Bruce Charlton discusses transcendental leapfrogging:
I came across the phrase ‘leapfrogging’ only a few days ago — apparently meaning the Leftist practice of ignoring experience — the concrete, obvious and near at hand; and leaping over it to the ideology — abstract, remote and far away (usually only experienced via the mass media).
Leapfrogging can also be conceptualized as a focus on the second order while taking for granted the first order: which is a kind of definition of Leftism and a reason why Leftism only emerges after the primary problems have ceased to be pressing.
Leapfrogging is indeed part of the very essence of Leftism — hence a potentially useful shorthand term.
(Soviet Communism made a core principle of leapfrogging — it was the true Communist’s duty not to alleviate specific instances of distress or injustice, since this might delay the revolution which would end all distress and injustices. Indeed, many modern revolutionary Leftist groups go further, and try to create distress and injustice, disorder, violence, death — in the belief that this will bring forward the revolution that we be a final solution. That seems like a wild extreme of leapfrogging, yet this wild extreme is propagated actively — albeit covertly — by elites active at the highest levels of national and world government.)
Thus Leftism ignores and leapfrogs the problem of economic production (making stuff, doing stuff) in favor of the remote problem of distribution (moving stuff around); Leftism ignores education (learning stuff) and focuses on access to educational institutions and credentials; Leftism ignores duties and harps upon rights; ignores truth in favor of process — and so on.
This is ultimately a product of Clever Sillies, of high IQ, abstracting and systemizing intellectuals whose abstracting tendency is compulsive (unless restrained by transcendental religion); since only those of high IQ can quickly and flexibly deploy the practice to an open-ended range of problems and issues.
Intellectuals are trained — especially by the highbrow mass media, but also by educational institutions, to ignore the obvious conclusions and seek behind them.
Only by ignoring the obvious and moving behind it, can intellectuals demonstrate to themselves and others their superiority. This is the strategy of the modern elite mass media — indeed that is pretty much all that it does now.
The mass media takes an event, leapfrogs over the obvious and traditional interpretations (often without mentioning them) and reframes the issue for the elites. To favor the obvious interpretation is therefore to lack the intelligence to make this move, or deliberately to refuse to make it.
Classic Charlton — it’s bad when my enemies do it for something I dislike, but it’s good when I do it!
The “transcendental leapfrog” is also what makes anyone give credence to such distant abstractions as… statistics. And the rest of modern science.
Oh, and I missed the best example: his Christianity. It’s particularly hilarious to see him criticizing Communism for ignoring present evils for a future good, when that’s all that the theodicy is.
Dishonest and self-serving ideologues of both the right and left “leapfrog”. That’s almost the definition of serving an ideology rather than reality.
Odd. I agree with people. I must be sick or something. :P
Still, with Charlton’s obvious ulterior motive dealt with, leapfrogging seems like its a handy word and concept.
Theism is obvious, everyone is born a theist (i.e. a kind of ‘animist’).
It is atheism which leapfrogs the obvious, claiming to have seen-through the obvious, regarding virtually all humans pre-1700 and at least three-quarters of humans alive today, as credulous idiots, deluded nut-cases or manipulative hypocrites.
(I was an atheist myself until recently, and I know what it feels like. Much like being a Leftist/ liberal – albeit applied to a different domain.)
Science is not obvious. Everyone is born a non-scientist (i.e. a kind of animist).
It is science which leapfrogs the obvious, claiming to have seen-through the obvious, regarding virtually all humans pre-1700 and at least three-quarters of humans alive today, as credulous idiots, deluded nut-cases or manipulative hypocrites.
Well, that’s a strong way of putting it, but I don’t see what’s wrong with saying that three-quarters of humans alive today are wrong. For example, the scientific method does indeed leapfrog obvious ways of thinking. You have to be taught Bayes’ theorem, how to spot quacks, etc.
I am an atheist (please no accusations of “scientism”), and before I encountered reactionary thought and the reactionosphere (starting with Moldbug), I was an enthusiastic reader of RichardDawkins.net and Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”: the skeptic community. Now, perhaps coincidentally, I find it boring, but I still agree with it: they’re still basically right. I have never been a Leftist/liberal, but I can see that being a skeptic is a much like being a leftist, applied to a different domain. They certainly love signalling to each other how great they are. But they’re still basically right.
At the risk of sounding insufferably arrogant…
It is philosophy, real philosophy, which says, “Well, if leapfrogging worked out, why not try it again?”
And we find that whether people are idiots depends on what, exactly, you care about. They may be idiots at doing formal science. This is roughly true. They’re not idiots at doing the stuff they care about.
You don’t actually have to be taught Bayes’ theorem. Most of the belief systems already work using exactly it. (They did studies, I may be able to dredge them up.) It’s just the professed beliefs that sometimes wildly deviate from Bayesian calculations.
Or, people buying lotto tickets know they’re not going to win. They’re not looking for positive financial expected value, or else they’d give up after a few tries. They’re buying hope, or a rush, or some other non-financial good.
People addicted to the one-armed bandit know it isn’t good for their wallet. They could at any time just compare today’s bank balance to the one a couple months ago. They carefully avoid doing that, which implies they already know it would challenge their rationalizations.
You know what’s idiotic? Blanket statements about who is an idiot. You know what’s insane? Blanket statements about who is insane.
Philosophy, real philosophy, also asks, “Well, leapfrogging worked. But under what conditions won’t it work? What specifically lead to its success in this case?”