>From Jay Hanson:
>
I see. So it's your intention to divert attention away from the issues
and
convert it into a personal attack on me. Nice tactic, but pretty
transparent Saul<
and in an earlier posting, Hanson said:
>Saul, your moaning and groaning is rather unproductive.<
Who's whining ("moaning and groaning") now? It ill behooves someone who
has condemned, lock, stock and barrel, root and branch, the whole tribe
of economists (the argumentative equivalent of genocide), withoout
moderation, and in an "uncivilized fashion" (as Ed Weick puts it), to
take offense at getting a little bit of his own medicine back. It is a
bit like Hitler taking offense at Charlie Chaplin's parody in THE GREAT
DICTATOR.
I have to admit, however, some shame at getting into a dispute that
flames Hanson, or may seem to flame him, insofar as I raised the
question whether -- if we discourage flaming an individual -- we should
tolerate the wholesale flaming of an entire category of individuals. If
Hasnson will admit that the wholesale nature of his attack on economics
and economists, without limit or reservations, constitutes a lack of
moderation or sense in argument, and amounts to wholesale flaming, than
I will admit regret at attacking him personally.
He seems, however, either to be in gross cogitative error or totally
disintenuous when he thinks that he has presented arguments that are so
frame that they can be, or are worth, refuting in their specific
arguments or in points of facts, by economists or anyone else. The
whole tenure of the argument is an attack that must be met at its root,
in terms of its basic assumption (wrongness and wickedness of economics
and economists per se), vehemence and motivation of incessantly
pursuiing the argument in various forms, and characteristics of its
rhetoric. Attacking the argument at its roots, therefore, is the most
efficient and valid way of attacking it. Getting involved with Hanson
in refuting the points of its obsessive rhetoric is unnecessary; it
risks appearing to validate the compulsiveness behind the position he
takes by taking the specific arguments seriously enough to try to refute
them, one by one; and is likely to turn into a fool's errand, a
paperchase without end, and without the faintest chance of making a dent
in the closed system of a true believer.
I will close, however, by dealing with a point made by one of Mr.
Hansen's defenders, who seems to be more rational and moderate in his
arguments. He brings forward Orwell's essays (particularly an essay
that was prefaced to one of the edition's of ANIMAL FARM; I am familiar
with the essay, but from the edition of Orwell's COLLECTED ESSAYS and
other writings and haven't seen it connected with ANIMAL FARM -- it may,
perhaps, have been added by an editor). Yes, Orwell was very sceptical
about the degree to which we, in the democracies, had escaped the kind
of political and linguistic manipulation that he pilloried in his
writings about the totalitarian dictatorships, particularly ANIMAL FARM
and 1984. Orwell did, indeed, talk and write, among other examples,
about the wartime BBC which in its broadcasts -- particularly to the
colonial world and India -- distorting the truth so as to shield the
British Empire from the same sort of criticisms that it levellled at the
enemies of Britain. But, to the best of my recollection, Orwell always
criticized the way in which institutions were corrupted, and in which
they tried to corrupt all of those with whom they dealt -- in the case
of the BBC, its broadcaasters and audiences together. Orwell NEVER
suggested that, as a result, the whole category of people that were
involved in wartime broadcasting were necessarily taken in by these
efforts, or did not try to resist them. Indeed, he was very frank in
various essays in describing his own frustrations and his own methods of
dealing with BBC controls, and the way in which he got around them, e.g.
in his selection of Indian authors and intellectuals who were available
in London to participate in broadcast discussions directed at the Indian
subcontinent. Elsewhere, in other essays on politics and language,
Orwell attacked the forms of political invective that were used in
debates, particularly the demeaning of one's oppponents by using
intemporate langauge, such as "fascist hyenas" etc. -- he saw this as
corruption of language, which was his central fear in that it blurred
the distinction between truth and lies, fact and falsehood. I am pretty
sure, if Orwell were with us today, that, on the basis of his writing,
he would have some sharp analysis and argument to make about the
failings of economics and of some economists. But I am equally sure
that he would not have tolerated wholesale condemnation of econoomics
and economists, and the kind of linguistic license with which this
argument has been pursued.
