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“If EVERYBODY is irrational, then how can we expect them to make rational decisions all or even most of the time? Libertarianism assumes a rational...”
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“What if economics is to move away from being a self-centred academic discipline interested only in working out the consequences of its own...”
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Dr. William Rees on ‘The Dangerous Disconnect Between Economics and Ecology’
From The Institute for New Economic Thinking:
The world economy...
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But in economics, core and oft-used assumptions necessary to make many theories work, such as “everyone has...
Many of my peers, I have observed, find the word “feminist” loathsome. While there are surely many factors someone may find to arouse such sentiment, one I find particularly interesting is the matter of history. Further, I find this generalized frustration is also expressed towards matters of class and ethnicity.
The Tyranny of Men
If you read that subtitle and felt a swelling of anger inside you, this article is for you. I completely understand and empathize with your position. There was a time when I was the one in class proposing that rather than “feminism” we ought to focus on “humanism”, although what I understood then and what I understand now is very different.
I mean to investigate why some of us take history so personally. The simple fact is a majority of history has been spent under the tyranny of a few white men. Acknowledging this is not condemning the white men of the present.
An Observation
I have observed myself and peers in my economics and philosophy courses assimilate the ideas of the past in stride. From Kant’s theories of morality to Robbin’s disassociation of ethics and economics, without great hesitation. I think that this is pretty normal. If I took Aristotle’s theory of virtue, modernized the language, and told you it was a modern philosopher - you might believe it. And there is no “gotcha” about that.
But I suspect that this has something to do with why people find analyzing the historical backgrounds of these philosophies so repulsive.
Sympathizing with the Devil
We use many great ideas and philosophies daily to make up our conscience about decisions. We also tend to interact with people who share our sentiments (to borrow from Smith/Hume). As such, I think its natural to be put off by someone claiming your system of thought is borrowed from a kinda sexist philosopher.
Its like nodding your head in agreement when someone who is expressing anger at tyranny of an oligarchical group, only for someone else to point out to you that this person is a Nazi and referring to Jews. You wouldn’t be very inclined to hang out with the Nazi or the messenger.
We borrow freely from the ideas various historical figures. Yet, when someone casts an unfavorable light on our source, we seem to take it personally. However, offended or not, some systems of thought are developed in hierarchal paradigms (such as sexist, racist, or classist societies) and leave interesting residual problems as such.
Perhaps, on some inner level, we feel personally embarrassed that we did not notice these flaws before hand. Maybe this drives us to marginalize criticism without hearing it out. I believe sometimes we are just trying to save face. We don’t deserve to be “the bad guys” and thus suffer from righteous indignation. However, this all ignores what is least rational of all: we take on ideas of the past as if they are our own.
