I like the original version slightly more, mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer. I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm; “if it can be known” is bad, but it is because “can” is superfluous there rather than because of the passive voice.
I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer
It does say more. The content of the link is actually explained, clarifying things for people who don’t like to follow links (perhaps because they tend to end up with millions of tabs and hours wasted) and saving time and mental energy for the rest. The mention of “metaphysics of metaethics” is just thrown out there in the original—this might be sort of OK for a purely Lesswrongian audience, but it’s confusing to readers who aren’t able easily to guess the author’s opinion on metaphysical arguments*.
Although less problematic, I’m not keen on “rather shocking” or the use of the word dissent. “Dissent” implies that consequentialism is dogma, and “rather shocking” is a borderline oxymoron; the word “shocked” suggests to me a necessarily extreme emotion or state of mind.
*OK I did say “needless to say”. But that’s really just a bunch of syllables, the kind one includes to (hopefully) improve the rhythm of a sentence.
“Dull to read” is a subjective evaluation I don’t share. Moreover, it is exactly the sort of justification which is given (1) to arbitrary norms. When people are told (2) that they shouldn’t do X, they easily convince themselves that X feels dull, even if there wouldn’t be such a feeling without the (arbitrary) social norm. I don’t know for certain whether this is the case of the passive voice, but I am generally skeptical about subjective justifications of existing norms.
As for obscuring reality and the Orwell’s essay, see Vladimir_M’s comment and the links included therein. One of the more interesting points is that the critics of passive voice generally don’t use passive voice less often than the rest of the writers. Maybe I have been careful in this comment and thus am not entirely fair, but I have used passive constructions twice (numbered above) in positions where the active alternative would be much longer, while in the parent comment you have put three instances of passive voice (“justifications are attached”, “link is explained”, “mention is thrown”; two of them only to spare a short personal pronoun “I”).
“Metaphysics of metaethics” is indeed confusing for me, but I usually don’t understand anything containing the word “metaphysics”, so I am not sure whether the alternative is any better. I agree with your objection to “shocking” and, to a lesser extent, “dissent”. No problem with “needless to say”.
My objection to this class of stylistic advices is that they use tricky arguments to prove their point. Usually the authors choose an extraordinarily ugly piece of text (or even make it up, as is probably the case with the description of bicycles in your link) that abounds in the word or grammatical category they despise and want to argue against, then reformulate it in normal language, taking care to avoid the undesired thing, then pretend having proven a general rule that the despised part of language never should be used, save of course few exceptions which they rarely bother explicitly describing. The readers see two pieces of text, one ugly and one readable, and usually accept that the ugliness is caused by the expression they are advised to purge from their writing (which is even not always the case) and that the less they use it, the better (which doesn’t follow).
Good writing is not achieved by avoiding everyday expressions and regularly used grammatical features. There are things to be avoided in writing or speech, for sure. But if you are going to ban the most frequent verb which also plays the role of copula and is part of passive and progressive constructions, you are constraining the expressive power of the language, limiting the effectivity of communication, and even making your writing harder to read. It has as much sense as saying you should never use the prepositions “in” and “on”; certainly you can rewrite any text so that the rule is satisfied—and since you are forced to search for alternatives interesting and novel expressions may appear as a by-product—but ultimately, because of artificial limits you have put on yourself, you are not free to say exactly what you want to say.
You are right. However, I don’t think the advice was meant to be used to evaluate weather or not a given essay is boring. I found it helpful because it provided a simple rule that I used to change my writing habits. I had a vague sense that some of my sentences were stilted, but I didn’t know how to remedy that problem. Not everyone will get the same utility from creative restrictions, but I find them inspiring.
I agree that part of the problem with “if it can be known” is that “if it be known” is strictly superior.
On the other hand, an important fact in the critic’s argument is that the consequentialist agent knows that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z. If he is simply unaware of this fact (but “it be known” by other people), then we would be entirely unsurprised to see him choose strategy Y—he is still a consequentialist, just a misinformed one—so no argument materialises.
Therefore I think that the use of active voice is clearer in this instance, because passive voice obscures the distinction between our knowing that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, and the hypothetical consequentialist in question knowing this. Admittedly this distinction is not difficult to infer in the original piece, but numerous small inclarities can add up to make tedious prose.
On reflection, what you have said about the passive voice in general is true. Misuse of the passive voice to obscure agency when agency is politically or socially important is Orwellian; passive voice in general does not necessarily obscure anything.
Passive constructions change the focus. Sometimes they’re better. It’s only when they’re used to obfuscate lack of specific evidence that I object. It’s advised to mix in some passives when describing research, at least.
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
Passive voice is not necessarily any more obscure than active. You convey the same information with the statement “Z has been Yed by X” as with the statement “X Yed Z.” As it happens, this is the argument that Jonathan_Graehl used when I advocated revising to use active voice. If you carry the assumption that passive voice is vague or obscure, it can lead you to simply not notice passive constructions that are precise.
I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm
All things equal, prefer active—but if there is any benefit to using passive voice (eg the sentence is a few words shorter), things aren’t equal, so use passive! I think that the voice being changed between active and passive helps make a sentence flow, but I’ve never read anything enlightening on the matter.
I like the original version slightly more, mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer. I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm; “if it can be known” is bad, but it is because “can” is superfluous there rather than because of the passive voice.
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
It does say more. The content of the link is actually explained, clarifying things for people who don’t like to follow links (perhaps because they tend to end up with millions of tabs and hours wasted) and saving time and mental energy for the rest. The mention of “metaphysics of metaethics” is just thrown out there in the original—this might be sort of OK for a purely Lesswrongian audience, but it’s confusing to readers who aren’t able easily to guess the author’s opinion on metaphysical arguments*.
Although less problematic, I’m not keen on “rather shocking” or the use of the word dissent. “Dissent” implies that consequentialism is dogma, and “rather shocking” is a borderline oxymoron; the word “shocked” suggests to me a necessarily extreme emotion or state of mind.
*OK I did say “needless to say”. But that’s really just a bunch of syllables, the kind one includes to (hopefully) improve the rhythm of a sentence.
“Dull to read” is a subjective evaluation I don’t share. Moreover, it is exactly the sort of justification which is given (1) to arbitrary norms. When people are told (2) that they shouldn’t do X, they easily convince themselves that X feels dull, even if there wouldn’t be such a feeling without the (arbitrary) social norm. I don’t know for certain whether this is the case of the passive voice, but I am generally skeptical about subjective justifications of existing norms.
As for obscuring reality and the Orwell’s essay, see Vladimir_M’s comment and the links included therein. One of the more interesting points is that the critics of passive voice generally don’t use passive voice less often than the rest of the writers. Maybe I have been careful in this comment and thus am not entirely fair, but I have used passive constructions twice (numbered above) in positions where the active alternative would be much longer, while in the parent comment you have put three instances of passive voice (“justifications are attached”, “link is explained”, “mention is thrown”; two of them only to spare a short personal pronoun “I”).
“Metaphysics of metaethics” is indeed confusing for me, but I usually don’t understand anything containing the word “metaphysics”, so I am not sure whether the alternative is any better. I agree with your objection to “shocking” and, to a lesser extent, “dissent”. No problem with “needless to say”.
I found this discussion of the passive voice helpful.
My objection to this class of stylistic advices is that they use tricky arguments to prove their point. Usually the authors choose an extraordinarily ugly piece of text (or even make it up, as is probably the case with the description of bicycles in your link) that abounds in the word or grammatical category they despise and want to argue against, then reformulate it in normal language, taking care to avoid the undesired thing, then pretend having proven a general rule that the despised part of language never should be used, save of course few exceptions which they rarely bother explicitly describing. The readers see two pieces of text, one ugly and one readable, and usually accept that the ugliness is caused by the expression they are advised to purge from their writing (which is even not always the case) and that the less they use it, the better (which doesn’t follow).
Good writing is not achieved by avoiding everyday expressions and regularly used grammatical features. There are things to be avoided in writing or speech, for sure. But if you are going to ban the most frequent verb which also plays the role of copula and is part of passive and progressive constructions, you are constraining the expressive power of the language, limiting the effectivity of communication, and even making your writing harder to read. It has as much sense as saying you should never use the prepositions “in” and “on”; certainly you can rewrite any text so that the rule is satisfied—and since you are forced to search for alternatives interesting and novel expressions may appear as a by-product—but ultimately, because of artificial limits you have put on yourself, you are not free to say exactly what you want to say.
You are right. However, I don’t think the advice was meant to be used to evaluate weather or not a given essay is boring. I found it helpful because it provided a simple rule that I used to change my writing habits. I had a vague sense that some of my sentences were stilted, but I didn’t know how to remedy that problem. Not everyone will get the same utility from creative restrictions, but I find them inspiring.
Upvoted for precise thinking.
I agree that part of the problem with “if it can be known” is that “if it be known” is strictly superior.
On the other hand, an important fact in the critic’s argument is that the consequentialist agent knows that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z. If he is simply unaware of this fact (but “it be known” by other people), then we would be entirely unsurprised to see him choose strategy Y—he is still a consequentialist, just a misinformed one—so no argument materialises.
Therefore I think that the use of active voice is clearer in this instance, because passive voice obscures the distinction between our knowing that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, and the hypothetical consequentialist in question knowing this. Admittedly this distinction is not difficult to infer in the original piece, but numerous small inclarities can add up to make tedious prose.
On reflection, what you have said about the passive voice in general is true. Misuse of the passive voice to obscure agency when agency is politically or socially important is Orwellian; passive voice in general does not necessarily obscure anything.
Passive constructions change the focus. Sometimes they’re better. It’s only when they’re used to obfuscate lack of specific evidence that I object. It’s advised to mix in some passives when describing research, at least.
Passive voice is not necessarily any more obscure than active. You convey the same information with the statement “Z has been Yed by X” as with the statement “X Yed Z.” As it happens, this is the argument that Jonathan_Graehl used when I advocated revising to use active voice. If you carry the assumption that passive voice is vague or obscure, it can lead you to simply not notice passive constructions that are precise.
(Justifications don’t matter at all, they can only communicate the reasons, which would be the same even in the absence of justification.)
All things equal, prefer active—but if there is any benefit to using passive voice (eg the sentence is a few words shorter), things aren’t equal, so use passive! I think that the voice being changed between active and passive helps make a sentence flow, but I’ve never read anything enlightening on the matter.