Opus 2024-125: Let’s Play, “Spot the Nazi”

I came across a statement in a Thomas Sowell book that made me think of some of the nonsense we have been hearing in our culture.  First the Sowell quote,

“In totalitarian nations, virtually every intellectual field is politicized.  Genetics and economics acquire ideological significance in the Soviet Union, and Nazi German proclaimed the existence of such intellectual entities as German physics, German chemistry, and German mathematics.” p. 341, emphasis in original

Now compare that to the nonsense you have been hearing about science and math being infested with white supremacy.  

At the risk of overplaying the Hitler card, do you notice the similarity in emphasis between the Communists and Nazis in acting like even the factual subjects are different when they are covered by their pet political group.  It is just another example of the way the thinking of the woke is adopting the philosophy and methods of totalitarian movements.  

The results will be the same unless America wakes up to the woke.

Sowell, Thomas.  Knowledge and Decisions.  New York:  Basic Books, 1980.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-180: The Law of Prosperity

Why are Marxists like Antifa and BLM so set on rioting and causing civil unrest?  It isn’t the destruction per se.  There is a deeper understanding at work.  They hate capitalism because it enables the masses to prosper without bowing down to the socialist elite.  One of the supports that free nations can supply for successful business ventures is a sense of law and order. 

Thomas Sowell, in his book Conquest and Cultures, is reviewing how what he calls “middlemen peddlers” can prosper even in areas where they are total ethnic strangers.  Whether it was Jewish peddlers following the Roman legions or Chinese in Malaya where the British were in charge, they could prosper if they had one thing.

“Neither racial nor cultural affinities with the conquerors are necessary for this to happen.  All that is necessary is for the conqueror to establish a degree of law and order under which others can feel secure.”, p. 17

They needed a place where they knew the rules and knew the rules would be followed.  He said that the rules didn’t even need to be fair as long as they were clear and consistent.

Which brings us back to places like Seattle.  The problem for the survival of a free society and prosperity is not the destruction itself.  The problem is that the Progressive* mayors did nothing to stop it, and in fact, stopped the police from doing their job.

Antifa can’t stop us if we are free to take risks but they can stop us from taking risks if we are worried about being stabbed in the back by the people who are supposed to work to protect us.  The authorities in Seattle and Minneapolis actually want things to fall apart.  These Marxists don’t want middle class blacks to be successful and grow a part of the American dream.  They want them feeling helpless and giving up.  When that happens citizens will be dependent on the government to survive. 

We need to establish law and order.  It is not necessary so we can set our rules.  It is necessary so that a free people can develop their own destinies and not be bowing before their “betters”.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

Sowell, Thomas.  Conquest and Culture.  New York:  Basic Books, 1998.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-157: New Terms: A Yogi

I has been years since I read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed.  If I remember correctly he makes the point that the group of people that I label Progressives* have a sense that they are anointed by something bigger than God with a specialness enabling them to know what is best for other people.  They think that rules are for the little people and walk around repeating the toddler mantra to themselves, “I’m big.”  As our betters they will decide what we can do and what would harm us.  We are expected to be grateful. 

Recently I mentioned a judge who said, “The action that I’m taking today may be pushing the legal bounds a little bit,...”  What that means is he knows the rules but, since he is smarter than the common man, he is going to ignore them.  Of course it is for our own good.  I think we might need a new term for this and suggest calling it having “a Yogi”. 

It has been years since I have watched the cartoons but I remember that Yogi always thought he was smarter than the average bear.  With him it was picnic baskets.  With our modern Progressive* Yogi’s it is every liberty you have that makes them feel insecure in their righteousness. 

Does that make us Bobo or the Ranger?

It can have variations such as “being Yogied” and “Yogi talk”.  It could be used with great frequency.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-119: A Long Term Pattern

One of the great benefits of the viral panic is that the libraries are closed down.  In keeping with the elitist plan, the staff, public employee whom as a group are none for their liberal views, is still getting paid and are available to answer questions.  It has forced me to go to my bookshelf and read books I have been planning on reading for years.  One that I am re-reading is Race and Culture by Thomas Sowell.  After that will come Migrations and Culture, then Conquests and Culture.  I came across an interesting quote that speaks to the controversy over calling this thing the “Wuhan virus” or such things.  He would be banned today if he tweeted this, but that is what would happen to him no matter what he has to say,

“...Asia has suffered far more floods, droughts, earthquakes, and famines than Europe has.  Many of the great epidemic diseases which have struck sporadically in Europe have been endemic in Asia, which has been called an ‘epicentre of viral outbreaks.’  Its diseases have spread through both animal and human populations, and crop diseases have likewise originated in Asia, where agriculture itself originated.”  page 240

Fortunately he said this twenty-five years ago.  It is amazing how the MSM will deny anything if it disrupts their narrative. 

Sowell, Thomas.  Race and Culture.  New York:  Basic Books, 1994.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-180: Plow vs Crown: “How You Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm?”, part 1 of 2

I have seen numerous articles about the next American Civil War.  Some say we are already involved.  Others say it is coming.  I would submit that we have been involved in that war since the first colony was established.  In the non-English colonies it was over before it started.  In the English Thirteen it was fought vigorously and is still going on.

It is a war between those who think they deserve to rule and those who don’t want to be ruled.  I think of it as the struggle between the plow and the crown.  You can trace it back as far as Western Civilization has been in existence.  America came into existence because there were enough of what would be considered the upper class who believed in the principle that Jefferson put in the Declaration of Independence about “all men were created equal.”  They were willing to reject the European model and create an new experiment in government.  They won that battle but the war will never be over.  Oppressors need to oppress.  It is who they are and they cannot change. 

Thomas Sowell likes to call them “The Anointed”.  Whether they believe in God or not they believe that something has endowed them with the responsibility to direct the masses.  They know what is best for us but in order to win they must Balkanize and impoverish us.  We see it happening with the race baiting, the attempt to make the successful into the enemy, the need to break down our borders and flood the country with people who have not desire to become Americans.  All of this has a clear goal:  To keep the ruling elite in power.

To be concluded...

Sowell, Thomas.  The Vision of the Anointed.  New York:  Basic Books, 1995

homo unius libri

Opus 2018-215: Election 2018: An Insight from Sowell

One of the books on my “everyone should read” list is Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell.  He discusses the two dominate philosophies trying to guide culture in the West.  He labels them the constrained and the unconstrained visions.  The Constitution and the American Revolution are products of the constrained vision.  It maintains that man is not to be trusted and thus we have the checks and balances in our system of government.  The French Revolution was an example of the unconstrained vision.  Because they had a more humanistic view of the nature of man they did not think something like the Reign of Terror or the emergence of a Napoleon to be possible.  It is a bit simplistic but you might call the current stand of the liberals in favor of a living Constitution are unconstrained.  Those who believe in the original intent of the Constitution are constrained. 

Judicial activism as we observe it today is part of the unconstrained vision.  We have Ruth Bader Ginsberg openly calling on the precedents of  international laws to settle issues in the Untied States Supreme Court.  You have a long history of new rights carved out of the imaginations of the liberal justices.  Sowell describes it thus,

“Yet those who argue for deliberate law making through judicial activism do so not on the basis of having a democratic majority, even in a given generation, but rather on having an intellectually and morally superior process for decision making.” p. 54

We need to understand that there are elites in the world who think they know what is best for us and want to limit our options.  They do this in a genuine belief in their own wisdom and our lack of same.  This is the big issue at stake in the current confirmation battle over Bret Kavanaugh.  The progressives are concerned that he will interpret the Constitution as it is written instead of the way that the liberals want us to understand it.  The unconstrained vision believes that some people are so pure and superior that they will make the right choices.

The midterm elections are coming.  Ponder what kind of Supreme Court you want and vote accordingly.

Sowell, Thomas, A Conflict of Visions, New York:  Basic Books, 2007.

homo unius libri

Opus 2014-73: Intelligence vs Wisdom

Are you impressed that the president is associated with Occidental, Columbia and Harvard?  Are you willing to fly in the face of all evidence and accept the label of “very intelligent” that the media have bestowed on him?  Then you need to think about this statement by Thomas Sowell:

“Intellect is not wisdom.”

He was not writing about Barak Obama.  He was writing about the elite class that feels they have the duty to bleed off our liberty and make decisions for us.  They are the intellectuals (aka liberals, Democrats, Rino’s, socialists, communists and Progressives) that want to move us to a nanny state.  Of course it will be for our own good.

Sowell is reminding us that just because someone is smart does not mean they have the breadth of experience and moral foundation to make good decisions.  If you are the parent of bright children you know this.  If you are the child of someone with great artistic gifts you may have seen it in action.  The problem is that we forget it in everyday activity.  Although wisdom usually comes with age, grey hair is no guarantee.

Let me give an example.  Recently the People’s Republik of Kalifornia has passed a law that is usually referred to as the Transgender Bathroom Law.  It is much bigger than that, but titles need to be catchy.  It says that students have the right to declare whether they are male or female and they cannot be denied access to facilities that suit their sexual orientation.  When I am screaming about this to the other teachers, they look at me like deer in the headlights and ask, “What child would want to declare themselves something they are not?”  It came up in my eight grade class and all the guys start cheering because they realize it means they can go into the girls locker room and get an eye full.  In this case thirteen year old boys have more wisdom than a legislature full of “adults” and a governor in his seventies. 

Intellectuals.  You can’t live with them and they won’t don’t think you can live without them. 

(Thomas Sowell is one of my favorite non-fiction writers.  I have more books by Sowell than any other living writer.  He has a new book out about intellectuals that I have been too cheap to buy so I went to the library and checked out one of his older works, Intellectuals and Society.  I quickly found that I wanted it for myself so I went to Amazon and found he had revised it.  I bought the Kindle version.  This post will reference pages in the printed version.  Some later post will switch to Kindle references.

Sowell, Thomas.  Intellectuals and Society.  New York:  Basic Books, 2009, p. 1.

homo unius libri

Opus 2012-229, Headlines: Sowell on Executive Orders

Thomas Sowell had an interesting editorial in The Washington Time National Weekly of August 27, 2012.  It was entitled “Obama’s America: From citizens to subjects.”  In it he is focusing on President Obama’s use of executive orders to get around the law.  I could not find it on line to link to.  It may show up later.

He is concerned that Obama is destroying our country.  He says “The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration...”  The example Sowell uses is the recent executive order that exempted from certain emigration laws the children of illegal aliens who were brought into the country at a very early age.  He says by focusing on the details of the case we are missing the big issue.  The president is ignoring the law and ruling by fiat.

Sowell points out,

“No President of the United States is authorized to repeal parts of legislation passed by Congress.  He may veto the whole legislation, but then Congress can override his veto if they have enough votes.”

The president is openly and knowingly breaking the law by his declarations.

Sowell is talking about the election and how serious this is.  I would say that this sounds like a case of high crimes and misdemeanors.  That is reason for impeachment. 

At this point we know that is not going to happen.  You and I cannot impeach.  Only the House of Representatives can do that.  They have ignored repeated violations of an oath to support and protect the Constitution.  I don’t know how the presidential election is going to go but maybe it is time to vote out all of the weak willed politicians who will not hold the president’s feet to the fire.

November is coming.  Vote the suckers out.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-221, Elitism, Anyone?

I am a teacher.  I home schooled my children. We started the process before I became a teacher.  During the process we lived in constant fear that some social worker, knowing what was best for us, would break into our home and take our children.  It happens.  The world is full of well meaning elitists who believe that they know what is best for you.  We used to call them Liberals.  Now they call themselves Progressives.  As time goes on we have realized that there are elitists even in the ranks of the Conservatives.  They are everywhere.  They know no political limitations.  They know what is best for us.

Thomas Sowell addresses these elites who have what he calls the “unconstrained vision.” 

“...in the unconstrained vision, the best conduct of social activities depend on the special knowledge of the few being used to guide the actions of the many....Along with it has often gone a vision of intellectuals as disinterested advisers.”  Sowell, p. 41

There are some people who are simply superior in intellect and ability.  At least they think so.  They believe they have the duty to impose their superior ideas on others.  It is always for their own good, of course.

G.K. Chesterton touches on this also. 

“It need hardly be said that this is the real explanation of the thing which has puzzled so many dilettante critics, the problem of the extreme ordinariness of the behaviour (sic) of so many great geniuses in history.  Their behaviour (sic) was so ordinary that it was not recorded; hence it was so ordinary that it seemed mysterious.  Hence people say that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.  The modern artistic temperament cannot understand how a man who could write such lyrics as Shakespeare wrote, could be as keen as Shakespeare was on business transactions in a little town in Warwickshire.” Chesterton, p. 76. 

The reason this jumped out at me is the Shakespeare reference.  In case you are not into Shakespeare there is a roaring debate going on about who wrote his plays.  Those of us with a simple mind assume the question is on the same level as, “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?”  But the intellectuals among us, those who need to publish or perish, are trying to find the answer to this.  Most of their suggestions are people of a higher class than Shakespeare.  He was a commoner and these people don’t believe that common people are capable of excellence.

These same people break the book of Isaiah into at least three authors.  They pick and chose among the teachings of Jesus.  They tear apart the letters of Paul.  They consider themselves above the average man and I guess the average apostle.

Beware of elitists.  Beware of anyone who wants to do your thinking for you.  Understand that the consequence of such an attitude is thinking.  That requires reading, asking questions and actually putting your mind in gear.  Even when it comes to Bible teachers.  Listen to the pastor with your Bible open.  Ask yourself, “Is that really what it means or just what he wants it to mean?”  Don’t be afraid of hard questions.  I am sure that God has the answers even if the guru doesn’t.

Chesterton, G.K. Heretics.  Gutenberg Project.
Sowell, Thomas, A Conflict of Visions, New York:  Basic Books, 2007.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-88, Hanson on Sowell

I was listening to a podcast by Victor Davis Hanson downloaded from the Young America’s Foundation.  It was dated 12/19/2009 and titled “Obama’s Brave New World.”  He brought up a concept I have already shared when I was talking about the writing of Thomas Sowell.  Both men were giving secular approaches to the Christian belief that men are born in sin and that sin is the major cause of problems in the world.

Thomas Sowell talks about the Constrained Vision and the Unconstrained Vision.  The Constrained Vision sees man as the problem and believes that one role of society is to “constrain” him.  Thus we have checks and balances in our Constitution to keep tyrants in check.  The Unconstrained Vision sees man as an innocent victim of society.  Man is held down by religion and family.  If “unconstrained” human beings would build a paradise.

Hanson came up with similar thoughts but his were from the Greek civilization and literature.  He calls them Tragic and Therapeutic.  Tragedy sees man as flawed and needing the guidance of social pressure, religion and family.  The Therapeutic approach sees man as the victim and needing understanding. 

I find it interesting that the Christian doctrine of original sin is understood and expressed by so many people who would never endorse it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2011-7, Book Notes: A Conflict of Visions

Notes from
A Conflict of Visions
by Thomas Sowell

p. 4, “A vision is our sense of how the world works.”

p. 9, “Social visions differ in their basic conceptions of the nature of man.”

p. 10, “...two broad categories – the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision.”

pp. 11ff, people with a constrained vision
    Adam Smith
    Edmund Burke
    Alexander Hamilton
    Malthus
    John Randolf

pp. 12-13, “Instead of regarding man’s nature as something that could or should be changed, Smith attempted to determine how moral and social benefits desired could be produced in the most efficient way, within that constraint.”  (EO)

p. 14, “one of the hallmarks of the constrained vision is that it deals in trade-offs rather than solutions.”

pp. 15ff, People with an unconstrained vision
    William Godwin,
    Thomas Paine
    Rousseau
    John Stewart Mill
    Harold Laski
    Thomas Jefferson

p. 16, “Unlike Smith, who regarded human selfishness as a given, Godwin regarded it as being promoted by the very system of rewards used to cope with it.”

p. 27, “The unconstrained vision promotes pursuit of the highest ideals and the best solutions.  By contrast, the constrained vision sees the best as the enemy of the good – a vain attempt to reach the unattainable being seen as not only futile but often counterproductive, while the same efforts could have produced a more viable and beneficial trade-off.”

p. 40, “It was the eighteenth century exemplars of the unconstrained vision who created ‘the age of reason,’ as expressed in the title of Thomas Paine’s famous book of that era.  Reason was as paramount in their vision as experience was in the constrained vision.”

p. 40, “Therefore, the wisdom of the ages was seen by Godwin as largely the illusions of the ignorant.”

p. 41, “Implicit in the unconstrained vision is a profound inequality between the conclusions of ‘persons of narrow views’ and those with ‘cultivated’ minds.”


p. 41, “...in the unconstrained vision, the best conduct of social activities depend on the special knowledge of the few being used to guide the actions of the many....Along with it has often gone a vision of intellectuals as disinterested advisers.”

pp. 47-48, two types of reason

p. 47, “The power of specifically articulated  rationality is central to the unconstrained vision.  The power of unarticulated social processes to mobilize and coordinate knowledge is central to the constrained vision.”

 p. 49, In economics the constrained vision admits there are reasons for change, but the reasons “...cannot be specified in such concrete detail as to make it feasible for any individual or group to plan or control the actual process.”  The relates to what is happening in education.

pp. 50-51, insight:  common law based on the precedent is constrained vision

p. 54, “Yet those who argue for deliberate law making through judicial activism do so not on the basis of having a democratic majority, even in a given generation, but rather on having an intellectually and morally superior process for decision making.”

p. 56, “The clash over judicial activism reflect a much more general clash over the best way to contribute to the social good.  In the unconstrained vision, wise and conscientious individuals should strive to shape the best outcomes in particular issues that come within their jurisdiction.  In the constrained vision, the inherent limitations of individuals mean that each individual’s best contribution to society is to adhere to the special duties of its institutional role, and let the systemic processes determine outcomes.”

p. 56, “Just as the unconstrained vision urges judicial activism on its judges, it urges ‘social responsibility’ on businessmen– that they should hire, invest, donate and otherwise conduct their businesses with an eye to producing specific benefits to society at large.”

p. 57, “It is the systemic effect of competition rather than the individual intentions of businessmen which this vision relies on to produce social benefit.”

pp. 58ff, contrast between sincerity and fidelity
    sincerity - doing what you judge best for society as a whole
    fidelity - doing your duty as expected by those you serve

p. 59, “Sincerity is so central to the unconstrained vision that it is not readily conceded to adversaries, who are often depicted as apologists, if not venal.”

p. 60, “Within the unconstrained vision, sincerity is a great concession to make, while those with the constrained vision can more readily make that concession, since it means so much less to them.  Nor do adversaries need be depicted as stupid by those with the constrained vision, for they conceive of the social process as so complex that it is easy, even for wise and moral individuals, to be mistaken – and dangerously so.”

pp. 63-64, The unconstrained vision trusts youth, the constrained vision trusts age

p. 67, “The common man, according to Hobbes, seldom engaged in meaningless words, which he saw as the hallmark of intellectuals.”

p. 70, “The constrained vision puts little faith in deliberately designed social processes, since it has little faith that any manageable set of decision-makers could effectively cope with the enormous complexities of designing a whole blueprint for an economic system, a legal system, or a system of morality or politics.  The constrained vision relies instead on historically evolved social processes and evaluates them in terms of their systemic characteristics- their incentives and modes of interaction- rather than their goals or intentions.”

pp. 80-81, From this perspective, loyalty, promises, patriotism, gratitude, precedents, oaths of fidelity, constitutions, marriage, social traditions, and international treaties are all constrictions imposed earlier, when knowledge was less, on options to be exercised later, when knowledge will be greater.”

p. 86, “Patriotism and treason thus become a meaningless distinction at the extremes of the unconstrained vision, while this distinction is one of the most central and most powerful distinction in the constrained vision.”

p. 96, “According to the unconstrained vision, the patterned behavior of society is successful, just, and progressive insofar as it reflects the articulated rationality of man in general and of the most intellectually and morally advance people in particular.”

p. 96, “In the constrained vision, where man - individually and collectively - lacks both the intellectual and moral prerequisites for such deliberate, comprehensive planning, order evolves historically without design, and more effectively then when it is designed.”

p. 97, “The unconstrained vision tends to judge processes by their results - ‘is it right? Is it good?’ in the words of Chief Justice Earl Warren,  The constrained vision judges rightness and goodness as process characteristics rather than as results:  A foot race is fair if it is run under the proper conditons - regardless of who wins or loses, or how often the same person win.”  (EO)

p. 98, “In the constrained vision, freedom is a process characteristic - the absence of externally imposed impediments.”

p. 126, “Adherents to both the constrained and the unconstrained visions each see fascism as the logical extension of the adversary’s vision.”  (EO)

p. 133, “A social process which assures equal treatment thus represents equality, as seen in the constrained vision, whether or not the actual results are equal.”

p. 135, The unconstrained - “To them, equality of opportunity means equalized probabilities of achieving given results, whether in education, employment or courtroom.”  (EO)

p. 144, “The moral justification of the market process rests on the general prosperity and freedom it produces.”

p. 150, “The view that races, classes or sexes innately differ greatly in capabilities would be a conclusion for which a constrained vision would be necessary, but not sufficient, and is in fact rejected by many for whom intellectual or moral constraints apply to all human beings, without group distinction.”  (EO)

p. 159, “Like other evils, war was seen by those with the constrained vision as originating in human nature and as being contained by institutions.  To those with the unconstrained vision, war was seen as being at variance with human nature and caused by institutions.”

p. 173, “The unconstrained vision argues that this in not how the economy operated, that it is currently obeying the power of particular interests and should therefore be made in future to obey the power of the public interest.”  (EO)

p,. 181, Term “the locus of discretion” means who will decide

p. 197, “Here, as in other areas of the constrained vision, it is the experience of the many rather than the brilliance of the few that is to be relied upon,...”

p. 207, “From the standpoint of the constrained vision, the scope of those boundaries of immunity from public authority are the scope of people’s rights.”

p. 214, “Whatever its mechanisms or details, social justice has been the dominant theme of the unconstrained vision from Godwin to Rawls.”

p. 215, “The concept of social justice thus represents the extremes of the conflict of visions – an idea of the highest importance in one vision and beneath contempt in the other.”

p. 225, Discusses difference between “rights” and “interests”, “Interest therefore give way to rights, which are ‘trumps.’...Once again, in this vision, rights take precedence over interests.”

p. 226, “Much of what the unconstrained vision sees as morally imperative to do, the constrained vision sees man as incapable of doing.”

p. 231, “The fundamental difference between science and social theory is not at the level of visions, or even paradigms, but at the point where theories produce empirically testable hypothesis.”

p. 233, “Evidence need not be falsified in order to be evaded.”

p. 239, “The ability to sustain assertions without an evidence is another sign of the strength and persistence of visions.”

p. 244, “People with the same moral values readily reach differing political conclusions.”

p. 256-7  The unconstrained demonize those who disagree, the constrained consider opponents well meaning but wrong.

p. 260, “All these issues turn ultimately on whether or to what extent, surrogate decision-makers can make better decisions than those directly transacting.”

(EO) emphasis in original

Sowell, Thomas, A Conflict of Visions, New York:  Basic Books, 2007.

Opus 2011-6, Book Review: A Conflict of Visions

There are certain questions that keep bouncing around in my head.  One of them is “How can people who seem to be so intelligent, disagree with me?”  I know many people who seem to have at least average intelligence, are well meaning and informed and yet they can’t seem to understand the simplest cause and effect.  As a believer I have come to some conclusions and I expressed them in another post.  The problem is lack of wisdom.  But that is based on Biblical reasoning.  It would not convince anyone who does not accept the Bible.

Thomas Sowell answers this question from a purely secular point of view.  He calls it A Conflict of Visions.  I have now read this book twice and I hope to live long enough to get back to it before I die.  Even more impressive, I have purchased two copies.

Sowell suggests that there are two major divisions of thought in modern history, the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision.  He traces the thought from the 1700's to the present and gives examples of the thinking of the names we know from Adam Smith to Harold Laski.  He brings everything back to these two visions.

The constrained vision is a belief that man must be constrained.  Men are fallible and need a social system that makes allowance for that.  At the same time this vision believes that people should be free to make choices without coercion.  Thus the Founders established a Constitution with checks and balances.  They were concerned about the tyranny of one Caesar and also the tyranny of the majority.

The unconstrained vision has a belief that man will do what is right because it is right.  If he does not, it is because society has kept him from being truly free.  They admit that most people do not measure up yet, so they believe that they need to be led by those who are intellectually superior.  This small group is to make decisions for their less fortunate fellow citizens.  That way they are free to choose, but only among choices that are good for them.  He explains how the French Revolution was led by people that had this vision so it was open for the take-over by a small group of strong personalities.

Take the issue of the courts and how they reach decisions.

“The clash over judicial activism reflect a much more general clash over the best way to contribute to the social good.  In the unconstrained vision, wise and conscientious individuals should strive to shape the best outcomes in particular issues that come within their jurisdiction.  In the constrained vision, the inherent limitations of individuals mean that each individual’s best contribution to society is to adhere to the special duties of its institutional role, and let the systemic processes determine outcomes.” , p. 56

Both sides want to do good.  They view the law totally different.

Or take a current hot topic, social justice.

“The concept of social justice thus represents the extremes of the conflict of visions – an idea of the highest importance in one vision and beneath contempt in the other.”  p. 215

I will leave it up to you to figure out which is which.

This book explains why people can look at the same facts and come to opposite conclusions.  Sowell makes a genuine effort to be even handed.  This is not a hit piece but a thoughtful analysis.

Buy a copy and read it.

Sowell, Thomas, A Conflict of Visions, New York:  Basic Books, 2007.