...
Show More
This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand politics.
Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book
Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
28(28%)
4 stars
44(44%)
3 stars
28(28%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews
...
Show More
This book is a disappointment, but still worth reading (I listened to the audiobook version). The author raises a good number of points (most of which are quite reasonable), but then turns around and makes exactly the same mistakes in his arguments that he eviscerates the “anointed” for committing. If only the author had shone his spotlight on his own arguments, we would have had a book that was less political and more grounded in reason.
For instance, the author doesn’t want the label of “conservative”, because such unidimensional labels tend to mischaracterize, but then has no problem creating a straw man to criticize and label them the “anointed”. He rightly suggests that policy decisions should be grounded in data that is connected to the real world (rather than good intentions) but then avoids offering data for claims of policies that supposedly “didn’t work”, and instead engages in the same dramatization and fear-mongering that he otherwise attributes to the “anointed”. He claims the “anointed” ignore real-world constraints and trade offs, but fails to establish the existence of or need for any such trade offs. For instance, he suggests that the justice system cannot be perfect and that it is okay for an innocent person to be punished if it avoids the alternative of (say) ten innocent future victims (of some guilty perpetrator of crime) to be saved, but this convoluted argument is a mockery of the justice system, as the latter crimes are hypothetical and at best have a potential to occur whereas the former has already occurred and the subject of judgment. Is it not an established precept of justice that we’d rather let 10 guilty people go free than to let 1 innocent suffer? In this, the author is responsible for the same kind of wordplay shenanigans that he accuses the intelligensia of perpetrating. Most of all, the arguments of the author are disconnected from reality in the sense that they reach sweeping conclusions across every subject, never once pausing to acknowledge that facts in any specific case may be nuanced and messy, again bad behavior that he chastises the “anointed” for. Furthermore, the world according to the author is entirely transactional: society according to him has a responsibility never to question complex chains of cause and effect, and understand (or resolve) root causes that lead to crime, poverty etc., but to simply enact a framework that offers the appearance of law and order. The author may be right in saying that the well-intentioned “anointed” are getting the root causes wrong in many ways and that their policies are ineffective, but his specific solution is to do nothing and instead agree that everything is good, and if it isn’t, well then, that’s just the way the world is.
The most interesting thing in all this to me is that it highlights the author’s worldview that the world CANNOT be better, that whatever IS is the best that can be, and that everything has tradeoffs IMPLIES that no one should strive to do better. This is a destructive and obstructionist viewpoint: the world sucks, and let’s keep it that way. I do agree with the author’s core points that policy should be driven by data, conjecture cloaked as science is counterproductive, good intentions are not enough, tradeoffs exist and must be considered where they do, judicial activism is questionable at best, and so on.
For instance, the author doesn’t want the label of “conservative”, because such unidimensional labels tend to mischaracterize, but then has no problem creating a straw man to criticize and label them the “anointed”. He rightly suggests that policy decisions should be grounded in data that is connected to the real world (rather than good intentions) but then avoids offering data for claims of policies that supposedly “didn’t work”, and instead engages in the same dramatization and fear-mongering that he otherwise attributes to the “anointed”. He claims the “anointed” ignore real-world constraints and trade offs, but fails to establish the existence of or need for any such trade offs. For instance, he suggests that the justice system cannot be perfect and that it is okay for an innocent person to be punished if it avoids the alternative of (say) ten innocent future victims (of some guilty perpetrator of crime) to be saved, but this convoluted argument is a mockery of the justice system, as the latter crimes are hypothetical and at best have a potential to occur whereas the former has already occurred and the subject of judgment. Is it not an established precept of justice that we’d rather let 10 guilty people go free than to let 1 innocent suffer? In this, the author is responsible for the same kind of wordplay shenanigans that he accuses the intelligensia of perpetrating. Most of all, the arguments of the author are disconnected from reality in the sense that they reach sweeping conclusions across every subject, never once pausing to acknowledge that facts in any specific case may be nuanced and messy, again bad behavior that he chastises the “anointed” for. Furthermore, the world according to the author is entirely transactional: society according to him has a responsibility never to question complex chains of cause and effect, and understand (or resolve) root causes that lead to crime, poverty etc., but to simply enact a framework that offers the appearance of law and order. The author may be right in saying that the well-intentioned “anointed” are getting the root causes wrong in many ways and that their policies are ineffective, but his specific solution is to do nothing and instead agree that everything is good, and if it isn’t, well then, that’s just the way the world is.
The most interesting thing in all this to me is that it highlights the author’s worldview that the world CANNOT be better, that whatever IS is the best that can be, and that everything has tradeoffs IMPLIES that no one should strive to do better. This is a destructive and obstructionist viewpoint: the world sucks, and let’s keep it that way. I do agree with the author’s core points that policy should be driven by data, conjecture cloaked as science is counterproductive, good intentions are not enough, tradeoffs exist and must be considered where they do, judicial activism is questionable at best, and so on.
...
Show More
This is a book that is surely going to create controversy. Those who like this book will find it to reinforce their viewpoints and beliefs, and those who oppose it will probably find it insulting. One of the keys to this book is his focus that results are more important than intentions. Social programs must be judged upon what is the actual result, not just the intended result.
Overall it is a good overview of conservative thought into how social policy has been formed under liberal or socialist governments. He then points out many examples, which if they are accurate, make a compelling case for limited government and the problem of unintended consequences.
One of the most telling stories from the book was the regulations added to prevent the death of a young child in an airplane crash. While starting with the story of a woman who lost her child due to not having a separate seat for the child on an airplane which crashed, the goal is admirable. The unintended consequences of the regulations to prevent future deaths like this, however, come at both a tremendous monetary cost, and an increase in deaths of young children when parents opt for other modes of transportation to avoid having to purchase an additional seat on the airplane. Sowell argues that saving one life on the possible airplane accident will lead to 9 additional deaths in car accidents/other modes of transportation, at a cost of billions of dollars. When all such laws are considered, despite noble intentions, their negative impact is truly staggering.
Following up on previous books he focuses on what happens once someone looks beyond the immediate and obvious results, and into the results of the initial actions/policies.
This book is recommended for conservatives who would like examples of why they support limited government and reduced social policies, or for liberals who want to hear a reasoned argument as to possible downsides to policies that appear well intended but still face opposition. It is a rational book but is still likely to have a mixed reception.
Overall it is a good overview of conservative thought into how social policy has been formed under liberal or socialist governments. He then points out many examples, which if they are accurate, make a compelling case for limited government and the problem of unintended consequences.
One of the most telling stories from the book was the regulations added to prevent the death of a young child in an airplane crash. While starting with the story of a woman who lost her child due to not having a separate seat for the child on an airplane which crashed, the goal is admirable. The unintended consequences of the regulations to prevent future deaths like this, however, come at both a tremendous monetary cost, and an increase in deaths of young children when parents opt for other modes of transportation to avoid having to purchase an additional seat on the airplane. Sowell argues that saving one life on the possible airplane accident will lead to 9 additional deaths in car accidents/other modes of transportation, at a cost of billions of dollars. When all such laws are considered, despite noble intentions, their negative impact is truly staggering.
Following up on previous books he focuses on what happens once someone looks beyond the immediate and obvious results, and into the results of the initial actions/policies.
This book is recommended for conservatives who would like examples of why they support limited government and reduced social policies, or for liberals who want to hear a reasoned argument as to possible downsides to policies that appear well intended but still face opposition. It is a rational book but is still likely to have a mixed reception.
...
Show More
His words:
How can we call a system just or unjust if it was created out of sheer randomness and accidence. The impression I got based on the matrix of information gathered from the book, is that people are born entirely out of chance and randomness. The single consciousness that each person is, is by chance. However, what one chooses to do with that consciousness is completely up to their own will to power.
The author lacks any emotional consideration of democrats' tendency to use big poetic words like violence, justice, fairness, equality, etc... He argues that these words are constantly used incorrectly, but the author also fails to see these words as constructions of compassion rather than truth. I agree that both the left and right use morality as a justification to create true/false dichotomies. In doing so we sacrifice logical decision making. We use morality to justify our actions because there is no logical argument that would justify the actions in the first place. So Bush has to resort to being a messenger of God to justify declaring war on 7 Middle Eastern countries.
Ralph Nader's advocation for safer cars, ultimately everything is a tradeoff. What he advocated for provided a marginal amount of safety compared to the potential lives lost as a consequence of using our resources elsewhere
It seems that the association between homosexuality and AIDS happened because people were donating a lot of blood that had AIDS, which created this sort of ghostly haunting of AIDS. This caused hysteria. They had to choose some sort of scapegoat, homosexuals because they weren't a widely understood or accepted part of society.
Crime as being a consequence of poverty and racial inequality. But we fail to recognize the constant exceptions to the rule, i.e. people coming from wealthy backgrounds committing crime, and plenty of people coming from impoverished backgrounds NOT committing crime.
The public determines the truth more than any single person, i.e. GW's interpretation of the constitution vs the public
The question of who has the power and authority to make reinterpreted changes to the laws based in the 18th century constitution
the problem is with judges seeking a sort of restorative cosmic justice, acting in their "better" judgement rather than according to the generally defined law
Intertemporal cosmic justice in the context of reverse racial discrimination
The vision of the anointed is self-justifying, it is an ideology that doesn't need empirical evidence
Words mask the more pervasive morbid ideology behind it, the choice of words are used as propaganda
Where does compassionate ideas and material laws intersect? Does compassion and empathy have the right to contradict preconceived laws, such as reducing one's prison sentence out of plead to insanity
The vision of the anointed divorces effects from causes
should the causes influence the effects?
People judging the past are taking much less risk and are maybe less important than people predicting the future
Ideology predicts the world through the lens of being with, and experiencing, the compassion God, whereas empirical evidence without ideology predicts the world through the lens of pure information God
But is compassion more built from materialism?
Is empirical evidence more built from idealism? is evidence always understood through a subjective narrative lens?
The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell
Here's some of his thoughts mixed with mine:
How can we call a system just or unjust if it was created out of sheer randomness and accidence. My impression of the book is that people are born entirely out of chance and randomness. However, what one chooses to do with that consciousness is completely up to their own will to power.
The author lacks any emotional consideration of democrats' tendency to use big poetic words like violence, justice, fairness, equality, etc... He argues that these words are constantly used incorrectly, but the author also fails to see these words as constructions of compassion rather than truth. I agree that both the left and right use morality as a justification to create true/false dichotomies. In doing so we sacrifice logical decision making. We use morality to justify our actions because there is no logical argument that would justify the actions in the first place.
Ralph Nader's advocation for safer cars, ultimatley everything is a tradeoff. What he advocated for provided a marginal amount of safety compared to the potential lives lost as aconsequence of usiong our resources elsewhere
Was the LGBT community used as a scapegoat for the AIDS epidemic?
Crime as being a consequence of poverty and racial inequality. But we fail to recognzie the constant exceptions to the rule, i.e. people coming from wealthy backgrounds committing crime, and plenty of people coming from impoverished backgrounds NOT committing crime.
The public determines the truth more than any single person, i.e. GW's interpretation of the constitution vs the public
The question of who has the power and authority to make reinterpretive changes to the laws based in the 18th century constitution * the problem is with judges seeking a sort of restorative cosmic justice, acting in their "better" judgement rather than according to the generally defined law * Intertemporal cosmic justice in the context of reverse racial discrimination
The vision of the anointed is self-justifying, it is an ideology that doesnt need empirical evidence
Words mask the more pervasive morbid ideology behind it, the choice of words are used as propaganda
Where does compassionate ideas and material laws intersect? Does compassion and empathy have the right to contradict preconceived laws, such as reducing one's prison sentence out of plead to insanity
The vision of the anointed divorces effects from causes * should the causes influence the effects?
People judging the past are taking much less risk and are maybe less important than people predicting the future
Ideology predicts the world through the lens of being with, and experiencing compassion , whereas empirical evidence without ideology predicts the world through the lens of pure information * But is compassion more built from materialism? * Is empirical evidence more built from idealism? is evidence always understood through a subjective narrative lens?
How can we call a system just or unjust if it was created out of sheer randomness and accidence. The impression I got based on the matrix of information gathered from the book, is that people are born entirely out of chance and randomness. The single consciousness that each person is, is by chance. However, what one chooses to do with that consciousness is completely up to their own will to power.
The author lacks any emotional consideration of democrats' tendency to use big poetic words like violence, justice, fairness, equality, etc... He argues that these words are constantly used incorrectly, but the author also fails to see these words as constructions of compassion rather than truth. I agree that both the left and right use morality as a justification to create true/false dichotomies. In doing so we sacrifice logical decision making. We use morality to justify our actions because there is no logical argument that would justify the actions in the first place. So Bush has to resort to being a messenger of God to justify declaring war on 7 Middle Eastern countries.
Ralph Nader's advocation for safer cars, ultimately everything is a tradeoff. What he advocated for provided a marginal amount of safety compared to the potential lives lost as a consequence of using our resources elsewhere
It seems that the association between homosexuality and AIDS happened because people were donating a lot of blood that had AIDS, which created this sort of ghostly haunting of AIDS. This caused hysteria. They had to choose some sort of scapegoat, homosexuals because they weren't a widely understood or accepted part of society.
Crime as being a consequence of poverty and racial inequality. But we fail to recognize the constant exceptions to the rule, i.e. people coming from wealthy backgrounds committing crime, and plenty of people coming from impoverished backgrounds NOT committing crime.
The public determines the truth more than any single person, i.e. GW's interpretation of the constitution vs the public
The question of who has the power and authority to make reinterpreted changes to the laws based in the 18th century constitution
the problem is with judges seeking a sort of restorative cosmic justice, acting in their "better" judgement rather than according to the generally defined law
Intertemporal cosmic justice in the context of reverse racial discrimination
The vision of the anointed is self-justifying, it is an ideology that doesn't need empirical evidence
Words mask the more pervasive morbid ideology behind it, the choice of words are used as propaganda
Where does compassionate ideas and material laws intersect? Does compassion and empathy have the right to contradict preconceived laws, such as reducing one's prison sentence out of plead to insanity
The vision of the anointed divorces effects from causes
should the causes influence the effects?
People judging the past are taking much less risk and are maybe less important than people predicting the future
Ideology predicts the world through the lens of being with, and experiencing, the compassion God, whereas empirical evidence without ideology predicts the world through the lens of pure information God
But is compassion more built from materialism?
Is empirical evidence more built from idealism? is evidence always understood through a subjective narrative lens?
The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell
Here's some of his thoughts mixed with mine:
How can we call a system just or unjust if it was created out of sheer randomness and accidence. My impression of the book is that people are born entirely out of chance and randomness. However, what one chooses to do with that consciousness is completely up to their own will to power.
The author lacks any emotional consideration of democrats' tendency to use big poetic words like violence, justice, fairness, equality, etc... He argues that these words are constantly used incorrectly, but the author also fails to see these words as constructions of compassion rather than truth. I agree that both the left and right use morality as a justification to create true/false dichotomies. In doing so we sacrifice logical decision making. We use morality to justify our actions because there is no logical argument that would justify the actions in the first place.
Ralph Nader's advocation for safer cars, ultimatley everything is a tradeoff. What he advocated for provided a marginal amount of safety compared to the potential lives lost as aconsequence of usiong our resources elsewhere
Was the LGBT community used as a scapegoat for the AIDS epidemic?
Crime as being a consequence of poverty and racial inequality. But we fail to recognzie the constant exceptions to the rule, i.e. people coming from wealthy backgrounds committing crime, and plenty of people coming from impoverished backgrounds NOT committing crime.
The public determines the truth more than any single person, i.e. GW's interpretation of the constitution vs the public
The question of who has the power and authority to make reinterpretive changes to the laws based in the 18th century constitution * the problem is with judges seeking a sort of restorative cosmic justice, acting in their "better" judgement rather than according to the generally defined law * Intertemporal cosmic justice in the context of reverse racial discrimination
The vision of the anointed is self-justifying, it is an ideology that doesnt need empirical evidence
Words mask the more pervasive morbid ideology behind it, the choice of words are used as propaganda
Where does compassionate ideas and material laws intersect? Does compassion and empathy have the right to contradict preconceived laws, such as reducing one's prison sentence out of plead to insanity
The vision of the anointed divorces effects from causes * should the causes influence the effects?
People judging the past are taking much less risk and are maybe less important than people predicting the future
Ideology predicts the world through the lens of being with, and experiencing compassion , whereas empirical evidence without ideology predicts the world through the lens of pure information * But is compassion more built from materialism? * Is empirical evidence more built from idealism? is evidence always understood through a subjective narrative lens?
...
Show More
Thomas Sowell is one of the clearest thinkers of our time and I have often enjoyed listening to him speak. This is the first book that I have read by him, and he made me work to read it, but the message is clear and thorough, self-congratulation and group think does not make good social policy.
Two take-aways from this book:
"Hard cases make bad law" and
"There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs"
The second of these, I have learned as the natural outcome of living a thoughtful life caring for a large family. If only it were more apparent to the rest of our great nation.
Two take-aways from this book:
"Hard cases make bad law" and
"There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs"
The second of these, I have learned as the natural outcome of living a thoughtful life caring for a large family. If only it were more apparent to the rest of our great nation.
...
Show More
Wonderful!
Thomas Sowell illuminates how the intellectual class is sealing itself off from discordant feedback. He explains their incentives in maintaining their view regardless of evidence and reality and what this means to the preservation of freedom.
Thomas Sowell illuminates how the intellectual class is sealing itself off from discordant feedback. He explains their incentives in maintaining their view regardless of evidence and reality and what this means to the preservation of freedom.
...
Show More
Sowell just shits all over the "Vision of the Anointed."
Basic idea was this. The 'Anointed' are those liberal intellectuals who think that they know more than everyone else. The polarize and moralize the enemy to fix the 'crises' of our time. They don't though because the market is a summary of all knowledge held in society. These guys prey on those who think that the problems of our time are because of the dispositions of those in power and not as a set of trade offs between a set of evils. They think that there are such things as solutions. And just to boot when they fuck with the market they ruin it.
Don't think that you know more than the establishment. I'm all for change but not change for change's sake.
Quotes:
"Dangers to a society may be mortal without being immediate. One such danger is the prevailing social vision of our time - and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held."
"It is not a vision of the tragedy of the human condition: Problems exist because others are not as wise or as virtuous a the anointed."
"Key elements of crusading movements:
1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious.
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe.
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes."
"In short, the test for whether a program was good for the country as a whole was whether those who personally benefited from it found it beneficial."
"In short, no matter what happens, the vision of the anointed always succeeds, if not by the original criteria, then by criteria extemporized later - and if not by empirical criteria, then by criteria sufficiently subjective to escape even the possibility of refutation. Evidence becomes irrelevant."
"The essential requirements for the vision of the anointed: it established that the anointed and the benighted were on vastly different moral and intellectual planes and it justified taking decisions out of the hands of those who passed the existing laws, in response to the voting public, and put these decisions in the hands of judges responsive to those with 'expertise.'"
"In reality, the entire population of the world today could be housed in the state of Texas, in a single-story, single-family houses - four people to a house - and with a typical yard around each home."
"Problems exist only because other people are not as wise or caring, or not as imaginative and bold, as the anointed."
"Perhaps the most fundamental difference between those with the tragic vision and those with the vision of the anointed is that the former see policy-making in terms of trade-offs and the latter in terms of 'solutions.'"
"They are not seeking trade-offs based on the varying preferences of millions of other people, but solutions based on their own presumably superior knowledge and virtue."
On vocabulary "(1) preempt issues rather than debate them, (2) set the anointed and the benighted on different moral and intellectual planes, or (3) evade the issue of personal responsibility."
"Once we recognize that there are no solutions, but only trade-offs, we can no longer pursue cosmic justice, but must make out choices among alternatives actually available - and these alternatives do not include guaranteeing that no harm can possible befall any innocent individual."
"1. Painful social situations ('problems') exist not because of inherent limits to knowledge or resources, or inadequacies inherent in human beings, but because other people lack the wisdom of or virtue of the anointed.
2. Evolved beliefs represent only a 'socially constructed' set of notions, not reflections of an underlying reality. Therefore the way by which 'problems' can be 'solved' is by applying the articulated rationality of the anointed, rather than by relying on evolved traditions or systemic processes growing out of the experiences of the masses.
3. Social causation is intentional, rather than systemic, so that condemnation is in order when various features of the human experience are either unhappy or appear anomalous to the anointed.
4. Great social or biological dangers can be averted only by the imposition of the vision of the anointed on less enlightened people by the government.
5. Opposition to the vision of the anointed is due not to a different reading of complex and inconclusive evidence, but exists because opponents are lacking, either intellectually or morally, or both."
"In social life, the more fundamental a truth is, the more likely it is to have been discovered long ago - and to have been repeated in a thousand ways to the point of utter boredom. In this context, to make excitement and novelty the touchstones of an idea is to run grave risks of abandoning the truth for ideological trinkets."
"In the anointed we find a whole class of supposedly 'thinking people' who do remarkably little thinking about substance and a great deal of verbal expression. In order that this relatively small group of people can believe themselves wiser and nobler than the common herd, we have adopter policies which impose heavy costs on millions of other human beings, not only in taxes but also in lost jobs, social disintegration, and a loss of personal safety. Seldom have so few cost so much to so many."
Basic idea was this. The 'Anointed' are those liberal intellectuals who think that they know more than everyone else. The polarize and moralize the enemy to fix the 'crises' of our time. They don't though because the market is a summary of all knowledge held in society. These guys prey on those who think that the problems of our time are because of the dispositions of those in power and not as a set of trade offs between a set of evils. They think that there are such things as solutions. And just to boot when they fuck with the market they ruin it.
Don't think that you know more than the establishment. I'm all for change but not change for change's sake.
Quotes:
"Dangers to a society may be mortal without being immediate. One such danger is the prevailing social vision of our time - and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held."
"It is not a vision of the tragedy of the human condition: Problems exist because others are not as wise or as virtuous a the anointed."
"Key elements of crusading movements:
1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious.
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe.
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes."
"In short, the test for whether a program was good for the country as a whole was whether those who personally benefited from it found it beneficial."
"In short, no matter what happens, the vision of the anointed always succeeds, if not by the original criteria, then by criteria extemporized later - and if not by empirical criteria, then by criteria sufficiently subjective to escape even the possibility of refutation. Evidence becomes irrelevant."
"The essential requirements for the vision of the anointed: it established that the anointed and the benighted were on vastly different moral and intellectual planes and it justified taking decisions out of the hands of those who passed the existing laws, in response to the voting public, and put these decisions in the hands of judges responsive to those with 'expertise.'"
"In reality, the entire population of the world today could be housed in the state of Texas, in a single-story, single-family houses - four people to a house - and with a typical yard around each home."
"Problems exist only because other people are not as wise or caring, or not as imaginative and bold, as the anointed."
"Perhaps the most fundamental difference between those with the tragic vision and those with the vision of the anointed is that the former see policy-making in terms of trade-offs and the latter in terms of 'solutions.'"
"They are not seeking trade-offs based on the varying preferences of millions of other people, but solutions based on their own presumably superior knowledge and virtue."
On vocabulary "(1) preempt issues rather than debate them, (2) set the anointed and the benighted on different moral and intellectual planes, or (3) evade the issue of personal responsibility."
"Once we recognize that there are no solutions, but only trade-offs, we can no longer pursue cosmic justice, but must make out choices among alternatives actually available - and these alternatives do not include guaranteeing that no harm can possible befall any innocent individual."
"1. Painful social situations ('problems') exist not because of inherent limits to knowledge or resources, or inadequacies inherent in human beings, but because other people lack the wisdom of or virtue of the anointed.
2. Evolved beliefs represent only a 'socially constructed' set of notions, not reflections of an underlying reality. Therefore the way by which 'problems' can be 'solved' is by applying the articulated rationality of the anointed, rather than by relying on evolved traditions or systemic processes growing out of the experiences of the masses.
3. Social causation is intentional, rather than systemic, so that condemnation is in order when various features of the human experience are either unhappy or appear anomalous to the anointed.
4. Great social or biological dangers can be averted only by the imposition of the vision of the anointed on less enlightened people by the government.
5. Opposition to the vision of the anointed is due not to a different reading of complex and inconclusive evidence, but exists because opponents are lacking, either intellectually or morally, or both."
"In social life, the more fundamental a truth is, the more likely it is to have been discovered long ago - and to have been repeated in a thousand ways to the point of utter boredom. In this context, to make excitement and novelty the touchstones of an idea is to run grave risks of abandoning the truth for ideological trinkets."
"In the anointed we find a whole class of supposedly 'thinking people' who do remarkably little thinking about substance and a great deal of verbal expression. In order that this relatively small group of people can believe themselves wiser and nobler than the common herd, we have adopter policies which impose heavy costs on millions of other human beings, not only in taxes but also in lost jobs, social disintegration, and a loss of personal safety. Seldom have so few cost so much to so many."
...
Show More
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.Thomas Sowell does an excellent job at pointing this fact out when it comes to public policymaking. At times even seeming cold and harsh in his analysis. Not necessarily in bad way, more like a concerned elder giving it to you straight knowing that at the end of the day you make the choice.
...
Show More
A conservative, thought-provoking commentary on liberalism. It brings to mind the quote by Winston Churchill, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
...
Show More
I had lots of time and little money in the summer of 2001. This was on my shelf and I read it quickly. Wonderful book chock full of statistical information presented in a way that is enlightening and cogent. Sowell demonstrates the flawed visions of today's elites who, despite their seductive rhetoric, are merely into controlling what other people do and how they think. Highly recommended.
...
Show More
Full disclosure -- I didn't read this book in its entirety. I read the first several chapters, felt that I'd grasped the argument Sowell was making, agreed with it, and didn't feel the need to continue reading additional examples. Then I jumped to the last chapter to see how Sowell proposes we solve the problem. I was disappointed to realize that, while he did an excellent job laying out his position and bolstering it with facts, Sowell didn't offer any solutions. Perhaps I missed some action plan in the middle of the book?
...
Show More
One of the world’s best societal analyses.
Leave a Review