Skepticism and debate

I really enjoyed this article by Daniel Loxton on the efforts, both current and historical, of many in the skeptic community to tone down the confrontational aspects of skepticism.  Too many of us treat skepticism as a way to ego-boost.  Instead of trying to instruct, they try to make themselves the winner of the debate, and show everyone how much smarter they are then the other guy.  Maybe this works to make them feel superior, but it never actually wins arguments, it just makes the other side more entrenched.

The issue with skepticism is that we're really arguing against ignorance.  It's hard to be tolerant of ignorance, especially the willful ignorance of many true believers out there.  Most of the time, it's best to either not get involved, or to make sure and reply unemotionally.  As the article points out, it is all too easy for skeptics to go too far, and wind up saying things that are either unsupported or flat-out wrong.

In debates, our duty must be to the truth.  Not to winning the debate, and not to making ourselves feel better.  The truth is what matters, and the skeptics should be able to see that the clearest of all.

Stoicism expressed in a flowchart

I loved this simple flowchart, from the great blog Boing Boing, that expresses a key aspect of Stoicism:

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/17/do-you-have-a-proble.html

Weiner

The latest U.S. political scandal is Antony Weiner's sexting / phone sex with various women, including evidently coaching women to lie about it.  And not understanding that things posted to Twitter are public.  This scandal really hits home.  I live in Rep. Weiner's district, and I've been very happy to have him as my representative.

I felt that way about former Governor Spitzer, who was a really great Attorney General for New York.  His governorship didn't turn out so well, when it was revealed he visited prostitutes on the side, and split up payments to avoid detection.  The story is almost exactly the same, and I'm tired of having my political heroes brought down so easily, thanks to their own lust.

These guys are fighting the good fight, but for them it's not enough.  They have to pursue their every desire. How do they figure they can get away with this behavior, when we've seen the same situation played out in politics over and over?  Why do they lie when they know their lie cannot possibly hold up?  They doom themselves; are they not politically savvy enough to see it?  Or are they just incapable of restraint?

The stupidity on display here infuriates me.

Still, we shouldn't let this sort of thing become more than it is.  Yes, they can't restrain themselves.  Neither could notorious womanizer Martin Luther King.  Neither could Clinton.  These are great guys, though, and we're better off for having their careers be intact.  Let's not fall victim to the fundamental attribution error.  Just because Weiner is a not trustworthy around women, and just because he'll lie and coach others to lie, doesn't prove that he'll be unethical in political situations.

This isn't just about Weiner and other politicians.  As an observer, I have a moral duty too.  I must be careful to judge everyone the same way.  If a Republican or anyone else I disagree with has a similar problem, I have to make sure I apply the same standards to them.  Politicians are highly social creatures, and highly social creatures are probably much more likely to have affairs. This sort of thing just comes with the territory.  Maybe we should just look at it like a Stoic would, and accept this as a fact of nature.

Cautionary tales: Rajat Gupta edition

Stoic writings tend to write about those who uphold Stoic ideals.  They rarely seem to show examples of those who fall victim to greed, lust, or any of the sins decried by Stoic writers.  My guess is that these failures are so commonplace that they don't really need explanation or illustration.

Still, I think such examples can be occasionally useful, and the story of Rajat Gupta, as portrayed in Business Week, is one of them.  Rajat Gupta is someone who had a great reputation for honesty, but he only achieved great success and became rich.  Those around him were even richer, and his need to catch up to them apparently lead him a conviction of 14 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

Everything is relative.  How rich you are in absolute terms doesn't seem to matter as much as relative earnings. We're social creatures, and even if we're better off than 99.99% of everyone else, we still measure ourselves against our peer group.  Psychology and social pressure is a hard thing to fight.  Maybe it's best to not associate with the rich.  If we do, we're going to have to be remarkably good Stoics to help guard against the inevitable social pressures.

Bill Cunningham New York

Movies are rarely about happy people, but a new documentary called Bill Cunningham New York is an exception.  It's about a man who does what he loves, lives a simple but interesting life, and is simply happy.  I haven't seen this yet, but it would be interesting to approach this documentary from a Stoic perspective to see what must be an exemplary lifestyle.

This makes me wonder.  There are of course some Stoic methods of increasing happiness, such as living in the moment and rejecting greed, fame, lust, and other forms of harmful desires.  I wonder if chronically happy people are similar in adopting these principles.   It seems likely to be true on average, because how could someone be truly happy if, for instance, they always wanted more money?  But I'm not aware of any actual study that's been done that confirms this.  Does anyone know of any?

It reminds me of the famous opening lines of Anna Karenina:

All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.

The Myth of Stress

Once you read the Stoics, lots of philosophical and psychological ideas seem relevant to their teachings.  My latest example of this is a book I recently came across: The Myth of Stress by Andrew Bernstein.  I haven't read this book yet, I've only seen his website, and watched one of his talks.  The idea seems to be that we get stressed out because we have an opinion that what actually is happening shouldn't be happening, and this upsets us.

To rid ourselves of stress, Bernstein advises us to reason about why what is happening should in fact be happening, and figure out how we can change that.

The ideas here seem very Stoic-influenced to me, especially, the realization that it isn't the situation that causes stress, it is the opinion about the situation.

Here's his Leading@Google talk:



If you watch the Q&A section of the video, it feels like the audience is a bit skeptical.  Bernstein doesn't profess to be an expert in psychology, and I'm unsure what his degree is in.  If he's done experiments with this technique and has data to back up his assertion that it works, that'd be great, but he doesn't seem to mention more than anecdotal reports.  Maybe it's in the book.  Also, his example of stress being caused by fight or flight responses that are essentially subjective seem sketchy to me.  If I see a tiger about to pounce on me, I don't think that an opinion will be formed, at least consciously.  The fight or flight response is quite instinctual, so his example seems to work against him.  Whether a looming deadline is anything like a pouncing tiger is something I'm unsure of.

Still, even with my skepticism, the ideas are interesting here.  I haven't tried Bernstein's technique, which he calls ActivInsight, but I may give it a try the next time I'm feeling stressed out about something.

New follower, new resources

This blog's readership has grown amazing 100% in the last few months, making it one of the fastest growing blogs out there.  Yes, we're up to two readers!

Reader Michael Daw is now following, and not only that, he kindly provided a link to a list he maintains of recommended Stoic readings.  This is a great resource, and he's pointing to several interesting free works that I haven't read before.  Especially interesting is the link the book A New Stoicism.  I haven't even heard of that book yet, and the name of this blog has no relationship to the book.  But the book seems philosophically aligned with what I believe in, so it should make for a good read.

The Stoic community isn't much, yet.  A few mailing lists, a few books.  A handful of blogs.  Maybe it's the start of a bigger movement, or maybe this is just all background noise.  The movement doesn't need to be large, though.  It just needs to be there for those who could use it.

Thanks for reading, guys.