Althouse: "This practice of reading someone's words in an attempt to look for 'dogwhistles' is the opposite of 'charitable interpretation'..."

July 11, 2020

"This practice of reading someone's words in an attempt to look for 'dogwhistles' is the opposite of 'charitable interpretation'..."

"... which means 'interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation.' In contrast, dogwhistle hunting is the practice of interpreting someone's words in the most unreasonable or offensive way imaginable."

Writes my son John, discussing a recent effort to cancel Steven Pinker.

I've been seeing this Steven Pinker story out of the corner of my eye for a while. I don't even know what the cancel ghouls even say that he did wrong. I just assume they're crying wolf. (Sorry to introduce a rival canine into this little post.)

65 comments:

Lucid-Ideas said...: Occams razor has turned into Occams spork. These people want to split you from crotch to eyeball with the dullest part of its edge.

These are the same people who want to disarm you.; 7/11/20, 10:48 AM
n.n said...: Cancel ghouls or girls? Black holes or whores? h/t NAACP; 7/11/20, 10:49 AM
Paco Wové said...: "they're crying wolf"

Inapt.

They're not falsely warning of a danger.

They're just looking for prey.; 7/11/20, 10:59 AM
Mr. D said...: An army of Pecksniffs. By the way, has Dickens been canceled?; 7/11/20, 11:00 AM
GingerBeer said...: One of Pinker's crimes was to "publicly co-opt the academic work of a Black social scientist to further his deflationary agenda." Pinker's response: "Yeah, in the new Orwellian vocabulary citation is now appropriation." Who did Pinker "co-opt?" His dean, Harvard sociologist Lawrence Bobo.

https://reason.com/2020/07/10/steven-pinker-beats-cancel-culture-attack/; 7/11/20, 11:00 AM
Paul Zrimsek said...: The search for dogwhistles is especially crass coming from people who also expect us to know that when they say "defund the police" they're not trying to say they want to defund the police.; 7/11/20, 11:03 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: What do you mean you don't know what he did wrong.

He said police don't disproportionately kill blacks.

He also said Jews are smarter than anyone else for evolutionary reasons. That undercuts the IQ tests are racists.

Althouse is soooo cute the way she clings (bitterly?) To the notion progressives are just "crying wolf"; 7/11/20, 11:04 AM
Ken B said...: His real crime was writing the excellent book The Blank Slate. But he isn’t actually the target. The target is junior researchers without tenure, wealth, and fame. “See, we can even make him suffer. Imagine what we can do to you.”

They won’t cancel Pinker. But they never expected to, or needed to. There was an important observation made in Freakonomics. By the late 1920s, lynchings had declined sharply. Did that mean racial animus was at a low? No. It meant lynching was working as intended: cowing blacks into submission.; 7/11/20, 11:04 AM
PB said...: If it's a dog whistle, and you can hear it, then you are the dog.; 7/11/20, 11:14 AM
Danno said...: They're just looking for prey.

And like wolves and other canines, they travel and attack in packs. A sign of cowardice at the individual level in my mind.; 7/11/20, 11:19 AM
Tommy Duncan said...: "In this mindset," he notes, "analysis, debate and evidence are just tools of propaganda exercised by those in power and that what has to happen is not a deeper understanding of social problems but a wresting of power from elites and redistributing it to disenfranchised."

The problem I see with this is that it is the left that is currently in a position of power and authority. I suppose the issue could be that the leftists in power are not radical enough and are not openly communist, so they are the target of attack. We have seen the rioters shout down and intimidate a number of mayors. The mayors seem to fall in line without questioning the means and goals of the rioters.; 7/11/20, 11:23 AM
Joe Smith said...: You have to do a lot of reading just to find out exactly why people want to cancel him.

I'd cancel him just for his Harvard ties (association) and his terrible haircut.; 7/11/20, 11:29 AM
Ken B said...: Here is an example of the real target, and how he was targeted https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1281793002986336256.html; 7/11/20, 11:30 AM
Narr said...: Pinker isn't very pink at all. I've enjoyed and gained from every book of his that I've read.

Narr
Goyische kopp; 7/11/20, 11:31 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Never wolf whistle in a crowded theater.; 7/11/20, 11:31 AM
Fernandinande said...: He also said Jews are smarter than anyone else for evolutionary reasons. That undercuts the IQ tests are racists[sic].

They weren't whining about that, though: "Open Letter to the LSA"

Pinker's article; he's a bit wishy-washy.

The people who originated the whining. From here.; 7/11/20, 11:31 AM
Joan said...: GingerBeer linked the Reason article with all the details. I particularly liked this quote:

"Dogwhistling is an intriguing exegetical technique in which you can claim that anyone says anything because you can easily hear the alleged dogwhistles that aren't in the actual literal contents of what the person says," observes Pinker. "I think that you could replace dogwhistle with auditory hallucination and the accusation would be exactly the same."

The first sentence is a bit heavy, but the close is fantastic.

I don't know anything about Pinker personally, but I've enjoyed his work, especially Better Angels, which is tremendously hopeful. I expect he may have to update it substantially if Biden gets elected. Many of his observations on the decline in crime in NYC have been out of date since the Cuomo-DeBlasio reign of error.; 7/11/20, 11:32 AM
James Graham said...: If you forget that leftwingers are carnivores you will, from time to time, be puzzled.; 7/11/20, 11:38 AM
boatbuilder said...: I would think that a guy with hair like that would be immune from cancellation.; 7/11/20, 11:38 AM
Francisco D said...: Now the false ascription of belief is ... the detection of 'dogwhistles'—an intriguing tool of hermeneutics in which you can accuse anyone of saying anything even if they didn't say it because you can always hear the dogwhistle if you yourself are a canine with hypersonic hearing."

I was introduced to the ridiculous concept of hermeneutical theories in grad school (1980) by a community psychology professor who had no record of empirical research. He was a Chicago community activist who later worked with Bill Ayers and Barack Obama.

The intellectual dishonesty was remarkably evident and showed me that Leftists have been trying to corrupt reason and language for decades.

JAC seems like a clear thinker for a modern day liberal. They are a dying breed..; 7/11/20, 11:44 AM
Josephbleau said...: I have a simple cure for Corona virus, and the Antifa BLM riots:

1. Have trump tied to a table and let Hillary, Polosi, Schumer, and Shiff , NYT management etc. cut him in pieces with knives and saws and paint their faces with his blood. Fitting for the most evil man humanity has produced.

2. Declare Obama special president for 20 years. The systemic racism of white people demonstrates that they can’t be trusted to vote properly.

Then you will not hear one more word about corona virus, nor one more word about riots, in the media.; 7/11/20, 11:49 AM
Narayanan said...: why not ask for clarification unless the speaker or writer are dead of course.
isn't that what is called a conversation and discussion?; 7/11/20, 12:02 PM
Paco Wové said...: "an example of the real target, and how he was targeted"

Not surprised PZ Myers was involved in this. A disgrace to the biological sciences.; 7/11/20, 12:05 PM
Ann Althouse said...: “ GingerBeer linked the Reason article with all the details. I particularly liked this quote: ”

John’s post is based on the Reason piece, so I had skimmed it when I wrote the post. I just didn’t feel compelled to figure out what the supposed cancellable offense was. Can anybody put it in 2 sentences of plain English.

The thing you quoted is on the meta topic, not what he’s accused of.

If it’s too boring...; 7/11/20, 12:08 PM
narciso said...: his first offense was citing this,

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html?
smid=tw-share; 7/11/20, 12:11 PM
Michael K said...: en B said...
His real crime was writing the excellent book The Blank Slate.

Exactly. Stephen Jay Gould was a secular saint for his theory that The New Soviet Man was an attainable goal. All children could be molded into the leftist cliche. Pinker, who looks like a hippie and writes like Thomas Sowell, proved that was a hoax. His twin studies showed that most behavior was genetic. That is anathema to BLM, for example.

Now Plomin has come up with even better evidence from genetics.

n Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality

I see the new edition has "a new Afterward." I wonder if he is chickening out like those MSU guys who are retracting their paper that shows no bias in police shootings? As lawyer Coffinhal said of Lavoisier "La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu." ("The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed."); 7/11/20, 12:19 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: The left want word-crimes, thought crimes... more more mor.

they want it.

soon, the word 'hello 'will soon be "racist"

the American flag is racist..

patriotism is racist... everything not properly left-wing fascism = racist.; 7/11/20, 12:25 PM
GingerBeer said...: Kind of slothful Ann. The Reason piece links to the 6 crimes of Pinker. Hard to reduce to 2 sentences. The open letter also includes the offending tweets. BTW, of the 609 signatories, there are 5 from UW-Madison. Curious to know who amongst your former colleagues or current neighbors have signed? I'd be.

Police don’t shoot blacks disproportionately, moved to dismiss the genuine concerns about the disproportionate killings, downplaying actual violence in a casual manner, publicly co-opt the academic work of a Black social scientist, uses the dogwhistle (sic)“urban crime/violence. Hope that wasn't too long.; 7/11/20, 12:36 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Ann Althouse said...

Can anybody put it in 2 sentences of plain English.

Pinker has stated that Blacks are not disproportionately victims of police shootings in general. More Whites are killed in police shootings that Blacks. The woke do not like this, so they seek to cancel Pinker.

I agree with KenB, they can't really cancel Pinker in a meaningful way. Harvard may oust him as a professor, but he most likely won't end up destitute and living on the streets. Also, I doubt his career would be totally ruined as he'd probably end up working at a think thank somewhere. The attempt to cancel him is more on the lines of pour encourager les autres.; 7/11/20, 12:39 PM
wild chicken said...: "Charitable"?

We don't do "charitable" anymore.; 7/11/20, 12:40 PM
Marshall Rose said...: The cancellable offensive is pointing out the error in the dogma.

He is using facts, intellect and science to undermine a primary narrative that police brutality is at its worst point in human history. This narrative must be protected in order to keep racial and class divisions inflamed in order to further wedge open the door to turning the US socialist.

Its for his own good, and he should denounce himself accordingly and report to the gulag voluntarily.; 7/11/20, 12:42 PM
GingerBeer said...: And if you "...just didn't feel compelled to figure out what the supposed cancellable offense was..." Why post on a topic that couldn't hold your interest at all? Clickbait for "My Son John?"; 7/11/20, 12:45 PM
Joe Smith said...: "I just didn’t feel compelled to figure out what the supposed cancellable offense was."

Exactly...; 7/11/20, 12:45 PM
GingerBeer said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/11/20, 12:45 PM
mikee said...: Josephbleau, you forget that Obama had a white mother and is therefore inherrently, irredeemably, unconsciously, systemically, obviously 50% racist. So perhaps he is much better than a person lacking color 100%, but still not the ideal dictator of color. I say we go with someone 100% not racist, like a modern Idi Amin or Duvalier or Mugabe, to achieve fully the effect you desire.

Leftist journalists would roll over, stick their paws in the air and bark at imaginary dogwhistles for an Obama, who merely used the federal intelligence agencies to monitor, harass, and even charge journalists. Imagine what murdering some of them openly, like my referenced leaders did, would achieve for their journalistic integrity!; 7/11/20, 12:48 PM
rhhardin said...: It's the dog-whistle dog whistle.; 7/11/20, 12:53 PM
gilbar said...: Just what The Hell does he mean to imply; by "most rational" ?
is this some sort of code phrase to tell us that some of us are irrational?
I'm TIRED of having to put up with secret codes in blogs
</sarc; 7/11/20, 12:56 PM
rcocean said...: Dog-whistles were invented by Journalists in the 1960's as a way to smear Republicans as "racists" and "Bigots" when they said nothing bigoted or racist. Goes all the way back to Liberal reporters claiming Nixon was using Racist "Dog Whistles" when discussing "law and order" in 1968.

Good to see the Liberals are finally becoming a victim of their own disgusting technique.; 7/11/20, 1:03 PM
gadfly said...: No one should trust those "woke" exegetes and perhaps not even Steven Pinker.

Pinker is unable to lock down his terminology. First he says: "It's also part of these new exegetical tools that woke culture has deployed . . ." Immediately thereafter he is quoted as saying: "Now the false ascription of belief is ... the detection of 'dogwhistles'— an intriguing tool of hermeneutics in which you can accuse anyone of saying anything . . ."

Wiki says: The terms hermeneutics and exegesis are sometimes used interchangeably. Hermeneutics is a wider discipline which includes written, verbal, and non-verbal communication. Exegesis focuses primarily upon the word and grammar of texts.; 7/11/20, 1:04 PM
Joanne Jacobs said...: Pinker is accused of minimizing police racism and male misogyny by citing statistics and research.; 7/11/20, 1:12 PM
Sydney said...: According to the Reason article he did six things worthy of cancellation: 1) He tweeted that "police don't shoot blacks disproportionately," 2) he tweeted "Police kill too many people, black and white," 3) He described Bernhard Goets as "mild-mannered" in one of his books, 4) He tweeted about a shooting rampage on the University of California, Santa Barbara that "The idea that the UCSB murders are a part of a pattern of hatred against women is statistically obtuse," 5) he cited the work of a Black sociologist to show a decline in racism in the US, and 6) He used the adjective "urban."; 7/11/20, 1:15 PM
Jupiter said...: "I don't even know what the cancel ghouls even say that he did wrong. I just assume they're crying wolf."

Oh, not likely. They are probably crying "racist, sexist, homophobic". Don't you think?; 7/11/20, 1:16 PM
Paco Wové said...: "I just didn’t feel compelled to figure out what the supposed cancellable offense was. Can anybody put it in 2 sentences of plain English."

In short, he publicly disagrees with the current BLM doctrine. The "Open Letter to the LSA" details 6 specific offenses:

1. Arguing that police don't shoot blacks disproportionately
2. Arguing the real problem is that police shoot too many people period
3. Describing Bernhard Goetz too sympathetically
4. (This one's so indirect it's hard to describe. Essentially, the claim is Pinker belittles people who denounce violence against women. It depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of the incident that inspired it. I'm not sure why they bothered throwing it in, really.)
5. He cited a black author in a way the letter-writers didn't like
6. He used "the dogwhistle “urban crime/violence”" in a tweet.; 7/11/20, 1:16 PM
Jupiter said...: "Just what The Hell does he mean to imply; by "most rational" ?"

Yeah, that struck me as well. When atheists want to use the language of morality, they are kind of stuck for a starting point. "We hold these Truths to be self-evident."; 7/11/20, 1:20 PM
Jupiter said...: '"It is part of a larger movement to try to accuse as many people as possible of various forms of prejudice and bigotry in the belief that is the way to make the world a better place," argues Pinker.'

I'd say that Pinker's take is a good deal more charitable than mine would be. "It is part of a larger movement to destroy our society so they can have all our stuff" sounds more like it to me. I'm not sure I agree with him about the police shooting too many people, either.; 7/11/20, 1:24 PM
Jupiter said...: Hey, and what's with the frizzy, white hair? Is that supposed to be some kind of a Euró-Fro?; 7/11/20, 1:26 PM
n.n said...: soon, the word 'hello 'will soon be "racist"

Ok.; 7/11/20, 1:32 PM
GingerBeer said...: What Pinker is really guilty of is "intellectualization."

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/07/i-saw-that-city-of-seattle-had.html; 7/11/20, 1:34 PM
Biff said...: Pinker is one of those ideologically suspect characters whose cultural affectations are those of a left-leaning academic, but he clings to antiquated notions of respect for data and willingness to treat people "from the other side" as if they are human beings. He even has had polite conversations (yes, plural) with (cue sinister music) Jordan Peterson! Unforgivable!; 7/11/20, 1:38 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “I just assume they're crying wolf. (Sorry to introduce a rival canine into this little post.)”

I think that it is highly likely that dog whistles will work on wolves. They are still close enough together genetically that fertile interbreeding is still common, if not most typical. As far as I can tell, the major difference between the two species is that maturity in dogs is arrested before complete maturation. As pups, they are hard to distinguish. It is only in adulthood that wolves develop the independence that dogs lack. And that, of course, was the critical change in behavior in dogs that allowed for their domestication.; 7/11/20, 2:31 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: I don't even know what the cancel ghouls even say that he did wrong.

If you want to know, Jerry Coyne, at his blog Why Evolution is True, details the six charges and provides the equivalent of a judicial opinion that he is innocent.

For some reason, I couldn't find the blog post by Googling. Maybe it's' too recent (July 5)? I had to remember where I had first seen the reference (the July 5 Open Thread at Razib Khan's gnxp.com).; 7/11/20, 3:00 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: Dog-whistles were invented by Journalists in the 1960's as a way to smear Republicans as "racists" and "Bigots" when they said nothing bigoted or racist.

The 60s term was not "dog whistle". It was "code words" or "code". Thus, "law and order" was code for "support police brutality" (itself a term common then, not common now).; 7/11/20, 3:29 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: For those curious about Plomin's New Afterword, here is part of the January 1, 2019 draft.

One commenter said, "Does it occur to you that, having seen the heretic Watson roast in the flames, Plomin might be choosing his words to avoid the same fate?"; 7/11/20, 3:37 PM
Fernandinande said...: "Just what The Hell does he mean to imply; by "most rational" ?"

Yeah, that struck me as well.

It's a quote from a Wikipedia article. The next sentence fleshes out the very simple idea:

"...this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehoods to the others' statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available."

When atheists want to use the language of morality, they are kind of stuck for a starting point.

Because Wikipedia is haunted by evil spirits.

A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality.

Along with DNA and phenotypes, another development which you won't read about in the nyt is that someone's race caan be identified by the physical structure of their brain.; 7/11/20, 3:49 PM
JPS said...: My favorite accusation (from the Reason article):

"Pinker purportedly engaged in 'a pattern of drowning out the voices of people suffering from racist and sexist violence.'"

Drowned out their voices, did he? How did he do that? How could he do that, if he tried?

He couldn't, of course. He has only as much power to do that as they grant him, which is none. (As it should be - only if I were actually a white supremacist, or a leftist hoping to ride them to power, would I want minority students to be so fragile.)

So basically the woke here are Dennis the peasant, demanding, "Did you see 'im repressing me?"; 7/11/20, 4:38 PM
stevew said...: Anyone who has read Pinker, his professional publications and other commentary, would know that he is a committed scientist with an open mind and focused on learning and understanding. To me his motivations are beyond reproach, which is not to say his work shouldn't be examined and subject to criticism.

This woke purity test business is long past ridiculous.; 7/11/20, 6:05 PM
ccscientist said...: It is amazing they didn't go after Pinker long ago. In his book "the blank slate" he argues forcefully that the Left wants us to be a blank slate when born that culture just imprints things on. This way they can blame the patriarchy if men like boobs. Pinker shows that lots of what we are is based on biology. This is soooo non-PC.; 7/11/20, 6:39 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Narr: Of course he "isn't very pink". If he were he'd be Stephen Pinkest.; 7/11/20, 9:17 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Or Steven Pinkest. Sorry.; 7/11/20, 9:18 PM
Steven said...: If you can hear the dogwhistle, you're a dog. If you froth at the mouth about a dogwhistle, you're a rabid dog.; 7/11/20, 11:53 PM
Jeff Brokaw said...: Good observation by John. Never attribute to malice, etc.

I never once in my life thought about words and phrases being secret code “dog whistles” used by racists to signal other racists what they really mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Sure. Okay. I mean it’s possible. OR ... maybe you’re just a crazy person who desperately looks for irredeemable flaws in other people to make you feel better about your overbearing sense of guilt, because you feel terrible about things other people did decades ago but you won’t actually do shit to help anyone today. Impugning other people’s motives — you’re a mindreader now, are you? — is your helpful “contribution” to the national conversation we always need to have to manage your guilt.; 7/12/20, 8:46 AM
HipsterVacuum said...: I love it when gadfly tries to sound intelligent.; 7/12/20, 9:47 AM
bagoh20 said...: One of the most dangerous things you can do in life is to assume others share your values, your restraint, your respect for the rights of others. That can get you killed, metaphorically and sometimes literally.; 7/12/20, 2:03 PM
bagoh20 said...: Hearing dog whistles is what you do when the truth doesn't fit your hatred of the other.; 7/12/20, 2:05 PM
Aussie Pundit said...: as you can see from the 'cancel' document, there's no smoking gun with Pinker. No offensive old tweet, no inappropriate relations with students or co-workers, no drunken shenanigans captured on an iphone.

There's no gotcha moment, and they're not pretending there is. They are pretty much saying, "We want to cancel this guy because we don't like his world view."

That's why you're left with a feeling that you don't understand the whole story. But, just take the cancellers at their word. no smoking gun, this guy simply promotes bad ideas. what, exactly?

His book "The Blank Slate" made the compelling case that biological differences are real. There's a chapter in it where he pinpoints, historically and ideologically, where feminism, as a movement, went off the rails. Specifically, when they decided that biological differences aren't real.

His book "Enlightenment now" made the case for, well, the enlightenment, and therefore modern Western civilization.

His famous lecture on the differences between men and women in the workplace may have been the basis for James Damore's infamous document posted on an internal google message board. It certainly reads a lot like a summary of Pinker.

Pinker publicly defended Lawrence H Summers, the Harvard President who was 'cancelled' for stating that men and women have cognitive differences. That's actually one of the specific charges against Pinker: he defended a "cancelled" individual, and therefore should be cancelled.

Pinker makes the point that men and women have the same average IQ, but the male distribution has thicker tails at both ends. As Pinker puts it, "more geniuses, more dunces". As a result, he explains, you'll never equalize the number of male and female CEOs, engineers, or criminals.

( by the way, I recommend reading at least one of his books. He is a terrific writer).; 7/14/20, 12:09 AM