Book of Days: asher553

Culture, as the term is used here, will not be confined to what one scholar on ethnicity has called "real culture", such as "music and art". On the contrary, the focus here will be primarily on those aspects of culture which provide the material requirements for life itself - the specific skills, general work habits, saving propensities, and attitudes toward education and entrepreneurship - in short, what economists call "human capital".
- Thomas Sowell, 'Race and Culture'

'The two visions differ fundamentally, not only in how they see the world, but also in how those who believe in these visions see themselves. If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values and other features of the tragic vision, then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation inherent in those beleifs. But to be for "social justice" and "saving the environment" or to be "anti-war" is more than just a set of hypotheses about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate ...

In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other does not. These visions are not symmetrical.'
- Thomas Sowell, 'Intellectuals and Society'

I think this passage gets a lot of things right about the appeal of the leftist program: if you believe the doctrine, then you believe that what distinguishes you from people who disagree with you is that you're a *better person* than they are.

A few pages earlier, Sowell fleshes out the concept of the tragic vision:

'..."the darker picture" painted by Thucydides of "a human race that escaped chaos and barbarism by preserving with difficulty a thin layer of civilization" based on "moderation and prudence" growing out of experience.'

I do not think conservatism, as Sowell formulates it here, needs to accept that it is doomed to follow an uninspiring vision, i.e. the tragic vision. I'm not keen on the term "tragic vision" because it sounds too, well, tragic. I would prefer to call it the "triumphant vision" because it affirms the possibility of triumph at every moment over the forces that would make us less than we truly are.

'At the core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, as such - not the personal application of ideas, as engineers apply complex scientific principles to create physical structures or mechanisms. A policy wonk whose work might be analogized as "social engineering" will seldom personally administer the schemes that he or she creates or advocates. ... The output - the end product - of an intellectual consists of ideas.

... The standards by which engineers and financiers are judged are external standards, beyond the realm of ideas and beyond the control of their peers. ... But the ultimate test of a deconstructionist's ideas is whether other deconstructionists find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant, or ingenious. There is no external test.'

- Thomas Sowell, 'Intellectuals and Society'