Man, all you people on teh Facebook demanding we tackle neocon hottiepants Niall Ferguson’s apology for calling dead economist Maynard Keynes a big fag who didn’t care about the future because he had no kids! (I paraphrase.) FINE. Here we go.
At a financial conference in Carlsbad, CA last Thursday, Harvardian professor from Harvard and right-wing pundit Ferguson took a question from the audience about Keynesian economics. According to Financial Advisor magazine:
Ferguson responded to a question about Keynes’ famous philosophy of self-interest versus the economic philosophy of Edmund Burke, who believed there was a social contract among the living, as well as the dead. Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of “poetry” rather than procreated. The audience went quiet at the remark.
Ferguson went on to add that it was “only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an ‘effete’ member of society.”
Blue Steel!
Roguish Scottish smolder!
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of Harvard (I’m telling you I went to Harvard, did you get that? I’m subtle), but Atlantic writer James Fallows has already done so, in an essay called “As A Harvard Alum, I Apologize.” That was back in August, when Ferguson wrote a deeply disingenuous cover story for Newsweek about why Obama sucks. (Fallows walks you through the fallacies well, so you can go read that while I sing the Harvard fight song.) Mr. Fallows is welcome to apologize on Harvard’s behalf for the Newsweek story, and I’ll apologize for Ferguson’s more recent idiocy. Harvard is all about sharing and caring.
On Saturday, Ferguson apologized on his blog for his remarks at the conference. He titled his post “An Unqualified Apology” and called his remarks “as stupid as they were insensitive.” He went on:
I had been asked to comment on Keynes’s famous observation “In the long run we are all dead.” The point I had made in my presentation was that in the long run our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive, and will have to deal with the consequences of our economic actions.
But I should not have suggested – in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation – that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.
My disagreements with Keynes’s economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation. It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise.
My colleagues, students, and friends – straight and gay – have every right to be disappointed in me, as I am in myself. To them, and to everyone who heard my remarks at the conference or has read them since, I deeply and unreservedly apologize.
On the surface, this is a good apology. He acknowledges that he was wrong, that homophobia is bad, that child-free people can care about the future of the planet. He doesn’t say he was misquoted or taken out of context or knackered. “Deeply and unreservedly” sounds excellent. (That said, “as those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice” comes off as an effete way of saying “some of my best friends are Black.”)
When you look a bit deeper, though, this apology doesn’t go far enough. I do not have a clue about Keynesian economics, despite skimming Wikipedia while pretending to listen to my children and drinking Mezcal with fresh grapefruit juice, but I did read a bit about Keynes’s personal life and writing. Dude actually wrote an essay in 1930 called “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” later published in his collected Essays on Persuasion (1931). In it, he tries to convince the reader not to lose hope, despite the global Depression. Keynes wrote:
My purpose in this essay, however, is not to examine the present or the near future, but to disembarrass myself of short views and take wings into the future. What can we reasonably expect the level of our economic life to be a hundred years hence? What are the economic possibilities for our grandchildren?
So Ferguson apologized for implying that gay people and poetry lovers don’t care about the future because they’re child-free and fancy-free, but here in Keynes’s own words we see that he DID worry about the future despite his tragic barrenness. Ferguson should have apologized for actually misrepresenting Keynes’s worldview, not just gay-slurring him.
PS. It would be in bad taste to point out that Ferguson left his wife of 20 years and their three children for fellow right-wing pundit Aayan Hirsi Ali, who was 12 years younger than his ex, because it’s not relevant to anything, and I deeply and unreservedly apologize for even mentioning it. It was effete of me.
PPS. Friend of SorryWatch Jennifer Powell shares this excellent piece tracing the right’s longtime tradition of transmitting a “Keynes the evil homo” meme.
*runs off to squeeze some grapefruits*
Also, *reads entire post aloud to husband*
If I wanted to have babies, snarly, they would have to be yours.
*reads entire post to wife with dramatic, not to say flamboyant, emphases, intonations, and gestures*
Well but nobody got offended that he misrepresented Keynes. They got offended at the way he did so. If he had apologized for misrepresenting Keynes’ ideas, the response would have been “guh, miss the point much?!”
“But I should not have suggested – in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation – that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.”
Translation: Oh, wait. Never mind about that effete stuff. Keynes plowed his manly field once. Lydia just dropped the ball. Keynes is now perfectly manly. My bad.
“I detest all prejudice.” Uh, yeah. That.
The other problem with his presentation is he’s wrong right out of the gate.
The Keynes piece he isn’t, apparently, smart enough to understand is, in full,
” this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”
His point, here, is that economic models that only tell you where you end up are useless, and what is in fact important is the day to day utility of an economic model.
Nothing like how Ferguson intends the quote to be understood, in setting up his straw man. It’s almost the opposite of the position Ferguson attributes to him,.
So we’re left with two possibilities: Ferguson is a fucking idiot, or Ferguson is a fucking dishonest piece of shit. Neither of these possibilities, and they’re the only two, are incompatible with his position as a Harvard professor of economics. The more I read of his stuff, in fact, the more I think they’re actually pre-requisites.
EXCELLENT point about the incompleteness of the quotation! Context is everything.
Scotsmen have entirely too much influence on our culture. Sean Connery, Ewan McGregor, The Fergusons (Niall and Craig). Something must be done!
Enjoyed the comment stream as much as the post.
I tried to work in a Highlander/romance novel reference, since Ferguson’s alpha-male charisma is so part of his schtick, but Ferguson is from Glasgow. Alas for JOKES.
“To them, and to everyone who heard my remarks at the conference or has read them since, I deeply and unreservedly apologize.”
I give him points for that. The words “anyone who might have been offended” have been left at the curb and there is an actual, even if half the problem was to misrepresent him, recognition that offensive and wrong is an affront to everyone, not just to those hypersensitive hothouse flowers who aren’t tough enough to shrug off an insult that “really doesn’t represent what I really believe”.