Detail thinkers, Holistic thinkers - Part 5

Steven Den Beste’s post about my post has turned up a menagerie of self-described holistic thinkers. Of course, I am one too.

However, I am also a stickler for detail when it comes to my utterances and writings. I don’t think that I’d have quite same reaction as Steven to corrections of factual errors in my posts – however peripheral to the point I’m trying to make. Brian Tiemann comes close to describing my reaction. I, however, wouldn’t assume that my reader is specifically trying to help me, as does Brian. Rather, I’d assume that he or she wants to share with me some information that I might want to know – that, in fact, I do want to know. If I were in Steven’s place, I would correct the error immediately, in-line, [perhaps using square brackets] so that no reader would be mislead into thinking an untruth, or worse, into thinking that this particular untruth is untrue in a way that impacts my thinking as a whole.

I have long felt that email, and now to an even greater degree blogs, are an answer to a problem that I’ve long had – the problem, I think, that really bothers Steven – of trying to make a point in a discussion only to have my interlocutor latch on to a peripheral point and try to make a point of his own. I have nothing against another person doing this, except that it invariably prevents me from making my own point. Using email, and now blogs, we can do both at once.

However, there is another potential problem when this happens – that my interlocutor is uninterested in taking the time to understand my point, in other words that I’ve failed to communicate. And communication is one of man’s primal desires.

As Steven says:

I won't reach every reader no matter how hard I try. I don't even expect to reach the majority. But if nearly all the mail I get about a specific post is pedantic, then it suggests that I didn't reach hardly anyone. If that goes on and on, post after post, it makes me feel as if I'm not succeeding overall in what I'm trying to do when I write for this site.

That's what gets me down. Perhaps it meant that the forests I've been describing weren't really very important, or weren't there are all. Perhaps I failed to write well enough about them to make them real for my readers, and all they could see was trees. If nearly all the comments I receive about some article are nitpicks, it means that article failed. If that goes on day after day, post after post, then I'm failing as a writer.

In a nutshell, I think, Steven is describing his distress over the possibility that he is failing to communicate.

Steven: you are not failing. Don’t forget the silent majority of your devoted fans.

Detail thinkers, Holistic thinkers - Part 4

It has been bothering me that I haven’t related to Steven Den Beste’s central point that getting nitpicking emails frustrates him. (I do have something to say about that, and I might in a future post, but a the moment I have no time.) The reason for that is, despite what I said, and despite the actual post that I linked to, what I really had in mind (I just realized this now) and wanted to talk about was Steven’s Chinese Water Torture post. In that post he describes his reaction to the sheer quantity of email – not to nitpicking emails in particular. He says:

Almost all of these letters were friendly and helpful. But the cumulative effect of them is like a piledriver, especially when I'm not 100%. A friendly slap on the back can be bracing and supportive, but a thousand slaps on the back will probably kill you, and certainly leave you black-and-blue. None of these people know each other; none of them knew what anyone else might have been writing to me. But I receive them all.

This strikes me as the reaction of a man who wants to relate to each email holistically – the way he would like others to relate to his posts – the only really meaningful way to relate to them, as he sees it. But, as I have said, this is a relatively slow process, impossible to apply quickly to large quantities of data. The knowledge that most of it will turn out to be holistically irrelevant must be particularly galling.

Perhaps it will be of some comfort that hardly anyone expects him to relate to his email holistically.

Detail thinkers, Holistic thinkers - Part 3

Steven Den Beste responds to my response. He says:

It is certainly true that I have always had a much easier time learning things which "fit" than things which did not. Which is why I was hopeless at trying to learn a foreign language: trying to memorize arbitrary lists of words doesn't work. On the other hand, it happens to be the case that some of my mental models are huge and intricate, so a lot more "fits" than might at first be expected, which may be why some have occasionally accused me of knowing everything. (A foul canard, I tell you. Utter slander.)

Detail thinkers are usually very good at absorbing large quantities of data (such as is required in learning a foreign language) – they don’t have to waste energy processing the data, and they don’t have to successfully fit the data into a model in order to retain it. This is a very handy talent to have, and well suited to most of the important tasks in life.

For the same reason, holistic thinkers are usually very poor at absorbing large quantities of data. But as Steven points out, the advantage of holistic thinkers is that they can manipulate their internal models to see things not otherwise obvious. However, there is another advantage, which Steven describes but doesn’t explain by pointing out that a lot of data can fit into his mental models – these models are extremely stable. Each fact buttresses each other fact, creating a highly redundant structure well suited to withstanding the ravishes of time. Holistic thinkers usually remember their structures “forever”, along with the information embedded within them. In contrast, the non-embedded information of the detail thinker, and even the detail thinker’s direct relationships between facts, form a far less stable structure, and are easily forgotten.

So, though poor at absorbing data compared to detail thinkers, after a lifetime of so doing, holistic thinkers can build up an enormous storehouse of it. This is why Steven Den Beste has been accused of knowing everything.

Detail thinkers, Holistic thinkers - Part 2

Steven Den Beste has linked to me! I must confess, this is a big moment for me. SDB is one of my favorite bloggers, and it is a great honor to be in a dialog with him.

I have a busy day today, but I have deferred some things to give me time for a quick response. Steven says:

It's not true that I have trouble with quick processing, though. Part of why nitpicky reader mail annoys me so much is that it frustrates me.

This is in response to the following, from my post:

And one of the characteristics of holistic thinkers, especially very strongly holistic thinkers like SDB, is an impatience with details. The reason for this, is that holistic thinkers have trouble with (or may be incapable of) quick processing.

I should have been more precise – I meant to say, “…an impatience with details that are not easily derived from the holistic thinker’s internal model”. Details that are clearly part of the internal model are not really details – they are part of the whole. When pointed out to an holistic thinker, the (said or unsaid) reaction is “that’s obvious” – and when the holistic thinker hasn’t previously noticed this obvious point, it could well be a “Eureka” moment, because it could cause all kinds of things to fall into place.

To an external observer, this could look like a paradox. The external observer sees a person who takes in some details instantly, and has an abnormal degree of trouble with other details. If the holistic thinker’s internal model were visible, the difference would be obvious.

So, when I said, “quick processing”, I was referring to the assimilation of details that are not “obvious”. The first reaction of an holistic thinker to a detail of this sort is to ask, “how is it relevant to my internal model”. This is the action that does not lend itself to quick processing. There are four possible answers:

1. It fits into my model in a way which wasn’t at first obvious to me.
2. I must revise my model to account for this detail.
3. It isn’t relevant to my model.
4. It refutes my model – i.e. my model is wrong.

If, instead, he were to ask, “is this detail relevant to this other detail that I was talking about” he would be able to process it much more quickly.

It is certainly possible that Steven is adept at doing both. I guess I have to revise my internal model of him.

Trackback from Dialectic, A Win is a Win is a Win:

Wow, thanks to Steven for the footnote! If my webstats were still working (helloooooo?....Simon?....), I bet the sitemeter dial would be spinning faster than it ever has before. Well, that's all well and good, but I'm not writing for hits, I'm writing ...

Teleological Ideas

Scott writes:

Uh, David, how can you distinguish between 3 [Evil for a good cause – DB] and 4 [Evil intent – DB]? Have you read Mein Kampf, or even selected quotes from it? Hitler (ym"sh) thought he was doing the world a favor. And how could you say that communism is a "good" cause? Have you read any Marx? You didn't put quotes around the word "good," so are you implying that communism has some redeeming value in any way?! Communism, and it's (very) close cousin Nazism (National SOCIALIST German WORKER'S Party) are both intrinsically evil. There is not one redeeming feature of either (very similar) ideology.

My intent was not to compare Hitler and Marx, but to compare the movements they created, and especially the mindset of their followers. I know a lot of good people who were taken in by Marxist rhetoric precisely because they felt that people shouldn’t suffer poverty, and some people shouldn’t be richer than others. I cannot condemn these ideals as evil, and in a certain sense I share them myself. It becomes evil (and absurd) when you think that killing people is a legitimate method for achieving these goals.

Good people were taken in by communism because they couldn’t give up their teleological ideas (as Steven Den Beste would say) – it should be true therefore it must be true.

Tribal and Individual

Amritas gives me his first in-context link. Needless to say, I am very gratified. He says:

David Boxenhorn made me see that humans are caught between being tribal animals and truly independent beings.

I started this blog because I wanted to communicate. Communicate what? Just communicate – humans are communicating beings, it is one of our defining characteristics. (This is one aspect of our tribal nature – individuals have no need to communicate.) However, if I were to pick one thing, it would be my worldview. I don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and write it out in one cohesive fell swoop – writing these short posts are enough of a challenge for me. But I’ve put a lot of time and effort into figuring out my worldview, and I hope that with the passage of time it will become clear.

I don’t know how Amritas meant his statement, but if I put on my western-culture hat for a moment, it sounds negative to me – it sounds like humans should strive to overcome their tribal past and be “independent beings.” To me, this is a lost cause – we can’t change our nature, and any attempt to deny it only makes us miserable.

Putting my own hat back on, it sounds different (perhaps this is what Amritas meant, too?) – humans are both tribal animals and independent beings. With the proper attitude, these two ideas are not contradictory.

This is deeper than it seems in translation. The Hebrew doesn’t use the word “only” in the second line; instead it uses two different words for “for myself”. The word it uses in the second line can also be translated as “by myself”.

The individual strengthens his individuality by strengthening the tribe, and the tribe strengthens its tribalness by strengthening the individual. This is no play on words, nor is it a ruse to fool people into supporting socialism – I most emphatically reject socialism as a dehumanizing idea. I also reject that stream of rational-individualist thought that denies our native tribal inclinations – that irrationally builds a system of values that is incompatible with human nature, and asks that we reject our nature in favor of “the truth”. I prefer what I might call a “neo-rational” solution, which satisfies both reason and human nature – my personal version of Occam’s razor – a truth that also makes us happy and psychologically healthy. According to this truth, being “caught between being tribal animals and truly independent beings” is not a curse, but a blessing. But more important, it is the truth that we must live with whether we admit it or not.

Vacation

I am taking three days vacation (starting today). See you Thursday!

Evil

There are four kinds of evil in the world.

1. Corruption
2. Amorality
3. Evil for a good cause
4. Evil intent

All human institutions suffer to some extent from corruption, but for some of them, corruption is their primary purpose.

Most of the world’s regimes are corrupt.

The Roman Empire is an example of an amoral regime – it would do what was necessary to maintain its power – including genocide, but it did not pursue these methods when its power wasn’t threatened.

The Soviet Union is an example of pursing evil for a good cause. I consider this more immoral than amorality – both for the practical reason that it usually results in more evil than simple amorality (the “good” cause never goes away), but also because it confuses the thinking of good people, who find themselves unable to distinguish between the good and evil.

Nazi Germany is an example of Evil intent. The foundations of the regime – its declared purpose, its reason to be – was evil.

Yasina

Amritas’s post about “octolingual Michel Thomas” reminded me of my paternal grandmother. She spoke five languages when she emigrated to the United States, none of them English. Her first language was Yiddish, often referred to as Mama Loshen by native speakers. (“Loshen” comes from Hebrew “lashon” – tongue, language. I presume you can guess what “mama” means.) She also spoke Ukrainian, the local language of the non-Jews; Hungarian, the official language of the area at the time; Hebrew, which she learned in Hebrew school; and German, the prestige language of Eastern Europe at the time.

She came from the town of Yasina (here called Jasinja), in what is now called Transcarpathia. This area was part of Hungary before World War I, when my grandmother lived there. After World War I it became part of Czechoslovakia, though it was neither Czech nor Slovak. After World War II it became part of the Ukraine. I found a remarkable interview on Teen Ink, by “Lindsay K.,” of a man from the same town. Though a generation younger than my grandmother, his description of Yasina corroborates hers.

We used to have to chop wood for the stove in the winter to heat the house. Most of the time we didn't have enough wood, so the only room with heat was the kitchen.

One of my grandmother’s stories told how in the winter, they would close down most of the house and live in the one heated room.

In the winter, it was very dangerous to walk at night. There were no lights, and there were wolves.

Another story told how in the winter, the wolves would come down from the mountains, into town.

The bulk of the interview tells the harrowing story of the interviewee during World War II. Transcarpathia was taken back by Hungary, though its Jews weren’t given Hungarian citizenship. Ironically, because Hungary was an ally of the Nazis, Hungary’s Jews were spared deportation to the concentration camps until fairly late in the war. As a result 25% of them survived, a relatively high proportion. My grandmother’s parents, and many brothers and sisters were not among the lucky. The interview gives me an idea of their probable end.

The morning after our lamp was taken, we heard screaming outside. When we went into the street, we saw German and Hungarian soldiers throwing Jews out of their homes and herding them with sticks. The Jews lived in the main part of town, and the peasants, who lived up in the mountains, came down. The soldiers herded us with the rest of the Jews. My mother was wearing a thin dress and wanted to go back to get her coat, but they made her leave without it. They beat her because she asked to get it.

They took us to the Jewish cemetery and shaved off the rabbis' beards. We were there for several days, guarded by the Hungarian townspeople who had been our neighbors and friends. There was a lot of screaming. They were going to kill us all with machine guns.

The interviewee, however, survived, and was able to tell his story:

We ran through the woods all night, hearing dogs barking and knowing that we were being chased. Eventually, tired and hungry and still in our striped uniforms, we heard the Russians at their front. We ran toward them with our hands up yelling, "Jew."

The Russians put us up against a wall to shoot us, but one officer who was Jewish stopped them. He told us not to say we were Jewish, because the Russians hated us.

We were on our way again, cold, frightened and starving. We came to a farm and hid in the hayloft. At another deserted house, I found a black coat, hat and cane with a silver handle for the rabbi. He looked like a real rabbi again.

I wanted to get as far away as possible. We came to a railroad crossing and saw the engine coming. I told the rabbi to jump on the engine and hold on tight. When the train came, I jumped on but the rabbi did not make it.

Although we were both very weak, at 19, I could make the jump. The train traveled about two kilometers, and when I realized he was not there, I jumped off and walked back. I found the old man sitting in the grass, crying like a baby.

I never left him until we made it to Czechoslovakia. He was reunited with his oldest son in a small town there. We parted and he gave me a blessing. The year was 1945.