All posts by John Casey

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David Brooks, General discussion

Our problems are solved

4 Comments

Who thought it could be so easy:

>In fact, if you really wanted to supercharge the nation, you’d fill it with college students who constantly attend church, but who are skeptical of everything they hear there. For there are at least two things we know about flourishing in a modern society.

>First, college students who attend religious services regularly do better than those that don’t. As Margarita Mooney, a Princeton sociologist, has demonstrated in her research, they work harder and are more engaged with campus life. Second, students who come from denominations that encourage dissent are more successful, on average, than students from denominations that don’t.

Wouldn’t it be quicker if we all became Jesuits?

General discussion

Psychology of believing

2 Comments

While the study of fallacies may help us to uncover defective reasoning, the study of the psychology of believing explains its maddening persistence. Take the following, for instance:

>Psychologists coined the term “pluralistic ignorance” in the 1930s to refer to this type of misperception — more a social than an individual phenomenon — to which even smart people might fall victim. A study back then had surprisingly found that most kids in an all-white fraternity were privately in favor of admitting black members, though most assumed, wrongly, that their personal views were greatly in the minority. Natural temerity made each individual assume that he was the lone oddball.

>A similar effect is common today on university campuses, where many students think that most other students are typically inclined to drink more than they themselves would wish to; researchers have found that many students indeed drink more to fit in with what they perceive to be the drinking norm, even though it really isn’t the norm. The result is an amplification of a minority view, which comes to seem like the majority view.

>In pluralistic ignorance, as researchers described it in the 1970s, “moral principles with relatively little popular support may exert considerable influence because they are mistakenly thought to represent the views of the majority, while normative imperatives actually favored by the majority may carry less weight because they are erroneously attributed to a minority.”

Interesting explanation for the “false equivalence” view indicative of contemporary media. Take any view, no matter how marginal, and you’ll still get the sense that it’s backed by a substantial number of people. The entire article is worth reading. Also on that subject, Gilovich’s How We Know What Isn’t So is worth studying closely.

Begging the Question, General discussion

A question from a reader

26 Comments

I got the following question from a reader:

>”isn’t it begging the question in favor of religious theism to think
that someone with theological training is an “expert” qualified to have
a credible opinion? After all, if there are no gods, then theology
itself is a field of inquiry with no object to study.”

My first reaction would be this. Begging the question occurs in the context of an argument. It’s hard to see what the argument is here. Second, not many theologians are literally “God speakers” as the name might suggest. Many theologians study religious traditions, texts, and histories. Whether these have a supernatural character remains an interesting question, but it’s hardly the only one. And, at least as theology is studied where I come from (The Land of Jesuitica), that’s not one that gets asked in the theology department. Finally, I wouldn’t know either what is meant by “credible” opinion in this instance. The theologian, as any expert, as a legitimate claim of expertise over a certain material–say, a religious tradition or text–that expertise is not diminished by their being no God–that would be. But the mere existence of theologians does not itself constitute an argument for the existence of God. Some philosophers of mind argue that there are literally no minds at all, merely brains and their processes. Would it be the case, then, that psychologists “beg the question” by their mere existence against reductionism? I don’t think so.

Too often charges of “begging the question” are just confused ways of making burden claims: the person who makes the charges claims that it’s incumbent on the, say, theologian, to prove the existence of their object of study, and until they do, they beg the question. Alternatively, some claim that anyone who does not articulate every single assumption inherent in their view–does not prove their starting point–begs the question. Both of those charges are misplaced and ultimately self-refuting. To the second, no one can prove their own unprovable starting point (and this does not mean they’re all the same), so getting my Cartesian than Descartes will only wind you up in the loony bin (as Descartes himself suggested and as Foucault and Derrida–I bet you never thought you’d see their names here–famously discussed). To the first, argument analysis is best limited to specific arguments. If someone assumes something his conclusion to be true then proves it, fails to prove an obvious assumption, or simply restates his conclusion in different words, he begs the question. If he does not address your objection, he does not address your objection. He doesn’t beg the question against you.

More certainly could be said on this topic. Perhaps another time.

General discussion

Misuse

8 Comments

E.J.Dionne writes an interview piece on Gore in today’s Post. Gore says:

>”A lot of people were afraid of being accused of being unpatriotic,” he says. “One of the symptoms of this problem — the diminishing role for reason, fact and logic — is that what rushes in to fill the vacuum are extreme partisanship, ideology, fundamentalism and extreme nationalism.”

One can’t help but have some sympathy for this sentiment. What worries me, however, is not the absence of reason (facts and logic), but rather its misuse. In a sense, that’s unreason, but that might be stating the matter in a way that’s only going to alienate your opponent. What they have–and they have them indeed–are bad arguments. But even bad arguments take the form of arguments. That’s more that can usually be said for Dionne. I think the rest of Gore’s interview, in fact, does a remarkable job of impugning Dionne’s annoying failure to engage his opponent on sure and equal footing.

Politicians

Logic and reason

10 Comments

In the category of questions that answer themselves, Al Gore wonders,

>why logic and reason and the best evidence available and the scientific discoveries do not have more force in changing the way we all think about the reality we are now facing.

Part of his answer is the “serial obsessions” of the media with with Anna Nicole Smith types of stories. And when they talk about politics, they obsess over the irrelevant details of the political horse race. And when they obsess over that, they focus on the most tabloid aspects of the election process.

Fair enough. But this really answers a separate question: why is no one interested in the reality we are facing.

category mistake, Contradictions, David Brooks

David Brooks rethinks

5 Comments

David Brooks once called John Kerry "a fraud with a manly bearing." He made fun of him for correctly understanding the nature of terrorism–that it wasn’t a question of armies and generals and nation states, but rather a matter of politics, and of course, law and order. Now this:

The war on terror has shredded the reputation of the Bush administration. It’s destroyed the reputation of Tony Blair’s government in Britain, Ehud Olmert’s government in Israel and Nuri al-Maliki’s government in Iraq. And here’s a prediction: It will destroy future American administrations, and future Israeli, European and world governments as well.

That’s because setbacks in the war on terror don’t only flow from the mistakes of individual leaders and generals. They’re structural. Thanks to a series of organizational technological innovations, guerrilla insurgencies are increasingly able to take on and defeat nation-states.

So he was wrong. But it turns out that it wasn’t anyone’s fault after all. Not so. The mistakes in Iraq–and in Afghanistan–flow from one single source–the commander guy. Had he not envisioned the whole thing–wrongly–as an epic battle between good and evil, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now. And it seems wrong therefore to call all insurgency, as Brooks does, "war on terror." If you take what he says seriously, that’s the problem.

Ad hominem tu quoque, George Will, Straw Man

Full of gas

6 Comments

George Will’s faith in free markets knows no bounds. Any suggestion that gas prices are too high results in all sorts of unrestrained sophmoric vitriol–supported by research from the American Enterprise Institute of all places. As always, an argument can be made that gas is not as high as it used to be (adjusted for inflation and so forth), but that’s not really the point. Gas has more than doubled in price very suddenly. On top of that, more and more people are dependent on it being cheap (don’t get me wrong, that’s not a right). That creates a good deal of shock. But the fact that people keep driving doesn’t mean they don’t care about the price, as Will seems to think:

>Democrats, seething at the injustice of gasoline prices, have sprung to the aid of embattled motorists. So resolute are Democrats about defending the downtrodden, they are undeterred by the fact that motorists, not acting like people trodden upon, are driving more than ever. Gasoline consumption has increased 2.14 percent during the past year.

It means they don’t have a choice. The more relevant question would be whether people continue to engage in frivolous driving. Or if people who engage in unnecessary driving make cuts elsewhere. In either case, the simple fact of continued gas buying doesn’t establish anything about the mental state of the purchaser.

But here’s the real gem of whiny sophomoric libertarianism:

>Pelosi announced herself “particularly concerned” that the highest price of gasoline recently was in her San Francisco district — $3.49. So she endorses HR 1252 to protect consumers from “price gouging,” defined, not altogether helpfully, by a blizzard of adjectives and adverbs. Gouging occurs when gasoline prices are “unconscionably” excessive, or sellers raise prices “unreasonably” by taking “unfair” advantage of “unusual” market conditions, or when the price charged represents a “gross” disparity from the price of crude oil, or when the amount charged “grossly” exceeds the price at which gasoline is obtainable in the same area. The bill does not explain how a gouger can gouge when his product is obtainable more cheaply nearby. Actually, Pelosi’s constituents are being gouged by people like Pelosi — by government. While oil companies make about 13 cents on a gallon of gasoline, the federal government makes 18.4 cents (the federal tax) and California’s various governments make 40.2 cents (the nation’s third-highest gasoline tax). Pelosi’s San Francisco collects a local sales tax of 8.5 percent — higher than the state’s average for local sales taxes.

The absence of an entire quotation ought to be a sign to the kids out there that a straw man is in the works. Why not just tell us what the law says in its own words–like snot-nosed internet critics do for you? Here’s an example:

>B) indicates the seller is taking unfair advantage unusual market conditions (whether real or perceived) or the circumstances of an emergency to increase prices unreasonably.

That seems far less unreasonable than the selective quotes. He doesn’t even link to the text of the bill. If he had, he could make a stronger case for his position. But having distorted the purpose and content of the bill, Will now grasps even further: but the government gouges too! Jeez. That’s not even close. If you don’t know what “gouges” means, look it up in the dictionary.

Op-Eds and other opinions, Weak Analogy

Another response

5 Comments

Sunday’s Outlook section in the Washington Post featured an essay entitlted, “What We Got Right in Iraq,” by L.Paul “Gerry” Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (May 2003-June 2004). What I found striking about this piece was the immediate reach for the Nazi analogy. In the second paragraph of a long essay, Bremer writes:

>Like most Americans, I am disappointed by the difficulties the nation has encountered after our quick 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein. But the U.S.-led coalition was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny. Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler’s, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich’s security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country’s equivalent organizations to give it any chance at a brighter future.

Laus Deo that I’m not the only one to have noticed the silly desperation of the Nazi analogy. In today’s Post, Nir Rosen, fellow at the New America Foundation writes:

>Bremer claims that Hussein “modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler’s” and compares the Baath Party to the Nazi Party. Set aside the desperation of the debater who reaches immediately for the Nazi analogy and remember that there is no mention of such “modeling” in any of the copious literature about Iraq. This ludicrous Nazi analogy permeates the entire article; it also permeated the proconsul’s time in Baghdad, when Bremer imagined himself de-Nazifying postwar Germany, saving the Jews (the Shiites) from the Nazis (those evil Sunnis).

>This thoughtless comparison is one of the main reasons why he performed so horribly in Iraq. (Remember, most Baath Party members were Shiites; so in Bremer’s analogy, I suppose most of the Iraqi “Nazis” would be “Jews.”)

He’s right about both the silly comparison (Hussein admired Stalin more) and the fact that it’s the logical trope of the entire piece (if not whole belief systems of some who think about Iraq). Saddam wasn’t Hitler, no matter how evil he was. Whatever their many faults, one has to be thankful that the Post op-ed page editors published a rebuttal.

George Will, Good Arguments, Sebastian Mallaby

At long last, a response

4 Comments

Not often does one see columnists argue openly with each other–especially columnists of the same newspaper. The best they can usually muster is the straw man “some say . . “. That’s why it’s refreshing to read the following from Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post:

>Some say the bank isn’t worth rescuing. My colleague George F. Will asserts that 90 percent of the bank’s loans go to 27 middle-income countries that can get all the development finance they need from private capital markets. But this statistic leaves out the bank’s soft-loan and grant-making arm, which serves countries with gross domestic products of less than $965 per capita. Counting that, just under half of the bank’s money went to poor countries in 2006. The middle-income countries that received the rest of the cash include such places as China and Brazil, which are home to millions of poor people.

>The bank’s critics ought to understand that while capital markets are marvelous things, they can’t be expected to do everything. Private investors won’t provide loans in the midst of a crisis, as the World Bank did during the East Asian meltdown a decade ago. Private investors tend not to finance global public goods — projects that are important for the world but not a priority for any one country. The world needs to curb carbon emissions, for example, but an individual country won’t capture all the benefits of a clean coal plant, since these benefits are shared globally. Because of this “externality” problem, there is a role for the World Bank in subsidizing anti-carbon policies.

We were struck by that same op-ed (for a different reason). Notice two things. Mallaby names his opponent specifically and he provides a link to the original argument (rather than a partial contextless quotation (so often the hoist by your own petard strategy employed by Will) or an unfriendly synopsis). If you have a question about Mallaby’s fairness (which you might) he tells you where to look. It’s almost as if Mallaby were some kind of media critic blogger. Now one can hardly expect the op-ed page to turn into the debate page. But a little awareness of each other seems to be a step in the direction of actual intellectual engagement.

George Will, Straw Man

A la mode

7 Comments

One fun and snobby way of undermining the sincerity, originality, and appropriateness of someone else’s moral claim is to call it “fashionable.” Perhaps not surprisingly philosophers do this to each other all of the time. “Oh that’s really hot right now” is another way of suggesting that someone is a follower rather than an original thinker.

With that broad theme in mind, let’s turn to today’s lesson from George Will. The World Bank scandal–in which Paul Wolfowitz, patient listener and student of foreign languages used his leadership role to score a lucrative job for his girlfriend–teaches us not about the incompetence, arrogance and corruption of its president, but it informs us about the decades long retreat from “statism” and of the absurdities of fettering capitalism. In the course of making this argument (which someone else can bother with), Will points to the superficiality of the World Bank’s causes:

>Much of what recipient countries save by receiving the bank’s subsidized loans they pay in the costs of ” technical assistance,” the euphemism for being required to adopt the social agendas of the rich nations’ governments that fund the bank. Those agendas focus on intrusive government actions on behalf of fashionable causes — the empowerment of women, labor, environmentalism, indigenous peoples, etc.

Take that girls, workers and environment. When will misogyny, slavery, pollution, and imperialism come back in style? Those were the days.