Lingua Franca #9: Perfectionism

ELITE EDUCATION IS NOT ALLOWABLE IN OUR SOCIETY

“ What? The final aim of science should be to give man as much pleasure and as little displeasure as possible? But what if pleasure and displeasure are so intertwined that whoever  wants as much as possible of one  must also have as much as possible of the other  – that whoever wants to learn to ‘jubilate up to the heavens’ must also be prepared for ‘grief unto death’? And that may well be the way things are! […] Even today you still have the choice: either  as little displeasure as possible, in short, lack of pain – and socialists and politicians of all parties fundamentally have no right to promise any more than that – or  as much displeasure as possible as the price for the growth of a bounty of refined pleasures and joys that hitherto have seldom been tasted.  Should you decide on the former, i.e. if you want to decrease and diminish people’s susceptibility to pain, you also have to decrease and diminish their  capacity for joy.  With  science one can actually promote either of these goals! So far it may still be better known for its power to deprive man of his joys and make him colder, more statue-like, more stoic. But it might yet be found to be the  great giver of pain! – And then its counterforce might at the same time be found: its immense capacity for letting new galaxies of joy flare up!”
 
-- Nietzsche,  The Gay Science
 
“The ideological conflict that made Kolmogorov’s proposed reforms impossible was real. His plan called for dividing high-school students into groups depending on their interest and abilities in mathematics, allowing the most talented and motivated to get farther faster. The entire Soviet system of secondary education was based on the concept of uniformity: everyone was to be taught the same thing at the same time, using the same textbooks. But the Soviet Union still craved international prestige – in fact, that need became more and more pronounced as the technological rivalries of the second half of the century heated up. Just as the world of adult mathematics to cultivate a certain number of geniuses to showcase at international conferences, so a small world of talented children had to be allowed to exist in a sort of greenhouse setting, if only for the country to field competitors at international math and physics Olympiads. And just as it was in the world of adult mathematicians, in the world of student mathematicians, the space for comfortable existence was too small to accommodate all whose talents warranted inclusion; to get in, a Jewish child had to be twice as good as a non-Jewish child and four times as good as the child of an apparatchik.
 
“Possibly because there were so few schools, they were all fairly similar, shaped in the Kolmogorov mould of increased emphasis not only on math and physics but also on music, poetry, and hiking – in no small part because Kolmogorov’s students influenced most of these schools directly.  They were all subject to heightened scrutiny: Kolmogorov’s boarding school was visited frequently by ideological inspectors, who became especially vigilant following the denunciation of his curriculum reform. School supporters were often called upon to defend it before the authorities, who claimed that “elite education is not allowable in our society” ; Moscow’s School 2 was apparently the object of many denunciations – written by concerned parents and outraged Soviet-issue teachers – that eventually had its cofounders fired; and School 239 lost some of its most popular teachers to KGB pressure while its principal was reprimanded for admitting too many Jewish children…”
 
-- Masha Gessen, “ Perfect Rigour: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century ”
 
***
 
LINGUA FRANCA, FINALE: PERFECTIONISM
 
Lingua Franca  has been one of the most difficult series for me to write – and I hope, perhaps, one of the most profitable for readers.
 
We began with a simple idea: language – words – are one of the chief tools of thought and communication.
 
And over the last 150 years, language has been a key battleground for shaping how people think, communicate, and – eventually – act. Words shift meaning, new words are invented, old words are re-appropriated or forgotten – and with them, our ability to think clearly on certain topics increases or diminishes.
 
These changes happen so slowly that we often don’t realize it’s happening, but one of the hardest lessons in life to learn is to a proper skepticism of  words themselves .
 
Language and words are literally tools  to think and communicate.  But most people do not realize their limitations, and do not realize they are missing some very badly needed tools , and that they have broken and rusted tools in their toolbox.
 
This is what we set out to address in Lingua Franca.
 
In Condescension , we began by noting that it’s very hard to think a concept we don’t have words for.  After the word condescension shifted meanings, the ability to even think the original concept  was largely destroyed.
 
In Heroes , we looked at how words are only valuable when they map to useful concepts – and how the concept underlying a word can be diluted over time until the word is essentially meaningless.
 
In Revolutionary , we look at the concepts of emotivism  – yay/boo theory – and valence , the positive or negative emotion associated with a word. We looked at pejoratives , strongly negative valence words – and how they can occasionally be reappropriated as a badge of honor by a side that has a greater sense of humor.
 
In Fascism , we looked at how words that map to ambiguous concept are often battlegrounds for propaganda and persuasion, which is why everyone ranging from a war-hawk nationalist to a pacifistic internationalist is often called a fascist by their enemies.
 
In Truth , we noted that often the judgments we make about the external world say more about ourselves than about the world we think we’re describing. Some things can be said clearly, and some things can hardly be said at all. We then looked at using probability, confidence levels, and calibration to make more clear and correct statements.
 
In Pathos , we looked at rhetoric and  the three “modes of persuasion” – ethos, logos, and pathos. We noted that ethos and logos are still familiar words (ethical, logical)… but the word “pathos” now maps to “emotional” instead of its original root – pathetic.  We looked at how emotional appeals are greatly on the rise in public discourse at the expense of logos and ethos.
 
In Philosophy , we looked at evaporative cooling – how natural philosophy  became science, leaving the current state of mainstream “philosophy” in very bad shape. We differentiated between the modern mainstream “field of philosophy” over the last 150 years and its historical background as a love of wisdom , and we noted that it’s still possible to do philosophy  – real philosophy – even though the word has lost much of what it used to mean.
 
In Ethics and Morals , we noted that the word “morality” fell into disrepute, but there is still a very large difference between believing something is right or wrong because of one’s internal judgment, or because of the external rules of a society or profession. We noted how the word “ethical” has became somewhat confused recently in that it now is used to describe both internal senses of right and wrong and external senses of right and wrong – the old word “morality” became tarnished, but the new usage of “ethical” is prone to very muddy and unclear thinking.
 
We wrap the series now.
 
It’s my sincere hope that this series has helped you clarify your own thinking – if the series has been effective at all, you now have some tools to diagnose and understand your own language, and language as other people use it. Ideally, you can now think a little more clearly and communicate more clearly.
 
Most importantly, I hope you’ve been able to recognize that there are important concepts that we have no good words for.  By definition, these are the hardest things to think about – since most of our thinking and communicate is done in words.
 
Now, we’ll wrap up with a final word that needs much clarification – perfectionism . It has two meanings, one of which you’ve likely never heard before – moral perfectionism , as contrasted against the psychological concept.
 
Of course, the mainstream understanding is that perfectionism is bad.
 
Is it? Let’s find out.
 
***
 
PERFECTIONISM – MAINSTREAM PERSPECTIVE
 
Psychology Today: Perfectionism  –
 
“For perfectionists, life is an endless report card on accomplishments or looks. It’s a fast and enduring track to unhappiness, and perfectionism is often accompanied by depression and eating disorders. What makes perfectionism so toxic is that while those in its grip desire success, they are most focused on avoiding failure, so theirs is a negative orientation.”
 
Wikipedia: Perfectionism (Psychology)  –

“Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations. […] Perfectionists strain compulsively and unceasingly toward unobtainable goals, and measure their self-worth by productivity and accomplishment. Pressuring oneself to achieve unrealistic goals inevitably sets the person up for disappointment. Perfectionists tend to be harsh critics of themselves when they fail to meet their standards. ”
 
I think we’d do well to note the specific words  used in these descriptions – “endless report card”, “fast and enduring track to unhappiness”, “toxic”, “more focused on avoiding failure”, “negative orientation”, “strain compulsively”, “unobtainable goals”, “unrealistic goals”, etc.
 
Of course, whatever this thing they’re describing is – it sounds dreadful. Who would want anything to do with such a thing?
 
***
 
MORAL PERFECTIONISM
 
And yet, what is this ?
 
Wikipedia: Perfectionism (Philosophy)  –
 
“In ethics and value theory, perfectionism is the persistence of will in obtaining the optimal quality of spiritual, mental, physical, and material being. […] Perfectionism, as a moral theory, has a long history and has been addressed by influential philosophers. Aristotle stated his conception of the good life (eudaimonia). […] The philosopher Stanley Cavell develops the idea of moral perfectionism as the idea that there is an unattained but attainable self that one ought to strive to reach. Moral perfectionists believe that the ancient questions such as "Am I living as I am supposed to?" make all the difference in the world and they describe the commitment we ought to have in ways that seem, but are not, impossibly demanding. We do so because it is only in the keeping such an "impossible" view in mind that one can strive for one's "unattained but attainable self." ”
 
So we see right away a difference – moral perfectionism, which is much older than modern psychology or psychiatry, was concerned with reaching the “unattained but attainable self” – which, you might note, is exactly opposite of the mainstream psychological definition.
 
This is curious, is it not? What’s going on here?
 
***
 
DISTINGUISHING
 
“That Russia produced some of the twentieth century’s greatest mathematicians is, plainly, a miracle. Mathematics was antithetical to the Soviet way of everything. It promoted argument; it studied patterns in a country that controlled its citizens by forcing them to inhabit a shifting, unpredictable reality; it placed a premium on logic and consistency in a culture that thrived on rhetoric and fear; it required highly specialized knowledge to understand, making the mathematical conversion a code that was indecipherable to an outsider; and worst of all, mathematics laid claim to singular and knowable truths when the regime had staked its legitimacy on its own singular truth. All of this is what made mathematics and mathematicians suspect. Explaining what makes mathematics as important and as beautiful as mathematicians know it to be, the Russian algebraist Mikhail Tsfasman said, “Mathematics is uniquely suited to teaching one to distinguish right from wrong, the proven from the unproven, the probable from the improbable. It also teaches us to distinguish that which is probably and probably true from that which, while apparently probable, is an obvious lie. This is a part of mathematical culture that [Russian] society at large so sorely lacks.””
 
In  Perfect Rigor , Masha Gessen tells the story of how Russian Jewish mathematician Grigori Perelman solved one of math’s greatest unsolved problems – the Poincare Conjecture – and then decided to turn down the $1 million USD prize associated with solving it, out of dislike of the commercialization of mathematics.
 
The story is fascinating on a lot of levels. You learn about thinking and temperament, and about education, mentorship, and competition. Those lessons were to be expected from the book.
 
Less expected – and perhaps even more profitable – was how the book shined a light on the education and political system of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s anti-elitism, anti-Semitism, and at times, anti-sanity... these are not the main thrust of Gessen’s book at all – it’s all just background information. Which makes it all the more fascinating –
 
“There would be inspectors criticizing me for not working with the average kids,“ Ryzhik recalled in 2008, when he had been a practicing schoolteacher for nearly half a century. “And I would say, The issue is not working with the average kids; the issue is working with the gifted kids – and that’s really hard, because, for one thing, they are all different. Another is, if you teach them in a way that’s not interesting for them, they can tolerate it for a day or two and then they get bored and start wondering what they are doing at this school. And that can’t happen. You have to make their eyes light up, and I can’t explain to you how you do that.”
 
The book outlines some genuinely heroic contributions to education and mathematics by teachers who looked to carve out hidden enclaves of excellence and rigor from within the Soviet system.
 
***
 
FROM THE PHILOSOPHICAL TO THE POLITICAL
 
Gessen –
 
“By the time I met Ryzhik, he was seventy, teaching again – at a new elite physics-and-math school – playing chess in the afternoons, and given to looking back kindly on his life, which had been lived largely in the shadow of the Soviet compromise. He had been denied entry to Leningrad University because he was Jewish. “They did not even manage to find a problem I couldn’t solve: I sat for three hours after the exam was over, I solved them all, and still they failed me. I was just a boy. I went home and cried. He graduated from Herzen, the second-tier college, and was later cut from its faculty because there were too many Jews. He never managed to defend his doctoral dissertation, which was based on the geometry textbook he coauthored and was criticized for violating every rule of Soviet teaching methodology.” 
 
With just a little bit of thinking, we can see why moral perfectionism  would be seen as hostile to the Soviet Union – people’s political sentiments and preferences often flow directly from their morality and philosophy.
 
Indeed, take this (unintentionally) hilarious entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on “ Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy ” –  
 
“2.2 Elitism and Inequality
 
“Perfectionist ethics has often been associated with elitist doctrines. Whether it takes a consequentialist or deontological structure, perfectionism is compatible with assigning different weights to the perfection of different human beings. And a number of important perfectionist writers have maintained that the perfection that matters the most is the perfection of those who are capable of achieving the most. This “superman” version of perfectionism, a view famously associated with Nietzsche, gives absolute weight to the excellence achievable by certain great men, such as Socrates or Goethe and zero weight to the rest of humanity (Nietzsche 1873/1876; Griffin 1986, 60–61).
 
“The superman version of perfectionism is an extreme view. It holds that some human lives count for much and many human lives count for nothing. This view should not be confused with a different and less extreme view, one that can be termed the prioritarian version of perfectionism. This view holds that we should value the perfection of each and every human being, but in aggregating human perfection we should count the greater perfections more, by some multiplier, than the lesser perfections.”
 
I say it’s unintentionally hilarious, because it’s often funny when someone attempts and fails to describe a viewpoint they clearly hate and oppose – the author of that SEP entry clearly very much dislikes moral perfectionism. He actually doesn’t even talk about moral perfectionism very much at all – spending almost no time talking about it, and then around 75% of the piece outlining the various counterarguments against it.

(Tellingly, the word "greatness" only shows up once in the entry – and not in a favorable way. And what defines moral perfectionism better than the striving for greatness ?)

Yet, much of that entry is correct – moral perfectionism does tend to be at least indifferent, if not outright opposed, to egalitarianism. It de facto  increases inequality, because the highest heights of accomplishment tend not to be reached by most people.
 
And thus, the teachers under the Soviet system who sought to help their students reach the highest levels of mathematics were automatically suspect – and often persecuted.
 
It’s no surprise to me, either, that anti-Semitism raged in Soviet academia. Jewish culture has always had strong lines of moral perfectionism running through it – “a light unto all nations,” chosenness, the Biblical Covenant, etc.
 
Science benefits immensely from moral and philosophical perfectionism – a relentless effort to do better and achieve the utmost that we’re capable of. People of Jewish descent have won  22.4% of all Nobel prizes , while being less than 0.2% of world population – is any surprise that a culture with such deep lines of moral perfectionism would account for so much of the world's advance in the sciences?
 
And thus we can see one large reason why the Soviet commissars would’ve felt threatened – and respond by stamping “J” in every passport of someone of Jewish descent, refuse to take more than two Jews per year into the best mathematics program at the top university, and purge many of the best Soviet Jewish scientists and mathematicians from their top programs.

The idea of a sub-culture achieving high degrees of perfection in a given field, and excelling above and beyond the rest of society, generated a nearly-unending stream of hatred and persecution.
 
***
 
FOR COMMON NATURES…
 
Nietzsche –
 
“ For common natures all noble, magnanimous feelings appear to be inexpedient and therefore initially incredible: they give a wink when they hear of such things and seem to want to say, ‘Surely there must be some advantage involved; one cannot see through every wall’ – they are suspicious of the noble person, as if were furtively seeking his advantage.  If they became all too clearly convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and gains, they view the noble person as a kind of fool: they despise him in his pleasure and laugh at the sparkle in his eye. ‘How could one enjoy being at a disadvantage? How could one want with open eyes to be disadvantaged? Some disease of reason must be linked to the noble affection’ – thus they think and look disparagingly, the way they disparage the pleasure that a madman derives from his fixed idea. What distinguishes the common nature is that it unflinchingly keeps sight of its advantage, and that this thought of purpose and advantage is even stronger than its strongest drives; not to allow these drives to lead it astray to perform inexpeditious acts – that is its wisdom and self-esteem.”
 
Nietzsche was a moral perfectionist – probably the most hardcore of moral perfectionists of all-time, with Aristotle coming in second. (And of course, Nietzsche and Aristotle continue to be very profitable reading for people wishing greater self-mastery and perfection.)
 
The remarks above are fascinating – I think they’re true.
 
The first reaction to someone of a noble and magnanimous character is skepticism and suspicion  – what advantage is secretly being had here? Why would Perelman turn down a million dollars to focus on the purity of mathematics? He must be playing some larger game…!
 
But if eventually convinced that, no, Perelman is in fact sincere – then “they despise him in his pleasure and laugh the sparkle in his eye.” Nobility of character is dismissed as a disease; the common person keeping their eyes fixed solely on (short-term) advantages.
 
***
 
THE WEAPONIZATION OF PSYCHOLOGY
 
Wikipedia: Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union  –
 
“There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent. During the leadership of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used to disable and remove from society political opponents ("dissidents") who openly expressed beliefs that contradicted the official dogma. The term "philosophical intoxication", for instance, was widely applied to the mental disorders diagnosed when people disagreed with the country's Communist leaders and, by referring to the writings of the Founding Fathers of Marxism–Leninism—Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin—made them the target of criticism. [… ] The "anti-Soviet" political behavior of some individuals — being outspoken in their opposition to the authorities, demonstrating for reform, and writing critical books — were defined simultaneously as criminal acts (e.g., a violation of Articles 70 or 190-1), symptoms of mental illness (e.g., "delusion of reformism"), and susceptible to a ready-made diagnosis (e.g., "sluggish schizophrenia").[8] Within the boundaries of the diagnostic category, the symptoms of pessimism, poor social adaptation and conflict with authorities were themselves sufficient for a formal diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia.”
 
In the USSR, the authorities worked together with sympathetic “psychologists” to create diagnoses that could be applied to people who disagreed with them and their political ideologies.
 
It’s now admitted, broadly across the political spectrum in former USSR and the West, that there were significant abuses in this regard.
 
The reason to do so would be obvious – it was advantageous for propping up their political system. It had an air of authority to it. It was an easy way to discourage and suppress moral and political beliefs that the Soviet rules disliked and wished to suppress.
 
Now, a question for you – do you think the psychologists of the West are above such a thing?
 
***
 
MORAL PERFECTIONISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL “PERFECTIONISM”
 
Moral perfectionism has been around a lot longer than the psychological buzzword “perfectionism” – and for my money, will be around a lot longer after the psychological concept has passed into the ash heap of history.
 
Almost by definition, perfectionism is not something that most people will seek.
 
“What? The final aim of science should be to give man as much pleasure and as little displeasure as possible? But what if pleasure and displeasure are so intertwined that whoever wants as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other – that whoever wants to learn to ‘jubilate up to the heavens’ must also be prepared for ‘grief unto death’? And that may well be the way things are!”
 
I believe that is – true.
 
But the mainstream definition of the word “perfectionism” crowds out the older, more important concept.
 
The mainstream definition of perfectionism has all kinds of anti-perfectionist stuff wound up and tied into it – things like being excessively concerned about appearances and what other people think, being paralyzed against taking action, excessive vanity, even eating disorders!
 
And yet, if you read actual perfectionist writers – Aristotle and Nietzsche and Benjamin Franklin certainly qualify, Richard Hamming’s “ You and Your Research ” certainly qualifies – you get the sense, not of paralysis, but of nearly unlimited joy in striving, constantly embracing and analyzing errors for improvements to be made, and overcoming the worst parts of one’s nature to thrive more, do more, be better.
 
But the mainstream definition of “perfectionism” is anything but  genuine perfectionism.
 
The definition is almost exactly backwards – what’s called “perfectionism” in psychology is very clearly an immature form of anti-perfectionism  in practice.
 
***
 
CLARIFYING ONE’S WORDS AND THINKING
 
This series is one of the most abstract that we’ve engaged in – but there are certainly immense practical implications to be made, and gains to be had.
 
One of the most pernicious and damaging things is when a word that maps to a good concept – perfectionism – is instead pathologized, simplified incorrectly to a small part of the puzzle, and then the simplification is highlighted as a bad thing.
 
How many young people are instructed to “not be a perfectionist” in the West? When really, they would benefit more from being encouraged to worry less about appearances and more about achieving  – i.e., actual perfectionism .
 
In fairness to the modern psychological concept of “perfectionism,” it does get one thing right – perfectionism involves a lot of pain.
 
This is true. The pain, of course, is not the point . Transcending and overcoming it to do great things is the point. But the psychologists – both the Westerners and their Soviet colleagues – mistake one side effect of a life of striving for the whole of the thing, and neglect the only cure – overcoming . Which is, in fact, the point.
 
So think for a little bit on this word “perfectionism” – both the ancient moral perfectionism and the bastardized modern psychological variants of the word – but then, think deeper of its implications.
 
I personally think it’s a tragedy that one of our greatest concepts – the concept of overcoming , of fighting to be the very best possible , of doing the most you possibly can , turned into a buzzword-type pathology.
 
From there, you’ll want to think widely and broadly in this area – what other useful concepts have had their corresponding words bastardized and pathologized?  I think of a few dozen such words immediately, but I’ve gone as far as I’m willing to write. You should do some more reflection on the topic – to clarify your own thinking across the board.
 
***
 
AND FINALLY
 
If I might slip a last little bit of philosophy into this series on language, it would do well to think on Nietzsche’s proposition –
 
“Even today you still have the choice: either as little displeasure as possible, in short, lack of pain … or as much displeasure as possible as the price for the growth of a bounty of refined pleasures and joys that hitherto have seldom been tasted. Should you decide on the former, i.e. if you want to decrease and diminish people’s susceptibility to pain, you also have to decrease and diminish their capacity for joy. With science one can actually promote either of these goals! So far it may still be better known for its power to deprive man of his joys and make him colder, more statue-like, more stoic. But it might yet be found to be the great giver of pain! ”
 
Is he correct? Is he mistaken?
 
He might even be mistaken – but I suspect he’s on to something  there.
 
So, do think through your words and language and thinking – I hope this series has provided more tools to do so – but then, perhaps think a little bit on the goal of life. Is it as little pain as possible?
 
I think not.
 
A last thought. One of the students of the elite mathematics boarding school said this, about being cloistered away from mainstream Soviet ideology –
 
“What could be more beneficial at sixteen or seventeen than not having to lie?”
 
Not all language is corrupted – most words, thankfully, map reasonably faithfully to the concepts they are meant to represent. A cow is a cow, milk is milk, and so on.
 
But where language is corrupted, you’re being implicitly asked to lie all the time – and this is something we have to learn to do as we mature into adults, in order to navigate society.
 
But all lies exact their price on thinking – and communicating – and morale – and action – and, life.
 
Analyzing one’s words and concepts allows us to cut away the falsehoods most deeply embedded in our thinking – so we can run, and perhaps even fly.
 
It’s a painful path at times, but ever and always, I think, worth it for those brave enough to pay the price.
 
Galaxies of joy – indeed.
 
For joining me on Lingua Franca – thank you.