Besides
the fact that all I’ve got is a bachelor’s degree from a third-tier
state university, there’s also the problem that I don’t think it’s
necessary to
apologize for saying bad things about dead bisexual British economists, which is now apparently taboo. You can badmouth dead people or defame the British or libel an economist
unless any of them happen to be bisexual, in which case, they are beyond reproach.
A friend on Twitter informs me that John Maynard Keynes was an
anti-Semite
who was also head of the British Eugenics Society, which under ordinary
liberal custom would be enough to render someone historically
radioactive. However it seems the new rule is that being gay — or, as
was apparently the case with Keynes, being nominally bisexual — is
sufficient to silence all criticism.
Niall Ferguson says, in effect, “John Maynard Keynes was a bad economist who was wrong about everything and also,
he was gay, which might be relevant to the problem.”
OUTRAGE!
Well, here you go:
Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer and a cannibal, and also,
he was gay, which might be relevant to the problem.
Good-bye, Harvard faculty appointment!
UPDATE: My larger point — and if
Ken at Popehat didn’t see this,
no one else can be blamed for missing it — is to wonder why this
particular molehill has become a peak in the Himalayas. The
Ferguson/Keynes controversy was the
top thread at Memeorandum, as if it were the most important thing that happened Saturday.
Does this make any sense? Why was this academic controversy magnified out of all proportion? Is necrohomophobia — fear of dead homosexuals — really such a serious problem in America? One of the commenters takes this jab at me:
Robert Stacy McCain is a simple-minded, hateful person, and also, he wears stupid hats, which might be relevant to the problem.
Simple-minded and hateful — and why? Because I did not rush to join the online lynch-mob of ritual denunciation?
It’s this aspect, redolent of the Moscow Show Trials, that alarms me. Also, how dare you call my hat stupid, you hat-hater!
These are the jokes, people. Lighten the hell up.