I agree with you. I recall that someone said that the first rule of opinion writing is: Have a point and make it. Some Googling suggests that it was Jacques Barzun:
I routinely find myself annoyed when I'm halfway through a long article and still don't know what the writer is trying to say. A very good writer can surely have a point and make it without the crutch of beginning with an explicit question and answer, but I think that a great deal of writing would be improved by that discipline.
Consider the position of Ross Douthat. His pieces cannot be that explicit: if he wrote them that way, it would probably turn off many readers of the New York Times. He has to advance his position softly and subtly--maybe even implicitly. But that is the point.
In an opinion piece? Sure- it would likely help both the reader and the author. That said, I think rather than looking to make opinion pieces more useful, maybe we should be trying to make opinion pieces more scarce. I'd rather see more discussion pieces where an author steelmans two sides of an issue in order to elicit discussion. Maybe from there, still staying out of the Opinion Zone, have something like "I prefer this approach" rather than a "This is good and this is not" sort of opinion. Once you've done that, the battle lines are drawn. People are attacking and defending, rather than clarifying and discussing.
Along those lines, I've purchased Julia Galef's The Scout Mindset, but unfortunately it's at about #4 in the reading queue.
Please explain why you’re recapitulating Betteridges Law of Headlines as if it’s a virtue. That’s the most egregious cliche in media and you’re criticizing others saying we need more of it.
I can’t tell if this is a troll or if you genuinely believe more of that would help
This is an interesting point I hadn’t considered. I suspect that pieces addressing complex subjects, such as Robin Hanson’s piece could become less accessible when phrased as intricate questions. That said, it is already not very accessible given the language and terminology he uses in the piece and giving a simplified version of your suggested question above (Should Elites be less inclined to top-down solutions?) would probably make it more clear.
I agree with you. I recall that someone said that the first rule of opinion writing is: Have a point and make it. Some Googling suggests that it was Jacques Barzun:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499214-first-principle-have-a-point-and-make-it-by-means
I routinely find myself annoyed when I'm halfway through a long article and still don't know what the writer is trying to say. A very good writer can surely have a point and make it without the crutch of beginning with an explicit question and answer, but I think that a great deal of writing would be improved by that discipline.
Consider the position of Ross Douthat. His pieces cannot be that explicit: if he wrote them that way, it would probably turn off many readers of the New York Times. He has to advance his position softly and subtly--maybe even implicitly. But that is the point.
In an opinion piece? Sure- it would likely help both the reader and the author. That said, I think rather than looking to make opinion pieces more useful, maybe we should be trying to make opinion pieces more scarce. I'd rather see more discussion pieces where an author steelmans two sides of an issue in order to elicit discussion. Maybe from there, still staying out of the Opinion Zone, have something like "I prefer this approach" rather than a "This is good and this is not" sort of opinion. Once you've done that, the battle lines are drawn. People are attacking and defending, rather than clarifying and discussing.
Along those lines, I've purchased Julia Galef's The Scout Mindset, but unfortunately it's at about #4 in the reading queue.
Please explain why you’re recapitulating Betteridges Law of Headlines as if it’s a virtue. That’s the most egregious cliche in media and you’re criticizing others saying we need more of it.
I can’t tell if this is a troll or if you genuinely believe more of that would help
This is an interesting point I hadn’t considered. I suspect that pieces addressing complex subjects, such as Robin Hanson’s piece could become less accessible when phrased as intricate questions. That said, it is already not very accessible given the language and terminology he uses in the piece and giving a simplified version of your suggested question above (Should Elites be less inclined to top-down solutions?) would probably make it more clear.