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Assorted links
1. Barkley Rosser in his spare time
3. Books correlated with high and low IQ on Facebook
5. Jonah Goldberg responds to my review of his book
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 26, 2008 at 11:10 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Are SAT scores equivalent to IQ?
Posted by: Walt at Jan 26, 2008 12:40:44 PM
I'd have thought "The Da Vinci Code" would correlate with a much lower average SAT score. Theory: many of the books all the way on the left of the graph are more likely to have been forced on students at some point during their schooling. You have to be at least willing to read outside of class work to digest the Da Vinci Code and decide it's your favorite book.
Posted by: mtc at Jan 26, 2008 12:43:42 PM
I love it how the Bible scores lower than I Don't Read
Posted by: djg at Jan 26, 2008 1:57:55 PM
I'd like to see TC respond to Golberg's response - especially the main point about whether (or not) Hitler's National Socialists were indeed of the left (mostly, and by lineage).
I would say that the Nazis were indeed mostly a party of the left (whereas Franco's Falange was a party of the right).
Indeed, I understand that some well-informed historians believe that it is incorrect to call the Nazis a fascist party.
Posted by: BGC at Jan 26, 2008 3:39:42 PM
I also discussed the Nazis as distinct from mainstream European fascists, especially Spanish, here.
Posted by: TGGP at Jan 26, 2008 4:39:46 PM
I have no idea if Tyler is going to reply here to Jonah Goldberg's
reply to him, but a couple of points stick out to me.
Regarding whether fascism and nazism came out of the left or the right,
it is probably accurate to say that they both came out of both, and indeed
they always used to emphasize that they constituted a "Third Way" in their
nationalism. Goldberg provides his own definitions of these concepts,
which are useful for pushing the argument in his direction, but the
issue must be dealt with on the ground, and there are some important
points he simply ignores.
He makes much of how the Nazis in particular were "anti-Orthodox Christianity"
or "Traditional Christianity" plus supposedly tradition in general. Yes,
the Nazi inner circle followed a vague paganism, but neither the Roman
Catholic nor Protestant churches were suppressed in Germany under the Nazis,
unless of course they criticized actual Nazi policies.
Mussolini was also somewhat unfriendly to the Church, and certainly did come
out of a socialist political party before forming the Fascist Party. But,
he would agree to the Concordat with the Roman Catholic Church, which granted
the Vatican independence and allowed the Church to operate in Italian society,
again as long as it did not interfere in politics. The claim is made that
the fascists were anti-monarchical, but in Italy, Mussolini kept the king in
place. And, of course, the fascists in places like Spain, Portugal, and Croatia
openly worked with the Roman Catholic Church, not against it all.
More profoundly this matter of religion leads to what may be Goldberg's
biggest error of all: the origins of fascism's central economic ideology.
He mostly goes on about "statism" and "totalitarianism" and thinks that the
fact that "socialism" appears in the official title of the Nazi Party makes
it therefore socialist ("duh" he says in one interview on this point, but "duh"
should be said right back to him, given their failure to nationalize any industry
and their cutbacks in the welfare state programs they inherited from the Social
Democrats). That ideology was corporatism. There is simply no controversy at
all in any serious circles that corporatism was a product of the Roman Catholic
Church of the late nineteenth century, the organization more closely associated
with the political Right in Europe than any other, its very sine qua non. This
is the actual origin (not American Progressivism or Woodrow Wilson) of the core
ideology of fascism and Nazism, a doctrine due to the Church.
Regarding labor unions, sure, the totalitarian states of both the Left and the
Right crushed them. But, "liberal" societies do not do so, especially the US
form of liberalism that is descended from Progressivism. Crushing unions was
not supported by the Progressives, and it was not carried out by Wilson.
A final note on Woodrow Wilson, whom Goldberg especially focuses on as the
supposed founder/source of "liberal fascism" in America. Yes, Wilson engaged
in a lot of authoritarian policies during WW I, and he also engaged in some
serious efforts to coordinate the economy, something most societies do when they
are in a major war. Also, he was a racist, as were all southern Democrats of his
day (and though he was governor of New Jersey, he was born in Staunton, Virginia).
But, he never abolished the two party system or elections or unions. As a proto-
fascist, he was at best a pretty pathetic wimp, and supported an international
peace keeping system through the League of Nations, in contrast to German and
Italian thumbing of their noses at the demands made by the League against their
aggressive moves against their neighbors. Even though his eugenics minister
ended up working in a Nazi concentration camp, the idea that he was some big
influence on European fascism or Nazism is just a pathetic joke.
Oh, on another topic, while the desserts at Hole in the Stomach may be "unmentionable
and unspeakable," they are probably what those spies from the top Paris chefs are really
after... :-).
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Jan 26, 2008 6:19:07 PM
So, is that one of Bob Frank's grad student's apartments? If I have the right information, he lives in a $450,000, 5 bedroom house.
Posted by: J. at Jan 27, 2008 10:40:48 AM
Barkley Rosser:
Good point on corporatism. I think "distributism" also came from the Catholic Church, but it is interesting in that it almost seems the opposite of corporatism.
I agree that not abolishing elections and not having the power to dictate law without Congress means Wilson was not a dictator, but he still did some screwed up stuff. I've heard similar arguments that Mussolini was not a dictator, and England's Mosely and other somewhat fascist types were opponents of war (I think they were right) while Wilson himself was a war-monger in office.
Posted by: TGGP at Jan 27, 2008 12:26:41 PM
I hate it when links download word files without warning!
Posted by: Jim Hu at Jan 27, 2008 10:40:12 PM
The Facebook list strikes me a meaningless. I've seen it on two blogs now and I really feel its getting more play than it deserves.
Posted by: Ted Craig at Jan 28, 2008 10:09:21 AM
Maybe this is obvious to everyone, and I'm just being pedantic, but that was not MTV Cribs, it was a YouTube parody.
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