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Encountering Thomas Sowell

lawliberty.org

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Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#71
> In his 1995 book, The Vision of the Anointed, Sowell argues persuasively that, “The family is inherently an obstacle to schemes for central control of social processes. Therefore the anointed [essentially his proto-term for “woke”] necessarily find themselves repeatedly on a collision course with the family.” This is because, he continues, “the preservation of the family” is fundamentally a source of freedom. “Friedrich Engels’s first draft of the Communist Manifesto included a deliberate undermining of family bonds as part of the Marxian political agenda.”

In The Republic, Socrates famously argues that children should be raised in common, ignorant of their parentage. If you're going to take an ultra-rationalistic approach to raising children, "treat every child as if he/she is your own" is the ideal.

This debate has been going on forever with victories and losses on both sides. Public school is an example of a triumph on the rationalist side. Of course, just because public schools worked out doesn't mean we should "abolish the nuclear family" but it is a good argument for the utility of this long-running debate.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#72
post #2

> Many people wondered last summer why, for example, on the Black Lives Matter website the organization declared (and has since deleted) a “disruptive” stance on the nuclear family. What did that have to do with mobilizing against police violence? For a long time I was very sympathetic to BLM, I would even have considered protesting with them. It was the above that caused me to rethink my position and eventually deci…

There's the notion of BLM, of which only sociopaths would disagree, then there's BLM the organization which is exactly how you described it.

The naming of this organization was actually a stroke of genius. Only the crazy edge cases would refute it's name but served as a Trojan horse for an ideology that is inherently un-American. If you disagree with them the immediate reaction has been "you don't think black lives matter?" This is a brilliant move.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kendi's work is extremely good Kendi proposes a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the principle that Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy (from certain threshold that he does not specify), and create Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies…

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

Please explain, with science - why first and second generation black immigrants from the caribbean and africa do better economically than black families who have been in american for generations?

I mean according to racial identity they should have the same end results right?

I'll wait. For the science...

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#74
post #25

I don't get what make him popular around certain crowds in HN. He is very polemical (I mean he was arguing that Obama would lead the US to live under Sharia law), is not a particularly good scholar, nor very insightful. Certainly, nothing he wrote as articles gave me a desire to read some of his books. There are tons of smarter, more interesting people in the conservative sphere, especially around libertarian/conserv…

Just in case people are reading something nefarious into Sowell's comment about Obama and Sharia law, he wasn't implying that Obama was a secret Muslim or the like, rather he was criticizing Obama's posture toward Iran, which Sowell considered soft and also feckless, in the sense that he believed the policy would lead to Iran joining the nuclear power club.

In the 1970s the US was encouraging Iran to become a nuclear power (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Shah_of_Iran_... ). The US was also still supporting the mullahs, as it had since the 1950s, against the secular left and anti imperial nationalists like Mossadegh.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#75
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alliance of necessity between social liberals and racial justice advocates creates this problem. There is not anything inherent about “people of color should be treated equally” that also requires buying into “we should disrupt the nuclear family.” That’s just how the political alliances have worked out. The latter ideology in practice works to undercut the former ideology. The contribution to racial inequality i…

>But it’s almost taboo in socially progressive circles to say that family structure matters (even though this is obvious to Asians). You must hang in some especially woke circles

Try saying that you believe that two-parent households are better for a kid that single-parent households in the presence of anyone who considers themselves social justice oriented or left-wing.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy" if it's not, then would wildly unequal outcomes not imply some races are superior to others? the science indicates that this is not the case so how else can it be explained? --- Hmmm people didn't like this. I will add the statistic I can't get out my head: Incarceration rates in USA (adult male) per 100k White - 450 Hispanic - 831 Black - 2306 Asian - 210 I don't think…

No, because it may be possible that breaking a monolithic group into smaller blocks for analysis would show that some parts of that monolith do better than others, and even other parts of other monolithic blocks that were considered “superior”. Sowell himself gives the example of West Indian immigrants in New York and how they fare far better than American born blacks even though they live in the same area and cannot…

I've actually just stumbled across this quote from Hughes as I was reading the review he wrote[0] of Kendi's book, posted nearby in this thread[1] (though I saw him use this elsewhere, in evidence to Congress, I believe):

> This view commits him to some bizarre conclusions. For example, according to 2017 Census Bureau data, the average Haitian-American earned 68 cents for every dollar earned by the average Nigerian-American. The average French-American earned 70 cents for every dollar earned by the average Russian-American.

[0] https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26477169

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#77
post #2

> Many people wondered last summer why, for example, on the Black Lives Matter website the organization declared (and has since deleted) a “disruptive” stance on the nuclear family. What did that have to do with mobilizing against police violence? For a long time I was very sympathetic to BLM, I would even have considered protesting with them. It was the above that caused me to rethink my position and eventually deci…

This is the language from the BLM site regarding disrupting the nuclear family. I'm very pro nuclear family. This didn't seem bad to me.

--------------------------

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. -----------------

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it’s almost taboo in socially progressive circles to say that family structure matters (even though this is obvious to Asians). You must hang in some especially woke circles

Doesn't seem that extreme to me. Even saying that divorce should be avoided at all costs and a two parent household is vastly superior to a single parent one is enough to get labeled as a conservative by many.

Definitely not by the average American. Twitter and San Fran/Portland are a small minority of the US.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#79
Every discussion of Sowell online seems to attract fans of his declaring how brilliant he is. It's a bit strange the sort of hero worship he attracts. Personally, I've never seen it; while he seems like a reasonably smart person, his ideas are simply a mix of standard conservatism and condemnation of the intellectual establishment as he sees it. His views on immigration are uninspiring, the reasons he believes the U.S. is declining are unconvincing to me, and he vocally refuses to believe that climate change in an issue (in my opinion mostly because he is ideologically opposed to proposals to fight climate change).

I think part of the reason a lot of conservatives love him is that his haughty and confident attitude, especially when speaking about other intellectuals, is quite seductive. It's convenient and attractive to think that many of the worlds problems are because of people (mostly liberals) who think they are smarter than they are.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it’s almost taboo in socially progressive circles to say that family structure matters (even though this is obvious to Asians). You must hang in some especially woke circles

Try saying that you believe that two-parent households are better for a kid that single-parent households in the presence of anyone who considers themselves social justice oriented or left-wing.

Does left-wing include the majority of Biden's base?

Woke twitter is a small minority.

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