Repeated arguments surviving contrary facts for 300 years warrant suspicion

Evidence

As Albert Hirschman once observed, when the same arguments are repeated with almost no modification for over 300 years, regardless of any contrary facts impacting them, we should do well to hold them with suspicion. In the spirit of Hirschman’s suspicion, these chapters 4 and 5, drawing from austerity’s intellectual history, offer an answer as to why it continues to dominate the minds of today’s governing and academic classes. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 267

Categorization

• XREF: Hirschman’s ‘rhetoric of reaction’ — the persistence of discredited arguments as a red flag. — connects to: Archival evidence can be cherry-picked to support dubious claims; Theory contradicting facts remains true when the facts are mystified. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 688; Extracting facts from arguments stripped medieval polemic of context
• DEFINE: Introduces the historiographic method for chapters 4-5: treating argument persistence itself as evidence.

Broader Connections

• Archival evidence can be cherry-picked to support dubious claims #corroborates (0.80)
• Extracting facts from arguments stripped medieval polemic of context #corroborates (0.75)
• Theory contradicting facts remains true when the facts are mystified. #qualifies (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 688