Monolithic Grouping- The Dangers Of Simplification
They are also the destroyers of rational discourse, what do I mean by "Monolithic Grouping"?
A couple of current examples:
-All Muslims are Terrorists.
-All Trump Supporters are racists.
So basicaly-
-All "fill in group" are "fill in epithet"
With some added complexity
-White people who voted for Trump are and even if they don't know it - racists.
Convenient for placards, tweets and sound bites.
There is often some form of accompanying amelioration attached
All Muslims are not terrorists but "fill in reasoning of your choice".
All Trump supporters are not racist but "fill in reasoning of your choice"
The simple fact is that you started off any argument by creating a monolithic grouping to make a point, they also help avoid actually detailing what the real problems are and why they exist. They are simplistic arguments and deliberately divisive. We all do it at some point, it speeds up the conversation but can also speed up the misunderstanding. When I say "we" I have done so myself based on a generality or perceived reality. I am putting my own beliefs ahead of the reality and thereby distorting the discourse from the start, hopefully to my advantage.
The advantage of my line of work "engineering research" is that I can impose an number of variables and assumptions during the analysis of the data based on experience, if these are incorrect then garbage spews out. Without the experience poor manipulation of the data can result in erroneous conclusions and assumptions. With a lot of experience the data can be manipulated to get the desired result [deliberately or not], this is why we have peer reviews and the raw data is Queen of all she surveys. The really devious manipulate the raw data [or equipment calibration offsets], hence the experiments are rerun by others and eventually a general consensus is arrived at. In the end it comes down to personal integrity and due diligence and the simple admission you made a mistake. The fear of making a mistake or false assumption is also a driver, since it can bankrupt you pretty quickly. Sometimes the data itself is pure sewage, suck it up and design a better experiment/data acquisition/accuracy.
Same thing goes for polling and statistics as has been amply demonstrated. I suppose the first question should be, is the data acquisition methodology unbiased/accurate? Then are we looking at the right variables, are we asking the right questions are we unbiased in what we are actually looking for.
A lot of the questions themselves are based on "monolithic groupings", then again who wants to read twenty volumes each of two hundred pages of polling questions? Who has the time? Hence we simplify, often overly. The peer review is the election itself, sadly this is often based upon the divisiveness of "monolithic groupings", therefore any analysis of the review itself is that much harder and gets out of hand when further "monolithic grouping" methodology is applied. You could call them "simplified wedge issues" again doing a disservice to the reality of the issue itself.
We are often asked to take a "yes or no" position when the real answers maybe an "I don't know" or "it's complicated". First you have to ask who is proposing the question and why.
The depressing thing for me is that the media obsessed with sound bites failed once again to get around both their own and the candidates "monolithic groupings" even when they have a couple of years to do so. Even more depressing is when the analysis and "blame games" centre around the "monolithic groupings".
The whole of "common wisdom" [a simplified way of getting around the issues without actually thinking or even discussing them] centres around "monolithic groupings". When in real difficulty quite a few seem to reach immediately for the tin foil i.e. make shit up.
The results? Often further simplification and misunderstanding. A type of Catch 22.
This lecture comes to mind:- another title could have been -I don't care what the facts are.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLnMWZ_VQ5M]
In a time when experts are often little rewarded [even persecuted] and derided, where the glib profit, perhaps it is worth taking some time to listen to them? Not just the ones that please you. It might make a difference, even to yourself.
Sorry for the ramble of an essay.
Just a thought
Comments
When you carry reductionism to such an absurd extent it speeds
things up with the loss of understanding until the results are worthless.
It worth noting that universites do not employ economists who use Marxian analysis as their means to understand the global economy and power relationships. Safe Neo-Keynesians are the rule. It's also the observation that this school never foresees economic crashes and can't explain the stagnation and capitalism's next step, financialization, as the basis of the predatory political economy. Those who do use Marxian analysis - I am not talking about Marxist fundamentalists at all - correctly predicted the high underemployment rates of rich countries; the failure of capitalism in 2008; the financialization of the global system due to lack of productive investment opportunities for excess profit; and the exploitation of the global south through labor arbitrage and the stealing of the regions' natural resources while in turn using the area as a free dump site.
Since the neoliberal regime commands governments at virtually all levels, the 99% seem to have little recourse at present. Think about this: The military/industrial,financial complex is literally making the planet uninhabitable yet the people who are suffering already, and the suffering has just begun, lack the wherewithal to correct the situation and get to a place where a human can live out his or her life in relative comfort and peace and feel that children and grandchildren will also be able to do the same.
I liked your essay - thanks.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Marxian analysis is making somewhat a return in the
"City of London" I believe/heard since their own analysts got it so wrong, many firms looked elsewhere.
This school of econ. at Frankfurt & those associated with
The Monthly Review in the USA(though they publish scholars from all over the world - including Ian Angus in the UK) have been more accurate in their dissecting of the political economy and accurate(though less so being an historic science) in their predictions then those who work from Keynesianism, Post-Keynes, or the lamentable Hayak school. I wonder why more capitalists don't hire some of these scientists, lock them away in a basement with access to all the tools they need, pay them well, and rake in profits based on their output.
We're better off for the fact that they have day jobs in Sociology; agronomy; ecology etc.
I think the "City of London" will find that they are better off with a radical economist or three.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Haven't heard or read much about Modern Monetary Theory lately.
Any thoughts about that?
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
This is my reaction to it. It may be pinheaded but until I
learn more, it's all I've got.
I think MMT is correct but is not relevant in day to day, year over year, economics and life as it is lived.
I think it's like Newtonian gravity being incorrect and Einsteinian gravity being correct. We live in a Newtonian world and at that
level it doesn't matter to us, and the rest of life, that space is curved and that the gravitational effect on light has now been measured.
I may have just exposed myself as a monetary goob but that's the stance and I am staying with it until I learn otherwise.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
This might interest you if you haven't read it
A piece by James K. Galbraith
He concludes
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/predator-state
Yes I agree with James Galbraith on this internal economic
dynamic. This is how capital operates within our boundaries. I don't think anyone would deny that this is the M.O. of capital here.
I haven't read too much from him about the more important global monopoly capitalism which explains why both imperialism and financialiaztion are central to the logic of this pervasive and ultra-destructive system.
Still, we are beholden to Galbraith for studying this, correctly analyzing it, and publishing on it. I am sure he could have gotten rich selling gilt lies to the 1% but he has decided to do the right thing by the 99%. As far as the USA is concerned, Galbraith has a handle on things.
Many thanks for this.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Coupled with Thomas Piketty Capital in the Twenty-First Century
We must rethink globalization, or Trumpism will prevail ~ Thomas Piketty
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/16/globalization-trum...
This is a good thing: Piketty is an establishment economist and
he's one of the few who undertstands the worldwide neoliberal regime and its rapaciousness. Piketty is not a marginalized radical economist; he's part of the in-group of economists and I think it's a big deal that he's telling the truth about the cause of worldwide inequality and why it will get worse.
The way the other establishment economists reacted showed me that they think there's a traitor in their midst. It was a big deal in the economic and business journals the way they fell all over themselves running down Piketty because they could not, and cannot, dispute his facts.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Exactly you don't have to have a
theory, Keynsian or otherwise if you are close to the money spigot. All you need to do is extract. Greed and legal corruption is so prevelant it over whelms any thoughts except the short term grift. Oil pipelines and quarter million dollar speeches seem like effective use of resources in this social Darwinist BAU world. No consideration is given to long term effects.
It's not only predatory;
I believe it has also become parasitic. What happened to Lehman Bros? Our pensions? Our homes?
Although they know full well that a prosperous middle class is what allows capitalism to flourish, they keep taking more and more away from it.
That is what persuades me that TPTB are fully aware that capitalism is in its death throes. Exempt the Koch's from that remark: they are completely sold on their free market capitalism - so much so they are emotionally invested in it. The blind will not see.
I agree with you. In many fields it's not industrial capitalism
but financial capitalism. Unlike the former, the latter is not concerned with production and, as a side effect, is even farther removed from workers and their communities. Financial monopoly capitalism deals with ever more complex, and therefore subject to manipulation, financial instruments which can be both profitable to bundle and sell, and then to manipulate and short thereby profiting twice and beggaring the entities who hold the paper.
The Asian debt crisis - so called - of a generation ago was an early manifestation of this behavior where speculation drove up the bond prices of "emerging markets" and then capital was withdrawn creating the crisis which was hugely profitable for the financial corporations and a disaster for the countries on the receiving end of the scam. This hypermobility of capital is parasitic, as you point out, because it produces nothing of value, it is not intended to produce anything of value, but realizes vast profits through exploiting inequalities of wealth, knowledge, and brute military and political force.
This is the sector, next to high tech, that supports the Democratic Party so it's naive not to believe those who control the party don't know of the game.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Lehman Bros. was killled by Goldman Sachs
former CEO Henry Paulson. He was the one that decided that Lehman should not be bailed out. Still loyal to Goldman Sachs and no doubt somehow recompensed for his continued loyalty.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
The most basic rule of trading
or of analyzing a rule of trade, is when the herd all agrees on it, go the other way, at least it was like that before financial engineering became vogue. Since the injection of financial engineering trading has become even more singular, The "City of London" in all of it's wonders loves group think, if one company is making a profit from it, let's jump on board. It's also how WS thinks.
so if any one corp in London starts profiting from it, look for it to be universally done.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Great essay, even if you say it was a ramble.
@duckpin: could you turn this reply into an essay? Or give links if you already have?
Simply put. Reasoning by adbuction.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Also to be borne in mind
Charles S. Pierce is right!
This rule is valid everywhere. It's a re-statement of Occam's Razor.
And there are definitely places where it ought to be enforced at gunpoint!
/snark?
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
there are definitely places where it ought to be enforced at gun
point.
More than I ever dreamed possible.
Sure, provided people are also told “false flags” are *ordinary*
in the history of warfare and politics.
There are many situations in which official deception is the least extraordinary explanation.
When experts say there is absolutely no reason for concern . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/01/columbia.usa
Nobody has ever suggested an expert cannot be wrong
as many would confirm, perhaps they were not expert enough.
My biggest mistake was missing the effect of a tiny impurity in a metal tube due to the actual rolling equipment material [fabrication process] in a high pressure/highT steam line, a micro-fracture due to vibration at a molecular level over time. Luckily nobody had their face melted off.
This is a highly-relevant
This is a highly-relevant essay, and I concur. Regarding experts, all people make honest mistakes being humans, but the corruption of some experts, notably those economists and political pundits, although one could convincingly argue that many of the latter are expert only at expelling astonishing amounts of carbon dioxide with very little to show for it, who were "in the tank" for Hillary Clinton do great harm to the public's trust in the impartiality of experts in general.
When people see that such people change their views according to political expediency, fair or not, all experts' reputations suffer to say nothing of the highly-financed disinformation campaigns of Big Oil to discredit global climate change science just for one example. Throw in deliberate efforts of the same financial backers to undermine and starve public education, and the result is a populace woefully unprepared to wade through the bilge of available information corrupted as it is, especially in the mainstream media, by the same forces of entirely-inhumane greed and unrelenting selfishness.
Even just describing the problems is far from simple. In some cases, partial solutions are obvious but not permitted by those in power and their overlords, while the more complex long-term solutions that may require a certain amount of trial and error often seem completely out of reach.
I do my best to "educate" on a small-scale in conversations, often starting with ideas that I think the person I'm talking to is likely to see as common ground and then following that up with gently suggesting the complexity of a given situation with examples, historical successes if possible, of solutions that will take more time and courage to implement. Still and all, the weight of the wealth and corruption that stands against telling the people the truth sometimes leads me to hyperbolic statements born of the anger and despair that bubbles up inside me at the cruel injustice of it all.
There is a glimmer of hope to be found, as others here have written, that enough people saw through that self-professed expert Hillary Clinton to defeat her in this campaign, but the alternative is pretty shitty in his own right.
Thank you for these insights.
political expediency = snake oil sales
Cult of the expert
Mostly a good idea but sometimes with disastrous consequences.
It should never be a cult, just some respect
Trump / Brexit / Front National are anti-expert to the extreme.
It really depends upon what one's goal is.
If the goal is rational discourse and accurate analysis, then of course these monolithic groupings are destructive to those purposes, yet both of those ideas are apparently anathema to the American media and political elite.
The shorthand grouping, and the soundbite conclusions and "analysis" that it provides are perfect for the goal of creating a false narrative, and that false narrative, if short, sweet, and cursorily plausible, will get re-tweeted and FB'd until it becomes a facsimile of truth. It will be believed, and then acted upon, at least that's the goal.
Trump supporters are Nazis, who can deny it?
This one seems way over-the-top at first, but when you consider that it's a "conclusion" that's been arrived at incrementally as these tweets build upon one another, now you have a situation where a significant percentage of the population takes this at face value, as "truth".
It kind of adds nuance to the definition of a "twit".
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
We make our living
in the the stats/ tabulations and math end of public opinion polling. Shah is a mathematical 'expert', I hate to call him an idiot savant because he's a very humanistic person. He's a musician/songwriter and he tells me that music is math. We are both artist techie types, 'creatives' as they call them in marketing. I was a print production manager for advertising. We are both skilled experts in our narrow fields.
I was a wrist and he was a math head. Don't disturb the numbers in his head sad his client and mentor. political strategist. One of my clients described what Shah did as the 'voodoo behind the money'. The analysts are tea leaf readers who use the numbers to divine the effectiveness of the con. I guess what I'm saying is that experts are needed to build and make things be they tables of abstract numbers,graphic designs or bridges and buildings. However valuable experts are in building systems their 'facts' are not humanistic, holistic solutions or concepts.
In my opinion knowledge and data are two different animals. To categorize humans into binary demographics for the purpose of divining the truth overlooks the real truth. The truths they are researching are not truths at all as humans are complex both individually and socially. Facts, theories and data can not not measure the inalienable, self evident truths and concepts that humans have developed over centuries. When science or social science becomes as dogmatic as religion the truths it professes are just measurements of how effective the system is at controlling humanity to suit the power hungry, greed heads. Corporations are not people money is not speech.
Political science is an oxymoron. Technocratic 'governance' that is based on theories that are inhuman and designed to elevate power and money is absolutely mad. The common good and concepts like equality, justice, democracy, are subverted and twisted to fit the theory. 'There will be blood' said Obama in 2006 at the Hamilton Projects launch. He was talking about globalized free market, disaster capitalism. All the fact's, theories and data are utilized to keep the unsustainable growth and life killing going strong in the name of inevitable progress. It's a means to an end that has nothing to do with truth.
In order to get humans to consent to this destruction it helps if they are busy blaming each other instead of uniting against the perpetrators of their misery. The questionnaires of mass deception do not offer people any way to express their grievances other then ranking them in the degrees of dissatisfaction using technocratic language that does not take the whole into consideration but divides their grievances into separate categories. People are just not this stupid some are but most know pure evil and a totalitarian anti-human system when it bites them.
Life is not binary. Fact's are hard to come by when they are based on the story told for the purpose of gaining centralized power and acquiescence to a inhumane world built on theories that mean both humans and the planet death, misery and harm. Blaming the failure of the lesser evil to win on the divisions, fear and loathing, they carefully cultivate is insult to injury. I'm glad people globally are resisting the theories or those that call this the inevitable 'world as we find it'.
'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind.' George Orwell
Where's my habeaus corpus?