Jason Stanley's junk social science

Jason Stanley and David Beaver published this a few months ago in the NYT-

Over the past few years, far-right nationalist political leaders around the world have been using harsh rhetoric against minority groups, particularly immigrants.

So what? Left Liberals have been using harsh language against the far right for many years. Cats, if they could speak, would use harsh language against dogs. Why does this matter? 

We know from history that acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing and terrorism have been preceded by periods in which political and social movements employed such rhetoric.

But we also know that no genocide or terrorism has occurred in most places where such rhetoric has been deployed. It is only when the State has gotten actively involved that ethnic cleansing has occurred. 

In Nazi Germany, Jews were described as vermin, and Nazi propaganda outlets claimed that Jews spread diseases.

So what? Jews were described as 'najis'- unclean- and castigated in Iran. Yet they remain there to this day. In 1938, Poland was refusing to take 50,000 Polish Jews who had been living in Germany. Kristallnacht happened because a Polish Jew killed a German diplomat in Paris to protest the deportation of his own parents. But, Kristallnacht proved popular in France and Poland and elsewhere. The Nazis found that being more anti-semitic than thou increased their 'soft power'.

The recent ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of Myanmar was preceded by propaganda associating Rohingya men with rape.

So what? The ethnic cleansing of Indian origin people from Burma was not associated with any propaganda whatsoever. Nor did Idi Amin suggest that little brown men had held him down and fucked him in the ass. Indeed, Amin liked Asians. He still got rid of them.

The reason Rohingyas were attacked was because Saudi returned activists, very foolishly, thought they could take the initiative and create an Islamic enclave.

In the United States, we had the “superpredator” theory. Violent-crime rates in the country started dropping in 1993 and continued dropping throughout the decade. And yet, in 1996, criminologists began spreading an unjustified panic about so-called superpredators — “hardened, remorseless juveniles,” according to the political scientist John DiIulio — that led to a wave of new state laws with harsh sentences for minors.

This only proves that the term 'political scientist' is an oxymoron. Anyway, the fellow seems to have changed his mind. What is important to note is that the Supreme Court has taken action on this. Words don't matter unless there is force to back it up. That means some organ of the State has to pursue an explicit policy. 

Politicians’ descriptions of young black men as “thugs” and “gang members” in the 1990s helped transform the United States into the country with the world’s highest incarceration rate. Black Americans constitute 40 percent of the incarcerated population while representing only 13 percent of United States residents.

What was the result? Black life-expectancy went up. Being locked up correlated with better health and educational outcomes. That is why Black people voted for 'three strikes' type sentencing. 

Power over an individual is the ability to change someone else’s behavior or thoughts in accord with one’s desires.

Rubbish! Locking them up or chopping bits off them may not change their behavior or thoughts. But it does demonstrate power over them. By contrast, Beyonce has caused me to change my behavior- I twerk incessantly- and my thoughts- will I win a grammy this year- even though she has no power over me. 

One way to control someone’s behavior is through force.

This is the only type of control which can be objectively verified. Thus, if I say 'I am not guilty of this crime. Beyonce was controlling me.'- my plea should only be granted credence if Beyonce was actually holding a gun over me. Otherwise, chances are, I am lying. 

A much better way to change others’ behavior is by possessing the capacity to change their obligations.

In which case, any and every committed is the fault of Beyonce. Why didn't she change the obligations of every criminal in the world? Why was she so lazy and callous? Damn you Beyonce! Just because of you, I have a drink driving conviction!

If you can convince someone that they ought to do what you want them to do, your power is genuine authority.

Nonsense! A hypnotist does not have 'genuine authority' even if she can make you cluck like a chicken. Madoff is in jail because he got people to do what he wanted them to do by lying to them and orchestrating a complex Ponzi Scheme. Suppose I tell Jason Stanley to go fuck himself. Will he believe I have 'genuine authority' over him and run around in circles trying to sodomize himself? I hope not. He may become a Youtube sensation and my own Beyonce imitations may be thrown into the shade. 

But do words really have power to change our behavior?

No. Don't be silly. Concentrate on running around in circles trying to get your dick to connect with your rectum.

The literature on marketing teaches us that rhetoric can have significant impact on attitudes.

But the literature on marketing teaches us that price and the quality of the competing product matter much more. Rhetoric only matters in the sense that buying a better variety of it sends a market signal. Thus, if an enterprise employs Beyonce or President Obama to talk up its product line, people will think- 'this must be a reputable and very successful company. They can afford to hire the best. Let us try their wares.'

Here is one example: Asking people even purely hypothetical questions unconsciously shifts their subsequent preferences and behavior in often dramatic ways.

Sadly this is a classic example of non-replicable junk social science. 

In a 2001 study by the marketing professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Baba Shiv, subjects were told in advance they would be asked purely hypothetical questions. One group was asked, “If strong evidence emerges from scientific studies suggesting that cakes, pastries, etc. are not nearly as bad for your health as they have often been portrayed to be, and may have some major health benefits, what would happen to your consumption of these items?”

Obviously, the right answer is 'we'd eat more of them. D'uh!' 

Subjects were told that the study “was about the effects of a change in environment on how consumers express opinions about products,” and so were directed into another room and offered a choice between snacks placed on a cart between the rooms: chocolate cake or fruit salad. Another group, the control group, was not asked any hypothetical questions.

In the control group, 25.7 percent chose cake. In stark contrast, subjects who were merely presented with the hypothetical question, and no further elaboration, selected the cake 48 percent of the time.

But seeing the word 'cake' made me hungry for cake. The causal effect here has nothing to do with 'hypothetical questions'. It is 'priming' pure and simple. 

Merely urging subjects to “think carefully before you respond to the question” to prepare to justify their answer, later increased cake selection from 48 percent to 66 percent.

But, this is not replicable. It is junk social science. Thinking carefully about cake does not mean whatever shite these shitheads says it means. It means picturing a cake and drooling for a little longer than you otherwise would. 

And subjects were clearly unaware of having been manipulated by the hypothetical question, as without exception they denied that their preferences or their behavior were influenced by the hypothetical question in subsequent in-depth interviews.

This is because what was really happening was that thinking about cake made them more prone to wanting to eat cake. 

Every subject maintained that his or her choice was unaffected by being asked the hypothetical question.

This was indeed the case. By contrast, thinking about cake affected their choice. 

The 2000 Republican presidential primaries pitted Gov. George W. Bush against Senator John McCain. Before the South Carolina primary, Mr. Bush’s campaign polled prospective Republican primary voters with a hypothetical question: “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” Mr. Bush subsequently won South Carolina.

McCain had adopted a dark skinned child from a poor country. He refused to use this to his own advantage. So he lost. A good man, but not ruthless enough to make it to the White House. 

This is a case in which it is the language, the way of phrasing something, that has power; in a hypothetical question, after all, no reason has been given to accept the hypothesis.

Rubbish! The form of the question did not matter. What mattered was the slur that McCain had fathered a string of bastards on poor women who probably found his pasty white ass utterly repugnant. 

Another striking example of language manipulation, from the social psychologist Christopher Bryan and colleagues: If we ask you “How important is it to you to be a voter?” you’re much more likely to vote than if we ask you “How important is it to vote?”

This is not language manipulation. It is a plain fact that your voting does not change political outcomes. Your thinking of yourself as a voter, however, can change outcomes which are personally meaningful for you- e.g. reputational effects and being a smug bastard.

Hearing the first makes you reflect on your inherent characteristics regarding voting; the second merely questions your plans.

Your 'inherent characteristics' don't matter. How you are perceived does matter. It is likely that people will be more inclined to interact with you in mutually beneficial ways if they feel you are a man of principle and consider yourself duty bound to discharge obligations of a collective type. 

Rhetoric has power; it affects attitudes, behavior and perceived obligations.

No. Rhetoric has no power. Reputational effects and signalling and screening mechanisms, however, may be quite important. 

Understanding the mechanisms that give hateful rhetoric its power illuminates the nature of its danger.

Rubbish. Using the law or otherwise penalizing hateful rhetoric or hateful farting in people's faces is useful. There is no need to illuminate the danger of either. The thing is self-evident. Similarly, there is no need to understand the mechanism which causes being kicked in the goolies to be so darn painful. 

One way that rhetoric changes perceived obligations is by the recommendation of certain practices.

But 'recommendations' don't change perceived obligations. An assertion is only prescriptive if there is a plausible Structural Causal Model involved.

In her 2012 paper “Genocidal Language Games,” the philosopher Lynne Tirrell describes how, for some years before the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu majority called their Tutsi neighbors “cockroaches” and “snakes.”

So what? There was no genocide till the thing was rewarded- not punished. 

In Rwanda, snakes are public health threats.

Whereas elsewhere their envenomed fangs pose no danger to humans or livestock. 

Ms. Tirrell writes, “in Rwanda, boys are proud when they are trusted to cut the heads off snakes.” Calling a Tutsi a “snake” connected slaughtering Tutsis to the heroic practice of killing snakes.

Women, angry at infidelity, have been calling men snakes and worms and cockroaches and so forth for thousands of years. How come, History can show no record of mass killings of men by angry women?

What actually happened in Rwanda? A crazy guy called Leon Mugesera made horrible speeches. The Minister of Justice issued an arrest warrant for him. The cunt fled to Canada and got asylum and a job teaching at a University. It took Canada 20 years to deport him. He is now back home in prison where he belongs. But it wasn't his hate speech which caused the problem. There was a long running war between Tutsi refugees and the Rwandan state. Like the Armenian massacre, this genocide had a geopolitical aspect. Rhetoric did not matter in the slightest. Still, it is a good idea to lock up stupid nut-jobs. But it is also a good idea to disregard those who teach at Universities. They may not all be Mugesera level evil. But they are as stupid as shit.