The Last Two Weeks in Ideas — 14MAR20
Freedom of Assembly
There is a lot of debate about our first amendment rights, but they focus mainly on freedom of speech and of the press. However, we take freedom of assembly for granted. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, “The activists are accused of organising and participating in an unofficial primary poll last July aimed at selecting the strongest candidates for a legislative council election…”
Good? Governance
The debate about what services should be provided by the government and what services should be provided by the market is an interesting and important debate. Unfortunately, it’s too often a debate about ideology with little commitment to competence in the public services we do decide to offer. There are lots of individual examples of good governance, but unfortunately they are all too often overshadowed by threads like this.
Integrating Knowledge and Debate
From Tyler Cowen: “They knew more neoclassical economics than I did, but somehow they were lifeless in their approaches and were not able to integrate the economic way of thinking with debate topics. Some remain in the profession to this day. It was important for me to learn just how much of the educated world fit into this category, one way or another.”
Is it surprising when we’re taught to memorize facts rather than use facts to develop a distinct point of view?
