Customer Reviews

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

It is very rare that I will write more than one review for a book. I wrote one for "Vision of the Annointed" a few years ago, and is by now burried in the heap of 5 star reviews below. In it, I praised Sowell for walking us through some of the rhetorical tricks used predominantly by the left wing (though since reading the book, I've become sensitive to the 'right' using similar arguments). I stand by that review. So why am I writing a new one?

I've recently picked up the book again after 2 or so years and have read through some - not all - of the chapters again and...it really hit me. The most important thing about this book is not simply the 'expose of the left'; rather, the predominant message seems to be about how the left (and I would argue, the right) ignore why 'tradeoffs' have to be made.

To put it more philosophically, the politicians dream is the policy that has no downsides. Sowell realizes that in a nation of many millions, every policy has negatives and that politicians should, instead of being focused on perfection, should be focused on taking the most gain for the least loss. This, Sowell says, is capitalism and markets. Yes, there are some losers. But there will be more winners and less losers through markets than there will through a regulatory state.

Now, let's put Sowells argument into modern context (the issue that made me pick the book up again). Lately, companies have been moving overseas and this, says the dems (and to a lesser degree the reps) is a problem. The solution being proposed? Let's pass laws to keep them here. The problem with that is that it ignores the real problem (by refusing to look at tradeoffs). The real reason companies have been moving is that they are so regulated both in what they can produce and how much it costs to hire workers (what, with minimum wages, increased benefits and such). Liteally, any company that didn't go overseas where they can produce cheaper goods with more freedom would be a fool. So there you have a Sowellian dilemma: either we can keep wages extraordinately high and regulations tight, while accepting the fact that companies are going to move in revolt, or we keep more companies here by accepting a bit of deregulation and decrease in payroll expenditure. WE CAN'T HAVE BOTH even though BOTH parties are trying to deny economic fact in favor of utopianism by telling us that we can. (This, of course, is not an example Sowell gives in his book, but the idea is there throughout the chapters, the one on how Nader hurts consumers being one of the best).

My point in this is simply to give a taste of what Sowell's big point is (one that I think has been lost in the excitement of bashing lefties). My first review also failed to pick it out through the excitement but the more I think about what is wrong with much policy today, the more I'm convinced that Sowell pegged it here: good gains require a willingness to take small losses.

Thomas Sowell demonstrates how anti-intellectual the current intelligensia are and how closed minded. When good intentions are more important than outcomes, a closed belief system results, insulated from real world feedback, with catastrophic results.

Modern political discourse has degenerated into name-calling ("mean-spirited," "reactionary," "racist") without reference to actual merits of a proposed course of action. Until I read Dr. Sowell's discussion of "mascots" and the "benighted," I never understood why organizations like the ACLU display the most passion of the behalf on those who exhibit the most anti-social behavor (Nazis marching in Skokie, drunks yelling obscenities at ballball games): Now I do.

Dr. Sowell's description of the genesis of government "solutions" (a phony crisis, a proposed program whose critics are shouted down and a retroactive redefinition of the program's goals when the critics prove correct) was also a revelation. Read this section and then turn to any N.Y. Times article discussing either global warming or the gender "wage gap" to see this cycle in action today.

If you read the book (and I highly recommend it), look at the Kirkus Review of it for an example of what Dr. Sowell is talking about. Isn't funny how articulate liberal writers are "passionate" and articulate conservative writers are "venomous?"

Ever wonder why liberals are so emotionally in favor of gun control even though it's a conclusive fact that gun control doesn't reduce gun violence? Or why they support the bilingual education programs that do so much damage to immigrant children? Or why they favor rent controls that make housing unavailable to the poor people for whom they supposedly have so much sympathy? Or why they want to make it illegal for a person to be employed if (s)he lacks the skills to do more than $7 worth of work every hour?

If the motives of liberals were truly what they say they are, then these positions would never gather the support that they now enjoy from the liberal community. Liberals are not uninformed; they read the same books, newspapers and academic journals as conservatives or libertarians. So why do they so consistently advocate policies whose results are demonstrably contrary to the results they claim to want?

Sowell explains the answer in this wonderful book. The reason, he says, is that the real motives of liberals have nothing to do with the welfare of other people. Instead, they have two related goals: first, to establish themselves as morally and intellectually superior to the rather distasteful population of common people, and second, to gather as much power as possible to tell those distasteful common people how they must live their lives. If a policy moves them closer to those two goals, they will find a reason to advocate it, regardless of how harmful the consequences of that policy may be.

Once you read this book, the dishonest posturing of liberals becomes far more understandable. They engage in a preposterous circular argument: They are wiser and more moral than others because they "understand" the need for the policies they advocate. In turn, those policies are the correct policies because they are advocated by the wiser and more moral members of society!

Many of Sowell's conclusions have become clear to me from personal experience. I recall attending a town meeting with a congressman in the early 80's, at which a pompous ass stood up and delivered a long diatribe on American policy in Nicaragua, ending with a rhetorical question about what "people of conscience" were going to do about those terrible policies. "People of conscience", by his definition, were the people who agreed with his beliefs regarding Nicaraguan policy. (Apparently the Nicaraguans themselves had no conscience, since at the first available opportunity they threw out the Sandinista government that he so fervently supported.)

When participating in a debate about gun control, the self-anointed liberals will assume without question that it is only the people who agree with their positions who care about children or violence. They assume without question that only narrow-minded chauvinists oppose bilingual education. They assume without question that only racists oppose racial discrimination (which they have renamed "affirmative action"). They assume without question that the people who feed and clothe them, who build their homes and cure their diseases, are engaged in a process of greed and exploitation - but that people who make their living by telling others what to do, and who get paid for doing so with money confiscated forcibly from those who earned it, are engaged in "public service".

Few liberals will read Sowell's book, because almost all liberals lack the moral and intellectual courage to confront their own motivations. But those few who read it by mistake will find themselves deeply pierced. Liberals are so accustomed to being able to bully their opponents with name-calling and preemption of the entire vocabulary of debate, that they scream with fury when their pretenses are stripped away.

Having said all that, I have to admit that a couple of previous reviewers are right when they accuse Sowell of ignoring the propensity of conservatives to sometimes engage in the same kind of sloppy thinking and self-serving prejudice which he attributes only to liberals. That criticism is fair; Sowell is a conscious partisan. It is only Libertarians (like me, of course! :-) ) who consistently stick to principle.

Sowell must have written this book with tongue in cheek. Of course, the subject matter is perfectly serious. But Sowell has a profound wit that penetrates into the heart of the liberal ideology. One might even consider it a psychoanalysis of the liberal mentality.

But whatever one calls it, there can be no doubt about its poignancy and accuracy. A lot of what Sowell says is something that many of the "benighted" know but have been unable to cohere or articulate. Sowell fills this gap by making sense of it all. One is left with not only a clear sense of what the "vision of the anointed" is, but also what motivates those holding the vision.

Liberals will no doubt find this book to be galling if not for its pricking accuracy, then for Sowell's attempt to deconstruct the liberal psyche. After all, nobody likes to be analyzed by others, especially when the analysis points out that we are self-righteous, self-absorbed, condescending, and full of hubris.

As someone who has observed liberals for a long time, including my own journey into and out of the liberal faith, I can attest to what Sowell describes. But if all Sowell did were write a description, this book would be of little value. The value comes from Sowell himself - his organization of the presentation and especially the style of his delivery. In short, coherent and articulate.

This book is a must read for conservatives. You will be satisfied to finally have a resource that makes sense of it all. Where do liberals come from? What do they believe? Why do they believe? What motivates them? Why do they say and do certain things? Why are they wrong so often? All of these questions and more are answered in this book.

This book's main emphasis is the need for "results oriented" social policy.

Sowell's fundamental argument is:
1. Social policy is often built based on a perceived, "crisis."
2. That a "crisis," even exists, usually goes unchallenged, or ignored.
3. When said social policy fails to accomplish its stated objective, attempts are made to change the initial objective, or simply ignore the outcome.

"The Anointed," as Sowell calls them, are those who identify the crisis, put forth the policies, and then, if they fail, obfuscate the results. They live in a self justifying world, where what they "envision" is correct and moral *a priori.* Those who disagree are demonized as simpleminded and mean-spirited.

Sowell offers a lot of examples that support his theory at varying degrees of success. From Sex Ed programs, Low Income Housing, to environment policy. It is certainly a fascinating read.

Whether you agree with him or not (I mostly agree with him), what this book accomplishes is that it forces you to refocus on facts and data to make decisions, as opposed to your own moral vision.

Thomas Sowell is part conservative, and part libertarian. Being that I am fully libertarian, I tend to agree with most of his ideas, expecially those regarding economic issues. And even in those cases where I don't agree with him, I still credit him with having good arguments and sound logic.

The title of this book refers to the fact that there are certain people who think that they know exactly how everyone else should live. In this book Sowell talks about how these people tend to use the government to force their values and ideas onto everybody else. Being that Sowell is part conservative, he himself is actually somewhat guilty of this to some degree. For example, he often favors using the U.S. military to interfere in the affairs of other countries. Despite this, Sowell's busy-body attitude pales in comparison with those of the people whom he targets in this book. Specifically, the people that he targets are those on the left-wong of the political spectrum. The typical attitude of liberals is that whenever there's any kind of a problem, there's always a government solution. Liberals hold this idea even when it was the government that caused the problem in the first place.

For example liberals are big supporters of government farm subsides. The government pays farmers not to grow food. This reduces the supply of food, and this causes the price of food to go up. Then these very same liberals complain about the millions of hungry women and children, and the liberals claim that in order to solve this problem, we need to spend more money on welfare and food stamps. Thus, the real purpose of farm subsidies is to increase the price of food, so that poor people will become dependent on welfare and food stamps, so that the poor people will vote for the Democrats. The Democrats pretend to care about poor people, but if this was really the case, then why do the Democrats support these farm programs which make food more expensive?

And it's the exact same thing with low income housing. Liberals favor all sorts of laws that make it illegal for the private secotr to build decent, affordable housing. Zoning laws, density restrictions, anti-development laws, and all sorts of other laws make it illegal for the private sector to build low cost housing. Liberals are big supporters of these laws. And of course liberals are also the same poeple who complain the loudest about the lack of decent, affordable housing, and then they say that we need to spend more money on HUD and public housing and other such things. Sowell loves to point out the hypocrisy of liberals with regard to this kind of thing.

Forty years of the War on Poverty has resulted in massive increases in illegitimacy rates, irresponsibility, and fatherless homes, and has taguht millions of people that there is no need to work or to plan for the future. And of course the liberals' solution to all of these problems is to spend even more money on government programs.

Adjusted for inflation, spending on the public schools, per student, has quadrupled since the 1950s. Despite this, the liberals keep claiming that we need to spend more money on the public schools. Of course many of these same liberals send their own children to private schools.

Sowell views liberals as being stuck up snobs who think that the government should control people's lives. Liberals feel that they know exactly how people should live, and they want to use the government to force their values on everybody else.

Also it's interesting about Sowell's attitudes on affirmative action. Sowell is black and he is against afffirmative action. Sowell knows that affirmative action teaches blacks to be lazy and to avoid working hard. Liberals love affirmative action. Liberals think that blacks are inferior and can't make it on their own. Sowell calls liberals for the condescending bigots that they are.

I have been reading Sowell's newspaper column for many years, and I have been a big fan of his writing for a long time. This book is a very valuable addition to my collection. I have read several other books by Sowell, and they were all very good too.

Thomas Sowell is one of the very few intellectuals alive today that can present wide ranging topics in clear, precise terms. Trained as an economist, Sowell became disillusioned with academia and has spent most of his career making precision attacks on those of the political left. In this book, Sowell examines the underlying vision of liberals. We all know what liberals do. Sowell shows us WHY liberals do what they do. This isn't an easy book to read, but it may be one of the most important books written in the last ten years. After I read this book I wondered how the Left could survive. Sowell exposed all of their tricks in this book. Regardless of how the Left reacts, this book is extremely important. You'll be able to recognize the rhetoric of Leftists after reading this book.

Several areas of this book make quite an impression. One of the best areas is the so-called "Aha! statistics", which is when liberals distort statistical information to back up their ideas and programs. Many times, Sowell explains, they use the statistics to try and show that a certain institution is "racist". Sowell shows how statistics can be manipulated and informs the reader on how to spot potential problems. One of the biggest problems is confusing causation with correlation. Many times liberals try and show that a certain event is caused by one other event. It is seldom that cut and dried. Many events have numerous causes that are difficult to track down. Leftists love to have one cause to point a finger at because it allows them to marshal all of their forces and aim them at one spot.

In my opinion, the best part of the book is when Sowell lays out his theory of the two great visions on how the world operates. According to Sowell, these visions are the tragic view, and the view of the anointed. The tragic view sees the world as a series of events that can't be controlled by humans. This worldview involves trade-offs that must be made in order to try and come up with the outcome that benefits the most people most of the time. Those who believe in the tragic view realize that every problem can't be solved to perfection. Every decision will create suffering for others, but the idea is to find a way in which the LEAST amount of people suffer. Those with the vision of the anointed believe in "all-or-nothing" solutions, in which every problem must be solved so that ALL people benefit, and that there will be no suffering to any people. As one can see, the vision of the anointed just isn't realistic.

I enjoyed many of Sowell's examples of how the anointed are trying to exert their control over everyone else. Sowell shows how the judiciary has been completely compromised by the vision of the anointed. Judges are now creating laws instead of making rulings by the law. A big part of judicial rulings today consists of "interpretations", which lead to confusing and contradictory judgments that have caused more harm than good. One example is the Kreimer ruling, in which an obnoxious bum that was causing problems in a New Jersey library won a lawsuit against that town because they had tried to keep him out of the building. Instead of making a ruling that would have benefited the many who were disrupted by the behavior of this miscreant, the judge ruled in favor of the bum. Sowell presents this as one example in which those that the Left has chosen as mascots (AIDS victims, bums, minorities, women, etc.) have been elevated over the needs of everyone else.

There is much more meat in this book then what I've detailed here. It is sufficient to say that Sowell has a huge intellect, and is absolutely devastating in his attacks on the Left. I almost felt sorry for them while I was reading this book. If they weren't causing this country so much damage and grief, they would deserve our pity. I almost always recommend the books that I review for Amazon.com, but I really recommend this one. It's that good.

Economist Thomas Sowell is an under-rated conservative thinker and writer.
In this pivotal piece, he creates the notion that many people in government, media, and watchdog groups have a vision of what America should be and impose it on the rest of the populace depsite rule of law, logic, science and what the population wants.
In essence, his contention that public policy is created by those who "think they know better than the average American." He then outlines how myths are perpetrated by analyzing the numbers behind them. One promiment myth is the idea that the gap between the rich and poor is growing wider. He does this by analyzing income based on age group. If you take the average income of someone in their late 40's, they are making more money than those in their 20's simply because they have been working for 20-plus years and have the advantage of longevity.
He chronicles how safety measures--such as requiring safety seats for infants on airlines has backfired. This has driven up the cost of airline tickets, forcing airlines to lose money, and forcing people to drive instead of fly--which is far more dangerous.
One of Sowell's best tactics is simple facts coupled with fresh insights into modern problems.
Even more compelling, he does not villify the "Anointed," but rather sees them as simply misguided in earnest concern.
One thing the book lacks though, is the fact that the "Anointed" also come from the right of the political spectrum.
Neal Boortz comes to mind as someone who tends to villify opponents and consider many Americans as "stupid." Bill O'Reilly will call his opponents pin heads and villifies anyone who does not agree with his "Jessica's Law" crusade.
While I do like both personalities, they, too have a "Vision of the Anointed" which comes from the right end of the political spectrum.
Still, this is a good read. Hopefully it will help us flex our muscles of freedom, and prevent us from seeing ourselves as having a vision of the anointed.

Wow! What an eye opening experience this book is. Be forewarned that this book will make most American Citizens angry. Dr. Sowell presents common information, even self evident information, to build the compelling distinction between original American founding principle of Liberty and the "annointed" distribution of liberties to their chosen victims. You will learn how the socialists operate to usurp individual and family freedom of choice and supplant it with societal choice (Think "It Takes a Village" - Hillary Clinton)There is nothing new here, F.A. Hayek made a similar case in "The Road to Serfdom" in the 40s when he explained the the motivation for facsism and socialism derive from the same fundamental impulses. However, the information is new and up to date and the presentation current.

Once you read this book, you will understand the canards of Mr. Berkowitz who writes "...[Sowell] shows his readers that his compassion do not lay with his own people even though a disproportionate number are in poverty, jails, stopped by police, in failing schools, high school dropouts, low paid, etc." Mr. Berkowitz never refutes any of Dr. Sowell's arguments, but instead simply calls Dr. Sowell an Uncle Tom (In a backhand sort of way.) Mr. Berkowitz has the "Vision of the Annointed" as you will discover as you proceed through the book.

Vision of the Anointed is a powerful book that exposes the strategies, vocabulary, and denial of logical evidence that is so prevalent on the left side of the political spectrum. Sowell, who exposes the weaknesses of liberalism in all it's facets, has successfully written one of the best books on the subject. He pulls no punches and covers numerous topics. Judicial activism with regards to crime and other liberal utopian social projects are totally digested in a superior mind. Sowell then with the help of evidence, common sense, and a little dose of reality, shatters all the evidenciary arguments liberals try so hard not to make. A MUST READ!!!!