write occasional material in support of views you don’t agree with. Try to make them sound as persuasive as possible. If need be, to keep your own sense of internal balance, write a dialogue between opposing views, just as Plato and David Hume did in some of their very best philosophical works.
I can do that with macroeconomics. I used the dialogue method in my Memoirs of a would-be macroeconomist.
I find it more difficult to do with politics. The Three Languages of Politics sort of does it, although it looks more at the more simplistic and dogmatic arguments of progressives, conservatives, and libertarians.
In fact, what bothers me the most in political discussions is simple-minded dogmatism. As I watched people in my neighborhood head to the subway to the march against Trump, my head was filled with the Stephen Stills lyric, “Singin’ songs, and they’re carryin’ signs. Mostly say ‘Hooray for our side.'”
So, relative to my views, the most contrarian position I could take would be a really dogmatic view, whether it is libertarian, conservative, or progressive. But I cannot make dogmatism sound persuasive.
A better approximation of Tyler’s idea for me would be to champion central planning. To do that, I would argue primarily on grounds of risk aversion. That is not the usual progressive case, which is more utopian. I might suggest that having elites in control may limit the magnitude of mistakes. Even that is difficult for me to argue–probably the most formative experience on my political beliefs was the Vietnam War.
“Even that is difficult for me to argue–probably the most formative experience on my political beliefs was the Vietnam War.”
Could you write more about this? Vietnam is really remote to someone like me. I guess Iraq would be the closest experience for most people, but it seems different.
HBD was the formative political moment for me. I can’t really discuss politics with anyone because eventually it will always come back to “that can’t work because of HBD.”
I can’t construct opposition narratives that make sense to me because nearly all of them inevitably rely on assumptions about human beings that don’t hold true. Pick a topic and then a conservative or liberal stance on it. At some point in the argument a critical assumption will run afoul of HBD, and there is no way forward in the conversation if the other person won’t admit it.
I might suggest that having elites in control may limit the magnitude of mistakes.
1) In reality, probably most mistakes happen in time of fast growing because growth covers the mistakes.
2) Sometimes policies can work today become mistakes tomorrow. Think about electric utilities in which granted monopolies were probably the right solution in the 1920s and by 1990 it become a ‘mistake.’ (Or Point 1 covered the electric utility model?) Now we do need something else.
3) How do you explain Singapore probably the functional society today? Lots of central planning. (I know Garrett Jones.)
4) I wish you would separate the political from the economic elites. The reason why is you support economic ones greatly but dislike political ones. Notice, the election of Donald Trump was against both the Political and Economic ones. (He was emphatic against the Political ones allowing the economic ones to outsource.)
5) It is important to remember the Vietnam War was very popular (85 – 90%) when it started expanding in 1964 and people continued to support it almost to the end. So our society, not just elite, made the wrong choice here.
5) I’m not at all sure that “people continued to support it almost to the end.” Running in 1968, both Nixon and Humphrey said they would end the war. From then on, “ending the war” was an officially desired result. Of course, most Americans did not want to lose but that seemed less and less possible as time went on. Until near the end, a majority (some grudgingly) probably agreed with Nixon that, though victory was no longer possible, the war should end in “peace with honor.” But a substantial majority sure wished it was over.
Yea, the Vietnam War by 1968 was unpopular but most Americans were still convinced we could win. So they went with Nixon in the hope of peace with honor stuff.
There’s no separating optimizing for effective persuasion from the fact of the target audience.
Law schools sometimes run exercises in which students must prepare to argue a case, and it really matters to the grade on whether one ‘wins’, but the student won’t be told on which side he will present until the mock trial begins. It’s an extremely useful intellectual experience. While preparing, it’s key to keep in mind whether it will be a bench trial in front of the ‘judge’ (usually a law professor, sometimes an actual judge),.or a ‘jury’ of other students.
You can’t make dogmatism sound persuasive? Coordination around a common Schelling point doesn’t ever sound more appealing than infighting and circular firing squads? You’ve never worried about becoming too broadminded to take your own side in a quarrel? Have you ever noticed the fact that, if good people avoid dogmatism, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” is dangerously close to a tautology?
Here’s my attempt for the day:
What do Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt have in common? They are all countries with as many or more Muslims than the 7 nations in the immigration suspension declared by the Trump Administration.
Maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a ban on Muslims?
Liberals and the media could completely rip Trump to shreds — if only they demonstrated some objectivity in their framing instead of intentionally placing Trump in the worst looking, most triggering box they can.
Dr. Kling,
I’d like to hear your opinion on the Leaked EO that limits immigration based on expected use of government transfers aka “public charge”
Do the utilitarian arguments outweigh the libertarian ones? Should we let everyone in until utility is maximized between immigrants and natives ?
Libertarianism demands freedom of movement and capital. If we believe in our expressed morality should we not let in everyone who applies? Liberals have been holding up the poem on the Statue of Liberty as what America stands for. Thoughts)
While we wait for his reply, I think liberals are going to prefer how we have it now: Mexicans walk across the border and vote Democrat and receive help while people with human capital to lose go through the punishing legal process.
I’m not sure that qualifies as the beat version of how they would state it.
Everything of value in the world, the kind of things that make it so we don’t have lives that are nasty, brutish, and short, have been created by a relatively small part of the global population. These people that created the modern world were able to do so for a number of reasons, but most critically genetics. These genes are an accident of history, and if lost or diluted to the point of irrelevance will mean the end of civilization. Preserving civilization should be the #1 priority. Libertarians (usually paste white male nerds) wouldn’t like barbarism. They should stop masturbating to their philosophy and use common sense.
That’s pretty silly.
Why? Explain it to me.
I have heard making the most extreme arguments possible can lead to those believing weaker versions to come to doubt their own. This is probably more effective for those who feel certain of their position without having thought them through though. It will never seem persuasive to those who have thought through their position, but to caricature and echo enough for them to see their own arguments in it. Not persuasive views, but persuasive in the sense they recognize them and people who hold them.
Those who have thought them through and have a more balanced view, the most the can be expected is to add some knowledge, consider alternatives, raise caution, suggest improvements. These can be persuasive to more reasonable opinion though likely not to a reversal of opinion. And I often hear risk aversion mentioned such as how providing health insurance can unleash entrepreneurial spirit and economic dynamism.
Served in the military in the Vietnam era, though not in country. Certainly shaped a lot of my views, though they came out different than yours.
Since we are doing it again in the middle east, in what ways?
Does professor Cowend really mean thd most persuasive argument? Persuasion is dirty boxing.