4 ms·

"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 car

by hyperion2010 10y ago

"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.

Noseshine 10y ago
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 physicists (referring to yesterdays thread that pointed to https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f...) but instead insist they'd have to study physics and not just read a few papers. Thinking the issues of the "working class" are different because "how difficult can it be" doesn't seem consistent or right to me.
- hyperion2010 10y ago
  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.

Noseshine 10y ago

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 physicists (referring to yesterdays thread that pointed to https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f...) but instead insist they'd have to study physics and not just read a few papers. Thinking the issues of the "working class" are different because "how difficult can it be" doesn't seem consistent or right to me.

hyperion2010 10y ago
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.