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Re: [Pen-l] Krugman critiques Obama stimulus plan

On Jan 7, 2009, at 12:03 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
me:
I'm sure Michael Perelman will chime in here, but I want to reinforce
his point. This kind of sectarian response ("blah, blah") is
inappropriate to pen-l. If we want to have a serious discussion, we
need to criticize people's logic, consistency with perceived empirical
reality, and method (what considerations they leave out). Mere "yah
yah yah -- yer mother's mustache!" responses don't help at all.

ravi
I am not so sure... given that arguments are as much a matter of appeal to
various biases (perception, ideology), personality and stylistic elements
(and so on), as logic, empirical reality etc, a good (i.e., fair) set of
ground rules would impose different standards on feuding sides based on
which one of them enjoys the benefits of the above [LHS] factors. 

if arguments involve matters of appeal to preexisting biases and
style, then they really don't contribute much at all.


Well, I wrote that such appeals are as much a part of argument as logic or empirical validation are.

The stylistic issues (advantages) may be regrettable, but are quite certainly there, as Julio seems to hint at in his point about demographic differences. USers, for instance, are adept at much more sophisticated forms of "blah blah" type dismissal than us "third world"ers are... perhaps no better evidenced in that very definition ("third world") of us by the West.

As for pre-existing biases, on the one hand, it seems to me they are a necessary part of high-level analysis. We can scarce start from the basics (the self-evident) with each argument, but then we should not (at least by my book) assume that what we have derived thus far carry the same weight as those basics on which we agree (and which we believe to be guaranteed). On the other hand, the tolerance of such bias permits both a tolerance of less clearly established ideas as well as dismissal by group consensus.


The lefts that
are left in the US and are represented in pen-l are in big trouble and
deserve better. They deserve clear thinking.


I do agree that the lefts that are left are in big trouble, and in fact, I agree, for this very reason. That far from possessing the pre- requisites for "clear thinking" they often exhibit the same ideology driven certitude of the right (both the sophisticated and the religious right).

But I have a thought on clear thinking: the sort of empirically validated, logically derived theses that you recommend are, IMHO, not possible at the boundaries of knowledge (and the left to me is by definition always operating at these boundaries). There you find yourself flailing about, trying to sort through an inexplicable jumble of data (or lack of it), inadequacies of existing (dare I say) "paradigms". In such a situation, it is not the recommendation that we abandon use of logic or empirical verification, but that we consciously counter the inertia of existing ideology and rationales.

	--ravi

--
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