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There is a certain degree of oxymoron in the term 'public intellectual'. Reality is complex. Terrifyingly so. The academics I have the most respect for walk a

by sago 7y ago

There is a certain degree of oxymoron in the term 'public intellectual'. Reality is complex. Terrifyingly so. The academics I have the most respect for walk a tightrope in a state of barely contained vertigo. It is very difficult to make a strong point, almost impossible to make it both correct and understandable, and (IMO) definitely impossible to make the tightrope accessible for others to walk. To make the point, all nuance needs to be stripped; ambiguity calcified into surety; counterpoints strawmanned for easier demolition. Ideally the person doing that simplification does so knowingly for the purpose of education. But that is entirely opaque to public view. So it is no surprise that those who gain most recognition are those most willing to misrepresent the nuance of their field. Or to caricature the opponents of the viewpoint they wish to espouse. How do even informed members of the public tell? A PhD from Harvard as a shibboleth, sounds about right. I'm not saying the public is dumb. Just that none of us have the expertise or the dedication or the time. We rely on tribal signalling. So we are primed for intellectual hucksterism.

0815test 7y ago
> To make the point, all nuance needs to be stripped; ambiguity calcified into surety; counterpoints strawmanned for easier demolition. This isn't really true, though. Rather, I think there are tradeoffs. You can be really, really sure about a quite complex and nuanced statement, or make helpful simplifications but then have to admit to some uncertainty, if only because your statement might be misinterpreted. More than anything, you can provide clear, unambiguous, broadly available references to enable anyone who's actually relying on your claims to fact-check them. Seeming more confident than you actually are is a common rhetorical trick, but one that we should be training the general public not to fall for so easily. Because a bad actor can seem so much more confident, no matter how fringe their claims might be - it's a loser move! One can take pride in sticking to the minimally-necessary amounts of ambiguity and/or nuance, whatever those might be in any given context.
- sago 7y ago
  > This isn't really true, though. Rather, I think there are tradeoffs. One might say I stripped all nuance (etc) to make my point. I agree with your second paragraph. On your first: I have a long-standing beef with references, though. The selection of references, I think, is much more significant than the contents themselves. And it takes a lot of expertise to intuit the degree of selection bias. It takes ground knowledge of the things not selected. I think a part of this Dunning Kruger trap is the illusion one can fact check and verify an argument. So the very presence of references becomes the shibboleth.
b_tterc_p 7y ago
I don’t think it’s unreasonably to think the public is broadly dumb. Just take a look at people’s political opinions, for both sides. Like, ignore whatever you think about who should be in power, and observe just the reasoning that people provide. For both sides, a non trivial proportion are driven by complete nonsense. For the majority, emotion and group identity norms trump reason. Hence people being exceptionally easy to manipulate at a large scale.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  Don't you think the opposition between 'reason' and 'emotion' is itself of ideological character not driven by much sense? Isn't group identity important in forming solidarity in a system under which collective action on many important issues (labour, ecology, etc.) is frustrated? Not everyone subscribes to Kantian/Socratic rationalism.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    I wouldn’t phrase it as oppositional. I would phrase it as compositional. When you make decisions you’re supposed to consider your emotions and your reason. If you don’t do the latter, you’re not “favoring” emotion. You’re just not thinking critically. Thinking more helps make your emotions more useful, because you can understand why you have them. Similarly, group identity without reason leads to particularly dumb beliefs. E.g. how some of the wealthiest people in the nation can walk into a rural community of farmers and blue collar workers and announce “I’m one of you!” to rousing applause.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      The point here is that even this 'pure' critical thinking isn't somehow existing in a realm of our intellectual away from our emotionality; not only does emotionality dictate its course, but (as feminist scholars have pointed out since the 80s), the course of emotionality is dictated by rationality - we often become emotionally invested in theories which we really do believe quite 'rationally'. At its most crude level, I'd frame it as a bi-directional movement each influences the other and it makes no sense to talk about one without the other, though that seems closer to the point you were making than when I made my first comment.

by sago 7y ago

0815test 7y ago

> To make the point, all nuance needs to be stripped; ambiguity calcified into surety; counterpoints strawmanned for easier demolition. This isn't really true, though. Rather, I think there are tradeoffs. You can be really, really sure about a quite complex and nuanced statement, or make helpful simplifications but then have to admit to some uncertainty, if only because your statement might be misinterpreted. More than anything, you can provide clear, unambiguous, broadly available references to enable anyone who's actually relying on your claims to fact-check them. Seeming more confident than you actually are is a common rhetorical trick, but one that we should be training the general public not to fall for so easily. Because a bad actor can seem so much more confident, no matter how fringe their claims might be - it's a loser move! One can take pride in sticking to the minimally-necessary amounts of ambiguity and/or nuance, whatever those might be in any given context.

sago 7y ago
> This isn't really true, though. Rather, I think there are tradeoffs. One might say I stripped all nuance (etc) to make my point. I agree with your second paragraph. On your first: I have a long-standing beef with references, though. The selection of references, I think, is much more significant than the contents themselves. And it takes a lot of expertise to intuit the degree of selection bias. It takes ground knowledge of the things not selected. I think a part of this Dunning Kruger trap is the illusion one can fact check and verify an argument. So the very presence of references becomes the shibboleth.

b_tterc_p 7y ago

I don’t think it’s unreasonably to think the public is broadly dumb. Just take a look at people’s political opinions, for both sides. Like, ignore whatever you think about who should be in power, and observe just the reasoning that people provide. For both sides, a non trivial proportion are driven by complete nonsense. For the majority, emotion and group identity norms trump reason. Hence people being exceptionally easy to manipulate at a large scale.

claudiawerner 7y ago
Don't you think the opposition between 'reason' and 'emotion' is itself of ideological character not driven by much sense? Isn't group identity important in forming solidarity in a system under which collective action on many important issues (labour, ecology, etc.) is frustrated? Not everyone subscribes to Kantian/Socratic rationalism.
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  I wouldn’t phrase it as oppositional. I would phrase it as compositional. When you make decisions you’re supposed to consider your emotions and your reason. If you don’t do the latter, you’re not “favoring” emotion. You’re just not thinking critically. Thinking more helps make your emotions more useful, because you can understand why you have them. Similarly, group identity without reason leads to particularly dumb beliefs. E.g. how some of the wealthiest people in the nation can walk into a rural community of farmers and blue collar workers and announce “I’m one of you!” to rousing applause.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    The point here is that even this 'pure' critical thinking isn't somehow existing in a realm of our intellectual away from our emotionality; not only does emotionality dictate its course, but (as feminist scholars have pointed out since the 80s), the course of emotionality is dictated by rationality - we often become emotionally invested in theories which we really do believe quite 'rationally'. At its most crude level, I'd frame it as a bi-directional movement each influences the other and it makes no sense to talk about one without the other, though that seems closer to the point you were making than when I made my first comment.