Social Learning Links, 2/24/2025

My article on social learning; Deirdre McCloskey on true liberalism; Dan Williams on Karl Popper and Disinformation; Bo Winegard on Douthat's book

I write,

We no longer have an agreed-upon way of interpreting information. We are suffering from a collective learning disability.

My diagnosis for this malady is that it comes from the decay of the process of obtaining influence in our society. Having a good thought process is no longer aligned with achieving high intellectual status. Instead, high status comes from the ability to command attention. The intellectually mediocre have achieved hegemony over the intellectually rigorous. We need to adopt better means of conferring intellectual status.

A single essay that expresses a lot of thoughts from my substack essays on this topic.

In the same issue of Isonomia Quarterly, Deirde McCloskey writes,

Among the statist economists and fellow travelers such as Acemoglu, Robinson, Johnson, Lukes, Pettit, Stiglitz, Michel Sandel, Thoms Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato, Richard Thaler, the implied politics is alarming. All of them yearn more or less strongly for an activist state, or are well satisfied with the mega-states we now have. They ignore the evidence that a state strong enough to be activist or mega, not to speak of Maga, is well worth corrupting from K Street or seizing from a military barracks, as routinely it is….

Unsurprisingly, the politicians running states, such as senators Rubio and Warren, dote on the theoretical statists. Mariana Mazzucato serves as advisor to many states. The self-contradictory “libertarian paternalism” that for example Sunstein and Thaler recommend, treats adults like children. All the non-true-liberal philosophies infantilize, or frankly enslaves, in aid, I have noted, of the general will and the common wealth. The psychological road to serfdom is less obvious but more fundamental than the physical coercion it accepts.

Bracing reading, so that you don’t fall for those who claim that Trump 2.0 is giving us a libertarian revival.

Dan Williams writes,

it seems to be a general feature of human psychology (“naive realism”) to overstate the ease of accessing truth. Nevertheless, the idea that overestimating the ease of accessing truth gives rise to implausible conspiracy theories of ignorance is insightful, as is Popper’s overarching point that knowledge is far more challenging to explain than ignorance.

…The popular idea that organised disinformation campaigns lie behind public misperceptions about topics like democracy, vaccines, public health, immigration, climate change, geopolitical conflict, and much more seems to be a classic conspiracy theory of ignorance in Popper’s sense.

Williams writes, following Popper, that if you think that truth is manifest then you are likely to think of ignorance as coming from a conspiracy. Hence, the theory of disinformation.

I would say that Jonathan Rauch is a strong believer in disinformation as a conspiracy (he sees Donald Trump as the chief conspirator), and yet Rauch views knowledge as contestable. So I do not think he fits the Popper model.

And Williams seems to agree with Rauch.

I do not doubt (1) that Trump and other MAGA elites launched a self-serving disinformation campaign (2) that was partly successful in increasing the popularity of election denial among ordinary voters.

But Williams goes on to point out that people tend to believe their own propaganda. That means that you cannot assume that the other person is lying (Trump really believes he won in 2020), and you cannot assume that your version of the truth isn’t a lie.

It is unpleasant when others disagree with one’s sincere viewpoint. It is infuriating when they treat it as insincere and deceptive.

And yet that is how we behave, thereby reinforcing polarization. It is easier to believe that the other side is deceived than to wrestle with the possibility that they may have good reasons to believe as they do, and indeed your own world view may be imperfect.

Bo Winegard reviews Ross Douthat’s Believe.

Broadly speaking, there are three possible strategies in response to these encroachments of science and Enlightenment

1. A literalist argument, maintaining that modern science and philosophy have not, in fact, vitiated traditional conceptions of God and the supernatural.

2. A poetic argument, asserting that religion is best understood as metaphor and symbol and that its doctrines should be seen not as empirical claims but as profound and enduring poetry.

3. A pragmatic argument, contending that regardless of religion’s epistemological status, its social and psychological effects are largely beneficial and should be encouraged. (And, of course, the pragmatic argument can be combined with either the literalist or poetic approach.)

Unfortunately, Douthat chose the first strategy—a serious mistake, in my view,

What (2) says is that one may think of the ancient religions as classical poetry, with timeless lessons. And there is good reason to prefer classical poetry to its modern equivalents.

substacks referenced above:

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The God that failed: A review of Ross Douthat's 'Believe'

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On conspiracy theories of ignorance