Funnily enough, those who heaped scorn in the past on various figures and entities on the Right for the “epistemic closure” that supposedly runs rampant on the starboard side of American politics appear to have nothing to say about this. Note that Krugman won’t read truly excellent right-of-center blogs like Marginal Revolution, or the Volokh Conspiracy, but he is perfectly willing to read Atrios, because the latter “gets to use all the words [Krugman] can’t.” According to Krugman, all right-of-center folk are either venal, or stupid, or both, and it is just impossible for him to learn anything from them. So he’s opted to learn from a potty-mouth instead. How admirable.
It really is amazing to read a Nobel Prizewinning economist tell us that there is absolutely no one on the Right–whether a conservative, or a libertarian, or some combination of the two–worth reading or listening to. Of course, this supposition is completely silly, but more importantly, it is the natural byproduct of an intellectually stunted and bigoted attitude towards one’s political opponents. It is one thing to say that one disagrees with a particular side. It is another thing altogether to say that one won’t even deign to consider what arguments the other side may have to offer, because of a preexisting determination to put fingers in one’s ears every time the other side tries to give voice to an argument, and scream “LALALALALALALALALAICAN’THEARYOU!!!!!!!!!!” in order to drown out contentions and claims that may interfere with one’s comfortable world view.
I am sure that going forward, those who caterwaul about epistemic closure on the Right will have nothing whatsoever to say about Paul Krugman’s shoddy lack of intellectual openness to differing ideas. Responsible self-criticism takes smarts and intellectual honesty, and neither the caterwaulers, nor Krugman score as highly in these categories as they think they do.
Pingback: Ed Driscoll » You Krugged Up, You Trusted Your Own Profession