I’m still thinking about this piece, but wanted to highlight a great paragraph found therein.

His study makes no pretension to scientific, or rather pseudoscientific, quantification, for example by first defining random groups of dictators and intellectuals and then administering structured questionnaires to the intellectuals about their attitude to the dictators. This kind of precision is often mistaken for rigor, but measurement is not meaning, and humans inhabit a world of meaning.

“Measurement is not meaning.” Four words that I’ve written entire screeds about, less successfully.