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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (197774)	8/22/2012 2:40:10 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541342

A Last Note on Niall Ferguson theatlantic.com [ just to wrap things up, Fallows returns to the topic, chock full of references ] AUG 21 2012, 11:40 PM ET 1) Some people don't like the headline I put on my complaint about Niall Ferguson's NewsBeastcover story, which was: "As a Harvard Alum, I Apologize." Sorry! This was in the mode of a little joke. As a writer of Atlantic blog headlines, I now also apologize. 2) As is his right, Ferguson has replied to his critics. As is not his right, toward that end he has flat made things up. For an assessment of the merits, or lack thereof, in his reply, you can look at this, this, this, this, or (astonishingly) this. Here is a part that naturally caught my eye: The idea of getting a lesson from Paul Krugman about the ethics of commentary is almost as funny as Fallows's apologizing on behalf of Harvard. Both these paragons of the commentariat, by the way, shamelessly accused me of racism three years ago when I drew an innocent parallel between President Obama and "Felix the Cat." I don't know of many more unethical tricks than to brand someone who criticizes the president a racist. Nope. I encourage you to go back to the original items. Seriously. Installment one was here, and the followup was here. The point of both was not that Ferguson was a racist* but that he was writing slapdash blather worthy of a shock-jock radio host, and addressing questions miles beyond his area of specialization, but asking that it all be taken seriously because of his academic standing. If you're in doubt, go back and take a look. You'll also see the context of this Pluto illustration at right. And here was Krugman's response to the same charge: For the record, I don't think that Professor Ferguson is a racist. I think he's a poseur. The most "Aha! Now it all makes sense!" analysis of why a history professor would bother becoming a shock jock is by Stephen Marche in Esquire. If you read only one of the links provided here -- and of course I hope you'll read a few -- I suggest this one. It makes the whole flap worthwhile. ___ * From my second item: I don't think and didn't say that Niall Ferguson is a racist. Probably like him, I lament the way indiscriminate use of that label -- or "sexist," "anti-Semite," now "socialist" -- can shut down discussion.

To: JohnM who wrote (197774)	8/22/2012 2:46:36 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541342

It does raise questions about what is happening to Ferguson On that topic, Fallows refers us to this article in Esquire. Makes perfect sense, economically. A lot more money to be made sucking up to rich people than being a staid academic. Apologies for the formatting and repeat autolinks. The Real Problem with Niall Ferguson's Letter to the 1% Hated that cover story in Newsweek? Blame the new culture of speaking. Andrew Sullivan has written a strong response to Niall Ferguson's response to the blogosphere's response to Ferguson's response to Obama's response to the mess Bush made. It's all been a cruel and pathetic spectacle. The most pathetic moment of all was when Ferguson quoted Macaulay in the second paragraph of his response — a sad attempt to remind his American audience that he's British and therefore entitled to be overrated, as is traditional in American intellectual life. His defense basically amounts to him saying he doesn't like being criticized. He managed to resurrect his intellectual credibility not one iota by responding. The real issue isn't the substance of Ferguson's argument, though, which is shallow and basically exploded by this point in time. It isn't even the question of how such garbage managed to be written and published. It is, rather, why did Ferguson write it? The answer is simple but has profound implications for American intellectual life generally: public speaking. Ferguson's critics have simply misunderstood for whom Ferguson was writing that piece. They imagine that he is working as a professor or as a journalist, and that his standards slipped below those of academia or the media. Neither is right. Look at his speaking agent's Web site. The fee: 50 to 75 grand per appearance. That number means that the entire economics of Ferguson's writing career, and many other writing careers, has been permanently altered. Nonfiction writers can and do make vastly more, and more easily, than they could ever make any other way, including by writing bestselling books or being a Harvard professor. Articles and ideas are only as good as the fees you can get for talking about them. They are merely billboards for the messengers. That number means that Ferguson doesn't have to please his publishers; he doesn't have to please his editors; he sure as hell doesn't have to please scholars. He has to please corporations and high-net-worth individuals, the people who can pay 50 to 75K to hear him talk. That incredibly sloppy article was a way of communicating to them: I am one of you. I can give a great rousing talk about Obama's failures at any event you want to have me at. What's so worrying about this trend is that Niall Ferguson, once upon a time, was the best. I'm one of the few people who has actually read his history of the Rothschilds, The World's Banker, all 1,040 pages of the thing, and it is brilliant, a model of archival research. I find it fantastically depressing that the man who could write that book could end up writing a book like Civilization or an article with just as much naked silliness as the Newsweek cover. Civilization actually contained a section called "The Six Killer Apps of Western Power," which may be the purest expression of pandering to the speaker's agencies I've ever read. You could just cut and paste it from the book into the promotional material. He may never again be taken seriously anywhere else, but then again he doesn't need to be. Read more: esquire.com Read more: esquire.com