With all due respect, you are getting seriously mind-killed here.
Do you agree that the probability of a person accepting and following certain norms (and more generally, acting and thinking in certain ways) can be higher or lower conditional on them belonging to a specific nationality? Similarly, would you agree that the probability of a government acting in a certain way may strongly depend on the government in question? Or are these “vapid jingoistic idea[s]”?
For example, suppose I’m an American and someone warns me that the U.S. government would have me tortured to death in the public square if I called the U.S. president a rascal. I reply that while such fears would be justified in many other places and times, they are unfounded in this case, since Americans are too civilized and decent to tolerate such things, and it is in their national character to consider criticizing (and even insulting) the president as a fundamental right. What exactly would be fallacious about this reply?
Note that I accept it as perfectly reasonable if one argues that Malcolm was factually mistaken about the character of the British government. What I object to is grandstanding rhetoric and moral posturing that tries to justify what is in fact nothing more than a display of the usual human frailty in a petty politicking quarrel.
Do you agree that the probability of a person accepting and following certain norms (and more generally, acting and thinking in certain ways) can be higher or lower conditional on them belonging to a specific nationality? Similarly, would you agree that the probability of a government acting in a certain way may strongly depend on the government in question?
I agree, but I don’t think that you’re describing Malcolm’s position—Wittgenstein was the one expressing uncertainty on the issue (“When Wittgenstein remarked that it wouldn’t surprise him at all if it were true, Malcolm retorted that it was impossible”), so for Malcolm to disagree with him he must be quite confident, not merely think that the British are less likely to assassinate than others.
And when someone has undue confidence in how good his group is, beyond what evidence mandates—than yes, it seems correct to say that he was mind-killed by his “primitive” jingoism, and Wittgenstein is correct to rebuke him.
If I read about an assassination attempt on Hitler and about how some said it was mandated by the British, then my position would be Wittgenstein’s—that it wouldn’t surprise me if that was true (even before reading Gwern’s post). It may be that hindsight is 20⁄20, but I think Malcolm, who had much more information about the times than I do, should have been able to see more clearly.
I think you’re underestimating just how horrible the idea of assassinating foreign leaders sounded back then, especially leaders of other nations recognized as major powers. Such a thing was definitely much higher on the relative scale of outrages back then than nowadays. (Though of course things had already changed a lot in practice by 1939, by which political gangsterism had already been running rampant through the Western world for over two decades.)
Indeed, I find it quite plausible that Malcolm was motivated not so much by nationalistic bias, as by a naive and antiquated view of politics, despite his youth. Reading about his reaction, many people nowadays will likely overestimate how unrealistically favorable his opinion of Britain must have been for him to consider this accusation absurd.
Note that I accept it as perfectly reasonable if one argues that Malcolm was factually mistaken about the character of the British government.
Malcolm spoke about the British national character (not the character of the British government) and from this he arbitrarily leaped to thinking that it binds the actions of the British government; as if the British government is somehow a random or representative sample of the British population.
The assumptions and leaps of logic necessary for this flawed logic are obvious to those who’ve managed to avoid thinking of whole nations as if they’re homogeneous groups. Wittgenstein was correct to call it primitive. Malcolm was not saying anything more intelligent or subtle or deep than “Our monkey tribe good! Therefore nobody from our monkey tribe ever do bad thing!” If the representation of the conversation is a fair one, Malcolm wasn’t wise enough to be able to even distinguish between government and governed, and consider the differences that might accumulated to each.
Malcolm spoke about the British national character (not the character of the British government) and from this he arbitrarily leaped to thinking that it binds the actions of the British government; as if the British government is somehow a random or representative sample of the British population.
Such an absurd assumption is not necessary. It is sufficient that the way government officials are selected from the British population doesn’t specifically select for traits contrary to the “national character,” or that their behavior is constrained by what the general public would be outraged at, even when they act in secret. (Note also that this isn’t necessarily due to rational fear of being caught—people are normally afraid and reluctant to do outrageous things even when rational calculations tell them the probability of getting caught is negligible. With the exception of certain things where hypocrisy is the unspoken de facto norm, of course, but that’s not the case here.)
Malcolm was not saying anything more intelligent or subtle or deep than “Our monkey tribe good! Therefore nobody from our monkey tribe ever do bad thing!”
Malcolm may well have been guilty of such thinking, but at the same time, Wittgenstein clearly had a fit of irrational anger at the suggestion that probabilities of monkey behaviors are not independent of their tribe. (I won’t speculate on what part his own residues of tribal feelings might have played here.)
And nobody here is claiming that Malcolm was correct—merely that Wittgenstein’s reaction was hardly the paragon of rationality it’s presented to be.
It is sufficient that the way government officials are selected from the British population doesn’t specifically select for traits contrary to the “national character,” or that their behavior is constrained by what the general public would be outraged at, even when they act in secret.
I don’t think the phrase “national character” does refer to the belief of the general public in this context. It refers more to the character of the British elite.
“Our monkey tribe good! Therefore nobody from our monkey tribe ever do bad thing!”
Don’t forget Wittgenstein may have reacted as he did out his own emotional attachment as well.
“Who you to say your monkey tribe so much better than mine!”
Which is not to imply that he was identifying with Nazis, which he obviously wasn’t, but you would be surprised how many historic accounts of those of say Jewish descent that fled the National Socialist regime still overall held German and Austrian culture and “national character” in higher esteem than that of say the British, Russians or Americans, we have.
“If my monkey tribe can do horrible things, well yours isn’t that different!”
Don’t forget Wittgenstein may have reacted as he did out his own emotional attachment as well.
“Who you to say your monkey tribe so much better than mine!”
Agreed. Or from e.g. feeling betrayed that Malcolm didn’t consider him and Wittgenstein to belong in the same monkey tribe for all intends and purposes. I’ve not read any of Wittgenstein, but if he was of internationalist ideology, he might have been disappointed to see nationalist sentiment in Malcolm (which would put Malcolm and Wittgenstein in different tribes) rather than whatever ideological/political/racial/religious/class distinctions would have put them in the same tribe.
I don’t make the same tribal distinctions that a Greek nationalist would make, or a white nationalist would make. For someone to put much weight on such distinctions would mark him as a different tribe according to my distinctions, even though I’m Greek and white too.
This makes me think of one of those intellectual hipster Hegelian dialectic thingies.
Idiot: My monkeys are better than your monkeys. (Blood for the blood god, etc; Malcolm.)
Contrarian: My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like “My monkeys are better than your monkeys.” (Secular Western cosmopolitanism, faith in progress, etc; Wittgenstein.)
Hipster: My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like “My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like ‘My monkeys are better than your monkeys.’” (Postmodernism, cultural relativism, etc; Vladimir.)
It amuses me that I can think of a few trendy Continentals right now who base their appeal on working at level four.
I reply that while such fears would be justified in many other places and times, they are unfounded in this case, since Americans are too civilized and decent to tolerate such things, and it is in their national character to consider criticizing (and even insulting) the president as a fundamental right. What exactly would be fallacious about this reply?
You are correct that such fears are unfounded in this case, but not owing to the “national character” of Americans. Rather, they are unfounded owing to the very public nature of the action your fears concern; carrying out such an action publicly would predictably raise an outcry, with hard-to-predict consequences on things like behaviour of the electorate and of the media; from an utilitarian standpoint the US government is better off finding subtler ways of coercing you, and has very little to gain from silencing this particular type of dissent.
But covert action, and covert action taken against leaders of foreign countries, might be a different calculation entirely. So the fallacious nature of the reply would arise from not comparing like with like.
In this case, the “national character” would manifest itself in the public outcry (it’s certainly easy to imagine a population that would insted cheer while the seditious traitor is being executed). However, even regardless of that, would you agree that the U.S. government officials themselves are more likely to feel honest revulsion towards this idea compared to their equivalents from various other historical governments, and that they would be less likely to retaliate this way even if they could somehow get away with it?
It is clearly true that “national character,” for obvious reasons, provides much more solid evidence when considering public opinion and mass behaviors. However, the amount of evidence it provides about the possible behaviors of small groups of government officials behind closed doors is also not negligible. This especially since secrets are hard to keep.
In Malcolm’s case, the argument would be that British government officials are unlikely to conspire to assassinate the German head of state because, being British, they are likely to share intense revulsion towards such an idea, and also to fear the exceptional outrage among the British public should they be caught doing it. Once again, I have no problem if someone thinks that this argument rests on completely wrong factual beliefs and probability estimates. My problem is with attempts to delegitimize it based on lofty rhetoric that in fact tries to mask irrational anger at the fact that nationality indeed gives some non-zero evidence on people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
would you agree that the U.S. government officials themselves are more likely to feel honest revulsion towards this idea compared to their equivalents from various other historical governments
Not necessarily. I don’t know to what extent government officials of all countries are more like the typical citizen of their own country than they are like other government officials of any other country. It’s not clear to me which reference class would dominate in assigning priors.
Just to avoid misunderstanding, the question is whether the views of a typical U.S. government official about what criticisms of government are permissible are more similar to the average U.S. citizen, or to the views of government officials averaged across the whole world, or even across all governments that ever existed. Am I understanding correctly that you see this as a highly uncertain question?
Yup. The dynamic I have in mind is this: to become a government official, one must first pass a certain set of filters, which are likely to select for the kind of person who’ll view anyone criticizing their government as scum who deserve no better than a public beating.
This is definitely not the only dynamic in play; but if you want to deny that this dynamic exists, you will have to bring evidence to bear to overcome its strong plausibility.
In Malcolm’s case, the argument would be that British government officials are be unlikely to conspire to assassinate the German head of state because, being British, they are likely to share intense revulsion towards such an idea, and also to fear the exceptional outrage among the British public should they be caught doing it
Malcolm doesn’t make that claim if the description of the argument is a fair one. It’s not the word “unlikely” but the word “impossible” that is used; and the fear of an outrage by the public isn’t discussed.
It may be a good thing to correct an opponent’s argument before you defeat it, but we’re not obliged to actually call it a good argument.
In this situation, Malcolm’s statements were only briefly paraphrased by his opponent, and the criticism of Malcolm is being presented as a great and commendable example of rational thinking. In such a context, I believe it’s only fair and reasonable to give Malcolm’s reported statements maximally charitable reading.
In particular, I think it’s reasonable to interpret “impossible” in its casual meaning (i.e. merely vastly improbable, not literally disallowed by the laws of logic and physics). Moreover, I also think it’s reasonable to interpret “national character” in a way that makes his statements more sensible, i.e. as including all factors that determine what behaviors are a priori more or less likely from a given government and its officials and subjects.
suppose I’m an American and someone warns me that the U.S. government would have me tortured to death in the public square if I called the U.S. president a rascal. I reply that while such fears would be justified in many other places and times, they are unfounded in this case, since Americans are too civilized and decent to tolerate such things, and it is in their national character to consider criticizing (and even insulting) the president as a fundamental right. What exactly would be fallacious about this reply?
The fake explanation. What does the claim of ‘civilization’ and ‘decency’ add to the assertion? (Recall that Wittgenstein specifically objects to “dangerous phrases”.) Does it help you predict that, eg, child-molesters could die painfully in prison, out of the public eye but not out of mind? What does it tell you about the public use of pain in other cases? Seems to me the meaningful part of your hypothetical reply ends with “in this case,” since you’ve already drawn a line around the USA by saying that it differs from “many other places and times”.
It also seems like (when you speak of “probability”) you’re defending a statement that Perloff does not record Malcolm making, while criticizing Wittgenstein for traits this particular passage does not clearly show.
The fake explanation. What does the claim of ‘civilization’ and ‘decency’ add to the assertion?
I added these word specifically to parallel the paraphrase of Malcolm’s claim. The rationale for their use is that there exists a specific (if somewhat vague and, on some dimensions, disputed) cluster in the space of all possible systems of social norms that is commonly associated with these words in modern English. Among other things, this includes a negative attitude towards public judicial torture and open repression of (some kinds of) anti-government speech (relevant for my example), as well as towards assassination plots against foreign leaders (relevant for Malcolm’s example—and possibly a matter of greater outrage back in his day).
So it’s not a fake explanation, because it points to a real existing cluster of norms that have been dominant in the Western world in recent history. This can in turn be used, for example, to point to other norms in this cluster and predict that they are correlated with the listed examples across societies.
Note that here I’m merely using these words with their customary meaning, not to express unreserved approval of this entire cluster of norms.
It also seems like (when you speak of “probability”) you’re defending a statement that Perloff does not record Malcolm making, while criticizing Wittgenstein for traits this particular passage does not clearly show.
As I already pointed out, we are not judging Malcolm and Wittgenstein as two equal participants in a debate. Rather, we are discussing whether the latter’s criticism really is up to such high standards that it deserves being extolled as a sterling example of rational thinking. Hence my sticter scrutiny of him, and my tendency to give maximally charitable interpretation to Malcolm.
With all due respect, you are getting seriously mind-killed here.
Do you agree that the probability of a person accepting and following certain norms (and more generally, acting and thinking in certain ways) can be higher or lower conditional on them belonging to a specific nationality? Similarly, would you agree that the probability of a government acting in a certain way may strongly depend on the government in question? Or are these “vapid jingoistic idea[s]”?
For example, suppose I’m an American and someone warns me that the U.S. government would have me tortured to death in the public square if I called the U.S. president a rascal. I reply that while such fears would be justified in many other places and times, they are unfounded in this case, since Americans are too civilized and decent to tolerate such things, and it is in their national character to consider criticizing (and even insulting) the president as a fundamental right. What exactly would be fallacious about this reply?
Note that I accept it as perfectly reasonable if one argues that Malcolm was factually mistaken about the character of the British government. What I object to is grandstanding rhetoric and moral posturing that tries to justify what is in fact nothing more than a display of the usual human frailty in a petty politicking quarrel.
I agree, but I don’t think that you’re describing Malcolm’s position—Wittgenstein was the one expressing uncertainty on the issue (“When Wittgenstein remarked that it wouldn’t surprise him at all if it were true, Malcolm retorted that it was impossible”), so for Malcolm to disagree with him he must be quite confident, not merely think that the British are less likely to assassinate than others.
And when someone has undue confidence in how good his group is, beyond what evidence mandates—than yes, it seems correct to say that he was mind-killed by his “primitive” jingoism, and Wittgenstein is correct to rebuke him.
If I read about an assassination attempt on Hitler and about how some said it was mandated by the British, then my position would be Wittgenstein’s—that it wouldn’t surprise me if that was true (even before reading Gwern’s post). It may be that hindsight is 20⁄20, but I think Malcolm, who had much more information about the times than I do, should have been able to see more clearly.
I think you’re underestimating just how horrible the idea of assassinating foreign leaders sounded back then, especially leaders of other nations recognized as major powers. Such a thing was definitely much higher on the relative scale of outrages back then than nowadays. (Though of course things had already changed a lot in practice by 1939, by which political gangsterism had already been running rampant through the Western world for over two decades.)
Indeed, I find it quite plausible that Malcolm was motivated not so much by nationalistic bias, as by a naive and antiquated view of politics, despite his youth. Reading about his reaction, many people nowadays will likely overestimate how unrealistically favorable his opinion of Britain must have been for him to consider this accusation absurd.
Malcolm spoke about the British national character (not the character of the British government) and from this he arbitrarily leaped to thinking that it binds the actions of the British government; as if the British government is somehow a random or representative sample of the British population.
The assumptions and leaps of logic necessary for this flawed logic are obvious to those who’ve managed to avoid thinking of whole nations as if they’re homogeneous groups. Wittgenstein was correct to call it primitive. Malcolm was not saying anything more intelligent or subtle or deep than “Our monkey tribe good! Therefore nobody from our monkey tribe ever do bad thing!” If the representation of the conversation is a fair one, Malcolm wasn’t wise enough to be able to even distinguish between government and governed, and consider the differences that might accumulated to each.
Such an absurd assumption is not necessary. It is sufficient that the way government officials are selected from the British population doesn’t specifically select for traits contrary to the “national character,” or that their behavior is constrained by what the general public would be outraged at, even when they act in secret. (Note also that this isn’t necessarily due to rational fear of being caught—people are normally afraid and reluctant to do outrageous things even when rational calculations tell them the probability of getting caught is negligible. With the exception of certain things where hypocrisy is the unspoken de facto norm, of course, but that’s not the case here.)
Malcolm may well have been guilty of such thinking, but at the same time, Wittgenstein clearly had a fit of irrational anger at the suggestion that probabilities of monkey behaviors are not independent of their tribe. (I won’t speculate on what part his own residues of tribal feelings might have played here.)
And nobody here is claiming that Malcolm was correct—merely that Wittgenstein’s reaction was hardly the paragon of rationality it’s presented to be.
I don’t think the phrase “national character” does refer to the belief of the general public in this context. It refers more to the character of the British elite.
Don’t forget Wittgenstein may have reacted as he did out his own emotional attachment as well.
“Who you to say your monkey tribe so much better than mine!”
Which is not to imply that he was identifying with Nazis, which he obviously wasn’t, but you would be surprised how many historic accounts of those of say Jewish descent that fled the National Socialist regime still overall held German and Austrian culture and “national character” in higher esteem than that of say the British, Russians or Americans, we have.
“If my monkey tribe can do horrible things, well yours isn’t that different!”
Agreed. Or from e.g. feeling betrayed that Malcolm didn’t consider him and Wittgenstein to belong in the same monkey tribe for all intends and purposes. I’ve not read any of Wittgenstein, but if he was of internationalist ideology, he might have been disappointed to see nationalist sentiment in Malcolm (which would put Malcolm and Wittgenstein in different tribes) rather than whatever ideological/political/racial/religious/class distinctions would have put them in the same tribe.
I don’t make the same tribal distinctions that a Greek nationalist would make, or a white nationalist would make. For someone to put much weight on such distinctions would mark him as a different tribe according to my distinctions, even though I’m Greek and white too.
This makes me think of one of those intellectual hipster Hegelian dialectic thingies.
Idiot: My monkeys are better than your monkeys. (Blood for the blood god, etc; Malcolm.)
Contrarian: My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like “My monkeys are better than your monkeys.” (Secular Western cosmopolitanism, faith in progress, etc; Wittgenstein.)
Hipster: My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like “My monkeys are better than your monkeys, because they don’t say things like ‘My monkeys are better than your monkeys.’” (Postmodernism, cultural relativism, etc; Vladimir.)
It amuses me that I can think of a few trendy Continentals right now who base their appeal on working at level four.
People can get very upset when those they like, “suddenly” turn out not to be “part” of the same tribe.
You are correct that such fears are unfounded in this case, but not owing to the “national character” of Americans. Rather, they are unfounded owing to the very public nature of the action your fears concern; carrying out such an action publicly would predictably raise an outcry, with hard-to-predict consequences on things like behaviour of the electorate and of the media; from an utilitarian standpoint the US government is better off finding subtler ways of coercing you, and has very little to gain from silencing this particular type of dissent.
But covert action, and covert action taken against leaders of foreign countries, might be a different calculation entirely. So the fallacious nature of the reply would arise from not comparing like with like.
In this case, the “national character” would manifest itself in the public outcry (it’s certainly easy to imagine a population that would insted cheer while the seditious traitor is being executed). However, even regardless of that, would you agree that the U.S. government officials themselves are more likely to feel honest revulsion towards this idea compared to their equivalents from various other historical governments, and that they would be less likely to retaliate this way even if they could somehow get away with it?
It is clearly true that “national character,” for obvious reasons, provides much more solid evidence when considering public opinion and mass behaviors. However, the amount of evidence it provides about the possible behaviors of small groups of government officials behind closed doors is also not negligible. This especially since secrets are hard to keep.
In Malcolm’s case, the argument would be that British government officials are unlikely to conspire to assassinate the German head of state because, being British, they are likely to share intense revulsion towards such an idea, and also to fear the exceptional outrage among the British public should they be caught doing it. Once again, I have no problem if someone thinks that this argument rests on completely wrong factual beliefs and probability estimates. My problem is with attempts to delegitimize it based on lofty rhetoric that in fact tries to mask irrational anger at the fact that nationality indeed gives some non-zero evidence on people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
Not necessarily. I don’t know to what extent government officials of all countries are more like the typical citizen of their own country than they are like other government officials of any other country. It’s not clear to me which reference class would dominate in assigning priors.
Just to avoid misunderstanding, the question is whether the views of a typical U.S. government official about what criticisms of government are permissible are more similar to the average U.S. citizen, or to the views of government officials averaged across the whole world, or even across all governments that ever existed. Am I understanding correctly that you see this as a highly uncertain question?
Yup. The dynamic I have in mind is this: to become a government official, one must first pass a certain set of filters, which are likely to select for the kind of person who’ll view anyone criticizing their government as scum who deserve no better than a public beating.
This is definitely not the only dynamic in play; but if you want to deny that this dynamic exists, you will have to bring evidence to bear to overcome its strong plausibility.
Malcolm doesn’t make that claim if the description of the argument is a fair one. It’s not the word “unlikely” but the word “impossible” that is used; and the fear of an outrage by the public isn’t discussed.
It may be a good thing to correct an opponent’s argument before you defeat it, but we’re not obliged to actually call it a good argument.
In this situation, Malcolm’s statements were only briefly paraphrased by his opponent, and the criticism of Malcolm is being presented as a great and commendable example of rational thinking. In such a context, I believe it’s only fair and reasonable to give Malcolm’s reported statements maximally charitable reading.
In particular, I think it’s reasonable to interpret “impossible” in its casual meaning (i.e. merely vastly improbable, not literally disallowed by the laws of logic and physics). Moreover, I also think it’s reasonable to interpret “national character” in a way that makes his statements more sensible, i.e. as including all factors that determine what behaviors are a priori more or less likely from a given government and its officials and subjects.
The fake explanation. What does the claim of ‘civilization’ and ‘decency’ add to the assertion? (Recall that Wittgenstein specifically objects to “dangerous phrases”.) Does it help you predict that, eg, child-molesters could die painfully in prison, out of the public eye but not out of mind? What does it tell you about the public use of pain in other cases? Seems to me the meaningful part of your hypothetical reply ends with “in this case,” since you’ve already drawn a line around the USA by saying that it differs from “many other places and times”.
It also seems like (when you speak of “probability”) you’re defending a statement that Perloff does not record Malcolm making, while criticizing Wittgenstein for traits this particular passage does not clearly show.
I added these word specifically to parallel the paraphrase of Malcolm’s claim. The rationale for their use is that there exists a specific (if somewhat vague and, on some dimensions, disputed) cluster in the space of all possible systems of social norms that is commonly associated with these words in modern English. Among other things, this includes a negative attitude towards public judicial torture and open repression of (some kinds of) anti-government speech (relevant for my example), as well as towards assassination plots against foreign leaders (relevant for Malcolm’s example—and possibly a matter of greater outrage back in his day).
So it’s not a fake explanation, because it points to a real existing cluster of norms that have been dominant in the Western world in recent history. This can in turn be used, for example, to point to other norms in this cluster and predict that they are correlated with the listed examples across societies.
Note that here I’m merely using these words with their customary meaning, not to express unreserved approval of this entire cluster of norms.
As I already pointed out, we are not judging Malcolm and Wittgenstein as two equal participants in a debate. Rather, we are discussing whether the latter’s criticism really is up to such high standards that it deserves being extolled as a sterling example of rational thinking. Hence my sticter scrutiny of him, and my tendency to give maximally charitable interpretation to Malcolm.