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Somewhere in the Matt Cooper show archives there is a radio interview with me and Breda O’Brien relating to Papal Nuncio and the Murphy report into institutional abuse in the Catholic Church
Her argument, on air, was to complain that there were lots of other things to care about
Her argument, on air, was to complain that there were lots of other things to care about
Why have a segment about the Papal Nuncio, she argued during a segment about Papal Nuncio, when there are famines and things elsewhere?
I did not find this compelling, as an argument, but it did successfully fill the segment with talk about other than the Papal Nuncio’s actions
I did not find this compelling, as an argument, but it did successfully fill the segment with talk about other than the Papal Nuncio’s actions
Faced with unanswerable and indefensible facts, a bad faith defender of institutional power will seek to prevent a substantive discussion of those facts by trying to fill airtime with irrelevancies.
If you are mentally preparing for the release of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission’s report as a producer or Editor, please do your audience the service of booking people whose behaviour and contributions will add to the discussion, not try to derail it.
There are good faith discussions about institutional power to be made (I do not subscribe to most of them, but they do exist as valid points of view).
But bad faith actors will not help reveal those arguments, allowing the moment when the public can really assess them to pass.
But bad faith actors will not help reveal those arguments, allowing the moment when the public can really assess them to pass.
The sign that you are entering this bad faith, distraction-filled zone of irrelevancies is when your putative contributor reveals that their argument can be summarised as beginning “But what about...”
Because then you know they’re not here to talk about what has happened.
Because then you know they’re not here to talk about what has happened.
Whataboutery is a tactic for preventing a discussion whose time has come, not advancing it.
