Arguing With Zombies

Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future
by Paul Krugman  

Every so often in this mendacious world, someone will reveal what they really think. What really instigates tariffs?  Is the democracy we so widely praise really nothing more than anarchy?  Why do people really spend hundreds of millions of dollars to be elected to run a country? Those questions are less likely to be answered but when a political commentator comes clean, it is worth the read. For example, Paul Krugman's new book. It was reviewed recently in The Atlantic by Kelsey Dake and it is hard to believe his family let him publish it.

"What drives a dazzling academic—the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, no less—to turn his New York Times column into an undiscriminating guillotine for conservative foes?" Dake asks. Understand, Dake substantively agrees with Krugman; what he questions is his style, his sounding like "a bloodthirsty Robespierre." 
Dake argues that Krugman was an evenhanded commentator until he joined the NYT in 1998 when he began to realize 'Republicans lost respect for facts and data, turning politically neutral technocrats into involuntary foes. “In 21st-century America,” Krugman writes, “accepting what the evidence says about an economic question will be seen as a partisan act.” '

'Commentators in this post-evidence, post-truth environment find themselves “arguing with zombies,” to cite Krugman’s book title. They confront “ideas that should have been killed by contrary evidence, but instead keep shambling along, eating people’s brains.”

Faced with these alarming undead adversaries, Krugman has concluded that politically neutral truth-telling is not merely impossible. It is morally inadequate. He duly sets out four rules for engaged public intellectuals. First, they should “stay with the easy stuff,” meaning subjects on which experts have achieved consensus: This is where an authoritative commentator can improve public understanding by delivering a clear message. Second, they should communicate in plain English—no controversy there. Third, and a bit more edgily, Krugman insists that commentators should “be honest about dishonesty.” If politicians deny clear evidence, they should be called out for arguing in bad faith. Finally, Krugman proclaims a rule that flies in the face of traditional journalistic tradecraft: “Don’t be afraid to talk about motives.”'

Krugman offers, as an example, climate change. 'Republican leaders have repeatedly ignored the solid expert consensus on climate change. Given that this consensus has been clear for more than a decade, it is fair to conclude that Republican leaders are consciously making false statements—in other words, that they are liars. Guessing at their motives seems risky but not totally unreasonable. Conceivably, they might be lying because they don’t want to irk voters with the news that hamburgers and pickup trucks are cooking the planet. But Krugman is basically right that “almost all prominent climate deniers are on the fossil-fuel take.” To state the matter plainly, conservatives lie about this issue because they are paid to lie. Or, in Krugman’s broad and snarling formulation: “Republicans don’t just have bad ideas; at this point, they are, necessarily, bad people.”'

Note that Dake's criticism is not that Krugman is being simplistic, or bigoted, or inaccurate or demagogic. He is not saying that honest disagreement can be overwhelming when presented in the public field, and so good, honest, dissenting positions might be lost. Nor is he saying that the extreme responses that are offered might be equally dangerous to the species as a whole, too dangerous to be applied without absolute certainty in a very uncertain science. No. Dake's complaint is that Krugman's position is impractical: 'By branding Republicans as “bad people,” he reduces the chances of swaying them.'

But, presumably, this sacrifice is necessary as the dishonest are not open to argument. Thus the ferocity of Krugman's style. Krugman does not see himself as a commentator, he has become Jeremiah. He is not hoping to persuade; he is simply screaming. The discussion is over, the results handed down from on high. Krugman is as certain--and as liberated--as Torquemada. The opposition is no longer a dissenter or opponent, he is the enemy. And, the greatest wound of all, he deserves no say, no consideration, no hearing. He is not just wrong, he is tainted. Spoiled. Dissent is a pathology.

"Resistance is futile," as the Borg say.

Well, at least the democracy knows where it stands.