The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 04:55 pm
Reason’s Jeff A. Taylor farewells deceased Harvard moralist John Kenneth Galbraith:
Galbraith’s style was not just to be certain of his views, but to be positively declarative, rejecting the very possibility of informed dissent. Assumptions should be as sweeping as possible so as to support the broadest possible conclusion. Take this perfect example from 1984: “Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.”
Good call, genius. In possibly related academic news:
If his presidency ended now, US President George W. Bush would go down in history as a failure, according to a majority of US college history and political science professors surveyed across America.
UPDATE. Merlin in comments:
JKG was the commencement speaker at my graduation (Rutgers, 1979). He droned on and on about every damn problem in the world …
Then he said something like, “And in conclusion …” and the place erupted in applause.
