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Title: A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0-465-08142-8 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 19 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.93 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Cleaving conservatives, compassionates: conflicting concepts
Comment: Why do liberals berate conservatives as hard-hearted, morally repugnant, selfish caricatures of cartoon fatcats; while conservative will grant the liberals' their good intentions but remind them that road to hell is apved thusly by their wooly-headed, ivory tower schemes? And why are liberals castigiated as slick, short-sighted, and interest group-driven, while conservatives are lampooned as dumb, corrupt and morally evil?
These are just two of the questions tangentially answered by Thomas Sowell in this important book on the taxonomy and structure of our political debate. This work is sure to stand for the remainder of the century as *the* reference point from which dueling political frameworks are engaged.
Sowell's main thesis is that contrasting visions of human capability, knowledge, perfection, and self-interest underlie two very different visions of humanity, and it is on these visions that political ideology, debate, and worldview rest. Sowell's two visions are named, rather unhelpfully, the constrained and the unconstrained vision. No gold star here for Sowell on Marketing. So instead, I'll use Pinker's terminology, as I was introduced to this book via Steven Pinker's Blank Slate.
The Tragic (constrained) vision of human nature views man as possessing foibles, incentives, and the desire to act in his own self-interest. The Tragic "sees the evils of the world as deriving from the limited and unhappy choices available, given the inherent moral and intellectual limitations of human beings." Thus, the perfection of governance in the Tragic Vision is the American Revolution with its checks and balances. Further, history should guide us, as the unknowable tradeoffs between different policies and procedures have been ironed out through unstated practice. The Utopians are to be scorned for their theoretical leanings that have little to do with the real world: "Hobbes regarded universities as places where fashionable but insignificant words flourished and added that 'there is nothing so absurd, but may be found in the books of Philosophers."
The Utopian (unconstrained) vision holds that man has not yet achieved his full moral potential, and that that potential is essentially perfectible. It is "foolish and immoral choices explain the evils of the world - and that wiser or more moral and humane social policies are the solution." So while there are incentives that actually work in the here and now, this fact is somewhat irrelevant to the achievement of true justice. The Utopian holds that "potential is very different from the actual, and that means exist to improve human nature toward its potential, or that such means can be evolved or discovered, so that man will do the right thing for the right reason, rather than for ulterior psychic or economic rewards." So the Utopian "promotes pursuit of the highest ideals and the best solution" in the hopes of achieving this perfect man. And if the masses are slow in catching on, then it is the role of the intellectual vanguard to lead them there - even if in the short run, the masses are unhappy with the results because they have not yet achieved the ability to see the future. Their thought is that reason should guide us, but reason as determined by the best and brightest: professors, government workers, elected and unelected officials. In this regard, the French Revolution with its lofty ideals and disposal of the past is the perfection of governance.
Sowell, who is the Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at Stanford, certainly has his preferences in this debate, but keeps them entirely off-page here and lays out, in a remarkably even-handed portrayal his case.
Political visions are uncommonly linked across diverse fields of inquiry, that these two competing political visions have been dominant in the last two centuries (to throw in a bit of materialism here - perhaps due to the Industrial Revolution?), and extending from initial premises, each is a logical, coherent, cogent interpretation of the world that nonetheless conflicts absolutely with its counterpart. The implications are fascinating:
"While believers in the unconstrained vision seek the special causes of war, poverty, and crime, believers in the constrained vision seek the special causes of peace, wealth, or a law-abiding society.
"While the constrained vision sees human nature as essentially unchanged across the ages and around the world, the particular cultural expressions of human needs peculiar to specific societies are not seen as being readily and beneficially changeable by forcible intervention. By contrast, those with the unconstrained vision tend to view human nature as beneficially changeable and social customs as expendable holdovers from the past."
In sum, this will be the groundwork for philosophical and political discussions for generations to come. Sowell has quite clearly pointed out the different premises. Now it is up to us to understand, argue, and resolve.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Wonderful Analysis of How Core Beliefs Differ
Comment: Any thoughtful observer of political and social discourse is forced to note the ironies and disjuncts in specific beliefs from time to time. Conservatives often support restrictions on behavior in order to effect security, while liberals preach freedom but are happy to truncate it in order to marshall the resources to support their favored victim classes. Either side, if honestly introspective, ought to be troubled about why this is. Thomas Sowell, one of America's most thoughtful and intellectually honest commentators explains just why this is and traces the origin of the question to the Enlightenment and post-enlightenment thinkers before and shortly after the French Revolution. He describes the key dichotomy as between the "constrained" and "unconstrained" views of human nature, which view mankind as flawed or perfectable, respectively. Another author describing comparable distinctions in international relations, Robert Kaplan, uses the terms Realist and Idealist to discuss the same cleavage. In setting this out, Sowell manages to produce a genuinely Aristotelian approach to modern thought that is extremely worth reading. What's more, he does all of this in a very readable, approachable prose that it more enjoyable to read than any text on such deep subjects ought to be. It's one of the very few books that improves the reader while giving pleasure in doing so.
Rating: 5
Summary: My Favorite Book
Comment: It's easy to hate people who have a different political view, but this book helps you understand them instead.
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Title: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 046508995X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0465081436 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 11 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 046508138X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 26 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0465037380 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0684864622 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 11 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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