Also, Mark Blyth?
Peterson, Harris, etc....
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Also, Mark Blyth?
I dont understand why people need charismatic spokespersons. Surely you should be to think about the world around you without some hero who has all the answers.
Is this a serious comment?
Would you apply that to writers as well? No point in reading interesting ideas, you should be able to have them yourself?
I don't think Pogue's necessarily looking for a 'hero' as such, but it's undeniable (as shown with Peterson etc) that good, charismatic speakers can have an impact and influence over the average person and how they formulate their political views and opinions. Hero worship in general is a bit crass but I don't think it's ridiculous to take an interest in people who promote interesting ideas and theories etc.
I read and listen to lots of people. I just dont idolize any of them or think that one particular person has it all figured out. Hero worship is bizarre.
Personally, I'm quite happy to let some other dude crunch through dozens of meta-analyses of economic research on my behalf. Obviously @Eboue is made of sterner stuff.
How do you know if he has any idea of what he is talking about?
Plus that's not really the point I'm making. I wasnt aiming it entirely at you either. You see this with people who hang on Ben Shapiro's every word or who make YouTube playlists of Sam Harris.
Its the idea that complicated things can be explained in just a few minutes by someone who holds a microphone.
Ultimately, anyone who wants to learn about something new would be wise to listen to experts. And the experts who are the most fluent, charismatic communicators will be more likely to make a convincing argument for one approach or another. Ideally, we could take the personality out of it entirely and spend hours wading through assorted journals - from every field with even a vague relevance to government policies - but that's never going to happen, is it?
I agree that it would be nice to remove the cult of personality from this sort of thing but I don't think that's possible, so the next best thing would be to promote the views/opinions of interesting people who know a thing or two about the topics the "intellectual dark web" blokes shit on about constantly but with a different slant. If only in the interest of balance.
I agree that it would be nice to remove the cult of personality from this sort of thing but I don't think that's possible, so the next best thing would be to promote the views/opinions of interesting people who know a thing or two about the topics the "intellectual dark web" blokes shit on about constantly but with a different slant. If only in the interest of balance.
OK but you just introduced the idea of hero worship. Pogue asked about "charismatic, convincing spokespeople." I guess charismatic could be interpreted that way if you want to, but I took it to be the verbal equivalent of "good writer". Charisma as in engaging or compelling to listen to.
But there are people who I have read / listened to that I respect enormously, and who I can see are far more intelligent and far more knowledgeable about a certain subject than me. They might not have it all figured out, but I come to the conclusion theyve figured out a lot more than I have. Which is enough to make me want to listen to more of what they say.
Has this been posted? Sorry Im new to this thread and cast search back for 37 pages to check.
On a side note, that Ted talk is very light on content. I first heard about yer man on a podcast he did with Scroobius Pip, which goes into a bit more detail. Obviously, anyone who finds the ideas interesting should really read his book.
Yep, last page. A pretty good watch. He says he still agrees with much of Harris' material but has just taken his foot off the idolization accelerator.
Ha! I could probably have stretched to looking back that far. Oh well.
You can have good idea, but if you can't deliver it well then it will be lost.
Ok but take Jordan Peterson. He may have a (dubious) claim to be an expert in his field but what does he know about other fields? Nowhere near what he claims to.
What about Haidt or Cowen? Both can be engaging and make interesting points on certain subjects but on other topics they are completely full of shit.
People do this across the political spectrum, from Ayn Rand to the Chapo guys. I'm just curious about why it is.
Okay but I'm not targeting pogue specifically. I didn't even quote him. His post just made me think of this. I dont think Pogue loves Ben Shapiro for example but plenty treat him as a hero.
How is his claim to be an expert in psychology dubious? He has over 10k hours of clinical experience and has been a professor at Harvard and University of Toronto.
And I don't think he has claimed to be an expert in other fields. Anyway, the idea that one can't give an opinion on fields in which one isn't 'an expert' is a strange one.
If I had known you were just throwing a point out there that was unrelated to the previous one, despite seeming to be in response to it, I wouldnt have called you on it.
Apology accepted
The book seems to be offering a pretty standard rationale (going by the wiki link). Wouldn't it be much more interesting to actually have different concepts fighting poverty laid out and debated instead of the more insular approach this author chose?
In a way I agree with you. A few pages back I was asking for help with a friend who’s got very caught up in this whole intellectual dark web stuff. And yeah, it’s weird the pedestal he puts these guys on (not Shapiro, thankfully, he’s not a total idiot) I just wanted to fight a bit of fire with fire.
You don't have to have a PhD in every topic you write about. You can have one (like Peterson's in clinical Psychology) and use it as a foundation to write about contemporary psychology related topics and branch out a bit. Chomsky's training is in linguistics and he has made a career out of writing and speaking about politics.
This is the problem. People aren’t listening to genuine experts (that’s the first issue) and when they do, the gobble up everything and seemingly change their entire worldview to match.
It’s fecking bizarre. YouTube has a lot to answer for.
Chomsky proves he’s capable of adding to the discussion despite his credentials coming from elsewhere. His output on war and terrorism isn’t from no where either (his activism that began decades ago). His output is such high quality (mostly in essay form) it’s not even under question. Similar to Hitchens.
Peterson isn’t anywhere near those two. Neither is Harris. Certainly not that twerp Shapiro.
That's all subjective and I wasn't suggesting he was on the same level - just driving home the point that anyone can write books by doing their research irrespective of what their formal training was in. I don't care for Chomsky's political writings but am very interested in his linguistics work.
This argument is entirely subjective.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all.
Which part? 99% of this thread is subjective...
I dont either. But you made the point better than I did when you said some people gobble up everything a person said and then change their entire worldview.
Your first argument was about people not listening to genuine experts, which is the case when you listen to Peterson talk about philosophy for example. But then you defended Chomsky's commentary on politics, I'd assume because you agree with him. That's why I pointed it out, your first argument was objective and your second was subjective.
Said it before - this stuff is just the Kardashians for edgelords and "I'm 12 and this is deep" type men who aren't capable of thinking critically... but it's far more dangerous.
Everything on Youtube (in this area) is extreme and exaggerated beyond belief (not just right-wing populism but damn near everything). If you're gobbling this stuff, no wonder we've ended up with fecking Trump in the White House, a living breathing troll character.
Im sure it was ever thus, though. As @Minimalist says, YouTube probably has a lot to answer for, but only in terms of broadening people's horizons and giving them exposure to more ideas. Even without it, the kind of person who would change their entire worldview because they buy into what someone says on YouTube was probably always highly suggestible, and always likely to be a follower, just of someone drawn from a smaller group.
Or, alternatively, the person inspiring the change is so convincing, so articulate and compelling, they deserve to have their ideas listened to, and to change people's minds.
You are accused of not slavishly listening to Noam Chomsky's inaudible old man whispers on youtube, and found guilty. Your sentence is SJW cringe compilation #29
I have no issue with Peterson teaching his classes. I have a big issue with him being seen as some sort of life guru for young men. That has nothing to do with his expertise on philosophy. Primarily I think he's overrated as a communicator. Hitchens and Chomsky are/were both excellent at that part of it (you don't have to agree with their points but they laid it out perfectly for you). I've even seen Milo (who is hardly going to his enemy) of all people saying "I don't know what fcuk Peterson is talking about half the time."
Have you ever seen the documentary they did with Chomsky (Requiem for the American Dream) that's on Netflix and a few other places? The one they have to blast dramatic music continually throughout so you don't fall asleep. Works well to be fair.
Bizarrely enough, I've read that this actually sort of contributes to his appeal. Often he'll present incredibly simple, obvious ideas in a much more complicated and needlessly wordy format, and so will appear as if he's saying something profound when he's actually not saying anything at all. I've not read any of his works in full but if you go through a list of his key quotes, most of them are entire paragraphs dedicated to something which could be communicated in a sentence. Generally something obvious.
Peterson is a bit of a mixed bag. I thought he came across quite well in his C4N interview with Cathy Newman, but that was more because she just made such a complete hash of that. She can be really good, I usually quite like her, but something went wrong that day, she was not on her game at all, and it ended up making him look really reasonable.
But at other times he comes across as a pompous twat who is basically trying to confuse people into thinking he's smarter than he actually is.
But at other times he comes across as a pompous twat who is basically trying to confuse people into thinking he's smarter than he actually is.
I certainly think that's why Russell Brand got on well with him.
Agreed. There are parts of his routine that are interesting and others that vacillate from boring to pretentious.