Alternative Competing Hypotheses (ACH) and cultural relativism
My mother is right. It's time to post something new. I haven't put togetha an approach for the next anti-terrorism step, though, because I've been too busy (turn your eyes away, Mum) pursuing debauchery (it's okay to read now).
So, instead, I'm posting a side bit that's caught my eye.
Alternative competing hypotheses and methodological cultural relativism. The phrase just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?
A comment by FS in Thinkin' like a terrorist, part 3 gave me pause. It was:
"I think you're falling in to the trap of cultural relativism. Many countries repress their citizens, and may well have cultural reasons for it, but I think it's clear they are prima facie wrong to do so." -FS
I responded to this with a bit of fluff later down about how we don't use enough cultural relativism in our analysis. I'd like to take a pause and talk about alternative competing hypotheses and methodological cultural relativism rather than moral cultural relativism. Feel free to skip if you're already bored, 'cause, well, it ain't gonna get any easier.
Cultural relativism traditionally refers to (in this case taken directly from the Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English) "the concept that the importance of a particular cultural idea varies from one society or societal subgroup to another, the view that ethical and moral standards are relative to what a particular society or culture believes to be good/bad, right/wrong."
I want to cut into this definition, cut away the second half of it - effectively anything to do with ethical or moral standards - and call that methodological cultural relativism. Why is the distinction important? And why did FS say that cultural relativism was a trap?
Moral cultural relativism is considered a trap because it limits the concept of morality to the portions that are shared universally - which is pretty few, to be honest. Everyone might believe that torture is wrong as a policy, but there are definitely different definitions of what constitutes torture (anyone for a little moderate physical pressure?). Because these definitions differ, adherents to moral cultural relativism sometimes absolve or excuse atrocious acts simply because they happen somewhere else and are therefore subject to a different moral standard.
FS, feel free to jump in if you think I've read you wrong.
What I'm arguing for is an injection of methodological cultural relativism. This is not terribly surprising, considering that my posts are entitled Thinkin' like a terrorist.
Methodological cultural relativism is a method by which the analyst will try to get inside the head of folks living in that culture and assume their mindset for the purpose of analysis. Alternative competing hypotheses (ACHs) result when this temprorary plurality of thought generates different reasons for an action - some times mutually exclusive, sometimes not - that create cognitive dissonance in the analysts head. There are other ways that alternative competing hypotheses come about. They are often intentionally constructed in order to combat unknown cognitive bias. That's an unknown unknown, for you Rumsfeld fans.
Cognitive bias is exactly what it sounds like it is. It results from the fact that analysts have a set of presuppositions and they don't know what those presuppositions are.
But, if you assume you've got cognitive bias, you can construct alternative competing hypotheses to help combat it. It's pretty straightforward: construct the hypothesis, the contrapositive, the negation, the inverse, the converse and then get creative. The more ACHs you can hold in your head, then the more likely you are to arrive at the right conclusion.
Methodological cultural relativism is a way of generating the creative ACHs that we need to crack the terrorism nut.
You can't solve terrorism by shooting terrorists. Gonna hafta start with the thinkin', then.
Comments
And I know this isn't where you would like me to go with this, but maybe if the powers-that-be had practiced some of this methodological cultural relativism, they might not have been quite so surprised when the Iraqis called us an invading force and occupiers instead of liberators.
Posted by: Maman | February 23, 2005 2:51 PM
No, you read me correctly, and I think you're drawing a useful distinction. At the highest level, we need to think about right and wrong, but on the tactical level, what matters is things as they are.
I would take partial exception to "You can't solve terrorism by shooting terrorists," though. I'd say you can't solve terrorism solely by shooting terrorists. The analogy I would draw is to crime. Arresting people does not in and of itself solve crime, and thinking more cops/harsher sentences will make crime go away is incorrect. However, arresting criminals is an important element of a crime reduction strategy. Getting Bin Laden and Zarqawi off the board is necessary, but not sufficient.
Posted by: FS | February 23, 2005 3:58 PM
Hey, FS!
I agree with your statement about the sole solution to terrorism and shooting terrorists. Shooting them may simply be part of this complete breakfast.
In an earlier revision of this post, I had said: "You can't solve terrorism solely by shooting terrorists."
Because the West has erred so heavily on the side of simple violence, I revised that to a stronger statement which I believe to be still true: You can't solve terrorism by shooting terrorists.
I've been avoiding using the phrase root cause because of the connotations associated with that phrase, but there is a definite component of root cause analysis that needs to be done.
Because we fail, as a culture, to accurately portray or understand the mindset of the people who have arrayed themselves against us, we have failed to understand how to stop them.
Although it may not be my next post, soon I'll propose a series of methods for dealing with not only this iteration of revolution, but other revolutions as well. I'm still thinking.
I also want to do a Boyd Cycle analysis, based on the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop, which is taking some time to prepare, largely because John Boyd isn't widely known outside a few folk in the Air Force and the whole of the Marine Corps (he was an Air Force officer). Boyd Cycle analysis is very powerful.
As a side note, earlier you pointed out that the conclusions of my theory about revolution (really, non-linear political conflict) was "obvious." Poor people will protest if they are sufficiently abused.
I don't disagree, but I do feel compelled to point out that the strongest theories are the ones that explain something everyone knows is obvious. Such as gravity or temperature.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | February 25, 2005 12:34 AM
That's fine, but the theory of gravity is accurately predictive-given certain masses and distances, you can say exactly what will happen. The Dornbrook theory of revolutions does not. What's of interest is how/when the oppressed react, and that we do not (cannot?) know.
Posted by: FS | February 25, 2005 3:58 AM
I find this discussion endlessly fascinating. I only wish I understood what I read. I don't think you guys are trying to obfuscate intentionally, but the resulting fog-content makes me feel sort of stupid and inadequate. Plus, I don't spell very well. Does anyone know of a good way to spell check in the comments?
Posted by: Nannie | February 25, 2005 3:40 PM
Get a spellcheck add-on. If you use Firefox, try the Spellbound extension. For IE, try IESpell. Both add a spellchecker to your browser-just right click the text you want to check.
Posted by: FS | February 25, 2005 4:16 PM
Okay, how do I do that? Check with Nathan for my technical level, but it isn't really quite that bad. I don't think he gives me quite enough credit. I did learn how to use the Amazon wishlist yesterday. That was nice. a bit late, but nice to know about it and how it works. Maybe I will even make a wishlist for myself.
Posted by: Nannie | February 26, 2005 6:30 PM
Hooray for Nathan the comments work again!
Posted by: Mendon | March 4, 2005 7:37 PM
I got my online spell checker downloaded, up and running. Thank you! And now I even know what Firefox is. My knowledge and prowess continues to grow. >;>
Posted by: Madame Maman Nannie | March 7, 2005 4:42 PM