← Back to context

Comment by smikhanov

6 days ago

I can't for the life of me comprehend how PG manages to write in a style that sounds so lucid, so readable and compelling, and so authoritative, but on a substance that's so factually incorrect that it won't stand to any bit of critique.

Like the paragraph quoted above: it's just so blatantly obvious what's wrong with turns like "considered particularly enlightened", or "there are no underlying principles" that I find it hard to believe that the text as a whole sounds so friendly and convincing, unless you stop and think for a second.

I wish I could write like this about whatever mush is in my head.

10 comments

smikhanov

Reply
progbits  6 days ago

From a (potentially made up [1]) letter from Freud:

> So yesterday I gave my lecture. Despite a lack of preparation, I spoke quite well and without any hesitation, which I ascribe to the cocaine I had taken beforehand. I told about my discoveries in brain anatomy, all very difficult things that the audience certainly didn’t understand, but all that matters is that they get the impression that I understand it.

Maybe pg has the same strategy. Certainly reads that way.

[1] https://www.truthorfiction.com/sigmund-freud-i-ascribe-to-th...

spokaneplumb  6 days ago

I find it's super-easy to communicate this way if I pick a position I think is bad and dumb.

It frees me from giving a shit if I'm using e.g. rhetorical tricks in place of good-faith argument. Of course the argument's obviously bad, if you're any good at spotting bad arguments! So are all the others I've seen or heard supporting it. That's why I picked it—it's bad.

I can usually argue positions I disagree with far more persuasively and fluently than ones I agree with, because I'm not concerned with being correct or making it look bad to smart people, nor making myself look dumb for making a bad argument (the entire thing is an exercise in making bad arguments, there's no chance of a good one coming out). Might try that. It's kinda a fun, and/or horrifying, exercise. Drag out those slanted and context-free stats, those you-know-to-be-disproven-or-commonly-misrepesented anecdotes and studies, (mis-)define terms as something obviously bad and proceed to tear them apart in a "surely we can all agree..." way (ahem), overgeneralize the results of that already-shaky maneuver (ahem), misrepresent history in silly ways (ahem), and so on. Just cut loose. No worries about looking foolish because you already think the position's foolish.

actuallyalys  5 days ago

Someone could say something similar about the large number of people who apparently reviewed this essay, who were supposed to critique it in order for him to make it stronger. It's possible he just ignored their criticism, but it's also possible they already agree with Graham and didn't think about the flawed premises, so their feedback didn't address what might be "blatantly obvious" to you or I.

Similarly, Graham almost certainly already has strong opinions on the basic premises of this essay. Thus, the process of revising and polishing his essay to make it readable and compelling doesn't help him spot any of these obvious critiques. As you quoted, he believes the people advocating "people of color" over other terms have no principles. Thus he can't apply their principles to his own essay and anticipate their criticisms. Based on how he describes "wokeness," he seems to think are generally unprincipled.

Neither he nor his reviewers are equipped to analyze the substance, which is why it can be stylistically strong but substantially weak.

kubb  5 days ago

Turns out that technical education doesn’t equip you for dealing with every discipline of inquiry, especially not when it involves social phenomena.

Of course the humanities are all usurped by the woke elites and you should look only to PG and his friends for guidance.

snotrockets  6 days ago

I think it's called "from first principles", which is the laundered term for "disregarding context and previous work, because I don't feel other people's work is worth anything".

  • nomel  6 days ago

    These are my favorite to read since it contains a full, traceable, logical path to get to a conclusion. It's much easier to understand why they think something.

    On this flip side, my least favorite are when someone name drops thinkers as a way to reference an ideology. It's very hard to actually know if someone understands the ideas behind that name, so it's usually impossible to understand why they think something.

    And, the names they drop often were the types to present their thoughts as the first, rarely, if ever, dropping names themselves, which I always find an amusing "they were allowed be free thinkers, but you can't!"