Or consider why economics is sometimes called “the dismal science.” It’s a derogatory description thought up by Thomas Carlyle in the 1800s, coined to draw a contrast with the “gay science” of music and poetry: “Not a ‘gay science,’ I should say, like some we have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.” Carlyle has a specific issue in mind, a case where he wanted to ridicule economists for objecting to something that was the subject of considerable feeling and heart, something that Carlyle had
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