A month or so ago, I read Chana Messinger’s post about steelmanning other people’s arguments, which is a great article. And then I heard a phrase from a talk by Bryan Cantrill (a very good software engineer) where he called his co-presenter “The Public Defender” [of bad software]. His coworker/copresenter defended a piece of terrible software in the middle of his complaining about it, and Bryan exclaimed (something like) “You’re such a public defender. You’ll defend any bad code, won’t you?” This was even funnier later in the talk, when Bryan was talking about some missing functionality in one of his programs, and the coworker responded prompting Bryan to quip “Don’t tell me I need a Public Defender.” about his own work.

Being a Public Defender of Bad Ideas

It’s no secret that most people believe a lot of dumb things. I’m sure I’ve got some somewhere. So in order to put people at ease, it’s often a good idea to give good defenses of bad ideas and bad arguments. It raises the bar of discourse and results in people strengthening their skills. Part of this is obviously steelmanning your opponent’s ideas, but what you also do is humanize the in absentia opponent. Psychological factors affect all of our faculties, and in order to just simply get things done, we’re all subject to unquestioned assumptions, and it’s simply part of the economy of our scarce time on earth that we’ve got to pick which things to pick apart. Plus, when these arguments involve religion (and most do), I need to remind myself: I was once one of them. I believed. In a sense, I’m defending my past…something that formed part of who I am.

The Pathology of The Public Defender

There is a certain pathology from being a steelmanning Public Defender. Sometimes people get really angry and feel betrayed by defending these obviously-bad ideas. Sometimes these people need to grow up. Other times, these are just people venting their frustration. They’re spouting off a bunch of things they find repugnant about an idea off the top of their heads to just let off steam…something between l’esprit de l’escalier and being forced to shut up to maintain peace between them and themselves/family.

But there are also times that some people are simply traumatized by their past with these ideas and are just incapable of processing them the same way. They just simply lash out at the argument with a lot of emotion. And what I really want to say is that I have done this before. I’ve been insensitive to the psychological issues people have with their pasts, and making demands for better arguments puts them in a place where they aren’t going to be flourishing human beings. So there is a balance to strike here to avoid becoming a blanket Public Defender, and I think compassion is something I’ve developed to avoid it. Needless to say, the danger of knowing when to be the Public Defender is something you have to know, as at some extreme point it’s continuous with trolling and bullying.

Joyfully Resigned to Public Defender Status

There’s just a joy I get from steelmanning, and even defending religious ideas to atheists to see if they can get around all the roadblocks I put up. It’s fun to show people the “roadmap” of certain intellectual spaces, at least how I have learned them. There are even ways of making bad ideas interesting by linking them in to larger good ideas that have some potential merit. It’s fun to play with someone’s mind and their perceptions of other people, if only to make things look just strange enough to warrant a deeper look. Hopefully what I’m doing will help people in some way or another.

There’s now a new title on this blog: “Breaking Dawn”. It comes from a song/poem in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.

23. Interpretation

Interpreting myself, I always read

Myself into my books. I clearly need

Some help. But all who climb on their own way

Carry my image, too, into the breaking day.

Nietzsche here seems to be claiming his followers. They are not necessarily all of those who read him, but those who choose to do likewise by doing otherwise—all those who choose their own way. Even if one does not reject an old orthodoxy, she must be willing to leave any belief if it fails tough scrutiny.

One of my goals in my life is to enable others to make the best decisions they can…to live powerfully and effectively…to maximally flourish. That’s a value I can find meaning in.

New happenings: I will start blogging more. I will make room in my schedule to do it. The only way I will learn to be a more disciplined thinker right now is to write more, and it’s also a way of keeping myself accountable for the things I’ve thought in the past.

Dan Fincke’s Civility Pledge

I’m going to stand with Dan and take it. I had some misgivings at first, because sometimes I like to make fun of people who say stupid things, though not too severely. I’ve had my own mind changed when someone called what I said “silly”, and I imagine that’s what happens when I do it with some other people when they are being voluntarily obtuse (like I often can be), but I can’t ever be sure of my own talent and skill (or my own smugness). That said, I think there are ways I can avoid doing so, so I will avoid it.

Dan Savage called the Bible a “pro-slavery document”. I tend to agree. Through exegetical gymnastics, inerrant Biblicists either refuse to acknowledge or legitimize a historical reading of the Bible devoid of value-judgement or theology. Even so, I think that today’s understanding of the Bible from these inerrantists still damns the Bible for what they want it to be. For fundamentalists, the Bible is a straightforward guidebook on how to live one’s life. Without scriptural authority, they see life and morality as unmoored and adrift in a sea of relativism. Continue reading →

I’m a pretty confrontational arguer. Frankly, I’m often an ass. But why do I have to be such an ass? Well, I honestly don’t mean to be, but sometimes I just don’t care enough to not be an ass. I try. Sometimes, anyway.

I argue about things because finding the truth is primarily a moral issue for me, and I think it should be for almost anyone else as well. If you respect the autonomy of the individual, and you respect that they have moral responsibilities with their decisions, then you are under moral obligation to argue with them about things that affect their decision if you disagree with them. If they don’t want the argument, I’ll back off. I just can’t make that decision FOR THEM in advance. It’s related to an old SCOTUS saying about free speech: it’s the right to hear other people you disagree with. And that also means that I’m required to listen to people that infuriate me (though mostly, I think it’s cute).

This is what a functioning public square is supposed to look like.

So, I think in order to blog seriously, I need a more serious blog than what I was doing at tumblr. But what does the blog’s name mean? Well, I might explain later, but I think I should introduce myself.

My name is Alex Songe. I code programs for a living, and I like to think I do philosophy for fun (among other things), though I always have a sneaking suspicion that I’m failing at doing philosophy (but never at fun). I grew up a fundamentalist charismatic Christian, believed it all, spoke in tongues, was slain in the spirit, and now I’m a pragmatic naturalist. Okay, I’m an atheist. I want this blog to show how I like to stumble around subjects I barely understand, and try my hardest to explain what about them I do understand.

So what’s with this blog’s name? Having grown up a Christian, there were certain values that were instilled in me that do happen to be things I still value, even if I don’t always practice or possess these qualities. One of these qualities was to know what is true. I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t value knowledge just for its own sake. To me, there is bliss in knowing something. Ironically, my grades dropped in school because I felt more justified in learning new things than in studying for a test. To study what one knows just to pass a test seemed crass to me. It ruined what knowledge was for. In the Christian sense in which I was brought up, the Bible was intended to be a mirror for humanity’s sinful nature. This was even taken in devotional readings of the Bible. The Bible would “beat you down” about some sin in your life, and the guilt, shame, and low self-esteem you felt from this was taken gladly. This was a form of “correction” from the Holy Spirit, and God only chastises those he loves. This was just God’s way of making you more perfect. To fall short of these high standards without reference to your fellow-man (who is just as depraved in comparison to the standard) is the “Hard Truth”. I say that “is” the Hard Truth because unattainable goals of morality and goodness still appeal to me, even after leaving the faith, though I have learned how to live within the practical potential I am able to achieve.

In another sense, the title of the blog is a lie, and I want that to stand out as well. I believe Truth to be direct and perfect propositional knowledge of some aspect of reality. When one undertakes this standard for Truth under some belief that no system is causally unlinked from the whole of physical reality, Truth seems unattainable. We can make modest claims to justified beliefs, or possibly even knowledge, but truth and Truth seem to be unattainable on their own. We can make educated guesses as to how close to the truth we are, and collectively people can approach it, but I just don’t see how one can justify possessing Truth itself. Truth is hard to obtain, and Hard Truth is impossible to possess. But it is worth seeking.