[lbo-talk] Atrios on Brad Delong's Reality-Based Technocrats

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Tue Sep 5 13:53:40 PDT 2006


At around 3/9/06 11:31 pm, joanna wrote:
> "The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among
> the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that
> attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to
> create an effective governing coalition."
>
> I wonder what "reality-based" is a euphemism for; I suspect it's TINA.
>
> But if I may paraphrase the above: "First we (white wonks who have made
> it to the top of the meritocracy) agree on what to do, then we spin it
> in a way that the stupider ideologues can understand and use, so that
> the even stupider populace can be led to believe that they are freely
> choosing their fate."
>

What was amusing to me was Atrios/Eschaton/Duncan-Black/whatever criticising DeLong... what's the phrase... jostling for the centre? I have argued with DeLong here and on LBO and though in his writings he betrays the desire to have already arrived, he seems rational and capable and interested in figuring out the "right" answer (by "right" I mean the answer that will satisfy the most). And there are interpretations of the quoted DeLong text that I think can do more justice to him (I will offer one such interpretation shortly, if time permits).

What is the alternative? Duncan Black and the "netroots"? Aren't they (the political blog-stars, minus Billmon) the new masters of studied centrism, if not outright triangulation?

I think the real choice is not between ideologues of some stripe (leftist revolutionaries or what-have-you) and the reality-based centrists (right and left) such as DeLong. The choice is between one of two centrisms: meritocracy based academic wonkery (DeLong) and personality or opinion based party-line ranting (the "netroots").

Hey, I am glad to sit on the sidelines and watch this one for the amusement, since I believe neither of these two is going to provide long-term, large scale solutions, but if you want to force me to bet, I will put my money on DeLong, while I wait for the real thinkers to make an appearance.

--ravi

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