An Open Letter to the Harvard Community [re comment on John Maynard Keynes]

Harvard Crimson ^ | May 3, 2013 | Niall Ferguson

[Enchante]

.... I was duly attacked for my remarks and offered an immediate and unqualified apology. But this did not suffice for some critics, who insisted that I was guilty not just of stupidity but also of homophobia. I have no doubt that at least some students were influenced by these allegations. Nobody would want to study with a bigot. I therefore owe it to students—former and prospective—to make it unambiguously clear that I am no such thing.....

[Enchante]

This is from a month ago but is interesting for all it represents -- a prominent academic feeling compelled to issue a public apology for daring to suggest that famed liberal economist J. M. Keynes might have been in any way influenced in his economic/political views by his homosexuality.

Sad to see that such an apology is even given, since what Ferguson suggested is a perfectly reasonable point for discussion. As a matter of fact, Keynes is noted for introducing a massive emphasis upon the present, upon current consumption. It is certainly reasonable to inquire whether he had any biases and predilections which favored current pleasure over the "long run".... when he is noted for his dismissive quip about the future, "in the long run we are all dead."

[Enchante]

Ferguson manages to work in some items which undermine the whole point of this “apology” exercise, such as that Keynes lusted for a prominent German banker at the time of the Versailles treaty and that attraction may have affected Keynes in his disdain for the Versailles Treaty.

There are certainly good reasons to criticize the Versailles Treaty and the idea of a punitive peace which did later help to give rise to Hitler and the Nazis. However, it is curious that Ferguson works in the point about Keynes and the German banker while supposedly “apologizing” for associating Keynes’ views with his homosexuality.

[Uncle Miltie]

If Keynesianism worked, the U.S. and Japan would have roaring growth and miniscule unemployment.

Keynesianism is only a fig leaf for Big Government spending.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Harvard Square/Cambridge has apparently grown soft over the years.

In my day,Fergie would have been lynched : )

[Carry_Okie]

in the long run we are all dead

And then, thanks to Keynes, our starving children get to bury us.

[Sherman Logan]

There are certainly good reasons to criticize the Versailles Treaty and the idea of a punitive peace

You bet.

Basic rule after winning a war. Either crush your enemies so thoroughly they will never be able to rise again, or make friends of them as best you can. The Romans were very good at both.

But for heaven's sake don't impose humiliating conditions without destroying their ability to take effective offense. Which of course is what the VT did.

[eddie willers]

I wish some people would just say, “piss off” and not say another word.

[Ancient Wonderboy]

I agree - BUT - you missed the most illuminating part of this “apology ... that being the RESPONSES at the bottom of his “apology” from students who, of course, held zero interest in what he said and continued on in their hatred and desire to hang ‘em high.

There can be no more despicable and vile group alive today - including Jihadists - than are the gay gestaop troopers.

[Zeta Beam]

Ferguson manages to work in some items which undermine the whole point of this “apology” exercise, such as that Keynes lusted for a prominent German banker at the time of the Versailles treaty and that attraction may have affected Keynes in his disdain for the Versailles Treaty.
There are certainly good reasons to criticize the Versailles Treaty and the idea of a punitive peace which did later help to give rise to Hitler and the Nazis. However, it is curious that Ferguson works in the point about Keynes and the German banker while supposedly “apologizing” for associating Keynes’ views with his homosexuality.

A classic example of the "I'm sorry that you're such a loser" variety of "apology".

[FredZarguna]

Keynes was known throughout the academic world as a homosexual; at Cambridge he was referred to as the "Queen of Kings." An observation that a childless homosexual might not care particularly about the next generation is not shocking, and it is clear that based on Keynes reply that whatever his motivations might have been, he did not indeed care about the next generation.

Keynes answer was glib, and like all glib answers was clever, meretricious, and intended to distract from actually answering a profound question. It parades the full silliness of liberalism, which, at its core is about stealing (money, talent, honor, ...) from others -- even those not yet born, if necessary. Apologizing for a statement that liberalism is hedonistic and liberal homosexuals are the most hedonistic of liberals is absurd.

He should not have apologized to begin with. He should stop apologizing now.

[Raycpa]

The man managed attack both gays and liberal economic policy in one fell swoop by simply connecting them.

[RightOnTheBorder]

IIRC Keynes was known to frequent the dirt poor areas of Northern Africa and Eastern Europe in search of lower prices on hotel rooms and male child prostitutes. I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption that a monster like that would want the world to be poorer in order to increase the number or places in which he could indulge in his evil.

[BfloGuy]

I have regularly written and spoken about Keynes, who had one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.

How can someone be called "brilliant" when he got virtually everything about economics wrong? Inquisitive? Perhaps. Witty, pithy? Probably. Knowledgable of history. A qualified yes.

But intelligence is the ability to set aside one's prejudices and see reality for what it is. If he believed what he wrote, then he failed the test. I'm tired of crediting the undeserving with "brilliance".

[1010RD]

Keynes did not get virtually everything about economics wrong.

[lentulusgracchus]

... a prominent academic feeling compelled to issue a public apology for daring to suggest that famed liberal economist J. M. Keynes might have been in any way influenced in his economic/political views by his homosexuality.

I can almost guarantee you he was.

Six hundred homosexual attorneys worked for 30 years to get sodomy declared legal and laws against it unconstitutional (in the face of Bowers vs. Hardwick [1986] which said differently), and they worked for 18 years to force the Boy Scouts USA to capitulate and say that homosexuals are just as "morally straight" as boys from good homes who are brought up straight, and to admit homosexuals to the BSA against the BSA's own charter and its leadership's experience and better judgment.

They also worked for years on first dreaming up ex nihilo, and then to require, by the workings of a massive political cabal and media conspiracy and campaign, the 97% straight majority to kiss their asses over, the concept of "gay marriage" </cant and b.s.>, which was never and is not now an honest proposition, but a frontal intellectual and moral attack on normal human sexuality, morals, and the institution of matrimony.

Consider that, and then sell me the idea that Keynes wasn't just as completely self-defined by his homosexuality as those hundreds of homosexual lawyers and "movement gays".