I’ve been following the Cato symposium on globalization and I have come to the same conclusion as Glenn Reynolds: Kuttner has lost it.
From the very beginning, the divide in thinking between the left and the right was clear. Johann Norberg was talking about ideas, and Kuttner was attacking Norberg personally. It wasn’t enough to argue the facts, but Kuttner had to throw an ad hominem at every point.
Let me tell you something from years of debate – if the other side has to resort to cheap shots, that means they’re not very secure in what they’re saying. Kuttner has some legitimate arguments, but they’re no less based on dogma than Norberg, and Norberg didn’t have to resort to name-calling to get his point across.
It appears that the left has little left in their intellectual arsenal other than name calling these days. Unfortunate that the marketplace of ideas is rapidly becoming a monopoly due to the poor quality of the intellectual products of the left.
