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John H Davis's avatar

This piece goes to the heart of what could be called the lengthy crisis of American conservative intellectuals. When any scholar or public intellectual is convinced that the solutions to nearly every social problem are settled issues, the result is intellectual and ideological rot.

Going back to the 1950s, the so-called conservative intelligentsia has preached the same gospel, with little variation: ‘we’ would all be happy if the country embraced lower taxes, little if any regulation, more religion, and zero tolerance for crime—though only among the poor and marginalized. A morally disastrous, fetishistic belief in gun rights has been added to this toxic cocktail over the last 30+ years. That not a shred of historical evidence or example can be marshaled in support of this program has nonetheless made its adherents ever more convinced in its absolute correctness.

John Howard Brown's avatar

I am unable to speak to your critique of these former Harvard faculty. However, as a sometime historian of economic thought, I've had disturbing intellectual encounters with a number of prominent "conservative" economists. Some, although by no means all, have displayed appalling intellectual dishonesty when discussing "the oppositions'" intellectual contributions. There is no value above replacement there. Winning an argument by rhetorical trickery is no way to run a scholarly enterprise.

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