Links to Consider

Rob Henderson's unsolicited advice; my essay grader gives advice; Glenn Reynolds on Claudine Gay's cancellation

Rob Henderson writes,

Don't give unsolicited advice. Advice-giving inherently implies unequal status. Unless people explicitly relinquish claims to equal status by asking for advice, offering it will cultivate resentment.

He offers 33 other pieces of unsolicited advice.

Moses Sternstein writes,

I ran my Great Replacement essay through

Arnold Kling

’sop-ed grader(which is fun), and it was not amused.

I don’t think it was entirely fair, for reasons I’ll explain

Sternstein’s essay argued that recent immigration rates are unprecedented. The grader, as is its habit, said that he did not engage enough with other points of view. He claims that the other point of view would be that recent immigration rates are not unprecedented. But it is clear that the main reason to point out the trend is that its effects are controversial. So I think that the grader has a point in saying that the controversy is worthy of discussion.

Meanwhile, former NYT columnist Hal Varian asked me to put one of his old columns through the grader. I pasted in a column on copyright law, and it gave it a B+, while making its usual complaint that he did not engage enough with opposing views. He did not object when I showed him the report.

I imagine the “do not engage enough with opposing views” would frustrate many columnists, especially those who are space-limited in print editions. But I like the fact that the grader dings so many essays for not engaging enough with opposing views. I really think that all of us could stand to face more pressure to do so.

Incidentally, I ran through the grader a recent Paul Krugman column about the American economy being on the mend. It received a high grade (B+) while also being dinged for not engaging enough with alternative points of view. I thought this was fair.

I ran through the grader an NYT op-ed advocating that the U.S. choose this moment to recognize a Palestinian State. It seemed pretty stupid to me, but the grader gave it a B, dinging it for not dealing with opposing points of view and for not acknowledging the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The NYT carried a long guest essay by Matthew Schmitz arguing that Donald Trump is a moderate on policy (as opposed to tone). The grader gave it only a C+. I thought Schmitz made his case well, and that he did very well in addressing the contrary viewpoint. I think B or B+ would have been more appropriate.

The grader also gave a C+ to a Charles Blow essay called “America’s thirst for authoritarianism.” The grader properly criticizes the essay for being one-sided, but Blow’s essay struck me as much weaker than Schmitz’s. I would have given the essay a C- or perhaps worse.

So maybe ChatGPT is a bit more charitable toward the left. Or I am a bit more charitable toward the right.

UPDATE: Krugman’s more recent essay, ranting about Republican plutocrats, deserved an F in my book. The grader gave it a 78. I went back to edit the prompts for the grader to tell it that name-calling and claiming to know the motives of the other side are negative qualities in an essay. I emphasized that a good essay articulates the strong points of the other side and tries to rebut them. With these changes, it still gave Krugman’s essay a C, but with with some appropriate negative feedback.

Supposedly ChatGPT is going to open up its app store soon. If this means what I think it means, I will be able to allow anyone to run an essay through the grader. I hope that this will increase the interest in the grader. Although the grader is far from perfect, I think that it could steer discourse in the right direction.

Glenn Reynolds writes,

Of course, one point people have made is that Gay will be replaced by someone else, probably not much better.  That’s certainly possible.  We can hope that the Harvard board, even if Penny Pritzker doesn’t step down, will put forth more due diligence in the next hire.  But:  Whoever’s next will now be worried in a way that no Harvard president has been before.  Oh, sure, Larry Summers was chased out, but that was an internal power struggle that he lost.  This was something different:  Actually outside accountability.  And it happened at Penn, too.  Don’t think that university presidents all over America aren’t noticing that.

I have difficulty putting myself in the place of a university president. Suppose I were a spineless, status-driven bureaucrat. What would I do now?

Growing a spine is not an option. I think the answer is: Hope I don’t get asked to testify at a Congressional hearing, and try to stay out of the public eye. Issue statements proclaiming that we are totally committed to free speech, diversity, the welfare of our students, academic excellence, and any other value you might name, and that at our great university these values have never been in conflict with one another and never will be.

substacks referenced above:

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Claudine Gay Has Gone Away

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Rob Henderson: Lessons I Learned the Hard Way