This isn’t super related to the topic of the article (sorry), but the “economics says everyone is rational and that’s wrong” quote in point number 6 made me think of a few things I heard this past month.
The first is a valuable piece of advice I’ve received:
“Theoretical models (economics or otherwise) are not taken seriously enough. Models are simplifications of reality, the world is too complex to have anything but a model of how it works. Some people dismiss models as a matter of principle because the world is too complex, but they just use worse models as a result. Other people read models too literally and then dismiss them. Take models seriously, not literally, and focus on whether or not the simplifications help you think clearly about the relevant thing you're trying to understand.”
The second is a quote from the econ blogger Noah Smith, talking about non-economists’ tendency to occasionally call the discipline “not a real science.”
“[E]conomists have developed some theories that really work. A good scientific theory makes testable predictions that apply to situations other than those that motivated the creation of the theory. Slowly, econ is building up a repertoire of these gems. One of them is auction theory, which predicts how buyers will bid for things like online ads or spectrum rights -- Google’s profits are powered by econ theory as much as by search algorithms. Another example is matching theory, which has made it a lot easier to get an organ transplant. A third is random-utility discrete choice theory, which is used in everything from marketing to transportation planning to disaster preparedness.
Nor are econ’s successful theories limited to microeconomics. Gravity models of trade, though fairly simple in nature, have proven very successful at predicting the flow of international trade.
These and other successful economics theories can be used confidently in a wide-variety of real-world situations, by policy makers, engineers and businesses. They prove that anyone who claims that econ theories will never be reliable, because they deal with human beings instead of atoms, is simply incorrect.”
Finally, I want to add that the behavioral economists (well, basically founders of the field of behavioral economics) Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have put a ton of (Nobel prize-winning) work into looking at the role of irrationality in people’s actions, and their paper on Prospect Theory is one of the most cited papers in economics and established our understanding of multiple cognitive biases. And they’re not the only ones doing this; behavioral economics is an ever-growing discipline.
Anyway, I hope these were interesting thoughts/pieces of information for anyone reading.
"Little DIY spirit for art. People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art { on second thoughts, maybe I am unwise to suggest this… }"
I find this one confusing. The works aren't "dropping from heaven", the reason why so much contemporary art has leftist themes is because the writers working on them are leftists.
Off the cuff examples: Parasite, The Boys, Andor, Spiderman into the Spiderverse, Train to Busan, The Wire, Both Knives Out Movies, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Don't Look Up, The Lorax, The Incredibles. All of these have some kind of leftist political sentiment attached to them (though varying in how much it is emphasized).
By contrast, I can't think of a single serious artistic work this century that has themes that are clearly aligned with a Conservative agenda or worldview. At best you could point to Cormac McCarthy, but all of his best works are from the 20th century and although he was a Conservative they are mostly apolitical anyway.
As somebody who grew up in a Conversative household (and used to be conservative) I was always jealous that leftists got so many great works that reflected their worldview and Conservatives had nothing more recent than A Clockwork Orange. And no, I don't count Daily Wire movies.
I think there's an inferential gap not being bridged here. When Philosophy Bear says "leftist", I am fairly certain that he means it in a sense that excludes mainstream liberalism. This sense (which is also my sense), is universal among leftists, reasonably common among liberals, and in my experience extremely rare among conservatives, who usually either erase the boundary entirely or shift it substantially rightwards to roughly the center of the Democratic Party. Contemporary leftist art is not rare but it is substantially less common than liberal art.
This also tends (weakly) to come with a somewhat different conception of what makes a work political. Leftists, vis a vis liberals, will generally place more emphasis on implicit themes and structure and less on overt messaging or individual characterization.
The reception of Disco Elysium is an extremely good example of this. Its most prominent characters include:
- Kim Kitsuragi: the deuteragonist, a conflicted moderate, and arguably the most decent human being in a fairly large cast.
- Joyce Messier: a charming, helpful, genuinely affable ex-counterrevolutionary.
- Evrart Claire: a comically corrupt union boss/drug-trafficker/social democrat who insists you sit in a chair so uncomfortable it can literally kill you if your health is low enough. The union members are generally more likeable but still range from "impossibly laid-back drifter" to "posturing tough guy with a heart of gold" to "racist with a heart of racism".
- [redacted]: a profoundly embittered communist who hates the world and himself
It also overtly endorses revolutionary socialism - for certain values of "overt".
The problem with this complaint "10. Passivity in the application of old tactics - a seeming lack of interest in seeking alternatives afforded by new platforms, technologies, and media" - is that it's somewhat akin to "Why aren't leftists building alternatives to capitalist corporations, like worker-owned co-ops?". The reality is people have thought about these things, but it's like "communes". It's not practical to just go off and do it yourself at any reasonable scale.
And regarding "demands for democratic participation by the public in setting algorithm parameters and moderation rules" - the goal is almost the opposite. The typical "left" site has a whole slew of rules which, whatever their moral worth, most certainly do not reflect the views of the public overall!
I don't think the case of building alternative social spaces is analogous to building alternative firms. The former has been tried many times and with great success by the left, e.g. workers clubs, union social events, consciousness-raising groups, etc.
The well-known tendency of leftist groups to tear themselves apart from factional infighting, makes it nigh-impossible to scale up to challenge dominant sites. One ends up with tiny niches which drive away anyone without a high tolerance for the endless ideological haranguing. That makes even the niche sites fairly useless as organizing tools for any sort of gains, since they are severely hindered from reaching beyond the already-converted audience.
"But yall, there have been a lot of bad faith arguments lately. Accusing us of 'running cover for nazi's.' Calling people extreme terms such as white supremacists, nazi's, fascists, etc. for having a different opinion. Riling up other users, dog piling, and starting flame wars. Some do it out of concern for their community or from a place of trauma, which I can understand. Even when getting hurled insults, we'll still respectfully engage. But I see a few users spreading hate in a way they ironically accuse others of. It's deeply unpleasant. I worry about this undercurrent on the Fediverse. I worry about the vitriol. And I worry about the erosion of words such as 'nazi' and 'fascist' – we need these words to describe actual threats, of which there are still many.
It's not my intention to both-side this. But if everyone's a nazi then no one is. If you disagree with this premise, that's okay."
Wait, I thought you wanted alternatives to the big dominant sites, not small social groups. For example, many people have talked about creating a search engine which isn't focused on being an ad-selling machine. But the money and support just isn't there to do it. Note, you could self-host this blog in several ways. But again, money and support. I presume you're aware there's an anti-Substack campaign because (my phrasing), it wouldn't agree to ban everyone some progressive ideologues wanted banned. Nominally, by these people, you're considered a bad person for using Substack. That's sort of a case study. There are extensive problems trying to create alternatives in practice.
The websites won because they were better and because audience capture is a thing — and the first part is stronger for everyone except Meta (who seem to be hellbent to suck). There were many attempts to build an alternative, they've just mostly failed so quietly they are not remembered.
Thanks for the pointer to Society of the Spectacle, I had not heard of it before
Regarding "structuring a socialist commonwealth", do you think Mike Beggs is working on how that commonwealth would fit alongside today's capitalist / market based economies or is he assuming it is a separate world of its own? (i.e., dealing with competitors to your commonwealth with significant profit incentives, etc.) And is he assuming everyone is roughly of the same personality type. I am thinking of criticisms of libertarians where most of them fit a personality profile of both conscientious and disagreeable, which implies that they will actively involve themselves in decisions (like building a road, arranging for security, addressing freeloaders, ...) while people without that personality combination (which is most people) do not want to be that involved in everything
"People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art"
All of this art they are waiting for is implicitly or explicitly leftist. As happy consumers, they have no problem waiting for the people with big budgets to make their movies and television.
"Whites are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from racism, men are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from sexism, straights are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from queerphobia” nonsense is itself a reflection of anti-intellectualism. It takes the conflicts of everyday life at facile appearance, and doesn’t go deeper into the underlying social structure, and even more importantly, possibilities."
Militant slogans and chanting are how academic theories are translated into power.
I really resonate with (6) and (15). Anarcho-capitalism should not be the most intellectually compelling version of anarchism I've encountered. We need a more wonkish leftism.
There is, indeed, anti-intellectualism on the left. On the other hand, if this post is any indication of what you consider intellectually substantive, I fear that we might as well pack it in and call it a day.
There's a certain sort of person who sees thinking as the hoarding, display and and sampling of exquisite prejudices, treating thought as if it were the mere cultivation of aesthetic taste, far more worried about being middlebrow or jejune than wrong. The drive-by sneer is a good tell for this sort.
This isn’t super related to the topic of the article (sorry), but the “economics says everyone is rational and that’s wrong” quote in point number 6 made me think of a few things I heard this past month.
The first is a valuable piece of advice I’ve received:
“Theoretical models (economics or otherwise) are not taken seriously enough. Models are simplifications of reality, the world is too complex to have anything but a model of how it works. Some people dismiss models as a matter of principle because the world is too complex, but they just use worse models as a result. Other people read models too literally and then dismiss them. Take models seriously, not literally, and focus on whether or not the simplifications help you think clearly about the relevant thing you're trying to understand.”
The second is a quote from the econ blogger Noah Smith, talking about non-economists’ tendency to occasionally call the discipline “not a real science.”
“[E]conomists have developed some theories that really work. A good scientific theory makes testable predictions that apply to situations other than those that motivated the creation of the theory. Slowly, econ is building up a repertoire of these gems. One of them is auction theory, which predicts how buyers will bid for things like online ads or spectrum rights -- Google’s profits are powered by econ theory as much as by search algorithms. Another example is matching theory, which has made it a lot easier to get an organ transplant. A third is random-utility discrete choice theory, which is used in everything from marketing to transportation planning to disaster preparedness.
Nor are econ’s successful theories limited to microeconomics. Gravity models of trade, though fairly simple in nature, have proven very successful at predicting the flow of international trade.
These and other successful economics theories can be used confidently in a wide-variety of real-world situations, by policy makers, engineers and businesses. They prove that anyone who claims that econ theories will never be reliable, because they deal with human beings instead of atoms, is simply incorrect.”
Finally, I want to add that the behavioral economists (well, basically founders of the field of behavioral economics) Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have put a ton of (Nobel prize-winning) work into looking at the role of irrationality in people’s actions, and their paper on Prospect Theory is one of the most cited papers in economics and established our understanding of multiple cognitive biases. And they’re not the only ones doing this; behavioral economics is an ever-growing discipline.
Anyway, I hope these were interesting thoughts/pieces of information for anyone reading.
"Little DIY spirit for art. People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art { on second thoughts, maybe I am unwise to suggest this… }"
I find this one confusing. The works aren't "dropping from heaven", the reason why so much contemporary art has leftist themes is because the writers working on them are leftists.
Off the cuff examples: Parasite, The Boys, Andor, Spiderman into the Spiderverse, Train to Busan, The Wire, Both Knives Out Movies, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Don't Look Up, The Lorax, The Incredibles. All of these have some kind of leftist political sentiment attached to them (though varying in how much it is emphasized).
By contrast, I can't think of a single serious artistic work this century that has themes that are clearly aligned with a Conservative agenda or worldview. At best you could point to Cormac McCarthy, but all of his best works are from the 20th century and although he was a Conservative they are mostly apolitical anyway.
As somebody who grew up in a Conversative household (and used to be conservative) I was always jealous that leftists got so many great works that reflected their worldview and Conservatives had nothing more recent than A Clockwork Orange. And no, I don't count Daily Wire movies.
I think there's an inferential gap not being bridged here. When Philosophy Bear says "leftist", I am fairly certain that he means it in a sense that excludes mainstream liberalism. This sense (which is also my sense), is universal among leftists, reasonably common among liberals, and in my experience extremely rare among conservatives, who usually either erase the boundary entirely or shift it substantially rightwards to roughly the center of the Democratic Party. Contemporary leftist art is not rare but it is substantially less common than liberal art.
This also tends (weakly) to come with a somewhat different conception of what makes a work political. Leftists, vis a vis liberals, will generally place more emphasis on implicit themes and structure and less on overt messaging or individual characterization.
The reception of Disco Elysium is an extremely good example of this. Its most prominent characters include:
- Kim Kitsuragi: the deuteragonist, a conflicted moderate, and arguably the most decent human being in a fairly large cast.
- Joyce Messier: a charming, helpful, genuinely affable ex-counterrevolutionary.
- Evrart Claire: a comically corrupt union boss/drug-trafficker/social democrat who insists you sit in a chair so uncomfortable it can literally kill you if your health is low enough. The union members are generally more likeable but still range from "impossibly laid-back drifter" to "posturing tough guy with a heart of gold" to "racist with a heart of racism".
- [redacted]: a profoundly embittered communist who hates the world and himself
It also overtly endorses revolutionary socialism - for certain values of "overt".
The problem with this complaint "10. Passivity in the application of old tactics - a seeming lack of interest in seeking alternatives afforded by new platforms, technologies, and media" - is that it's somewhat akin to "Why aren't leftists building alternatives to capitalist corporations, like worker-owned co-ops?". The reality is people have thought about these things, but it's like "communes". It's not practical to just go off and do it yourself at any reasonable scale.
And regarding "demands for democratic participation by the public in setting algorithm parameters and moderation rules" - the goal is almost the opposite. The typical "left" site has a whole slew of rules which, whatever their moral worth, most certainly do not reflect the views of the public overall!
I don't think the case of building alternative social spaces is analogous to building alternative firms. The former has been tried many times and with great success by the left, e.g. workers clubs, union social events, consciousness-raising groups, etc.
FYI, see case today ongoing today below.
The well-known tendency of leftist groups to tear themselves apart from factional infighting, makes it nigh-impossible to scale up to challenge dominant sites. One ends up with tiny niches which drive away anyone without a high tolerance for the endless ideological haranguing. That makes even the niche sites fairly useless as organizing tools for any sort of gains, since they are severely hindered from reaching beyond the already-converted audience.
https://ginablogs.com/views-on-the-fediverse-zghd
"But yall, there have been a lot of bad faith arguments lately. Accusing us of 'running cover for nazi's.' Calling people extreme terms such as white supremacists, nazi's, fascists, etc. for having a different opinion. Riling up other users, dog piling, and starting flame wars. Some do it out of concern for their community or from a place of trauma, which I can understand. Even when getting hurled insults, we'll still respectfully engage. But I see a few users spreading hate in a way they ironically accuse others of. It's deeply unpleasant. I worry about this undercurrent on the Fediverse. I worry about the vitriol. And I worry about the erosion of words such as 'nazi' and 'fascist' – we need these words to describe actual threats, of which there are still many.
It's not my intention to both-side this. But if everyone's a nazi then no one is. If you disagree with this premise, that's okay."
Wait, I thought you wanted alternatives to the big dominant sites, not small social groups. For example, many people have talked about creating a search engine which isn't focused on being an ad-selling machine. But the money and support just isn't there to do it. Note, you could self-host this blog in several ways. But again, money and support. I presume you're aware there's an anti-Substack campaign because (my phrasing), it wouldn't agree to ban everyone some progressive ideologues wanted banned. Nominally, by these people, you're considered a bad person for using Substack. That's sort of a case study. There are extensive problems trying to create alternatives in practice.
The websites won because they were better and because audience capture is a thing — and the first part is stronger for everyone except Meta (who seem to be hellbent to suck). There were many attempts to build an alternative, they've just mostly failed so quietly they are not remembered.
Thanks for the pointer to Society of the Spectacle, I had not heard of it before
Regarding "structuring a socialist commonwealth", do you think Mike Beggs is working on how that commonwealth would fit alongside today's capitalist / market based economies or is he assuming it is a separate world of its own? (i.e., dealing with competitors to your commonwealth with significant profit incentives, etc.) And is he assuming everyone is roughly of the same personality type. I am thinking of criticisms of libertarians where most of them fit a personality profile of both conscientious and disagreeable, which implies that they will actively involve themselves in decisions (like building a road, arranging for security, addressing freeloaders, ...) while people without that personality combination (which is most people) do not want to be that involved in everything
"People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art"
All of this art they are waiting for is implicitly or explicitly leftist. As happy consumers, they have no problem waiting for the people with big budgets to make their movies and television.
"Whites are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from racism, men are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from sexism, straights are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from queerphobia” nonsense is itself a reflection of anti-intellectualism. It takes the conflicts of everyday life at facile appearance, and doesn’t go deeper into the underlying social structure, and even more importantly, possibilities."
Militant slogans and chanting are how academic theories are translated into power.
Economics says value is subjective and that is at best half right. Some things are trash even if people are able to be conned into paying for them.
I really resonate with (6) and (15). Anarcho-capitalism should not be the most intellectually compelling version of anarchism I've encountered. We need a more wonkish leftism.
There is, indeed, anti-intellectualism on the left. On the other hand, if this post is any indication of what you consider intellectually substantive, I fear that we might as well pack it in and call it a day.
There's a certain sort of person who sees thinking as the hoarding, display and and sampling of exquisite prejudices, treating thought as if it were the mere cultivation of aesthetic taste, far more worried about being middlebrow or jejune than wrong. The drive-by sneer is a good tell for this sort.