When read in context, Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech explains why criticism without suggestion is useless and deserving of dismissal.
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Even though I disagree with your conclusions, I’m glad you wrote this post because the reasoning that went into it is a common failure mode of the “cowering from life” bloc of LessWrong. Encouraging naked dissent without trying to improving things is applause lights for the most cynical, life-disengaged readers who would rather have a satisfying intellectual contempt for others than try and actually solve real problems.
...criticism without suggestion is useless and deserving of dismissal.
I find a flaw in Andrew Wiles’ proof of FLT. Should I mention it if I don’t have any ideas for my own proof? After all, FLT is definitely true anyway.
Eliezer is finally coding his FAI, and I notice that there is a way the code might fail to maintain its goal system during self-modification. Should I tell him this if I don’t personally know how to fix the problem?
My uncle, a crown attorney, is prosecuting a rapist based solely on eyewitness identification across racial lines, something I know to be problematic. I have no idea who the rapist is, and there are no other leads. Should I bring it up?
Professor Peach, after much pondering of what to do about the severely mentally handicapped, decides that since “nature is about survival of the fittest,” euthanasia would be the best option. I argue he has made a mistake in ethical reasoning (the naturalistic fallacy), but I have no idea what should be done about the institutionalized mentally handicapped either. Should I shut up?
There is no such thing, really, as criticism without suggestion. Sometimes the suggestion is just “Woah, something’s very wrong here!” That’s usually OK.
These are great suggestions. Thank you. I think I just changed my mind.
My model didn’t account for someone actually pointing out flaws using their own reasoning in novel situations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone actually do this.
In my experience, criticism in the wild is the art of finding and repeating another thinker’s reasoning to re-attack a clearly wrong idea again without adding anything new to human thought or attempting to do something tangible to improve things.
The reason that I dismiss critics like this is because they are engaging in an enjoyable, negative-sum activity by sitting around and sniping at people for “being wrong” while not engaging in the less enjoyable, positive-sum activity of actually trying to do something better. People who actually do things understand this which I think is what Roosevelt was getting at in pointing out that it is unhelpful to mindlessly repeat inadequacies of the best functioning plans without attempting to invent and/or implement alternatives.
In my experience, criticism in the wild is the art of finding and repeating another thinker’s reasoning to re-attack a clearly wrong idea again without adding anything new to human thought or attempting to do something tangible to improve things.
Yup, there is definitely that aspect to things, alas.
Though I would submit that even such unoriginal criticism may be justified, given an important rhetorical objective.
It may be worth knowing how to insult your critics along these lines (in case you have to persuade a bunch of simpletons to hate or ignore them), but that was rather a lot of words to say “many of my critics have no practical experience and so have useless, untested beliefs, which really annoys me.”
If anything I’m too charitable in my reading; he didn’t bother to explain why a critic with little personal experience attempting what he critiques is unfit.
Lack of suggestions signals a lack of engagement with the implementation of ideas in the space a critic is discussing which signals a lack of correct understanding.
People who only think about ideas but do not try to carry out any plans related to them lack the required knowledge to actually understand problems so their criticisms are systematically over-simplified, brittle, and worthy of, if not outright dismissal, at least severe discounting.
Also, criticism costs critics (almost) nothing and is enjoyable on a basic human level to the critics, so there’s good reason to expect heavy criticism of all ideas… including correct ones.
When read in context, Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech explains why criticism without suggestion is useless and deserving of dismissal.
Even though I disagree with your conclusions, I’m glad you wrote this post because the reasoning that went into it is a common failure mode of the “cowering from life” bloc of LessWrong. Encouraging naked dissent without trying to improving things is applause lights for the most cynical, life-disengaged readers who would rather have a satisfying intellectual contempt for others than try and actually solve real problems.
I find a flaw in Andrew Wiles’ proof of FLT. Should I mention it if I don’t have any ideas for my own proof? After all, FLT is definitely true anyway.
Eliezer is finally coding his FAI, and I notice that there is a way the code might fail to maintain its goal system during self-modification. Should I tell him this if I don’t personally know how to fix the problem?
My uncle, a crown attorney, is prosecuting a rapist based solely on eyewitness identification across racial lines, something I know to be problematic. I have no idea who the rapist is, and there are no other leads. Should I bring it up?
Professor Peach, after much pondering of what to do about the severely mentally handicapped, decides that since “nature is about survival of the fittest,” euthanasia would be the best option. I argue he has made a mistake in ethical reasoning (the naturalistic fallacy), but I have no idea what should be done about the institutionalized mentally handicapped either. Should I shut up?
There is no such thing, really, as criticism without suggestion. Sometimes the suggestion is just “Woah, something’s very wrong here!” That’s usually OK.
These are great suggestions. Thank you. I think I just changed my mind.
My model didn’t account for someone actually pointing out flaws using their own reasoning in novel situations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone actually do this.
In my experience, criticism in the wild is the art of finding and repeating another thinker’s reasoning to re-attack a clearly wrong idea again without adding anything new to human thought or attempting to do something tangible to improve things.
The reason that I dismiss critics like this is because they are engaging in an enjoyable, negative-sum activity by sitting around and sniping at people for “being wrong” while not engaging in the less enjoyable, positive-sum activity of actually trying to do something better. People who actually do things understand this which I think is what Roosevelt was getting at in pointing out that it is unhelpful to mindlessly repeat inadequacies of the best functioning plans without attempting to invent and/or implement alternatives.
Yup, there is definitely that aspect to things, alas.
Though I would submit that even such unoriginal criticism may be justified, given an important rhetorical objective.
Thanks for the complete quote.
But (just as a site-hygiene thing) I’m going to identify this post as name-calling.
I don’t do contempt, and I am trying my level best not to cower. And you will not see much cynicism on this site.
Surely you mean that Roosevelt’s speech suggests how this kind of criticism might be improved.
It may be worth knowing how to insult your critics along these lines (in case you have to persuade a bunch of simpletons to hate or ignore them), but that was rather a lot of words to say “many of my critics have no practical experience and so have useless, untested beliefs, which really annoys me.”
If anything I’m too charitable in my reading; he didn’t bother to explain why a critic with little personal experience attempting what he critiques is unfit.
Lack of suggestions signals a lack of engagement with the implementation of ideas in the space a critic is discussing which signals a lack of correct understanding.
People who only think about ideas but do not try to carry out any plans related to them lack the required knowledge to actually understand problems so their criticisms are systematically over-simplified, brittle, and worthy of, if not outright dismissal, at least severe discounting.
Also, criticism costs critics (almost) nothing and is enjoyable on a basic human level to the critics, so there’s good reason to expect heavy criticism of all ideas… including correct ones.