====================== HES POSTING ===================
Response to R. Neill's first posting on this conversation thread:
Along the lines of developing a sub-discipline dealing with "The
Spread [and censorship, repression, caricaturization] of Economic
Ideas" the book edited by A.W. Coats and Dave Colander "The Spread of
Economic Ideas", Cambridge 1993 has some excellent concepts as does
"The Coming of Keynesianism to America: Conversations With the
Founders of Keynesian Economics" Ed by David Colander and Harry
Landreth, Edward Elgar, 1996.
Perhaps the day will come when Economists apply some of their own
models to academia and Economics as a profession (e.g. Homo
Academicus). I suspect a full discussion of cognitive dissonance will
also come in somewhere in the discussion. Some of the most pernicious
forms of censorship, setting up caricatures/strawpersons,
witchhunting etc are far more refined and more disguised than that
practiced under McCarthyism. Some, who have built up a market niche
and a lifetime CV under one particular ideological banner or "school
of thought" banner may have a cognitive dissonance problem handling
new ideas and approaches that are perceived to be threatening to a
lifetime's work. Others are just plain megalomaniacs and resent any
dissent from "The Great Names". Others are sheltered academics who
just don't work, play well--and respectfully disagree--with others.
It is interesting to explore the concrete institutions, forces,
factors, dyamics through which it is "defined" sacred vs heresy,
conventional vs unconventional, radical vs mainstream or mainstream
vs heterodox, true vs patently absurd, real economics vs pretenders
etc.
Jim Craven
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