The blogger's fallacy

Apparently, there’s something at the Foreign Office called the Wykehamist fallacy - the erroneous belief that the people one deals with are decent, sophisticated chaps like oneself. Reading this and this, it strikes me that several of us bloggers (there are regrettably notable exceptions) are vulnerable to a similar error - we fail to see that our interlocuters are not like us.
I mean this in five ways:
1. We think beliefs are, or should be, rooted in principles. Others think they should be based upon tribal loyalties. This distinction leaps out from the reaction to Paul’s CiF piece. When he pointed out that neither Labour nor the Lib Dems live up to reasonable left-liberal principles, some commenters inferred, bizarrely, that he was a Tory.
2. We think that what we say needn’t be what we “really believe” - whatever this means. Sometimes, we play devil’s advocate, make modest proposals, engage in liberal irony or just float ideas. Other people think statements must always reveal their ego - and seem to expect me to give a toss about it.
3. We believe the worst crime a writer can commit is not to be wrong or offensive, but to be boring. To us, words are not meant to be bromides, but provocations to thought and argument. The point of writing is to start an argument; blogs are meant to be first words. To be a blogger is to be the antithesis of being the chairman of committees.
4. To us, silence is a sign not of thoughtfulness, but of dullness.  James Joyner has a point when he says that any intelligent blogger has written loads of things that people would hold against him; remember the Daily Heil‘s piece on Owen Barder? But we should turn this around. People who don’t  blog and so don't have a pixel trail of every fool thought are not smarter than those of us who have. Instead, they are too dull not to have an interesting idea every day, and too poker-up-the-arse wimpish to express themselves.
5. We kick against the tyranny of the majority. Sure, we have conventional opinions but we rarely express them because they are bland; it goes without saying that the Taliban and BNP are bastards, or that the Daily Heil prints lies. Instead, we choose to express views that are more interesting. In doing so, we risk appearing unconventional - not that this worries us.
Here, though, is the thing. I was thinking of calling this set of beliefs the Oxford fallacy - because such views are characteristic of a tutorial or high table or JCR discussion. This, though, would only invite the retort: if it’s the Oxford fallacy, how come politics is dominated by PPEists who seem to reject every one of these five principles? But that’s another story.

Comments

[Paul Sagar]

Great blog.

But enough praise for bloggers. Many bloggers are obsessed by their daily stats. So let's have some HTML in 'Paul' in the OP.

" how come politics is dominated by PPEists who seem to reject every one of these five principles?"

especially given how many bloggers are also former PPEists from oxford (you, me, Giles, Sunder, Dan Paskins i think, plus others no doubt)

[john b]

Me and D^2, also.

I'm assuming the PPEists who dominate politics are fully aware of the principles, but they're also aware that the people they're trying to appeal to "are too dull not to have an interesting idea every day, and too poker-up-the-arse wimpish to express themselves".

[Larry Teabag]

In one of the college bars - don't remember which - the toilet roll dispenser in the gents used to have a notice saying "PPE degrees, please take one".

*runs away*

[Paul Sagar]

In one of the college bars - don't remember which - the toilet roll dispenser in the gents used to have a notice saying "PPE degrees, please take one".

Propaganda spread by historians, no doubt.

[Dipper]

This is standard. Every occupation filters for certain types of people. I work in large corporations, and pretty much everyone is intelligent, happy working with others in teams, open to discussing different opinions, and respecting others. Its a real shock to occasionally encounter people from other walks of life and find out just what a high proportion of the population is basically mad.

[Dipper]

Matthew Taylor had a post (at the RSA) on social theory, in which there are 4 types of people, 2 of whom are heirarchists and individualists.

New Labour are heirarchists. They thought if they get the social structures right everything would come good. They thought the the bankers were heirarchists too, because they sat round the table with them nodding in agreement at the latest piece of corporate nonsense eminating from New Labour. But the bankers weren't heirarchists, they were cunning individualists just in it for themselves. They just sat there nodding, playing the game, and all the time they were quietly looting the country and lining their pockets with the proceeds. They made the politicians look naive, stupid, and gullible, and that's what has really annoyed the government.

[CharlieMcMenamin]

Chris,
"To be a blogger is to be the antithesis of being the chairman of committees."

I'm particularly interested in this, possibly off hand, observation. But 'chairs of committees' also influence things - or at least they influence the subjects discussed by the committee members, and the style of discussion.

I'm interested in this distinction from a left point of view. I think the left has always been good at the 'oppositional mentality' but v.poor- indeed, justifiably suspicious- of the 'committee chair' role. Well, except when dressed up in the often over-blown language of hegemony.

But doesn't this just amount to a refusal of responsibility on the part of the left? Discuss.

(or so suggests a non Oxbridge type)

[Matthew]

Is this post meant as a joke? It seems to be based on (admittedly referred to) a lack of knowledge of bloggers, but also of Oxford JCRs?

[Paul Sagar]

Yes, Matthew has a point. Most JCR politics commits fallacy 1. from the non-blogger view point. All about tribalism, nothing to do with actually investigating ideas - which is what you'd expect from the politicians' training pen.

I still think Chris is right about tutorials and high tables though.

[charlieman]

Dipper: "Every occupation filters for certain types of people... ...Its a real shock to occasionally encounter people from other walks of life and find out just what a high proportion of the population is basically mad."

Isn't that an assumption that anyone who works outside your profession is more prone to insane thoughts? Or is it that the group think where you work encourages the nutters to stay quiet about what they really think?

Having worked in higher education for too long, I make sure that when I sojourn to the pub I keep my gob shut and my ears open, for a while at least.

[Metatone]

I hate to say this because I know it's unlikely to accepted... but for those of us with an international education, the overlap between PPEs in politics and blogging isn't surprising, because the PPE (in my experience) develops people with particular blind spots... which pretty much sum up how British politics and British blogging work... ineffectually, lacking pragmatism and rigour, most of the time...

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We believe the worst crime a writer can commit is not to be wrong or offensive, but to be boring. To us, words are not meant to be bromides, but provocations to thought and argument. The point of writing is to start an argument; blogs are meant to be first words. To be a blogger is to be the antithesis of being the chairman of committees.
I hate to say this because I know it's unlikely to accepted... but for those of us with an international education, the overlap between PPEs in politics and blogging isn't surprising, because the PPE (in my experience) develops people with particular blind spots... which pretty much sum up how British politics and British blogging work... ineffectually, lacking pragmatism and rigour, most of the time...

[Torrent Download]

Every occupation filters for certain types of people. I work in large corporations, and pretty much everyone is intelligent, happy working with others in teams, open to discussing different opinions, and respecting others. Its a real shock to occasionally encounter people from other walks of life and find out just what a high proportion of the population is basically mad.