Posted on 10/07/2023 10:03:07 AM PDT by karpov
Thomas Sowell is best known for his insights on racial controversies, but race isn’t the main topic of most of his books in a career that spans more than six decades. Mr. Sowell, 93, is an economist who earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago, where his professors included Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and other future Nobel laureates. His specialty is the history of ideas, and his most recent book, “Social Justice Fallacies,” harks back to his writings on social theory and intellectual history, which include “Knowledge and Decisions” (1980), “The Vision of the Anointed” (1996) and “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” (1999).
In his 1987 classic, “A Conflict of Visions,” Mr. Sowell attempted to explain what drives our centuries-old ideological disputes about freedom, justice, equality and power. The contrasting “visions” in the title referred to the implicit assumptions that guide a person’s thinking. On one side you have the “constrained” vision, which sees humanity as hopelessly flawed. This view is encapsulated in Edmund Burke’s declaration that “we cannot change the nature of things and of men—but must act upon them as best we can” and in Immanuel Kant’s assertion that “from the crooked timber of humanity no truly straight thing can ever be made.”
The opposite is the “unconstrained,” or utopian, view of the human condition. It’s the belief that there are no inherent limits to what mankind can accomplish, so trade-offs are unnecessary. World peace is achievable. Social problems such as poverty, crime and racism can be not merely managed but eliminated. Mr. Sowell begins “Social Justice Fallacies” with a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who expressed the essence of the unconstrained vision when he wrote of “the equality which nature established among men and the inequality which they have instituted among themselves.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
More like herding their cattle than chess.
Using my best hillbilly voice: Those intellectuals porch lights are on, but nobody’s home.
more like cats.
“Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ‘til their Judgment Day comes”
Black Sabbath - War Pigs
Dostoevsky said “piano keys.” The context was a little different. Dostoevsky was talking about free will, not economic outcomes. But the idea of humans being or not being identical and interchangeable was similar.
Oh no... These cattle eat everything thrown at them and willingly fall right into line. They herd real easy without question.
If they were cats it would be much harder for them to control them so easily.
What an opening line—so wrong! Sounds like the author has never really read Thomas Sowell, or anything much about him before writing this piece.
So I'll return the favor and not read his racist presuppositions about Dr. Sowell.
I’ve only read the first two chapters, but I have more logical ammunition to take on the Liberals than before. His understanding of the issues and the readable presentation of the facts makes this book yet another gem from Dr. Sowell.
Thomas Sowell
bttt
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