A very thoughtful and well-considered article. I'm not sure, though, that I'm quite so willing to let the liberal establishment off the hook just for being the lesser evil. I mean, they certainly are, and that's why I still continue voting for them even as it gives me a foul taste in my mouth. But I don't think that man-children like Musk would have been running amok if the people we trusted to be the grownups in the room hadn't so completely failed at the task.
I do believe that people will eventually get tired of the Musks of the world, and ready to return to some kind of normalcy. But when that moment comes, the intellectuals and champions of enlightenment need to have had their internal reckoning and figured out how to do better, or we'll end up getting a second round of Muskitude... and maybe even a third and a fourth, if a viable alternative takes too long to come into being.
"if the people we trusted to be the grownups in the room hadn't so completely failed at the task."
There are certainly a lot of criticisms that can be levied, but "completely failed" seems rather harsh. Liberal capitalistic democracy of the last seven decades has brought us enormous prosperity, lifted millions out of poverty, and had innumerable successes in public health, extending life expectancies, decreasing crime, educating generations, and has fostered tremendously innovative industries. The grownups make mistakes, but maybe we should give them some credit?
Oh, I didn't say they have been failing for the last seven decades. There was absolutely a time, not that long ago, when they really did stand for something great. And even the zombie remnant of liberalism still does some good as it staggers blindly along, since it can't entirely deviate from the course that was set during saner times - which is why I still do consider it a better option, if I had to choose, than just burning the whole system to the ground.
But I also think that it's been decaying for the last decade and a half at the very least, and it's going to continue decaying until someone heeds the wake-up call and starts accepting that you can't decide beforehand how "justice" and "truth" is supposed to look and then forcing it through by any means - you have to have an impartial process for determining them, and you have to abide by the process' conclusions even when you don't like them. And I worry that if we all close ranks around what's left of liberalism because anarchy is worse - which, again, it is - then no one's going to learn that lesson and things will just keep getting worse.
Recognizing that biases explicit and implicit infect us all demands from each of us a profound commitment to critical thinking. Anything less telegraphs that we don't actually care about truth, about facts; we care only that our biases be confirmed.
You have articulated things I have been thinking in a much clearer and poignant essay than I could have, very well done.
I think one of the big problems with discourse right now is the proliferation of very inexact labels. "He is biased. She is racist. He is a fascist." It strips all meaning and matter of degree. Both the NYT and Elon Musk can be biased. But there is a huge difference in degree between reporters who attended liberal colleges and live in a liberal city who may frame things to fit a certain viewpoint but essentially still report facts, and a billionaire businessman connected to a presidential administration who outright lies to further his agenda.
I appreciate your points at the end on cynicism, I think this has infected a large portion of people, perhaps by design.
There’s another way to approach this. Humans are generally bad at conditional probabilities, Bayes Theorem, sorts of calculations. The Monty Hall Problem, doctors not understanding how false negatives/positives affect diagnosis, and the feminist bank teller (conjunction fallacy) are all examples of this.
I saw a study (yes, my prior is to put low weight to most studies nowadays, but this is too interesting to ignore) that claimed that conspiracy theorists place too much weight on untrustworthy information sources. They really seem to like secret, cryptic, exclusive, and sometimes contradictory, conclusions.
My first thought was that made sense. My second thought was that humans are generally gullible, and easily fooled. What exactly is a trustworthy information source, and what probability should you place in the information from it?
Confirmation bias is obviously a thing. But, how much thinking does it drive?
People do seem to follow some patterns, as described by Haidt in The Righteous Mind. But, is that premise too simplistic?
My general thesis is that humans are really bad at updating their priors, placing too much weight on some sources, and not enough on others.
Some people are more biased than others. Once we identify with a faction we engage in denial and ultimately become dishonest, both with ourselves and with others. We may acknowledge our faults, but we cannot correct them without losing the self-love and support that our particular faction provides us. « We have our faults, but those other people are really bad » is how we avoid confronting our hypocrisy. Madison said it well in Federalist 10.
« The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarranted partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice, with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction. The one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction. The one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said, than of the first remedy, that it is worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it would not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable, as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his selflove, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. »
As you suggest, different disciplines differ in their level of misleading bias. Indeed there are plenty of errors in mathematics and the natural sciences, but ....planes don't usually fall out of the skies.
I think your essay (and most writing by social scientist/philosophers about the natural sciences) doesn't take this observation seriously enough.
A very thoughtful and well-considered article. I'm not sure, though, that I'm quite so willing to let the liberal establishment off the hook just for being the lesser evil. I mean, they certainly are, and that's why I still continue voting for them even as it gives me a foul taste in my mouth. But I don't think that man-children like Musk would have been running amok if the people we trusted to be the grownups in the room hadn't so completely failed at the task.
I do believe that people will eventually get tired of the Musks of the world, and ready to return to some kind of normalcy. But when that moment comes, the intellectuals and champions of enlightenment need to have had their internal reckoning and figured out how to do better, or we'll end up getting a second round of Muskitude... and maybe even a third and a fourth, if a viable alternative takes too long to come into being.
"if the people we trusted to be the grownups in the room hadn't so completely failed at the task."
There are certainly a lot of criticisms that can be levied, but "completely failed" seems rather harsh. Liberal capitalistic democracy of the last seven decades has brought us enormous prosperity, lifted millions out of poverty, and had innumerable successes in public health, extending life expectancies, decreasing crime, educating generations, and has fostered tremendously innovative industries. The grownups make mistakes, but maybe we should give them some credit?
Oh, I didn't say they have been failing for the last seven decades. There was absolutely a time, not that long ago, when they really did stand for something great. And even the zombie remnant of liberalism still does some good as it staggers blindly along, since it can't entirely deviate from the course that was set during saner times - which is why I still do consider it a better option, if I had to choose, than just burning the whole system to the ground.
But I also think that it's been decaying for the last decade and a half at the very least, and it's going to continue decaying until someone heeds the wake-up call and starts accepting that you can't decide beforehand how "justice" and "truth" is supposed to look and then forcing it through by any means - you have to have an impartial process for determining them, and you have to abide by the process' conclusions even when you don't like them. And I worry that if we all close ranks around what's left of liberalism because anarchy is worse - which, again, it is - then no one's going to learn that lesson and things will just keep getting worse.
Recognizing that biases explicit and implicit infect us all demands from each of us a profound commitment to critical thinking. Anything less telegraphs that we don't actually care about truth, about facts; we care only that our biases be confirmed.
I'm wrong about everything. So are you. So is everybody, about everything.
But on any particular issue, some people are more wrong than others. Degree of wrongness matters, and through discourse we collectively reduce it.
You have articulated things I have been thinking in a much clearer and poignant essay than I could have, very well done.
I think one of the big problems with discourse right now is the proliferation of very inexact labels. "He is biased. She is racist. He is a fascist." It strips all meaning and matter of degree. Both the NYT and Elon Musk can be biased. But there is a huge difference in degree between reporters who attended liberal colleges and live in a liberal city who may frame things to fit a certain viewpoint but essentially still report facts, and a billionaire businessman connected to a presidential administration who outright lies to further his agenda.
I appreciate your points at the end on cynicism, I think this has infected a large portion of people, perhaps by design.
There’s another way to approach this. Humans are generally bad at conditional probabilities, Bayes Theorem, sorts of calculations. The Monty Hall Problem, doctors not understanding how false negatives/positives affect diagnosis, and the feminist bank teller (conjunction fallacy) are all examples of this.
I saw a study (yes, my prior is to put low weight to most studies nowadays, but this is too interesting to ignore) that claimed that conspiracy theorists place too much weight on untrustworthy information sources. They really seem to like secret, cryptic, exclusive, and sometimes contradictory, conclusions.
My first thought was that made sense. My second thought was that humans are generally gullible, and easily fooled. What exactly is a trustworthy information source, and what probability should you place in the information from it?
Confirmation bias is obviously a thing. But, how much thinking does it drive?
People do seem to follow some patterns, as described by Haidt in The Righteous Mind. But, is that premise too simplistic?
My general thesis is that humans are really bad at updating their priors, placing too much weight on some sources, and not enough on others.
Some people are more biased than others. Once we identify with a faction we engage in denial and ultimately become dishonest, both with ourselves and with others. We may acknowledge our faults, but we cannot correct them without losing the self-love and support that our particular faction provides us. « We have our faults, but those other people are really bad » is how we avoid confronting our hypocrisy. Madison said it well in Federalist 10.
« The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarranted partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice, with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction. The one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction. The one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said, than of the first remedy, that it is worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it would not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable, as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his selflove, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. »
As you suggest, different disciplines differ in their level of misleading bias. Indeed there are plenty of errors in mathematics and the natural sciences, but ....planes don't usually fall out of the skies.
I think your essay (and most writing by social scientist/philosophers about the natural sciences) doesn't take this observation seriously enough.
And also, even that something is a social construct is socially constructed