A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

This is a very interesting book. Definitely worth reading.
PhD. Sowell is very knowledgeable, and he explains in a way that is very easy to understand. In this book he basically compares two types of visions of how things work. On one side the constrained vision, which is pessimistic about human nature (institutions keep us at bay); on the other side the unconstrained vision, which is optimistic in its perspective (institutions malign us).
He makes very good points on the assumptions of both sides, and though he makes a good case (it's quite obvious he favours the constrained vision), at times his pessimism doesn't seem to follow the evidence with regards of some societal changes. Particularly with regards to law (and morality) I think he's mistaken. At one point he states that the issue is not values tainting our visions, but the other way around, which could be true, but it seems to me that a "you're on your own" mentality heavily implies a different set of values than "you're too fragile, and can't do anything by yourself".
Ultimately, because of the different perspectives, how much do we own to each other is a question that he doesn't care to answer. Though I quite agree with that human nature is flawed, it seems to me that education, culture, and values matter. Some things are teachable.
Finally, he says that the thing that the constrained vision favours is the process, and not the results. But that is a blanket statement that cannot be used in all occasions. Lack of good results could be due to a flawed process.
With that said, PhD. Sowell does states that improvement should be pursued in things that need to be improved. It's just that times his view of the constrained vision seems borderline tautological: whatever is good is good; but how are we to determine that if not through the results?

I've been increasingly a fan of Thomas Sowell. He's a brilliant and logical thinker on economics and social issues, and the breadth of his knowledge and research is astonishing.

I read that – from among the 20 or so books he's written – this is his favorite.

Back in 1987, Sowell looked at the landscape and wondered how people – with seemingly so much in common, and even with similar values and goals – could so often be on opposite sides of political issues; and not just political, but also economic, legal, military, and social issues. What's driving that?

A Conflict of Visions examines that question and seeks the root causes of this intractable issue. The framework he uses to make sense of it is the concept of one's "vision" of mankind.

What is the nature of man?

Sowell's framework presents two opposing views on this central question.

One is that man is essentially flawed and represents Sowell's "constrained" view, most often associated with a conservative perspective. The other is that man is essentially good, and represents what Sowell refers to as an "unconstrained" vision, commonly associated with a progressive or liberal view of the world.

So it's not values, but a one's vision of man that lead to fundamentally different ways of looking at practically everything – and thus coming up with almost opposite views on the same sets of facts in many areas.

Sowell acknwledges that this is an imperfect framework -- no issue or person is 100% one way or another. Further, he explores how some people change over time and on various issues.

It's extremely technical and dense reading. The depth of his research and citations is astonishing, so it was (for me, at least) a very difficult read.

He goes back two hundred fifty years or so, and traces the thinking - and reasoning behind the thinking – of all kinds of political, economic, legal, and social scholars on either side of the "constrained – unconstrained" visions of man.

While dense and theoretical, a Conflict of Visions helps to explain things in everyday life – why some are happy with judicial activism (generally those with an unconstrained view) while those with a constrained view of man view the Constitution as something not to be tampered with.

These differences are everywhere.

For example, Sowell cites a number of Supreme Court decisions, including a landmark case on preferential treatment. He highlights the arguments on each side and the "visions" underlying each perspective. The example clearly shows how even at the Supreme Court, "the two visions argued past each other."

This was about the most difficult book review I've ever written, but I felt it worth the time to share my thoughts on Sowell's favorite work (it would make a great college course!). This is an important book for our time – for all time, in fact – because this is not a new phenomenon.

It's important to note that this is not a "conservative" book, though Sowell is often associated with conservative thought. It is a dispassionate and balanced analysis of what drives thinking.

It highlights something rarely examined and perhaps not not even understood by even the most educated – what drives our thinking? And why?

Een grondige beschouwing, maar daardoor echt veel herhaling en niet bepaald makkelijk te lezen. De main thesis kan je al goed begrijpen door een korte samenvatting te lezen, maar dit boek vertelt je wat filosofen en rechtsgeleerden er de afgelopen 200 jaar van vonden. Niet dat ik dat de schrijver kwalijk neem, het boek heeft een bepaald publiek dat daar vast van geniet.

I thought Sowell's book was one of the most original analyses of political conflict that I have read. Given that we live an increasingly divided time, I think it was a particularly relevant read as well. His claim, that the origin of conflict across fields like economics, politics, and law is ultimately due to different fundamental visions of human nature, is well-defined, coherent, and unified. This is a man who understands what he is talking about and goes to great depths to make his analysis. However, that does not mean he makes himself easy to understand. This book was probably also one of the most difficult to read, I had to go back and re-read sentences 4 or 5 times before I could grasp what I think he was trying to say, or give up trying. So if you have an excellent reading level, and you like high-level academic reading, go for it.

Excellent! Should be required reading for every society. Sheds so much light on our differences in politics, economics, social sciences and more. Sowell's simple rubric of the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision holds a lot of weight, and goes a long way to explain our differences. Helped me understand the underlying conviction and logic of many of the positions and arguments I have encountered, as well as my own.

Great book on deciphering the talking points between modern liberals and conservatives. Sowell calls these two poles the 'unconstrained' and the 'constrained' vision (respectively). Very helpful book for sizing up people in terms of their political views, which !always! merely comes down to what people value, how they wish to interact with society (via property rights vs. taxation), and contradictions in their thinking (such as how the use of force is applied). Human nature is also a pivotal point, the poles seeing it in different light (man as correctable vs. man as not, which comes down to evil = error/ignorance vs. evil is real).

If you're going to read anything by Sowell, read this one. Even if you are a modern liberal/socialist, you should know the other side (otherwise your views are held via prejudice).

A scholarly exploration of the fundamental worldviews of human nature that separates conservative and progressive ideologies.

It would be a great foundation before reading Haidt's Righteous Mind or Chua's Political Tribes on the topic.

The central premise of this book is a rather useful concept, the idea of visions, and especially of two competeing visions: the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision. Sowell does a good job of defining the essences of these positions and explores the consequences of taking one vision as central rather than another. A "vision" here is something less than a theory (it is not that fleshed out), but more like a way of viewing things in stronger generality. So an unconstrained theory takes the view of society as capable of being morally/intellectually improved overall, and the most morally/intellectually improved people should make decisions to improve society overall. The constrained theory sees society as being bound by rules and systems with a smaller variance in moral/intellectual capabilities and changes to society should come from systemic changes (tradition and the slow change of tradition) by the population at large rather than by the moral/intellectual elite.

My quibble with Sowell's conception is that the constrained vision (which I would presume Sowell favors based on my reading) is often conflated with a middle position. For example, Sowell considers people like Adam Smith in the constrained vision, even for Smith's position on slavery, which for the society of the time seems to me like Smith's views are of the unconstrained type. He argues those of the constrained vision simply look at trade-offs and so Smith simply balanced the constraint against the evil of slavery, whereas the unconstrained vision have their imperatives. I think it would be fairer and more true to the theory if constrained was "ultra-constrained" (so that one should almost always if not always look to tradition for answers) and a person's views could have different elements and gradations (to be fair to Sowell, he addresses this at the beginning of the book, but wants to keep the binary visions to explore their consequences).

Sowell does a good job of going over the implications of the two visions, and offers interesting commentaries on all sorts of issues related to justice, freedom, and rights. While Sowell's preference for markets and systemic processes (constrained vision) often does come through, he offers some insights on both visions (I think more on the constrained vision). It seems to me as if both visions have weaknesses. The constrained vision doesn't really ever explain how change in a society happens, and it is not clear how one can decide what is a success, while the unconstrained vision often assumes too much of what people can or are willing to accept in terms of change imposed by an authority [and what an authority could even possibly envision as the consequences of the changes].

I think this is worth reading, though I liked "The Three Languages" by Arnold Kling more (I thought it was a more neutral presentation and offered more interesting insights into American politics/arguments). I am also struck by how this would dovetail with Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism". The constrained vision's skepticism of intellectuals' abilities is very similar to what Hofstadter was talking about, and I think Sowell does a good job of explaining how this viewpoint can be thought of from an intellectual point-of-view. It's not overly long, though not short, and if you want to read a provocative book (you will almost certainly find things to disagree with, as I do with most things I read) with a variety of insights sprinkled in, I think this is a good choice. Hopefully it will at least let you think about how you would defend your "vision".