In the post Thank you Mr Mankiw over at Crooked Timber there are some wonderful points being made about Economists and elitism in the field.

Ahh go on then, try and tell me that Mankiw’s just engaging in a little bit of humour (possibly even a self-deprecating sigh at the pomposity of the average economist). No sale. This is how the average professional economist thinks of you lot, for all that you pay his wages; you’re a bunch of mugs who are incapable of understanding anything and just react like children to whatever’s dangled in front of your nose. It’s another of the many scandals of the profession, it is taught in the universities, and you can see it in more or less every popular book entitled something like “Fuckyounomics: How Nobody In The World Knows Jack Shit Except Economists”.

How do we deal with the natural tendency of those who spend large portions of their time actually studying the complexities and nuances of the world not being able to understand the average person who works hard and spends their free time doing things other than deep thinking.

How do we build alliances, and more importantly create open lines of communication--where experts have an opportunity to teach what they've learned? It always seems to degrade down to condescension and perjorative statements of contempt.

I catch myself doing it from time to time--but I recognize how self-defeating this is for anyone who truly wants to add to the growth of postive changes that are possible within the complex social interaction of living in a world of others.