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Self-negating admissions
And call me naive, but I also think that Mugabe would not have pursued his policies for this long if he had a better grasp of debt dynamics.
That's Dani Rodrik.
You all can debate Mugabe if you want, I'm interested in the notion of a self-negating admission. By writing "...call me naive" Rodrik is showing a level of self-awareness which seems to be signaling he is not naive. A more direct example of such a construct would be "Call me unwilling to accept outside labels, but..." -- the mere act of writing the statement is showing a willingness to accept at least one outside label (namely: unwilling to accept outside labels), which in turn means the writer cannot be unwilling to accept all such labels.
Call me unwilling to use self-negating admissions, but I wonder why writing "Call me naive..." should be more effective than simply writing "I am not naive." Or for that matter writing "I am naive." (What is the influence-maximizing claim to make about one's own naivete?)
Don't forget Dani Rodrik has a new book coming out: One Economics, Many Recipes. I don't agree with all of it, but it is a valuable correction to the hubris of many other writers.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 8, 2007 at 02:21 PM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
I think it's a matter of the way we split the difference between how we view ourselves and how we want others to perceive us (and also, how we want others to view how we view ourselves, see David Foster Wallace for more on this).
----"Call me naive..." should be more effective than simply writing "I am not naive." Or for that matter writing "I am naive."----
It's precisely because we want to speak on something that may stretch out knowledge / ability but want to appear to the person we're talking to that we may not be 100% correct. Really, it's humility over hubris. By jumping straight to 'I am naive.', we're not giving the receiver of our discussion the option to decide that for themselves.
Posted by: Alex Ambroz at Sep 8, 2007 2:58:50 PM
There's a big difference between 'call me naive' and 'I'm not naive'. 'I'm not naive' indicates "This is my argument, and naivete would undermine it.", While saying 'call me naive' indicates: "I don't think I'm naive, but my argument is still valid whether I'm naive or not."
Posted by: Linkt at Sep 8, 2007 3:11:57 PM
By saying "call me naive, but...", you are inviting the listener to briefly consider, and then promptly reject, the notion that you are being naive. In effect, you are setting up a straw-man argument against yourself and letting the listener demolish the straw man, producing stronger agreement (if they are receptive) than if you had simply flatly stated your case.
Posted by: at Sep 8, 2007 3:18:39 PM
Some obscure blogger recently noted that self-deprecation usually implies even greater self-praise.
Posted by: at Sep 8, 2007 3:25:25 PM
It's shorthand for "I have considered and rejected more sophisticated explanations."
Posted by: Chris at Sep 8, 2007 3:27:55 PM
I think the South Korean president's feigned inability to comprehend Bush's answer about the Korean War yesterday bore similarities to the "call me naive, but..." construction.
Posted by: Chris again at Sep 8, 2007 3:48:38 PM
Settle Down.
Posted by: Pace at Sep 8, 2007 3:50:01 PM
Something like "call me naive" grants additional credibility to your statement because it shows that you realize that you may be viewed as naive by others for making it yet you think it is worth making anyway. This increases your credibility because it shows you have appreciated the reasons that others might critique what you are about to say but believe it anyway.
On the other hand merely insisting "I am not naive" suggests a level of naivete itself both because you seem to think that this statement would cause others to believe it and because you seem reluctant to accept that others may really view you as being naive for making your statement.
Hmm, this wasn't a very clear explanation.
Posted by: TruePath at Sep 8, 2007 4:29:14 PM
I think that "call me naive" tends more toward an awareness that others might laugh and point at you once you've said your piece. It's saying that you've accepted a simple interpretation, not because you're ignorant of more complex arguments, but because you've studied the more complex arguments and think that they're off base. If you were just stating your "naive" opinion without the knowledge that it might appear too elementary, it would betray a lack of experience in intellectual exchange. In other words, "scoff all you want, this is my reasoned conclusion."
Posted by: Alexandra at Sep 8, 2007 4:34:07 PM
I don't feel like that's self-negating at all. The way I read that statement is "I know you're going to think I'm naive for saying this, but I don't care (and you're probably wrong)."
Posted by: Ben at Sep 8, 2007 4:42:55 PM
As above stated, I think it is partially a way of stating that you considered and rejected the opinion that one is, in fact, naive. An additional point is that I think it is usually a communicative challange, in a debate sense - in essence, it offers your conversational opponent two options; to agree, or to call you naive. Of course, a smart debater who just wants to win won't accept either one, regardless of the truth value of the statement.
Posted by: fishbane at Sep 8, 2007 5:29:43 PM
How much difference is there between "Call me naive ..." and "No more Mr Nice Guy ..."? at least in your case? Both are unconvincing.
Posted by: iam at Sep 8, 2007 5:47:07 PM
Call me somewhat redundant, but "Call me naive" functions as something like, "Some people will regard my view as naive, and it may seem to be at first glance, but it is not".
Posted by: J. at Sep 8, 2007 6:13:22 PM
"And call me naive, but I also think that Mugabe would not have pursued his policies for this long if he had a better grasp of debt dynamics. "
And Hitler would have pursued different policies if he had a better appreciation for diversity.
Posted by: Keith at Sep 8, 2007 6:45:24 PM
From the Book Description of Rodrik's new book at Amazon:
To most proglobalizers, globalization is a source of economic salvation for developing nations, and to fully benefit from it nations must follow a universal set of rules designed by organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization and enforced by international investors and capital markets.
Am I being simplistic here? I never considered those supra-national institutions like the WTO and IMF to be integral to globalization. Am I wrong here?
Posted by: John at Sep 8, 2007 6:49:10 PM
On the surface of it, one is simply anticipating their opponent's reply.
Past the surface:
In a positive context call me naive signals that "Yes, I know this part of my argument might appear naive, but". . .
On the down side, the phrase simply signals that the person's argument is indeed making a naive argument (or whatever the case may be) and doesn't care to move on from their flawed logic.
This negative description sounds a little silly, but is probably the most common mistake in any argument that I personally come across. People do it in the media, they do it at work, school, et cetera.
The unconscious effort is to dismiss the obvious flaw in the presenter's reason, even if the flaw is very real.
I'm a professional in what is supposed to be a lean manufacturing environment in the aerospace industry. In just about every meeting we have where any problems are discussed some such self-negating phrase is uttered.
Unless I speak up, everyone else invariably - and perhaps just as unconsciously - accepts the self-negating phrase as validating the otherwise flawed bit of reason.
So the speaker is indeed being naive, but doesn't care to budge from his position so he instead attempts to sway everyone that his naiveté is actually a kind of rhetorical illusion, and that he is of course not naive. In reality he is simply being naive, and trying to put some lipstick on his pig of an argument.
Posted by: Ray G at Sep 8, 2007 7:12:27 PM
Call me a generalizer, but I think there are three types here:
1. A pluralist: “I think the answer is 60% A, 30% B and 10% C.”
2. A generalizer: “I think the answer is A.”
3. A self-aware but often reluctant generalizer OR an opportunistic pluralist: “call me naïve, but I think the answer is A.”
Posted by: Yan Li at Sep 8, 2007 8:07:56 PM
It's a signal of the strength to which one holds the opinion. In this case, the writer is signaling that being called naive will not cause them to alter their opinion vis-a-vis Mugabe.
Posted by: Cyrus at Sep 8, 2007 9:06:07 PM
My favorite example of that is "Don't be offended by this, but..." which always means "I'm about to say something offensive, and I'm denying you the right to be offended by it, although you should be"
Posted by: Paul N at Sep 8, 2007 10:13:02 PM
Or, "I don't mean to be rude, but ..." which means "I'm going to be rude and you can't even complain about it."
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Sep 9, 2007 12:04:52 AM
My favorite example of that is "Don't be offended by this, but..." which always means "I'm about to say something offensive, and I'm denying you the right to be offended by it, although you should be"
Exactly what I was trying to get at in my long winded post. As if being aware, and then mentioning the flaw in one's own reasoning is supposed to remove it from the table.
So yes, Dani is at least naive, if not down right delusional. His view implies that Mugabe cares. Amazingly naive actually.
Posted by: Ray G at Sep 9, 2007 12:27:34 AM
I'll go with the camp that thinks it (and phrases like it, 'Maybe I'm
Naive, but'; 'Call me a bloodless utilitarian, but') are simply
there to undercut potential counterarguments. I understand the naive
element, so it would be bad form to criticize me for something I'm already
aware of. Plus, you get to make that counter-argument sound facile.
Of course, now we should race to find an example of Tyler using a
self-negating admission and ask why he used it in that post. Call me a
pessimist, but I doubt he gave it that much thought at the time.
Posted by: Patrick at Sep 9, 2007 2:36:07 AM
Read it as: "I know it may sound naive, but I know what I'm talking about, OK?"
Posted by: Harald Korneliussen at Sep 9, 2007 5:09:06 AM
He's telling us that he is aware of and has rejected the counter-argument that would lead to his position being called naive. We should keep that in mind when we decide how much weight to assign his argument. We should adjust our priors further in the direction of an expert who we know is familiar with counterarguments than one whom we are uncertain as to their familiarity with counterarguments.
Posted by: josh at Sep 9, 2007 8:43:58 AM
Here is Ken Arrow being naive:
The general uncertainty about the prospects of medical treatment is socially handled by rigid entry requirements. These are designed to reduce the uncertainty in the mind of the consumer as to the quality insofar as this is possible. I think this explanation, which is perhaps the naive one, is much more tenable than any idea of a monopoly seeking to increase incomes.
-- Kenneth Arrow (1963, 966).
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Sep 9, 2007 9:41:50 AM
