Gadianton wrote:What part of this statement led you to believe that I had a problem with conservative economics? You would be correct if you were to accuse me of having a problem with right-wing propaganda.
You’ll have to take it easy on ol’ Belmont there Dean, he’s begun his final descent into irrelevancy, but he’s fighting tooth n nail to still warrant a response from anyone.
I can’t agree with you more on the propaganda comment, as someone who is openly Republican around here, “Right Wing Pundits” infuriate me. It’s not so much their views, as much as the silly ways they go about supporting and defending them.
Autodidacts like Droopy tend to lack that humility that comes with a comprehensive survey education in the social sciences and humanities. I know Droopy is close to getting his undergrad degree from a good state school (much to his credit), but it was a little too late in life, and his commitment to his homespun ideology is firmly in place. I imagine with the way higher education has become, professors are just happy to have a motivated student who is putting effort into the class and are quick to praise him ( I imagine Droopy is a blast to have a class filled with stoned college kids who are just looking to make their grade and move on), but they don’t temper that praise with constructive criticism, and if they do, it falls on deaf ears it seems.
Economics is probably one of the hardest Social Science disciplines in my opinion, and my experience with just two macroeconomic classes left me intimidated and convinced I know almost nothing about economics, and even less before I took those classes. This is why you don’t see me debating economic policy on the board or in chat, the best I can muster is quoting or sourcing some economist who seems to be agreeing with my point, but that is just playing a weird game of Pokemon, where you try to outdo the others with bigger and smarter experts.
I also don’t get the open disdain fellow American style Conservatives have for fellow American style Liberals, but I think it has to do with making complex issues easier to deal with. Droopy loves to play 7 degrees of Socialism, where he links a public figure to some radical fringe thinker and once having done so, can simply disregard that person, instead of having to engage the complex issue. This is a favorite tactic of Glenn Beck, who did a great demonstration of this on his TV show with the chalkboard. This is blatantly a genetic fallacy; true conclusions can follow from false propositions (crap, that’s what Getteir is all about).
Another point of departure is the often repeated claim that the academy is dominated by extreme Liberals, and even if this is true, that is exactly how I want it. The whole reason you *should* go to a University is to have your cherished beliefs challenged, and learn everything you can from opposing viewpoints. You should be aware of your own cognitive biases and challenge them, not attend some institution where people just affirm with whatever you believe.
The lack of real analysis and legwork in “Austrian” economics has some real explanatory power with regards to why guys n gals like Droopy are so attracted to it. It’s just empty exposition, and since they don’t make use of the powerful tools other economic “paradigms” do, you can just pick it up and read it. I think that’s why books by Ann Coulter and the like sell so well, she pretty much gives a worldview, assert is aggressively with some weak evidence (if any at all), and you’ve got all you need to do. When the pundit has spoken, the thinking has been done.
I think it’s true that Droopy mimics all of this to the letter, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him actually get into the nitty gritty of any issue, it’s more or less a marathon rant that alternates between gainsaying or employing the genetic fallacy.
Great thread by the way, I’ve enjoyed it a great deal.