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In the an attempt to pay tribute to the brilliance of this (rather dense, historical & philosophical ) book, I'll try to correct this.This book presents two visions of the world. conservative visions. The two visions are metaphysical, pre-scientific points of view regarding how the world works. This is the issue. Conservatives. It is about the difference between two visions of the world, and each of the visions is found in most parties in the political spectrum. On reading the entire block of 60-odd reviews, I find that more than half of them, even while admiring Sowell's evenhandedness, misstate the carefulness of the book's positions. "Liberal" positions on top of Sowell's 2 visions, let us look instead at every issue, and determine whether our own individual intuitions are that (a) it is a problem, and that (b) human beings can solve or meliorate, via coordinated political action, this paricular problem without creating other (potentially worse) problems.
Don't start one.For (Constrained): There will be horrible tradeoffs, but war is better than the (worse) other options of not warring.For (Unconstrained): Saddam is a blight upon Iraq, they will be better without him.I have attempted to point out that not all conservative positions are constrained, and not all liberal positions are unconstrained. And he doesn't do so for the basic reason that it really isn't that simple.Instead of attempting to place "Conservative" vs. Rather, different people have different understandings of the world, and these often lead to different conclusions. In the other view (Constrained), people will always be (somewhat) bad, only results and processes matter, and improvements always involve tradeoffs.Sowell first acknowledges that no vision is purely Constrained or Unconstrained. However, contrary to most of the reviewers, the difference is not about Liberals vs. And the arguments for or against most actions can come from both positions.
In one view (Unconstrained), people can drive change, intentions matter, and this could improve the world. And then he explicitly does not connect the dots to (modern, US) liberal vs. Examples from the War in Iraq.Against (Constrained): The military cannot solve a complex social problem.Against (Unconstrained): War is evil. Using Sowell's brilliant dichotomy, people may improve their understanding of the issues facing the world, though hopefully not replace entirely any other charitable understandings.
Dr. Thomas Sowell is an excellent writer. I enjoy reading his books. He is beyond pale.
The book is analytic and descriptive, not polemical. The consistency of the respective visions and the degree to which they cover a multiplicity of current issues is striking. Its purpose is to delineate the visions which undergird the political impulses of the major political parties. He is constructing two complex mirrors in which his readers can attempt to see themselves and the degree to which their individual views are part of a large, centuries-old pattern.My own sense is that he's got this right and he's used the best examples, though I might have added a touch more Rousseau to the mix.
The 'constrained' vision can be traced to thinkers such as Hobbes, Burke and Adam Smith, the 'unconstrained' vision to thinkers such as Godwin, Condorcet and Rousseau. This is a superb book, but one that sets limits for itself. Sowell goes out of his way to avoid choosing sides or offering compelling evidence for the inconsistency or absurdity of either of the visions. In short, the want of copious examples is often felt. It is almost as if some are born with one vision, others with another.
He is not recruiting readers to one side or the other. Also, the fact that Sowell is such an effective polemicist (when he is writing in that mode) makes one regret that he is here purposely confining and restraining himself. It argues that the disparate visions are traceable to disparate beliefs regarding human nature. The objective analysis, however, comes with a price. Sowell acknowledges that some individuals have changed their visions, but often under 'road to Damascus' circumstances.
Some have been persuaded by empirical evidence, though it is a truism (one reinforced here) that the respective visions are often resistant to evidence.The book is scrupulously objective in its goals. In resisting the impulse to take sides and adduce evidence justifying the taking of sides he has written a book which is more theoretical/historical than historical/theoretical. Nevertheless, the book is excellent and does exactly what it sets out to do--fairly, clearly and persuasively.For those with an interest in human nature (or its alleged nonexistence), one can also highly recommend Pinker's The Blank Slate, a nice companion volume to Sowell's and one that is less constrained in its arguments.
It gives the reader a set of simple tools that are powerful in that they can be applied to most of history and political and social theory. First, Sowell in this book promises to construct and teach to the reader a simple mental device that allows the reader to reduce a vast, nuanced, complex world of ideas to a single, binary heuristic device that is simple enough that a precocious 12 year old could learn it. I am at a loss of words about how troubling I find this book and the ideas conveyed herein. It is a reductionist dualism that is at the heart of contemporary Republican politics in the United States of America and that defines the zeitgeist of the post-1994 Republican Party in American politics. This is the academic political theory equivalent of watching Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck on television. This is a book about how to learn to see the world in black and white, us and them, liberal and conservative, utopian and tragic. If you like your political theory sophisticated and intelligent, you will be disappointed in this. But if you want to learn tricks for winning shouting matches defending Republican talking points on blogs and internet political message boards, this book will be a powerful tool in your belt.
OK, that is an exaggeration, simply because such a beast doesn't exist, but the book is a great tool for understanding much, if not most of today's American political discourse, both high and low. It will provide a great deal of insight not only into what makes your political opponents tick, but what makes you tick, too.
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