title: the email that got john podesta hacked
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  the following excerpt is adapted from mendenhalls review of deirdre mccloskeys book bourgeois equality the original review which appeared in the quarterly journal of austrian economics is available here 
  if its true that wayne booth inspired deirdre mccloskeys interest in the study of rhetoric then its also true  happily in my view  that mccloskey has refused to mimic booths programmatic formulaic methods and boorish insistence on prosaic succinctness bourgeois equality is mccloskeys third volume in a monumental trilogy that began with the bourgeois virtues  and bourgeois dignity  each published by the university of chicago press this latest volume is a big book alike in kind but not in theme to jacques barzuns from dawn to decadence  camille paglias sexual personae  or herald bermans law and revolution  and law and revolution ii  its meandering and personal blending scholarship with an essayistic style that recalls montaigne or emerson 
  mccloskeys elastic arguments are shaped by informal narrative and enlivened by her plain and playful voice at times humorous rambling and deliberately erratic she gives the distinct impression that shes simply telling a story one that happens to validate a thesis shes having fun imagine phillip lopate articulating economic history mccloskey is in this regard a latterday edward gibbon adopting a mode and persona thats currently unfashionable among mainstream historians except that shes more lighthearted than gibbon and unashamedly optimistic 
  mccloskeys elastic arguments are shaped by informal narrative and enlivened by her plain and playful voice at times humorous rambling and deliberately erratic she gives the distinct impression that shes simply telling a story one that happens to validate a thesis shes having fun imagine phillip lopate articulating economic history mccloskey is in this regard a latterday edward gibbon adopting a mode and persona thats currently unfashionable among mainstream historians except that shes more lighthearted than gibbon and unashamedly optimistic 
  writing with an air of confidence mccloskey submits contra thomas piketty that ideas and ideology  not capital accumulation or material resources  have caused widespread economic development since  worldwide material wealth has increased and proliferated the quality of life in poor countries has risen  even if it remains unequal to that of more prosperous countries and the typical human being now enjoys access to the food goods services medicine and healthcare that in earlier centuries were available to only a select few in the richest parts of the globe the transition from poverty to wealth was occasioned by shifting rhetoric that reflected an emerging ethical consensus the rhetoricalethical change involved peoples attitudes toward other humans p xxiii namely the recognition of shared experience and sympathy as adam smith stated in the theory of moral sentiments attributing human progress to ideas enables mccloskey to advocate the norms and principles that facilitated economic growth and social improvement eg class mobility and fluidity while generating extensive prosperity thus her project is at once scholarly and tendentious a study of the conditions and principles that in turn she promotes 
  she argues that commercialism flourished in the eighteenth century under the influence of ideas  such as human equality of liberty in law and of dignity and esteem p xxix  that were packaged in memorable rhetoric and aesthetics not matter mainly but ideas caused the great enrichment p  in other words the original and sustaining causes of the modern world  were ethical not material and they included the new and liberal economic idea of liberty for ordinary people and the new and democratic social idea of dignity for them p xxxi this thesis about liberty and dignity is clear and unmistakable if only because it is repetitive mccloskey has a habit of reminding readersin case you missed her point the first second or fiftyseventh time aroundthat the causes of the industrial revolution and the great enrichment were ideas not narrowly economic or political or legal changes p  she maintains to this end that the scottish enlightenment succeeded in combining the concepts of liberty and dignity into a desirable form of equalitynot equality of outcomes of course but of opportunity and treatment under the law and the scottish model to her mind stands in contradistinction to the french example of centralized topdown codification command planning and design 
  a perennial villain lurks in the pages of her history the clerisy which is an appendage of the bourgeoisie p  and often dubbed the elite in regular parlance mccloskey calls the clerisy the sons of bourgeois fathers p xvii and neoaristocratic p  the clerisy includes those artists intellectuals journalists professionals and bureaucrats who resent the commercial and bettering bourgeoisie p xvi the clerisy seeks in different ways at different times to extinguish unfettered competition with exclusive illiberal irrevocable grants and privileges that are odious to free society and offensive to the rights of average consumers early on says mccloskey referring to the period in europe after the revolutionary year  the clerisy began to declare that ordinary people are misled in trading and so require expert protection and supervision p  the clerisy since then has been characterized by paternalism and a sense of superiority 
  because the clerisy is shapeshifting assuming various forms from time to time and place to place its a tough concept to pin down the word clerisy does not appear in the books index to permit further scrutiny by contrast mccloskeys general arguments are easy to follow because the book is separated into parts with questions as their titles subparts consisting of onesentence headings answer those questions 
  in a massive tour de force such as this readers are bound to take issue with certain interpretive claims historians will find mccloskeys summaries to be too breezy even libertarians will accuse her of overlooking manifest wrongs that occurred during the periods she surveys my complaints are few but severe for instance mccloskey is i believe either careless or mistaken to announce that during the nineteenth and early twentieth century under the influence of a version of science in a territory thats never specifically identified the right seized upon social darwinism and eugenics to devalue the liberty and dignity of ordinary people and to elevate the nations mission above the mere individual person recommending for example colonialism and compulsory sterilization and the cleansing power of war p xviii 
  lets hope that its innocent negligence rather than willful distortion that underlies this odd unqualified categorical assertion adam cohens imbeciles  and thomas c leonards illiberal reformers  describe how in the united states social darwinism and eugenics were adopted primarily though not exclusively by the left not the right these recent books come on the heels of several scholarly treatments of this subject thomas m shapiros population control politics  philip r reillys the surgical solution  joel braslows mental ills and bodily cures  wendy klines building a better race  stefan kuhls the nazi connection  nancy ordovers american eugenics  christine rosens preaching eugenics  christina cogdells eugenic design  gregory michael dorrs segregations science  paul a lombardos edition a century of eugenics in america  and alexander minna sterns eugenic nation  these represent only a small sampling 
  is mccloskey unware of these texts probably not she reviewed leonards book for reason although she did so after her own book reached press at any rate would she have us believe that emma goldman george bernard shaw eugene debs marie stopes margaret sanger john maynard keynes lester ward and w e b du bois were eugenicist agitators for the political right if so she should supply her definition of right since it would go against commonly accepted meanings on the matter of colonialism and war selfidentified members of the old right such as albert jay nock john flynn and senator robert taft advocated precisely the opposite of what mccloskey characterizes as right these men opposed among other things military interventionism and adventurism the trouble is that mccloskeys muddying of the signifiers left and right comes so early in the bookin the exordium that readers may lose trust in her question her credibility and begin to suspect the labels and arguments in her later chapters 
  other undefined terms only make matters worse ensuring that mccloskey will alienate many academics who as a class are already inclined to reject her libertarian premises she throws around the term romanticism as if its referent were eminently clear and uncontested a conservative and romantic vision p xviii science fiction and horror fiction are  offshoots of romanticism p  jane austen is not a romantic novelist  because she does not take art as a model for life and does not elevate the artist to a lonely pinnacle of heroism or worship of the middle ages or adopt any of the other antibourgeois themes of novalis franz brentano sir walter scott and later romantics p  romanticism around  revived talk of hope and faith and a love for art or nature or the revolution as a necessary transcendent in peoples lives p  romantic candor p  the late eighteenthcentury romantic literary critics in england had no idea what john milton was on about sic because they had set aside the rigorously calvinist theology that structured his poetry p  the nationalist tradition of romantic writing of history p  romantic  hostilities to  democratic rhetoric p  in the eighteenth century  the idea of autonomy triumphed at any rate among the progressive clerisy and then became a leading romantic idea á la victor hugo p  and the romantic conservative thomas carlyle p  
  to allege that the clerisy was thrilled by the romantic radicalism of books like mein kampf or what is to be done p xviii is also recklessly to associate the philosophies of say keats or coleridge or wordsworth with the exterminatory fantasies of hitler and lenin mccloskey might have guarded against this misleading conflation by distinguishing german idealism or contextualizing hegel or by being more vigilant with diction and definition her loose language will leave some experts i do not profess to be one scratching or shaking their heads and more problematic some nonexperts with misconceptions and misplaced targets of enmity one imagines the overeager and wellmeaning undergraduate having read bourgeois equality setting out to demonize william blake or destroy the reputation of percy shelly about whom paul cantor has written judiciously wouldnt originality imagination creativity and individualismwidely accepted markers of romanticismappeal to mccloskey yet her unconditionally derogatory treatment of romanticismwhich she portrays as a fixed monolithic selfevident thingundermines aspects of that fluctuating movement period style culture and attitude that are or seem to be consistent with her weltanschauung 
  but i protest too much these complaints should not diminish what mccloskey has accomplished would that we had more grand studies that mapped ideas and traced influences across cultures communities and eras mccloskey takes the long view as we all should her focus on rhetoric is crucial to the future of liberty if given the technological advances we have made the work we do will be more and more about decisions and persuading others to agree changing minds and less and less about implementation by hand p  equally significant is her embrace of humanomicsdefined as the story of a complete human being with her ethics and language and upbringing p xxwhich materializes in casual references to henrik ibsens plays challenges to the depiction of john milton as a lonely poet in a garret writing merely to the starry heavens p  analyses of jane austens novels and portrayals of elizabethan england her historical and narrative arc enables us to contextualize our own moment with all of its troubles and possibilities 
  best of all her book is inspiring and exhilarating and brimming with rousing imperatives and moving calls to action let us then she says at one point not reject the blessings of economic growth on account of planning or pessimism the busybody if wellintentioned rationalism of some voices of the french enlightenment or the adolescent if charming doubts of some voices of the german romantic movement fashionable though both attitudes have long been among the clerisy as rational optimists let us celebrate the great enrichment and the rhetorical changes in freer societies that caused it p  at another point she encourages her audience to guard against both cynicism and utopianism p  and elsewhere to heed tradetested cooperation competition and conservation in the right mix p  these little nudges lend her credibility insofar as they reveal her true colors as it were and demonstrate that she is not attemptingas is the academic wontto hide her prejudices and conceal her beliefs behind pretended objectivities 
  poverty is relative and hence permanent and ineradicable despite mccloskeys claim that we can end poverty p  if tomorrow we woke up and the wealth of each living person were magically to multiply twentyfoldeven fiftyfoldthere would still be people at the bottom the quality of life at the bottom however would be vastly improved the current manifestation of global poverty shows how far we as a species have advanced in the last few centuries mccloskey is right we should pursue the ideas that accelerated and achieved human flourishing that demonstrably brought people out of distress and destitution hard sciences and mathematical models are insufficient in themselves to convey the magnitude and splendor of these ideas and their accomplishments hence we should welcome and produce more books like mccloskeys that undertake a rhetoricalethical revaluation to both examine and celebrate a society of open inquiry one which not only depends on rhetoric in its politics and in its science and in its economy but which also yields intellectual creativity and political freedom p  in mccloskeys approach economics and the humanities are not mutually exclusive rather they are mutually illuminating and in fact indispensably and inextricably tied an economics that forsakes the dignity of the human person and his capacity for creativity and aesthetics does so at its own peril and to its own disgrace all economics is at its core humanomics we could do without the latter term if we understood the former newsletter sign up get the latest breaking news  specials from alex jones and the infowars crew related articles