I'm Not the Only One...
who thinks Tom Woods was being silly in claiming there is an "Anti-Rothbard cult." Perhaps Matt is also a bitter, envious jerk?
Or perhaps yet one more person who knows Tom was being silly is Tom, which is why he is a little sensitive on this point.
Or perhaps yet one more person who knows Tom was being silly is Tom, which is why he is a little sensitive on this point.
Gene, as a fellow practitioner of sarcasm and mirth, I must again strenuously object. People constantly accuse the LvMI of having a Rothbard cult. So that's why Tom chose that title. You can say it didn't work or was inappropriate or whatever, but don't act like he pulled that label out of the clear blue sky. He was trying to be ironic.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, he wasn't sulking and nursing his wounds, he fired back at you and wished you "Good luck!" in the contest over the most bitter humorless jerk blah blah. You can say it wasn't funny or whatever, but don't act like you're throwing zingers and then he couldn't take the heat.
I'm being serious, you are misrepresenting what happened when you keep acting like Tom was just telling you you were a joke. It adds a lot of context to see how he delivered the insult.
If you want to say Rothbard threw more arrows than he received, or that he "started it," go ahead and make that case. But you act like the only attacks you ever see, originate in Auburn.
"People constantly accuse the LvMI of having a Rothbard cult. So that's why Tom chose that title. You can say it didn't work or was inappropriate or whatever, but don't act like he pulled that label out of the clear blue sky. He was trying to be ironic."
DeleteThen he should have appreciated that I was doing an irony ju-jitsu on him.
By-the-by, let me give my opinion of Tom Woods: I bet he is a great guy. He seems pretty funny. He is certainly intelligent. You posted a video of him the other day, and, if you recall, I commented something like, "Wow, Woods sure was impressive there."
I also think he is in severe spiritual danger of falling into the mortal sin of idolatry. I wish to warn him of that danger. I took my best shot with some sarcasm. If that failed, well, I saw no better way to go.
May I note that Tom Woods said of Professor Callahan,
Delete"Gene has "fun"? The point of my post is that I have never once seen him leave a blog comment anywhere that wasn't nasty or sarcastic. You defend this. Fair enough."
"Gene, as soon as I finish gathering entries for my latest competition: Most Humorless, Envious, Bitter Jerk in the Blogosphere. Good luck!"
"Gene, you are nasty everywhere. In the past two years, have you left a single charitable post on Bob's blog, Mr. Nicer-Than-Thou?"
Professor Murphy, if I may, would you say the above characterizations of Professor Callahan as "nasty everywhere," or a "envious, bitter jerk," are examples of someone showing respect for another serious academic? Would you say they are examples of someone who can take a joke (note Gene only asked, "Tom, will you be doing "The Anti-L-Ron-Hubbard Cult" soon?") and dish them back out in jest?
"In the past two years, have you left a single charitable post on Bob's blog, Mr. Nicer-Than-Thou?"
DeleteAnd, in fact, just two weeks before Tom wrote this, I quite sincerely praised Tom himself for his impressive performance in a video I watched! And, as Bob knows, I have quite often posted something like, "Very good point, Bob!" -- when I agree with him.
I spent just a couple of minutes searching for comments where I praised one of Bob's posts. In those couple of minutes, I found:
Deletehttp://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/05/thoughts-on-hell-regrets-ive-had-a-few.html#comment-37445
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/04/the-exclusivity-of-salvation-through-christ.html#comment-36356
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/11/god-as-author.html#comment-28994
I'm sure there are dozens more I could find if I wanted to spend all night looking, but these few are enough to show that Tom is just spouting nonsense.
I don't mean to be mean-spirited, Professor Callahan, but Professor Woods is not merely in the danger of mortal sin, but he may well be already a heretic.
ReplyDeleteThough he claims to be a Catholic, he has suggested that divine revelation and philosophy are independent of one another, since he proposes that his libertarianism can override Catholic Social Teaching on economic issues. In other words, he openly believes Christianity is incompatible with reason; a rather atheist viewpoint.
When he wrote The Trouble With Catholic Social Teaching, he put forth that libertarian economics is not merely a tool for analysis, but a source of ethical theory. I. E. the Austrian School should decide what the Church thinks.
Moreover, when he planned to write a book on the matter, did he obtain a Nihil Obstat or No Protest first? No, he went straight ahead in criticising the Church's teaching authority on matters. What would we call such open defiance of the Church?
When St. Aquinas said that man ought to regard external goods not as his own but as common, surely that poses a serious problem for all Christians who claim to be libertarian? Can they really hold up their ideas of property rights against divine revelation that there is no property?
None of this would be heresy if libertarians never claimed to be Christian. Unfortunately, many of them do. And Professor Callahan, you have often said no less - that many libertarians can't also claim to be Christian.
Gene and Zachary, I can't believe I'm having to explain how jokes work, but here goes:
ReplyDeleteOf course Tom doesn't respect Gene and treat him like a fellow scholar. In Tom's mind, Gene does nothing but trash Rothbard and LvMI-people personally. I am imagining Tom doesn't hang out at Gene's blog, and so only sees Gene's posts that directly attack Rothbard or Tom (since kids would forward them to various parties saying, "Look at Callahan's latest meltdown!").
Of course Tom thinks Gene is bitter and envious and a jerk. Who ever said otherwise? All I have been saying throughout is that Tom delivered this opinion in the form of a joke, in response to Gene's joke. And yet to this day, Gene continues to deny this, by writing above, "Then he [Tom] should have appreciated that I was doing an irony jujitsu on him..."
Again, by saying this Gene, you are making it sound like Tom had no clue what was going on, and like a Neanderthal just responded, "You're a bitter jerk Gene!" But that's not what happened.
Insult comedy works by exaggerating things the speaker believes are true. If Tom had said, "No Gene, I won't be writing a post on L Ron Hubbard, because I'll be too busy ordering a Value Meal from you at McDonalds!" then that wouldn't have made any sense.
In conclusion: Go ahead and say Tom's joke wasn't funny, go ahead and say he has no business defending Rothbard, go ahead and say blah blah blah. But let's please stop acting like Tom didn't "get" what Gene was doing with his comments.
Yes, Bob, we all knew Tom was making a joke. Our only point was he wasn't kidding about:
Delete"Of course Tom thinks Gene is bitter and envious and a jerk."
Then we are all in agreement: in response to a quite impersonal joke on my part -- yes, it implied Tom was being silly on THIS point, but that's all -- Tom trashed my entire personality.
And that's hardly just "meeting one zinger with another"!
To steal from Kuehn, you criticise Rothbard because your task as an economist is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
ReplyDelete