Tuesday, November 16, 2010
RE DAVID BROOKS THE TWO CULTURES EDITORIAL SWAN SONG NYT
What an essay.
While any reader of this site can see that, to say the least, I have not been sympathetic to economics as a discipline,
Brooks' essay is not at all my kind of criticism of economics, except perhaps that it implies a criticism of economic compartmentalization;
but disciplinary compartmentalization, in all fields, is after all one of our biggest problems, and invites journalistic sophistries, like Brooks', a journalistic pot shot across disciplines, eg here 'history' (Brooks' apparent college major) attacking 'economics', in every area of scientific or quasi-scientific endeavor, not just in economics.
With so many well known economists, conservative or liberal, being coincidentally Jewish, and Brooks also, one wonders why he would have been chosen, or volunteered, to pen so implicitly divisive an essay, calling it The Two Cultures, on such a topic? It too readily plays into, or could be turned into, the themes that early 20th Century European antisemitism fomented: a Jewish economic conservative (Republican,capitalist, globalist) conspiracy, and a Jewish economic socialist (Democrat, liberal, globalist) conspiracy. Neither Hume nor Smith were Jews, however, and there are many non Jewish economists of either stripe, who may soon be forgotten.
One of the good questions, substantively, might be to ask how the US got into a position, to which Brooks himself refers, where several current economists (their intellectual backgrounds aside for the moment) have produced a study perhaps rightly showing that for a country like the US now, economics (stimulus spending) itself no longer works.
It is, after all, Brooks' and others', kind of globalism, which has resulted in this 'economics conundrum'. See e.g. prior posts, eg
enters the world of common sense, and of art, in politics. (Seldom, however, have there been two more uncomfortable bedfellows than common sense and art, a fact which he also knows all too well.)
The harder fact remains, morality and art aside, that the globalization that now renders domestic economic 'Keynesian' efforts fruitless has been a profoundly bipartisan enterprise for decades now. Additionally, conservative economists have been even less taken with art and morality than the so-called liberal ones he criticizes.
We have also had a lot of conservative economists, Friedman school, in control of things now for decades, who largely hail from Chicago, the town where Mr. Brooks was also educated, with some of them I believe.
Perhaps this is a kind of 'swan's song' for 'intelligent' mainstream conservative journalism?
See also my comment on David Kaiser's blog post re Anti Intellectualism Again, referred to in my post entitled
It's hard to select, from among obvious angles, which one to use first to criticize this cynical and misleading diatribe of his; even from the point of view of conservative (non-economist) perspectives, were one so inclined.
The only reasonable explanation, for someone who, frankly, knows better, is that he is now having to show some patron(s), somewhere, who are both ignorant, suggestible, anti-intellectual, and angry, that Brooks is still 'on board'.
With so many well known economists, conservative or liberal, being coincidentally Jewish, and Brooks also, one wonders why he would have been chosen, or volunteered, to pen so implicitly divisive an essay, calling it The Two Cultures, on such a topic? It too readily plays into, or could be turned into, the themes that early 20th Century European antisemitism fomented: a Jewish economic conservative (Republican,capitalist, globalist) conspiracy, and a Jewish economic socialist (Democrat, liberal, globalist) conspiracy. Neither Hume nor Smith were Jews, however, and there are many non Jewish economists of either stripe, who may soon be forgotten.
One of the good questions, substantively, might be to ask how the US got into a position, to which Brooks himself refers, where several current economists (their intellectual backgrounds aside for the moment) have produced a study perhaps rightly showing that for a country like the US now, economics (stimulus spending) itself no longer works.
It is, after all, Brooks' and others', kind of globalism, which has resulted in this 'economics conundrum'. See e.g. prior posts, eg
RE GLOBALIZATION TRAP: DEFICIT SPENDING TARIFFS DEBT
Thus, Brooks, frustrated by the technical, exact, yet twilight, quasi-scientific, world of economics, (their models and entities like shadows, silhouettes, thrown up on the wall of Plato's cave from indirect light)
enters the world of common sense, and of art, in politics. (Seldom, however, have there been two more uncomfortable bedfellows than common sense and art, a fact which he also knows all too well.)
The harder fact remains, morality and art aside, that the globalization that now renders domestic economic 'Keynesian' efforts fruitless has been a profoundly bipartisan enterprise for decades now. Additionally, conservative economists have been even less taken with art and morality than the so-called liberal ones he criticizes.
We have also had a lot of conservative economists, Friedman school, in control of things now for decades, who largely hail from Chicago, the town where Mr. Brooks was also educated, with some of them I believe.
Perhaps this is a kind of 'swan's song' for 'intelligent' mainstream conservative journalism?
See also my comment on David Kaiser's blog post re Anti Intellectualism Again, referred to in my post entitled
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