The Vision of the Anointed SelfCongratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Audible Audio Edition) Thomas Sowell Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Vision of the Anointed SelfCongratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Audible Audio Edition) Thomas Sowell Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
In this devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past 30 years, Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes, but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and more. This is an empirical study in which "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts, and the sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites.
These elites - the anointed - often consider themselves "thinking people," but this thinking is actually rhetorical assertion, followed by evasions of mounting evidence against these assertions. The vision of the anointed is seen not merely as a failure but as a fatal danger to the values and the future of American society.
The Vision of the Anointed SelfCongratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Audible Audio Edition) Thomas Sowell Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books
The 1-star reviewers seem piqued by the fact that as a young economics student, Sowell was a Marxist. But as time went on, the evidence led him elsewhere. He began to differentiate between the stated intentions behind government programs and their actual results. It wasn't a pretty sight.Sowell's emphasis seems to be on what works as opposed to what doesn't. And as an economist, he knows that there are no "solutions" to social ills; there are only tradeoffs. He's not a "conservative" (he's never endorsed a political philosophy that I'm aware of) as much as a scientist with an extraordinary gift for clear writing.
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The Vision of the Anointed SelfCongratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Audible Audio Edition) Thomas Sowell Tom Weiner Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
Long ago in my urban sociology class we read the author's spellbinding Race and Economics, so the possibility of reading another book by Thomas Sowell book interested me.
"The vision prevailing among the intellectual and political elite of our time." "It is a prevailing vision...[offering] a special state of grace for those who believe in it." "...those who disagree are seen as being not only in error, but in sin." "People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority."
"Crusading movements among the intelligentsia usually include (paraphrased)
"*Assertions of great danger to the whole society...to which the masses of people are oblivious;
"*An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe;
"*A need for government to curtail the behavior of the masses in order to assert the ideas of those prescient few;
"*A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary."
Vision, anointed, grace, and sin all are biblical and theological buzzwords.
Therefore, the "anointing" of those on the liberal [in the current popular sense of "liberal"] left to whom Dr. Sowell refers are anointed into social, cultural, political, educational... legitimacy. In the Christian tradition we use olive oil, from the olive tree - which arguably is the "Tree of Life" - as the anointing oil in our liturgies. So these anointed in Sowell's book can be imaged as anointed into fullness of life? Bizarre argument maybe, but it feels like a live possibility!
"Thinking People" vs. "Articulate People!" is an intriguing distinction; it seems as if the more articulate folks are the ones who get believed and get their articulations acted upon.
Dr. Sowell seems compelled to swim against the prevailing academic stream of thought, because so-called liberal thought indeed does prevail in academic and intellectual groups and troops and is relatively rare outside of the educational and cultural whatever-you-want-to-call-it-complex.
This book is a must-read and a must-reread; please consider trying this book and its arguments on for size!
Essential reading for anyone interested in getting a perspective of past and present political and government policy. Born in Jim Crow North Carolina, and raised in Harlem, octogenarian, black-American Thomas Sowell, has a valuable personal perspective of American social and political culture. He combines his personal experiences with a lifetime of thorough scholarship as an economist. He has written many books and columns. Any of them is worth a read. This one is particularly insightful.
$13 is a not a bargain price for a book. I love , but I'm very unhappy with my reading experience through the first 50 pages or so. The conversion of the text from paper to has resulted in a volume that has enough typos -- primarily commas that are now periods, but also words (e.g., "mute" instead of "route") -- that it really has diminished my enjoyment of an otherwise superb book by a favorite octogenarian author.
Someone at or at Hachette needs to address how this could have happened and should do so promptly. My quality control experience to date, with very few exceptions, has been excellent. So far in this volume content A+ ; production quality control Fail
In "The Vision of the Anointed," conservative author Thomas Sowell connects many of the social pathologies of recent decades with the failed vision that led to them. This vision of the anointed, as Sowell defines it, is the prevailing vision in society today, even though it disallows feedback from reality and is not based on logic or evidence, but on emotion and self-congratulation.
Sowell contrasts the vision of the anointed, which always searches for sweeping solutions, with the tragic vision espoused by conservatives today, which realizes that there are always trade-offs in the real world. Liberals seek to build utopias, but conservatives realize that implementing one policy can have serious side effects elsewhere in society and that wisdom involves knowing that a catch-all solution is not available for virtually any serious social problem. The author describes typical scenarios that ensue when the vision of the anointed is implemented and the real world responds by not cooperating.
Liberals, though, almost never admit their failures, and Sowell details how the Left misuses statistics to invite false inferences as to the results of liberal programs. The author dissects fallacies the anointed use to dismiss evidence of the failure of their vision, and notes that the Left commonly substitutes ridicule and attacks on motives instead of real, logical arguments.
Sowell also describes some of what he calls the "crusades" of the anointed and the effect that the vision of the anointed on the American judicial system and the all-important rule of law, as well as offering his opinion as to why the anointed are so invested in their vision. Even though "The Vision of the Anointed" was written two decades ago, it is even more timely today than it was in the mid-Nineties and is an indispensable book for conservatives, especially young conservatives.
The 1-star reviewers seem piqued by the fact that as a young economics student, Sowell was a Marxist. But as time went on, the evidence led him elsewhere. He began to differentiate between the stated intentions behind government programs and their actual results. It wasn't a pretty sight.
Sowell's emphasis seems to be on what works as opposed to what doesn't. And as an economist, he knows that there are no "solutions" to social ills; there are only tradeoffs. He's not a "conservative" (he's never endorsed a political philosophy that I'm aware of) as much as a scientist with an extraordinary gift for clear writing.
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