The Hardest Thing to Learn

I don't know how it is in other subject areas. This is about writing about the economy.

Everybody has experience with the economy, and everybody knows quite a lot about it. But not everybody studies it and does graphs and like that all the time, like I do. So I guess I tend to look at things different than most people.

I never hesitate to compare what I think to what anyone else thinks -- Paul Krugman or Adam Smith or anybody. How else am I gonna learn more about these ideas?

But most people don't do that, apparently. Most people decide whose ideas they like best, and they adopt not so much the ideas as the the person whose ideas they are.

I see this most often when I am critical of Krugman. No matter how small the difference between my ideas and his, when I point out the difference people immediately rise to the defense of Paul Krugman.

It always catches me by surprise, because I'm not talking about Paul Krugman. I'm talking about the economy. But it happens again and again, and not only to me. I've seen the same thing on other blogs.

Here's a little irony for ya. If I write a lot about Krugman's ideas, it is because I like them a lot. I am sure -- I am positive -- that the people who jump to defend Krugman against my attacks are totally unaware of this, unaware that I am doing nothing more than finessing his ideas.

Anyway, they're not attacks. They're comparisons.

Nevertheless, that's how people are. I would do better not to attempt to make my writing interesting by "challenging" Krugman.

Hard to learn: People don't identify with ideas. People identify with people.

Pruning

Apparently when I write, I say the same thing in different ways.

When I'm reviewing my work and it seems confusing, very often I can solve the problem by saving the best version of a duplicated thought, and pruning away the other.