Gary, on the same basis, one could say that you're attracted here to sentiments about Iraq that express your own favored, prior form of uncertainty or ambiguity in general. You're reading the same stuff that the rest of us are, unless you've been flying into Iraq a lot lately. If the media is worthless and corrupt to a man (or woman), then what basis do you have for complaining about anybody else's opinion regardless of its content? The information is then just as debased for making claims about uncertainty, or for analogizing Iraq to death squads in Latin America, or anything else besides.

You're making judgements based on an aesthetic of reason, and I often do the same. That's fine. Don't pretend that it's about debased or poor faith use of evidence, or about bias per se, as if the class of thinker you prefer is admirably unbiased (or as if you yourself are).

Or, if you prefer, it really is about information and evidence, let's get past regarding all media as utterly debased and worthless on Iraq. (If there is any opinion which is "screeching", I'd say that one comes close). I find a lot of the longer book-length work on Iraq to be pretty interesting, even when I end up questioning some of the author's views or interpretations. Night Draws Near, Assassin's Gate, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Cobra II, Fiasco, etc: all worthless? without informational content? (including about the everyday experience of Iraqis, surely something that you think is important if you care about 'civic epistemology') Your working philosophy ought to lead you to the maximum inclusion of all information and argument: everything seemingly should be useful grist for your mill. But on the back end, you've got a way of cutting "popular reason" to fit a procrustean bed. So do we all, no doubt, but if that is sufficient reason to whip out a statement that almost everyone is "screeching", or as you condescendingly laid down to me, has "BDS", then you end up non-exempt to the force of your own dismissal.

I point out the defects in opinions, the lack of supporting evidence for them, while freely acknowledging that I have no better explanations since there is no evidence.

The analogy of death squads in Iraq to those in S. American, European and N. American history is clearly speculative. The author says "it's possible" and I say hmmm, yes, perhaps - and that I find the uncertainty attractive.

It may be rootless bloviation but it sparked thoughts about how societies have to carry their own water, and the paradox of necessary crimes. I'm still mulling that over in odd moments when my mind wanders from the task at hand. Maybe I'll come to understand something useful about society?

A thought I had when writing the post, but didn't include, was that this is something like Walzer's torture paradox - that it is necessary to have rules, break them sometimes, and feel guilty about breaking them. Necessary crimes.

It's a bit worrisome since in each case there is a heavy dependence on the good judgement of rogues.

I'm still thinking a lot about this; it's actually been on my mind all weekend.

Part of it that this entire issue, and your interest in it, is what crystallizes a bit of my frustration with the way you use public reason or "civic epistemology". I'm also sympathetic to the wisdom of crowds, and often in the way that you use it--to rebuke the closed social and economic formation of expertise, to suggest that there is knowledge formed out of experience and habitus that isn't just authentic but also on matters of expert knowledge, truthful.

But "necessary crimes"? Look, leave aside that this is in fact precisely the sort of thing that rogues of various kinds say. It is also the kind of thing that in other guises and moments you strenuously object to in the name of distributed forms of knowledge and experience, because of a commitment to "civic epistemology". The people who call for necessary crimes as a matter of *public policy* (as opposed to the difficult and private calculations of an individual faced with a Hobson's choice of some kind) are the people who have big projects, who rely on some kind of formal and elite knowledge, expertise or ideology to arrive at some view of what the future requires. You claim not to have that kind of view; you claim moreover to have contempt for just about anyone who does. But when the big project suits your own fancies, suddenly civic epistemology goes out the window.

Moreover, it seems to me that if we're interested in the wisdom of crowds, we have to be interested in it at the largest scales possible. So not just whether poor people are in fact good custodians of their environmental lives in the developing world, but also an interest in what large populations of people believe, think and do in the world. So, for example, if a great many people elsewhere, especially in the Islamic world, dislike or fear the United States in some respect, *you* at least are complicatedly obligated to take that seriously. That's what I understand you to be arguing about distributed ideas and knowledge, that we have to have a kind of presumptive submissiveness towards them. In some ways, it's easier for me to pick and choose where I'm guided by the wisdom of crowds because I still maintain an escape clause about the worth and importance of expert knowledge and the insight of elites. I don't see where you have a similar way out.

"Necessary crimes" are also the quintessential thing where I'd invoke a historian's wariness. It may be that over the long haul of history, something like the dispossession of Native Americans turns out to have "good" consequences for many of the people alive today. But in the muck and mystery of any given moment, within the finite lifespans of individuals, I don't think you can be that sanguine about crimes being committed right now, right here, in your name and mine, without also being basically supine and fatalistic about almost everything. Which is potentially a completely valid way to be in the world. But it's not really your way, as I read you; it's certainly not mine.

"But "necessary crimes"? Look, leave aside that this is in fact precisely the sort of thing that rogues of various kinds say. It is also the kind of thing that in other guises and moments you strenuously object to in the name of distributed forms of knowledge and experience, because of a commitment to "civic epistemology"."

Well, yes. That's the point here. This is thinking that is contrary to my general stance. The idea that our societies rest on old crimes and are maintained by roguish behavior in exceptional situations is troubling. Can it be true? How does this affect my general stance? Not sure yet. It isn't a new concern. The Walzer view of torture isn't new, or new to me. How exactly does this differ from garden variety terrorism?

"The people who call for necessary crimes as a matter of *public policy* (as opposed to the difficult and private calculations of an individual faced with a Hobson's choice of some kind) are the people who have big projects, who rely on some kind of formal and elite knowledge, expertise or ideology to arrive at some view of what the future requires. You claim not to have that kind of view; you claim moreover to have contempt for just about anyone who does. But when the big project suits your own fancies, suddenly civic epistemology goes out the window."

Not so. The distinction being made here is that crime cannot be public policy, that it must be private in order to accomplish the stated goals. It can't be institutionalized. It must remain outside the pale. And it isn't that I endorse this behavior. It can't be endorsed. It has to remain criminal. Ward Bond has to arrest John Wayne and take him to trial even though the creep needed killin'. The president who tortures to save the city has to be prosecuted for that crime, even though it saves the nation. And both Wayne and the president have to agree that this is right and proper, must feel guilt.

On the "wisdom of crowds" thing. It is limited to situations where there is a correct answer: how many beans in the jar? But the group problem solving stuff, Scott Page's stuff, is of team problem solving by heuristically diverse groups. It isn't a crowd, it's a selected group of experts (in his examples, though expertise is broadly defined) who jointly, in close communication, pool their various abilities and take turns hammering at knotty problems. There is a serial aspect that isn't at work in the crowds trope, and a communication requirement that is contrary to the independence (to avoid cascades) necessary for crowds to function usefully and so avoid being just a mob.

"In some ways, it's easier for me to pick and choose where I'm guided by the wisdom of crowds because I still maintain an escape clause about the worth and importance of expert knowledge and the insight of elites. I don't see where you have a similar way out."

Now apply the above graf to your concern here. Crowds have value for some tasks. Not all. The tool must fit the task, and skill in tool selection is as important as skill in using each tool.

I don't think you have a good take on what I'm trying to say. I don't think you actually disagree with much of it. If I said it better this might not be a problem. But if you are intrigued by my stumbling enthusiasms you can get better expressions of the ideas from those I cite. For example, I'd just love to see you do a review of Page's new book. It isn't out yet, but I bet you can get a review copy. I bet Cosma has one or can expedite this for you. You've been interested in expertise and problem solving for as long as I've known you, so this isn't such a wild suggestion.

Page draws on a body of research and evidence, earlier stuff and foundational stuff. He isn't a lone voice. I suspect that much of it would be interesting to you.

Definitely it would be.

I get a better sense here of what you're thinking about. It still means, or ought to me, that anybody who advocates necessary crimes as a matter of policy should be to you as anathema as they are to me, yes? And to some extent, even allowing a public space for the necessity of private necessary crimes amounts to that. I don't know how to put it quite right, and I think you're right that we're grappling with the same thing or problem. I don't want to end up being an overwrought hysteric who gets the vapors at the very thought that somewhere someone has committed a harsh and horrible act that was nevertheless necessary. The best fictions, dramas and even real-life ethical problems are built around precisely this kind of difficulty: that under some circumstances, at some moments, doing right requires doing wrong. But we have to find a way to say that which doesn't become a pre-emptive endorsement of all such actions, and I think that many apologists for the war (as one example) are now doing just that.

Yes. Crime can't be policy. Those who advocate it have missed the point, are attempting to normalize the abnormal and so would create a monstrosity, something worse than the original problem. We have historical examples of this.

It's one thing to observe that societies in extremis do some criminal stuff, and quite another to advocate a criminal society. The flawed heroes want nothing more than to stay at home at night instead of roaming the streets doing vermin extermination. They are damaged by the deed too, and hope that their children, or their siblings' children at least, won't have to do such things or have the stigma of a criminal sire. And, being human, they half hope that they don't have to pay the price for their crimes, and so are conflicted. This is a subject for art as well as sociology.

Some of those defending the Iraq war do as you say. They are making bad arguments that they will likely at some point regret since they are inconsistent with the reasons that they advocated war in the first place. It's hard to let go and admit error, especially after having taken a public stance. The sticking point, I think, is that they habitually look to institutionalize everything, to avoid this conflicted half way, turbulent stuff. It's messy.

For me, this is the same sort of problem the advocates for a war on climate change (and environmentalism in general) are making. They can't grasp the neither/nor aspect to see that giving such broad powers to governments creates a problem worse than the one they seek to cure. This isn't the subject to get deeply into here, but it may shine another light on what I see as a common mental error.

No one mentioned Civil disobedience. Seems it is useful in testing a law in a highly organized society. Just to toss this out there, law-breaking is ok ~sometimes~ ??

Hi Rob,

Law breaking can't be applauded by the government. The government can't break the laws or it is invalid. It's not OK for them.

It seems that you are speaking for "that implacable moiety" that would be the target of civil society in extremis, the "creeps and cranks" that the solid citizens might deter by taking the matter into their own hands - to monkey-wrench the monkey-wrenchers so to speak.

None of them are OK with me. But I can see the historical truth that many societies do have a criminal past, and find the idea that this may be a necessary phase in development of a stable civil society compelling as well as repellent. I'm not sure that it is necessary. Correlation is not causation. It might be, but it isn't clear.

I am sure that I would object if solid citizens started hunting down disobedient citizens - eco-terrorists for example - and punishing them outside the law. Yes the terrorists are creeps and "need deterrence" (killin' seems excessive), but the proper way to handle them is to drop a dime on them. If things unravel to the point that the cops can't cope with them we may get a chance to decide how we really feel about vigilantism, since it will be in the streets.