January 28, 2004

And now for something actually pretty similar

Posted by Curt at 08:11 PM in Economics | TrackBack

It’s interesting, because I stumbled across a somewhat related article in the same issue of Wired, this one about outsourcing to India. Of course, everyone knows the essence of the issue, even the protectionists seem to have largely abandoned any pretensions to rational argument, and indeed the intellectual vulgarity of their argument is rather breathtaking even if, like me, one never really accepted the notion that any real transformative evolution in anything other than a rhetorical sense has occured in American attitudes since the end of our official political isolationism (more or less) 60 years ago. The obvious inevitability of this economic internationalization almost disappoints me, for the protectionist delusions hardly even seem to need the shattering. The other striking feature of the article is the truly invigorating effect of unabashed bias and even, gasp, argumentation on the part of the writer of an ostensibly investigative article. Of course, it surely helps that I agree with the agenda that the writer is advancing, but even the remaining fervent supporters of “objective” reporting cannot fail to notice how much more exciting and stimulating is an interview in which the interviewer begins arguing with the interviewee and confronting her with the intellectual fatuousness of her position, rather than simply docilely accepting the warring soundbites of ideological opponents and then juxtaposing them without comment. It seems to me that comprehension of most issues of this sort is fundamentally dialectical, and one needs to get a feel for the arguments and counter-arguments in order to actually understand the issue. This is the great failing of the journalistic philosophy of superficial objectivity. That is why I so enjoy posting on this site—instant feedback. However, in this case, I hardly feel that this particular argument even requires that effort: economic protectionism is entirely intellectually indefensible from any perspective. I detect a strong note of pity in the author’s description of the anti-outsourcing activists.

Comments

end of our official political isolationism (more or less) 60 years ago

US involvement in WWI and the League of Nations was isolationist?

Posted by: shonk at January 28, 2004 10:50 PM
Trackback from Catallarchy.net
January 29, 2004 04:56 PM
The Outsourcing Blues
Excerpt: Curt at Selling Waves again does my work for me in pointing out another great article in Wired about free trade, this time in the context of the outsourcing of IT jobs to India. The author of the article, Dan...

You will recall, however, that Congress did not even ratify the American-sponsored League of Nations, and that Charles Lindbergh remained a national hero up until at least 1938. Granted the government was somewhat more comfortable with the rhetorical contradictions of "liberating" the Spanish colonies Puerto Rico and the Philippines (and Cuba, more or less) and then, well, colonizing them, but the United States did not actually agree to participate officially in a real system of geopolitical alliances (i.e. NATO and whatever the Pacific equivalent was called, and even I suppose the UN) until after WWII.

Posted by: Curt at January 29, 2004 08:55 PM

This is truly great! Take it from the master of flawed argument

Posted by: Enter Grudge at January 16, 2005 07:51 PM