The "fallacy" part occurs when you confuse the "trans" level of wisdom for the "pre" level of ignorance because they lead to the same conclusion (ie believing Theory A).
This meme is based on the same idea:
You think we are in a recession because it feels like it. Then you learn that some institution called the NBER has to make that call and they use lots of data points, so it's not a recession yet. Then you realize the NBER doesn't know what it's talking about or is being politicized to make the administration look good or whatever, and so, yes, we are in a recession. You were right all along.
Here is a better example using eggs instead of a recession. An ignorant person, drawn above to the left of the distribution with eyes growing at the sides of his head, eats eggs because he doesn’t know they are high in cholesterol. A “smart” person, drawn here with the glasses and angry expression at the height of the bell curve, avoids eggs because he knows they are high in cholesterol. A wise person, on the right as the hooded sage, eats eggs because he knows they have the “good” cholesterol and are actually healthy for you.
So both the sage and the moron, on opposite ends of what I gather must be a chart measuring IQ, have the same response. The fallacy comes when the person in the middle can only see their response and not their reasoning, and assumes they are both morons for eating eggs.
So why is this framing important?
Wisdom in the Time of Mistrust
My theory is that one of the problems with The Age of Mistrust is that, due to increasing levels of education and easy access to unfiltered information, many people have moved from ignorant to “smart”, but they are falling for the pre/trans fallacy and assuming the “wise” people who are eating eggs are ignorant rubes who don’t know about cholesterol.
And so they see people in positions of power, who might actually be the wise sage, taking the same position as the moron. They then assume they must be smarter than the people in charge and end up talking themselves into voting for Donald Trump.
This might be a big leap in extrapolation, but I sometimes wonder if people like myself make something like the pre/trans fallacy as it relates to the hierarchy of society’s needs.
Needful Things
So Maslow's hierarchy of needs went like this: a person first needs shelter. Once that need is met, they need food and water. Once that need is met they need love and companionship. Once that need is met they need meaning.
Now picture a successful person. He has a high paying job, lives in a nice house, has a nice family, a happy marriage, and his life is full of meaning. One day he says to his wife, “It’s supposed to be a nice clear night tonight. I think we should camp out under the stars in our backyard.” His wife, looking stunned, replies “Are you kidding me? We cannot abandon the shelter of our home! That is the first need in Maslow's hierarchy. If we give that up, our whole lives will crumble.”
His wife is committing the pre/trans fallacy here. They are doing so well they can actually sleep without shelter if they want to. And sometimes I wonder if free speech warriors are doing the same.
The Free Speech Problem
Securing free speech is a basic need that prevents authoritarianism. Authoritarians try to control speech so they can take power. But some people try to censor speech because they are trying to improve society; they are the people who know eggs are high in cholesterol AND that it's still okay to eat.
It's like Aaron Sibarium's distinction that mass communication now is weirder than it has ever been because there are fewer veto points on the path from author to audience. So free speech was important because the people who controlled those veto points (governments, editors, publishers, hell even paper boys) could control information for their own agendas. But with social media, podcasts, and Substack, the information is more direct and unfiltered. So our new problem isn't powerful people keeping out information, its bad information reaching too many people.
And free speech doesn't solve this problem. In fact, it makes it worse. So when it comes to free speech critics, how to I separate the wheat from the chaff, the moron from the sage? How do I tell who is trying to control power for their own agenda and how is trying to stop the harm of misinformation?
Reconsidering CRT
I do not support critical race theory. And not the apologist's definition that "it's just teaching about the history of racism." That I'm fine with and is obviously important. I'm talking about the actual Derrick Bell definition that calls for the disruption of the whole Enlightenment project and liberalism as we know it. (I guess it makes more sense to say that I do not support the proposed solutions that follow from the ideas of founding CRT thinkers.) And I know that other countries that have undermined democracy and liberalism usually end up in disaster, Singapore being the one possible exception.
But what if CRT is transcendent rather than regressive, more sage than moron? I don't have a good heuristic for making that distinction so it's possible that my opposition* is wrong. (How possible? Okay fine, I'll say a 5% chance I'm wrong.)
So the idea I’m trying to stay open to is this: can we transcend society in a way that curbs free speech but still improves the public good? I don’t know but I’m trying to stay more open to ensuring I am not committing the pre/trans fallacy.
(*My opposition is in the most liberal sense. I strongly stand agains the New Right's attempts to stop the teaching of CRT in higher education. I also strongly stand against mandating illiberal, anti-enlightenment ideas be taught to public school children. Elective learning is fine. Forced learning or preventing elective learning is always bad.)
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