"You May Find Yourself Living In A Shotgun Shack...You May Find Yourself In A Beautiful House With A Beautiful Wife"*

I ate lunch with a professor today. We did not talk economics. We talked football.

He commented that big time football universities do not have great academics. We spent the next ten minutes trying to find counter-examples. This was a positive exercise. We never discussed why football programs and academics are mutually exclusive. We never discussed how football programs should fit into the university setting. Those questions do not matter to positivists. (I am surprised one of us didn't blurt "there might be a paper in this.")

John Maynard Keynes said "in the-long run, we are all dead." Keynes convinced the Western world that the economy could be controlled by positive philosophers. Recessions require government spending. We are all dead, therefore, live today and worry about the future when it gets here.

His statement is true, eventually, we are all dead. His logic satisfies the positivists.

But, our progeny will not be dead in the long-run. How long is the long-run? Are we really dead? The normativist asks what should we do? Should today be more important than tomorrow? Keynes' positive statement is not enough for his conclusion. The question becomes should we live today and worry about the future when it gets here?

Economists (and academics in general) give up when they cannot refute a positive statement. You cannot refute Keynes with positive logic. "In the long-run, we are all dead." The only way to argue against him is to use normative logic. We should care about our children. We should let individuals make their own decisions.

Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" is another example of positive logic. He courts a Catholic girl, saying its only a matter of time before she gives it up to someone, therefore, it just as well be him. Only the good die young, therefore, be bad. I wonder how many times this logic has been used.

It does not matter to Joel 'what should be.' How can the girl reply? Sex should be sacred. Joel replies but it is not sacred. We should be good. Joel replies everyone is not good. It can go on forever.

They are speaking in two different languages.

This is where our society is at right now.

Religion is normative. It is based on books that say what should be. Science is positive. It is based on books that say what is.

To succeed in school one must be positive. Teachers do not like answers that say two plus two should be eight. Good students like evidence about what they are learning. Of course, there are classes where shoulds become part of the class, but these shoulds need to be proven by positive statements.

The problem is many shoulds cannot be proven by positive statements. Sex should be sacred cannot be proven through positive logic. Religion fails here. It turns its normative doctrines into positive ones. The church says sex is sacred. It forgets the shoulds. Religion does not have the courage to preach that sex should be sacred. It takes much more thought and convincing to say 'should be.'

Thought that positivists do not appreciate.

*Talking Heads