Re: writ large, another sip

Jim writes:
<< I originally said that personality profiles such as the Myers Briggs tend
to peg most people as not being very predisposed to abstract thinking. [. .
.] The generality I employed was based upon some research (demographics),
tends to be validated by experience, and doesn't really say anything about
the personalities of most people. >>

Though the generalization you are happy with "doesn't really say anything
about the personalities" of its object, and Daniel's does, it is not clear
to me why this should render the one more valid as a generalization than the
other (whether or not it is more offensive). What about personality
precludes it from generalization, or even makes it less given to accurate
generalizations that "tendencies," like that to think abstractly? The
Myers-Briggs, you tell us, is, in fact, a "personality profile" (though the
generalization you approve of by citing it "doesn't really say anything
about the personalities. . . .").

As you say, you did mention the Myers-Briggs before and waved vaguely at
demographic research. And though you didn't actually cite research either,
it's true that Daniel didn't even wave vaguely at it. But would it shock
you if he had? Or if somebody else did? Would you really be so surprised
to find research -- as valid and as rigorous as that which you point us
toward -- that presents data from a survey of a Myers-Briggs-type profile
indicating that career academians, taken as a group, tend to have
bigger-than-ordinary egos, to be more prone than those in many other
professions for megalomania? That they are more prone than, say, plumbers
and flight attendants and mail carriers to insist upon their being correct
when they are not? That they have higher-than-average numbers for inflated
self-opinions or disdain for perceived inferiors?

Would such a thing really shock you?

I admit that I haven't followed your argument closely, but Daniel has
disclaimed that he doesn't take his generalizations to be absolute, that he
appreciates the nature of generalizations. He doesn't mean to refer to
every member of a group. I'm not sure that I agree with either one of you,
really, but it does remain unclear to me why one of these generalizations is
acceptable (even without actual citations to statistical surveys or other
research) while the other is immediately absurd and obvious bigotry. If
Daniel came up with numbers, and you did too, and we found that, based upon
somebody's definitions and data-gathering methods, the percentage of career
academians who were total ego-cases were EXACTLY THE SAME as the percentage
of the non-academic public who came on the far-left side of the abstract
thinking bell-curve, would this be shocking to you?

I think I understand why someone might reject the value of any such
generalization, but I am still not sure how one can swallow one while
refusing the other.

-robbie
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Received on Wed Apr 30 23:50:58 2003