Cantwell Calls Tucker a Leftist, Tom Woods Concurs? - Liberty.me

Cantwell Calls Tucker a Leftist, Tom Woods Concurs?

Tags: libertarianism tom woods

Ethan Glover May 16, 2014 at 1:44 pm

I knew Christopher Cantwell from the beginning, I liked him for a very short time, then he made it his job to create immature bickering. And maybe with this I’m only giving someone like this ammo.

I told him awhile back that when he was looking to get published on Lew Rockwell for the first time that he shouldn’t expect to be hosted on a site like that, he’s way too low brow. He’s been published twice. This guy is gaining traction merely from bickering, not infighting as he calls it, to me infighting (as Chris would agree) is just sparring, it’s a helpful way to get stronger. Chris spreads hate and divides people over issues they agree on by focusing on definitions.

The question by Tom Woods on who is destroying what libertarianism is starts at 14:00 and many great people are mentioned. However, if you want full context I recommend the whole interview. What are your thoughts?

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James Smith May 16, 2014 at 3:56 pm

I’m a “why can’t everyone just get along?” kind of person, so naturally I’m finding this whole thing maddening. Hopefully it’s not indicative of a tangible split in the libertarian movement and we’re just working out some issues. I do agree Cantwell and Bob Wenzel, and others, take way too much time bickering. I love Tom Woods, and for the most part he is stayed out of it. Walter Block has weighed in on it, publicly disagreeing with Jeff Tucker on the Brutalism thing, yet still providing content for Liberty.me, and I’m pretty sure there are other ‘thin’, ‘brutalist’ or ‘right’ libertarians on the site too, meaning it is possible for all of us to get along.

But ugh, it is frustrating.

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  Ethan Glover May 16, 2014 at 6:06 pm
  
  I’m with you James, I see no value in any of this at all. I’m all for disagreements, but this stuff goes way too far, it’s generalizing so much that people who agree 100% end up fighting one another. Super unprofessional and it looks terrible.
  
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Stephen Davis May 16, 2014 at 4:05 pm

I listened to this today and was surprised when Tom said that Tucker throwing his hat into the ring was “most unfortunate.” I presume he was referring to Tucker’s article, “Against Libertarian Brutalism.” Tom is one of the most intelligent, honest, and respectable people in the liberty movement, but if he’s grouping Tucker in with the “bleeding heart libertarians” and the crazier “left libertarians” who think all forms of hierarchy are evil and favor worker takeover of businesses, I think he misread Tucker’s article.

I don’t agree with everything Tucker said, mostly because he seemed to imply that people who focus primarily on the NAP are somehow necessarily favoring what he calls “brutalism,” which I don’t think is the case at all. However, he seemed clear in saying:

“Truly, we should never neglect the core, never shrink from the difficult implications of the pure theory of liberty.”

As long as someone embraces the pure theory and defends it when it comes up, I don’t have a problem with their motivations or the way they want to promote liberty.

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Jeffrey Tucker May 16, 2014 at 4:26 pm

Yes, of course Tom is a friend for many years.

One of the reasons for liberty.me is to gather minds to think about the practice of liberty, and not fall into the trap of so many before us, which is to turn on each other because we see no hope in making a difference in the world otherwise.

Btw, there’s no real issue with focusing primarily on the NAP; the point of brutalist ideology, as I understand it by analogy to history and aesthetics in architecture, is the implied prohibition against elaboration or expansion on broader themes rooted in culture, history, and experience. In essence, one point of that article among many was to urge growth and sympathy with the lived experience of human liberty, which is about far more than only its most minimalist demand.

You know what’s great? It’s not necessary for everyone to arrive at an identical understanding in order to build a new world.

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  Ethan Glover May 16, 2014 at 6:08 pm
  
  That last line. Pefect.
  
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Ryan Drake May 16, 2014 at 4:30 pm

I am not a fan of Christopher Cantwell. His work and writing doesn’t interest me. I am probably more of in agreement with Tom Woods on this issue but I believe left-libertarians have some decent criticisms. I would like to see an honest and productive debate occur. Reading Thaddeus Russell’s work helped me understand where left-libertarians are coming from on some of these issues. I hope things can get more civil, it could help strengthen the philosophy.

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  Jeffrey Tucker May 16, 2014 at 4:34 pm
  
  oh I’m interviewing Russell next week! excited.
  
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  Ethan Glover May 16, 2014 at 6:10 pm
  
  For sure, I have a hard time finding good discussion between “lefties” and “righties” in the libertarian realm and the anarchist realm. It’s sad that despite all the complaints against the left/right paradigm that many still end up falling into the same trap.
  
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  Joe Wagner May 18, 2014 at 3:28 am
  
  Same here. Thaddeus Russell prepared for me one of the worst outcomes a night out with a visiting friend could become. My husband’s childhood friend and babysitter knew another person in Atlanta. So we ended up on a double date with a gay couple we had never met. Long story short, we end up at the nastiest little gay strip club I’ve ever seen. I’m talking X rated stuff all around you and sad old perverts huffing and puffing around the bar. I know having read Renegade History is what allowed me to enjoy my time there, rather than dread it. Combined with what I’ve been learning about philosophy, I realized understanding will build bridges. Judgement generally burns them.
  
  Can’t wait to hear the Tucker-Russell interview. Talk about optimist-splosion.
  
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Ryan Drake May 16, 2014 at 4:43 pm

I love his work! A renegade history was a wonderful social history of America. I also have listened to the series he is doing with brett venoite on the school sucks project podcast.

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Chris Box May 16, 2014 at 4:58 pm

I do use Wenzel’s website for economic related news, but it seems like he always has a bone to pick with particularly Mr. Tucker and Mr. Kinsella; ever since that “debate” on Wenzel’s podcast between the two of them on intellectual property. Wenzel seems even less enamored with the left-libertarian, thick types (or whatever label du jour is popular). Personally there’s a lot I’m not thrilled with regarding the thin-thick morass, but I think there are better things to do then get bogged down with infighting. As for Cantwell, he has insightful articles now and again but I don’t like his more aggressive stance contra religion and he’s certainly not one who feels any need to “play nice”. I’m personally conflicted; I think spades should carry proper labels but a label does not encompass the whole of a human being and their viewpoints. From my limited perspective I don’t think Mr. Tucker is leftist and I have a lot of respect for the work of Tom Woods. *shrugs* Without diving into where I stand on this whole mess, I wish we could try to get along and at least not demonize the other side as (insert your favorite -ist adjective here).

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  Jeffrey Tucker May 16, 2014 at 6:21 pm
  
  The power is within all of us to secede from infighting 🙂
  
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Kathy Grable May 16, 2014 at 6:23 pm

I love all these guys, these finer points of the details of libertarian philosophy interest them, and they discuss them. Intelligent, mature people do disagree and even argue at times, but at the end of the day appreciate each other and are happy to have others with whom they are able to discuss these things. This stuff is core libertarianism. We are difficult cats to herd. I am much less comfortable with those who want to silence arguments/discussions because it “hurts the movement”. If we censor legitimate argument we are the poorer for it.The best we can do is have a variety of private sites and portals where libertarians can get the word out and which can be policed of obvious agents by the proprietors.

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Dave Burns May 16, 2014 at 7:33 pm

In the age of the internet, people who succeed in starting a controversy reap certain rewards. If we ignore them, they fail. Unfortunately, ignoring is difficult.
The old Hollywood saying, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” has become more true than ever.
The silver lining is, such persons may actually benefit the persons they beef with, especially if the beefer’s beef fails spectacularly.
Would you be more likely to read my articles if I got dissed by Paul Krugman?

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  Ethan Glover May 16, 2014 at 9:09 pm
  
  You got that right, Chris’ site and mine started at the same time. I’ve since migrated here taking a temporary rankings hit, but I remember watching our Alexa ratings like it was a competition. One day my rankings would be higher, the next his.
  
  Then he got kicked out of FSP and they shot up and stabilized for awhile. Then he started arguing with Buehler and they shot up again. Now every comment he makes on Facebook, Youtube or Twitter has to have some shot at Buehler. He talked about it in the video, he sees their fighting as a way to lift them both up, but it’s tearing people apart. There are seriously emotional and angry fights over their two views. (It’s why I blocked him on FB before deleting FB entirely.)
  
  That stuff is no good. I’ll stick to answering questions and trying to pull capitalists and communists together. There’s already enough hate in the world.
  
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Chris Box May 16, 2014 at 8:16 pm

Agree that good discussions shouldn’t be silenced or curbed. I just wish the petty name-calling, back biting, presumption of utter stupidity or insanity; etc etc would go away. I know that will (probably) never happen, but at least in communities like this one has a better chance of avoiding it. I also agree with Dave that controversy and trolls can be a sign that you’re doing something meaningful. =)

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  Kathy Grable May 17, 2014 at 2:53 pm
  
  Name calling is not usually legitimate argument, although I have learned that people don’t like being called communists, even when you point out that they are advocating communism. But this twisting of language, infiltrating collectives (including cyber-collectives), and avoiding any substantive argument while posting a flurry of insults reveals who and what they are.They have to lie because no one would follow them if they weren’t scammed and lied to. But philosophical disagreements between libertarians are a different, and healthy, thing.
  
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  Ethan Glover May 17, 2014 at 7:04 pm
  
  You know, I’ve never met a communist that didn’t like being called a communist. It’s probably best to match terminology with the person you’re talking to in the sane way you’d match body language.
  
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Kevin McKernan May 16, 2014 at 10:33 pm

We have close to 5 million genetic differences between us. We will never experience the world from the same vantage point. We all agree on NAP. We likely don’t 100% agree on how to apply it in all extreme circumstances. Are we meant to? Does Cantwells small tent allow individualism and the laboratory of freedom? Has he really computed all circumstances of all human beings and how they should all apply NAP? My brief experience in the liberty world… those who bitch about the definitions do so only because they have no better ideas on action. If you can’t build, design or innovate, be a loud mouth on what everyone else should be like? The defense of sharpening the definition of true libertarianism always points to a fear of Obama or Glenn Becks taking that title and mis-using it. So What? Do “we” have IP on “Libertarian”? Notice the use of “we” in that collectivist defense and notice the Cantwellian motivations are exclusionary through collectivist definitions. Not that Im a central planner but Id be so much more interested in seeing debates on how/if the state will fight bitcoin. This is a more relevant group thought experiment bound to have a more productive benefit to freedom.

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Malcolm Heights May 16, 2014 at 10:53 pm

Cantwell has figured out that controversy drives traffic to his site. He doesn’t care if his remarks about Jeffrey or anybody else are true or not. He’s like the grand inquisitor in search of heresy within libertarianism because that’s how he makes his living.

What’s odd about his world view is that it seems to be entirely NAP in the purist sense and he seems not to have added any personal moral values beyond that. He claims to be an atheist yet hasn’t developed any sense of ethics beyond the statement that he doesn’t believe in God. I am an Atheist myself and I have developed my own set of ethics which is a natural when you reject theism.

Chris is very good about critiquing what he calls left or communist Anarchism but never develops what Anarchism should look like in a stateless society. And it is in this area that Jeffery Tucker shines and why maybe their is some underling jealousies out there in regards to Liberty.me..

I doubt Tom has really read Cantwells blog or FB page to deeply other wise he be shocked by some of the things Cantwell has written. His humor is gutter and for awhile he felt the need to tell rape jokes to make the point that libertarianism is not about PC thought or the “thought police”. He describes himself as a satirist but I’ve always understood that mean humor with substance.

He dislikes intelligent discourse if your pointing out to him the deficiencies of his arguments and he’s blocked me from FB and all my posts on his blog go into moderation and never see the light of day.

Cantwell claims he’s banned from FSP but more accurately he is unwelcomed by some people. Maybe FSP is worried that the locale media will get that 15 second sound bite from him justifying executing your mail man.

Is he just an ego driven spoke hole looking to become relevant? Or is he a troll and provocateur? I dunno ..

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  Ryan Drake May 17, 2014 at 12:15 am
  
  Twitter and facebook resemble burning cities compared to this site. The discourse here is much more productive and logical.
  
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  Ethan Glover May 17, 2014 at 12:42 pm
  
  Well said. The lack of clear ethics is indeed clear. Many peoples philosophies lean on default positions. It’s good that they’ve found something but it’s important to keep digging. The NAP is only a basic foundation meant for the noobs to get started. But you have to keep going to fully understand.
  
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Daniel Shafrir May 16, 2014 at 11:40 pm

On one hand, I hate to see infighting too. On the other hand, infighting is derived from the fact that there are far more people adopting this worldview. When all of the libertarians could fit “in Murray Rothbard’s livingroom” there wasn’t much infighting. When there are hundreds of thousands libertarians, each with their unique view on life, there is bound to be infighting. I don’t love the symptom but I love the underlying cause.

Put it this way: what world would I rather live in? A world where people are arguing incessantly because half are “left” and half are “right” but all accept the premise of non-agression? Or a world where the domineering aggressive state reigns strong and our small tight-nit group of libertarians think homogeneously and get along?

Silver lining to all this is that this is one of the growing pains of becoming more mainstream.

p.s. I’m a day late for #ThrowbackThursday but if you have an hour to spare, here’s a clip of Rothbard from 1982 discussing the six stages of the libertarian movement. Don’t sweat it guys, this community has seen divisive arguments and now we’re stronger and more numerous than ever.

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Kyle Platt May 17, 2014 at 12:53 am

Tom is entitled to his opinion on philosophical issues, of course. I also see nothing wrong with interviewing people who’s opinions you disagree with, as I do so often. The only thing I question is why give a mouthpiece to someone who is trying to divide libertarians? Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong with battling over philosophical issues, but here is this guy who has contributing nothing of value to libertarian thought who is trying to banish good libertarians out of our movement.

Debate is good. Stirring up infighting for “fame” is stupid and asinine.

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  Ethan Glover May 17, 2014 at 12:35 pm
  
  I’m glad I’m not the only one that sees this. The guy is a rising star and I’m honestly not happy about that. Good thing is, the higher he goes, the more he exposes himself.
  
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James Newcomb May 17, 2014 at 7:26 am

I don’t see how the brutalist article can be construed as migrating towards leftism. It seemed to me JT was calling Cantwell out without actuall calling him out. It reminds me of the old adage, throw a rock over a wall and the dog that barks loudest is the one that got hit.

And I love Woods’ show, but that particular episode was not a home run by any stretch. They talked more about NYT attacks on libertarians than “bad apples” within the movement.

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Kyle Platt May 18, 2014 at 5:26 pm

Tom’s a nice guy. I need to get him on for an interview.

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  Malcolm Heights May 18, 2014 at 6:57 pm
  
  Yes Kyle that would be cool.
  
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Simon Niemeyer May 18, 2014 at 5:46 pm

Man’s inherent potential for brutalism is why we need liberty at all. We all exist somewhere on a flowing continuum between humanitarianism and brutalism. A truly free society will give misogynists and racists the freedom to create their own hateful communities, which is their right as free individuals. But, if you are a humanitarian libertarian you also see that a real free society would be the best equipped to offer beautiful, creative, open, loving, wealthy and peaceful communities as alternatives to the hateful ones, thereby being the most effective in dissolving the hatred and brutalism.

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George Geankoplis May 18, 2014 at 6:34 pm

I can’t begin to imagine why anyone would take Christopher Cantwell seriously. The ghost writers he employs on his page produce utterly boring, rote ancap pablum, post after post. They add nothing original or new. There are numerous better sources for beginners.

As for the man himself, he’s just a repulsive dolt. Find the stuff he said about the Trayvon Martin incident, particularly about the mother. No one with half a brain should be taking anything he or his ghostwriters say seriously.

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Christopher Monko May 18, 2014 at 8:32 pm

Cantwell can be an ass at times but some of the things he writes are pure libertarian gold.

Some Examples:

1. Sorry fake libertarian capitalism requires anarchy

2. gun owners take down your flags

3.myth of the good cop

4. His Minimum wage piece which the name of escapes me

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  Max Hill May 18, 2014 at 9:36 pm
  
  I’ll add his intro to libertarianism to your list. Cantwell is an asshole sometimes, but it also kinda frees him up to say things that need to be said that other people wouldn’t be in a position to say. I’m much less enthusiastic about the FSP since they expelled Cantwell.
  http://www.christophercantwell.com/2014/04/18/libertarianism-brief-introduction/
  
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Max Hill May 18, 2014 at 9:28 pm

I truly don’t understand the desire to stop the debate. How are we worse off for having a robust debate? One of the best things about libertarianism is that the only thing we really have to agree on is non-aggression. I don’t think anyone can reasonably accuse Tucker, Cantwell, Woods, Rockwell, or any of a number of other heavy hitters in the liberty movement of being lukewarm in their commitment to non-aggression, so I say duke it out. I learn a lot from all of them, especially when they disagree and debate each other.

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  Ethan Glover May 19, 2014 at 10:16 am
  
  I think you might be missing the point Max.
  
  This guy is gaining traction merely from bickering, not infighting as he calls it, to me infighting (as Chris would agree) is just sparring, it’s a helpful way to get stronger. Chris spreads hate and divides people over issues they agree on by focusing on definitions.
  
  Cantwell doesn’t debate, he insults and drives anger for no other reason than to get attention. There’s a major difference between passionate debate and immature squalling.
  
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Christopher Monko May 19, 2014 at 11:12 am

You need to go back and read what we suggested. Cantwell’s writing is great because it exposes who is libertarian and who is not.

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  Ethan Glover May 19, 2014 at 12:47 pm
  
  I know very well what you’re suggesting, I also know Cantwell. There is no “exposing” there is only low brow bickering. You, Cantwell, or anyone else gets to define such an incredibly broad term. It’s not helpful to anyone.
  
  Chris spreads hate and divides people over issues they agree on by focusing on definitions.
  
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