Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

thesmartset.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 129 posts

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#41

Post by throw_away_777 »

pasquinelli wrote: post #32
throw_away_777 wrote: post #20

This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. This sentiment is completely ridiculous, yet I'm sure a lot of people believe it because it makes them feel superior. Pundits and professors are often wrong, but it isn't because they are highly educated. I still trust the opinion of a professor rather than someone working at Pizza Hut…

i've noticed in myself how easy it is to turn any quality of mine into the thing that basically makes me better than everyone else. it's funny when i catch myself saying, "yeah, i got ingrown toenails because i cut them too low, but it's just an expression of the dogged, obsessive aspect of my personality that makes me such an amazing human specimen."

What's your point? Are you saying intelligence is not a positive personality trait? Or that all people are equal? People are different, even if it isn't politically correct to say so.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#42

Post by someone7x »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31

This is, frankly, crap. It both ignores the diversity of experience that people that are not "professors, pundits, and policy wonks" have, and implicitly dismisses the idea that an understanding of the world can be gained by systematic study of the world (what academics actually engage in) that is superior to what is gained by isolated, unsystematic, experience with some small slice of it that happens to be at a lowe…

I don't disagree, but maybe part of what's trying to be communicated here is that systematic study of the world is not what's happening at times.

When I say this I think of the anecdote in the article about how "intellectuals" prescribe more education as a panacea for social reform instead of the ideas offered by the author. This as a possible case of their own biases precluding a systematic approach.

As I write this, the "frankly crap" part comes to mind again. There's not much substantive here, just a bunch of opinions.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#43

Post by sramsay »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31

This is, frankly, crap. It both ignores the diversity of experience that people that are not "professors, pundits, and policy wonks" have, and implicitly dismisses the idea that an understanding of the world can be gained by systematic study of the world (what academics actually engage in) that is superior to what is gained by isolated, unsystematic, experience with some small slice of it that happens to be at a lowe…

The "idea of study," as you put it, is exactly what's left out of the equation. Bias is, of course, inevitable. But it makes it sound as if a sociologist studying poverty consults their "worldview" and then writes an article. That's not the way anyone does research about anything.

If someone who considers themselves a "citizen of the world" (a very old idea in Western culture, going back to the Stoics) cannot understand why anyone would hold a different opinion, they probably shouldn't be in academia. This article makes it sound like unless you're a patriot, you cannot understand patriotism; unless you're poor, you can't understand poverty; if you're educated yourself, you cannot evaluate whether education is effective. If that's the case, then academics aren't "out of touch." They're incompetent. Or else very basic ideas about epistemology are wrong.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#44

Post by hyperion2010 »

Noseshine wrote: post #37
hyperion2010 wrote: post #25

"The fact that we members of the intellectual professions are quite atypical of the societies in which we live tends to distort our judgment..." << Someone care to explain to me how being atypical distorts my judgement? This piece is not very substanative beyond enumerating how PPPs are different, it then merely says "they don't understand because of their difference." That seems rather like ad hominem.

I see nothing wrong with it. I am very sure I don't understand the situation of poor working people. It has nothing to do with my IQ but with the fact that I don't live there live, never have. What makes you think you know about other people's lives if you don't live among and with and as them? Just reading a few essays now and then? You would not accept that view if a committed layperson tried to give advice to phys…

I'm not claiming that I know anything about other people's lives. In fact I might go so far as to say that when it comes to understanding the world as a whole trying to do so by enumerating the personal experiences of all the members of the human race might not be the best way to do it. Our brains create the world for us, they tell us things and give us imperatives that even the smartest of us often don't realize. Most importantly the lie to us, all of us. Reality is not a matter of experience, when an intellectual makes a statement from his experience he is just as likely to be wrong as anyone else. What tends to set some intellectuals apart is that the occasionally apply data to a situation. I will grant you that because they do this on occasion they are far (infinitely some might argue) more likely to think that explantations that actually come from their limited (fallible) experience come from data.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#47

Post by nitrogen »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #38
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. Not at all. It says highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks because these categories have very different ranges of first-hand experience.

Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? It is undeniable that by any objective measure professors are smarter (in the sense of being better able to tackle intellectual problems) than the average population. Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person.

There are a few well-read would-be intellectuals stuck working at a fast food joint simply due to not knowing how to do otherwise.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#48

Post by dragonwriter »

someone7x wrote: post #42
dragonwriter wrote: post #31

This is, frankly, crap. It both ignores the diversity of experience that people that are not "professors, pundits, and policy wonks" have, and implicitly dismisses the idea that an understanding of the world can be gained by systematic study of the world (what academics actually engage in) that is superior to what is gained by isolated, unsystematic, experience with some small slice of it that happens to be at a lowe…

I don't disagree, but maybe part of what's trying to be communicated here is that systematic study of the world is not what's happening at times. When I say this I think of the anecdote in the article about how "intellectuals" prescribe more education as a panacea for social reform instead of the ideas offered by the author. This as a possible case of their own biases precluding a systematic approach. As I write this…

> I don't disagree, but maybe part of what's trying to be communicated here is that systematic study of the world is not what's happening at times.

If that was the problem the piece hoped to address (and it certainly is a problem in, e.g., media punditry -- though I'd argue that's not because of any general problem with "academics" but with the process by which media pundits get selected), one would expect that it would say so, and that the solution would be some better scrutiny to assure prescriptions come from systematic study, not a solution unconnected to the problem like suggesting that "every professor, opinion journalist, and foundation expert, as a condition of career advancement, had to spend a year or two working in a shopping mall, hotel, hospital, or warehouse."

EDIT: Additionally, if this was the issue, you'd expect that the author would actually support the argument with evidence from systematic study supporting the nature and source of the problem and the utility of the recommended solution.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#49

Post by pdabbadabba »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #38
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. Not at all. It says highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks because these categories have very different ranges of first-hand experience.

Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? It is undeniable that by any objective measure professors are smarter (in the sense of being better able to tackle intellectual problems) than the average population. Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person.

Well, that would depend on what you mean by "the world." Professors have first hand knowledge of a very particular set of social practices and institutions. These tend to be very important practices and institutions, but they are only directly experienced by a small group of people. Someone working at Burger King will typically have participated in a quite different set of practices and institutions. And there are a lot more of these people. Therefore the Burger King employee's experience with these practices and institutions yields first hand experience that is directly applicable to the lives of many more other people than the professor's.

I do think it is a mistake to leap from this conclusion to the much broader one that Burger King employees understand "the world" better. Not only does that claim not mean much of anything, it also discounts the fact that the institutions and practices to which a professor is exposed may be more powerful, despite having fewer participants. But I think GP's similar and more specific claim, that "highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks," is very plausible.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#50

Post by AnimalMuppet »

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #27

>For generations, populists of various kinds have argued that intellectuals are unworldly individuals out of touch with the experiences and values of most of their fellow citizens. While anti-intellectual populists have often been wrong about the gold standard or the single tax or other issues, by and large they have been right about intellectuals. So... intellectuals were right about the issues that they were focuse…

No, populists were wrong about the issues that they were focused on. That doesn't mean that intellectuals were right, about anything.

Intellectuals can be wrong on any given issue (especially since, for any issue, you can find an intellectual on both sides). But more to the point, intellectuals can be wrong (or at least completely out of touch) in the choice of questions that they think are important.

Post reply on HN