Agree Siraganian is wrong. I believe the etymology of the expression “red herring” was not intended to be a compliment to the dogs that run off following it.
In some lecture or interview or someplace, I remember Snyder making a connection that seems good for the current situation: Authoritarian gaslighting really works by adopting the main premises of postmodernism (as it has become in its now-degenerated form; I understand the defense of some of the original work). A thing Snyder didn’t say, which just calls out a further point of context, but that I think is also within the center of his point: in eras where postmodernism hadn’t spread as widely as it has here and now, the need was the same, but the authoritarian gaslighters had to build some of the infrastructure they wanted to use. For today, it is just there at the Ikea where you can go pick it up and assemble it the same day. Or, so widely distributed in Amazon warehouses that they can deliver it the same day, anywhere. Another nice little frame I saw, from some commenter on some article, was: For my friends, the Unitary Executive Theory. For my enemies, the Major Questions Doctrine. And then:I have heard (reasonable) people criticize Paul Krugman for having lots of public opinions in areas where he doesn’t have a lot of earned expertise. Okay; fair enough for that. But I think it is to his credit that he started calling out bad faith as the central issue, quite a long time ago (when I also thought that needed to stay the focus). Not leaving it to irony, as Siraganian sort-of does, but being plain that it is too frontal an attack to be winked at in irony. (And of course Glen’s point is also exactly right, but already said: it is just because the notion of what one wants from truth isn’t so easy that it can be handled lazily, and if we did less of that, maybe we would be better positioned to repel some of this other nonsense, or at least have a smaller vandal-group to repel over it. That could itself be an interesting article, but it would have a completely different aim (solving a new problem) than Siraganian’s evident aim in this piece, which was to contribute to a struggle.) I noticed, somewhere else, too, that Anne Applebaum has now started to use the term “predators” explicitly to refer to the various oligarchs and the relatively small and connected band of people trying to end the society and turn it into a CAFO. It has been about time for that term to be one of the standards for a while too. Not just in the generic term “predatory capitalism”, which is also correct in some ways but has been both long-enough used, and rhetorically over-used enough, to have become semantically bleached. Applebaum’s use is more specific and meant to draw a role distinction in a place and a time. The predator group are the thing that will still be here when trump is gone, and that is what the world both knows and needs to come up with some plan to deal with, if there is a path to be found through this that isn’t pretty miserable. Eric > On Sep 1, 2026, at 20:56, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aaup.org%2facademe%2fissues%2ffall-2025%2fseven-theses-against-viewpoint-diversity&c=E,1,b55AythETSm80UCsORPJraafH3z3tJu6asT6ZVhNKOP2vQ18isZEEIf7z4C3GPp5lj3OGTA_Qt38a-J92wtnOELDQdBiOHPtQqd5U3udVQ,,&typo=1 > > OK. I admit I've been a bit guilty in my emphasis on diversity. But I am > aware of Goodhart's Law. And given thesis 2, here, I think I'm going to stop > calling myself a "methodological pluralist" and use "instrumental pluralist" > instead. > > But 1) what Siraganian says here is simply wrong: > > "To promote viewpoint diversity is to be thrilled to have my views in the > mix, even if you think they are wrong, because either (a) they contribute to > more viewpoint diversity (the more views you have, the more viewpoint > diversity there is), or (b) they provide more views to choose from to figure > out which view is the most true. In the first position, you end up not caring > about whether a particular view is true or good, because you care about > viewpoint diversity intrinsically: What matters is having the greatest > possible variety of views. In the second position, you instrumentally value a > diversity of views; having viewpoint diversity only matters until you can > figure out which view is the best or most true, at which point all the other > views can be rejected." > > If the "best" or "most true" is relatively smooth from the 1st best to the > 2nd best, 3rd best, etc., then NO, you do not reject "all the others". Such > smooth grading has to remain contingent, defeasible. And my guess is the > gradation isn't smooth everywhere. It may be smooth for the first 2 or 3 > distinguishable ideas, but #4 might be batsh¡t. (cf. > SynthID<https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09263>) > > 2) Diversity remains a useful measure of the crosstrophic nature of complex > systems, circularity, industrial symbiosis, etc. So even in light of > Goodhart's Law, diversity is a reasonable *outcome*, even if it's dangerous > to optimize to that sole outcome. > > There are issues with all the theses she lays out. But persnickety nits > aside, her gist seems right. And you can't overlook the blatant hypocrisy of > objecting to DEI initiatives, but then arguing for "intellectual pluralism", > pointed out in thesis 7. > > This post is too long already. But I know many, here, have succumbed to Haidt > glazing. So I offer this as further demonstration of Bad Faith rhetoric: > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassignedmedia.org%2fbreaking-news%2fjonathan-haidt-social-contagion-rogd-pbs%2f%2c&c=E,1,ngAIsHPbOX56tMD3TLOiPP3zB_rDDRBGj6yCaK5XLPuFc14XPOHo1PAnUmR0cgLwf_aU1VOVbz2Qm4aIIhJq35Fz9wAOItW1lSLlFynYJZWGIWmgx6evchreXotW&typo=1 > only peripherally about instrumental pluralism. > > -- > 8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ > ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω. > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,Z3MoIzr2_gYwXuX-WJtLvRPuw4lrhGeRqwGco_ktfU4qQxaHJOmOv8h7QMo4q3phH_1bmuxN1YrArL9vwsmrlwLg4h5aQ--jFIBIjkqUV_3dZSnq0Of_&typo=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,o6A878gmRtPOn9RwEViePS_tcms3qTJcMqxXPZx3Tkb5VVsg3DN3BwRifub1Y27kD8BXA2EcIdTAA5u_ss_n-HeWoDOugHR7cAovqEIe&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,4L88HNZqyH91Pv-TjJN8ZBC5prMxsVmwbT8EnV2BL55YaGf9xpqybKKdZXevcT9vNGfnKXERh-TdHqJkFi9pu4vaShGSjiFDpS-sbMcf7zMfgrrV&typo=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,dGOrN-AOox-kFvpdb0Dq2LmV2SHzDQkncfWAKefpZ-jFJiBypNbt-CvFkQf_lkDpmGDYeTJJ-klo5QXsqOKhhet4GxkDAa2L8OPx7YvTlbSWDCeIFEY,&typo=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
