Greenspan’s Faith: Ideology trumps Science

American novelist Walker Percy observed, “As long as I am getting rich, I feel well. It is my Presbyterian blood.”

“When a man seeks to accommodate science to a viewpoint which is derived not from science itself (however erroneous it might be) but from the outside, from alien, external interests, then I call him base.” Marx

I claim that Greenspan shares a significant responsibility for our economic collapse because he was a trusted guru who twisted the social economic theories of capitalism into an ideological form that is often referred to as laissez-fair capitalism.

A base writer is one who lacks professional integrity. A base writer is primarily, perhaps only, interested in reaching a partisan conclusion regardless of the scientific theory.

There are two types of base writers: there is the ‘hired-gun’ who has no intellectual convictions but uses her talents in the service of the highest bidder; then there is the writer with strong intellectual convictions and strong biases who uses her talents to distort facts to fit her faith.

“For Marx, then, the ‘base’ writers have no intellectual integrity…It is evident in the way they ignore counterevidence, select some and suppress other facts, twist their arguments to reach the desired conclusions, and so on.”

Marx also elaborates on another kind of apologist. The vulgar writer is a superficial philistine confining himself to the surface of society, unwilling to dig any deeper. “If there were no difference between essence and appearance, there would be no need for science…Marx argues that the task of the scientist is to analyze the phenomenal forms of an entity, elucidate its essential nature and tendencies, and use the knowledge so acquired to explain its phenomenal behavior.”

I think that Greenspan is a “base” official who is “vulgar” in his management. That is to say that Greenspan is plagued with what might be called “apologetic dread”; that truth might well turn out go be unpalatable to him. This is the dread “found not only among the economists but also among the philosophers, the historians, the political theorists and others, and further, that they may be not only conservative but also radical in their political biases.”

I think that the American culture is ideologically constituted in such an extent that whoever lacks sophisticated critical thinking skills is condemned to becoming an apologist. I also think that even those with sophisticated critical thinking skills, such as I assume Greenspan to have, are greatly influenced by a desire to be loved and respected by all apologists and uncritical society in general.

Intresting OP. I dont have much to add, but it deserves a bump.

A bit like the characteristics of groupthink?



Side note:
Did a google search for "apologetic dread", to see if it was a commonly used phrase. First hit was your post at scam.com.

Article from Washington Post

Greenspan Says He Was Wrong On Regulation
Lawmakers Blast Former Fed Chairman

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Alan Greenspan, once viewed as the infallible architect of U.S. prosperity, was called on the carpet yesterday, pilloried by a congressional committee for decisions that contributed to the financial crisis devastating world markets.

The former chairman of the Federal Reserve said the crisis had shaken his very understanding of how markets work, and agreed that certain financial derivatives should be regulated -- an idea he had long resisted.

When he stepped down as Fed chairman less than three years ago, Congress treated Greenspan as an oracle, one of the great economic statesmen of all time. Yesterday, many members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee treated him as a hostile witness.

I hear ex-Fed chairman Greenspan’s face will appear on the new $10,000 bill. – Eugene Cappuccio

Doggone it! That means I'll have to look at his face every time I buy lunch.

results oriented IMO. unless you can describe what he should have done differently and why he should have known to do it that way, i'm not sure your post means anything. what was this counterevidence that he ignored?

i don't doubt that he made errors. i also don't doubt that he was the best guy to be in position to make them.

Freud informs us the reason for this form of behavior is the tendency for humans to be suggestible and influenced by a psychic form of transference.

What do the following entities have in common: fascism, capitalism, communism, political parties, and religions? They all have a common characteristic that can be called “group mind”.

What is striking is that members of these entities often undergo a major change in behavior just by being members of such entities. Under certain conditions individuals who become members of these groups behave differently than they would as individuals. These individuals acquire the characteristics of a ‘psychological group’.

What is the nature of the ‘group mind’, i.e. the mental changes such individuals undergo as a result of becoming a group?

A bond develops much like cells which constitute a living body—group mind is more of an unconscious than a conscious force—there are motives for action that elude conscious attention—distinctiveness and individuality become group behavior based upon unconscious motives—there develops a sentiment of invincible power, anonymous and irresponsible attitudes--repressions of unconscious forces under normal situations are ignored—conscience which results from social anxiety disappear.

Contagion sets in—hypnotic order becomes prevalent—individuals sacrifice personal interest for the group interest.

Suggestibility of which contagion is a symptom leads to the lose of conscious personality—the individual follows suggestions for actions totally contradictory to person conscience—hypnotic like fascination sets in—will an discernment vanishes—direction is taken from the leader in an hypnotic like manner—the conscious personality disappears.

“Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.” Isolated, he my be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—that is, a creature acting by instinct. “He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.”

There is a lowering of intellectual ability “pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children…A group is credulous and easily influenced—the improbable seldom exists—they think in images—feelings are very simple and exaggerated—the group knows neither doubt nor uncertainty—extremes are prevalent, antipathy becomes hate and suspicion becomes certainty.

Force is king—force is respected and obeyed without question—kindness is weakness—tradition is triumphant—words have a magical power—supernatural powers are easily accepted—groups never thirst for truth, they demand illusions—the unreal receives precedence over the real—the group is an obedient herd—prestige is a source for domination, however it “is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure”.
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I have read that some consider objectivism to be a cult rather than a philosophy; I asked my self what is the difference between a philosophy and an ideology. I turned to Freud and his book “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” for my answer. I discovered that Freud had turned to the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon for an understanding of group behavior.

Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. His work on crowd psychology became important in the first half of the twentieth century. Le Bon was one of the great popularizers of theories of the unconscious at a critical moment in the formation of new theories of sociology.
English translation Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, 1922) was explicitly based on a critique of Le Bon's work. The quotes and short phrases in this post are from this book.

Its in all the papers!