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Tullock Insults
Call me a masochist but one of the great pleasures of being at George Mason is that I am regularly insulted by Gordon Tullock. You have to understand, however, that in my profession not to have been insulted by Gordon is to be a nobody.
In anycase, here is one from yesterday.
"Gordon," I asked, "do you think we should ban child labor?" "No, keep working."
The other day Gordon asked me to read one of his papers and I pointed out a few typos. "Excellent," he said, "this will surely be your greatest contribution to economics."
Gordon is prone to pressing people with difficult questions. One of my colleagues responded, "Gordon, I'm not that good at thinking on my feet." Without missing a beat Gordon pulled up a chair and said "well sit down and we'll see how you do then."
Comments are open if you would like to memorialize your own Gordon insults.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on August 17, 2006 at 07:04 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
LMAO, good stuff. ;-)
Posted by: Chris Meisenzahl at Aug 17, 2006 7:57:57 AM
Every day (we are both in) Gordon passes my door and barks out "Work harder!" That's just one of many...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Aug 17, 2006 8:00:18 AM
I will simply note that if Gordon actually says something good
about somebody to somebody else, he will sometimes cover this by
telling the first person how he avoided informing the second person
of the first person's "criminal record."
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 17, 2006 8:16:05 AM
I once attended a lecture given by Mr. Tullock. He insulted the person who introduced him. I don’t remember the exact words, but essentially Mr. T called him a lightweight. The introducer was a lightweight, but he was a kind, decent man and was visibly embarrassed. He was not a friend of Mr. T’s, and so the insult could not be dismissed as friendly banter. The tone of the lecture was Olympian, as though the Great God Mr. Tullock had come to share his divine insights with us mere mortals. In short, Mr. T’s demeanor may strike his colleagues as charmingly irascible, but in my one encounter with the man he struck me as a jerk.
Posted by: ostap at Aug 17, 2006 8:34:34 AM
ostap,
The introducer should have been pleased. As Tyler
noted, Tullock only insults if he takes one seriously.
If the introducer was really all that insulted, then
perhaps he really is a lightweight and knows it.
I am aware that there are many people who have reacted
as you have over the years to seeing such bantering,
most of them unaware of what is really going on.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 17, 2006 8:47:13 AM
Who is tullock? Is he eminent in his field?
Posted by: Stuart at Aug 17, 2006 8:50:03 AM
Many people have said that Gordon didn't get the Nobel because he insulted too many people so ostap is not alone in his view. I can assure ostap, however, that Gordon is an equal opportunity insulter (if anything he reserves real zingers for the heavyweights). And Olympian? Nothing could be further from the truth. It's not too late for Gordon to get the Nobel and without question he is deserving.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Aug 17, 2006 9:08:25 AM
Not so much an insult, but when I met him and shook his hand he asked why I didn't palm him some money.
Posted by: Randall McElroy at Aug 17, 2006 9:25:03 AM
I accept the informed opinions here that tell us (in sum) Tullock is a genius and a sharp wit. I've never heard of the man, let alone met him, but it strikes me that someone who disparages a stranger in a professional setting, to the stranger's great embarrassment, is more than an iconoclast; he is mean. Callous, at best.
Posted by: carpundit at Aug 17, 2006 10:12:27 AM
I have taken the most mortal Tullock insult of all. He listened to me present a paper at the Southerns and had only a few kind comments afterward. I've introduced myself to him at least five times. I would continue to do so, but the shreds of my dignity will not allow it. I must be truly the lightest of the lightweights.
Posted by: Noel at Aug 17, 2006 10:15:27 AM
A classic story from the late 80s at GMU... one day Gordon saw a bunch of us then-grad students in a conference room arguing some obscure point in Austrian economics. He popped his head in and said something like "You Austrian guys are nuts, but at least you're enthusiastic!"
Posted by: Steve Horwitz at Aug 17, 2006 10:17:57 AM
True geniuses tend to be very gracious - Milton Freidman.
Wanna-bes tend to be pompous jerks.
Posted by: save the rustbelt at Aug 17, 2006 11:16:24 AM
There is a long standing rumor that Tullock will some day
share a Nobel with Anne Krueger for the concept of rent
seeking. Tullock certainly identified, but Krueger later
named it. Such a choice would kill several birds with one
stone.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 17, 2006 11:22:52 AM
"True geniuses tend to be very gracious."
Somebody should have told Isaac Newton.
Posted by: Commenterlein at Aug 17, 2006 11:27:01 AM
"You have to undestand, however," ...
Understand has an "r" in it.
Whee! I probably just made my greatest contribution to economics too! :)
Posted by: Jacqueline at Aug 17, 2006 11:48:23 AM
Commmenterlein,
Absolutely. I might add that I've met half a dozen Nobel prize winners, and they've all been jerks or profoundly arrogant in one way or another
Posted by: anon at Aug 17, 2006 11:49:39 AM
No Tullock story, but in contrast to the post immediately above, Tjalling Koopmans was one of the nicest, least arrogant people I have ever met, and Jim Tobin wasn't far behind.
Posted by: Jonathan at Aug 17, 2006 12:22:59 PM
Anon,
My own experience with the extraordinarily smart has been less overwhelmingly negative than yours, even though I have certainly encountered a fair number of jerks among them. Going down a (probably incomplete) list of genuis or near-genuis economists I was lucky enough to encounter in person - Franco Modigliani, Bob Solow, Paul Samuelson, Amartya Sen, Frank Hahn, Jim Mirrlees, Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Sandy Grossman, Gary Becker, Steve Ross, Bengt Holmstrom, and a few others - I can say that it ranges from truly wonderful and generous characters to some real assholes (to use the technical term).
Posted by: Commenterlein at Aug 17, 2006 12:42:10 PM
> Who is tullock? Is he eminent in his field?
This is the best putdown so far.
Posted by: Kieran at Aug 17, 2006 1:48:40 PM
Kieran,
Who is being put down with this one, Tullock or
stuart?
In any case, Tullock is probably more eminent
in a field that is not "his own," technically
speaking. His graduate degree was a JD, that
is in law. He does hold a joint professorship
in law and econ at GMU, and I gather is
reasonably well respected in law circles. But
it is clearly in economics, not "his field,"
that he is better known.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 17, 2006 2:39:35 PM
It is the prerogative of his colleagues, friends and family to tolerate this behavior. But there is no excuse for insulting someone in public, much less a fellow economist at a professional meeting. It's not charming, clever, or eccentric.
I was trained in the Chicago tradition, but the even most academically arrogant Chicago 'names' I've encountered have been personally polite, especially when dealing with graduate students and 'lightweights.' Mr. Tullock seems to be the one exception.
It would appear that Mr. Tullock is a smart person. Just not as smart as he thinks he is.
Posted by: PJ at Aug 17, 2006 2:42:53 PM
Whenever I'd be working alone in the Public Choice Center's cube farm Gordon would ask me where all the other idiots are (indirectly calling me an idiot). He's also called me a bad Christian... I forget the context. The last time I had lunch with him, though, I don't think he even insulted anyone who was actually at the table.
I think Bryan's gotten the worst Gordon insult (and therefore the greatest?). Wasn't he compared to both Stalin and Pol-Pot in the same sentence? Something like that.
Posted by: Steve Miller at Aug 17, 2006 3:14:11 PM
Tullock and I share a birthday. Walking over to Buchanan House for a seminar, I told him we had something in common. He replied, "We'll have to do something about that, won't we." When I later asked what he'd planned on doing about it, he informed me that he'd contacted some folks from upstate who'd arranged to have me shot. At his 80th birthday celebrations, I thanked him for throwing me such a great birthday party; he laughed and told me I'd be receiving the bill for the event in the mail.
My favorite Tullock insult, though, was levied at Walter Block. Block was presenting a paper at the Southerns in 1999. The paper was coauthored with Tom DiLorenzo; Walter, in his preamble to the presentation, noted that since his coauthor wasn't there, all the errors in the piece were his. Tullock shot up, pointed at Walter, and said "DiLorenzo wrote the whole thing then, didn't he!"
Posted by: Eric Crampton at Aug 17, 2006 5:04:36 PM
Gordon's prickly demeanor masks a distinctly warm human being. So what if he doesn't
suffer foolish thoughts lightly? I can tell you from personal experience that is perfectly willing to admit it when he makes a clear error (of course this doesn't happen very often because he works diligently, reads widely, attends conferences, invites intellectual debate, etc., etc.). My advice to people who find him offensive? Get a skin.
Posted by: jim at Aug 17, 2006 5:47:08 PM
Reminds me somewhat of Paul Sally, a professor of math ("the math pirate"... he has an eye patch, and two prosthetic legs) here at UChicago.
I may be a masochist as well, as I love professors and academics who can deliver a quick-witted sting once in awhile... I have yet to be the target of any insults thus far, however, so I may be impartial.
Posted by: Currence at Aug 17, 2006 6:08:51 PM
