In the end, we have to consider which is more harmful to society: a minority who would seek to incite violence against their fellow citizens, or a state that has been empowered to set the limits of permissible thought and speech. On balance, I suspect that those of us who know a thing or two about history will settle on the latter.
From an essay excerpted from his new book. This seems to qualify as steel-manning, in that he does make the effort to build the case for the other point of view.
In contrast with Doyle’s steel-manning, Glenn Greenwald writes,
journalists have bizarrely transformed from their traditional role as leading free expression defenders into the the most vocal censorship advocates, using their platforms to demand that tech monopolies ban and silence others.
That same motive of self-preservation is driving them to equate any criticisms of their work with “harassment,” “abuse” and “violence” — so that it is not just culturally stigmatized but a banning offense, perhaps even literally criminal, to critique their journalism on the ground that any criticism of them places them “in danger.” Under this rubric they want to construct, they can malign anyone they want, ruin people’s reputations, and unite to generate hatred against their chosen targets, but nobody can even criticize them.
In The Three Languages of Politics, I make a case for treating everyone else as reasonable. If you want to diagnose anyone’s beliefs as irrational or self-serving, do that only to yourself. I admit that I have not always lived up to this ideal.
Another term for steel-manning is “cognitive empathy,” meaning trying to understand what the other person is thinking. Let me try to show cognitive empathy for the journalists Greenwald disapproves of (and make no mistake, I disapprove of them, too). I see them as believing that society will work better if people trust the information that they get from mainstream journalists. Those who undermine that trust threaten society by creating an environment in which falsehoods masquerade as news and in which journalists who try to do their job feel threatened and intimidated. Society needs to fight back against these spoilers of the realm of public knowledge.
Although I can empathize with this point of view, I do not find it compelling. As Greenwald points out, it can be hard to tell the difference these days between writers with and without journalistic credentials. Often, it is the ordinary people breaking stories and providing reliable analysis. Meanwhile, there are credentialed journalists playing the role of spoilers–spreading falsehoods and intimidating those who try to speak the truth.
I don’t think it is steel-manning to assume that most people side with you when presenting a dichotomy. Anyway, he certainly didn’t present the strongest case for being willing to do violence for your beliefs in the minority.
“In the end, we have to consider which is more harmful to society: a minority who would seek to incite violence against their fellow citizens, or a state that has been empowered to set the limits of permissible thought and speech.”
Nope. In the US, Real Incitement is against the law, and Fake incitement – such as one reads in the many BS claims these days – isn’t. So the state doesn’t get to directly set limits on content or viewpoint.
The state is doing that. They don’t have legal authority to do that, but that is exactly what they are doing.
Specifically, the Democratic Party has applied pressure to tech companies to deplatform or reduce the circulation of political voices that they don’t like.
Tim Wu, staffer of the Obama and Biden Administrations has been a prominent advocate of using government to pressure social media companies to “combat disinformation”, or to censor voices that the Democrats want censored, and has also threatened breaking up the tech companies.
TLP-minded Arnold is the best Arnold.
I wonder if the motto of this blog should be made more prominent – it’s sequestered in tiny font in the corner. In the spirit of the motto, I will refrain from Freudian interpretations of what that placement might mean.
Ok, to indulge in a little Freudian analysis, when Arnold writes “and make no mistake, I disapprove of them, too” I wonder if the word “disapprove” betrays something. Seems to me that “disagree” would be more fitting with Arnold’s stated preferences.
“Disagree” is about facts. “Disapprove” is about morals.
Wrong factually v. wrong morally.
“Positive” v. “normative”.
At least, that’s what I think Arnold is doing.
I agree (heh) with your distinction. After Arnold steel-mans in the penultimate paragraph, he begins the subsequent paragraph with this: “Although I can empathize with this point of view, I do not find it compelling.”
That strikes me as “disagree” language rather than “disapprove” language. You?
Often one both disagrees with and disapproves of someone.
This is no doubt true. My sense is that Arnold was trying to channel his better self in this post and to refrain from impugning motives (thereby refrain from moralizing). I was merely poking a little fun at this apparent tell. Of course, I could be entirely off-base and welcome Arnold’s clarification.
Arnold more fully describes some journalists at the end:
credentialed journalists playing the role of spoilers–spreading falsehoods and intimidating those who try to speak the truth.
I’m sure he both disagrees with them and disapproves of their falsehood spreading.
Greenwald quotes and cites numerous people whom he disagrees. Don’t know how much better you can steel man than to quote directly.
Am having trouble too understanding how Doyle’s either/or proposition (“In the end, we have to consider which is more harmful to society: a minority who would seek to incite violence against their fellow citizens, or a state that has been empowered to set the limits of permissible thought and speech.”) can be considered anything but straw-manning. Who is this minority seeking to incite violence? Names please.
I would argue that Ann Alt house offers three good steel man posts today on the same topic:
(1). “Why does Lowery think he knows what how white people will think and feel if they read Don Lemon’s book? Why wouldn’t we look at one another and unemotionally remark, “Yeah, we already knew that”? Why does Lowery stereotype us as wearers of pearls? Why is he painting a picture of us shocked by things that are well-known? What does he think white people might not be “willing to believe”?
This is casual smearing of a racial group. The assignment you took on was to review Don Lemon’s book. Why won’t you tell us what you actually think of it instead of turning to the potential readers, purporting to inhabit their minds, and insulting them?”
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2021/03/white-brothers-and-sisters-pocket-that.html
(2) “I’ve been wondering about mainstream media’s intense focus on anti-Asian sentiment. Do WaPo and the NYT not notice that this newfound empathy for Asian Americans threatens to undermine affirmative action at this moment in the development of constitutional law?
Now, I’d like to see the news told straight, without bias one way or the other, but if narratives are chosen, why are they chosen? Are they chosen carefully, with attention to collateral effects? Maybe WaPo and the NYT just plunged headlong into its narrative because it seems to work as anti-Trump or to continue the momentum of Critical Race Theory, but if you really took Critical Race Theory seriously, you’d worry that these powerful institutions were fortifying white supremacy. In that light, I’m pointing out that there’s a real risk of losing affirmative action. Also visible in that light is the question whether affirmative action itself is (and always was) a mechanism of white supremacy.
Does deviousness outweigh recklessness? I really don’t know.”
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2021/03/accompanying-one-original-piece-on.html
(3). “What kind of left-wing material got swept up in Facebook’s censorship? The NYT describes a cartoon by “left-leaning cartoonist” Matt Bors. Titled “Boys Will Be Boys,” it “depicted a recruitment where new Proud Boys were trained to be ‘stabby guys’ and to ‘yell slurs at teenagers’ while playing video games.” I don’t think the Times has a link to it, but I found it easily: here. And you can read more of Bors’s cartoons here. I read his newest cartoon, and it begins with a false statement: “Minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for 45 years.” But the minimum wage has only been $7.25 since 2009. In 1976, the minimum wage was $2.30. Yes, but the cartoon is set in the future. Get it?!”
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2021/03/many-of-political-cartoonists-whose.html
I guess part of my problem with Doyle is that he uses Dr. Goebbels (yes, Goebbels had a real PhD, a fact which springs to mind frequently as I am daily confronted with the raving racism of woke academics.) Godwin’s law ought to rule out this as steel-manning if nothing else, but it really does no credit to TLP to cite such references in support.
But enough kvetching.
Steve Sailer points out the real substack news: the coin ain’t half bad. And I am sure Dr Kling could do better.
https://www.unz.com
Alas, one more comment, but Benjamin Studebaker’s sympathetic take seems more aligned with TLP than Doyle:
“The fallen professionals think that by regulating their language they are becoming morally better, and they think that by helping other people to regulate language they will help those people along in their own quests for moral betterment. But this entire practice is motivated by the need to accommodate the fallen professionals’ inability to enact real, meaningful change. It is a way of coping with powerlessness rather than a way of wielding power.”
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2021/03/01/are-declassed-professionals-in-the-united-states-like-surplus-song-dynasty-civil-servants/#more-5343
Studebaker doesn’t publish frequently enough to seem like a potential FIT high point scorer but interesting and educational pieces like this one are what would make FIT a valuable experience.
Kling’s steel-manning of journalists advocating censorship is not convincing or believable.
My attempt at steel-manning or charitably explaining the mindset behind those at CNN + NYT + WaPo who wish to deplatform others: They are convinced that their side, the political left is righteous, the rivals on the right are evil, and the ends justify the means in fighting and crushing them. Objective journalism is nice in times of peace, but that is a luxury they can’t afford. The other side bends the rules and plays dirty, so they have to do some of the same.
The left is not concerned with honesty in news as much as they are concerned with dominating the narratives spoken in public and deplatforming voices that compete for influence and authority.
One big difference is who has boots on the ground, who is operating the video cameras, who is conducting the interviews, collecting statements, and following up on leads? Lots of smart people, can sit at their laptops and write thoughtful op-ed and analysis, but they generally can’t or won’t do the ground work and leg work that a professional news outlet will do.
I don’t know you, so forgive me if this comes across acrimoniously (not my intent), but that doesn’t ping my steel-man/charitable radar.
Fair point. I fail the Ideological Turing test.
When I read about the handwritten newsletters in 16th century Venice, that were taken over by powerful figures to control the news the public hears: they know they are being dishonest. I’m not sure how you can charitably steel-man that behavior.
Today’s politics is harder to discuss because it’s flooded with emotion and passion. But I do think the wealthy and powerful of today are doing the same thing that happened in 16th century Venice, in terms of controlling the public news narratives and messaging that the masses hear.
Arnold says a steelman for journalists is
believing that society will work better if people trust the information that they get from mainstream journalists. Those who undermine that trust threaten society by creating an environment in which falsehoods masquerade as news and in which journalists who try to do their job feel threatened and intimidated. Society needs to fight back against these spoilers of the realm of public knowledge.
I think this is the Public PR story they tell, and might even believe themselves (which makes it not quite a lie, maybe a neo-lie).
But I believe the truth about them is more as Niko Davor says:
They are convinced that their side, the political left is righteous, the rivals on the right are evil, and the ends justify the means in fighting and crushing them. Objective journalism is nice in times of peace, but that is a luxury they can’t afford. The other side bends the rules and plays dirty, so they have to do some of the same.
The left is not concerned with honesty in news as much as they are concerned with dominating the narratives spoken in public and deplatforming voices that compete for influence and authority.
First, they believe they are “good” – thus those who disagree are “bad”. Not just because they disagree, but because their motivations are “evil”, because “Trump is literally Hitler”, and his supporters support Hitler.
All’s fair in war, and this is war against evil.
But when the Truth about what is their hearts is different than the claims they make with their Mouths, where is the steelman? If they deny the truth, but act upon it using tinman* arguments of their own, how do we want the best intellectuals to respond?
Certainly to address the arguments the journalists have themselves, as Arnold does. But in addition to address the truth that seems likely to be in their hearts, whether they deny it or not.
The illusion of asymmetric insight is one of the most corrosive (personally and socially) of the cognitive biases. And it is sadly in manifest abundance.
Group attribution error and trait ascription bias are too.
Arnold, I’m curious how you would steel-man the economists who are leading us to ruin with MMT? How can any rational person believe that borrowing like there is no tomorrow will lead to a good outcome?
Ok I know you are more interested in Arnold’s answer to that than mine but let me try my hand at steel-manning MMT anyway:
The real limit on government spending is not taxing and borrowing as we have long been told. It is really inflation. No one knows exactly when too much government spending will cause too much inflation but many years of experience have taught us that this spending limit might be much higher than we have been told by conventional economists and deficit hawks.
These many years of experience have shown us that the record deficits consistently happen when we have Republican Presidents, especially if they have Republican Congresses. When huge deficit exploding tax cuts for the rich are on the table or huge deficit exploding defense spending is on the table right wing deficit attention disorder is always in full effect. Right wing economists and politicians call this “starve the beast” theory or supply side economics. It differs from MMT not in its disapproval of deficits but only in its opinion of what purposes these deficits should be put to.
That being the case, there is no reason for Progressives not to spend the money on their priorities before Republicans use it all for tax cuts for the rich and more excessive defense spending. Spending this money in ways that put more of it in the hands those below the median income will likely benefit the economy more than that alternative anyway since they will be more likely to spend it on goods and services than use it to further inflate asset prices.
The problem is that the history demonstrates that once you find that limit, there is no rectifying the situation- it blows up into hyperinflation, and you end up needing a completely new financial system.
I agree that both MMT advocates and Supply Siders are too sanguine about the risks of inflation. In principle, there should be considerable room between a 2% CPI and runaway inflation that should allow for money creation to be stopped long before hyper-inflation.
The problem is there may be the kind of future depression, natural disaster or war that makes continued deficit spending unavoidable. It seems reckless to take that risk but there is no evidence either party will reject big deficits when they are in power.
For almost a century, deficit hawks have been predicting that the federal debt would soon cause economic disaster. It has become a boy who cried wolf situation.
I think it is important to point out that the ones pushing MMT are not just politicians, but economists. These “experts” are leading us to financial ruin.
Greg, what is the endgame? Even if interest rates are kept artificially low, eventually the interest eats up more and more of the budget. I think interest on the debt is about $400B now compared to about $800B on defense spending. What happens when interest on the debt is the largest budget item?
“What happens when interest on the debt is the largest budget item?”
“Money printer go brrr.” And the usual suspects, “Prices are stable and that’s a problem: why we need lots more inflation right now.”
Also, “Old White People have too much of the wealth and that’s a problem. Here’s why Money Printer Go Brr is better for Anti-Racism.”
+1 Headlines of the future, today!
Lysander,
I am less confident in steel-manning that very good question but I will make the attempt anyway.
I think they would say that the Fed can “buy” as many U.S. Treasuries as necessary. The ability to repay is not the limiting factor. Too much inflation is the limiting factor.
I think they would say that the fiscal policy they advocate offers the best chance of promoting the kind of general prosperity that would avoid or postpone that kind of inflationary fiscal crisis.
I think they would also point out that even if such a crisis is in the cards the idea that a Republican run government will offer a better chance of avoiding it is not credible given the history.
Eisenhower was the last Republican President to take deficit cutting seriously. Clinton was the last Democrat to do so. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” in Cheney’s words. “All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around” Rush Limbaugh said in defense of Trump’s record peacetime pre-pandemic deficits after years of personally promoting this “bogus” concern only when Democrats were in power.
You ask a good question but why are you focussed on this as a problem posed by MMT when MMT is just a progressive version of longstanding de facto Republican administration deficit policy?
Greg, I would like to focus on the economists who justify the deficit spending with MMT. These are the people who should know better.
Where I am going with all of this is that I think it is perfectly rational for populists to question the experts, because in case after case the experts have shown that they have no integrity.
We have journalists who publish false quotes and fake stories.
We have epidemiologists who tell us that the same activity is OK or not OK depending on the politics of the people engaging in the activity.
We have intelligence agents who tell us that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation” when it was not, and there was never any evidence that it was.
We have former military leaders who were horrified that Trump would use the National Guard to protect federal buildings, but were silent when Biden did the same thing.
We have psychiatrists who violated their professional code of ethics to weigh in on Trump’s mental state, but are strangely quiet on Biden’s inability to speak coherently.
I suspect the economists who are pushing MMT are part of this same crowd, but I’d like to be convinced otherwise.
The budget deficit was $585B in 2016 before Trump took power.
It was $665, $779, and $984 after that. So that is far below a trillion in above trend line budget deficits during he Trump years. I will leave 2020 on the side given COVID.
Direct COVID spending is something like $6T? This is clearly way way way bigger than anything during the Trump years…or any year. The budget deficit as a % of GDP in 1942, when we were fighting the Battle of Midway, was less than COVID. I have a lot of problems with all the COVID spending, but consider that the last $2T was after the vaccines and clearly the least necessary.
Shouldn’t there be at least one platform on the web where it is understood, and accepted by all, there will be no censorship, somewhat akin to a red-light district?
Yes, there will be awful stuff on the platform. You are not forced to look at it.
But I bet a lot of excellent blogging and reporting would go on too.
That is begging the question, though, in the current environment.
https://www.4chan.org/
4chan is essentially uncensored and complained about among those who are upset about “QAnon (& 4chan)” folk.
My kids were using it for anime. It also has some porn.
They have rules against it, and other racism things, but it seems such rules are inconsistently enforced.
https://www.4chan.org/rules
I don’t find it of much value or worth looking at – all are anon.
As compared to unz.com, where Sailor and Derbyshire are — but half of the writers (or more?) seem full of Jew-hate, which I find annoying and don’t trust such authors.
I don’t like the Twitter form, so neither Gab nor Parler are so attractive.
We don’t have polite yet tolerant of non-PC forum for news and discussion, as far as I know. I’d be happy to find out more.
The problem with ‘steel-manning’ is ‘straw-steel-manning’, either intentional or negligent. That is, when people who either wrongly believe or are knowingly pretend to be presenting an accurate summary of that strongest case, but who aren’t.
Unless one is being paid like a lawyer or agent, someone who doesn’t actually hold a belief – or want to see it become more widely adopted or succeed in some sense – is rarely sufficiently incentivized to go to the trouble of really making the strongest possible argument. And at the same time, they face other incentives which cut the other way.
One incentive is the opposite desire, to see it fail in some sense. To strawman is to set up an inaccurate version of the opposing argument, so it’s easy to knock down. To straw-steelman is to pretend one isn’t strawmanning. That is, to *also claim* that one is not strawmanning, but instead presenting the strongest possible case, such that by refuting it, there is nothing left in terms of remaining compelling counters. But in fact one is *still* be strawmanning by presenting a weaker, crippled version of the true, strongest case.
Having read over a lot of essays online by people who claimed to be steelmanning, in my judgment the majority of those were straw-steelmanning, and of those, about 50/50 intentional vs. negligent.
Steelmanning is like a prosecutor trying a case in absentia like an inquisitor, without either the accused or a defense counsel, and trying to imagine what a good defense counsel would say, and then arguing against that. Even a very moral prosecutor won’t do a very good job putting up that best defense, and the immoral one won’t even bother, but both will still claim they tried really hard. It’s still no good.
The other incentive suppressing genuine steelmanning is that one doesn’t want to do *too* good a job presenting the strongest arguments in favor of controversial, socially-undesirable beliefs, because that risks harm to one’s personal reputation and relationships. Even lawyers who are “just doing their job” defending some notorious criminal suspect and bolstered by (formerly) strong norms against criticizing attorneys on that basis still face these social pressures and their professional decisions are distorted by those pressures.
If you don’t believe me, then go ahead and try to give the best steelman for the race-realist or sex-realist perspective. Is Scott Alexander ever going to Steelman Steve Sailer? Nope. A long time ago someone made the point at LessWrong asking what the proper Bayesian updates to our priors should be given the extensive data we have on disparities between the sexes and population groups, and, predictably, most people lost their minds and let fly a stream of low-quality normative sociology to rationalize away the obvious, if socially undesirable, answers. Oh well.
Well, if we can’t rely on outsiders to steelman right, then maybe we can rely on insiders? But no, we can’t, because in “discourse in the shadow of the guillotine”, a person cannot make the strongest possible argument from a situation of personal safety (or preferably immunity) comparable to the ideal norms for the criminal defense attorney.
Just like Haidt found that conservatives know more about progressive positions than the other way around, it’s much easier for a person with a lower-status belief to understand and accurately steelman a higher-status belief than vice versa, so all purported steelmanning of low-status beliefs ought to be viewed with strong suspicion.
Well, perhaps we can set a lower bar and simply take people’s claims about their beliefs and arguments at face value and as if they were made in good faith without making relying on any ‘asymmetric insight’ into their real and ulterior motives, conscious and/or unconscious. As a norm for the purpose of productive and amicable discourse, this is not a bad default as a rule of behavior.
But there’s no getting around the fact that is not grounded in human reality. Of course many people make false arguments and claims to further political and ideological purposes, and furthermore, the insights in books like The Elephant In The Brain weight heavily against most people not having as true motivations the typical human subconscious reasons of wanting to be cooler and more liked by cool people. A person with low-status beliefs will still take the deal for a cease-fire on offer (if, in fact, there was anyone to actually bargain with – which there isn’t), but in order to avoid being on the receiving end of the typical kind of false smears and slanders, he must in turn bite his tongue when the existence of ulterior motives is clearly true.
The only tolerable answer to this whole conundrum is adversaralism, both incentivized and immunized. A fair opportunity to be heard in a safe and compensated dialectic between positions which are polarized into relative complements, in front of a neutral and disinterested third party audience and arbiter.
That is, the forms, rules, and norms of common law trial, and also of academic debate, and parliamentary order and process, that emerged in the evolution of British civilization.
In those settings it eventually became taken for granted that advocacy without unencumbered and unqualified rights of expression would be a sham. Cf. “… for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place.”
If someone can’t argue for low-status beliefs without fear, then it’s better to just admit that there is no fair discourse. The whole effort in steelmanning, while good-intentioned, undermines the widespread acknowledgement and acceptance of that reality, and makes it seem like a healthy discourse is still possible where it is not.
I think tin-manning might be a pithier term for this phenomenon, which I have also observed with some frequency.
You write: “The other incentive suppressing genuine steelmanning is that one doesn’t want to do *too* good a job presenting the strongest arguments in favor of controversial, socially-undesirable beliefs, because that risks harm to one’s personal reputation and relationships.”
I agree that this is at play. I also think doing too good a job runs the risk of harming one’s reputation with oneself. There’s a lot of empirical research demonstrating that personal attitudes/beliefs can be modulated by the position one was randomly assigned to take on an issue.
In a similar vein, our internal governor might put a cap on how strongly we can argue for the “other side” so as to preserve our positional status within.
I don’t agree with Handle that we should conclude that, because steel-manning (or anything else) is often done badly, it shouldn’t be attempted at all.
Better to call out bad faith steel-manning when we see it. I love Mimai’s creation of the term “tin-manning” for that purpose.
I like ‘tin-manning’ too. Perfect for weak steel-manning. Made to look like it is the strong version, but actually a flimsy imitation.
One big problem with tin-manning is that when made by a more prestigious or prominent writer, the tin-man becomes far more widely known that the original, stronger case, and readers accept it as an accurate summation of the argument and then take a “The Science Is Settled!” attitude about it, instead of letting the original advocates speak for themselves. For an opponent, this is like having the straw shoved in your mouth instead of being able to speak for yourself. Many such cases.
Perhaps it would be better etiquette to privately run one’s attempt at a steel-man past a genuine advocate of the position and ask ‘is this fair’, but maybe that’s asking too much.
As for never attempting it at all, let me clarify. People who are actually trying to get to the truth should try to practice civil courtesy (when reciprocated) and intellectual self-discipline when assessing and arguing against cases from other points of view. They should avoid intellectual technical fouls and especially avoid intellectual personal fouls, and try to separate the advocacy from the advocate and even from the context to the extent possible. That is, to assess a claim fairly on its merits*, with the minimal amount of name-calling or moralistic condemnation.
It’s also possible to be charitable to the extent one notices curable errors in one’s opponent’s work. In trial work, it’s possible to notice your opposing counsel got the names of two witnesses mixed up in his filing. Well, you could try to make hay of that, but it’s considered bad form. You notice the minor error, you see the obvious cure, and so you overlook that error and argue against the cured version. If you discover evidence that pokes a hole in your own case, but your opponent isn’t aware or using it, then you are also supposed to hand that evidence over, which forces you to argue against the truth, instead of just inadequate, incompetent, or infamous opponents, which is unfairly easy.
What I’m saying, however, is that when someone is claiming to have done this without sufficient humility, one ought to view it with skepticism and apply strict scrutiny. “How do I know this is genuine steel and not tin or just more straw?” And this is especially true when someone is claiming to steel-man low-status beliefs, which is precisely when they aren’t likely to do a very good job, for the reasons I explained above.
Likewise, one ought to practice that humility on oneself, and ought to question whether one’s attempts to do this are really adequate, comprehensive, and fair. I don’t see much evidence for that kind of humility in the steel-o-sphere or whatever you call the collection of internet commentators that try to raise the status of the practice.
Furthermore, the form of charity least in evidence is acknowledgment that social pressures make it impossible to make some accurate and valid arguments defending legitimate interests. In such circumstances – the more egregious the more obvious and severe the social pressure – it is an unfair intellectual abuse to claim that the failure to articulate certain positions or counterarguments demonstrates that opponents don’t have a good, solid case, that is, unless they are willing to make themselves into pariahs to prove you wrong. It is likewise abusive to claim confidently that one is ‘steel-manning’ when also excluding these unarticulated arguments. That’s why claims of steel-manning of low-status arguments ought to be viewed with deep suspicion, and one ought to suspect even oneself when making the attempt, as one is unlikely to do a good job.
On the contrary, in such circumstances of likely severe social penalties for heresy, it is best to presume the existence of “dark matter steel” that is probably there, but which you can’t see. After all, the purpose of the social penalties is precisely to muzzle that steel, so that one can ‘win’ an argument without having to contend with it. Hence the recent enthusiasm for cancellation, which is always easier and more fun than boring and difficult counterargument. “More democratic” too, you might say, since few are good at arguing.
This is like how a criminal defendant is presumed innocent and the burden shifted to the prosecution who must prove every element of the case beyond a reasonable doubt, even if the defendant remains completely silent. Those are the proper rules of the game when the accused is unlikely to be able to speak well for himself.
The only cure for this is a much stronger norm of openness and tolerance of free speech. You just aren’t going to get a better steel-man than the genuine article, that is, than from a sincere advocate who feels safe in the expression of his honest sentiments on the matter. But we are very much headed in the wrong direction.
*Of course, it’s also fair in some circumstances to point out when this is impossible because an advocate is behaving in an intentionally slippery way, and even when given ample opportunity, stubbornly refusing to clarify or make certain claims well-defined enough to pin down and criticize, most likely for the express purpose of making criticism impossible, and also preserving the option to shift goalposts or claim that their opponents don’t really understand. Sumner makes this complaint about MMT advocates, for example.
Thank you for thoroughly addressing the steel-manning in the legal context. As recently as three or four decades ago, law students were required to write essays that thoroughly and accurately presented the arguments both pro- and con- for opposing positions. This was pretty much what people mean by steel-manning today. Of course, that seems to have gone away in favor of diversity, inclusion, and equity. Nevertheless, my FIT draft strategy will be to try to get some prolific, old school lawyers in the hopes that they will produce work that will score as steel-manning.
Full disclosure (well, “fullish,” pace Handle): I wrote “tin-manning” think it was a clever and pithy descriptor for the phenomenon. After five minutes of self-satisfaction, a creeping uncertainty set in…..perhaps I am not the first person to have produced this. A google (be damned!) search later confirmed my suspicion. I am indeed not the originator, but I do retain a smidge of self-satisfaction, as I do not recall having ever heard this term before. And so it goes…
Now, a few brief free associations (to continue the Freudian thread) to Handle’s very rich post.
1) “One big problem with tin-manning is that when made by a more prestigious or prominent writer, the tin-man becomes far more widely known that the original, stronger case, and readers accept it as an accurate summation of the argument and then take a “The Science Is Settled!” attitude about it, instead of letting the original advocates speak for themselves.”
Agree, this does happen. One wrinkle though is that the original case if often not stronger. Of course, this contributes to what you observe about the tin-man replacing it. I think this argues for an even more concerted effort to steel-man in good faith.
2) “As for never attempting it at all, let me clarify. People who are actually trying to get to the truth should try to practice civil courtesy (when reciprocated) and intellectual self-discipline when assessing and arguing against cases from other points of view.”
Your parenthetical caught my eye. I contend that civil courtesy is an unconditional good. Among other things, it’s self-reinforcing to the deliverer and it models productive engagement to the receiver (and observers). I think viewing it as conditional is fraught with problems, not the least of which is our tendency toward biased reasoning (the elephant, as you say)…..it’s far to easy to interpret lack of civility in the other so as to justify one’s own boorishness (which has been reinforced by it’s continued expression – see point about self-reinforcing).
3) “Likewise, one ought to practice that humility on oneself, and ought to question whether one’s attempts to do this are really adequate, comprehensive, and fair. I don’t see much evidence for that kind of humility in the steel-o-sphere or whatever you call the collection of internet commentators that try to raise the status of the practice.”
+1. Humility, in all its varieties, is a much needed tonic for many of our current ails.
4) “Furthermore, the form of charity least in evidence is acknowledgment that social pressures make it impossible to make some accurate and valid arguments defending legitimate interests. In such circumstances – the more egregious the more obvious and severe the social pressure – it is an unfair intellectual abuse to claim that the failure to articulate certain positions or counterarguments demonstrates that opponents don’t have a good, solid case, that is, unless they are willing to make themselves into pariahs to prove you wrong. It is likewise abusive to claim confidently that one is ‘steel-manning’ when also excluding these unarticulated arguments. That’s why claims of steel-manning of low-status arguments ought to be viewed with deep suspicion, and one ought to suspect even oneself when making the attempt, as one is unlikely to do a good job.”
These are very good points. This is a really complicated issue. On the one hand, “status” is specific to one’s social network. So this problem might be obviated by the creation of “bubbles” where previously maligned viewpoints are no longer so. On the other hand, these kinds of “bubbles” can lead to a host of other ills that may be as bad or worse than the initial ill that was being treated. A double bind.
Quick clarification…
Re 1), I wrote “One wrinkle though is that the original case if often not stronger.”
What I mean is that the original case is often not presented in a way that is stronger (ie, more compelling) than the tin-man version. Given that we are talking in generalities here, I can’t comment on the actual strength of the original case.
Handle is so correct:
” You just aren’t going to get a better steel-man than the genuine article, that is, than from a sincere advocate who feels safe in the expression of his honest sentiments on the matter”
and earlier
The only tolerable answer to this whole conundrum is adversaralism, both incentivized and immunized.
I thought of “leadman” but slightly prefer “tinman”, with Wizard of Oz familiarity. Those whose hearts are NOT in the argument, most often give lousy strawman arguments, but at best give good tinman.
Far better tin, trying for steel, than merely straw.
Too much PC news is straw.