Last week I wrote about how we should all use our words and try to talk one another out of behaviours that we disagree with instead of use the state's power and authority to inflict violence. It was a short piece stuffed with plenty of repetition of the key phrase and lacking in subtlety and specificity. I refer to this sort of post as a rhetoric post rather than a logic post. Generally I rely far more on logic posts where I do my best to support my positions instead of writing things designed to have a single sound byte message. The Use Your Words post was sort of like a doughnut - quick, sweet, but not particularly convincing.
Pounda took me to task and sent me a long message detailing some of the problems with my post. The things he said were true but it wasn't as if he and I really disagree on the points he brought up; mostly he just pointed out how I was being sloppy. Much like myself Pounda doesn't like people to make the right points the wrong way when there is a perfectly good right way to make them and he also doesn't like to agree with people if their arguments are shoddy. To be taken seriously I should make my points correctly and precisely and make sure that they are clear and logically sound.
I choose to take this chastisement as a compliment. It wasn't a "you suck" sort of message, but rather a "you can do better and you damn well know it" sort of message. It is true; I can do better and I am glad there are people out there who feel like it is worth trying to convince me to do that. Sometimes I find a turn of phrase I like or a message I want to deliver and I leap up on my soapbox and just cut loose. It is hard to be disciplined enough to always say the right thing the right way, particularly when I have spent time reading the dreck that so often passes for reporting in the world of news. This is, of course, because said dreck gets more views than anything that worries about error bars and the truth.
The fact is thought that the world needs more people to say the right things the right way. There is a surfeit of emotional blathering, of style without substance, of sizzle without steak out there. There is a need for people to write in such a way that they cannot be argued with, to communicate in such a way that their message is an unstoppable force. Rational analysis that slowly and inevitably crushes the opposition rarely wins awards, doesn't often get much attention, and is much overlooked. However, those juggernauts of reasoning do eventually permeate the public consciousness and evoke change, however slowly.
This reminds me greatly of one of my first (and most fondly remembered) posts. I must take a deep breath and recognize that although the world needs the slick salesman Christopher Hitchens I am not at my best when I try to emulate him. Rather I must channel Victor Stenger instead and be an unstoppable stone brick of logic.
Thanks for being so open to feedback. One of my best lessons learned as an educator is that negative feedback is a precious gift and an opportunity to get better. We could all benefit from your example.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts on this section:
"There is a need for people to write in such a way that they cannot be argued with, to communicate in such a way that their message is an unstoppable force. Rational analysis that slowly and inevitably crushes the opposition rarely wins awards, doesn't often get much attention, and is much overlooked. However, those juggernauts of reasoning do eventually permeate the public consciousness and evoke change, however slowly."
I think that you are undervaluing the learning impact of emotion. Research OVERWHELMINGLY demonstrates that if you want people to learn and remember you need to connect the content to them emotionally. I suspect that this is something about human nature that you won't particularly like. This is a really important concern in the educational field. To help students learn we need to make things funny, weird, scary, exciting, puzzling, etc. It's a close to a fact as you have in educational research (I think). You're not un-emotional (quite the opposite) but you don't want people to make decisions based on emotion (I feel safe in saying). However, when people read your writing they are not really making decisions but are thinking and learning. Things that require emotional hooks in order to be most effective. A small part of your crowd (I think) will want you to write with unimpeachable logic. How much do you value that part of your audience vs. the other part of your audience? Are you more nervous about the feedback that you may get from one part of your audience rather than another?
Do those juggernauts of reason permeate the public consciousness and evoke change? I suspect that they do as much as anything does but I propose that if your focus shifts too far one way you may be sacrificing your ability to affect the change you want on the alter of your self image. Weird for me to suggest as with everyone but you I'm the guy arguing for more data driven decisions. I am tend to be a bit of an 'ends justify the means' personality... .something that I'm aware of but don't say out loud that often because it can come off badly.
I'd love to hear about this from you. I'd also be really interested to hear about what goes on between your ears when you post something that you know isn't up to 'perfect logic' standards. Is there anxiety involved? How do you feel about feedback from different kinds of people? To what level does your self-image as a rational person affect your decisions?
Thanks Bro!
Love Matt