In Christopher Hitchens’s interview with EconTalk about his book Why Orwell Matters, Hitchens praises George Orwell on his “plain honest speech, transparent political positions, detestation for euphemism and falsification” and argues (1:00:54~):

The job of the intellectual, the so-called public intellectuals as we are now for some reason doomed to call it, is or ought to be to say something along the following lines: “It’s more complicated than that… You mustn’t simplify this… There’s more complexity to the subject.” That’s what an intellectual should be doing to public discourse, one thinks. But then there are occasions when it seems to me that the reverse is the case. That actually what the really thoughtful person should be saying is actually: “It’s simple! Do not make complexity here, where none is required.”

You can listen to the above quote (and a bit extra) straight from Hitchens below:

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What an excellent point. Often I find myself exasperated with commentary on the internet which frequently represents the extreme and the childish, with no indication of understanding or nuance. The short-form of the blog only exacerbates the problem. It is almost enough to abandon the enterprise altogether. But all hope for public discourse on the internet is not lost! The point made by Hitchens, that sometimes things are just that simple tempers my irritation. It is a useful aphorism to keep bias in check.

Of course, the problem remains of proper application. The non-complexity argument cannot be used for every issue, and one must recognize its misuse and call it out. Truly complex issues should be handled in other forae, such as academic journals or conferences. But there are issues that can be broached in shorter formats. For example issues of morality or principle. Abandoning relativism, properly defining terms and being transparent in speech (as Orwell advises in his classic essay Politics of the English Language) should lead to clearer understanding in general. Casting off complexity is not drawing an arbitrary line in the proverbial sand (eg. moralizing), but stripping away the unwarranted and getting at the core of an argument. Often simple is not easy, and complexity is used to obfuscate. Nobody ever said being a public intellectual would be easy.

Listen to the entire Christopher Hitchens interview with EconTalk.

Nils Gilman posted a series of “nonsense beliefs” on his Twitter account, but didn’t reproduce them on his blog for discussion, so I have taken the liberty to reproduce them here as I think Twitter is not a good forum for debating such propositions. Here are the nine:

1) In the economic system, what you can’t count doesn’t count.
2) The environment is an externality—it doesn’t ‘count’.
3) What can’t be measured can’t be reasoned about: it’s either economics or irrationality.
4) In economic terms, sacrificing near-term gains for possible long-term benefits for posterity is irrational.
5) Probability and harm can be priced, and so every risk has its price.
6) Everything has its price.
7) By definition, profit maximisation is social responsibility.
8) By definition, markets are efficient and regulation inefficient.
9) We can use the past to model and predict the future.

My quick take just to get the discussion rolling: as any historian will tell you, context is important (1 and 2); I am iffy on 3 since concepts (justice, morality) can be reasoned about but metrics are handy especially when policy-making; yes on 4; i don’t get 5; 6 is not nonsense (except in quantum mechanics) since price doesn’t necessarily mean gold; 7 I agree; 8 is a strawman argument so I agree; 9 conflates “prediction” with “forecasting”, which I am not sure Nils is clear on.

Since these are all short tweets the points are difficult to qualify and we must tread carefully. That said, I think it is a good check list for examining bias, and a good discussion starter.

When Eris, the Greek goddess of strife, dropped the apple of discord in front of Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, the bickering that ensued over who was “the fairest” was both pointless and unworthy. Furthermore, in tragic Greek fashion, it is said to have led to the ten year Trojan War.

“Eristic” might be what the West’s greatest philosopher Socrates would call America’s political rhetoric — exemplified by the town hall meetings — submits The Economist in its Christmas edition. In a lengthy, almost Kaplanesque article, The Economist gives a short history of the classical philosopher and applies his lessons to modern day America. The demagoguery of American political media is nothing new, pointed out as often as it is prevalent. Socrates would have seen that “Eris is present in presidential debates, in court rooms and wherever people are talking not to discover truth but to win.” Arguing to win. Victory is more important than truth lamented Mark Bowden. This is a sad fact of modern political commentary, a distortion of classical rhetoric or “the effective use of language”. Constructive debate has no place among those that think it is their right to be always right.

The fast pace and short form of our media (television, radio, blogs, etc.) only contribute to the confusion. From The Economist:

In 1968 Stringfellow Barr, an historian and president of St John’s College in Maryland, wrote a Socratic critique of American discourse: “There is a pathos in television dialogue: the rapid exchange of monologues that fail to find the issue, like ships passing in the night; the reiterated preface, ‘I think that…,’ as if it mattered who held which opinion rather than which opinion is worth holding; the impressive personal vanity that prevents each ‘discussant’ from really listening to another speaker”.

“Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes” noted Voltaire. I think most informed individuals would agree that proper contribution to the discussion is lacking. But that leads to a new problem: how do we know who is informed and who is not? We know by judging their arguments. More than opinion we need the basic skills of philosophical inquiry that Socrates promoted (in life as well as in death). To make the country a better place the citizenry need the semaphore skills to communicate effectively between “ships passing in the night”. Without those skills we will continue talking past one another, or worse, will not be able to avoid a collision, another Trojan tragedy. The earlier that critical thinking and argumentation skills are taught the better. Then maybe we can make nullify the point made by Bertrand Russell: “Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.”

Read: Arguing to death: Socrates in America

Seeing as the anniversary is next week, this could be one of his more controversial pieces. Brilliant writing nonetheless. See the whole series at mrdeity.com.

In the comments on my post about preparing your child for the coming anarchy an interesting side conversation broke out, one that I thought deserved its own post. The consensus of the commentary on that post was that reading was an important skill to encourage critical thinking and an interest in the world. Then controversy arose when one commenter called Orson Scott Card “a Motherf*cking Bigot” and I agreed. I said:

I couldn’t believe it. After reading Ender I was like “This book is great! Who is the authour?” and turns out he is a hardcore Mormon religious nutbar. I almost regret looking it up because now I find it hard to enjoy his other writing.

M-BONE related his own experience of being put off by HP Lovecraft’s anti-semitism. Lexington Green on the other hand, chided us:

An artist’s work, his art, is what matters. All the other stuff that he does is irrelevant. Judging Card or Lovecraft for their political views is like saying that a brilliant brain surgeon’s work is diminished because he cannot make a good ham sandwich. Further, artists are often weird, out of step people.

Thus the question: should the ideological and political background of an author influence the reading of his work?

I think this is an interesting line of debate, and would like to continue it here in a new thread. Below the fold I have reproduced the relevant comments from the parenting post. Read through and post your thoughts below.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was happy to see so many comments on my argument against French hypocrisy. Some agreed with my assessment; others did not, calling my reasoning “misleading” or “muddled.” I think my argument still stands when taken for what it is: an analysis of (secular) national law.

Confusion arises in this argument due its complexity: there are actually four entwined issues including personal freedom, feminism, religious freedom and religious expression. I specifically chose to make my case in terms of the first issue. Others did not appreciate my specificity. Renee summed it up by stating that the argument is not over a piece of cloth. The same tactic was used to attack PZ’s cracker analysis.

I disagree with this proposition. By making the argument bigger than than a simple “piece of cloth” secular lawmakers give validation to the status of religion in modern life. Rather, we should focus expressly on the material reality — the corporeality the cloth and crackers. Ignore religious symbols outright, sidelining the religious by giving them no room to leverage their belief system in a court of law. Personal religion as a whole cannot be outlawed because of our beliefs in liberty. However, their outward symbols can be trivialized to meaninglessness. No validation through recognition.

Does this mean we ignore religion in the public sphere? Hell no! There are many unbalanced tax and education laws, as well as warped public perception of secularism and atheism that requires the actions of rationalists and libertarians alike. Rather than keeping foreigners with long dresses outside of our borders, much work needs to be done about the laws within our borders, specifically in terms of the separation between church and state.

The esteemed Zenpundit and I have begun a discussion on comparative methodologies for historians and futurists that looks promising. See Mark’s original post and my comment that sparked his detailed reply which I then analyzed.

Please join the conversation over at Zenpundit. There are many CA community members that have a better grasp on this stuff than I. I would especially like to hear Adam’s take.

ADDENDUM: Since Mark’s comments field ate my HTML I will post my comment below the fold, where it might be a little more easier to digest. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year The Edge Foundation gets together the world’s foremost thinkers and scientists to answer a question of the year. For 2008:

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?”

As usual they line up some heavy hitters. Some names you might recognize:

• Nassim Taleb
• Chris Anderson
• Steven Pinker
• Stewart Brand
• Peter Schwartz
• Daniel Engber
• and the atheist trinity Richard Dawkins Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris

Dawkins’ comment is particularly interesting as I posted on the topic just two weeks ago.

Last year was a big one for me in terms of philosophical development. My outlook on international politics has completely transformed and become much more refined through discussions with my new thesis supervisor. My outlook on human knowledge changed after being introduced to gentleman such as Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, W.V. Quine etc through this course. Also, I read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion last year which got me off the fence of agnosticism.

During 2007 is there anything you changed your mind about?

P.S. – Here is last year’s question