“Why Do You Write About This Rather Than That?” Is Almost Always A Lazy And Unserious Derailing Tactic

People have a lot of interests for a lot of reasons, and it isn’t always clear what will turn out to be most “important” in the long run

One of my main critiques of left-of-center intellectual life is that it feels like there’s been a surge of energy spent not on developing and debating specific arguments and counterarguments, but on developing derailing tactics — ways to avoid even having potentially edifying conversations in the first place. 

Let’s say you don’t know anything about an argument other than it makes you uncomfortable, is politically unpopular in your circles, or both. A derailing tactic will allow you to “respond” without actually responding. Some derailing tactics involve simply responding not to the claim being made, but to another, much sillier claim. A says “Some dogs bite people,” and B responds “A is saying we should euthanize all dogs in case they bite people!” Yawn. B will always get 100 times the retweets, unfortunately.

Other forms of derailing involve impugning someone’s very interest in the subject they’re talking about. One very common, very annoying version of this is to accuse them of being interested in the wrong thing — basically a form of zoomed-out whataboutism. I’ve obviously encountered this and you’ll see a ton of it everywhere. Maybe the most common version is lobbed at individuals on the left who are concerned about illiberalism on the left, who are accused of ignoring the more pressing threat of right-wing illiberalism or fascism or whatever.