"}(Note: I\u2019m tired and this is much less well-written than I\u2019d like. \u00a0I hope it still makes sense.)
1.
The first part of this post is not very interesting in itself, but will provide a setup for the second part. \u00a0(Now there\u2019s a surefire way to get the reader\u2019s attention!)
In many social environments it is expected that people state their views or tastes in a way that clarifies that their are not\u00a0\u201cnaively held\u201d \u2013 that the person is aware of the spectrum of existing opinion, the history of the subject matter, the characteristic flaws of their\u00a0\u201capproach\u201d (and how they may or may not avoid them), etc.
There\u2019s a particularly extreme version of this culture in certain kinds of academic writing \u2013 I\u2019ve seen academic papers or books in which the first 10 or 20 or even 50 pages are devoted to acknowledging that\u00a0\u201cthe subject is complex,\u201d that the author does not believe their generalizations hold in literally every\u00a0case, that their claims are distinct from other similar claims that are seen as naive or outdated, etc. \u00a0Is this a useful practice? \u00a0Well, I\u2019m not sure, but it\u2019s possible\u00a0to imagine it being useless \u2013 that is, it\u2019s possible to imagine that once enough people did this sort of thing, everyone had\u00a0to do it, because not\u00a0disclaiming naive views meant implicitly endorsing them. \u00a0(\u201dIf you didn\u2019t mean\u00a0the terrible straw man version of your point, why didn\u2019t you say so? \u00a0Everyone else does!\u201d)
There\u2019s a similar thing going on in a lot of statements of artistic taste. \u00a0Robert Christgau and his descendants in popular music criticism always insist on context and distance \u2013 the usual stance, even in a positive review, is something like \u201cthis record has this aesthetic, responding to these influences, and all of this is flawed\u00a0and limited\u00a0and not fully cognizant\u00a0of certain things, but if I forget my own vastness I can get into it for a little while, I guess.\u201c \u00a0And of course, there\u2019s\u00a0\u201cyou can enjoy problematic media, but acknowledge that it\u2019s problematic,\u201d which does ethically what the rock critic stance does aesthetically. \u00a0In both cases, the message is that you\u2019ve gotta show your enjoyment isn\u2019t naive, that you aren\u2019t uncritically immersed in the things you like, that you can stand back and see their limits.
Is it worthwhile to talk this way? \u00a0Again: maybe. \u00a0But it can have perverse consequences.
2.
Life is very complicated. \u00a0On virtually any topic, it is hard to know which actions or ideas are correct, and the same action or idea may have a variety of possible justifications.
In particular, intellectual or moral progress can\u00a0\u201cflip around\u201d so that, after (so to speak) ascending from Level 1 to Level 2, one returns to believing what one used to believe\u00a0\u201cnaively\u201d back at Level 0. \u00a0Without displays of sophistication, someone at Level 2 looks identical to someone at Level 0. \u00a0This is one justification for displays of sophistication: they clarify to people on Level 1 that you know what they know, and more,\u00a0where otherwise they might infer that you know less.
But is this actually a credible signal? \u00a0If someone says something that seems very wrong-headed, and then squirts a bunch of sophistication-display ink at you, does this really\u00a0mean that they\u2019re a Level 2 holy fool? \u00a0Or are they just someone who\u2019s noticed that you can get away with saying silly things if you tack on a sophistication display?
The problem is: it\u2019s very hard to know who\u2019s actually doing or thinking the right stuff. \u00a0Life is complicated! \u00a0And so it\u2019s tempting to use displays of sophistication as a proxy for correctness. \u00a0Because life is complicated and Level 2 can look like Level 0, you can\u2019t tell whether someone is right by just looking at their position and seeing if it looks prima facie silly. \u00a0Perhaps they have some deep reason for it! \u00a0But trying to actually look at\u00a0their reasoning, and check it for validity, is hard. \u00a0Checking to see if they display sophistication, on the other hand, is easy. \u00a0Rather than looking at the real content\u00a0of a person\u2019s ideas or their behavior, one can check whether they \u201clook like they know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d \u00a0If they do, any absurdity can be forgiven; after all, Level 2 can look like Level 0 (or even Level -1).
Why is this dangerous? \u00a0Because it disincentives improving oneself. \u00a0If you are in a climate where you are judged on your sophistication displays, you will try to have the most and best\u00a0sophistication displays. \u00a0Which means that if you have identified a flaw in your thinking or behavior, it may be in your interest not to correct it. \u00a0If you continually fix problems when you identify them, you are always on the\u00a0\u201cfrontier of naivete,\u201d as it were \u2013 of the possible ways you could behave, you have chosen the one you can be the most naive about, the one you have identified the fewest problems with (because if you had identified problems, you would have fixed them). \u00a0If you let some problems stick around, it may be easier to look sophisticated. \u00a0You\u2019re not arrogant. \u00a0You\u2019re aware\u00a0of the problems with what you do. \u00a0You know your fave is problematic. \u00a0Make yourself better, and all of your remaining problems will be ones you aren\u2019t aware of yet \u2013 how embarrassing!
I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m trying to say here, except that I think naivete has to be destigmatized somewhat, in some way \u2013 whatever that means. \u00a0It can sometimes be good to \u201cnaively,\u201d\u00a0\u201carrogantly\u201d hold to your current convictions and principles \u2013 this means that you are not holding back on fixing problems. \u00a0It\u2019s good to know your flaws, but once\u00a0\u201cknowing your flaws\u201d becomes a value in itself, we start to cling to our flaws, because if we gave them up, we\u2019d no longer have them around to know. \u00a0That\u2019s silly! \u00a0If you can solve a problem, solve it. \u00a0Don\u2019t worry that you\u2019ll run out of problems to acknowledge. \u00a0Move forward; stay on the frontier.