Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Gibran, most of this is behind a paywall. Would you quote some of the key sections?
Here is Turchin’s response: https://twitter.com/Peter_Turchin/status/1407170548300402689
I am deeply ambivalent about Turchin’s general approach, but even more distrustful of most his critics. In my piece “Historians, Fear Not the Psychologists” I outline my problem with most of the humanist counter-critiques, which view positivism as something of a dirty word. That goes nowhere.
On the other hand… Turchin has made the arrogant claims in the past that his critics accuse him of (contra his thread). I’ve followed his blog for years; I’ve read his shtick on how history as a discipline is a-causal, and economics, sociology, etc. are theoretically insufficient. He has moderated his tone somewhat since then as his work has gained in respectability and he has had a chance to mine other fields a bit more. But I remember a presentation he gave c. 2013-14 like that lists out 100 explanations for the fall of Rome. Turchin’s conclusion was that history had failed, and science here could conquer, finally finding the key in the labyrinth. There was a great deal of hubris there–as if sociologists, political scientists, economists etc. hadn’t themselves developed a few dozen competing models for famous 20th century events and trends, remaining just as divided as the historians.
A further problem is the Seshat data set itself. A friend of mine with expertise in ancient Persia has pointed out to me inaccuracies in their data; the ‘big gods’ controversy is still current. On twitter I once brought out these concerns, and Turchin’s response was essentially, “the data can be perfected over time, it is important for us to get this out there and demonstrate what can be done with it, and that will drive more complete data.” There are good precedents for this. I think especially of the Correlates of War database, which improved with time as IR folk started to swarm around it. But in this case I think the strategy may backfire: as this article evinces, historians are extremely hostile big data and modeling, and will tear down the whole edifice if given an excuse to. Seshat makes it too easy.
Finally, there is his work on America. At some point I want to write up an article on this. I find the data used somewhat selective. I mean this in several ways. The first is that there are large swathes of relevant data Turchin cannot include because he was not aware of. This was one of my takeaways from reading Epidemics: Hate and Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS. Before that book we didn’t know there was a massive amount of social violence associated with smallpox in the 1880s–but only in the 1880s. How many other data sets like this do not even exist yet, thus cannot feed the model?
A more serious problem is where Turchin draws the line in deciding what violence is ‘social’ and what is mere criminal. Why do mass shootings make it in, while general crime (organized or otherwise) do not? What about attacks on the press? Backcountry feuding? It seems to me that he chooses the sources of violence that best fit his preconceived story. Criminal violence can’t be related to demographic-structural squeeze because it has been declining in the era Turchin needs it to increase. Mass shootings, which one can make a strong argument are not driven at all by demographic squeeze or elite overproduction but their own separate dynamic, are thrown in because they match Turchin’s thesis. And so on and so forth. I find it all very suspicious.
“Its why every year there’s a massive campaign aimed at converting the very silent (majority?) to “take mental health(experts)” seriously. ”
This is much broader and much older than current psych problems. Ever since the invention of “experts” as a sociological category circa 1900-1920 there has been a push to subordinate normal people to expert rule. Do see a real difference here between the public health rhetoric or even Voxish public policy rhetoric on this one? I am not sure I do.
@JP–
There is a difference between these groups, and different parts of the Bush admin match better with different aspects of the New Right. Early on in the admin, when the focus was on domestic policy, it was sort of seen as “Texans vs everyone else” with Karen Hughes and Karl Rove being seen as the most important players. Group #1 can be called “the Vulcans”–it is what they called themselves during the campaign. They only became important as they did after (and because) of 9/11.
Hard to see group #3 as a coherent force though and not just a collection of individuals.
Team Texas was responsible for compassionate conservatism, big gov, etc. Team Vulcan was in attitude for more similar to the New Right: Straussian obsessions, the need to be hard core, find meaning in fear and toughness, take the enemy seriously. The New Right I think is a bit like the policy priorities of Team Texas married to the attitudes and self conception of Team Vulcan. That is one way to think of it.
James–
You wrote “Most striking to me is the paucity-tapering-to-disappearance of love poems from the male perspective. ”
This is I think an accurate description of what actually happened. Basically, the poems from the Book of Songs were actual, well, songs. They were meant to imitate the sort of thing people sung about their way while working in the fields. But as songs become poetry overt love themes are put to the side. I think this is in part because Chinese poets have a different idea of what poetry is supposed to be about. Somewhere in his book, The Mandarin and the Cadre: China’s Political Cultures Lucien Pye makes an offhand observation that in the West sincerity is equated with spontaneous emotional display. From the time of Wordsworth forward, Western poetry is very much about capturing these spontaneous emotions of the moment. But the Chinese tradition tends to distrust the spontaneous, Pye argues. The spontaneous is ephemeral, transient. Your real feelings and motivations are not seen from your instant emotional reactions, but from the long term patterns of your behavior. Love is not about the bliss of the movement but the steady dedication of a life time. Anyone who has been a relationship with an addict can see the wisdom of that approach.
I am spit balling a bit here, but I think some of that attitude finds its way into Chinese poetry. When love is discussed openly it is almost always discussed in terms of a wife missing her husband when he is sent on a journey or called off to war, the poet’s gratitude for her support over the years, whereas Western poets tend to think of love in terms of the love-struck feelings it engenders in the poet or the beauty of the poet’s love.
Julia Galef is an interesting choice. She invited me onto her podcast a few months back (I declined out of business, but said I would be open to it later in the year), so perhaps I could get her on.
1. That is an interesting question. I was limited, of course, by the number of slots available. If I had been given thirty spots, instead of twenty-five, to the East Asian canon, then it would have been included; I also would have included more works of Chinese Buddhism, I think.
In many ways I feel like the Romance (henceforth SGYY after its Chinese initials) is the least important of the four, even though arguably it is the most popular (it certainly has the largest pop culture footprint, though Journey comes close). My take, essentially: SGYY adds the least to the Chinese tradition. Water Margin and Journey are important statements of a world view– I would not call them philosophy per say, but they each articulate a critical strain in the Chinese tradition, a strain difficult to find elsewhere on the list. SGYY is less original in this respect, though I think it is the literary equal to both of these works.
Dream of course is acknowledged to the best novel in all of Chinese history; it is one of the few in contention for best novel of world history.
Ultimately one must ask the question, if limited to 25: to add SGYY what would you take off?
2. Interesting to see your French translations on there! There might actually be several works that have appeared in French translation that have not made their way into English yet. On the Chinese side, for example, I would be very curious to see if the essays and poems of Su Shi/Dongpo have made their way into French translation. We don’t really have a good translation in English.
3. I am happy to see the Indian additions. I’ve read Gutanjali. I remember being not so impressed, and wanting to blame it on the translator–only to discover that the translator was Tagore himself!
Wow! You have read more than I have on some of these! My weakest one of the lot is the “islamic” category, and I think my version of that was still very tentative.
One book that contains excerpts from many of these thinkers: Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook. A friend strongly represents it as a good sampling of many of those I had on the list.
Louis, what do you think of Dream of the Red Chamber so far?
I strongly recommend this book! It would be a very good candidate for the Scholar’s Stage podcast, if I can find the proper guest to sit down and discuss it with me. Anybody have ideas on who might be up for that?
I’ll come back to this later today, but here are some of the other resources on this that I would plan on citing if I ever wrote this essay up:
https://fireside.fm/s/Ah1OZyuo+hemAVwdz – The Four Beers pocast on this episode
https://fourbeers.fireside.fm/32 – A Four Beers podcast on the question of the gap between externals and psychological measurements of them
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691619876279 – “Weighing People Rather Than Food: A Framework for Examining External Validity” –Paper on the same topic
https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2019/09/12/the-parable-of-the-three-districts-a-projective-test-for-psychologists/ — Approachable blogpost from Yarkoni that states some of his concerns
https://crystalprisonzone.blogspot.com/2019/11/weighing-bullets-not-hot-sauce.html – A blog from a similarly frustrated psychologists
https://djnavarro.net/post/paths-in-strange-spaces/ – philosphical look at the same problem
More later!
