Introduction
I thought I'd give a little update since the previous post on ideology. Since then I've made some progress in The Idea of Justice, by Amartya Sen. About half way through. I have no particular points to address, but it was definitely comforting to see the various approaches that Sen presents.
I've probably watched a few thousand videos on the web that involve some sort of argument when the respective parties seek to defend/attack a side. Presumably, when pundits are on the air arguing, let's say, about the issue of gun-control, they are not just debating for the sake of debating, they are trying to show the side that they think is 'correct'. Through all the arguing what does not come across is the chance that the particular person may actually be wrong. How can we all be so sure of ourselves?
Humility in Washington D.C.
For the republican/democratic issues in Congress, the respective sides do not just include those in Washington D.C. It includes academics who have spent their lives studying the issues, and arguably more importantly, millions of people across the country with a countless variety of experiences. I'm quite baffled at how a person can be so sure of his/herself in face of these numbers. Sure, that person equally has as much support behind him/her, but that in no way provides enough overwhelming support to ensure the "rightness" of any position.
We must have humility in the public political discourse.
The first step to achieving this humility is recognizing that there may not be a particular "right" course of action, but rather, the right action is the one that most affectively achieves the particular good. So it's whether a fiscally-conservative approach is the right choice over a more "Keynesian" approach, but which goods we seek to promote. As I wrote in that September senior year paper:
I came to the conclusion that the answer to whether Reaganomics is good or bad depends on what one sees as the goal of a country’s economic policy. Should a government’s goal be to enlarge the total wealth of its country, independent of whether or not the wealth is divided fairly (that would be Reaganomics – and what Adam Smith argues for, too); or should a government aim to split the wealth more evenly?
The debate still goes on, but it takes a different form. It's not "I'm right" and "you're wrong", but rather two different sides recognizing that each will achieve separate things, and the question should be which of those to strive for.
Even still, this first step is not enough. In arguing about the ends we seek to promote, we should understand that we are operating from a certain paradigm that might not be correct.
We're all familiar with paradigm shifts. For a moment let us think specifically in regards to science. What are the chances that in 'n' number of years we have a paradigm shift that changes the way we see the world? Personally, I would say the chances are pretty high. There are still many questions about the world and the fact that science still strives for answers is further support. Imagine a person who looked out at the stars two thousand years ago. What did he/she think? Probably not the same thing that we think.
A counterpoint to the question posed is that if we are to say "n" number of years there will be a shift, does that mean that we'll have a shift "n" years after that? (Namely, a shift at time 2n). And does that not further lead to another shift "n" years later (to 3n…and to an infinite amount of paradigm shift)?
I think intuitively, however, we seem to be zeroing in on the truth. Or, for those calculus fans out there - that we are converging, and not diverging.
It's all fine to say that we are converging on the true paradigm, but we haven't gotten there yet. (Again, if we have, the we'd have all the answers). There is a possibility, however, that humans cannot possibly have the mental capacity to comprehend it all. Regardless, the point is that in this year 2013, and probably for the foreseeable future, we should realize that the way we see the world is likely due for some sort of shift. A thousand years ago people thought the world was flat, we now know that is not the case. In the hypothetical case that civilization in around in a million years from now - can we say for certain that none of our paradigms will be overturned?
Despite this, I am not advocating that we treat reality like an illusion. You could rightly call me a loony if I started proposing that the laws of physics as we know it are actually manifestations of the will of the World Demon. We should rather assume the current position, but just hold it with some humility; we may not be 100% correct. It's the attitude in the approach that matters.
The Church should have been more humble; doing so would have perhaps reduced the harsh treatment Galileo and many other scientific heros received. But such wrongs committed are not limited to the past millennia. And they surely aren't limited to religious institutions or political pundits as I discussed earlier. I'm going to quote a big chunk from a news article about the Chemistry Noble Prize Winner, Dan Shechtman (link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/06/dan-shechtman-nobel-prize-chemistry-interview):
Understandably, for every Shechtman, there are hundreds others without noble prizes. Nonetheless, we should treat all of them with the respect a person deserves in understanding that we, too, may be wrong, we don't have a monopoly on truth.
Political pundits should recognize the fragility of our paradigms (or at least that they are likely not [yet] 100% perfect).
There is no question that we should still have debates and arguments. Debating is great and healthy! Argumentation and debate is a foundational element of American democracy. But debating really becomes useful when it comes with humility and respect. Only then can we properly advocate for what we deem to be the 'best' (not 100% correct) view. Additionally, the humble standpoint will allow for further self-introspection for us to re-evaluate our own positions and to rid that 'ego' that sometimes can get in the way.
So again, let us be humble. Do we really think that our 'square' ideological views of the world fit into this complicated world? Ideology allows us to simplify and we carefully use them - as a variety of particularized models driven from the bottom up -- as they can come in handy for certain purposes.
I'm a sucker for those popular behavioral economic type of books. They give me a fresh perspective, and overturn previous assumptions. But sometimes I feel they are a bit oversimplified. They often will cite study after study to support their position, but do so in the face of great complexity. I started a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by the Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman. He seems to be a very good dude, and he does make note that it's not like we have two distinct systems in the brain called "System 1" and "System 2". But still, to what extent could studies show that we think along certain lines? The answer may not be on a horizontal axis, nor likely on a vertical and horizontal plane, but perhaps along a third dimensional aspect. I'd still recommend the book (I admit: I put it down - though I intend to finish it - I had just a bit too much behavioral economic reading and needed a break. :-) ). The studies are very interesting and they shed much light onto how humans work, but I'd be surprised if the end result could be anything but rather complex. I could surely be wrong, and this is by no means in any way saying something negative about Kahenman.
Let me use an analogy to illustrate:
In life that there are marbles scattered in motion on a table. There are marbles of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. We all try to use a method to pick all them up. People first try taking a regular cup to encircle the marbles…but they miss a bunch of marbles. Others try engineering an advanced cup, but alas, some moving marbles are missed. Some people develop a complicated magnet that sucks up the marbles…but only the marbles with trace amounts of iron are collected. Another even more sophisticated magnet sucks up R,O,Y,G,B,V colors, but they miss the spectrum of colors in between (see my first post on categorical buckets - http://www.arelativereality.blogspot.com/2010/02/intro-to-politics.html)
Both systems of ideologies and categories are useful, but we should recognize that they are (likely) not perfect. The world is ever-changing. Old assumptions get uprooted and new one's take their place. Let us recognize this.
So yes, of course even for me, I cannot be sure that this approach is 100% correct. There is always a degree of doubt - even the very words that I write at this moment. (Let us not get into any self-referential loop...and for those who have read Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas will especially appreciate that sentence :-) )
A major reason why I am comfortable to write and propose these ideas - whether on this blog or my fitness blog is because I present it under the understanding that there will always be room for disagreement. The link of this blog "arelativereality.blogspot.com" is in recognition of this, as is the subtitle "Random thoughts by someone living in a relative reality". Further, the flavor of my writing is rather "dialectic" (in a Kierkegaardian sense) in that I often show what it's "not", rather than what it actually "is". And yea, I admit - that's a lot easier to do, too :)
Let us engage in respectful discourse. Let us argue for ideas that we hold to be 'best'. But let us do it with humility and due respect.
I came to the conclusion that the answer to whether Reaganomics is good or bad depends on what one sees as the goal of a country’s economic policy. Should a government’s goal be to enlarge the total wealth of its country, independent of whether or not the wealth is divided fairly (that would be Reaganomics – and what Adam Smith argues for, too); or should a government aim to split the wealth more evenly?
The debate still goes on, but it takes a different form. It's not "I'm right" and "you're wrong", but rather two different sides recognizing that each will achieve separate things, and the question should be which of those to strive for.
Even still, this first step is not enough. In arguing about the ends we seek to promote, we should understand that we are operating from a certain paradigm that might not be correct.
Paradigm Shifts and Science
We're all familiar with paradigm shifts. For a moment let us think specifically in regards to science. What are the chances that in 'n' number of years we have a paradigm shift that changes the way we see the world? Personally, I would say the chances are pretty high. There are still many questions about the world and the fact that science still strives for answers is further support. Imagine a person who looked out at the stars two thousand years ago. What did he/she think? Probably not the same thing that we think.
A counterpoint to the question posed is that if we are to say "n" number of years there will be a shift, does that mean that we'll have a shift "n" years after that? (Namely, a shift at time 2n). And does that not further lead to another shift "n" years later (to 3n…and to an infinite amount of paradigm shift)?
I think intuitively, however, we seem to be zeroing in on the truth. Or, for those calculus fans out there - that we are converging, and not diverging.
It's all fine to say that we are converging on the true paradigm, but we haven't gotten there yet. (Again, if we have, the we'd have all the answers). There is a possibility, however, that humans cannot possibly have the mental capacity to comprehend it all. Regardless, the point is that in this year 2013, and probably for the foreseeable future, we should realize that the way we see the world is likely due for some sort of shift. A thousand years ago people thought the world was flat, we now know that is not the case. In the hypothetical case that civilization in around in a million years from now - can we say for certain that none of our paradigms will be overturned?
Despite this, I am not advocating that we treat reality like an illusion. You could rightly call me a loony if I started proposing that the laws of physics as we know it are actually manifestations of the will of the World Demon. We should rather assume the current position, but just hold it with some humility; we may not be 100% correct. It's the attitude in the approach that matters.
The Church should have been more humble; doing so would have perhaps reduced the harsh treatment Galileo and many other scientific heros received. But such wrongs committed are not limited to the past millennia. And they surely aren't limited to religious institutions or political pundits as I discussed earlier. I'm going to quote a big chunk from a news article about the Chemistry Noble Prize Winner, Dan Shechtman (link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/06/dan-shechtman-nobel-prize-chemistry-interview):
Shechtman's results were so out of the ordinary that, even after he had checked his findings several times, it took two years for his work to get published in a peer-reviewed journal. Once it appeared, he says, "all hell broke loose".
Many scientists thought that Shechtman had not been careful enough in his experiments and that he had simply made a mistake. "The bad reaction was the head of my laboratory, who came to my office one day and, smiling sheepishly, put a book on x-ray diffraction on my desk and said, 'Danny, please read this book and you will understand that what you are saying cannot be.' And I told him, you know, I don't need to read this book, I teach at the Technion, and I know this book, and I'm telling you my material is not in the book.
"He came back a couple of days later and said to me, 'Danny, you are a disgrace to my group. I cannot be with you in the same group.' So I left the group and found another group that adopted a scientific orphan."
He says that the experience was not as traumatic as it sounded. Scientists around the world had quickly replicated Shechtman's discovery and, in 1992, the International Union of Crystallography accepted that quasi-periodic materials must exist and altered its definition of what a crystal is from "a substance in which the constituent atoms, molecules or ions are packed in a regularly ordered, repeating three-dimensional pattern" to the broader "any solid having an essentially discrete diffraction diagram".
That should have been the end of the story were it not for Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel laureate, once for chemistry and a second time for peace. Shechtman explains that at a science conference in front of an audience of hundreds Pauling claimed, "Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense, there are no quasi-crystals, just quasi-scientists."
Understandably, for every Shechtman, there are hundreds others without noble prizes. Nonetheless, we should treat all of them with the respect a person deserves in understanding that we, too, may be wrong, we don't have a monopoly on truth.
Political pundits should recognize the fragility of our paradigms (or at least that they are likely not [yet] 100% perfect).
There is no question that we should still have debates and arguments. Debating is great and healthy! Argumentation and debate is a foundational element of American democracy. But debating really becomes useful when it comes with humility and respect. Only then can we properly advocate for what we deem to be the 'best' (not 100% correct) view. Additionally, the humble standpoint will allow for further self-introspection for us to re-evaluate our own positions and to rid that 'ego' that sometimes can get in the way.
Bringing it Back to Ideology and Categories
So again, let us be humble. Do we really think that our 'square' ideological views of the world fit into this complicated world? Ideology allows us to simplify and we carefully use them - as a variety of particularized models driven from the bottom up -- as they can come in handy for certain purposes.
I'm a sucker for those popular behavioral economic type of books. They give me a fresh perspective, and overturn previous assumptions. But sometimes I feel they are a bit oversimplified. They often will cite study after study to support their position, but do so in the face of great complexity. I started a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by the Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman. He seems to be a very good dude, and he does make note that it's not like we have two distinct systems in the brain called "System 1" and "System 2". But still, to what extent could studies show that we think along certain lines? The answer may not be on a horizontal axis, nor likely on a vertical and horizontal plane, but perhaps along a third dimensional aspect. I'd still recommend the book (I admit: I put it down - though I intend to finish it - I had just a bit too much behavioral economic reading and needed a break. :-) ). The studies are very interesting and they shed much light onto how humans work, but I'd be surprised if the end result could be anything but rather complex. I could surely be wrong, and this is by no means in any way saying something negative about Kahenman.
Let me use an analogy to illustrate:
In life that there are marbles scattered in motion on a table. There are marbles of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. We all try to use a method to pick all them up. People first try taking a regular cup to encircle the marbles…but they miss a bunch of marbles. Others try engineering an advanced cup, but alas, some moving marbles are missed. Some people develop a complicated magnet that sucks up the marbles…but only the marbles with trace amounts of iron are collected. Another even more sophisticated magnet sucks up R,O,Y,G,B,V colors, but they miss the spectrum of colors in between (see my first post on categorical buckets - http://www.arelativereality.blogspot.com/2010/02/intro-to-politics.html)
Both systems of ideologies and categories are useful, but we should recognize that they are (likely) not perfect. The world is ever-changing. Old assumptions get uprooted and new one's take their place. Let us recognize this.
Yes, for me
So yes, of course even for me, I cannot be sure that this approach is 100% correct. There is always a degree of doubt - even the very words that I write at this moment. (Let us not get into any self-referential loop...and for those who have read Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas will especially appreciate that sentence :-) )
A major reason why I am comfortable to write and propose these ideas - whether on this blog or my fitness blog is because I present it under the understanding that there will always be room for disagreement. The link of this blog "arelativereality.blogspot.com" is in recognition of this, as is the subtitle "Random thoughts by someone living in a relative reality". Further, the flavor of my writing is rather "dialectic" (in a Kierkegaardian sense) in that I often show what it's "not", rather than what it actually "is". And yea, I admit - that's a lot easier to do, too :)
Let us engage in respectful discourse. Let us argue for ideas that we hold to be 'best'. But let us do it with humility and due respect.
