[ahoyhere]

The whole thesis behind this essay is overly facile. A person who is a bad public speaker -- and admits it -- propounding on The Meaning of Public Speaking, its worth, and comparing it to acting (when he presumably is not, and has never been, an actor), and making all sorts of broad sweeping statements which seem to make sense in the moment the sentence passes into your brain but which, if examined for a moment, do not hold up to rational inspection whatsoever.

No citations. No references to other writers, speakers, or thinkers. Just pure, bald, superficial statement.

I can't recommend more strongly that you read this essay by Maciej Cegłowski, the founder of Pinboard:

http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

Then this essay on classical style:

http://t.co/EmDMquOx

[paulsutter]

There is something fascinating here. pg's essays seem humble, sober, reasonable, and insightful to me. But several smart people I know have had exactly the opposite reaction.

Is this a Myers Briggs thing? (NP vs SJ?)

You're obviously a bright person, so your strong negative reaction has me fascinated.

1. Which statements in the essay dont hold up to rational inspection? I liked the essay, but maybe intuitive personalities like me are easily hoodwinked by clever writers and if so I'd like to understand it.

2. If I write a similar article, and cite pg's essay, will my essay be more compelling than his because I referenced another writer? It never occurred to me that citations make an idea more correct, although the idea does remind me of something Joseph Goebbels once said.

[ahoyhere]

For 1. See my comment later when pg asks me to lay out some points and I do so.

For 2. Yes, citations can make you look more authoritative. But here's the thing. I believe pg is falling into a trap that most of us smart people fall into: we believe in our own smartness, and we believe in our own logic, therefore we believe what we think about a subject… regardless of whether we've actually investigated or researched the topic whatsoever.

Here's an example you'll see often on HN: "People still use/pay for x?" or "Hackers don't buy things." For example: porn. Several times I've seen the idea expressed on HN "people can't possibly be making money from porn" or "does anyone still pay for porn?" (Not a genuine question, but implication that of course, nobody does.)

The fact is, the porn industry makes $13 billion a year. Yes, even with the internet and piracy. All it takes to see this is to go to Wikipedia but people don't bother. Because they "know."

There is so much written on the value of public speaking, from greater thinkers than pg and myself. Aristotle wrote a lot of silly things but he was also inarguably a great thinker and the father of rhetoric. He wrote a treatise in 400 bc about the uses of public speaking, which intellectuals throughout the ages have used as one of the cornerstones of a true liberal education.

I'm not saying Aristotle is correct. I'm saying it seems ridiculous for an intellectual with the reach and influence of pg to write bald statements like "So are talks useless? They're certainly inferior to the written word as a source of ideas" without even a perfunctory investigation of the history of the thing.

Nobody questions it, so I question it.

Actually, the way pg opened the essay -- Having good ideas is most of writing well. -- is actually a technique called "begging the question". Which was dubbed a material fallacy. By Aristotle.

Just sayin'.

[jpeterson]

I sense a certain amount of enmity from your pg-related posts here and your tweets.

[ahoyhere]

Not enmity. I am intellectually galled by the laziness of many of pg's arguments. I agree with a lot of what he writes about creating things people want, on the other hand, and wish he would stick to writing about things he's good at -- or at least, when writing about something he's bad at, do it in an exploratory instead of declamatory fashion.

[dingfeng_quek]

So am I, but as a style, I find it much better than many conventional writers (excluding research papers, at least the good ones). More important to me, PG's style is consistent - once I get used to it (in the first few paragraphs), all the rest of his essays can be interpreted with the same "filter/transform".

[pg]

If you were driven by a disinterested search for the truth, your comments would not have the tone they do.

[paulsutter]

I really think there is more to this.

My guess - small changes in the way you use words may reduce the chance that you are badly misunderstood by some people.

I love your essays, but our personalities are probably similar. My friend Mike, who was always a word man when I was an idea guy, has a reaction to your writing that is so similar to hers that at first I was sure he was the author of her post.

When I read her point by point rebuttal, my reaction is that she seems to be missing the ideas behind the words, fighting the texture of the bark and missing the layout of the forest.

But in her mind the bark looks phony so the whole forest is a fraud.

The whole tension may be about personality and perspective, not truth and falsehoods.

I don't have an answer, or even specific suggestions. But I sense that there is something to learn here. And I suspect that you are more likely to solve the puzzle than she is.

[wormwood28]

I'd guess it's largely the nature of the Essay as a literary form. Some of the criticisms here are very reminiscent of those Arnauld and Pascal made regarding Montaigne's method and rigor.

[jpeterson]

Yea, I'd be interested in reading a balanced criticism of pg's work. But ahoy and the linked article smack more of scorned lover than unbiased review.

[ahoyhere]

I never claimed to be driven by a disinterested search for truth. I said I am intellectually galled. I find lazy thinking to be extremely irritating.

[jpeterson]

I think what he's getting at is that your tone is needlesly hostile, and belies the claimed "intellectual" nature of your complaints.

I, for one, cannot take you seriously for this reason.

[paulsutter]

It's fascinating that the same essay makes you intellectually galled, and me intellectually stimulated. I don't think it's because one of us is right and the other wrong. And I'm skeptical that lazy thinking is the source of the conflict.

Take the quote "Having good ideas is most of writing well."

My reaction was "that's an interesting belief", and I stopped to think about it. It seemed plausible, and that was enough for me to move along. I knew he was setting up an intuitive frame in order to make a larger point. I didn't bother to agree or disagree with the statement because I knew I could circle back to it if it was crucial to his major point. Even after all this debate, I feel no need to agree or disagree with the statement. I'm perfectly satisfied feeling that it is plausible.

Now I'm going to stick my neck out, because this is the part I'm trying to understand:

Perhaps you view statements like that as an attempted declaration of scientific fact. From that perspective, it's perfectly reasonable to respond "Woah cowboy, slow down! Either break this down for me or at least cite some references here, because that's a provocative statement". I bet that if pg had also written an essay on "Ideas and Writing Well", even that is a citation you would find useful, it wouldn't have to come from Aristotle.

Apologies if I am guessing wrong here, but if that is the way you view it: you are not wrong, I am not wrong, and pg is not wrong. We're just viewing the same statement differently.

I'm willing to bet that this is a subject pg has considered deeply. And from his perspective, I'm certain his statement is true. The criteria for "good writing" is definitely an opinion, and his is probably a well considered opinion. Your opinion could even be diametrically opposed, and that wouldn't make either of you wrong. It would just mean that you disagree. And that's perfectly OK.

It was your comment about the lack of references that hit me like a punch in the nose. From my perspective, that seemed to come way out of left field. But in retrospect, it could be a totally valid question when viewed from another perspective.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

[ahoyhere]

Here are my thoughts:

Reading your comment is a totally superior experience to reading pg's essay. You explained your viewpoint. You reasoned it out. You backed up your views. You didn't make seemingly unconnected bald statements with a single sentence and then moved on.

If pg has thought deeply on the subject, it's impossible to tell. He doesn't "show his work" at all. He doesn't explain how he came to a conclusion (unless you consider one speaker ever that he referenced), or give illustrations. He certainly doesn't try to bring you around to his way of thinking.

He also doesn't use words like "It seemed" or "I believe" or "the way I see it," or "from my perspective." Certainly there is no indication that he ever questions his own motives or beliefs.

BTW - when I wrote "references," I wasn't necessarily talking about research (except when I specifically said studies or research). I'm talking about evidence of thought process, justification, reasoning, any kind of investigation, internal or otherwise.

Public speaking didn't arise out of the late part of the 20th century, it's a tradition thousands of years old with thousands of years of opinions on it. It's extremely facile to simply declare it to be the bastard stepchild of writing (of course speaking came first), with little more value than appealing to the "mob" of the audience, without even acknowledging or disputing this history.

The whole essay is not argued at all, but a collection of bald statements (which I list above) which must be swallowed wholesale in order to continue reading.

It's "pure" exercise in a priori reasoning (although we don't see any reasoning).

But whether speaking has value or not is not something that can possibly yield to a priori.

Scott Berkun puts it more eloquently than me:

http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2012/on-writing-vs-speaking/

The thing that pisses me off isn't that I believe we're talking about facts -- although, of course, that's the way pg states things because he (mis)uses classic style -- but the sheer lack of argument. The whole essay hinges on several statements which are presumed to be true, and without which, none of the other points make sense. Begging the question in action.

[pg]

Can you give any examples of specific sentences I wrote that you believe are false?

[jeffdavis]

"So are talks useless? They're certainly inferior to the written word as a source of ideas."

I don't think that statement is adequately supported.

[ahoyhere]

Here are some:

"Having good ideas is most of writing well."

How did you come to this conclusion? Evidence? Citations? Reasoning?

"… how much less ideas mattered in speaking than writing"

Is this based off just the ONE other speaker you mentioned? Any studies? Have you made a personal study of this yourself? Taken notes? I would like to hear some evidence or argument to back this up.

"Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction."

How so? You have sentences that sort of follow this, but you don't actually explain this statement.

"The way to get the attention of an audience is to give them your full attention"

How do you figure? You've admitted you're a poor public speaker and particularly at this skill, so how are you an expert on how it does work? If you've done some research, I'd love to hear it.

"If you want to engage an audience it's better to start with no more than an outline of what you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences."

How do you know? Have you done this successfully? I have lots of friends who are on the professional speaking circuit (such as it is for tech people -- unpaid, for the hell of it) and I don't know anyone who's an accomplished speaker (except myself) who does it this way. For their part, they think I'm crazy for doing it this way. It works for me but I certainly wouldn't say it's a best practice.

"Actors do… Actors don't face that temptation except in the rare cases…"

Are you an actor? Have you researched acting? Have actor friends? How did you arrive at this conception of how acting works?

"Audiences like to be flattered; they like jokes; they like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words."

I don't see any proof or further argument to back this statement up. Meanwhile the way it's phrased makes it very clear about what you think you are bad at and probably why you don't believe public speaking has much value.

"As you decrease the intelligence of the audience, being a good speaker is increasingly a matter of being a good bullshitter."

Evidence? Argument?

And, fun: by using a loaded word like "bullshitter," you are relying on emotional reactions instead of appealing to reason or backing up you assertion with facts.

"That's true in writing too of course, but the descent is steeper with talks."

How do you figure?

"Any given person is dumber as a member of an audience than as a reader."

So what you're leading us so delicately to believe is that the audience is perforce dumb and therefore being a good speaker is largely about being a good bullshitter. Do you have any argument to back THIS up?

"Every audience is an incipient mob, and a good speaker uses that."

This just made me laugh.

"Just as a speaker ad libbing can only spend as long thinking about each sentence as it takes to say it, a person hearing a talk can only spend as long thinking about each sentence as it takes to hear it."

So you're saying that you have proof that in a conversation, the listener's entire brain is taken up with listening to each individual sentence, and not thinking about things that came out of the talker's mouth 30 seconds ago? Or, we know this cannot possibly be true in regular conversation, but you have proof it is true in an audience/public speaking relationship?

Also, here you create a false dichotomy only to knock it down: The only good way to speak is to create an outline then ad lib. If you ad lib, you can only think about each sentence as it leaves your mouth. Therefore, you cannot be thinking about what you're saying. Because of course, if you ad lib, you cannot practice or rehearse, because that would be the same as reading…?

"So are talks useless? They're certainly inferior to the written word as a source of ideas."

As jeffdavis pointed out, this statement is actually totally unsupported. You didn't actually address the communicative value of a talk at any point in this essay, you talked about things around (one might say orthogonal) to the value -- e.g. the audience is a mob, bullshitting, ad libbing, getting the audience attention, and some statements about how you can only think of a sentence while you're saying it or hearing it.

I would love to see it if you do have an argument for saying that talks are inferior to the written word, because as you are probably aware, there is a lot of evidence that written communication is inferior to verbal communication -- lower persuasion, higher misunderstandings, more projection on part of the reader, lower empathy, requiring much MORE written communication for the same level of understanding as would be reached by speaking.

"It's probably no coincidence that so many famous speakers are described as motivational speakers. That may be what public speaking is really for. It's probably what it was originally for."

This one is particularly interesting because, of course, the art of rhetoric dates back to the Greeks and no less than Artistotle himself wrote a scroll on the many, many uses of speaking, and how to do it, and how to achieve all kinds of different effects.

It's hard to believe that someone as smart as yourself would make such statements about the value of public speaking without even mentioning any of the prior art (e.g. The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle, or any of the later thinkers - Francis Bacon, etc).

[pg]

Ok, let's start from the beginning. You believe it's false that having good ideas is most of writing well. Can you give a counterexample? Can you give an example of an essay you consider to be a good piece of writing, and yet whose author you believe didn't know what he/she was talking about? Present company excepted of course.

[dingfeng_quek]

ahoyhere and pg's argument isn't clashing - while pg wrote his essay from his personal experience, ahoyhere demands (or at least appeals to) the consideration of a broad set of ideas related to a long history of thought and research.

However, pg's essay is clear that it doesn't aim to be a well-founded research paper. Although ahoyhere is right that pg's essay will never be recognized as a good research paper (by intelligent people, i.e. not those who were conned by the sokhal hoax), the essay is not designed to be one.

pg: I can give examples of great scholarly works where the author is confused, but the domain is highly specific, and probably outside of your interests. For less technical subjects outside of expert-to-expert communication where some spend years to develop new ideas, there's generally less preference for insight over clarity.

ahoyhere: If you're looking for well-researched expositions in this area, I'm sure you already know where to look. Hm... But I think today's social-psych/cognitive research is better than what Aristotle says.

[ahoyhere]

PG once wrote:

"I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. This sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and I would really like to avoid it"

Here I am, helping… by not letting him get away with saying stupider stuff than he has in the past.

I am not looking for a "well-researched exposition in this area." I'm looking for an essay that states baldly things such as "They're certainly inferior to the written word as a source of ideas." to actually back it up with some cogent argument.

That's not all that much to ask.

Also: Hm... But I think today's social-psych/cognitive research is better than what Aristotle says. That implies that social psych cognitive research backs up what pg wrote, and of course, it does not.

[jeremymcanally]

I think you're changing your question from the first sentence to the next. I think what ahoyhere is taking issue with is not that good ideas are essential to writing well, but that good ideas are most of writing well (a statement that I, too, would argue isn't entirely accurate).

To re-use some of your essay's ideas, I've seen just as many well-loved "motivational writers" (e.g., Joel Osteen [who seems like the king of this sort of writing] or to use nerdier examples, Malcolm Gladwell [in some cases] and Seth Godin [to some extent]) as you've apparently seen bubble mouthed motivational speakers. I read books from authors like that, and, while well written, they don't actually do much for me intellectually other than motivate me to progress my own thinking or actions (i.e., very few actually new ideas are introduced to my brain).

[ahoyhere]

The burden of proof is on you. It's your essay. Furthermore, I didn't state that I disagreed… I merely asked you to explain your reasoning. Argument isn't a case of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." You either have a case to make, or you don't. You either have a good reason to hold an opinion, or you don't.

And, as jeremymcanally pointed out, you switched from "good ideas being most of writing well" to asking me to show you writing from an author who didn't know what he was talking about.

That is a pretty epic switcheroo.

[pg]

On the contrary. I asked you to give me an example of something I wrote that you believe to be false. You gave me that sentence. The burden of proof is on you.

Just so we're clear, do you believe it's false that having good ideas is most of writing well? Or not?

[ahoyhere]

Yup, I do, but conditionally. But, like I said, that doesn't matter. What's at issue is not what I believe, but what you fail to demonstrate, argue, or prove.

You asked for statements I believed to be false. I took this to mean statements I didn't believe. Because you didn't argue any of the effectively. I consider them false until well argued -- and the statements I called out hadn't been backed up even in a cursory way.

No amount of arguing with me over what I believe is going to change that fact.

You are very skilled at turning the tables in an argument, bravo. Your essays would be a million times better if you would do it to yourself instead of taking the lazy route.