Professor Kahneman saw such a dynamic as “angry science,” which he described as a “nasty world of critiques, replies and rejoinders,” and “as a contest, where the aim is to embarrass.” As Professor Kahneman put it, those who live in that nasty world offer “a summary caricature of the target position, refute the weakest argument in that caricature, and declare the total destruction of the adversary’s position.” In his account, angry science is “a demeaning experience.” That dynamic might sound familiar, particularly in our politics.Instead, Professor Kahneman favored an alternative that he termed “adversarial collaboration.” When people who disagree work together to test a hypothesis, they are involved in a common endeavor. They are trying not to win, but to figure out what’s true. They might even become friends.
For the context, read the whole thing. The basic idea is to have respect for people who disagree with you and you will usually find that they will return the respect. The payoff is that you will both get closer to some truth. In the whole nearly thirteen year history of this blog I have only had to ban two commentators. Years ago they got into a ferocious argument about Narciso Yepes that was very much tangential to the original post. They refused to desist so I banned them both. On one other occasion I banned another commentator and deleted his comment simply because it was obscene and insulting. And that's it! In thirteen years and nearly 13,000 comments. For the internet that must be some kind of record?
In the world of music and aesthetics we recognize that there is always a lot of subjectivity and objective truth can be elusive so it benefits all of us to respect contrary opinions.
So, thanks to my commentators for recognizing this and for making the blog a better place. And do not water down your opinion as it may be most valuable in its strongest iteration.
Not sure what a suitable envoi would be, but how can you go wrong with a Mozart piano concerto? Maurizio Pollini just passed away, so let's hear his playing the Piano Concerto no. 23:
3 comments:
I enjoyed Thinking Fast and Slow. His comments on how most of what is presented as social scientific research unfortunately has to be dismissed on the basis of epic sampling bias (samples too small to produce reliably replicable results) stuck with me.
For anyone who hasn't read the book he went through the range of cognitive biases that show up in how we think. Knowing what the biases are only helps you recognize when you've leaned on what erroneously sooner, such knowledge never actually helps you not rely on a cognitive bias. His proposal was 98% of the time our "thinking fast" processes jump to the right conclusions which is why when they don't we're not just wrong, we're catastrophically wrong.
“ The basic idea is to have respect for people who disagree with you and you will usually find that they will return the respect. The payoff is that you will both get closer to some truth.”
——-
Unfortunately the world doesn’t work that way. Sometimes people are of different ‘universes’ where common ground is almost impossible and ‘truth’ is relative.
I realized that for the first time when i had a conversation about football and hokey, and my interlocutor, who was a hokey player himself, at the end of discussions about sportsmanship, rules, etc… said ‘I really like hitting people’.
And the second time, ~2003, was about Palestine and justice, and i will not elaborate, so you can still keep your little blog’s comment section pure and civil.
The TRUTH is that war is part of us; part of human condition.
Those who like ‘hitting’ people engage in it in a kinetic way.
Those who like manipulating people, engage in it via proxy.
The inept ones comment on blogs or/and twitter:)
Thanks, Wenatchee, I haven't read that. but sounds good.
Anonymous, I respectfully acknowledge that what you say is, very unfortunately true. The Music Salon and certain other places in the world do preserve a certain level of civility which I think we are all grateful for. But yes, perhaps in much if not most of the world there exists a state of constant strife. I'm just glad that it's not everywhere.
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