Tyler Cowen was asked this question.
My answer is based on my classification system for op-eds and political blgs.
1. A piece that speaks to people on the same side as the author and tries to close their minds.
2. A piece that speaks to people on the same side and tries to open their minds.
3. A piece that speaks to people on the other side and tries to open their minds.
I try to read 2 and 3 and to avoid 1. But there is so much 1 being written that even though I try my best to avoid it, I still probably read more of it than anything else.
There is much more pseudo-3 than actual 3. That is, the “advice” to the other side is to admit that you are stupid and evil. It might look like 3 but it is really 1.
The book by Kim Holmes that I have been reading has a bit of 2 and 3. I think it would have been better if he had focused more consciously and consistently on those aspects of his message.
I think that 30 years ago there was much less 1 and more 2 and 3. Back then, people on the left seemed to me to have open minds.
I think that Holmes would blame the influence of post-modern philosophy, which denies that issues can be dealt with through reason.
I blame Paul Krugman.
It seems almost impossible to even talk to the other side now, if they let you speak.
Funny, I consider myself to be liberal and feel the same way about most of the right being closed minded and not letting people speak.
Here is at least one person on the left trying to listen. I come here and read this blog, and other conservative writers, regularly, specifically to open my mind.
With all due respect, Arnold, you sometimes write in 1 mode, particularly on issues on which libertarians and free-market types agree with the Left (and disagree with conservatives).
Examples?
Anything Arnold writes on immigration.
Yeah, I though so. Basically all he has said of late is that he wished the election wad about our actual problems and hadn’t devolved into a freak show. What I also keep trying to ex plain to you guys is that the wall was just one of Trump’s outlandish goofs. For some reason people take him at his word on that one. Now, he could pursue it just to signal even more crazy should the need arise but I will consider odds.
Using the term “freak show” to describe advocacy for limiting immigration in the interest of the majority of the country’s citizens is a good example of Mode 1 discourse, which Arnold claims to disdain. If Arnold has ever displayed “charitableness” toward anyone favoring restricting immigration, no matter how realistic or serious, I don’t recall it.
This has nothing to do with Trump, who obviously is not serious about any issue, including immigration. Lumping all immigration restrictionists together with Trump is yet another example of Mode 1 discourse.
This is another good example of YOUR problem. I obviously referred to Trump as the freak show and specifically explained how (I believe) he DOES NOT really care about immigration in the same way he does not care about all the other stupid comments he makes.
I’m not sure what you think my “problem” is. If I misunderstood your comment, sorry, but you have a rather cryptic way of expressing yourself. The fact remains that I do not recall Arnold ever writing respectfully about those who want to limit immigration or who believe that immigration significantly contributes to the country’s problems.
When Trump said he would make Mexico pay for the wall, we knew he was just screwing around and not serious. That means he is not taking immigration issues seriously. That is way worse FOR YOU than not believing it is the big problem and saying so. And I,still don’t remember Arnold ever trying to close reader’s minds. He never helps try to shut down you one-note ponies here for example.
The converse is that one definitely tries to read 2’s addressed to people who think like you do. Understanding complex and casually dense human reality can only be accomplished by accumulating a patchwork of exceptions to general, unavoidably oversimplified rules, models, principles, or ideologies. It’s like learning all the irregularities to a language’s grammar and spelling. You can’t really derive them from axioms in any logical manner, there is no substitute for memorizing and internalizing the whole long lost, and you can’t really be fluent without being able to grasp and deploy them with a low error rate.
In that spirit, I would like to see someone write the following from a libertarian perspective.
What the statists, progressives, social / traditionalist / religious conservatives, and reactionaries ‘get right’ that most libertarians ‘get wrong’.
Excellent question Handle. Allow me if you would to take a stab at it.
For me the most interesting “paradox” for Libertarians to solve might be the case of a polity like Singapore.
Held by many to be a sort of free-market paradise. It’s in truth probably far better thought of as a Socialist system.But it seems to me that contra much libertarian theory it seems it is possible to top-down, centrally plan, in a paternalistic way, many aspects of an economy – especially healthcare, pensions, and in particular housing, in such a way that they are not only economically efficient but also achieve some of the aims of fairness and justice. A synthesis of Left and Right? Maybe. Perhaps it doesn’t scale, or transfer overseas, or maybe it’s unique historically and culturally. Fair enough – I certainly don’t think their systems are perfect to be clear. And of course it’s famously illiberal in many respects (although most countries are to be honest). – perhaps the paradox is that in order to achieve fairness/justice/efficiency,etc, you have to have a kind of autocracy.
Anyway, my point was that I wonder if, for Libertarians, Singapore is the bullet that needs to be bitten, i.e. free markets/small govt. won’t do it – you’re gonna need autocracy.
Also related – does the success of the NFL show that again it’s possible to do very socialist arrangements within an otherwise open-market system. You know, salary caps, the draft, collective bargaining, etc, etc. (BTW I’m a Brit so I’m no expert.) The thinking seems to be that we know we want a level playing field otherwise the game loses it’s appeal. Does this translate to Welfare, min. wage, etc. Not sure it does – but perhaps it shows that it’s possible to have some Welfare, healthcare, etc without totally killing enterprise.
The biggest mistake that I think many Libertarians make however is their sort of Universal faith that entrepreneurs, business owners are bound by reputational factors and such to maintain ethics and think long term, etc. My experience in the private sector over the last 30 years or so suggests that this is probably quite mistaken. Many businesses are much more short-term oriented, and what we can get away with , than many Libertarians realise I think.Yes, the market does provide discipline, and in the end the good guys usually win, but many business owners are happy to make a quick buck and get out.
I’m going to pull a Krugman. The only thing we are wrong about is in not realizing how right were were.
Libertarians tend to over-estimate market sophistication. Markets can be under-evolved or over-captured making them not produce ideal or desired results. But this doesn’t necessarily the other sides right about solutions (and proposed market designs) while they may have a point in their criticisms. In Arnold’s words, markets fail, use more markets.
I read for a good sentence, which often gets me into trouble. There is a good sentence on every page of H. L. Mencken’s writing, and in the London _Economist_.
Niall Ferguson said that war increases both the supply of news and the demand for it. Thus, op ed columns often improve during conflicts (and writers get more annoyed, which sometimes improves their craft).
A similar phenomenon can be found in the _Economist_ obituaries at the last page. Sometimes you can tell that the obituarist was saving up his/her spleen, waiting for the subject to die (and the strict libel laws of the UK to lose traction).
So, often I am idly reading for the epicurean pleasure of the words and clauses tingling in my brain. This means that I often read materials that are dumb, mean-spirited, unfair, misinformed, or partisan and closed-minded.
After a while the benefit can fade. So, reading the nth or n + 100th blog post or page for a writer, I might ask–can I already predict what this person is going to say? At that point it’s time to stop. Fred Reed is this way. Once in a while I still learn something. Often he just repeats himself and I’ve read it before. And he’s not deep–but not stupid. But at this point I can usually predict everything he says. But it was from him that I Iearned of General Smedley Butler’s aphorism “War is a racket.”
I have often learned things from reading Paul Krugman. His columns are often didactic. If I can already predict what he is going to say, that is not a good sign.
(I cannot read “greek letter economics,” so his scholarly work is beyond me).
I’m not afraid to read things that are politically incorrect or even vicious–often I feel like my brain has been expanded by reading them.
Perhaps conservatives tend to be more straitlaced and puritanical in their reading tastes–they probably are not fans of NPR’s _This American life_ radio show because it delights in weirdness and fringe people.
Liberals tend to be more sanctimonious. Educated friends have expressed surprise that I would read Clarence Thomas’s memoir, much less recommend it. He is a liberal bogey! A reviewer at the _Economist_ said it was worth reading, and it’s true. I’m not sure that his entire pose is authentic, but the story of moving in with his grandfather is worth reading.
Last night I was at Barnes and Noble and the latest Chomsky book was displayed by the door–I pointed it out to my friend. Why is there not a book by Robert Conquest displayed next to it? Riddle me that, riddler!
Things I value in a writer include
1. honesty
2. humility
3. diligence (often manifested by background knowledge, languages, grounding in a topic). Sometimes (not always) consistency of focus. Academics often have consistency of focus.
4. The desire to improve oneself, one’s craft, one’s knowledge and understanding.
5. Clarity of expression, clarity of exposition.
6. Openness to experience, to evidence, to the views of helpful critics.
7. Willingness to learn
8. Erudition
So, James La Fond (I found him at Isegoria) is a racist troglodyte pagan and sometimes mean. He may be a nihilist–he seems to manifest equal contempt for the predatory street thugs of Baltimore and for the Baltimore police force. Or perhaps he claims this to annoy the reader (or for street cred). Despite his quirks, you can learn a lot from reading him–things that are not usually stated in polite company (and that won’t make the news).
He writes about the social millieu that has destroyed parts of urban America. For some reason, you have to decode the newspaper to learn some of the things that he discusses frankly.
Because he is a martial artist, his ethos and personality is different from a scholar’s. Massad Ayoob mentioned this–martial artists sound like egomaniacs or weirdos. So you can’t expect him to sound like someone with a Ph.D. in sociology.
Also–I like to read anyone who manifests knowledge of “mundane specifics” as Thomas Sowell calls them.
Often I read Dr. Johnson style–never finishing a book. Often I start in the middle.
In Walter Laqueur’s book _A world of secrets_ (1986) he pointed out that reading the professional Sovietologists who had tenure at Ivy League universities would not taken you very far for decades at a time–you would have been better off reading partisan hacks with an axe to grind, direct experience, and a sensationalistic approach.
I enjoy reading Laqueur because he is measured and sober.
In some fields (perhaps history) people are admired for the ability to find appropriate sources and for good intuition. In economics, often it is framing questions and conjuring useful models. As my econometrics / statistics professor liked to say: “All models are wrong. Some models are useful.”
Lying is bad. Alas, as Schumpeter said, “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.” Thus we should keep in mind Solzhenitsyn’s maxim “Live not by lies.”
A lot of what is available for reading is palatable half-truths and obfuscation, and pretty lies. Wishful thinking. Hobby horses, as Walter Laqueur calls the syndrome. Much writing on the problem of terrorism is the parading of hobby-horses. It’s nice to recognize that when possible.
Martin Anderson’s book _Impostors in the Temple_ is still worth reading. I believe he says there are two types of intellectuals / thinkers–the academic type and the private sector type. They don’t have the same habits.
Good post, and I thank you for the pointer to Isegoria. Not quite my cup of tea, but in the midst of all this discussion of frozen mindsets, it seems worth acknowledging that individuals can choose to acknowledge/appreciate other vantages,
I think that 30 years ago there was much less 1 and more 2 and 3.
My guess is 30 years ago there was lot less media organizations as well. So a lot less was written so it was better quality, and open to a wider range of audiences. Today the internet, radio and cable news can survive with smaller audiences and target those audiences on opinion writing. Nobody listens to conservative talk radio to hear a reasonable discussion on Obama’s foreign policy, but they want to hear Obama is empowering radical Muslims to rise up.
Krugman is particularly terrible because he’s been around so long. As his parties views have “evolved” over the last two decades, and as the other side has occasionally taken up views his party used to hold, you find him writing convoluted op-eds about how his op-eds from say the 1990s didn’t really mean what he said.
I think what makes him so bad us that, in my estimation, he is willing to deceive his own readers, but critically he knows exactly when he is doing it, and he does it precisely to close their minds from other views, and not just conservative views. He wants to be the sole source. Imho.
Krugman is really a must read because of all those with KDS that read into him the opposite of their own position rather than what he writes. He is hated because he can’t be denied and always makes his case, not that one always agrees. He is also great for the diversity of data he can bring to bear on rather obscure subjects, the focus he can bear on hidden assumptions and magic asterisks, and his turn of a phrase.
He has a lot of people fooled.
Krugman is almost always correct and when not, incorrect in a conventional way.
Sanders has no chance, that is the reality. He may not be facing it due to positioning rather than avoidance, but he has no chance. Cato did exactly what he said, did you not know this? Call it retrospective marketing if you will, but that doesn’t change it. Motivations are interpretable and characterizations are subjective but he is right on the facts. Often the facts are only suggestive but his is valid interpretation of them and he offers more facts than most, and not the deception and dishonesty of his critics. Dispute his opinions and values if you wish, but there is no disputing his accuracy.
This is the second paragraph of what he wrote TODAY
”
shocked. It has been obvious for quite a while that Sanders — not just his supporters, not even just his surrogates, but the candidate himself — has a problem both in facing reality and in admitting mistakes.”
Lord, not you Jesus, what do you think of this?
A few posts back.
“I still sometimes run into people suggesting that Cato is a relatively honest if misguided operation, unlike the obvious hackery of Heritage. But it ain’t so, and never was.”
Shall I go on?
Haha!
“. On the other hand, I must apologize to Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman, who linked to this post on their blogs, for having led them to into this discussion”
What a total hack. He never fails to surprise me in being even worse than I thought he was.
He is just Godawful. Does anyone need it explained why he is just Godawful in JUST the first two examples that caught my eye from THIS week?
Krugman is not really the problem. His fans are the problem. It is demand side.
The best part is not that I found a 100% positive for hack in the first two items I looked at. The best part is that I knew I would.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5srPXtJV0V0&t=1m20s
What an utter hack. Lord, how can you not see this? I’d offer to continue trying to help, but it seems hopeless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZy2SZr5QA
We know Krugman isn’t being fooled by the Clinton supporters who are trying to whitewash over the fix by painting Sanders supporters as violent rather than understandably angry. Krugman is lying to you. Now that you know, it’s on you.
Importantly, I can do this with EVERY sentence Krugman writes with his blog persona.
I have actually wondered in the past if Krugman has some kind of psychological disorder. Others have suggested it is because his girlfriend writes a lot of these. Whatever it is, it’s bizarre how brazen he thinks he can be. But his fans let him get away with it.
In a way, he was Trump before Trump was Trump.
I try to take to heart what Proust wrote in _Swann’s Way”: “What I fault newspapers for is that day after day they draw our attention to insignificant things whereas only three or four times in our lives do we read a book in which there is something really essential. Since we tear the band off the newspaper so feverishly every morning, they ought to change things and put into the paper, oh, I don’t know, perhaps…Pascal’s Pensees! …and then, in a gilt-edged volume that we open only once in ten years…we would read that the Queen if Greece has gone to Cannes or that the Princesses de Leon has given a costume ball. This way the proper proportions would be established.”
I think there’s a hybrid of #1 and #3 that can actually be productive: responses. My favorite targets are guys like Thoma and Stiglitz who commit the Nirvana Fallacy so often it’s as if they’ve never read Demsetz.
Say what you will about past MSM milquetoast, but it did seek balance, context, judgment, and knowledge, and was more selective since so much less was published.
While one should maintain openmindedness towards truth, often this is just adopting a contrary position for a stand or proclaiming some false balance of equality, views on the shape of the earth differ. False openmindedness is as despicable as closedmindedness. Seeking truth requires eschewing falsity. What is true that you would prefer not? What is false that you would prefer to be true?
“While one should maintain openmindedness towards truth”
Are you quoting Paul Krugman? We know it isn’t Hillary.
Hillary is known more for openhandedness toward graft rather than openmindedness toward truth.
“Being pen-minded toward truth” struck me as funny.
As in, I’m over here firmly ensconced in falsehood, but if truth ever sidles up and makes me an offer, i’d be foolish not to at least hear it out.
It is funny particularly because that is exactly what Krugman actually does.
The American Left, especially transparent phonies like the Clintons and Krugman, would be a comedy goldmine, except that all the professional comedians and their employers are fellow travelers and therefore aren’t interested in seeing it.
Great Discussion Thread!
a few more ideas on the original question Arnold asked–hopefully this time better targeted toward columns (his question) rather than books.
1. I have a preference for reading columnists who also write books–so probably, I take them more seriously than newspaper columnists who are “columnists on deadline, full time journalists, that’s it.”
It’s almost like I don’t know how to evaluate a column in isolation.
The column therefore becomes some small corpus of the entire work or policy stance.
Historically, I think, many columnists who got a column for being readable, and probably for long years of service in journalism. Mike Royko might be an example of the latter. I can’t think of too many more offhand–is George Will that way?
2. I like to be able to sit down and read a whole bunch of columns at once. Charles Krauthammer’s book of reprinted essays demonstrates that reading him is not simply a waste of time. At the end of a few hours I’ve learned something. Same thing even for George Will. I have a book of his essays from the late 80s early 90s–some things are still of value. I need the cumulation. And something that I didn’t like when it came out might be of more use to me 5 or 10 years afterward.
I think what I’m trying to say is that the column is not the unit of analysis. The unit of analysis is the person–the author can be like a smart, knowledgable person who sometimes says stupid things and has a few weird pet theories–but is still worth reading.
Perhaps Krugman is this way? I heard Krugman speak some years ago and my impression is that he thinks the USA is going to go back to a “Gilded Age” era, in a bad way. The Federal Government can stop this (if kept in the correct, enlightened hands). If the Federal Government falls into the wrong hands, we will be (socially, distributionally) returned to a USA that looks like it did before World War One.
He might be right. He seems to have as a primary axiom the notion that transfer payments are the mark of a civilized society. The more transfer payments, the more civilization (I’m exaggerating, but not entirely).
3. Some people just write too much–not only do they repeat themselves, but they become hacks. How to define a hack–predictable in advance? E. J. Dionne (who I don’t pay much attention to) strikes me as more of a Democratic Party functionary than a thoughtful person with interesting ideas to share.
I think some of it is busyness–he’s too busy to think, so he just produces words. I already know what they will be. I came to that conclusion about 10 years ago. He’s witty, but I stopped reading him. Is he better? Worse? The same?
Victor Davis Hanson is getting this way. I learn about the Central Valley and how California has changed from reading him–and about the Ancient World. That’s why I read him. I already know he hates Obama. He doesn’t have to tell me once more.
The opposite of E. J. Dionne is someone like Robert Samuelson, who produces fewer columns. I once heard the humorist P.J. O’Rourke give a public talk, and O’Rourke said that most of the common sense understanding of the world he had developed came from reading Samuelson–Robert, not Paul.
4. Oddly, I have to read columns just to maintain any grounding in reality. I don’t think Upstate New York needs a higher minimum wage. I’m pretty sure there are people who are barely employable now, and they need a first job, any job, and they are just barely employable at the current wage rates. But people are committed to the notion that the minimum wage should be higher. I’m not convinced.
So many people tell me that raising the minimum wage is a good idea that I have to read archived columns by Walter Williams just to remind myself that it’s not a good idea. In the end its an empirical question. I don’t think the evidence supports raising it. New York State’s minimum wage is going up. It’s been decided.
5. A lot of what I read is the “literary essay on social topics.” Theodore Dalrymple and Ibn Warraq are both good. I learned of Ibn Warraq from one of his books, _Defending the west_. Only later did I find his columns at New English Review. For that sort of writing, the person needs to have a curious mind.
Dalrymple is not a genius, but perhaps wise. It is from him that I learned that Darwin maintained the practice of writing down every disagreeable fact–every fact he disliked or that tended to undermine his theories.
Joseph Epstein is perhaps that kind of figure. I think _The American Scholar_ was interesting and “zingy” while he was editing it.
6. Some people are wild eyed mystics and I read them anyway, despite the fact that they seem half crazed. Bruce Charlton is a good example. Some of his columns at Medical Hypotheses are still of value.
I take it for granted that Charlton’s writings will be a mix of theological speculations, mystical assertions, and useful ideas. He seems to have embraced Eysenck’s view of creativity. Perhaps Eysenck was right.
7. Some blogs are worth reading for the comments and what they add. The askblog is one of them. At the moment I like Rod Dreher’s blog–the comments are good. He has to work hard to moderate them and maintain quality. And he’s totally obsessed with the Transexual Revolution, which strikes me as a weird thing to be so fixated on. Time will tell.
8. Some people just love to annoy. Satoshi Kanazawa strikes me that way–Bruce Charlton, too, in his own way (thus Charlton is no longer with Medical Hypotheses). Kanazawa will argue something simple, offensive, and probably untenable, just to piss people off. But his essay “No, it ain’t gonna be like that” is worth reading anyway.
9. The columns are raw material–I don’t know what the appropriate unit of analysis is. The book? The scholarly career? The one aphorism that we will remember 50 years from now?
Some columns are fugitive, but get preserved. Offhand example: _Plunkitt of Tammany Hall_. William L. Riodon of the New York Evening Post was Plunkitt’s Boswell, as Arthur Mann points out. Otherwise the book would not exist, and it would not be assigned to political science undergraduates.
In the end, my approach is subjective and intuitive–I go back to a blog or writer because I found him/her interesting. I go back to Educational Realist for that reason. It’s why I come back here, too.
The newspaper created op ed columnist or political / opinion columnist. I don’t know what will happen as newspapers become less central to informed opinion. The good thing is that we have bloggers. The bad thing is that we have bloggers. And television, too!
I hear that there are some people who get all their news and information from Twitter. I would feel better about this if I thought they followed people they respect but disagree with.
BIAS IS NOT THE PROBLEM / (not a reason to stop reading)
Comments are still open on this thread, so I will say one more thing, largely to get in a citation (probably could find it from Google Books, anyway, if you were determined).
Laqueur, Walter. 1986?. _A world of secrets_.
section / chapter heading something like the following:
“Theories of Intelligence / The Causes of Failure.”
p. 277. “Bias.”
“The question of bias is fundamental to political understanding….”
p. 278. Edmund Burke sensed in 1790 that the French Revolution would take its terrible course of ferocity, despotism, terror, dictatorship, and the export of the model. Burke should get credit for superior insight very early on.
also p. 278.
“Freedom from bias was not a good guide to the understanding of Soviet politics under Stalin or of China’s development in the last years of Mao.”
He then provides a nice block quote from the historian Adam Ulam about American historians working during the Stalin era, trying to understand the Soviet Union.
To paraphrase,
Superior insight would not arise from reading “reputable, non-communist authors.”
instead, you needed to read “the writings of the avowed enemies of the regime” [many of them communists or ex-communists].
Koestler and Viktor Serge are mentioned
= – = – = – =
getting back to Arnold’s original point, the problem with Krugman is not that he is biased, but that he is some combination of
close minded
won’t listen
incorrect
impervious to falsifiying evidence