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Archive: http://archive.is/rhc5P http://archive.is/rhc5P

by fermienrico 6y ago

nkurz 6y ago
Good article, thanks for posting. Could you possibly fix the spelling in the title while you still have time?
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Done.
- eesmith 6y ago
  Really? I found Pinker's points entirely too meta to be understandable. Does Pinker have "a willingness to “dismiss and downplay racist violence”"? Yes or no? His response is that the accusation is "utterly ludicrous." But rather than demonstrate why it's ludicrous, perhaps by pointing to research publications which support him (instead of an NYT article) he instead asserts that his critics are using Orwellian tactics. That's a meta argument, and that sort of switch is a technique people use to distract people from the underlying argument. His critics explicitly say they don't want to "cancel" him, but he in essence says that's doublespeak. While on the other hand he rejects "dog whistling", saying “It means that it doesn’t matter what anyone says, you can always accuse them of having dog whistles of your own invention.” So he's reading between the lines, in essence arguing that these are dog whistles of their own - yet his own logic says that's a bad faith interpretation. And if the argument has any merit it can be applied to accusations like "Orwellian" and "doublespeak" - "It doesn't matter what anyone says, you can always accuse them of being Orwellian." That's why I hate meta arguments which don't start by actually demonstrating the validity or invalidity of the underlying argument. Or, consider "A large number of people have been appalled at the firings". Are those firings appropriate? Is there a list of these suspect firings, with evidence that it was due to Orwellian accusations? Because those "cancellations" I know about appear due to the reasonable consequences of their criticisms. Without those details, the actual argument is too amorphous to be actionable. For example, when he points to "junior scholars who say, ‘Well, this is what I think, but I dare not say it.’" -- what are the things they want to say, and why shouldn't they suffer consequences of making, say, unfounded, unjustifiably, and racist statements. I'm sure Pinker agrees that some things deserve chastisement, since he himself is chastising. Since he took the argument to a meta-level, we must also ask about how many junior scholars want to speak out against bigotry, sexism, racism, and more but don't dare not say it for having senior people like Pinker speak against them. And given the people who have talked about, for example, sexism in the academic workplace which they have felt powerless to oppose for fear of losing their job and career, we know that's an issue, so Pinker's argument isn't actually a strong one. Finally, look at the quotes "I wouldn’t go too far in tasteless comparisons to the Chinese cultural revolution or the European witch hunts, but ... I don’t want to say that the criticism of journalists and academics is the same as burning a real witch, [but] some of the underlying dynamics overlap.” That's the "I'm not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens" meme. It's an argument style which lets you say something, but not actually say it. Which is disingenuous at best, and "some of the underlying dynamics overlap" with Godwin's law.
  - nkurz 6y ago
    You raise good points, but it's well past midnight here on the East Coast of the US and I need to go to sleep. So in lieu of attempting an adequate response, did you see Scott Aaronson's parallel piece: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4892 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4892. I think it tries to answer some of your questions, although I'm not sure if it succeeds. And this one by Sarah Jeong is more sympathetic to the cancelling side, but might do a little better on the "amorphousness" aspect: https://www.theverge.com/21320338/letter-harpers-writers-free-speech-canceled-social-media-illiberalism https://www.theverge.com/21320338/letter-harpers-writers-fre....
    - cycomanic 6y ago
      This is such great post which should be shared widely.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      I read Scott Aaronson's piece but don't see how it fits. Pinker says that he's safe in his position and does not worry about being canceled. The people doing the criticism specifically say they are not trying to cancel him. Quoting from the open letter linked by Aaronson: > We want to note here that we have no desire to judge Dr. Pinker’s actions in moral terms, or claim to know what his aims are. Nor do we seek to “cancel” Dr. Pinker, or to bar him from participating in the linguistics and LSA communities (though many of our signatories may well believe that doing so would be the right course of action). They are: > calling for the removal of Dr. Steven Pinker from both our list of distinguished academic fellows and our list of media experts. We, the undersigned, believe that Dr. Pinker’s behavior as a public academic is not befitting of a representative of our professional organization, that the LSA’s own stated goals make such a conclusion inevitable, and that the LSA should publicly reaffirm its position and distance itself from Dr. Pinker. Even if that action were taken, how is that meaningfully "canceling" someone? Aaronson argues that it's a first step to test their power, and a veiled threat of what might be to come if they actually have power. Which I cannot distinguish from the age-old rhetorical technique of pointing to the extremists of any movement, then argue they are representative of everyone in the movement, in order to dismiss the entire movement. Aaronson's piece uses a similar argument to Pinker, with: > Again and again, spineless institutions have responded to these sorts of ultimatums by capitulating to them. Can we have a list of examples please? Without concrete definitions and examples, we can read anything into this topic. We know there are many cases where spineless institutions did not intervene despite public outrage, eg, MIT's fondness for a certain rich convicted pedophile, so it's hard to think there's a systemic capitulation to the demands of cancellers.
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
I can't seem to read the article and the archive link isn't resolving for whatever reason. Mind making a new one?

Archive: http://archive.is/rhc5P http://archive.is/rhc5P

nkurz 6y ago

Good article, thanks for posting. Could you possibly fix the spelling in the title while you still have time?

fermienrico 6y ago
Done.
eesmith 6y ago
Really? I found Pinker's points entirely too meta to be understandable. Does Pinker have "a willingness to “dismiss and downplay racist violence”"? Yes or no? His response is that the accusation is "utterly ludicrous." But rather than demonstrate why it's ludicrous, perhaps by pointing to research publications which support him (instead of an NYT article) he instead asserts that his critics are using Orwellian tactics. That's a meta argument, and that sort of switch is a technique people use to distract people from the underlying argument. His critics explicitly say they don't want to "cancel" him, but he in essence says that's doublespeak. While on the other hand he rejects "dog whistling", saying “It means that it doesn’t matter what anyone says, you can always accuse them of having dog whistles of your own invention.” So he's reading between the lines, in essence arguing that these are dog whistles of their own - yet his own logic says that's a bad faith interpretation. And if the argument has any merit it can be applied to accusations like "Orwellian" and "doublespeak" - "It doesn't matter what anyone says, you can always accuse them of being Orwellian." That's why I hate meta arguments which don't start by actually demonstrating the validity or invalidity of the underlying argument. Or, consider "A large number of people have been appalled at the firings". Are those firings appropriate? Is there a list of these suspect firings, with evidence that it was due to Orwellian accusations? Because those "cancellations" I know about appear due to the reasonable consequences of their criticisms. Without those details, the actual argument is too amorphous to be actionable. For example, when he points to "junior scholars who say, ‘Well, this is what I think, but I dare not say it.’" -- what are the things they want to say, and why shouldn't they suffer consequences of making, say, unfounded, unjustifiably, and racist statements. I'm sure Pinker agrees that some things deserve chastisement, since he himself is chastising. Since he took the argument to a meta-level, we must also ask about how many junior scholars want to speak out against bigotry, sexism, racism, and more but don't dare not say it for having senior people like Pinker speak against them. And given the people who have talked about, for example, sexism in the academic workplace which they have felt powerless to oppose for fear of losing their job and career, we know that's an issue, so Pinker's argument isn't actually a strong one. Finally, look at the quotes "I wouldn’t go too far in tasteless comparisons to the Chinese cultural revolution or the European witch hunts, but ... I don’t want to say that the criticism of journalists and academics is the same as burning a real witch, [but] some of the underlying dynamics overlap.” That's the "I'm not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens" meme. It's an argument style which lets you say something, but not actually say it. Which is disingenuous at best, and "some of the underlying dynamics overlap" with Godwin's law.
- nkurz 6y ago
  You raise good points, but it's well past midnight here on the East Coast of the US and I need to go to sleep. So in lieu of attempting an adequate response, did you see Scott Aaronson's parallel piece: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4892 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4892. I think it tries to answer some of your questions, although I'm not sure if it succeeds. And this one by Sarah Jeong is more sympathetic to the cancelling side, but might do a little better on the "amorphousness" aspect: https://www.theverge.com/21320338/letter-harpers-writers-free-speech-canceled-social-media-illiberalism https://www.theverge.com/21320338/letter-harpers-writers-fre....
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    This is such great post which should be shared widely.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    I read Scott Aaronson's piece but don't see how it fits. Pinker says that he's safe in his position and does not worry about being canceled. The people doing the criticism specifically say they are not trying to cancel him. Quoting from the open letter linked by Aaronson: > We want to note here that we have no desire to judge Dr. Pinker’s actions in moral terms, or claim to know what his aims are. Nor do we seek to “cancel” Dr. Pinker, or to bar him from participating in the linguistics and LSA communities (though many of our signatories may well believe that doing so would be the right course of action). They are: > calling for the removal of Dr. Steven Pinker from both our list of distinguished academic fellows and our list of media experts. We, the undersigned, believe that Dr. Pinker’s behavior as a public academic is not befitting of a representative of our professional organization, that the LSA’s own stated goals make such a conclusion inevitable, and that the LSA should publicly reaffirm its position and distance itself from Dr. Pinker. Even if that action were taken, how is that meaningfully "canceling" someone? Aaronson argues that it's a first step to test their power, and a veiled threat of what might be to come if they actually have power. Which I cannot distinguish from the age-old rhetorical technique of pointing to the extremists of any movement, then argue they are representative of everyone in the movement, in order to dismiss the entire movement. Aaronson's piece uses a similar argument to Pinker, with: > Again and again, spineless institutions have responded to these sorts of ultimatums by capitulating to them. Can we have a list of examples please? Without concrete definitions and examples, we can read anything into this topic. We know there are many cases where spineless institutions did not intervene despite public outrage, eg, MIT's fondness for a certain rich convicted pedophile, so it's hard to think there's a systemic capitulation to the demands of cancellers.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago

I can't seem to read the article and the archive link isn't resolving for whatever reason. Mind making a new one?