David Gordon smacks Amia Srinivasan, Here's a snippet:
Why write an article on a subject you know nothing about? This is a question that Amia Srinivasan might usefully have asked herself. She is a Prize Fellow in philosophy at All Souls College, Oxford, one of the most prestigious academic positions in the academic world; and her webpage at Oxford includes several papers of outstanding merit. You would never guess that she is a serious philosopher, though, from her article “Questions for Free-Market Moralists” in The New York Times, October 2013. The “free-market moralist” she has principally in mind is Robert Nozick, the author of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974). If Srinivasan has read this book at all, the experience appears to have passed her by.[...]
It is unfortunate that The New York Times, the most famous of all American newspapers, did not select someone with a better knowledge of libertarianism to write about it. But the article, replete with errors as it is, may do some good. It may bring libertarian ideas to the attention of readers who otherwise might not have encountered them. As Quine once said after Nozick had complained to him of a negative review, I think by Carlin Romano, of Philosophical Explanations, “Every knock a boost.”The entire smackdown is here.
This was so good of a read.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i could never do a smack down as good as the esteemed David Gordon, I could condense the critizism.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, for real or fake critics of Libertarianism,Anarchy,and/ortrue FreeMarkets, Amia Srinivasan confuses the State with society.
She elevates the former and degrades the latter as a good progressive is supposed to do.
So if luck according to Srinivasan is what determines who is rich and who is poor, then it stands to reason that luck is also involved who gets read and who does not, and for that matter everything else that is achieved in life. This would obviously include Srinivasan herself who has the readership only because, I guess, she is lucky and not because of the content of what she is writing. She may be completely wrong, but her ideas are being published because she is lucky. Thinking of Krugman and the boorish politically motivated stuff he writes, she may be on to something. LOL
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