Lulie's Quote
Date: 2020-08-17- original quote
- analysis (in depth; 1st pass)
- analysis (mid-level; 2nd pass)
- analysis (high-level; 3rd pass)
original quote
While I sympathise with the spirit of this post, I am far more optimistic.
There’s a premise here that critical rationalism is incompatible with social networking and politicking.
But you can have all sorts of interests as a critical rationalist. Why would social networking and politicking be special?
Maybe the assumption is that critical debate isn’t compatible with these social endeavours, but I don’t think that’s true: there’s always a way of explaining an idea that isn’t off-putting; it’s not fundamentally the case that people dislike criticism. (What they dislike is something more like: being trapped; being called bad; having problems that destabilise/overwhelm; etc. It’s possible to avoid all these problems and still have a critical discussion.)
Or maybe the assumption is that people are not persuaded by argument, and instead you have to appeal to social status or bureaucracy. Ray Scott Percival may agree with me here that this isn’t true either.
Another apparent premise is that the only way to carry on these ideas is through institutional academia (which does indeed have its flaws). But it’s becoming ever easier to work outside the system (books, blogs, videos, forums, etc.), and even build intellectual communities and organisations to keep these ideas going. You don’t need to be an academic to engage with academia, either. Problems are soluble. There will be a solution to the problem “how do we ensure CR survives without doing unpleasant academic tedium?”.
The quote talks about “personal characteristics” — so maybe it’s saying the personality type that gets into critical rationalism tends not to be the exuberant promoter/social type. (As an aside, the final sentence of the second paragraph seems to be saying “critical rationalists don’t actually take the clash of ideas seriously”!) But truth is connected. Why not be interested in expressing ideas so that they’re appealing to other generations/traditions?
New people from diverse intellectual backgrounds are getting interested in Popper regularly via Deutsch (who is himself still writing about critical rationalism). And there’s a lot of craving for these ideas lately — a lot of modern rationalist/skeptic communities trying to understand how to think about truth and knowledge, a lot of dissatisfaction for traditional academic philosophy, people who intuitively think objective morality makes sense but don’t know how to justify it, how to make sense of tyranny and liberalism, and so on. It’s very fertile ground for the next generation.
analysis (in depth; 1st pass)
(1) While I sympathise with the spirit of this post, I am far more optimistic.
What’s the spirit of the post? (Presumably the same as the spirit of the quoted text.) The spirit of the text is about CR being hard (or on the way to extinction, or not worthwhile) because it’s incompatible with necessary evils like social stuff or things that academics need to do these days. And because ppl in CR can’t adopt other traditions (which is false). And that this has something to do with the personalities or characteristics of ppl in CR. It sort of sounds like it’s against politicking to start with but most of the extract is about CR being bad at things it’s not. The article is fairly anti-CR, though.
Why sympathise with that?
One reason to say it is to seem like you’re able to understand lots of points of view and see the good in what people say even if you disagree. the social reaction to this is generally positive. it’s a way to not seem like you’re being as critical even though you disagree with something. Because it’s done for social reasons this type of sympathy is false, though.
It’s supporting something anti-CR to artificially downplay a disagreement more socially acceptable.
She also says the spirit of the post, (which I’m reading like “in the spirit of the law”) which is both hedging by not telling you much and possibly sidestepping issues w/o dealing with them properly or discussing them (depending on the rest of her post).
She says she’s optimistic. That implies the extract is pessimistic (I mean it’s not optimistic). Saying “more optimistic” means it gives false credit to the original article for being better / more optimistic than it is.
(2) There’s a premise here that critical rationalism is incompatible with social networking and politicking
This seems fine. The politicking is like a major point, though, and Birner rags on CR more than just this particular (hedged and alleged) incompatibility. The indirect way she’s talking can diminish the apparent importance of the disagreement or avoid it. (though maybe avoiding it is a good idea, like just arguing a small number of points, politicking being one of them; if she can argue against that then it’s pretty important to the rest of the extract)
(3) But you can have all sorts of interests as a critical rationalist.
Yes, but there are also lots of interests you can’t have (at least if you’re a halfway-decent critical rationalist). I’m not sure if it’s dishonest to speak this broadly about it.
(4) Why would social networking and politicking be special?
I don’t think Birner says they couldn’t be interests, he says CR ppl don’t like devoting resources to doing them. You can study something (be interested) without doing it. This might just be overly casual language (so careless) or deliberately reframing/downgrading.
Later in the article Birner implies a connection to different traditions (b/c they’re both things that CR ppl can’t do or do badly). I think she’s avoiding a more serious disagreement.
(5) Maybe the assumption is that critical debate isn’t compatible with these social endeavours, but I don’t think that’s true: there’s always a way of explaining an idea that isn’t off-putting; it’s not fundamentally the case that people dislike criticism.
There are more reasons it’s incompatible; like politicking requiring dishonesty — or it’s at least very hard to avoid consistently and takes a lot of effort. in those sorts of environments you’re rewarded for certain kinds of dishonesty. Avoidance, reframing.
If she’s talking about the assume in the second sentence (“let us assume (realistically, I think)”) then that’s not what it says – it say’s there’s a possibility with the types of personalities by nature. If that’s what she’s talking about that (or about the thing that would lead to what’s said in the second sentence), then she’s avoiding the reality that Birner is making a much stronger claim about CR ppl.
(6) (What they dislike is something more like: being trapped; being called bad; having problems that destabilise/overwhelm; etc.)
So, yeah, these things sound like ppl would dislike them, but people definitely don’t want some criticisms no matter how you put it, right? Hmm, maybe. Don’t know enough to judge.
(7) (It’s possible to avoid all these problems and still have a critical discussion.)
You can avoid some of the problems some of the time, but not all of the problems all of the time. Eventually they’ll get in the way — she should know this.
(8) Or maybe the assumption is that people are not persuaded by argument, and instead you have to appeal to social status or bureaucracy.
No response to this is given (tho it’s in a parenthetical), it’s sort of just dismissed because RSP might agree with her.
Edit: I incorrectly marked the quote parenthetical; this statement wasn’t
(9) Ray Scott Percival may agree with me here that this isn’t true either.
Name dropping, raises social status if RSP is like well known or whatever.
(10) Another apparent premise is that the only way to carry on these ideas is through institutional academia (which does indeed have its flaws).
Birner’s article does imply that to have ideas survive you need to do academic politicking. The “which does indeed have its flaws” hedge is curious b/c it’s unnecessary for the point. She doesn’t really seem to be against it in any way, though. If academia was responsible for bad traditions (which Birner seems to imply, at least by CR standards) then it’s worse than just having some flaws.
I feel like this is making one concession to hide another.
(11) But it’s becoming ever easier to work outside the system (books, blogs, videos, forums, etc.), and even build intellectual communities and organisations to keep these ideas going.
Over a long time scale maybe? Access has increased, not sure if that makes it easier. There are definitely a lot more communities now than 50 yrs ago, and a lot more ideas going because of it.
(12) You don’t need to be an academic to engage with academia, either.
[6/10] This is pretty unrealistic. Maybe if you were really good at being impressive to academics and had some vouch for you? But realistically you do. Just b/c it’d be possible to engage (problems are soluble) doesn’t mean it’s easy / accessible / worth while. There’s also a lot of cultural stigma. dishonest
(13) Problems are soluble.
This is fine (in isolation at least).
(14) There will be a solution to the problem “how do we ensure CR survives without doing unpleasant academic tedium?”.
She’s downgraded politicking to tedium, which is downplaying the seriousness of what Birner claimed. So, yeah, there’s a solution, but the question as written isn’t particularly interesting or relevant. BoI alone is probably enough to ensure CR survives without more tedium (excepting like ~everyone dying).
(15) The quote talks about “personal characteristics” — so maybe it’s saying the personality type that gets into critical rationalism tends not to be the exuberant promoter/social type.
More downplaying by softening what Birner said. It makes it more socially acceptable and makes Birner seem more reasonable, or like Lulie thinks it’s more reasonable.
(16) (As an aside, the final sentence of the second paragraph seems to be saying “critical rationalists don’t actually take the clash of ideas seriously”!)
Why is this an aside? It’s a serious accusation!
Did Lulie take the clash of ideas seriously between what Birner wrote and CR?
(17) But truth is connected.
What is ‘but’ contrasting?
Sort of a meaningless statement.
(18) Why not be interested in expressing ideas so that they’re appealing to other generations/traditions?
Because you risk compromising the idea and pandering? Because it hides disagreements? Pretending disagreements don’t exist
(19) New people from diverse intellectual backgrounds are getting interested in Popper regularly via Deutsch (who is himself still writing about critical rationalism).
I’m not sure how diverse that background is, like the volume of ppl isn’t that high, and most ppl don’t learn much or well from BoI, and don’t go on to study Popper directly. So she’s overly optimistic
Where is DD writing about CR? He’s done a bit on AGI, but I’m not aware of much on CR and he doesn’t post to lists anymore. Outright lie? I mean presumably she’s aware.
(20) And there’s a lot of craving for these ideas lately — a lot of modern rationalist/skeptic communities trying to understand how to think about truth and knowledge, a lot of dissatisfaction for traditional academic philosophy, people who intuitively think objective morality makes sense but don’t know how to justify it, how to make sense of tyranny and liberalism, and so on.
This is a bit of a messy sentence. outline:
- there have been cravings for these (CR/Popperian) ideas lately
- lots (!?) of rationalist/skeptic communities
- dissatisfaction for traditional academic philosophy (rly?)
- ppl who believe in objective morality but can’t explain why it’s true
I’m not sure this is true and it’s not good to say you’re doing well if you’re not, like it’s denying important things and problems. it backs up the optimism but this doesn’t sound very realistic.
Also if people are learning badly and taking away half baked ideas that’s not very good, it’s maybe better than what they had before but it’s not what they should be doing.
(21) It’s very fertile ground for the next generation.
Saying things are good when they’re not, avoiding issues.
analysis (mid-level; 2nd pass)
While I sympathise with the spirit of this post, I am far more optimistic.
There’s a premise here that critical rationalism is incompatible with social networking and politicking.
But you can have all sorts of interests as a critical rationalist. Why would social networking and politicking be special?
She starts out by saying she sees the good in the post but thinks the future will be better than the picture painted. She doesn’t say what the good is. This is dishonestly representing the post (or rather, the extract). There’s no good in the extract, but1 it’s just more acceptable to say things like this.
[1]: edited, this bit was unfair, and it does have decent criticisms of CR.
Then she makes note of the main point but downplays it so it seems less important to the extract.
She rebuts this point by saying you can have lots of interests — this is dishonestly broad and gives an impression you can think what you like and be in CR. Most things ppl are interested in aren’t compatible with CR, saying they can be is pandering and misrepresentation. She makes a lazy argument like ‘lots of things are compatible, why is X special’ which both evades responding to the extract (to maintain social status and not embarrass Birner) and isn’t a logically sound argument.
Maybe the assumption is that critical debate isn’t compatible with these social endeavours, but I don’t think that’s true: there’s always a way of explaining an idea that isn’t off-putting; it’s not fundamentally the case that people dislike criticism. (What they dislike is something more like: being trapped; being called bad; having problems that destabilise/overwhelm; etc. It’s possible to avoid all these problems and still have a critical discussion.)
She downplays Birner’s point again with maybe, and actually provides more of an explanation. That is: you can always explain an idea s.t. it’s not off-putting (which relies on the other person so it’s tenuous at best) and then claims ppl don’t fundamentally dislike criticism, which might be true of some people, but isn’t generally. So she paints a false picture to compare to so that it comes out favourably. She then mentions some stuff that people also dislike, but it doesn’t cover all the cases of criticism. It also denies things like personal responsibility for the quality of one’s ideas. If she agrees with DD about morality this sort of stuff might violate the moral criterion DD proposes b/c it’s tolerating things that can destroy the methods of correcting mistakes. So she’s overly tolerant to avoid offending ppl.
Or maybe the assumption is that people are not persuaded by argument, and instead you have to appeal to social status or bureaucracy. Ray Scott Percival may agree with me here that this isn’t true either.
She reframes the debate again to downplay Birner’s attack on CR. Maybe she’s making a meta-joke because she immediately appeals to social status via mentioning RSP — if so it’s hiding meaning in social pandering, if not it’s somewhat hypocritical. She also uses it as an excuse not to address the point.
Another apparent premise is that the only way to carry on these ideas is through institutional academia (which does indeed have its flaws). But it’s becoming ever easier to work outside the system (books, blogs, videos, forums, etc.), and even build intellectual communities and organisations to keep these ideas going. You don’t need to be an academic to engage with academia, either. Problems are soluble. There will be a solution to the problem “how do we ensure CR survives without doing unpleasant academic tedium?”.
She downplays again with words like another apparent premise instead of acknowledging the extent of what Birner is saying. She correctly identifies that Birner claims certain things are necessary’s but evades answering properly b/c she mentions some things that — on the whole — aren’t very effective at doing the thing she says they do. Then there’s a non-sequitur or maybe just reframing to downplay the point again via academic tedium which sounds a lot better than ‘CR is incompatible with environments where one’s ideas can survive’. She also don’t take it further to criticise academia for having bad culture, which is social agility — dodging the confrontation.
There’s a BoI reference dropped without applying it very well, too.
The quote talks about “personal characteristics” — so maybe it’s saying the personality type that gets into critical rationalism tends not to be the exuberant promoter/social type. (As an aside, the final sentence of the second paragraph seems to be saying “critical rationalists don’t actually take the clash of ideas seriously”!) But truth is connected. Why not be interested in expressing ideas so that they’re appealing to other generations/traditions?
More hedging/downplay/reframing via maybe and exuberant promoter/social type (which is not at all similar to stuff Birner says, where most of the personality stuff is about traits like firm belief in the power of criticism).
She then points out something really serious and completely avoids dealing with it. Even though it’s crucial to the extract, she already said she agrees sympathises (edited) with the spirit of the extract, and important enough to add a ! to the end of the sentence! reframing/downplay
There’s the confusing truth is connected bit which is a non-sequitur and leads into a suggestion that would likely corrupt ideas or require bad compromise, so she’s misleadingly suggesting things incompatible with CR are compatible. This makes her look more open minded and ~fairer, calibrated to reduce social friction.
New people from diverse intellectual backgrounds are getting interested in Popper regularly via Deutsch (who is himself still writing about critical rationalism). And there’s a lot of craving for these ideas lately — a lot of modern rationalist/skeptic communities trying to understand how to think about truth and knowledge, a lot of dissatisfaction for traditional academic philosophy, people who intuitively think objective morality makes sense but don’t know how to justify it, how to make sense of tyranny and liberalism, and so on. It’s very fertile ground for the next generation.
The final paragraph makes some optimistic claims which she knows aren’t true (or should know), including DD actively writing (though I’d like to be proven wrong). She goes on to claim everything is peachy, and there are lots of good things happening. She claims stuff like there’s “a lot of dissatisfaction for traditional academic philosophy” even though Birner makes the opposite point, and she avoids addressing this conflict despite it being really important.
She finishes with a general optimism that isn’t well supported and directly conflicts with what Birner is saying, but it’s okay because she made some concessions so she’s socially insulated from anyone trying to claim she’s being too critical.
analysis (high-level; 3rd pass)
Lulie gives false credit to a bad post/extract, reframes the debate multiple times to make Birner’s extract sound better (and less critical of CR) than it is, avoids dealing with direct conflicts brought up by the extract, misrepresents CR and the importance of ideas, appeals to social status a bit, and ultimately finishes optimistically pretending there aren’t any issues here.
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