I would like to offer a negative, critical and destructive argument against (but in the spirit of) this blog post by @StatModeling praising criticism and negativity over @tylercowen's more positive and constructive approach. 1/5
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/07/22/is-…
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/07/22/is-…
Gelman claims that "negativity requires more care than positivity" bc offering a critique of a view is more difficult than lazily affirming that view. But I did not take Cowen to be contrasting criticizing s.o.'s views with affirming that person's views. 2/5 
I took Cowen to be taking for granted disagreement w/work of some intellectuals & encouraging people to parlay disagreements into positive contributions of their own: be proactive, not reactive--not as making implausible claim that praising s.o. is harder than critiquing him 3/5
As I read Cowen he's not saying "you should agree w other intellectuals," but rather, "given that you disagree, this is how you shd deal with that: rather than merely expressing disagreement, you should metabolize it into an original positive contribution of your own." 4/5
To be clear, I think Cowen is wrong about this. (I'm team negative reactivity all the way) But he's not wrong for the reason that Gelman gives. And that completes my critique of Gelman's critique of Cowen's stance against critique. 5/5
