Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Insanely Powerful Intellect of Paul Krugman

History deals with what we call "facts," but there are no historical laws from which these facts can be deduced, nor any strict inductive method for putting them together. It seems that imagination is required at both ends, both in identifying and in synthesizing the historical facts into "history." But we all know that imagination easily veers into fantasy, or hordes of tenured revisionists would be out of business.

No one can do this with history better than Marxists and other progressives. Paul Krugman, for example, has it all figured out. He has a powerful loco-deductive system that provides immediate answers to any historo-political question. In fact, Krugman's system is insanely powerful. 


For example, why do conservatives believe what they believe? Because they -- we -- are racist. Political science is so easy, even a Nobel laureate can do it! Krugman begins with the principle of racism, from which "facts" on the ground are then deduced. Unlike a sane person, he does not begin with the facts, i.e., with any actual racist. 

Krugman acknowledges that he is working from deduction in claiming that "race is the Rosetta Stone that makes sense of many otherwise incomprehensible aspects of U.S. politics." Or in other words, any time Krugman is confronted with an idea he doesn't understand, he submits it to his loco-deductive racial system, which promptly and dispassionately announces "Mystery solved." Like Chris Matthews, minus the shouting and spittle.

By the way, it is not Krugman who is being simplistic and reductionist. Rather, it is those of us with different ideas. His system assures him that people with different policy preferences only hold them because racism is "all they've really got." We are intellectually and spiritually impoverished, not Krugman.  History is complex and change is hard. Is it any wonder that progressives such as Krugman cling so bitterly to simplicity, stasis, and slander? That's pretty much all they've got.

Kind of like Obama, who constantly confuses "the ideas in his head with reality. It is not clear if he knows the difference." But at least he's in good company with fellow Nobelists such as Krugman, Carter, Arafat, and Gore.

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