My first posts at Times and Seasons<\/a> were about epistemic humility, which is the awareness of the limits of knowledge. One of the common responses I got at the time was to ask how conviction was compatible with such an emphasis on uncertainty. The quote I led with (\u201cThe wise man doubts often, and changes his mind.\u201d) seemed like a perfect setup for the ominous lines from Yeats\u2019 The Second Coming<\/a>: \u201cThe best lack all conviction, while the worst \/ Are full of passionate intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n The answer is that even if one accepts the adage that \u201call models are wrong,\u201d one ought to go all in and accept the entire adage<\/a>: \u201cessentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful<\/em>\u201d [emphasis added]. Copernicus\u2019 model of the solar system was wrong because he believed the orbits are circular. They are not; they are elliptical. But he still got heliocentrism right, and later on Kepler[1]\u00a0added in the elliptical orbits. Newton\u2019s theory of gravity was wrong in many respects that were later corrected by Einstein\u2019s general relativity, but Newton\u2019s model was still a great improvement over Aristotle\u2019s.<\/p>\n These models are obviously more useful in a simplistic sense: if you want to get to the moon it helps to have an accurate representation of astronomy and physics. But there’s more to it than that: this sequence of imperfect and flawed models can point the direction towards still\u00a0greater truths. And so, rather than erode conviction generally, epistemic humility tends to shift conviction away from outcomes and towards processes. Conviction hasn’t disappeared. It has just found a new focus. Everything we believe is wrong, but the erroneous beliefs can be stepping stones leading to something greater. In that case, we can replace mistaken loyalty to individual and erroneous beliefs with dedication to the path of which these stepping stones are comprised.<\/p>\n It is no coincidence that the examples I chose involved multiple thinkers contributing to the same fundamental problems (Copernicus and Kepler, Newton and Einstein) across generations. The systematic biases of individual human beings (who all have their egos to protect and bread to win, which can warp intellectual clarity) mean that human knowledge expands best when it is undertaken as a communal endeavor.<\/p>\n Using scientific progress as an example again: Science is the sausage. A community of scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, politicians, administrative staff, publishers, and so forth is the factory that makes the sausage. Because monocultures are brittle and limited, the communal factory works best when it plays host to a wide diversity of opinions and perspectives and boisterous interactions among them. This diversity is what helps the community detect and eventually correct dead-end alleys (like phrenology<\/a>, aether<\/a>, or \u00e9lan vital<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n The process is decentralized because no one person can be aware of all the activity taking place across the entire community, let alone hope to command or even coordinate it. But\u2014when the community is healthy\u2014it is also organized and purposeful at a level above the individual participants. Out of the cooperation and conflict of many individuals, progress can be made.<\/p>\n This is the vision I have in mind when I write blog posts or articles to advance arguments that I believe in. The ultimate success or failure of theories I espouse isn\u2019t within my control. The best I can do is be diligent and careful, and I have a hope that in doing so I am acting out my role as one neuron alongside a billion others in a social brain in which we each have our role to play.<\/p>\n The much-observed partisan animus that runs through so much of today\u2019s discourse on controversial topics threatens the health of this system by creating insular sub-communities that each hold to their own dogmatic orthodoxies and do not interact productively with each other.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what I want to spend the rest of the post talking about. It\u2019s a strange post for Times and Seasons in that nothing will be essentially related to Mormonism, and I usually post that kind of thing to my Difficult Run<\/a> blog. But I want to put this one here because, sometimes wittingly and sometimes not, I\u2019ve trampled my way across fairly controversial ground on several Mormon topics. I\u2019ll continue to do that (here, at Expand<\/a>, and at Difficult Run<\/a>), and so I\u2019d like to share some thoughts on debating sensitive issues while trying to avoid the spirit of the devil<\/a>.<\/p>\n The left is increasingly obsessed with hypersensitivity in the discussion of serious issues. (Fear not, fair readers, I have sweeping generalization and harsh pronouncements for the right as well.) One clear example of how this works at a popular level is the propagation of pseudo-scientific \u201ctrigger warnings.\u201d The concept of a trigger warning is noble: it is a kind of disclaimer at the top of an article to warn people who may have an episode of PTSD (or anxiety, etc.) triggered by the content that they are about to read. Trigger warnings generally relate to depictions of sexual abuse and violence.<\/p>\n One problem with trigger warnings is that they are not based on any empirical evidence or on sound psychological theory<\/a>. This has not prevented them from proliferating in the blogosphere, where they have become conventional in certain communities. (Typical examples here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) Another problem is that there doesn\u2019t appear to be any limiting principle to what content should deserve a trigger warning. My favorite example of a non-satirical trigger warning was one for \u201ccolonialism.\u201d<\/p>\n The trigger warning trend may have crested already. After trigger warnings became a serious issue on college campuses this year, a series of criticisms were unleashed from sources like the LA Times<\/a>, Guardian<\/a>, New York Times<\/a>, and NPR<\/a>. In many circles, trigger warnings have become something of a joke.<\/p>\n I bring them up simply as an illustration of how good intentions can lead to insidious outcomes. If you write about a controversial topic (including, apparently,\u00a0anything having to do with colonialism) and you don\u2019t<\/em> use a trigger warning, then your argument can be dismissed without consideration by those who believe trigger warnings are essential. In practice, this has limited effect (because trigger warnings are not universally accepted), but it\u2019s typical of generic form of argument that looks something like this:<\/p>\n Obviously the left doesn\u2019t have a monopoly on outrage, but it is clearly the leader when it comes to using the indictment of offensive \/ harmful speech as a way to pre-emptively shut down debate, as the rise in university disinvitations of speakers<\/a> over the last decade illustrates. (These speakers are likely to be conservative rather than liberal by a ratio of nearly 3:1.) For more information on the trend, known as the New Intolerance, Mary Eberstadt\u2019s presentation at First Things<\/a> is great.<\/p>\n This trend isn\u2019t hard to explain from a pragmatic point of view. The deployment of hypersensitivity as an offensive rhetorical weapon is paradoxical (since it turns apparent victimhood into a trump card), but its effectiveness is obvious. Compared to righteous outrage other methods of disagreement\u2014reason, evidence, statistical analysis, pragmatism, etc.\u2014are obsolete. Outrage is the atomic weapon of intellectual dispute, and this makes its adoption hard to resist.<\/p>\n The right demonstrates a correspondingly paradoxical dysfunction of its own: bombastic and insulting rhetoric that appears strong but is vacuous and counter-productive. The response is understandable but childish: if a conservative is going to be labeled as a racist or a bigot as matter of routine, then why bother making an effort to speak clearly and carefully? It is far simpler to give up on communication across an ideological gulf and direct comments to one\u2019s own side. (This explains the rise of talk radio and the alternative media that dominates the right wing of American politics.)<\/p>\n This replaces discussion with something like performance art. It is common for commentators (professional and amateur) on the right to intentionally make points or phrase arguments in extreme and inflammatory ways that they know will provoke an outraged reaction from their opponents. Emotionally, the resulting outrage fuels a sense of in-group solidarity. For some on the right your conservative bona fides are directly proportional to the degree of public hatred that comes your way from the left. Logically, the resulting outrage vindicates the right\u2019s critique of the left as being hypersensitive and intolerant.<\/p>\nHypersensitivity<\/h1>\n
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Trolling and Codependence<\/h1>\n