Monday, May 1, 2006
Messages
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith passed away on Saturday at the age of 97. Hearken to some of the hosannas being sung to his name:
News of the death of world renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, was greeted with sadness yesterday in his hometown, where the library bears his name and people say they've forgiven him for his 1964 book poking fun at the area.Leafing through letters from Galbraith in her second-floor Main Street Dutton studio, Jenny Phillips said the former advisor to U.S. presidents -- who died Saturday -- will be missed by residents.
"We got a little bit of star quality because of him," said Phillips, who helped spearhead the drive to have Galbraith recognized with a plaque and library renaming.
"He was one of the good ones. I don't believe they make men like that anymore with morals and ethics who don't mind going to bat against anybody. He was a giant."
Tributes came in yesterday to the towering intellectual from around the world.
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown said Galbraith advised him and others in recent years with insights into the modern age. "He will be remembered for his erudition, his wit and eloquence, and particularly for his economic insights into our age," he said.
Senator Edward Kennedy -- Galbraith served his brother in the White House -- lauded Galbraith's "profound commitment to social justice."
"I know how much President Kennedy admired his genius, valued his friendship and loved his extraordinary wit, and so did I," he said.
"Our affluent society is a fairer and more just society today because of Ken, and no one who knew him will ever forget him."
One of the most impressive gestures your Curmudgeon has ever seen from a public figure was William F. Buckley's invitation to Galbraith to become a regular guest on Buckley's show Firing Line. Mind you, the two agreed on just about nothing. Galbraith, whose approach to economics was openly social-fascist, changed almost none of his opinions as the Eighties' tide of capitalism triumphant swept the globe. Buckley occasionally twitted him about his many failures in analysis and prediction, but valued him as an authentic, well respected spokesman for a diametrically opposite point of view from Buckley's own.
History has demonstrated that John Kenneth Galbraith was wrong about just about everything. None of his predictions came true; every policy he ever recommended, when adopted, caused economic decline and the loss of social vitality. Yet error did not daunt him; he kept on recommending the very same statist measures over and over again, independent of all conditions and the results of all previous trials, for more than sixty years. But you wouldn't have known any of that from the article above, which is representative of the coverage being given to his passing.
When a man is a total failure in his field of expertise and has no other accomplishments to his credit, what sort of logic impels one to call him a giant?
Your Curmudgeon knows nothing about Galbraith apart from his economic thinking, which was Keynesian: i.e., social-welfare fascist. Perhaps all his intentions were of the very best. He may well have been the most gracious and generous man ever to walk the Earth. But does that entitle him to "giant" status?
One thing is plain: those who agreed with him, who gave him political influence and would have liked to see his theories, rather than those of von Mises and Hayek, rule the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, will have none of this. Galbraith gave them intellectual cover, albeit completely erroneous, for their desire to fasten the grip of the State immovably upon the material pursuits of men. The odious Edward Kennedy is only the most recognizable of these. Their comments upon the life and work of John Kenneth Galbraith, and the lack of any balancing comments on the actual record of his preferred policies, indicate how determined the liberal press is to stay "on message."
De mortuis nil nisi bonum, the Romans said: Of the dead, say nothing but good. Of course, it was their belief that the spirits of the dead never cease to participate in the affairs of men. Still, the advice conforms to the Golden Rule, and should be observed in all but the most egregious cases.
But to say that a man was wrong is not to say that he was bad. When a man given great influence in councils of State is as consistently and dramatically wrong as Galbraith was, surely it's cause for some reflection, if only on how reliably good intentions have led good men to do bad things. However, the Old Media and their political clients are much less interested in the fidelity of a message than they are in how well it conduces toward their preferred ends.
For another example of the syndrome, we have the new movie, United 93. Your Curmudgeon hasn't yet seen the movie, but his acquaintances who have seen it tell him that it's a brilliant, powerful piece of work: just the sort of thing America needs to remind us, not only of the surging heroism of the common American when put to the test, but of the ruthlessness and villainy of those who seek to destroy or subjugate us. That being the case, if enough people see the film, it's likely to reanimate the fervor for the extermination of Islamist terrorism that prevailed in the months immediately after Black Tuesday.
In dramatic contrast to the prevailing audience reaction, the Old Media reviews of United 93 have been almost uniformly dismissive or negative.
To be perfectly fair, some of that might arise from differing judgments about the strictly cinematic qualities of the movie. Audiences tend to be less critical of stylistic and technical details than paid reviewers, if the story is riveting and the acting is sincere. But the absoluteness of Old Media disdain for United 93 cannot be attributed entirely to that source. It's too uniform, and too unrelenting, to be based on stylistic and technical considerations alone.
The content of this movie -- its message -- must threaten the Left's preferred message about the events of Black Tuesday and their genesis. It must give the lie to the proposition that America is partly to blame for the evil inflicted upon her on that terrible September day. It must leave too little room for equivocation, for moral equivalence, or for backing and filling about the totality of commitment this new war for freedom will require of us.
Your Curmudgeon has been intermittently amused and puzzled by the intensity of the interest in the identity of President Bush's new press secretary. The selection of Tony Snow, longtime journalist, conservative opinion-editorialist, and cancer survivor has excited an amount of commentary comparable to the 2000 election. You'd think Snow had ascended to the presidency itself. His admirers are, of course, thrilled. His detractors could hardly be more scathing.
Why?
It's of a piece with the previous two subjects, though it focuses, not on a particular message, but on the conduit through which messages will flow. As President Bush himself has said, White House press secretary is not a policy-making position; Snow's duties will be to articulate the president's policy directions to the press corps, not to shape them in any way. But a diffident press secretary, excessively deferential to the press, can fail to make the transmissions clear and comprehensible to the general public. Insufficient firmness in the press secretary, as we saw with the amiable Scott McClellan, results in press conferences that are dominated by the media's preferred messages rather than by the messages the president wants to send. Needless to say, that suits the gentlemen of the press very nicely.
Tony Snow is, in comparison to his predecessor, a tough guy. He's likely to brook little of the nonsense McClellan tolerated day after day. It would not surprise your Curmudgeon if he were to eject unruly reporters such as David Gregory and Helen Thomas from the press room, with instructions to learn proper respect for the White House if they want to be readmitted. It would take very few such ejections to drive the lesson home.
The Old Media has grown increasingly unhappy with its inability to shape the messages Americans receive. The World Wide Web and conservative talk radio have already undermined its hegemony over the dissemination of information and opinion. This newest development is one more swing of the wreckers' ball against the walls of its precious bastion.
The messages Americans receive from their news sources, and those they transmit to one another, are steadily breaking free of the stranglehold the print and broadcast media have maintained this century past. The concurrent surge in pro-freedom opinion, largely libertarian-conservative and unafraid to make itself heard, is no coincidence.
Style will still matter, and beyond all doubt, the "professionals" of the Old Media will hold a stylistic edge over their New Media challengers for some time yet. But style is not everything. Content matters more, especially when the differences are in the realm of veracity. We approach a time when the identity and skill of the messenger will finally be eclipsed by whether his message is one we can trust.
