Conflict vs. Mistake(slatestarcodex.com)
slatestarcodex.com
Conflict vs. Mistake
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/
41 comments
>I like this a lot. It may be what I needed to stop arguing with these people on the internet.
Why would it cause you to stop arguing with them? It enables you to argue with them more effectively, not opt out entirely.
Why would it cause you to stop arguing with them? It enables you to argue with them more effectively, not opt out entirely.
Do you live in Vancouver, perhaps? This is exactly what our housing debate is.
> "public choice theory is racist, and if you believe it you’re a white supremacist."
That's a really uncharitable reading of the Baffler piece which says that public choice theory has been used as an argument to cover policies that were racist in intent and effect.
The Baffler piece is long but this is probably the key para:
"Buchanan proposed that Virginia could finesse the question of full compliance with Brown and avoid leaving the impression that the state wished to revert to crude Jim Crow standards of race privilege. Buchanan’s innovative solution was the introduction of school vouchers, which would empower parents to send children to schools of their choice on the public dime, while also working to buttress the prerogatives of white and affluent populations in restricting broader cross-racial access to the public good of state-financed education. He contended that a voucher system was the best allocation of educational resources because it would compel schools to compete for students and resources, which would lead to educational improvement. On paper, at least, Buchanan was advocating a market-based, seemingly race-neutral policy solution. In effect, however, it allowed for the continued perpetuation of segregation. For example, Virginia’s Prince Edwards County shuttered its public schools in 1959 while doling out vouchers to students who attended private schools that only accepted white children. As a result, black children in Prince Edwards County went without formal education for more than five years."
That's a really uncharitable reading of the Baffler piece which says that public choice theory has been used as an argument to cover policies that were racist in intent and effect.
The Baffler piece is long but this is probably the key para:
"Buchanan proposed that Virginia could finesse the question of full compliance with Brown and avoid leaving the impression that the state wished to revert to crude Jim Crow standards of race privilege. Buchanan’s innovative solution was the introduction of school vouchers, which would empower parents to send children to schools of their choice on the public dime, while also working to buttress the prerogatives of white and affluent populations in restricting broader cross-racial access to the public good of state-financed education. He contended that a voucher system was the best allocation of educational resources because it would compel schools to compete for students and resources, which would lead to educational improvement. On paper, at least, Buchanan was advocating a market-based, seemingly race-neutral policy solution. In effect, however, it allowed for the continued perpetuation of segregation. For example, Virginia’s Prince Edwards County shuttered its public schools in 1959 while doling out vouchers to students who attended private schools that only accepted white children. As a result, black children in Prince Edwards County went without formal education for more than five years."
>In marking Calhoun’s political philosophy as the crucial antecedent of public choice theory, Tabarrok and Cowen unwittingly confirmed what critics have long maintained: libertarianism is a political philosophy shot through with white supremacy. Public choice theory, a technical language nominally about human behavior and incentives, helps ensure that blacks remain shackled.
This paragraph closes the first section of the article, and very clearly says "public choice theory pretends to be about facts about human behaviour, but really it's a racist tool of exploitation".
This paragraph closes the first section of the article, and very clearly says "public choice theory pretends to be about facts about human behaviour, but really it's a racist tool of exploitation".
I've been undergoing a similar transition in thought, likely triggered by the same events. I'm struggling to reconcile the competing lenses.
In our current political reality, anything that is not desirable to Republican elites will be argued against as if it were simply a technical "Mistake." No matter how many times they're out-argued, they continue arguing on a technical basis. "Tax cuts to the rich increase jobs and wealth for everyone" and "Climate change isn't being caused by human action" are probably the two most glaring examples of trash arguments that should sink under the weight of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but they may never go away. And it seems that more and more political arguments are increasingly in this camp, emboldened by the persistence of these incorrect assertions.
Politicians/elites are blatantly arguing in bad faith at least some of the time. They won't be convinced by any argument or evidence, no matter how damning. They are getting away with this because outside of hard science, nothing can be "proven" and they will surface any doubt in an argument and simply magnify it. At some level, it's a social hardship that owes to epistemology and the limits of our knowing.
Of course there are still difficult technical questions of governance as well. Policy making is not easy. But at this point, it's extremely difficult to distinguish between arguing against "mistakes" and arguing against something that is simply inconvenient to the arguer. On the surface they generally look the same - like a person in a suit making a technical argument. The trash arguments are poisoning the well, making it impossible to share a space for discussing the truly difficult questions with those who disagree.
We live in an era of noise, and we are in desperate need of better filters. How do we detect an argument made in bad faith? How do we respond once we know an argument can't be won? I don't think we have good answers to either question.
In our current political reality, anything that is not desirable to Republican elites will be argued against as if it were simply a technical "Mistake." No matter how many times they're out-argued, they continue arguing on a technical basis. "Tax cuts to the rich increase jobs and wealth for everyone" and "Climate change isn't being caused by human action" are probably the two most glaring examples of trash arguments that should sink under the weight of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but they may never go away. And it seems that more and more political arguments are increasingly in this camp, emboldened by the persistence of these incorrect assertions.
Politicians/elites are blatantly arguing in bad faith at least some of the time. They won't be convinced by any argument or evidence, no matter how damning. They are getting away with this because outside of hard science, nothing can be "proven" and they will surface any doubt in an argument and simply magnify it. At some level, it's a social hardship that owes to epistemology and the limits of our knowing.
Of course there are still difficult technical questions of governance as well. Policy making is not easy. But at this point, it's extremely difficult to distinguish between arguing against "mistakes" and arguing against something that is simply inconvenient to the arguer. On the surface they generally look the same - like a person in a suit making a technical argument. The trash arguments are poisoning the well, making it impossible to share a space for discussing the truly difficult questions with those who disagree.
We live in an era of noise, and we are in desperate need of better filters. How do we detect an argument made in bad faith? How do we respond once we know an argument can't be won? I don't think we have good answers to either question.
That's partly the point. Political positions that are wholly based on the conflict model can be reframed using the language of the mistake model to give them more credibility than they deserve. (Which in a reality-based world, would be exactly none.)
The noise isn't surprising. Certain industries are notorious for producing pollution. Mental pollution produced by bad-faith "debate" is just another instance of a general pattern.
A cure? Cui bono is a reasonable first test for bad faith. It's not infallible and can lead to paranoia, but it's better than nothing.
But I think the pattern is even more general, and transcends political positions.
Some people are inherently entitled, narcissistic, and exploitative, and they will always try to gravitate to positions of power unless there's an explicit mechanism that stops them.
A minority of these individuals are unusually inventive and productive, but most are simply resource parasites. Once in power they do incredible damage.
And they are very adaptive. They will operate successfully in every traditional political system you can imagine. And they will use conflict and mistake rhetoric, as suits their needs.
The noise isn't surprising. Certain industries are notorious for producing pollution. Mental pollution produced by bad-faith "debate" is just another instance of a general pattern.
A cure? Cui bono is a reasonable first test for bad faith. It's not infallible and can lead to paranoia, but it's better than nothing.
But I think the pattern is even more general, and transcends political positions.
Some people are inherently entitled, narcissistic, and exploitative, and they will always try to gravitate to positions of power unless there's an explicit mechanism that stops them.
A minority of these individuals are unusually inventive and productive, but most are simply resource parasites. Once in power they do incredible damage.
And they are very adaptive. They will operate successfully in every traditional political system you can imagine. And they will use conflict and mistake rhetoric, as suits their needs.
> That's partly the point. Political positions that are wholly based on the conflict model can be reframed using the language of the mistake model to give them more credibility than they deserve.
Are you saying this is another way in which the Elites stays in control ? Good way to 'increase passion' :)
Are you saying this is another way in which the Elites stays in control ? Good way to 'increase passion' :)
On the most pressing questions, “whose interests does this have in mind?” and “how do fortunes change in a real implementation?” have different answers.
"Tax cuts to the rich increase jobs and wealth for everyone" ...are probably the two most glaring examples of trash arguments that should sink under the weight of overwhelming evidence to the contrary
Supply side effects are real. Certainly it's reasonable to say that their impact has been drastically overstated in the political arena, but dismissing the entire concept as a trash argument misrepresents reality.
Supply side effects are real. Certainly it's reasonable to say that their impact has been drastically overstated in the political arena, but dismissing the entire concept as a trash argument misrepresents reality.
>We live in an era of noise, and we are in desperate need of better filters. How do we detect an argument made in bad faith? How do we respond once we know an argument can't be won? I don't think we have good answers to either question.
We place faith in effective political and social institutions and aggressively defend them from those that attack them or bypass them.
We place faith in effective political and social institutions and aggressively defend them from those that attack them or bypass them.
This is a beautiful comment, thank you.
This discussion of conflict theorists vs mistake theorists reminds me of conspiracy theorists: by this I specifically mean those who go out of their way to look for a conspiracy where the evidence is rather thin. But there appears to be less criticism of the opposite of this, those coincidence theorists who go out of their way to find a coincidence where the evidence of collusion is too great to ignore. I suspect that nobody is wholly one or the other: one who believes in conspiracies between the US state and the wealthy to manufacture wars seems somewhat unlikely to believe in communists-in-every-level-of-government conspiracy theories.
Nobody could reasonably argue that the organisation of workers into unions involved no cooperation, yet we become labelled as conspiracy theorists, stereotyped and dismissed completely if we refuse to believe that events, which were incredibly convenient for the moneyed few, involved no cooperation in the face of evidence to the contrary.
The problem with past events is that they are always subject to some interpretation. There are events in distant history that are still a matter of contention and which scholars, with no political preference for a particular individual, can agree upon. With the deep politicisation of much of the international events of the last 100 years and the amount that remains to gain by exploiting them, it may well be that the dust never settles.
Nobody could reasonably argue that the organisation of workers into unions involved no cooperation, yet we become labelled as conspiracy theorists, stereotyped and dismissed completely if we refuse to believe that events, which were incredibly convenient for the moneyed few, involved no cooperation in the face of evidence to the contrary.
The problem with past events is that they are always subject to some interpretation. There are events in distant history that are still a matter of contention and which scholars, with no political preference for a particular individual, can agree upon. With the deep politicisation of much of the international events of the last 100 years and the amount that remains to gain by exploiting them, it may well be that the dust never settles.
You make a great point. If like to add that asserting that politicisation of the past muddying the waters for us now is certainly a Conflictian issue.
I am a big fan of SSC and usually agree with the articles, but found myself leaning towards the Mistakean position a bit less than half of the time. Hopefully this signals a new direction in understanding why society doesn't get on and if/how we can fix it.
Seems to me this distinction fits well with the good old Prisoners' Dilemma...
A mistake theorist is the kind of person who always cooperates (because it's best move for everybody!) and a conflict theorist is the kind of person who always defects (because you'll get ruthlessly exploited otherwise!)
A synthesis of the two views might be: "this entire setup is doomed to failure because it's vulnerable to exploitation. We need to change the rules of the game."
A mistake theorist is the kind of person who always cooperates (because it's best move for everybody!) and a conflict theorist is the kind of person who always defects (because you'll get ruthlessly exploited otherwise!)
A synthesis of the two views might be: "this entire setup is doomed to failure because it's vulnerable to exploitation. We need to change the rules of the game."
That seems to be more the mistake theory again; the conflict theorist would say the powerful would turn any rule change to their advantage.
They would try to, the trick would be to figure out the right rules! And to be powerful enough to establish them, and vigilant enough to maintain them.
I think we're going in a circle here because of a Russell-type problem. If you want to change the meta-rules to prevent the powerful using conflict to benefit themselves then great. The problem is that the rules are set within the system itself, therefore by the same elites. The conflict position works precisely because of this. You might even say this was anticipated by Plato's two-tier system of government.
The corollary to the conflict view that no one likes to see is that conflict is never resolved. Minor conflicts might be, but you can always shift the goal posts and find a new conflict -
and there always has to be a new one to maintain a worldview based on power.
Conflict theory is for people who like to fight. People who like to fight will always find a fight.
Conflict theory is for people who like to fight. People who like to fight will always find a fight.
This reminds me of a family guy episode, where Brian, who is normally liberal, finds that all the pieces of power in the government are now democrat. So he switches sides and becomes a republican.
While the above example is made up, and satire. There definitely is a portion of people that love to fight the powers that be. In the US you can see these people in both parties.
While the above example is made up, and satire. There definitely is a portion of people that love to fight the powers that be. In the US you can see these people in both parties.
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It's like "The Dogs of War" who need permanent war, some kind of chaos to create possibilities for people like them.
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What do you do if you hold (largely) to Mistake theory, but it becomes clear that many people in politics seem to be "my team or yours" Conflict theorists?
Glad to see a kindred soul. I'm a mistake theorist through and through, but it seems like most people I meet online will lump me in with their enemy as soon as I display any curiosity at all. And that might even be rational on their part, given that they do have enemies whose words pattern-match to mine. And making my words pattern-match to no political position is a ton of effort, and makes them see me as an infiltrator which is worse.
Depends whether you ascribe their positions as mistakes, or as a form of conflict.
Not really. A mistake theorist is obviously going to attribute it to a mistake. But the end result is the same: the other guy is going to treat you as an enemy, work against you, and generally defect against you in prisoner dilemmas.
From a conflict theorist's point of view, this is similar to the issue of People who vote "against their own interests" because they were brainwashed by the Elite. The perception and framing of it is different, but the issue is the same.
From a conflict theorist's point of view, this is similar to the issue of People who vote "against their own interests" because they were brainwashed by the Elite. The perception and framing of it is different, but the issue is the same.
I view their decision to focus on conflict as a mistake. But counteracting that might require conflict.
When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
What this guy's analysis fails to account for is that power matters, smart people coming up with solutions for "mistakes" (whether "hard" or "easy") is necessary, but not sufficient. The question is, and has only ever been, which is to be master -- who has the power?
What this guy's analysis fails to account for is that power matters, smart people coming up with solutions for "mistakes" (whether "hard" or "easy") is necessary, but not sufficient. The question is, and has only ever been, which is to be master -- who has the power?
I think the point of this entire post is him admitting the exact failing you're attributing to him in your comment?
It's possible -- I'm not a regular reader of his blog, and thus might be missing stylistic cues, or other occluded methods of admitting a failing. The only thing I read him admit to is that he's less sure of himself than before. Likewise, "Right now I think conflict theory is probably a less helpful way of viewing the world in general than mistake theory" doesn't quite express the idea that "these two theories actually address vastly differing questions that I and the rest of 'respectable' society have been conditioned to conflate". (edit) To clarify: how to obtain power (conflict theory) vs how to effectively wield power (mistake theory)
Yeah, that's a reasonable criticism. I read your first comment as suggesting he didn't recognise conflict theory as existing.
My instinct is also to characterise the theories in a similar way. I'd describe it as how things ought to be (mistake theory) vs how to achieve that (conflict theory), but I guess that's kind of the same thing you're saying.
However, I'm not sure you can entirely separate these theories though. A mistake can be creating a society which encourages power imbalances, and a consequence of power imbalances can be societies that are less able to notice certain mistakes.
My instinct is also to characterise the theories in a similar way. I'd describe it as how things ought to be (mistake theory) vs how to achieve that (conflict theory), but I guess that's kind of the same thing you're saying.
However, I'm not sure you can entirely separate these theories though. A mistake can be creating a society which encourages power imbalances, and a consequence of power imbalances can be societies that are less able to notice certain mistakes.
Re: your last paragraph, it seems to me that the question of "who wields power" will always have material priority -- one of the benefits of power is deciding what is and isn't a "mistake". Look at climate change -- no amount of scientific consensus or popular belief-that-it-is-a-mistake has succeeded in constraining those people whose activities are driving it (I'm speaking not just of DJT's recent escapades in pulling the US from the Paris deal, but the insufficiency of Paris itself). This is power. No amount of problem-identifying/solving has (or will) convince the captains of industry that maintaining their current economic growth targets is less preferable than making vast swaths of the earth less hospitable to life.
Eric Hoffer's book 'The True Believer' is a good explanation of the dynamics of movements based on Conflict Theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer
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The author incorrectly speculates that the title of the magazine -- Jacobite -- is a play on Jacobin:
Jacobite – which is apparently still a real magazine and not a one-off gag making fun of Jacobin – summarizes their article Under-Theorizing Government as “You’ll never hear the terms ‘principal-agent problem,’ ‘rent-seeking,’ or ‘aligning incentives’ from socialists. That’s because they expect ideology to solve all practical considerations of governance.”
Jacobite has nothing to do with Jacobin. Jacobitism (/ˈdʒækəbaɪˌtɪzm/ JAK-ə-by-tiz-əm;[1][2] Scottish Gaelic: Seumasachas [ˈʃeːməs̪əxəs̪], Irish: Seacaibíteachas, Séamusachas) was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England and Ireland (as James VII in Scotland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, which in turn comes from the original Latin form of James, "Iacobus." Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism
The Jacobins on the other hand were a French political movement/party:
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (French: Société des amis de la Constitution), after 1792 renamed Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality (Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité), commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins (English: /ˈdʒæ.kə.bɪnz/; French: [ʒa.kɔ.bɛ̃]), was the most influential political club during the French Revolution. Initially founded in 1789 by anti-Royalist deputies from Brittany, the Club grew into a nationwide republican movement, with a membership estimated at a half million or more.[1] The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s, the Mountain and the Girondins.
In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France, the period when war was declared on Austria and Prussia, the monarchy was overthrown and the Republic created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin
Jacobite – which is apparently still a real magazine and not a one-off gag making fun of Jacobin – summarizes their article Under-Theorizing Government as “You’ll never hear the terms ‘principal-agent problem,’ ‘rent-seeking,’ or ‘aligning incentives’ from socialists. That’s because they expect ideology to solve all practical considerations of governance.”
Jacobite has nothing to do with Jacobin. Jacobitism (/ˈdʒækəbaɪˌtɪzm/ JAK-ə-by-tiz-əm;[1][2] Scottish Gaelic: Seumasachas [ˈʃeːməs̪əxəs̪], Irish: Seacaibíteachas, Séamusachas) was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England and Ireland (as James VII in Scotland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, which in turn comes from the original Latin form of James, "Iacobus." Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism
The Jacobins on the other hand were a French political movement/party:
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (French: Société des amis de la Constitution), after 1792 renamed Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality (Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité), commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins (English: /ˈdʒæ.kə.bɪnz/; French: [ʒa.kɔ.bɛ̃]), was the most influential political club during the French Revolution. Initially founded in 1789 by anti-Royalist deputies from Brittany, the Club grew into a nationwide republican movement, with a membership estimated at a half million or more.[1] The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s, the Mountain and the Girondins.
In 1792–93, the Girondins were more prominent in leading France, the period when war was declared on Austria and Prussia, the monarchy was overthrown and the Republic created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin
I can almost guarantee you that Scott Alexander is aware of who the Jacobites and the Jacobins were and what the difference is. The blog is constantly bringing up all manner of historical and political esoterica. He's making a joke based on the name resemblance.
It doesn't read like a joke. It reads like a mistake or perhaps he is assuming his audience won't be aware of who the Jacobites were and will find it funny.
I've read this blog for years. This is exactly the kind of joke he makes all the time; in describing or referring to something, he folds in a fact which, while not literally true, is a funny way of imagining it to be, and which is expected to be obvious to the readership. It's kind of like the practice of Using Capital Letters to refer to a Self-Serious Idea of Something.
It's just the way he writes.
It's just the way he writes.
I have never read his blog. The fact that he is playing with language and in no way confused seems clear as day to me.
The author of the article, pseudonym Scott Alexander, lived in Ireland for some time while studying medicine. He's probably aware of the Jacobite rebellion and events like the Battle of the Boyne, merely via intellectual curiosity about the North while in Ireland.
- The effect of supply and demand on price (“trickle down economics”) is an oversimplification or outright fabrication pushed by real estate and tech interests to fool you. Those technocrats are funded by monied interests and can’t be trusted.
- We cannot depend on the market to provide something as important as housing; it must be a human right. Therefore block all market rate development. (With no follow-up policy prescription, or no concern for the feasibility, implementation details, or side effects of any housing-as-a-human-right policy prescriptions).
- We should continue to block development because YIMBYs and their backers are bad people and our class enemies who want luxury condos for themselves and don’t care about the poor.
- Even if some YIMBYs are well intentioned, it’s stupid that they want to debate supply and demand with affordable housing activists when they should be allying against their mutual enemy, rich suburban homeowners. This is most interesting because it’s a direct exhortation to abandon mistake theory and engage on conflict theory’s terms.
I like this a lot. It may be what I needed to stop arguing with these people on the internet.