The Art of Effective Criticism: From Outrage to Solutions

Going Beyond Moral Outrage to Embracing Empirical Arguments and Constructive Alternatives

"“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do.” -Dale Carnegie (misattributed to Benjamin Franklin)

This is a pithy quote from the 1936 classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, but it's only partially right. Carnegie's right that too many media members or intellectuals, of feeble intellect or biased brain, spend much of their mental energy criticizing, and very little providing constructive answers. But there are also a fair amount of smart and thoughtful people who criticize bad ideas, like communism or corruption, in a respectful and cogently argued way.

The best intellectuals are those who can persuasively and empirically expose flawed reasoning and fallacies, and then present better ideas as alternatives. This is in short supply because partisan negativity and hyperbole attract the most eyeballs. A few of the intellectuals I follow closely—Tyler Cowen, Derek Thompson, and Bari Weiss—aren’t interested in producing rage-bait sound bites.

The Moral Argument Trap

One of the main problems with many people's critiques of bad ideas or ideas they disagree with is that they lead with moral arguments. Whether they be secular or religious, these attempts to impugn someone's character or morality often degrade or shut down fruitful conversation. When one goes from carefully calling out someone for their bad ideas to calling them a bad person, you start a vicious cycle of vitriolic personal attacks and the rational arguments get lost in the crossfire.

Consider recent U.S. immigration policy as an example. The Trump administration deported migrants—including some with pending legal protections—to El Salvador, where they were detained in the notorious CECOT mega-prison, known for torture and human rights abuses. This policy can reasonably be called unethical.

But analyzing this issue reveals the complexity that moral outrage often misses. Typically, people who commit crimes in the U.S. go to U.S. prisons. Yet, immigration law has long provided for the deportation of unauthorized immigrants through established legal procedures that include due process protections. And deportation is not as partisan an issue as the media often makes it out to be.

From The Long View On X:

Some context for the immigration debate.

Facts always get in the way of good clickbait, spicy headlines, and emotional stories

January 2025: ~37,660 deportations

February 2025: ~11,000 deportations

March 2025: ~12,300 deportations

April 2025: ~17,200 deportations

—> monthly average during the last full year of Joe Biden's administration? 57,000

This data doesn’t absolve the Trump administration of what amounts to extrajudicial punishment or the separating of families in some of these deportations. But it does highlight how leading with moral condemnation can obscure key facts and undermine honest debate on a complex issue. Moral judgment should be reserved for clear and egregious cases—used too freely, it risks sounding self-righteous and often hardens the views of those it’s meant to persuade.

The Case for Moral Language

The critique of moral arguments leads to the flip side: moral language is valuable because Americans—and people everywhere—should aspire to a shared sense of morality. There are universal principles of right and wrong that transcend borders, languages, religions, and ethnicities. We can start at the simplest points of "thou shall not murder" or "thou shall not steal," and work up to the harder, more morally gray areas—like debates over economic inequality—that plague our politics and polite conversations.

The challenge lies in discerning when moral language advances the conversation versus when empirical arguments are more effective.

Character, Destiny, and Trump

Not to make every argument about Donald Trump, but Trump serves as a lightning rod for this exact debate about moral versus empirical criticism. After his shock victory in 2016, I subscribed to the belief that others were expressing at the time, encapsulated in the quote from the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "Character is destiny."

However, as each year of his presidency went by and the media and his Democratic political opponents went beyond fair and accurate pushback and entered the land of falsities and half-truths (which you must first pass through to get to Trump Derangement Island), I realized that Trump was not nearly as bad or wrong as his detractors claimed he was.

This pattern repeated itself with Joe Biden, who became fodder for the MAGA movement because much of the mainstream media thought it was their job to overlook or hide his declining mental state and then gaslight those who used their eyes to see that Biden was no longer fit to hold the most important job in the world. It's reminiscent of how many in the media took American intelligence agencies and top-ranking George W. Bush officials at their word—like Secretary of State Colin Powell's factual assertion that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction—which proper fact-checking could have proved false before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.

The Transparency Problem

Speaking of fact-checking, this brings us to a recent example of how good intentions around criticism can go awry. Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) illustrates both the promise and pitfalls of criticizing government waste and inefficiency.

Musk said in October 2024, pre-Trump breakup:

“I think that the strong bias with respect to government information should be to make it available to the public. Let's be as transparent as possible. Fully transparent. Unless it's a massive risk to the country – we don't want to give, say, exact instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb or something like that – but unless there's a genuine risk to the country, all information in the government should be public.”

The problem with DOGE's version of transparency is that they tweet information that is often not open to verification by others. Musk already has a contentious relationship with the truth on social media, as in he doesn't always tell it, evidenced by his misleading claims of voter fraud in Michigan, to name just one example.

What should DOGE do as devotees of truth and transparency? They should itemize findings, provide clear supporting evidence and documents, and use accounting methods that can be verified by other parts of government and the press. That way we the people can know exactly how many dead people are getting social security payments and we can divert that money to more productive uses—like upgrading the Qatari’s Boeing 747 gift to Trump.

How Qatar Bought America

Finding Better Critics

This leaves us with a challenge and opportunity: how to criticize not just controversial presidents but complicated ideas effectively. Smart, open-minded people can reasonably disagree on how to prioritize issues like healthcare coverage versus fiscal responsibility, and they may interpret the same evidence differently to reach different conclusions.

This leads to the necessity of identifying which media members and public intellectuals are offering the best critiques and alternatives. The best people to learn from are aware of their own ideological biases, and often their wallets and status are not impacted by specific outcomes.

To see the opposite, the once quite smart and entertaining All In Podcast, which has four accomplished business investor types: David Friedberg, David Sachs (new Trump administration AI/crypto czar), Chamath Palihapitiya, and Jason Calacanis, shows what happens when you become financially and emotionally tied to the ideas coming out of a particular administration so that you lose touch with reality and honest arguments.

Palihapitiya, known for his successful tenure at Facebook and as a savvy investor, illustrates that billionaire status does not grant infallibility—especially in complex fields like politics, economics, and history, where true sensemaking requires wrestling with nuance and constantly reevaluating one’s beliefs. Palihapitiya’s turn toward unabashed support for Trump may help maintain his power and wealth, but it undermines his credibility as a podcast host striving to call balls and strikes on current events. For example, he has advocated for sweeping tariffs on over a hundred countries—including key U.S. allies—using a mix of broad generalizations and selective facts to justify policies that many experts warn could and are damaging global trade and economic stability. He has demonstrated that persuasive rhetoric can easily mask oversimplifications and factual conflations. This example underscores the importance of consistently seeking critical thinking and humility in those we choose to learn from.

Practical Strategies for Better Criticism

Here are some brief principles for the art of constructive criticism and analysis:

1. Lead with empirical evidence before moral claims. I enjoy compelling narratives and thought-provoking abstract ideas, but when the goal is to get as close to the truth as possible, it’s best to begin with the strongest empirical evidence available. The empirically driven writers, both in terms of quantitative and qualitative data, are always a step in quality ahead of those who make arguments ignorant of the data. Too many ignore the evidence to fit their ideological beliefs. While those who anchor their reasoning in verifiable facts, properly framed, construct ideas that can withstand honest scrutiny.

2. Acknowledge the strongest version of opposing arguments. So much that qualifies for debate today is straw-manning the opposing side or outright misrepresenting the opposing side’s views. Good thinkers act in good-faith and take their opponent’s ideas in the strongest possible way. And it is through this intellectual process that they strengthen their own ideas. Many partisan debates would end in compromise if this was tried. For example, there are compromises to be had on issues of law and order. We can and should protect freedom of speech and protest, but when individuals break the law, such as by burning Waymo cars, they should be held accountable under the law.

3. Propose specific alternatives. It’s a lot easier to identify flaws, therefore much more time should be spent on solutions that are intellectually strong and on the practical steps to achieving them.

4. Separate criticism of ideas from attacks on character. I touched on this already, but it’s worth reiterating that kindness and civility are just as important, if not more so, for your enemies as it is your friends.

Conclusion: Toward Constructive Criticism and Clarity

Much criticism today is unproductive and poorly argued but thoughtful criticism plays a key role in a healthy democracy and intellectual culture. Not every criticism is necessary to say, see Elon Musk’s X for examples, but empirical, steel-manned, alternative-based, and free from moral attack criticism elevates discourse rather than degrades it.

Reading Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok in Marginal Revolution and elsewhere you see the importance of empirical and economic arguments. Derek Thompson with his podcast Plain English you see the importance of asking questions and having a conservation with an open-mind and being rigorous in your facts and analysis. Bari Weiss has created a media enterprise that is both fair and pulls no punches, criticizing when something is objectively wrong or immoral, but doing it from facts and reasoning not political partisanship.

Matt Yglesias of Slow Boring recently said about live debates:

It essentially rewards people for being dogmatic, incurious, and willfully slippery with rhetoric. I think the best thing to do with live discussion is to have a friendly conversation, and the best way to do debates is a written exchange of ideas.

The best intellectuals listen to others and don’t spend the majority of their time trying to prove others wrong. And because they are willing to learn they do the exact opposite of what Yglesias talks about. They're flexible, inquisitive, and straightforward and honest in rhetoric and demeanor.

Each individual can make a choice to do more moral outrage or more constructive analysis. Grounding arguments in evidence, remaining open to new information, and engaging with integrity—we not only sharpen our own thinking but also help create a culture where ideas can genuinely compete and evolve. That is the kind of media and intellectual environment worth striving for.