When justifications given and received in a particular field have little relation to the actual accomplishment of the goals and the realization of the purpose of the field — or worse, the goals have not been related to any purpose at all, so that the goals are just free-floating standards that gradually degrade into ends-in-themselves —  that field is out of joint, and needs to be rethought.

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I think a major problem inherent to the modern mindset is to become anxious in the face of things for which we do not already have ready-made names, conceptual apparatus, and easy means of measurement. Rather than say, “I do not know yet how to think about this, much less speak about it clearly, much less measure it.” we instead cynically dismiss it as bullshit, or hopelessly, permanently unclear — or something subjective that belongs strictly in the private sphere. Or we scrape whatever incidental features are measurable off the surface of what we wish to understand, and treat these measurable features as the essence of what is being measured.