hopefully I will be able to respond to your post in more detail later, but for now I think I should mention that the “traditions” I thought you were “dismissive of” were things like Marxism, Freudianism, and Deconstructionism, not alternative medicine.
shlevy asked: Can you explain a bit more concretely what something being a "protected position" actually looks like? That is, if someone thinks X is wrong but X is protected in their social group, how is their behavior likely to differ relative to an X not protected in their social group?
Also, does the protectedness of a position manifest itself in the behavior of those who believe it, or only those who don’t but are in the social group that protects it?
It’s solely in the behavior of those who are in the social group but don’t believe it. The behaviors I’m thinking of, in such people, are
(1) the person does not lower their estimate of someone’s credibility, intelligence, reasonableness, etc. after learning that they believe X, even though they would do those things if they learned that someone believed Y, where Y is a non-protected position they disbelieve with the same amount of confidence they disbelieve X,
(1b) in fact, learning that someone believes X may improve their view of that person, insofar as it indicates that they are “one of my sort of people,” “thinking along the same lines I do,” “in the right general part of idea space,” etc.,
(2) although the person will not (necessarily) engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether X is true, they will engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether the behavior described in (1) is the right choice.
Again, I’m going to use the alternative medicine community as an example. What I’ve found is that there are a lot of people who don’t outright endorse the more dubious aspects of alternative medicine – stuff like homeopathy and anti-vax beliefs – but nonetheless treat these beliefs in ways (1) and (2).
If you mention a non-protected “crackpot” idea like, say, Immanuel Velikovsky’s theories, these people will not only admit that they don’t believe this idea, they’ll also treat it with the same casual dismissiveness that the average person shows toward all “crackpot” ideas. They will happily lower their opinions of people who espouse the idea, and will not show any particular interest in it beyond, if pressed, shrugging and admitting that, well, anything’s possible in principle. If you mention an idea like homeopathy, however, the person will insist on a nuanced distinction between “homeopathy is ineffective” (their opinion) and “those who believe homeopathy is effective are silly” (which they staunchly oppose). You will hear points about keeping an open mind, about how uncertain medical science is, about intriguing unexplained scientific results, about big pharma, etc. – you will hear these things even if they admit that they themselves don’t put any stock in homeopathy at all. In short, the person can tolerate disagreement with homeopathy, but not dismissal of it.
Another example is anti-GMO beliefs – my father does not actually seem to think GMOs are bad, but he is much more protective of the idea, in the way described above, than he is of the typical idea he just so happens not to believe in.
I should clarify that I don’t think this behavior is necessarily wrong, or that it lacks sensible motivations. In particular, if one sees someone making an egregious mistake that one made oneself in the past, that can be evidence that the person is an intellectual kindred spirit, rather than the opposite. (You can see this in some former libertarians, who view people who currently espouse libertarianism as “at least thinking along the right lines.”) I think the important thing is not to reject this behavior entirely (which may well be impossible), but to realize consciously that one is doing it, rather than acting like one treats all positions with equal charity when that is not the case.
Based on this description, I think religion qualifies as a protected class in almost all communities. Even people who don’t believe it and who don’t think there’s any merit to it will generally insist that it’s not okay to dismiss people because they’re religious and that being religious doesn’t make anyone less intelligent and that there’s a difference between ‘G-d doesn’t exist’ and ‘People who believe in G-d are silly’.
And, in fact, this seems totally justified, since lots of really intelligent people are religious and if you were to declare them all worthy of dismissal, you’d be shutting out lots of valuable contributions. It makes tons of sense to notice that there are really really smart religious people and decide this is a topic on which beliefs don’t predict much about someone’s credibility or reasonableness. Do you agree that religion qualifies as a protected class in the terms you’re describing one? If so, why on earth is this a bad thing?
“Some beliefs, though I think they’re wrong, I don’t think predict someone’s credibility or reasonableness otherwise; other wrong beliefs do predict someone’s credibility and reasonableness otherwise. Belief in [G-d/ libertarianism/Marxism/rationality/neoreaction] are wrong but don’t imply the holder is unusually likely to be wrong about anything else; belief in [creationism/homeopathy/9-11 conspiracy theories/The Red Pill] are both wrong and likely to predict that the person is not worth talking to” seems like a completely reasonable way to identify which of the people you disagree with you want to have around.
This all seems right to me. My broader point is that once one has accepted that one is doing this sort of thing (and should be doing it), “charity” and “academic freedom” stop working as justifications for placing any particular belief in the protected box rather than the unprotected box.
I’m not saying that there should be no protected positions, but that people should recognize they are making this choice. Something seems off to me when people talk about academic freedom but defend only a subset of positions on that basis; it seems like it should be all or nothing. If it’s not, then these decisions have to actually be made on a cost-benefit basis. An argument must be made as to why such-and-such should be protected, and it has to be more than some general exhortation towards open-mindedness.
(The alternative medicine people will make compelling overtures about open-mindedness when some alternative medicine idea is at issue – and nowhere else. It’s fine to protect some positions, but must we protect the same ones the alternative medicine people say to protect? Not until they tell us why, and do so using an argument better than just “be open-minded.”)
shlevy asked: Can you explain a bit more concretely what something being a "protected position" actually looks like? That is, if someone thinks X is wrong but X is protected in their social group, how is their behavior likely to differ relative to an X not protected in their social group?
Also, does the protectedness of a position manifest itself in the behavior of those who believe it, or only those who don’t but are in the social group that protects it?
It’s solely in the behavior of those who are in the social group but don’t believe it. The behaviors I’m thinking of, in such people, are
(1) the person does not lower their estimate of someone’s credibility, intelligence, reasonableness, etc. after learning that they believe X, even though they would do those things if they learned that someone believed Y, where Y is a non-protected position they disbelieve with the same amount of confidence they disbelieve X,
(1b) in fact, learning that someone believes X may improve their view of that person, insofar as it indicates that they are “one of my sort of people,” “thinking along the same lines I do,” “in the right general part of idea space,” etc.,
(2) although the person will not (necessarily) engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether X is true, they will engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether the behavior described in (1) is the right choice.
Again, I’m going to use the alternative medicine community as an example. What I’ve found is that there are a lot of people who don’t outright endorse the more dubious aspects of alternative medicine – stuff like homeopathy and anti-vax beliefs – but nonetheless treat these beliefs in ways (1) and (2).
If you mention a non-protected “crackpot” idea like, say, Immanuel Velikovsky’s theories, these people will not only admit that they don’t believe this idea, they’ll also treat it with the same casual dismissiveness that the average person shows toward all “crackpot” ideas. They will happily lower their opinions of people who espouse the idea, and will not show any particular interest in it beyond, if pressed, shrugging and admitting that, well, anything’s possible in principle. If you mention an idea like homeopathy, however, the person will insist on a nuanced distinction between “homeopathy is ineffective” (their opinion) and “those who believe homeopathy is effective are silly” (which they staunchly oppose). You will hear points about keeping an open mind, about how uncertain medical science is, about intriguing unexplained scientific results, about big pharma, etc. – you will hear these things even if they admit that they themselves don’t put any stock in homeopathy at all. In short, the person can tolerate disagreement with homeopathy, but not dismissal of it.
Another example is anti-GMO beliefs – my father does not actually seem to think GMOs are bad, but he is much more protective of the idea, in the way described above, than he is of the typical idea he just so happens not to believe in.
I should clarify that I don’t think this behavior is necessarily wrong, or that it lacks sensible motivations. In particular, if one sees someone making an egregious mistake that one made oneself in the past, that can be evidence that the person is an intellectual kindred spirit, rather than the opposite. (You can see this in some former libertarians, who view people who currently espouse libertarianism as “at least thinking along the right lines.”) I think the important thing is not to reject this behavior entirely (which may well be impossible), but to realize consciously that one is doing it, rather than acting like one treats all positions with equal charity when that is not the case.
Trying to rephrase this in LW language, would you agree with this description of the phenomenon?
“A group can be said to protect a position when those who don’t believe it nevertheless treat it as a reliable signal of in-group status, along with all the positive associations that entails. This is not inherently bad, but ought to be treated with the same caution other signalling games are, and in particular oughtn’t be confused with intellectual charity”
Sure. (This description isn’t quite the same – since it compresses into “all the positive associations that entails” some things I specifically described, as well as some things I didn’t – but it’s at worst a useful shorthand for, and at best an outright better idea than, what I said.)
xhxhxhx.tumblr.com →
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I think part of the issue here is the “crackpots work harder on their ideas that their critics think is warranted” problem. In a certain odd sense, the proponents of [insert dietary supplement for whose effectiveness there is no strong…
I should have been clearer, but: the point I’m making isn’t a straightforward critique of these traditions, it’s more meta than that. I’m saying, “why don’t these arguments that cause you to put credence in FAI also cause you to put credence in these other things?”
Part of the reason I brought up those particular cases was that I was talking to someone (Scott) who tends to be pretty dismissive towards the kind of traditions I’m describing. I’m trying to figure out how he manages to be internally consistent (if he does).
(via xhxhxhx)
shlevy asked: Can you explain a bit more concretely what something being a "protected position" actually looks like? That is, if someone thinks X is wrong but X is protected in their social group, how is their behavior likely to differ relative to an X not protected in their social group?
Also, does the protectedness of a position manifest itself in the behavior of those who believe it, or only those who don’t but are in the social group that protects it?
It’s solely in the behavior of those who are in the social group but don’t believe it. The behaviors I’m thinking of, in such people, are
(1) the person does not lower their estimate of someone’s credibility, intelligence, reasonableness, etc. after learning that they believe X, even though they would do those things if they learned that someone believed Y, where Y is a non-protected position they disbelieve with the same amount of confidence they disbelieve X,
(1b) in fact, learning that someone believes X may improve their view of that person, insofar as it indicates that they are “one of my sort of people,” “thinking along the same lines I do,” “in the right general part of idea space,” etc.,
(2) although the person will not (necessarily) engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether X is true, they will engage in motivated reasoning in deciding whether the behavior described in (1) is the right choice.
Again, I’m going to use the alternative medicine community as an example. What I’ve found is that there are a lot of people who don’t outright endorse the more dubious aspects of alternative medicine – stuff like homeopathy and anti-vax beliefs – but nonetheless treat these beliefs in ways (1) and (2).
If you mention a non-protected “crackpot” idea like, say, Immanuel Velikovsky’s theories, these people will not only admit that they don’t believe this idea, they’ll also treat it with the same casual dismissiveness that the average person shows toward all “crackpot” ideas. They will happily lower their opinions of people who espouse the idea, and will not show any particular interest in it beyond, if pressed, shrugging and admitting that, well, anything’s possible in principle. If you mention an idea like homeopathy, however, the person will insist on a nuanced distinction between “homeopathy is ineffective” (their opinion) and “those who believe homeopathy is effective are silly” (which they staunchly oppose). You will hear points about keeping an open mind, about how uncertain medical science is, about intriguing unexplained scientific results, about big pharma, etc. – you will hear these things even if they admit that they themselves don’t put any stock in homeopathy at all. In short, the person can tolerate disagreement with homeopathy, but not dismissal of it.
Another example is anti-GMO beliefs – my father does not actually seem to think GMOs are bad, but he is much more protective of the idea, in the way described above, than he is of the typical idea he just so happens not to believe in.
I should clarify that I don’t think this behavior is necessarily wrong, or that it lacks sensible motivations. In particular, if one sees someone making an egregious mistake that one made oneself in the past, that can be evidence that the person is an intellectual kindred spirit, rather than the opposite. (You can see this in some former libertarians, who view people who currently espouse libertarianism as “at least thinking along the right lines.”) I think the important thing is not to reject this behavior entirely (which may well be impossible), but to realize consciously that one is doing it, rather than acting like one treats all positions with equal charity when that is not the case.