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The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

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Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#131

Post by Sniffnoy »

hirundo wrote: post #4

> As every freshman course in “critical thinking” reminds us, the dull, unhappy burden of the rational mind is to follow the evidence where it leads, not the bandwagon. If you do that you frequently end up with a position that is "extremist" to someone or another. This effect is so reliable that if you meet someone who isn't extremist about anything it's safe to say that they don't think for themselves, rationally or…

The thing is, there are two different things meant by the word "extremism", and the word itself serves to conflate the two.

One is what you discuss -- object-level positions that are extreme in some way. This is, as you say, no vice.

The other thing that is meant by "extremism" is what one might call "meta-level extremism"; it includes such things as trying to silence one's opponents rather than argue with them, the use of violence, etc. This, obviously, is a bad thing. (And while I called it "meta-level extremism" above, what it really is, I'd say, is illiberalism.)

For this reason, I don't like the word "extremism", as it conflates the two. Of course, it's possible that the reason the same word is used for both is because, for pyschological reasons, in humans these tend to go together. But they are logically separate.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#132

Post by SantalBlush »

barry-cotter wrote: post #121
renox wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As every freshman course in “critical thinking” reminds us, the dull, unhappy burden of the rational mind is to follow the evidence where it leads, not the bandwagon. >If you do that you frequently end up with a position that is "extremist" to someone or another. Especially in the USA with its huge number of religious followers, in Europe (depends on which part) maybe not so much? That said when talking about soci…

> Especially in the USA with its huge number of religious followers, in Europe (depends on which part) maybe not so much? The unity of views on many, many different topics among followers of a single political party would be vanishingly unlikely unless they were taking their beliefs and talking points from their fellow party members rather than thinking for themselves. This is not a US specific thing. Normal people d…

They're not unified by their views so much as by the "other" that they share. A common enemy helps them overlook their ideological differences, so those differences are not often discussed. This gives a stronger appearance of groupthink.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#133

Post by [deleted] »

LanceH wrote: post #128
btrettel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To comment on a tangential issue... > there was over 300 years (3 centuries) of higher education among the groups I don't think simply adding up the total number of years of education is meaningful. Most of that education is redundant. If it were humanly possible I'd be more impressed by 300 years of education for a single person as it wouldn't have the same amount of redundancy. You'll see this cumulative strategy a…

As much as I would like to hate on lawyers, 200 years of trial or contract experience is meaningful. They have seen countless variations on whatever theme they practice, they know the jurisdiction, they know the judges, the opposing counsel, etc...

[deleted]

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#134

Post by teslaberry »

hirundo wrote: post #4

> As every freshman course in “critical thinking” reminds us, the dull, unhappy burden of the rational mind is to follow the evidence where it leads, not the bandwagon. If you do that you frequently end up with a position that is "extremist" to someone or another. This effect is so reliable that if you meet someone who isn't extremist about anything it's safe to say that they don't think for themselves, rationally or…

wow. very well articulated, and interesting observation . thank you.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#135

Post by btrettel »

LanceH wrote: post #128
btrettel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To comment on a tangential issue... > there was over 300 years (3 centuries) of higher education among the groups I don't think simply adding up the total number of years of education is meaningful. Most of that education is redundant. If it were humanly possible I'd be more impressed by 300 years of education for a single person as it wouldn't have the same amount of redundancy. You'll see this cumulative strategy a…

As much as I would like to hate on lawyers, 200 years of trial or contract experience is meaningful. They have seen countless variations on whatever theme they practice, they know the jurisdiction, they know the judges, the opposing counsel, etc...

Fair points. That wasn't a comment on lawyers, just an (exaggerated) example I've seen before.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#136

Post by glennpratt »

barry-cotter wrote: post #117
glennpratt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This effect is so reliable that if you meet someone who isn't extremist about anything it's safe to say that they don't think for themselves, rationally or not. This seems rather self indulgent when you've set the criteria so vaguely. Perhaps an example of an extemist view would be beneficial.

The tax system is incredibly poorly designed everywhere . Rather than the hodgepodge of different races, levied at different places and times for different reasons by different levels of government a single tax is best. I’m partial to either a Georgist Land value tax or a consumption tax but I’m sure there are other good options. Large scale immigration is incompatible with a welfare state unless immigrants are highl…

So, not really extremist, just boring, nationalist fear mongering that is nearly old as time. You are entitled to your opinions and I mine. You probably think I am incapable of independent thought and I think you're a narcissist for thinking that.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#137

Post by barry-cotter »

spaced-out wrote: post #130
barry-cotter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax system is incredibly poorly designed everywhere . Rather than the hodgepodge of different races, levied at different places and times for different reasons by different levels of government a single tax is best. I’m partial to either a Georgist Land value tax or a consumption tax but I’m sure there are other good options. Large scale immigration is incompatible with a welfare state unless immigrants are highl…

> The tax system is incredibly poorly designed everywhere. Rather than the hodgepodge of different races, levied at different places and times for different reasons by different levels of government a single tax is best. I’m partial to either a Georgist Land value tax or a consumption tax but I’m sure there are other good options. So you don't agree with how taxes work and think you could do better? I challenge you t…

> So you don't agree with how taxes work and think you could do better? I challenge you to find someone who DOESN'T think that.

If you can point to a country that has only one tax or a party that has that position I’d be much obliged.

> This is already the case. There are many services open to only US citizens, and others open only to citizens and lawful permanent residents.

The US has different classes of citizenship, with different rights?

>> Civic nationalism is incoherent unless people can be expelled from the community.

> In the US we refer to this as "jail".

Timeout is not the same thing as being told you’re no longer part of the family. US citizens can’t be deported. Plenty of states allow ex-convicts to vote.

> Many Protestant Christian denominations refer to this as "confirmation". I believe there is an equivalent concept in Catholicism; Bar/Bat mitzvah serves this purpose in Judaism.

The context in which I was saying this was membership in a national community. I am unaware of any country that demands citizens affirm a statement of shared values to partake in political life. The closest any country has is conscription for male citizens and it’s not that close.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#138

Post by barry-cotter »

glennpratt wrote: post #136
barry-cotter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax system is incredibly poorly designed everywhere . Rather than the hodgepodge of different races, levied at different places and times for different reasons by different levels of government a single tax is best. I’m partial to either a Georgist Land value tax or a consumption tax but I’m sure there are other good options. Large scale immigration is incompatible with a welfare state unless immigrants are highl…

So, not really extremist, just boring, nationalist fear mongering that is nearly old as time. You are entitled to your opinions and I mine. You probably think I am incapable of independent thought and I think you're a narcissist for thinking that.

I’d be surprised if you were incapable of independent thought. If your political views all fit neatly within a single party’s mainstream it could be true but there’s enough that isn’t subject to political shibboleths that you likely hold some unconventional views. Just being the kind of person who takes part on a discussion board like this is (weak) evidence of the kind of engagement with ideas that renders taking a party line unlikely.

Nationalist views are not as old as time. They postdate imperial views substantially. If supporting open borders or massively increased immigration to developed nations makes me a nationalist the label rests easy. I don’t think open borders is compatible with the current constitutional settlement in the US. If that makes me a nationalist so be it.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#139

Post by ex3xu »

paultopia wrote: post #39
ex3xu wrote: post #2

As appealing as the title of the article is, I basically came away from this piece feeling like I had just read a snarkier, less useful version of Paul Graham's essay on moral fashion [0] back from 2004. The problem with following fashion, as far as I understand, is that you accept the tacit assumption that the value of an idea is correlated with its popularity, and I'm all in favor of smiting the very dangerous cont…

Oh good heavens, Graham's essay is wrongheaded. He encourages one to look for "taboo" ideas, and declares that one should train oneself to consider them. But he describes "taboo" ideas as an explicit result of a power struggle with no relationships to truth: The most conspiracy-theory-esque passages: 1. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make p…

I mean, I don't think Graham is advocating at all for actively harmful beliefs. He's advocating for the explicit understanding of why these beliefs are harmful, rather than using the fact that they are taboo as an explicit justification for criticism. Because as taboo as anti-Semitism is now, showing any kind of support for Jews was just as taboo under the Third Reich. We come down hard on anti-Semitic people not because they are breaking a taboo, but because anti-Semitism carries the risk of active harm for a whole class of undeserving individuals. We aren't secretly worried that it might be true because we can take the effort to understand the principles behind this particularly well-understood example of tribalistic hate speech.

Take a look at something like Chomsky's political speech attacking NAFTA and neoliberalism in the 1990s, which Graham briefly alludes to. NAFTA was and remains a fairly popular initiative for the liberal establishment, but the principles under which Chomsky's justification stands can be imagined to hold up under scrutiny decades in the future, whereas exploitation of cheap Mexican labor -- probably not so much, I'd wager.

Another recent example -- Raghuram Rajan's 2005 paper [0] criticizing the financial innovations that would go on to destroy the world economy in the 2008 crash. This example satisfies the two "conspiracy-theory-esque" conditions that you cite from Graham, as he certainly made Kohn, Greenspan, Summers, and other major figures in the economic establishment angry enough to call him a "Luddite" with views that would qualify under Graham's "unsayable" criteria. At least, before he would be proven right just a few years later.

So you're certainly correct in pointing out that not every instance of taboo carries ideas worth considering -- and for some ideas, this is indeed a dangerous understatement -- but I don't agree with you when you imply that Graham is wrongheaded in every instance, and no taboos should ever be considered. To give another example, Joyce's Ulysses was banned as obscenity across the world in the 1920s [1]. As far as I can tell, Graham is more concerned with scientific innovations rather than political speech, anyway.

[0]: https://www.nber.org/papers/w11728

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/04/most-dangerous...

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#140

Post by Zarath »

nkurz wrote: post #109
Zarath wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a long response to this and deleted it, so I'll just say this. Politics and philosophy are one of the few things where everyone feels qualified no matter how pedestrian or unqualified they are. So you'll have to forgive people for not bothering to listen to someone who hasn't read a book on politics or philosophy maybe in their entire life yet feel like their regurgitated Fox News talking points should be tak…

> You wouldn't listen to someone who hasn't passed physics 1 about the whether the bridge you are building is stable. It depends what they were saying about it. If they were claiming that it's obviously safe because it's made of steel, because steel is really strong, then no --- not even if they had a PhD in Physics and knew the exact tensile strength of the materials. But if they were mentioning that in their person…

You're correct, but in the same way you'd trust the person to tell you about the symptoms of the bridge swaying, you can trust a person to tell you about the symptoms of everyday life. E.g. it's hard to find a job, minimum wage isn't enough to live on, I feel isolated, etc. But leave the higher level analysis to those more qualified, at least IMO.
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