I do not understand what you would expect from research work. Do you expect that research work in mathematics be written in such a way that any lay person could understand it? Or computer science? Physics? Biology? I would assume that the answer is no. Why then do you place this expectation on research in the humanities?
I am now going to speculate, though if this isn't your reason, I apologize. Perhaps it is because you, or others, think that the humanities are not complex enough to require such rigor, and that the presence of jargon is a mark of fake rigor, not real rigor. Is that correct?
You also say: "It also tends to deal with subjects that are not of interest to 90%+ of the public." Is any research? In any field? Looking at the remaining unsolved Millennium Problems in mathematics, do you think that the general public has any interest in the "Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture?" Whatever that is? I don't. I don't know what that means. I'm sure it's quite interesting if you do.
> Perhaps it is because you, or others, think that the humanities are not complex enough to require such rigor, and that the presence of jargon is a mark of fake rigor, not real rigor. Is that correct?
I promise I don't have an axe to grind in this discussion (I'm a math PhD by training but have every sort of artistic interest including a lifelong desire to become a writer), but I kind of do carry the opinion that the literary humanities, while not devoid of complexity or rigor, are completely incomparable to STEM in this regard. But honestly, I would like to see this opinion dispelled.
It is not the argument of the mathematician that the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is important just because their colleagues have agreed it is. Rather, it is because, if you actually talked to a mathematician about it, you would be taken on an ever-ascending journey of definitions, statements, and proofs, each one staking new ground in ways that (unless you are a true prodigy) you would never have arrived at but can objectively verify to be correct.
I could compare this to my average experience attempting to approach a darling in the humanities such as Derrida's concept of différance. Here I find myself reading explanations that seem to recursively invoke other neologisms and French puns, gesturing at instabilities and absences, but never, and I mean never, arriving at something I can verify, or hold to be a truly novel thought or insight into a well-defined problem. The argument seems to be "this is important because Derrida said it is, and because a cascade of subsequent scholars have built careers interpreting what he meant." If you ask "but what is the result?", you get told that you're asking the wrong question, that you're trapped in logocentric thinking, or that the point is precisely the undecidability. And sure, maybe! But it leaves me unable to distinguish between a profound insight and an emperor's new clothes.
> but I kind of do carry the opinion that the literary humanities, while not devoid of complexity or rigor, are completely incomparable to STEM in this regard.
Yes, I think humanities people are having STEM-envy and it's bad. They should not frame it in terms of rigor and complexity. The humanities are much closer to art, and that's fine. We need art and culture. As commonly said, politics is downstream of culture. Storytelling and myths and fables and parables form a bedrock and a platform for living together. In its ideal form it is more like holistic wisdom, not a narrow rigorous specialization like designing more efficient internal combustion engines or something.
And humanities should indeed relate to the experience of humans. Normal humans. Because that's why it's humanities. If normal, well-read and educated humans can't do anything with it then it's a pathological version of it.
Also, essentially fake fields exist in abundance. A lot of business management stuff is like that. Basically someone makes up cute acronyms and bullet lists (what are the 5 characteristics of XY, what are the 7 criteria for Z), and definitions and the actual content behind it is super thin. I had classes like that in college and all STEM students learned the whole thing on the day before the exam. Also, the more real knowledge there is in a field, the more informal and conversational and relaxed the researchers tend to present it. While those in insecure fields tend to use lots of jargon to say even simple things.
There's nothing wrong with opinion pieces. I like them, if they are written well. But it's not rigor.
It would be great to hear the opinion on this from someone who thinks the humanities research (eg. literary criticism journals) are rigorous AND have also passed a college-level serious STEM course like Electromagnetic Fields or Graph Theory or Linear Algebra with a good grade. I think most humanities people just don't really understand what rigor actually means. It's not just about using words that have special definitions for more efficient communication or something.
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> If you ask "but what is the result?", you get told that you're asking the wrong question, that you're trapped in logocentric thinking, or that the point is precisely the undecidability. And sure, maybe! But it leaves me unable to distinguish between a profound insight and an emperor's new clothes.
Yes, it's on purpose. It's the statement itself. The content of the message is reflected in the form it is presented. It's in the same lineage as Dadaism, or the empty-canvas-as-painting etc. His philosophy is literally called "deconstruction". And if you ask "but what is the result?", well it's the influence on other academics and thinkers. Surely you heard a lot in recent years that X or Y thing is just a construct and should be deconstructed or dismantled etc. That's the result.
> And humanities should indeed relate to the experience of humans. Normal humans. Because that's why it's humanities. If normal, well-read and educated humans can't do anything with it then it's a pathological version of it ... The more real knowledge there is in a field, the more informal and conversational and relaxed the researchers tend to present it. While those in insecure fields tend to use lots of jargon to say even simple things.
Yeah, that's another point of it that gets me: What actually imparts on me the understanding of these cultural or literary universals has never been the impenetrable literary analysis, but instead the media itself, which is accessible to much wider audiences and doesn't reek of sectarian baggage. (Such rampant sectarianism is itself evidence against the notion that literary humanities represent a rigorous discipline rather than an insular art form.)
But anyway, not all humanities are like this, granted. I'm usually quite impressed with the level of meticulousness that archival and linguistics humanities bring to the table. It feels like a lot of "technical" classical domains of study had their lunch eaten in the modern day when the breadth and accessibility of STEM subjects exploded. I can see an overlap between people who would enjoy studying Latin and those who would enjoy Haskell...
> I can see an overlap between people who would enjoy studying Latin and those who would enjoy Haskell...
This is a good point. Gödel was interested in theology for example. Or look at Warren McCulloch (of McCulloch & Pitts, 1943 fame, the paper that first modeled neurons mathematically and built logic networks with it), who had a theological early education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wawMjJUCMVw These thinkers had a much broader view of humanity and science and knowledge than common today, where academics follow an extremely narrow specialty and PhD students often proudly admit they never read any paper older than 5 years, but mostly just from the last 2 (in AI), since the work is always anyways extremely incremental and will be anyway irrelevant in a few years. And vice versa, the humanities people closed up among themselves and cooked up an unrecognizable thing to an educated person from 100 years ago.
Every field can be esoteric, but math eventually gets applied. People might not care about conjectures or proofs but they like being able to cook up a pic of a capybara playing piano on Midjourney or have their chats protected by unbreakable cryptography. All that is a product of esoteric math.
With some of the humanities I feel like the lightning never strikes the ground.
A huge chunk of the humanities have been neck deep in esoteric discourse about social justice for decades. Meanwhile down here on the ground things are going backward. More and more people are rediscovering things like “race science” and “traditional” ideas about the roles of women, etc. This is happening all over the world.
When is some dude in a toga going to descend from the ivory tower with a powerful rebuttal and a new way of framing these issues that renews the flame of liberalism and free society?
I’m not holding my breath.
If I were post-economic I’d consider taking a crack at it, but what do I know?
I think that you actually understood the point perfectly! I'm a native english speaker, and to me, it looks like he is trying to raise the exact ambiguities that you are asking about.
I don't think that his statement is meant to be an answer, rather, I think it's meant to be a statement to jump off of. It's bringing up how definitions matter, and that in different contexts the answer to the same questions could be yes or no.
It's also just cruel. Twitter employees must be feeling immense whiplash. First they were being bought out, then they weren't, then they were again, then a huge change in work culture literally overnight, now mass layoffs.
Elon Musk, it seems, does not think about the humans affected by his decisions. Regardless of anyone's opinions on whether the culture was good or bad, this sort of sudden mass loss of employment will cause pain. Pain that didn't need to happen.
Yes, of course. Stress and Fear are the cornerstones of responsible leadership. You can say that this is intentional, but it just means he is an asshole.
Why does a company need to be a monopoly in order to break them up? In an "ought to" sense, that is.
Facebook has facilitated/amplified quite a bit of awful things that have lead to real world violence, most particularly outside of the United States. Which is saying something, considering their contribution to political polarization in the US.
Whether or not they are a monopoly is orthogonal to the question put forward in this case.
If you're arguing the government should be able to break up any company it likes, for any reason it decides, then you're basically arguing against capitalism, private property, freedom of speech and association, and most of the separation of powers and concerns that democracies are supposed to be built upon.
"ought to" is a dangerous cudgel to put in the hands of a government or a self-righteous mob, and "monopoly" was what everyone was arguing should be the standard, but I guess now it's open season.
> If you're arguing the government should be able to break up any company it likes, for any reason it decides
That's great, because I'm not arguing that. My post does not imply as such either. You are creating a fake argument that is easier for you to argue against.
"Ought to" is the basis of rule of law. By what measure do you decide that a "monopoly" is bad? It has certain outcomes, some positive, some negative, but on balance government in previous generations decided that they are negative.
But once you know that the outcome is negative, what do you do about it? You only take another step and break it apart if you decide that you "ought to" do so. Because you place value in a healthy society, or you place value in non-monopolistic market competition, or you place value in something else. But whatever you choose, in order to justify actually action you inevitably rely on an "ought to."
If the reason for breaking up monopolies is to improve society, in some broad sense, then you could use a similar reason to break up companies that are harmful to society. We do sanction companies that damage the environment, or lie to consumers with false claims, etc.
> That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to fit in, they expect the same from everybody else.
This makes it seem like a personal failing of the person who is experiencing this disconnect, like the author. Neuroscience shows that this is not the case, and that those with schizoid personality disorders have true physiological and neurological differences.
I hope that you didn't intend to make this into some sort of judgment on the person for failing to "adjust themselves to fit in," because that is a huge part of the judgment that this author is feeling and trying to describe.
With a withdrawn self, how can there be a personal failing? My point is that people don't attack her specifically, it's just the way society is. Criticism works for society because people with a self choose which criticism they accept and which they ignore.
People cannot imagine her withdrawn self and thus cannot adjust their criticism and she cannot imagine a self or bring back her self for now and thus doesn't understand most people.
>which is: they cannot hear me, and i cannot hear them. and funnily enough i’m trying to hear them and i’m trying to listen but no one’s trying to listen to me, so why should i keep trying?
Question remains: How can a withdrawn self be brought back?
> Neuroscience shows that this is not the case, and that those with schizoid personality disorders have true physiological and neurological differences.
Sure, but you assume that the physiological and neurological differences exist in themselves when you could also say that are causal, due to the abuse/neglect. The effects on ones mind from negative life experiences would have to have a physical manifestation in the brain in order to create the patterns of disordered behavior of course. If they are caused by negative life experiences, then they could also be reversible.
This is true, as a broad statement at least. I can claim no expertise in the area, so I can't comment on the potential to reverse any such changes.
It is also possible that they are not caused by negative life experiences, and are somehow inherent in the organization of a particular person's brain.
Of course. But I think it's quite common to claim that one's problems in life are incontrovertible when they are not. You stated it as a fact when we really don't know
These are different things. They may share some overlapping symptoms, perhaps even some similar brain changes, but the internal phenomenology of them are quite different. They are not exclusive, but nor are they the same thing.
No, they're just different words and different times. Schizoids have a false mask they use to interact with others. If we could have, we would have medicated them back then so that they're always presenting with the false mask instead of their "wrong" asocial presentation. That's what ADHD is. We didn't suddenly stop having schizoids and start having a bunch of ADHD people.
No, they are different things. I am honestly quite confused as to how you could think that they were the same thing. They both exist as a constellation of separate diagnostic criteria, for example, and the internal phenomenology of both is different. You can have one, but not the other, or you could have both.
I mean, do you think ADHD is new? Did it just not exist before 1990 or whenever it was made up? Do you think any medical condition before then covers what ADHD is/was?
Lance Armstrong when he is biking and Lance Armstrong when he is recovering are not the same either. But Lance can take drugs to get more of the biking time and less of the recovering time. This is how SPD and ADHD work. ADHD is just a medicated false mask that a schizoid person can maintain for longer periods of time than usual, without episodes of hermitude to recharge. They're doping.
Failure to maintain the mask looks like a breakdown in attention/focus. People do long, focused work because of the expectations of others. Schizoids don't experience that, but instead basically run on obsession. They stop working when that fizzles out. On pills, though, they can work forever.
The 'scientific' people serve the people making the pills and nobody else. They rename everything every few years to sell more pills. If you want a proper take on SPD, look up Millon and his subtypes. Most of the "knowledge" of conditions in the zeitgeist comes from prescription drug commercials.
I think you're being overly cynical. Of course over time as science advances we will recognize more subtle distinctions between things which we used to perceive as the same. That's how science works. Just because two separate things are similar and sometimes found together doesn't mean they are identical.
Whether something is a "disorder" or not is somewhat subjective and opinionated, for sure. But as someone diagnosed with ADHD, I often find that the expectations of modern society can be debilitating. Whether the disorder lies in me or in an unaccommodating society is an interesting question, but it is a separate one.
Please email me and take my personality test! Please. Y'all are like Bigfoot. You drop a wonderful comment like this and then disappear into the ether.
SPD has the worst outcomes of anything in the DSM. Only someone with SPD could possibly ever see it as the non-broken state, or as not a disorder. You're exactly the type of person I'm talking about. Do you see your vocabulary? Please contact me! I'm a philosopher working on a new model and could really use your point of data.
Millon's subtypes of schizoid don't at all resemble ADHD. Millon's subtypes are:
* aloof
* lethargic
* barren (intellectually)
* flat
* complacent or lifeless
None of these reflect ADHD, which is a dysregulation disorder resulting in the inability to form socially expected task-reward feedback loops. This means forgetting to do small chores once they leave one's sight even under the strong desire to do those chores, having strong emotional responses, needing higher levels of stimulation, and strong sense of impulse. None of ADHD has anything to do with whether or not one is displaying apathy or lack of interest in engagement broadly.
SPD is not a disorder of obsession. You might be thinking of the related-but-very-different Schizotypal, whose strange beliefs, sensory disruptions, and emotional impropriety I can see as potentially looking like ADHD.
You said it: Socially expected. They're failing to complete the loop because they're schizoid and social rewards aren't inherently motivating.
How do ADHD people act when their attention breaks? It's in the same ways Millon described. If you look at a schizoid person you can say that's the person and they have a masked state. Or you can see them as an ADHD person that has a checked-out state. But you're describing the same condition and the same person.
The ADHD approach is to medicate the patient so they can maintain the masked state for more of their waking hours. And avoid that terrible checked-out state! Except that's their real, schizoid personality. It's just less socially acceptable than the mask.
I didn't say it was a disorder of obsession. That's just their only tool for doing focused work if they don't have pills. If anything they struggle with maintaining obsessions. I'm familiar with schizotypal PD too and not accidentally talking about something else.
No, I don't think you understand ADHD. ADHD people do not behave in the way you describe when their attention "breaks". Their attention doesn't "break". Their attention is simply not regulated and so they will fail to perform tasks, which is not the same as having uninterest in those tasks which characterizes schizoid personality disorder. What you're describing as a checked out state is actually a reaction to frustration and distress that the ADHD person experiences as a result of being unable to regulate their attention long enough to perform tasks they want to do, which is not schizoid personality disorder characterized by not having a desire to form relationships and integrate with society. They're essentially completely unrelated conditions.
This also doesn't explain sensitivity to rejection or impulsive behavior typical of ADHD.
Again, ADHD is the mask state, it's not SPD. It appears opposite of SPD in order to mask it.
The frustration and distress are both there in SPD too.
Schizoids are indifferent to praise or criticism. Do you see how that's the opposite of sensitivity to rejection? Do you see how the schizoid's listlessness is the opposite of ADHD's impulsiveness? The mask is a compensatory state, like the narcissist's super-confident persona.
I'm rusty but ADHD was HKD (hyperkinetic disorder) in the olden times and had a much, much tighter criteria pre DSM-5? Think incident rates in Europe is approx. <2% under ICD-10 vs >10% in America due to DSM.
The major diff. iirc was no comorbidity in the case of HKD.
If you were depressed or anxious you couldn't also have ADHD whereas in America we can just top up amphetamines with benzos and treat them both.
I don't think that your assertion makes sense in its own context. What you are saying is that "SPD" exists, and "ADHD" is just a modern rebranding of it. But why do you decide that "SPD" is the spot at which scientists got it right? Were they free from the corruption that you imply?
I agree with a general skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry. I disagree that all of neurology and pharmacology have been completely subsumed by that industry. It is not entirely free of it either, but there is more nuance here than you seem to be allowing.
I suppose that's one way to do it. I don't think that it makes any sense, but you're entitled to it. I do believe, however, that you are disregarding tens of thousands of principled researchers who have spent their life on this, and substituting outdated knowledge for it.
Many human cultures have existed and thrived without the basis that "producing significantly more power" is the reason to do things.
Our archaeology and history have had trouble grasping this, since the idea that power is its own end is so deeply ingrained in our (western) civilization. But it has not always been the case. David Graeber and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything" illustrates this with evidence.
"The limitations are of the author's rational reasoning, not of rational reasoning itself. You can reason about what brings you pleasure, and make rational decisions to pursue it."
This is just kicking the can down the road. Why would you want to make a decision to pursue this thing that you decided brings you pleasure? Is pleasure in and of itself reason enough?
We know that all logical systems contain true statements that cannot be proven. This is a fundamental feature of all logical systems, so why should we expect that this restriction does not apply to our own internal logical systems?
I have recently had a similar realization as the author, and so this resonates with me. No matter what, you are engaging in some sort of ontology, some sort of idea that decides what is and is not, and what defines value. You can either engage with this ontology and critically reflect upon it, or you can pretend that you don't have one and therefore miss things that may otherwise have been evident to you.
The Venn diagram of C-levels who are willing to work at a company with an inherently predatory business model, and those who will lay people off and screw them over is basically a circle.
It is impossible for someone who leads a company like that to be a good person. Why would anyone be surprised at them being heartless to their employees?
I am now going to speculate, though if this isn't your reason, I apologize. Perhaps it is because you, or others, think that the humanities are not complex enough to require such rigor, and that the presence of jargon is a mark of fake rigor, not real rigor. Is that correct?
You also say: "It also tends to deal with subjects that are not of interest to 90%+ of the public." Is any research? In any field? Looking at the remaining unsolved Millennium Problems in mathematics, do you think that the general public has any interest in the "Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture?" Whatever that is? I don't. I don't know what that means. I'm sure it's quite interesting if you do.
I do not believe that your point is correct.