You Don't Understand Our Culture By Bryan Caplan

My colleague and dear friend Robin Hanson has once again made the world of social media very angry. His response is to urge people to focus on his actual statements, not speculate about his “true motives.”

Let us instead revert back to the traditional intellectual standard: respond most to what people say, and don’t stretch too hard to infer what you think they mean in scattered hints of what they’ve said and done.

This is fine as far as it goes, but I sense a deeper problem. Critics often scold GMU econ bloggers for violating shared cultural norms. At the meta level, my response is: The critics presume we’re part of their culture. Frankly, we’re not. We have our own folkways, our own norms. These critics just don’t understand our culture.

What are the key differences between GMU econ blogger culture and mainstream intellectual culture? For starters:

How broad and deep is GMU blogger culture, really? It’s a continuum. Tyler Cowen might even claim to disagree with everything I just said… but he still exemplifies most of it. The important thing to know is that our distinct culture is thriving in your midst. We aren’t numerous, but we are a proud people. So please show some cultural sensitivity…