====================== 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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