Landsburg Apology

Over the past week or so, UofR (once again) has been in the press due to the moronic behavior of Steve Landsburg. I noted the fracas here. This morning the University noted that Landsburg has issued an apology.

"I am both sad and sorry that my recent blog post has distressed so many people so deeply, both on campus and off. I am particularly sad because many readers got the impression that I was endorsing rape, while my intent was to say exactly the opposite—namely that the horror of rape is so great that we should rethink accepted principles of policy analysis that might sometimes minimize that horror. This is not the place to rehash those issues, but interested readers might want to look at the follow-up post where I tried to say things more clearly. I very much wish I'd said them more clearly in the first place, and I do very much regret having caused any unnecessary offense."

Here is the report in the local paper.

There He Goes Again - Steve Landsburg Plays the Fool

"The one lesson I most want my students to learn is this: You can’t just say anything. It’s important to care about making sense. So I find it particularly galling when people violate this rule while presenting themselves to the public as economists." ~ Steve Landsburg

Last year Steve Landsburg, a faculty member in our Economics Department*, created a minor media fracas by channeling Rush Limbaugh's bigoted comments about Sandra Fluke. I commented here several times on Landsburg's sophomoric behavior.

Well, Landsburg is at it again. A short while ago he offered up this more or less incoherent blog post, which he has followed up with this typically condescending and dismissive set of rationalizations. Having offered up a conceptually flawed 'thought experiment' - one that any reasonable person would see not as intellectually intrepid but just inflammatory - Steve seems to opt for the standard 'I've been misunderstood' defense. And he then blames his audience for misunderstanding. Interesting, among the lessons I try to get students to embrace is that if someone misunderstands an argument I advance or point I make, the fault is likely mine, not theirs. The basic presumption, in other words that the burden falls on me to be clear. Not so for Landsburg, apparently.

But let's focus on substance for a moment. When I say Landsburg's initial post is conceptually flawed I have in mind such elementary  matters as failing to differentiate intentional from unintentional consequences, failing to see that rape is an act of power from which perpetrators derive 'psychic' benefits, failing to differentiate between the impact of ideas and physical assault, failing to see that in a democracy even erroneous or odd views get weighed in decision-making processes ... The post is not just offensive in its juvenile provocations, it is a mess. I would give my undergraduates maybe a C- if they submitted it in a course.

The episode has, predictably enough,  now made a splash in the press - look here, here, here, here, here, for instance. Much of the publicity is critical (mocking, even) and was initiated because some outraged students alerted The Gawker. All this criticism - public, mostly reasoned - is wholly appropriate. What is inappropriate is calling for his censure (as this on-line petition does) or disrupting Landsburg's classes. The best way to respond is to argue back in public - whether by showing just how flawed Landsburg's views are or by symbolic collective actions like this:



In this video from fall 2011 the Chancellor at UC Davis - who had whined that she felt threatened by peacefully protesting students - is shamed quite effectively. This is an episode of collective disapproval, no threat, no mayhem, simple shame mobilized to great effect.

I opened this post with a quote from another blog post by Landsburg. I think it is a lesson he needs to learn himself before imparting it to students. His posturing, his attempts at provocation, are truly embarrassing not just to the university but to himself.

Landsburg can say whatever he likes, however ignorant or offensive. But he has no expectation that anyone will treat he or his ideas seriously. He has to expect that others will respond - with arguments, mockery or silence. I hope he gets what he deserves in that regard.
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*Please note: Landsburg is hardly an intellectual heavyweight. He is an nontenured faculty member, hired because our 'real' economists think teaching undergraduates is beneath them. His writing is mostly journalistic - a sort of poor man's freakonomics. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is a mistake to think his ideas carry immense weight on campus or anywhere else.

More Silliness at U of R or, the Landsburg Fracas Continued

"Isn’t there some sort of contract violation here? If the students in class are paying to learn economics, is there any recourse that they have? Is it any different than buying a movie ticket to see Rocky IV and ending up being shown Chariots of Fire?"

That is the response of one of my colleagues, Michael Rizzo, to the fact that students showed up in the class of another colleague, Steve Landsburg, to protest the latter's idiotic attempt to channel Rush Limbaugh. First, let's be clear. Disrupting a class like this is inappropriate. Period. The students involved were wrong to do so. I will leave it to the Dean's to figure out how best to respond to the event.

But, second, what is wrong here has nothing to do with "market fundamentalist" nonsense about contract violations. This complaint would be laughable if it were not so sincerely asserted. Does Rizzo really want to compare his colleague's teaching to a couple of pretty crappy Hollywood films. He said it, folks, not me.

What is at issue is speech and context. Landsburg has a right to his ideas and a right to voice them. The protesting students do as well. But - to the best of my knowledge - Landsburg keeps his opinionating out of the classroom. He peddles his offensive views in other locales. The students ought to keep their protests out of the classroom too. That leaves open the matter of how they might more appropriately voice their dissent.
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PS: I will add that a Professor in our Business School - Ron Schmidt - has taken it upon himself to send an open letter (via an official list-serve) to the entire School deriding the University President Joel Seligman for publicly calling Landsburg out for his Limbaugh-Channeling.

Steve Landsburg (yet again)

Well, one notable fact about economists is that they live in model-land, and models are not always good at incorporating relevant features of reality. In fact, they are often best at distorting reality in ways that help us appreciate some feature of it more fully and clearly. I already have explained here and here why Steve Landsburg's inability to discriminate between the distorted world of economic models and actual life creates an intellectual and ethical mess for him.

Sometimes, though, models fail. That is especially so when they don't get the relevant matters right. Since Steve's model of reality places sex at the center of Sandra Fluke's world he gets things pretty systematically wrong. Because he was so concerned to endorse the views spouted by the sex-obsessed Rush Limbaugh, Landsburg neglected to notice this very basic feature of Sandra Fluke's initial testimony:

Fluke was not, as Limbaugh and Landsburg have suggested, "demanding" that taxpayers pay for her to have sex; her testimony was originally part of a debate about whether religious institutions should be required to provide access to contraception. Her argument focused primarily on the medical (and non-contraceptive) uses of birth control [source].

Of course, it was the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee that prevented her from testifying in the first place. They preferred to elicit the insights of a bunch of old men, mostly clerics, on the matter. No matter.

Instead of simply writing a post that said "Here are a half dozen (or three or thirty seven) reasons why contraception should not be covered by medical insurance plans," Steve felt compelled to lead with an endorsement of Limbaugh's paternalistic, sexist attack on Fluke. This led him to endorse basically the same sort of paternalistic, sexist view of Fluke as did Rush. Dumb and dumber.

Steve Landsburg - Again

Earlier today I posted on the fracas growing up around the decision of one of my colleagues at the U of R, Steve Landsburg, to offer a defense of Rush Limbaugh and his name calling. I found the case he made pretty dumb. I thought his follow up to the initial post was pretty dumb too. I still do. So I am not taking back the earlier post. But talking to people on campus today I thought more about why I find Landsburg's views dumb. And, of course, Steve has been picking the scab so to speak. So what follows are a couple more reasons.

Before proceeding, however, I think it is important to say that people, even pretty smart ones, should be allowed to say dumb things. But they also ought to expect that, when they do, others will argue back. I don't take issue, in my earlier post or here, with Landsburg's remarks about legalizing prostitution or the little toy models he trots out to develop his argument or his long, pretty much unpersuasive attempt to deflate critics. That stuff is the side show. What has sparked the reaction on campus and commentary elsewhere [1*] [2] is his effort to endorse Limbaugh without actually appearing to be as crass. I simply do not think Landsburg comes at all close to steering clear of the big pile of crap Rush stepped in.

(1) A grammatical observation: The words slut and prostitute are nouns. (Well, prostitute can be a verb, as in 'to prostitute oneself in the name of an inane ideology like libertarianism.') That surely is the way that Limbaugh used them when he claimed that Sandra Fluke is a slut and a prostitute. Steve Landsburg says this about Limbaugh's observations:

To his credit, Rush stepped in . . . with a spot-on analogy: If I can reasonably be required to pay for someone else’s sex life (absent any argument about externalities or other market failures), then I can reasonably demand to share in the benefits. His dense and humorless critics notwithstanding, I am 99% sure that Rush doesn’t actually advocate mandatory on-line sex videos. What he advocates is logical consistency and an appreciation for ethical symmetry. So do I. Color me jealous for not having thought of this analogy myself.

There’s one place where I part company with Rush, though: He wants to brand Ms. Fluke a “slut” because, he says, she’s demanding to be paid for sex. There are two things wrong here. First, the word “slut” connotes (to me at least) precisely the sort of joyous enthusiasm that would render payment superfluous. A far better word might have been “prostitute” (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) She will, as I understand it, be having sex whether she gets paid or not. Her demand is to be paid. The right word for that is something much closer to “extortionist”. Or better yet, “extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement”. Is there a single word for that?

Two points are in order. Since extortion typically requires threats or intimidation, it is hard to see how Sandra Fluke is extorting anyone. (I return to this below.) So, we are back with Limbaugh's verbiage. Second, because slut and prostitute are nouns, they are statuses we attribute to other people. Hence Limbaugh called Fluke a slut and a prostitute. They are not words we attribute to a "position." That means that the fine distinction Landsburg seeks to draw - "While Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position - which is what’s at issue here - deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty." - is pure crap. A position cannot be a whore or a hooker, a lady of the evening or a woman of ill-repute. Simply put, the dodge fails. Perhaps that makes me "dense and humorless," but I am not sure how. Unless, of course, referring to someone like Ms. Fluke as a slut or a prostitute might be defensible in this circumstance. Maybe Landsburg actually thinks so. Maybe not. I think there are good reasons why he shouldn't.

(2) A fable: Imagine a man, perhaps he is a clever economist, teaching at a rich, private University. He has a daughter or wife, or sister, or girlfriend; and his female loved-one has insurance. Indeed, she works for the same company as I and is covered by the same insurance carrier. That insurance covers contraception (among many other things). And perhaps the clever economist's female loved one takes advantage of that particular benefit. Perhaps she does not, but thinks she might, at some future time, do so.

Now, insurance plans are ways of pooling risk, in this case of various medical conditions including, say, pregnancy and childbirth. I, an unmarried man with only male children, may never actually use the contraception benefit. But, because I have to pay the same premium regardless of whether or not I do take advantage of it, some small part of my premium goes toward funding the contraception benefit. Hence, some part of my premium is going to fund the clever economist's female loved one's access to contraception. Similarly, some part of my premium will be going to underwrite the costs incurred by a lot of other people for a lot of other medical services of which I might or might not ever need to avail myself.

But let's stick to the contraception case. Does the fact that I am paying for the clever economist's female loved one's contraception, and hence for her ability to have sex without risk of pregnancy (actually reduced risk, since no contraception is 100% effective as far as I know) make her a slut or a prostitute? After all what is going on is third party payment for sexual activity. Why am I not free to harangue the clever economist's female loved one - and other women in similar circumstances - for not bearing the entire cost of their sexual activity, actual and/or potential? Am I not justified in muttering Slut! Whore! as I pass the clever economist's female loved on the street or at the market?

Of course no one is making me buy medical insurance. Indeed, the woman in question is not an extortionist precisely because she is not coercing me in any way whatsoever. Nor is she coercing the insurance carrier our employer contracts with. Nor is she coercing our employer (even though, as a member of the status of women in the company committee, she is an articulate, even ardent advocate for insuring that reproductive health care and contraception are covered in the standard insurance package with no special riders.) Nevertheless, she is quite clearly getting me - even if not intentionally - and our male co-workers to subsidize the coverage available to she and other female employees. Finding that difficult to accept, I might simply opt out of insurance. I might simply think that, should I need medical attention, I will go to the emergency room and get it without paying. The hospital is legally prohibited from turning me away. (The prospect of turning the uninsured away from medical providers is the sort of thing that elicited jeers and cheers at one of the Republican debates earlier this season.) And I figure I am old enough to be dead before the hospital would ever get it together to go to court to collect the debt, let alone collect a settlement. My decision would have an analogous effect to what I've sketched above. Someone else would be paying (via higher insurance premiums, higher hospital charges, or whatever) for my care or, if I was lucky enough to never need any, for my risk taking.

There are a lot of details left out here. (Note, for example, the ridiculous assumption that contraception is solely a women's concern. Men, after all, need not think about such things at all. Note the ridiculous assumption that shifting the time of pregnancy and childbirth might, in many instances, be an intelligent or ethical thing to do.) After all, this is a fable. And fables have morals. Here the moral is that calling the clever economist's female loved one a slut or a prostitute in this case seems pretty much wholly out of place. That is because insurance pools risk in order to compensate for the inability to make a simpler sort of market for medical care (or other quite risky eventualities).

The moral could be stated more bluntly: in the circumstances sketched in this fable my calling the clever economist's female loved one a slut or a prostitute would make me a jerk, perhaps even an asshole. Hence my view of Rush Limbaugh. I'll withhold judgment on those who are "jealous" of his reasoning and eloquence. Likewise I will withhold judgement on those who agree with the jealous 100%.
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* In The Democrat and Chronicle report, Landsburg is quoted as complaining that Fluke never seriously engaged in argument about her position. He seems to have forgotten that the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee prevented her from testifying at recent Congressional hearings, and hence being confronted with opposing views.

P.S.: Here is Landsburg's lament about being misunderstood and misrepresented.

On Steve Lansburg

I hardly am a fan of Rush Limbaugh. His recent bad behavior simply confirms my assessment. Turns out that calling Sandra Fluke a slut and prostitute are just the tip of the iceberg; he actually had a multi-day rant about she and her imagined proclivities. And then he offered a half-hearted apology. (I actually don't give a hoot about such apologies. They are empty ritual.) He is losing advertisers in droves. Good. The Republican elite has, predictably enough, basically stood by mumbling. To his credit Obama stepped up.

Now, one of my colleagues at the University of Rochester has decided he really needed to offer his insights into the debacle. Steve Landsburg, economist and peddler of opinion, has defended Limbaugh's language as "analytically astute." You can find a report here at the WSJ. Landsburg's own posts are here and here. The President of the University has made clear his views on Landsburg's screeds. According to the WSJ report, Landsburg insists:

“[While] Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position — which is what’s at issue here — deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered."

Actually, it is Landsburg who deserves the derision. His primary mistake? Like many economists he mistakes the real world for the fictions captured in economic models. The agents who populate such models are sociopaths. Literally. They lack moral sense. They lack emotion. They are hyper-rational. All that may be - actually it is - useful in making economic models, which are meant to explore the conception of narrow instrumental rationality. But in actual life, such characteristics reflect a genuine tone-deafness. It is just the sort of tone-deafness that we see in sociopaths. Landsburg seems unable to differentiate between living in his textbook and living in the world of actual people. (Do you think of your children as externalities? Do you talk about sex in terms of getting 'the incentives right'? Do you tell that to your kids or your actual or potential partners?) In his various opinion-makings, Landsburg seems to present such thinking as a virtue. That is more than reason enough to take a pass on his various writings.

If Landsburg is as concerned with consistency as he suggests, perhaps he might entertain the notion that one way of treating people with respect entails leaving them to make choices for themselves. Contraception is just a tool for allowing such choice. And calling people bad names when they make choices you don't like. Well, that is not respecting them.

It is easy to anticipate Landsburg's retort. He will point to his gambit of trying to differentiate Sandra Fluke and 'her position.' That is pretty weak tea even for an economist. It amounts to saying "I have nothing against you, it is simply that I don't like what you think or say." Given that speech is action, one is culpable or laudable for what one says just as for what one does. We may not want to toss you in jail for speaking (although there are some who evince no qualms on that score), but I assure you that there are views that make me consider someone an ass or a jerk. How do you reach that sort of conclusion and 'not have anything against' the person you attach those labels to? Good luck with that Steve. In the actual world, if not in some economic model of the world, pretending that for 'analytical' purposes you can treat - and speak publicly of - some actual person as a whore or a slut without demeaning them is an intellectual and ethical failing.