I don't feel tardy
I think the exchange below reveals a problem with the blogging form. People were quick to respond, so quick in fact that I think they forgot to stop and think about what they were reacting to (I'm frequently guilty of it myself [1]). Writing is better than conversing for developing complex ideas. Blogging is better than print media because it's interactive. But sometimes, blogging comes awfully close to being like conversation: so interactive that complex ideas get distilled to pablum.
Godwin's Law, anyone?
This is my paraphrase of an exchange between Brad Delong (BD), Daniel Davies (DD), and Tyler Cowen (TC). MF is Milton Friedman, DA is David Asman (an interviewer).
While Delong and Davies were locked in a debate about debating, Cowen's proposal stimulated a heated exchange between Davies and a swarm of Friedman defenders. [2] The resulting comment exchange (as you may have read by now) lacked reflection. It even included this curious statement:
I too was at first tempted to accuse Tyler of invoking the "Nuh-uh, prove it" gambit, but after going through the linked articles and trying to understand what he was getting at, I realized that he was saying that it would be good if people provided actual evidence when they made claims of intent which were divergent from their public statements ("really want"). By "personal anthropological evidence", he meant that anything would do, even a casual conversation.
Take a look through the comments on some of the popular blogs and note how most of them appear within a day or two of the original posting. That's understandable for a posting that covers some current and fleeting event. But very rarely does anyone comment after that even when the original posting is of a timeless nature. I find that unfortunate.
The only exception of which I know is my wife's site. Her site is educational rather than polemical, so perhaps it is a special characteristic of that type of blog. Also, she intentionally cultivates the practice not only with the recent comments listing, but also by posting weekly summaries of the archives from one and two years ago. Why does nobody else do this? The lack of backward reflection makes blogging like the Mission Impossible assignment tapes that self-destruct after one playing.
And yes, I hate the fact that the Haloscan comments on this site do not link to the original post. I only put them up there for the backward reflectiveness, but it turns out to have been completely pointless because you can't see what they link to. Maybe one day I'll grow up and make a real website out of what started out to be a personal experiment.
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[1] See how Brad Delong rightly dressed me down in this exchange. Ah, if only I had read the linked article instead of the post title.
[2] In the end, I had to admire Davies for sticking it out, but the lists of Friedman's criticisms of the GOP (Ben and Patrick Sullivan, IIRC) were never explained away, and DD never provided the requested evidence of obfuscation. Personally, I'm not familiar enough with MF to know whether DD was correct, but by the psuedo-syllogism offered above, I'd say that even if the facts were on his side, he hasn't produced them. Barkley Rosser gets the prize for only person actually engaged in substantive, civil debate.
[3] By "#$%", I am mean the classic, quick, thoughtless, playground insult of my generation, used by me here for brevity of example/paraphrase. I suspect that the modern invocation is "bitch" or worse. Mike's actual name-calling and rhetorical loading in this instance included the following names or insinuations: hoot (interpret how you will), pretension, fraud, pomposity, arrogance, elitism, clairvoyance, sycophancy, ineptitude, and dogmatism. Getting all of that within two paragraphs is impressively efficient, but comes at the expense of actual substance.
Godwin's Law, anyone?
This is my paraphrase of an exchange between Brad Delong (BD), Daniel Davies (DD), and Tyler Cowen (TC). MF is Milton Friedman, DA is David Asman (an interviewer).
DA: What say you about the Patriot Act?DD's comment is right, his words might differ from his thoughts. Unlikely as it seems, he might have been joking, signaling, countersignaling, acting strategically, etc. In which case he affirms TC's point: we should state the basis for our claims when we claim to know what other people "really" mean, especially if those claims are opposed to what they themselves say they mean. But if TC is right and DD agrees with him on this point, it seriously undermines the other part of the exchange:
MF: The sooner we can get rid of it and out of it, the better.
BD: MF is against the Un-Patriot Act.
DD: MF is lying. Liberal economists aren't intellectually honest. Don't ask how I know, I just do.
TC: No, I'd like to know how you know. For example, did you talk to them about it?
DD [from the MR comments]: TC didn't talk to me about my post. I might have meant something different than what I wrote.
MF: Kerry's plan is bad.How does DD know that MF is not joking, acting strategically, or acting on some other motive in this case? Because people always mean what they say? Interesting Ouroboros.
DD: MF is pro-Republican. I know because he signed the statement.
While Delong and Davies were locked in a debate about debating, Cowen's proposal stimulated a heated exchange between Davies and a swarm of Friedman defenders. [2] The resulting comment exchange (as you may have read by now) lacked reflection. It even included this curious statement:
MH: TC [but not DD!] is claiming to have mindreading abilities.Now, since it was clearly the case that DD was making claims to know what MF "really" meant, and TC who was asking for evidence, the accusation is aimed at the wrong target. Huben is smarter than that; in fact, he himself has rightly called for Tyler to produce evidence in this exchange. I attribute Mike's misfire in the MF/DD debate to an overdeveloped desire not only to combine his trademark rhetoric and site-promotion, but also and perhaps mainly to get in a point in the debate while it was still going.
I too was at first tempted to accuse Tyler of invoking the "Nuh-uh, prove it" gambit, but after going through the linked articles and trying to understand what he was getting at, I realized that he was saying that it would be good if people provided actual evidence when they made claims of intent which were divergent from their public statements ("really want"). By "personal anthropological evidence", he meant that anything would do, even a casual conversation.
I'd like to propose a new research convention. Anytime a writer or blogger talks about what The Right or The Left (or some subset thereof) really wants or means, I'd like them to list their personal anthropological experience with the subjects under consideration.Rather than engaging in the Friedman debate, Mike's comment is an adult version of the mid-schooler's playground "Nuh-uh, #$%" [3] retort. And my claim is not so much that this is Hubenesque as it is blogesque. The quick exchange, the desire to participate in the game, the pressure to avoid being "late to the party" (as I'm sure you must have surmised about this post) drive blogging to be more like conversing (or, in this case, yelling) than like a modern Battle of the Books.
Take a look through the comments on some of the popular blogs and note how most of them appear within a day or two of the original posting. That's understandable for a posting that covers some current and fleeting event. But very rarely does anyone comment after that even when the original posting is of a timeless nature. I find that unfortunate.
The only exception of which I know is my wife's site. Her site is educational rather than polemical, so perhaps it is a special characteristic of that type of blog. Also, she intentionally cultivates the practice not only with the recent comments listing, but also by posting weekly summaries of the archives from one and two years ago. Why does nobody else do this? The lack of backward reflection makes blogging like the Mission Impossible assignment tapes that self-destruct after one playing.
And yes, I hate the fact that the Haloscan comments on this site do not link to the original post. I only put them up there for the backward reflectiveness, but it turns out to have been completely pointless because you can't see what they link to. Maybe one day I'll grow up and make a real website out of what started out to be a personal experiment.
---------------------
[1] See how Brad Delong rightly dressed me down in this exchange. Ah, if only I had read the linked article instead of the post title.
[2] In the end, I had to admire Davies for sticking it out, but the lists of Friedman's criticisms of the GOP (Ben and Patrick Sullivan, IIRC) were never explained away, and DD never provided the requested evidence of obfuscation. Personally, I'm not familiar enough with MF to know whether DD was correct, but by the psuedo-syllogism offered above, I'd say that even if the facts were on his side, he hasn't produced them. Barkley Rosser gets the prize for only person actually engaged in substantive, civil debate.
[3] By "#$%", I am mean the classic, quick, thoughtless, playground insult of my generation, used by me here for brevity of example/paraphrase. I suspect that the modern invocation is "bitch" or worse. Mike's actual name-calling and rhetorical loading in this instance included the following names or insinuations: hoot (interpret how you will), pretension, fraud, pomposity, arrogance, elitism, clairvoyance, sycophancy, ineptitude, and dogmatism. Getting all of that within two paragraphs is impressively efficient, but comes at the expense of actual substance.
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