“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.” ― St. Anthony the Great
My gossipers believe that I am suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia”, when I talk about anarchism. My colleagues believe that I must be “banned” from teaching, because they “believe” that I am suffering from “oppositional defiant disorder”. My students believe that I am “abnormal”, when I question the status quo. My maternal uncle believes that I am not “academically qualified” to criticize Dr. Arvind Subramanian, because I am not done with PhD.
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”― Aldous Huxley
I don’t know how “schizophrenic” my schizophrenia is, but whoever claims that they are “cognitively clean” are actually the real schizophrenic proponents of all forms of schizophrenia. Their belief in “mainstream” theories, specially “economics”, does not represent the world as it is. This is due to their blind faith in their “self-contradictory” circular logic. They believe that government is the “best manager” of economics, without realizing that it is “scientifically” worst. Other than their “empirical” methodologies, their conclusions are “non sequitur”. Their “modern economics” have increasingly managed to block the employment of “sensible economics” in university economics-departments and also denied it the opportunities to publish in so-called peer-reviewed “professional” journals. They also have narrowed the economics curriculum that universities offer students. At the same time. they have increasingly formalized their “mathematical theories”, making it progressively irrelevant to understanding economic reality. And, now, they are even banishing economic history and the history of economic thought from the curriculum. In the past few months, in my professional life, I have been told by “them” to also obey with the “civility box” and proceed with the constructive activities because teaching non-keynesian economics is a destructive activity.
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” ― Murray N. Rothbard
I have told them many times that their economic theories aren’t “real” economics, because it doesn’t apply deductive reasoning. Their theories are very mystical and can do “greater” damage to mankind. I guess it is already happening, because it undermines the market processes, spontaneous order and praxeology. They call themselves “economists” and have – as a group – deluded themselves into believing that all you need for an exact science is mathematics, and never mind about whether the symbols used refer quantitatively to the real world. What began as an indulgence became an addiction, leading to a collective fantasy of scientific achievement where in most cases none exists. To preserve their illusions, they have found it increasingly necessary to isolate themselves from non-believers like me.
“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Modern economics is indeed suffering from schizophrenia. Economics has increasingly become a pseudo-intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigor is everything and practical relevance is nothing. (Read: Why I’m not an economist) Economics was once condemned as “the dismal science”, but the dismal science of yesterday was a lot less dismal than the soporific scholasticism of today.
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