admirable, if it wasn’t so misplaced. I agree. The Meth is a step too far. It destroys homes, families, lives, really just about everything it touches. The fact Greenwald hasn’t denied it makes oblivious he practices in it.
Still, I think there is something to be said about shame. I’ve been having this talk lately with some of my peers about how shame needs to come back. Maybe I’ll write an article on it someday.
Reporters (journalists, bloggers you tuber, etc ) and politians should be required to view
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”. In my opinon an exceelte ethics lesson for thsoe who hold those positions in life.
Alex Berenson may consider journalism to be a “serious job”, but I suspect he’s part of a dwindling minority on that score.
Jack – If Alice and Jefferson Airplane are “obscure” references to the young, where does that put Matt Hooper?
Good question. With Scarlet O’Hara and the Ringo Kid, I assume.