Temple Grandin What does it mean Practically? vs Flight into Abstraction (intellectualizing)
Channel: Visceral Gravitas
Date: 2023-01-06

excerpted from https://youtu.be/XYZP1wuGBD8
 @JordanBPeterson  

transcript: 
one thing I would do with schools 
is I'd put a lot of the Hands-On classes back in 
like art sewing Woodworking Shop welding auto mechanics theater 
right and those are all things that have to be done they're in an embodied sense 
you actually have to it's not purely abstract any anything oh 
it's not abstract and you are 
none of those things are abstract 

I got put in the office of a professor in political science and I looked at some of those books 
and it was so abstract 
theories about politics 
I didn't even understand it 
it had nothing to do with right or left 
it had to do with just abstractions that were so abstract it made no sense to me 
I'm going oh 
I wouldn't want this person in charge of figuring out what happened with the power grid 

you know I remember at this Tucson conference where I first saw you speak 
after you spoke a philosophy student got up 
because there were a lot of abstract thinkers that this consciousness conference 
and asked you something extremely abstract and philosophical 
and you did exactly what I would expect a good engineer to do 
which was to say 
you know I really don't understand anything that you just said 
I don't know how to associate it with anything practical 
and I'm completely unable to answer your question 

which I thought was just it was ridiculously comical and 
I also thought um what would you say 
well targeted because it was the case that you know you had been talking about real practical realities 
your ability to think like an animal 
the fact that you had taken these practical steps to ameliorate animal suffering 
and that that had been so consequential and 
and so of obvious worth 
and then you were faced with this flight into abstraction and 
and did what engineers always do do 
which is something like well yeah but I don't understand that 
what does it mean practically 

which is a really good question that you know 
this question that should be asked of abstract thinkers all the time 
what are the devils in the details here that you're overlooking 
how much do you know about the systems that you're abstractly representing 
flight into abstraction 
I don't understand that 
what does it mean practically 
flight into abstraction and 
what does it mean practically