General Comment

[ad]As someone who is aiming for a career in academia and, hence, with academics or scholars, I get to see quite a bit of what is going on “behind the scenes” in university departments. I also get to know quite a few people who claim to be scholars (and they are truly not) as well as people who use only the dirtiest tricks they can find to belittle, denigrate, and smear fellow scholars that they don’t like.

Some people are truly narrow-minded jerks, and quite a few of them seem to have taken refuge to academic departments at publicly financed universities. Most of them, it seems, are simply not interested in creating knowledge, finding the truth, and all the other things most of us would probably expect from researchers and professors.

Whereas I could write this blog post on all the little things that I have discovered and that have annoyed me, I will only discuss something that I find particularly annoying and unworthy anyone working with science: conscious and purposeful smearing for the sake of … smearing.

The art of undermining somebody’s authority and reputation through spreading rumors and attacking them behind their backs is practiced in most trades, and so too in academia. One should not assume that scientists, supposedly fact-oriented and logically stringent seekers of The Truth, do not play dirty tricks on each other and spend enormous amounts of time and energy waging and fighting petty faction wars in departments or even within offices. Politics seems to be a “natural” part of most organized  bodies of people in which they do not naturally and solely share a specific aim.

In any case, academia is just like any other such body but perhaps more puerile. The hierarchy is very fixed while often informal and it is a highly held custom to kick on anyone who’s on a lower level. Also, if there is something you do not like – do not hesitate to attack their person rather than their research, and do whatever you can to make straw-man arguments with as sarcastic tone as possible.

There are plenty of examples of such behavior, but perhaps Brad DeLong‘s treatment of Austrian Economics is the best recent example. Not only do comments correcting Dr. DeLong’s assertions mysteriously disappear from his blog or are as mysteriously shortened, but he does not give people disagreeing with him a chance. He is simply not interested in other views. Scholarly? Not very.

Steve Horwitz comments on DeLong (all the necessary links to comments back and forth are provided by Horwitz; Mellon was President Hoover’s Treasury Secretary):

First, DeLong cuts off the part of Murphy’s post where he provides the evidence that Hoover rejected that view and that it did not dominate his administration.  Brutally dishonest.  Bob replies in the comments, and I follow up.  DeLong then truncates the part of MY comment where I point to Larry White’s JMCB paper that demonstrated that even MELLON was not a “liquidationist” and neither were the Austrians.

This is not a very unusual or extreme behavior and Brad DeLong is hardly an extremist (extremely ignorant and puerile, maybe – but not an extremist). Rather, this is quite common behavior in the land of academia, where everybody’s constantly guarding their turf and aren’t interested in any arguments or facts unless they strengthen their own view.

The fact is that most academics are hardly sholars; they are mostly people who are too smart for politics but too lazy to do the work necessary to be successful in any other trade. And many professors have never even tried any other line of work. In fact, some even look down upon people with experience outside of academia as if that would be something despicable.

Academia and science simply doesn’t work the way it theoretically should, i.e. the way John Stuart Mill defended free speech: only through allowing everybody to speak their opinion can we have sufficient ground to weed out the obviously bad and false. If academia would work this way, it would be eagerly receptive to new ideas and not only accept but even long for new perspectives and challenging ways of explaining real phenomena. Embracing the ideas of the one who challenges you and what you believe in is the way towards scientific progress.

The fact is that academia works in a way that is quite the opposite. New ideas are not embraced; rather, they are fought, silenced, and ridiculed – and editors of scientific journals even refuse to publish papers that are too “controversial.” To be published, new scientific results need to be “scientifically correct” rather than true to the facts.

I guess the question that pops up in your mind now, dear reader, is why the heck I so badly want to be part of this? My answer is that there are a number of exceptions to this rule and that working with but one true scholar and a hundred nitwits is a privilege – it is very rewarding to be around and work with a true genious. Also, I love doing what professors do: I love research and I love teaching – I could even spend ours on committees without necessarily being bored to death.

What scares me, however, is that there are so many “great” self-proclaimed scholars out there that do not know what the word means. And that they fall to such low levels in ways of fighting their petty turf wars. I am scared about this fact, but I am not afraid of them nor what they do. My background in politics have prepared me for the worst, and the fact is that I too can play this game – and I have formal training through 15 years in politics, which most academics do not. They will not know what hit them.

So I say: let me do what I do best and do your worst in honest critiquing of my work. And if you cannot, but prefer to fight dirty, bring it on. It is not a threat, it is a promise.

After almost two months of inactivity on this blog I’m finally back. The reason for this inactivity is not that I’ve been abducted by aliens and I have also not been imprisoned by government (the latter probably a lot more likely than the former), but simply that I’ve been on vacation and have spent the summer trying to reawaken my creative side–a whole year of advanced neoclassical economics studies has effectively shut some lines of thought out of my brain, and forced creative abilities almost out of reach. Two weeks at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and three weeks away from “it all” certainly helped getting in touch with my brain again.

So finally I believe I have the energy and creativity to write again–I’m back as my “old” self. This blog will therefore be resurrected in a couple of days when I have another article published on LewRockwell.com. After that I should be able to keep this blog updated about as frequently as before the break. Stay put.

Today is a day to remember that no one is safe from the State, that it can use its system of “justice” in whatever way it pleases and put its enemies to death for crimes they did not commit. It is a day to remember that those who hold and claim power have no interest in other people unless they are loyal slaves; the ruling class does not hesitate to use brute, deadly force for the sake of keeping their system of power intact.

This day 122 years ago a number of people were killed by a bomb thrown into a gathering of people in Chicago. It is to this day unknown who threw the bomb and who were responsible for the people killed on May 3-4, 1886. But what is known is that eight people were sentenced to imprisonment and even death in a farcical “trial” despite overwhelming evidence of innocence. They were killed and chained by the State but for the sake of their views on life and liberty, for being anarchists.

These people learned first-hand the true meaning of power – death – and their fate has come to symbolize this truth. The memory, despite being ruthlessly exploited by statist and nationalist socialists hiding thei statist agendas and aim for power behind burning red flags and beautiful words, remains.

We should use this day to celebrate every man’s, woman’s, and child’s right to freedom, liberty, and justice. It is a day that was and should become the symbol of every man’s equal right and our collective humane, desperate need for peaceful, non-violent disobedience of the ruling class’s decrees. Let this day be known as a day of unpower and disobedience. But let it be a day for peaceful action, a day in lack of violence and aggression.

There’s something that has been troubling me lately. Most people in the PhD program that I attend are of course well educated people, and they are getting even more so as time goes by, but one of their main interests outside of the department and their classes seems to be television (possibly because they need some non-demanding relaxation after their hard seven-days-a-week work as soon-to-be “real” researchers). And when discussing with non-academics it seems everything is about television.

Not only do people have their favorite TV shows or series that they follow slavishly, they seem to prefer spending a couple of hours more zapping to social interaction. Some people go home, even though they are having a great time with friends, just to make sure not to miss out on whatever is on the hundreds of channels they have. And if they miss the weekly episode of their favorite series – life crisis.

[ad#righthandside-tall]The television series Lost seems to have this effect on people. I watched the first two seasons on the ABC web site just to see what it was all about. It is a strange series consisting of numerous flashbacks to weird people’s lives prior to the crash of their plane on some deserted island, that became increasingly horrible as I watched episode after episode. The reason it was horrible was not that the story is made in such a way that you feel you “need” to see the next episode (which is always the case), but the underlying philosophy.

The last episode of the second season ends with a between-the-lines philosophical punch in the stomach: things are found and understood thanks to the drug-lord-became-fake-priest “Mr. Echo” seeing his dead brother running around in the bushes and giving Echo advice. And John Locke, who has stopped believing, saves the day thanks to giving up whatever reason and rationality there is in him – to believe again.

In what does he believe? It is not in God or anything like that – it is a belief in reason being unreasonable. His belief consists of him and everything being destined to do certain things and follow whatever signs that can be identified. I guess we’re all just blind in the dark and need to be taught that we cannot trust ourselves or our intelligence. Things are always incomprehensible and we should just “go with the flow”…follow any whim or impulse and you will come out on top of things.

What are we supposed to learn from the show Lost? Obviously that your brain is not for using – there is no reason in the world that can save you if you don’t believe in the impossible and totally outrageous. Kind of the “hip” anti-enlightenment sentiment of the 20th century turning to a hyper-anti-thinking-ideal.

Lost is for sure not the only show preaching the same message; most TV productions have some degree of anti-reason mysti-glorifying hidden agenda.

But even if we don’t accept this rather obvious fact, perhaps because we regularly watch the crap and have already accepted some of the broadcast morality, there are reasons to quit watching whatever happens to be on for the moment.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, even well educated people turn on their television sets when they get home at night – and they slavishly follow some series or show. TV is the main source of information and understanding of the world as it is today, which means television has gained enormous powers. Even Internet, which is often mentioned as a popular and revolutionizing means to consume non-mainstream news and reporting, is used to watch TV shows that you’ve missed. So Internet seems to function partly as a next generation VCR, with which you can watch the shows that you missed – and that gives you an opportunity to preview future shows (legally or illegally).

The ongoing primaries in the republicrat party shows clearly what impact television has on people’s thinking: whoever is on television most wins. The media, or whoever controls it, has thereby the power to choose a candidate through deciding who gets to be seen and who doesn’t.

Even the news are streamlined to not upset anyone and to paint a picture of some things being a whole lot better than they are, and some things being terribly bad (even though they’re not). The sad truth is that people’s beliefs depend on television – whatever is on decides how you think, what you think, and when to think it.

Lost is just one of the examples of a show that very clearly expresses what is going on. You have to believe; if you think freely, independently, and without “guidance” you are or will get in trouble. Don’t criticize or think about what it is you are watching and whether it makes sense – just sit back, relax, and “enjoy.”

Television is the perfect means for brain washing a population – because it is one-way only. It may offer some interactive features (like changing channels), but what is broadcast is produced in a protected environment and fully controlled by the people producing it. It is not a substitute for a good conversation with an intellectual person, or even taking part in a discussion forum on some web site – it is the very opposite.

A discussion with other people is non-controllable and non-foreseeable; you have to always pay attention to not lose touch with the discussion. And the most important thing about a conversation is: you don’t want to be just a recipient of “truths.” In a conversation, for it to be a good conversation (or even a conversation at all) you need to take part. And you won’t accept someone else’s views just because “he says so,” for the outcome of the discussion – whether you like it or not – is the result partly of your doing (so why give it up?). It might be upsetting, disturbing, or someone might even be lying – but somehow you won’t settle for anyone’s opinions just because they are worded. You feel obligated to criticize and think yourself.

TV works the other way. It is supposed to be entertainment and therefore it delivers nothing that makes you upset, and whatever is broadcast is made as easy to swallow as possible. Just sit back, relax, and let yourself be fed the entertainment.

Have a look at the news – it too is entertainment. News reports are made shorter and shorter, so that you can go back to seeing your favorite show sooner. And still the news reports have gone through numerous layers of mainstreaming (censoring) so that whatever is reported is thoroughly controlled. There’s no room for surprises and no reports that tease your brain to start producing its own thoughts or penetrating lies. Sometimes they make you react to them, but trust me – the way you react is a result of how the report is put together, not of your independent assessment of the facts.

Imagine if you were the ruler of the land – what would you do to keep such a mass of people in check? You need to make them believe in you and the system, otherwise they might challenge it. How do you do that? You make them think everything is alright, that someone else is making the tough decisions – that someone else is answering the “red phone” in the middle of the night so that you can relax and continue to let yourself be entertained.

There’s a reason TV programming is broadcast almost exclusively by mammoth networks. It is easier to control a few huge networks, or to form alliances with them, and then “protect” the “competition” in the market for TV entertainment through setting up barriers to “hostile” competitors. Who gets to “entertain” the populace is not a result of providing the best programming, it is a result of getting the right permits.

Have you ever wondered about this obsession about television in this country? Ever wondered why people stay at home passively letting themselves be showered by the “boob tube” instead of going out to meet people? We’re programmed through evolution to save our energy, so TV fits us perfectly: there’s no need to go anywhere, we don’t need to socially interact (which could be both stressful and energy-consuming), and we don’t even have to think. Just keep those eyes open and let the brain get soaked with whatever “is on.” So television seems to be the perfect tool for keeping us satisfied at the lowest possible level, while keeping us from the truth and life itself.

Am I wrong? Then consider a normal conversation between friends in almost any setting. What do you usually talk about with people? Television, and perhaps also the latest neighborhood gossip, and the weather. Nothing that really means anything or that keeps your intellect alert. Your brain turns to mush while you are letting yourself be passively entertained, spending hours in your favorite armchair with a deadish, fixed smile on your lips.

The truth is that any “normal” conversation today is always about television: “Did you see that show last night about [whatever]?” – “No, did you really miss the latest episode of [fill in the blank]? It was sooo cool, I wonder what’s going to happen next…” – “Do you remember that move about the guy who did that thing? What was it called…? Yes, that one – have you seen it too? That was awesome.” And so on.

Where does this fascination come from? I don’t know, but I do know that people are fascinated and they spend hours in front of their television sets watching shows they don’t really like. How often don’t you hear people claim there’s “only crap” on? Yet they don’t turn the television set off – they cannot, because what would they do if they didn’t have a distraction to passively stimulate the irises?

Have you ever wondered what you would do without television? Does the thought terrify you? The fact that the thought of living without television terrifies you is indeed terrifying. Who knows what kind of baloney you’re fed – and what it makes you believe. Aren’t you afraid of what television makes you?

Imagine a land where everybody is fixed to watching television. Do you sincerely believe that such a population could not be subject to some kind of propaganda? Imagine if one of the “great” dictators of history had had a population addicted to television – it would not have made their ends harder to accomplish. Television serves as both a great “teaching” device and as a distraction – if you are watching you cannot know what is going on around you.

If someone, with or without uniform, would break into your neighbor’s house and pull them out of there kicking and screaming. Would you then turn off your television set and go outside to see for yourself what is going on – and help the people you know?

Or would you have a quick look and then continue zapping…or perhaps just turn up the volume…?

For more on this topic, see The Media and Power and Rejecting Television.

My apologies to all the readers of this blog. The last couple of weeks have been awfully busy, which is why I haven’t been able to post any blog entries. I have, however, a number of drafts that need only a little work before they can be submitted. So bear with me; there will be new entries posted by the end of this week.

I have received a lot of criticism from numerous anonymous Internet criticizers. As is often the case with the Internet and elsewhere, “anonymous” means people can say whatever they want without risking having to argue a point in defense. Most of these comments on my articles have been submitted to various billboards and discussion forums (google “per bylund” and you’ll see) where the commenters probably think they can get away with anything.

Anyway, even though these people don’t seem interested in a discussion on the real points they are supposedly making, I would like to discuss a few important things about article criticism on a general level. In doing this, at least I have commented on the criticism and somehow defended myself against this particular kind of attack. Also, the argument in this blog post is generally applicable and would thus be of interest even if you haven’t read any of my articles; it is not a personal defense but rather a discussion on what writing an article really means.

The kinds of criticism I intend to discuss here are:

“The author hasn’t covered all the arguments”

and

“This is just the author’s opinion – there is no real argument”

As you can probably see, the two points are not at all the same. The first one is a criticism of the content not being sufficiently argumentative – there are more arguments that the commenter thinks should be part of the article. The second simply says that there are no arguments at all and that the article should therefore not be considered by anyone seriously interested in the issue at hand.

The former thus accepts that there are arguments in the article discussed, whereas the latter does not. But for some reason most people interested in offering criticism use both arguments at the same time, thinking they have really nailed the author. I believe the only thing they have done is to prove they are really not worth listening to, and thus that reading their comments is a complete waste of time.

Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the two kinds of criticism one by one and analyze their implications.

1. The author hasn’t covered all the arguments

This seems like a valid criticism and should be taken seriously at most times if the commenter is serious. After all, if the author really hasn’t covered the main arguments, the article really doesn’t have the effect the author intended or the effect the article could have had.

But it isn’t clear what “hasn’t covered all the arguments” really means. There are many ways of interpreting this comment, for example these:

1. The author hasn’t covered the main argument
2. The author hasn’t covered the full extent of the argument discussed
3. The author has left out one or many of the possible arguments

These interpretations are very different. The first one says the author of the article discusses the wrong point. A better argument is at hand and should be chosen if one intends to discuss this particular issue. This kind of criticism could point to a commonly used argument that is better and more obvious than the one used in the article, or it could supply a new argument that is much better att proving the point made.

It should be obvious that if the point is to criticize the author of the article for not having made the best (or one of the better) arguments, the criticism must include or at least reference the better arguments. Otherwise the criticism is simply taken out of the blue without any real claims of substance. This is why this kind of criticism in most discussion forums fail to really criticize the article in a very way.

The second point is somewhat similar to the first point, but here the criticism is not that the main argument is left out – but an important part of the argument used has simply been left out. This is, in a way, a much more serious critique, since it means the author of the article really has made use of [one of] the best arguments available – but he or she has obviously not understood the extent of the argument. Or, in other words, the author has used an argument even though he or she obviously didn’t understand either what it is about or how to make use of it.

What we’re really saying here is not that the author of the article is ignorant (which is what we are saying in the first point above), but that the author does not understand. This is thus a criticism of the author’s intellect and intelligence. Such a serious criticism must of course supply proof of the point made – any example of a better point would do. However, this is very seldomly the case in discussion forums. It is of course much easier to simply say “the author is stupid” without mentioning why or in what way.

Supplying a real argument with examples and perhaps even real reasoning means exposing oneself for the same kind of criticism. Most people are not interested in doing this, especially not in Internet forums – even though they are anonymous – and thus they intentionally avoid the real argument.

The third point is the least valid of the three. As we have seen, the first two could very well be valid points if used wisely (and they need to be used wisely in order to work as criticisms at all). This third point, as I will show below, cannot be valid no matter how it is used and thus it should always be avoided. Nevertheless, this is probably the most frequently used criticism in this category, at least judging from the discussion forums I’ve encountered on the Internet.

The reason “leaving out one or many of the possible arguments” is utterly invalid as criticism lies completely in the last two words: possible arguments. An article (or even a book) cannot ever cover all the possible arguments – it simply isn’t possible. One reason for this is the constraint in size: it isn’t possible to cover all arguments in a limited-length text. Another reason is the availability of knowledge: there will always be someone coming up with another argument that the author simply has never thought of!

It doesn’t really matter if this argument has already been expressed in writing, or if thinking of it is simultaneous to writing the article or happens after the article is written and/or published. The reason for this is that an author cannot know of everything that has ever been thought of, and he or she also cannot include arguments or ideas that weren’t thought of when writing the article even though such arguments could be available for readers of the article at a later time.

We simply have to face it: all arguments cannot be covered.

Even if most valid points could be covered in a lengthy book, when writing an article it simply isn’t possible. Sometimes another valid and rather important argument has to be left out because there is no way of discussing it in the article – the text would simply be flooding over its limits and no one would i) read it or ii) publish it.

This is a very valid reason for not covering all main points. I do this myself very often: I write an article with the sole purpose of discussing one of the best arguments, leaving the other arguments aside (these can then be covered in other articles). So claiming “there are other arguments” cannot ever be a valid criticism unless it fits into one of the previous two categories: that the author has left out the better argument while “pretending” it doesn’t exist, or that the argument supplied is supplied in a bad way.

“This is just the author’s opinion – there is no real argument”

There are two important aspects to this criticism: it could be that the commenter has a problem with the article being simply a statement of opinion or that the article argues in a way that the commenter finds unsatisfactory. These are really two different points, even though they are very often mixed and made into a “bundle criticism.”

Since the criticism is really two different kinds of criticism it is better to treat them separately. Also, the latter part of the statement is really part of the former kind of argument and we have already discussed this at length. I will thus analyze only the validity of claiming that an article is nothing but “the author’s opinion.”

If this kind of criticism was directed at an article published in a scholarly journal it would be nothing short of Ragnarok for the author and very close to the end of his or her academic or scientific career. However, such opinion pieces aren’t ever published in such journals – they wouldn’t make it through peer review without being thrashed completely. (At least, I hope this is the case.)

But the kind of articles I’m discussing here, and the kind of articles commonly commented with this kind of criticism, aren’t journal articles. They are rather opinion editorials in newspapers or articles on web sites or e-zines. In the libertarian “world” such e-zines would be sites such as Strike the Root, LewRockwell.com or Center for a Stateless Society, sites on which I tend to publish most of my “opinion” articles.

The reason I mention this is that an important part of the article and how it should be assessed is what audience the author had in mind when writing it. The important question to ask here is: what is the purpose of the article? This is where most commenters go wrong – they criticise an article from the point of view of someone who is not at all in the intended audience.

Of course, if the criticism is of real arguments supplied in the article it should be taken seriously. But if it is really an article published in an e-zine to express an opinion, claiming “this is just the author’s opinion” does not really cut it. It is the author’s personal opinion, but it is supposed to be.

However, a good article does not express an opinion without discussing the opinion and making a statement – or some kind of claim that this is the “best” opinon. So most articles should include some kind of reasoning, and this is clearly subject to analysis and criticism. But this really means the other kind of criticism (as discussed above) should be used, since it is really an assessment of the arguments.

The problem here is that an article in a political or philosophically oriented e-zine might very well be an opinion piece with arguments, or at least reasoning, that to a bystander might not seem to cut it even though it does. The reason for this is that many opinion pieces on such sites as the ones mentioned above assume the reader is already aware of and shares a basic set of values. For instance, an anarchist libertarian writer might very well criticize a standpoint of minarchist libertarians leaving out arguments for constitutionalism, assuming the reader already has this kind of knowled. Any social democrat reader would find the fundamental arguments either lacking or unsufficient, or perhaps he or she simply gets lost in the special terminology used.

The article thus might not seem to supply arguments that the author, writing for a certain audience, assumes the reader already knows. Opinion pieces are, in this sense, not different from articles written for scholarly journal – they too assume the reader has already a certain level of knowledge in the field. A biologist or physicist would not be able to follow the reasoning in an article published in an economics journal, and vice versa, simply because they lack the basic knowledge assumed by the author (and the editors).

But this doesn’t mean the criticism of “this is just an opinion” automatically fails. It does not. Opinion articles need to supply some kind of reasoning or argument in order to be valid – if they do not they should not be published. But as a commenter it is important to understand what audience the article was written for and take that into account when criticizing. Arguments or facts may very well be left out of the article if it is assumed the reader already has this kind of knowledge, which makes criticism such as “hey, what about the facts?” misplaced.

What is the conclusion of all this, then?

The conclusion is that it is as difficult, or perhaps even more difficult, to write valid criticism of an article as writing the article itself. The commenter needs either advanced skills in reasoning or argumentation analysis, or sufficient knowledge of the article context.

Sadly most commenters on the Internet lack both of these, and they also lack the necessary humble approach of a serious commenter. Most criticisms, at least when considering discussion forums and e-mail lists, are at best rather puerile attempts to make the author look bad. I am not saying this to get even, but considering the points I have discussed above most commenters on the Internet seem to have no clue what they are doing.

Criticism is very important – it is the way forward – but a lot of people on the Internet simply don’t take role as commenters seriously enough.