Comments on: Kenjitsu

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:20:47 +0000

Here's a neat trick: when interrogating a text, if you always have two questions at the ready, it works as a simple and robust bullshit detector. The questions are "So what?" and "Specify."

The first one is for testing whether specific claims are relevant to the author's broader argument. The second one is for testing whether generalizations are supported by evidence.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:09:09 +0000

Skimmed it.

By: T

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:34:12 +0000

The post would be improved if you ditched the “kenjitsu” concept, in my opinion.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenjitsu 2) It’s very egocentric and cliche to “coin” your own term for an idea (especially in a foreign language you apparently don’t speak well, if at all) which, (again, in my opinion) reflects poorly upon you. That is to say, I feel it’s beneath you. There’s no need to introduce a cliche term to refer to curiosity.

By: ryutlis

ryutlis — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:17:58 +0000

fantastic, this is the very same thing that bothers me right now. i am too suffering from readerly inadequacy. i think what makes those great men is indeed because of this kenjitsu.

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:01:52 +0000

Great Stuff! Nice to know I wasn’t just another silly student asking those annoying questions.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:18:26 +0000

Great post man. I love this newly coined term as well.

In the past few months, motivated by a similar recognition of my "readerly inadequacy," I have been trying to write on almost everything (of significant length, say, >500 words) that I read, no matter how simple or mundane the material is. I usually write a short summary followed by criticism and commentary, or, if it's for a longer article, I write a summary of each section immediately followed by my own thoughts on that section. Google docs' in-line comment function makes all of this very convenient.

So you may want to consider slapping on "7. Write" to the end of your list. Writing may help you satisfy the other kenjitsu requirements you proposed.

My next step is to review my write-ups - the most interesting ones at least - a week or so after I write them. That should really make them stick; moreover, new insights may strike you upon your second glance.

By: Chip

Chip — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:07:22 +0000

As always, an insightful and interesting post. A few things came to mind when reading it. First, a lot of my econ classes in college were mediocre. However, the final seminar was great because we essentially did exactly what you're describing: we read scholarly econ articles and then picked them apart. Does the methodology obscure relevant facts? Are these reasonable conclusions to draw from the results? Probably the single most important question we could ask was, do the assumptions the author sets out hold or are they too unrealistic? Frequently, the initial assumptions were tenuous at best. To take an example from another discipline, in my freshman year English class I had to write an essay analyzing 30 lines (and no more) from Dante's Inferno. The exercise really forced me to look at the text in detail and extract as much information as possible. Or at least that's what should have happened; I don't think I did very well on the paper.

Now, like you and most people, I don't analyze everything I read in such detail. It's simply too time consuming. But, I do think I've gotten better at being an active reader. Doing things like: assessing whether a news article is biased rather than passively accepting facts (of course, the opposite holds true. You don't want to infer biases or connections that aren't there) and making sure that what I'm reading makes basic sense. I think it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in the text and just let it take you places.

The point about taking notes in the margin is one that's been hounded into me since 4th grade English. To my own detriment, I still don't do it.