Academic

JACK SHAFER CHARGES A ?CORRUPTING EFFECT? from The Atlantic?s ?salons.? Plus, what they could learn?

By Glenn Reynolds

JACK SHAFER CHARGES A “CORRUPTING EFFECT” from The Atlantic’s “salons.” Plus, what they could learn from the CATO Institute.

But I’m not so sure. Erving Goffman wrote years ago about the importance of a “backstage” where people could say things that needed to be said, but in a non-public way. That backstage has steadily vanished ever since, a result of technology and changing mores. Maybe that’s good, but maybe we need a backstage space somewhere. Buck-raking off-the-record dinners may not be the way to do it, but Shafer’s insistence that everything be on the record seems wrong, too.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on July 07, 2009 (boomark / email).