Is Good-Faith Debate a Thing of the Past?

We’re misinterpreting the other side on purpose because it makes arguing easier

Illustration from “The Union Jack”, a British magazine published by Griffith & Farran, London and dated September 8th 1881, Volume II, No 89. Credit: whitemay/Getty Images

Last August, the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep and Seinfeld fame, hosted the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention. She performed her hosting duties perfectly competently, but also, I felt, tried to balance being edgy and family-friendly in a way that was at times cringe-inducingly awkward. As I watched online, I tweeted, “Let’s be honest, this is the low point of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s career.”

A Twitter user who commented often on my posts responded, “You sound a lot like Christopher Hitchens.” They were alluding, of course, to the late essayist’s misogynistic Vanity Fair essay arguing that women aren’t funny.

I was startled by the comment because it wasn’t just a bizarre leap from what I had said, but it was in fact an inversion of what I was getting at. I find Louis-Dreyfus to be extremely funny, and it was clear the strictures of a stuffy political convention were making her not all that funny compared to her usual self. (At least by my lights; surely other people thought she was amusing anyway.) And I don’t generally comment on comics, so the criticism wasn’t built up based on other things I’ve said.