Critics and Criticism

Responding to critics is an important part of rational thought and persuasion. Criticism is a way to test ideas. If an idea passes many tests, we develop confidence in it. Conversely, if an idea is held off-limits to criticism, we suspect it of being wrong.

There are two requirements for substantive criticism:

1. The critic must identify a specific claim or assumption in the content that the critic disagrees with. If it is a claim, then the critic should provide the quote where it is asserted. If it is an assumption, the critic should show where the author relies on it.
2. The critic must present a rational argument against the claim or assumption. Disagreement without argument is not substantive criticism.

If criticism satisfies those two requirements, it is a test of the content. It could still be wrong, but at least it has the right form. If it doesn’t satisfy those requirements, it is not a test of the content.

There can be valid criticism that is not substantive. For example, if an essay is one extremely long run-on sentence, it would be valid to criticize the essay’s grammar and readability. Criticisms of style can be valid. But if criticism is aimed at the content, rather than the style, it is either substantive or fake. There can also be fake criticism about style, but that is less common.

Substantive criticism is rare, because it requires effort and intelligence. Most “critics” are posers. They don’t do the intellectual labor of testing ideas. They adopt the critic pose as a way of signaling status.

The critic speaks from a position of presumed authority, because he is presuming to correct the author. Thus, he places himself “above” the author. In some cases, this position of authority is justified, because the critic has superior knowledge and/or intelligence, or he has simply noticed something that the author did not. In other cases, it is not justified.

Real critics often downplay the presumption of authority. Instead, they present themselves as peers, and they frame the interaction as cooperation, rather than conflict. A real critic is interested in the ideas, so there is a common ground for positive interaction.

By contrast, a fake critic has little or no interest in the ideas themselves. He is concerned with signaling his status to others. His criticism is a performance, which is intended to display his intellectual or moral superiority. So, he adopts a superior pose, and he frames the interaction as conflict. He is there to gain status at the author’s expense.

Some fake critics have a more passive-aggressive style. See The Advice Troll. But most are openly hostile.

In most cases, the fake critic violates the first requirement for substantive criticism. In many cases, he does not even read or listen to the content before commenting. Instead, he uses superficial pattern-recognition to map it to a category, and then he delivers canned criticism for that category. In some cases, the criticism is so generic that it could apply to almost anything.

If the fake critic actually engages with the content, he will usually make a fallacious argument, such as an appeal to authority, rather than a rational argument. Fallacious arguments are much easier than rational arguments. They require little thought.

Fake criticism comes in many forms:

• Misrepresenting the content, and then calling it stupid or bad, such as “You’re justifying the oppression of women, which is evil”.
• Making a generic claim that the content is wrong, without saying how it is wrong, such as “The author lacks a basic understanding of the topic”.
• Applying some pejorative label, such as “racist” or “social Darwinist”, and then dismissing the content, as if the label is a counter-argument. I call this fallacy “label and dismiss”.
• Presumptive ad hominems, such as “Tell me that you’ve never touched a woman without telling me that you’ve never touched a woman”.
• Generic appeals to authority, such as “This goes against the scientific consensus”.
• Generic appeals to complexity, such as “Human behavior is complex, and your approach is reductive and simplistic”.
• Generic complaints about a lack of evidence, without specifying what evidence is missing/required.
• Generic complaints about a lack of citations, without specifying what citations would be relevant.
• Claiming that the author’s ideas have been debunked by someone else, typically in a book, without providing the arguments from that source. This is an attempt to place a burden on the author: that he must read and refute some other text. It is also an appeal to authority.
• Complaining that the content is limited in scope, even though all content must be limited in scope, such as “You provide no solutions” on content that is descriptive/explanatory.
• Arguing against a strawman or other imaginary opponent, rather than engaging with the ideas presented.

Most fake criticism is generic. It can be applied, with minor modifications, to almost anything. It requires very little effort.

The internet is crawling with pretentious midwits posing as critics.

Fake criticism is common because it is easy, and because many people like to pose as intellectually and/or morally superior on the internet. The comment section is a commons: a space that is open to use and abuse by anyone. Thus, it is often abused. There is a “tragedy of the comments”, which goes beyond fake criticism.

If the author engages with the fake critic, then a new type of performance ensues: the fake debate. The critic will use various tactics to avoid getting into a real debate about the ideas. He will quibble over terms, ignore the author’s questions, endlessly repeat mantras, try to overwhelm the author with walls of text, pretend that he doesn’t understand the author’s counter-arguments, try to drag the debate down to the personal level with insults, and eventually find some excuse to leave without admitting that he is wrong — or simply continue to babble until the author exits the discussion. It is all just a performance.

There is no antidote to fake criticism. When everyone is allowed to speak, the signal-to-noise ratio approaches zero. That is inevitable. To allow real criticism, we must also allow fake criticism.

There is another side to this, which is that many authors avoid real criticism. The abundance of noise provides a convenient excuse to ignore all criticism. That is typical of charlatans, who are only concerned with popularity, not the correctness of their ideas. By “blocking the trolls”, they block access to good-faith critics as well.

Here is a little anecdote. Years ago, I would occasionally make substantive criticisms on a certain YouTube channel. My comments were always ignored. One day, I did a little experiment. I made a comment with four criticisms, three of which were valid, and one of which was wrong. Within a minute, the creator responded, correcting the single invalid criticism and ignoring the rest. I replied “Oh yeah, my mistake. How about the rest?”. Of course, I received no further replies. That kind of behavior is very common. Many content creators pretend to respond to critics, but do so very selectively.

I respond to most of my critics, real and fake. However, that is not a blank check on my time. I have limited tolerance for fake critics. Responding to real criticism is a requirement for rational discourse. Unlimited tolerance of fake criticism is not.