Stacy McCain Finally Acknowledges, Declines My Offer to Debate

Earlier today, Robert Stacy McCain noted that at least one silly person has characterized the upcoming film Avatar as racist; apparently, the film’s subtext holds Western culture to be superior to that of the various tribal entities that Western culture has since largely superseded. McCain is correct in his opinion – not stated here but obviously held – that there is nothing inherently racist in deeming one culture to be superior to another. What we refer to as Western culture is not attached to any particular ethnic group by anything other than the perceptions of those with a poor understanding of history; the Hellenistic world was a multi-racial one, for instance, as was the Roman Empire, and from those entities we draw the bulk of our cultural fundamentals. We certainly do not draw them from McCain’s ancestors of that era nor mine, although of course history worked out such that this common strand of culture did indeed come to be overseen and spread largely by northern Europeans.

At any rate, McCain uses his post as an opportunity to deploy – for the third time, by my count – a jokey jibe in reference to the fact that my upcoming book singles out for criticism several commentators of Jewish background:

Speaking of which, I’m told that Barrett Brown loved Avatar. Not that he’s a racist. But he does suck. Be sure to look for his book, People That Barrett Brown Doesn’t Like (Mainly Jews), coming soon to a clearance bin near you.

Fair enough. I e-mailed McCain this afternoon in hopes of finally getting him to at least acknowledge that I had challenged him to an e-mail exchange whereby he would have the chance to shoot down the various accusations that have been made against him by Charles Johnson and myself before they go into my soon-to-be-completed book on the American punditry. As I wrote:

Regarding your most recent mention of me, I knew Avatar was going to suck as soon as I saw the first preview.

If you have the time to write blog posts about how poorly my book is going to do and how much I dislike the Jews, then surely you have the time to respond to my offer, even if only to decline it.

McCain responded as follows:

“Offer”? As if you were the soul of generosity, and I in need of your philanthropy. Do your work, do it well, collect your pay and knock it off with the humanitarian posturing. You’ve never done an unselfish act in your life, and by pretending otherwise, you undermine your own credibility. Better to be honestly selfish than to be falsely charitable.

To which I responded in turn:

The word “offer” does not necessarily entail anything positive at all, much less anything along the lines of “charity” or “generosity.” Notice that I have used the term interchangeably with “challenge” and that I originally compared it to a duel, for instance. I am not extending this offer as any sort of good deed, although to the extent that you are actually in the right, such an offer as this would indeed be to your benefit. I am extending it to you for the same reason that you are declining it – because I would win any such exchange.

I’ve yet to hear back. At any rate, it seems that I won’t get the chance to debate McCain in the manner in which I had hoped, and thus the chapter-in-progress in which my occasional adversary takes the leading male role will be fairly conventional – unless, of course, the spokesman for The League of the South accepts the similar challenge that I have today extended to him, in which case I will simply debate that fellow on the subject of McCain’s alleged racism instead of debating McCain himself, who is too familiar with the topic at hand to be inclined to take his own side.

Meanwhile, Charles Johnson has some thoughts on my debate offer and McCain’s unsurprising reaction, as well as some background info on what exactly it is that McCain is so wary of having to defend in any meaningful way.