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Encountering Thomas Sowell

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Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#81

Post by brodouevencode »

bjeds wrote: post #38

Thomas Sowell has a greater reach than many people at Hacker News may think. In Sweden (of all places), he is one of the most quoted conservative intellectuals by some of our most read right-wing writers.

The problem in the US is that many of the pundits on the right know of Sowell but don't know any of his work. They just recognize him as "one of us."

Which has been detrimental to the US right. His books/writings/talks are accessible because he communicates in ways that anyone can understand. There is no word salad, unnecessary jargon, etc.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#82

Post by glasss »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #56
glasss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say…

I'm not saying that they used the money unwisely, but that clearly such a thing as "BLM" exists and is run by certain people, people who have supported things like "disrupt the nuclear family."

Well your questions indicated you were more concerned about the money than the original nuclear family statement. My argument regarding the nuclear family stance was and is this:

I wouldn't discredit an entire social movement about demanding equality and fair treatment because of what someone put on a non-profit's website. Further, a statement like "BLM supports disrupting the nuclear" doesn't hold up because that stance has apparently been taken down from the website in question. If it was still on the website, which admittedly I haven't checked, then I can understand taking this more seriously.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#83

Post by ralusek »

Thomas Sowell is a titan. As was his recently deceased best friend and intellectual colleague Walter E. Williams.

The leading public intellectual regarding race in America today is undoubtedly Ibram X. Kendi. His central thesis, that any differing outcomes between racial populations is evidence of racism, is the single topic that Thomas Sowell addressed more than any other. The breadth of his research on this particular topic spans hundreds to thousands of years, across the globe. Sowell has come to the near opposite conclusion, that to expect equal outcomes between populations with different histories, cultures, patterns of behavior, etc, is insane. And then to attribute the entire disparity as evidence of racism is doubly so.

While Sowell is undoubtedly king, if you're interested in other black intellectuals with alternative takes on philosophy to the racial collectivism of critical race theory, Coleman Hughes is the single clearest thinker I have ever heard. John McWhorter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Glenn Loury, Kmele Foster, Jason Riley, Shelby Steele, Carol Swaine, Desi-Rae Campbell, Josephine Mathias, Thomas Chatterton Williams (author of the article above), Zuby, among many others. I think every person on this list would tell you that it's irrelevant that they are black, while understanding that it is an important characteristic they possess while bridging the gap between their own liberal ideologies and the prevailing race-conscious critical race theory, for which their racial identities are paramount.

https://youtu.be/TEBPCOG5RHs?t=66

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIv4L9M1ECU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18tfyp_XgkA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awIcRoDynh0

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#84

Post by m0llusk »

f154hfds wrote: 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…

It is amazing that people are always projecting these ideas of organization so aggressively. Here BLM is portrayed an organization with founding documents that are have important guiding philosophy from which the rest emerges.

Actually looking at the people and what happened shows that there was very little organization involved and what little there was got conjured up late in the game by the most extreme involved players. In reality what happened is that our media intensive culture broadcast a nearly nine minute video of a black man being strangled by a cop and there was a broad visceral reaction against that. So what is really being said here is that a cop strangling a black man isn't that much of a big deal and what really matters is the philosophical positions expounded by the founding documents of the organization that emerged as protests grew. Want to object to cops strangling black men? You better be really slick with your organizational skills and foundational document writing because that is what really matters.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#85

Post by devtul »

yostrovs wrote: post #29
chumich1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of somebody being a "trained Marxist" is very funny. Personally, I'm a 4th degree Historical Materialist and I'm training for the 2nd level Communist obstacle course

It's not as funny when you get to live under the rule of well trained Marxists. Hundreds of millions of them have been produced over the last century. Look into a history book or just ask around.

It turns out that some genocidal ideologies are too hard to let go, we managed with Nazism pretty well but Marxism is taking some time. Cambodia under Pol Pot should have been enough.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#86

Post by zpeti »

genghisjahn wrote: post #77
f154hfds wrote: 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 justic…

A dig at fathers in the first paragraph, and a diplomatically stated rejection of the nuclear family in the second.

You need to be very generous to interpret this as anything other than an attack on the traditional family.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#87

Post by wavefunction »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #56
glasss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say…

I'm not saying that they used the money unwisely, but that clearly such a thing as "BLM" exists and is run by certain people, people who have supported things like "disrupt the nuclear family."

Y'all seem to me to be selectively quoting from the statement to make it seem like they're attacking or attempting to destroy nuclear families when the full text shows that they are extending the concept of family from the nuclear family to a larger group.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#88

Post by JasonFruit »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #59
JasonFruit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the conservative side, mostly, and I'm deeply disappointed by most prominent conservative voices. There's much more of value in conservative thought than people hear from conservative mouthpieces in the media, but instead we get ugly stupidity.

I agree. Even though I'm a liberal, I'm sad to see the conservative intellectual tradition in such bad shape. I always felt it would be better for your opponents to rally around their best arguments/figures rather than their least savory arguments/figures. I think it has also made us (liberals) lazier--we don't need to bring coherent, reasoned arguments because we can settle for "well, at least we're better than Trum…

I couldn't have put that better. And it's compounded by our increasing unwillingness to say controversial things in public, for fear of the mob. We aren't having conversations that are really necessary.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#89

Post by brodouevencode »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #36
kyrra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read critiques of Kendi's works? Here's Coleman Hughes review of one book: https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist

Whew, that was a dismantling if I ever read one.

Hughes can do that if anyone can. I know among the right, Ben Shapiro is often viewed as the great argument destroyer but I think Hughes could give him a run for his money.

Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell

#90

Post by glasss »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #63
glasss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say…

Overall you seem to be saying you don't know anything about the actual organization or people at the helm of BLM, or what they've done with the money they've collected, but you hope it's all good. I guess I agree with all of that, but I don't feel like it's a strong argument.

I agree "I don't know what this organization is doing with their money" is not a strong argument, but I think just asking what a non profit is doing with it's money is also not a very compelling argument. I don't know much about this organization, but I know a fair amount about the BLM movement, and the local organizers or groups I've interacted with which I've made clear is where my argument is coming from.
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