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Johan Norbergi vastus Naomi Kleinile – 2:0

Naomi Klein proovis küll Johan Norbergi nime kõigest väest enda kriitikutele vastates mitte mainida, kuid rootslane ei pidanud paljuks tema repliigile üpriski üksikasjalikult reageerida:

In my paper I wondered why she provided us with neither an explanation for what this means, nor a footnote or source. Now we know, because in her response she openly admits that this is just her own summary of different (and sometimes incomparable) statistics on poverty and unemployment from a brief period and sometimes only a year from no more than four countries — Bolivia in 1987, Russia in 1996, some areas of Poland in 1993 and so on. She doesn’t even use data series, but newspaper articles and books with information on just that particular year.

Astonishingly, Naomi Klein calls this way of handling statistics and producing general conclusions on the effect of particular policies “standard practice.” Well, it might be standard practice for some Canadian leftist fanzines, but at university we usually call it “rubbish.” Not just because of the lack of data, but also of the biased choices — there is no explanation for the particular selections, it’s not that they liberalised more than others, or that they are representative, and the years chosen are not the most recent ones, or from a particular period after liberalisation. It is that she found countries and years when things were really, really bad.

The fact that Klein thinks that this is serious research is actually much more damaging for her than any of the conscious distortions that I have examined elsewhere.

Nagu Naomi Kleini postitusele viidates juba mainisin on debatti huvitav jälgida ainuüksi sellepärast, kuidas erinevad maailmavaated põrkuvad ja milliseid argumenteerimisvõtteid erinevad osapooled kasutavad. Ühel pool tuntud Kanada ajakirjanik koos abistajate armeega, teisel poole aga kannatlik ja järjekindel rootslane.

Ma ei usu, et kõigil ajakirjanikel on sarnased tendentsid, kuid miskipärast kipub nii olema, et sageli ei ole ajakirjanike kirjutatut nagu kellelgi õigus natuke kriitilisema pilguga vaadelda. Mõne illustreeriva näite otsimiseks ei tasu kaugemale vaadata kui eelmise nädala ühte postitusse, kus kommentaarides reageeris ka kritiseeritava intervjuu autor. Huvitav lugemine seegi. Järeldused jäävad aga iga lugeja enda teha  – nagu paar aastat tagasi.


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