Intellectuals and Society

“Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect. Wisdom is the rarest quality of all—the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding. Wisdom is the fulfillment of the ancient admonition, “With all your getting, get understanding.” “Wisdom requires self-discipline and an understanding of the realities of the world, including the limitations of one’s own experience and of reason itself. The opposite of high intellect is dullness or slowness, but the opposite of wisdom is foolishness, which is far more dangerous. George Orwell said that some ideas are so foolish that only an intellectual could believe them, for no ordinary man could be such a fool.’’ Sowell clearly belongs this class of ‘intellectuals’. However, he shines a light in a dark corner of the ‘intellectual’ mind . . . “The great problem—and the great social danger—with purely internal criteria is that they can easily become sealed off from feedback from the external world of reality and remain circular in their methods of validation. What new idea will seem plausible depends on what one already believes. When the only external validation for the individual is what other individuals believe, everything depends on who those other individuals are. If they are simply people who are like-minded in general, then the consensus of the group about a particular new idea depends on what that group already believes in general—and says nothing about the empirical validity of that idea in the external world.’’ ‘Sealed off from feedback’. Fellow ‘believers’ are not the real world. “The ignorance, prejudices, and groupthink of an educated elite are still ignorance, prejudice, and groupthink—and for those with one percent of the knowledge in a society to be guiding or controlling those with the other 99 percent is as perilous as it is absurd. The difference between special knowledge and mundane knowledge is not simply incidental or semantic. Its social implications are very consequential. For example, it is far easier to concentrate power than to concentrate knowledge. That is why so much social engineering backfires and why so many despots have led their countries into disasters.’’ ‘Easier to concentrate power than knowledge’. So true! “John Stuart Mill, who epitomized the intellectual in many ways, expressed this view explicitly, when he said that the “present wretched education” and “wretched social arrangements” were “the only real hindrance” to attaining general happiness among human beings. Moreover, Mill saw the intelligentsia—“ the most cultivated intellects in the country,” the “thinking minds,” “the best and wisest”—as guides to a better world in their role of “those who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling.” The scientific/industrial revolution conquered nature. Why not overcome human life the same way. Well . . . “This has been the role of the intelligentsia, as seen by the intelligentsia, both before and after Mill’s time—that of intellectual leaders whose broader knowledge and deeper insights can liberate people from the needless restrictions of society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous declaration— “ Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains” —summarizes the heart of the vision of the anointed, that social contrivances are the root cause of human unhappiness. This vision seeks to explain the fact that the world we see around us differs so greatly from the world that we would like to see. In this vision, oppression, poverty, injustice and war are all products of existing institutions—problems whose solutions require changing those institutions, which in turn requires changing the ideas behind those institutions. In short, the ills of society have been seen as ultimately an intellectual and moral problem, for which intellectuals are especially equipped to provide answers, by virtue of their greater knowledge and insight, as well as their not having vested economic interests to bias them in favor of the existing order and still the voice of conscience.’’ This is a great summary of the ‘vision of the anointed’! What is the correct word — hubris, arrogance, pride? Maybe — supercilious! PART I -INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 -Intellect and Intellectuals INTELLIGENCE VERSUS INTELLECT IDEAS AND ACCOUNTABILITY COMPETING CONCEPTS OF KNOWLEDGE THE ROLE OF REASON PART II -INTELLECTUALS AND ECONOMICS Chapter 4 -Economic Systems CHAOS VERSUS COMPETITION ZERO-SUM ECONOMICS PART III -INTELLECTUALS AND SOCIAL VISIONS Chapter 6 -A Conflict of Visions Chapter 8 -Arguments Without Arguments “SIMPLISTIC” ARGUMENTS “SOCIAL JUSTICE” Chapter 9 -Patterns of the Anointed “CHANGE” VERSUS THE STATUS QUO ATTITUDES VERSUS PRINCIPLES A SEALED BUBBLE CRUSADES OF THE ANOINTED PART IV -OPTIONAL REALITY Chapter 10 -Filtering Reality OBJECTIVITY VERSUS IMPARTIALITY Chapter 11 -Subjective Truth PART V -INTELLECTUALS AND THE LAW Chapter 12 -Changing the Law PART VI -INTELLECTUALS AND WAR PART VIII -AN OVERVIEW Chapter 20 -Patterns and Visions Chapter 21 -Incentives and Constraints THE SUPPLY OF PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS THE DEMAND FOR PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS Chapter 22 -The Influence of Intellectuals Sowell leads reader up a smooth, safe path. However, he clearly marks the dangerous sections. Solid reasoning, abundance of facts and enlightening explanations. Fit for both general and academic reader. Provides outstanding insight to the causes, puzzles of modernity. Even more, does not offer any real alternative.

I think one of these days I am going to publish a list of the top 10 books that every single thinking person has to read. For a conservative like myself, there are books that have played a formative role in developing, defining, and defending an ideology. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Kirk's The Roots of American Order come to mind - classic works that no serious conservative reader would dare miss. The list has grown by one this year thanks to Thomas Sowell, and I do not make such a claim easily. While his much earlier masterpiece, Conflict of Visions (1987), could arguably be on the list as well, I believe that his newest book, Intellectuals and Society, is not just Sowell at his finest but is perhaps the very essence of conservative thinking at its finest. The book is remarkably readable, extremely practical, and most of all, is such a lethal combination of head shots and body blows to the parasite of modern intellectualism that one finishes the book feeling splattered by the damage Sowell has done. At its core, the book seeks to explore the phenomena of public intellectuals who Sowell carefully defines as "people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas". There are extremely intelligent people in our society who we do not deem to be "intellectuals" - specialists who possess a particular expertise in a particular field. Sowell provides the important distinction that engineers and scientists and financiers, for example, while not considered to be "public intellectuals", are judged by external standards - by empirical notions of verifiability. Intellectuals, on the other hand, face no such external test. Rather, it is the mere acceptance their own peers provide them that defines their success. They are judged exclusively by internal criteria, devoid of methods of validation. Yet their ideas have consequences, and as Sowell demonstrates in every page of this 317-page delight, the ideas of the intelligentsia over the last century have largely been an unmitigated disaster. Often lethal and frequently incoherent, intellectuals have survived in the last 100 years despite the fruits of their labors. Sowell laments this development, questions its causes, and demonstrates its truth in crystal clear fashion. Intellectuals lack accountability for their disastrous ideas, aided and abetted by non-intellectual accomplices within the intelligentsia that share their unconstrained vision for humanity. Sowell does not target the flaws of public intellectuals that may or may not exist within their particular field of specialization. The book calls these public intellectuals to the carpet for their espousing of ideas and policies to a wider audience than their field of study called for, carrying the same "air of authority" in the wider field that was outside of their field of expertise as they do within the more narrow field to which they claim some degree of knowledge. Sowell points out that "most non-intellectuals achieve public recognition or acclaim by their achievements within their respective areas of specialization, while many intellectuals could achieve comparable public recognition only by going outside their own expertise or competence." Public intellectuals feed off of a demand that is almost entirely self-manufactured. As Sowell has laid out in his aforementioned work, Conflict of Visions, the unconstrained vision of the left is one of an arrogant, elite, anointed - a vision that makes claim to the moral responsibility and intellectual ability to cure the world of its ills. The testing of this unconstrained vision through conventional and empirical validation methods has been devastating in its conclusiveness that the unconstrained vision has been a disaster. The challenge, though, is the lack of accountability that exists for these public intellectuals. Sowell makes clear that their vision is not only one for the world "as it exists and a vision of what it ought to be like, but it is also a vision of themselves as a self-anointed vanguard, leading toward that better world." For Sowell, "the role that they aspire to play in society at large can only be achieved by them to the extent that the rest of society accepts what they say uncritically and fails to examine their track record." The real target of Sowell's book are those members of the "intelligentsia" who either make up these public intellectual frauds, or worse, serve as their willing accomplices. Judges in the legal system, politicians in government, journalists in media, and worst of all, academic charlatans in the academy, have all served as the support system for this age of public intellectuals promulgating their anointed vision to the world. Sowell meticulously walks through the effects intellectuals have had in 20th century economics, law, foreign policy, and media. He laments the attack on the very concept of truth itself that the intellectuals have launched, and again points out the self-serving nature of their vision. Sowell is a brilliant thinker himself - an idea man - a scholar. But unlike the targets of Sowell's attacks, he does not claim that his expertise in socio-political thoughts exempts him from external validation tests should he branch out into other arenas of thought. Sowell invites external criticism. He holds himself to the standards that public intellectuals refuse to hold themselves to. And while Sowell is an ideologue, he is keenly aware that the repudiation of the unconstrained vision of the anointed - public intellectual leftism - is unlikely to take place as long as this vision maintains its dominance in our school system and modern media. The arrogance of collectivism and surrogate decision-making can be rebuffed in print (as Sowell does in decisive fashion), but the battle must be won where the battle is being fought. Sowell's book is a treasure for those who want to be armed when they engage this fight. The future of our civilization depends on those who hold to the constrained vision - the vision of the founders - taking this fight to the public square. The fight will not be won without Sowell's decimation of the likes of John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Paul Ehrlich, and dozens of other blowhards whose ideas have represented indescribable agony for citizens of the 20th and now 21st centuries. But as Sowell makes painfully clear, the vision of the anointed is now the property of the teacher's unions and the New York Times. Conservatives have a lot of work to do. I do not recommend doing anything else when you are done reading this review besides buying Sowell's book. Intellectuals and Society is the magnum opus of this man's life and career, and I have barely scratched the surface of what he accomplishes in this book. Read it. Encourage your kids to read it. And engage the fight. The arrogance of the self-anointed elites will not be defeated until we do. See [...] for more

A book with the title Intellectuals and Society can be expected to range widely, and Thomas Sowell's latest does not disappoint, covering ground from economics to criminology and foreign policy. In each area, Mr. Sowell's complaint is that intellectuals -- "people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas - writers, academics, and the like" - are having negative effects. And, maddeningly, these intellectuals are "unaccountable to the external world," immune from sanction, insulated even from the loss of reputation that those in other fields suffer after having been proven wrong. The reputation of certain intellectuals may not be quite so immune after Mr. Sowell has finished with them, because he is withering in assessing and recording their failures. The newspapers take it particularly hard from Mr. Sowell, and not just the American ones. There was the Daily Telegraph's prediction that Hitler would be gone before the end of 1932, and the Times of London's description of the Nazi dictator as a "moderate." Add to this a New York Times column issued by Tom Wicker on the collapse of the Communist bloc, cautioning, "that Communism has failed does not make the Western alternative perfect, or even satisfying for millions of those who live under it." This book does a wonderful job at marshalling facts to puncture commonly held notions of intellectuals and others who tend to be political liberals. It'd be hard to think the same way about income inequality ever again after reading Mr. Sowell's tremendously clear explanation of confusion between income and wealth and "confusion between statistical categories and flesh-and-blood human beings." By the time Mr. Sowell is done, the confusion is gone. He does the same job on gun control, on the supposed epidemic of arson fires at black churches in 1996, and on various topics related to crime and punishment. Mr. Sowell can turn phrases back around at left-wing intellectuals like boomerangs. "What is called 'planning' is the forcible suppression of millions of people's plans by a government-imposed plan," he writes. "Many of what are called social problems are differences between the theories of intellectuals and the realities of the world - differences which many intellectuals interpret to mean that it is the real world that is wrong and needs changing." Even those already steeped in free-market economic thinking will find new facts and perspectives here. Who knew, for example, that restrictions on land use have so artificially inflated housing prices in San Francisco that "the black population has been cut in half since 1970"? "The power of arbitrary regulation is the power to extort," Mr. Sowell writes, giving as an example a San Mateo, Calif., housing development whose approval was contingent on the builders turning over to local authorities 12 acres for a park, contributing $350,000 for public art, and selling about 15% of the homes below their market value. Some of these historical facts may be relevant to our own times, such as Mr. Sowell's observation that, "As President, Hoover responded to a growing federal deficit during the depression by proposing, and later signing into law, a large increase in tax rates - from the existing rate of between 20 and 30 percent for people in the top income brackets to new rates of more than 60 percent in those brackets." Mr. Sowell does sometime tilts his facts to favor his thesis. For example, there's a whole scathing section about intellectuals who opposed President Bush's "surge" in Iraq, but there's no mention of the fact that the idea for the surge came from a right-of-center policy intellectual, Frederick Kagan. While Mr. Sowell faults "intellectuals" for all kinds of bad thinking, in so doing he relies on and cites approvingly a string of other intellectuals -- Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Eric Hoffer, Paul Johnson, Robert Bartley, James Q. Wilson, Victor Davis Hanson. Mr. Sowell himself, by his own definition, qualifies as an intellectual. If Mr. Sowell is angry at intellectuals, one reason is for covering up the progress and prosperity of his own country and the open-mindedness of its people. "Data showing the poverty rate among black married couples in America to have been in single digits for every year since 1994 are unlikely to get much, if any, attention in most of the media. Still less is it likely to lead to any consideration of the implications of such data for the view that the high poverty rate among blacks reflects the larger society's racism, even though married blacks are of the same race as unmarried mothers living in the ghetto on welfare, and would therefore be just as subject to racism, if that was the main reason for poverty," he writes. Intellectuals and Society seems to have been written by Mr. Sowell out of a belief, or a hope, that the society will ultimately outsmart the intellectuals. Armed with Mr. Sowell's book, readers will be in a better position to help do that.

The revised and expanded version of Intellectuals and Society is a book of the highest importance. One wishes that it could be adopted as the ‘common reading text’ for all colleges and universities. This will never happen, because: a) the book is far too long for the modern student attention span and, b) it flies in the face of much of the college process of indoctrination and challenges readers to see the realities of our contemporary intellectual milieu. For TS, ‘intellectuals’ are those whose work product is ideas, ideas that are seldom exposed to empirical tests but are, instead, measured by what TS calls ‘peer consensus’. In other words, if the ideas are accepted by colleagues this becomes the source of their ‘validation’, not external/empirical checks. Hence, the ideas can enjoy equal prominence when they diametrically contradict one another, early 20thc intellectuals attributing minority experiences to genetics and later 20thc intellectuals attributing them to racism (i.e. society and the environment rather than nature). Since their colleagues (in each case) concur, they are free from external criticism. Similarly, when their colleagues concur with their stance, external reality becomes irrelevant. Thus, Edmund Wilson could see the Soviet Union as the world’s moral exemplar even though its citizens were being executed or starved to death. The intellectuals here are a largely left-leaning collection of academics in the humanities and soft social sciences; their colleagues in, e.g., engineering and medicine do work that is subject to external, empirical test and hence they are accountable. Differentiating themselves from their peers is, in some cases, their hallmark. The intellectuals are supported by a penumbra of journalists, teachers and writers whose impact on public policy comes through their ability to sway naïve readers/voters. Since the intellectuals see themselves as the self-anointed whose job it is to control the ignorant masses, they are not exclusively on the left. Michael Bloomberg, e.g., is just as ready to control the lives of his fellow citizens as a Paul Krugman. The differentiation comes in several ways. In economics, e.g, those who support market-driven decision making (like TS) will make an argument such as the following: when the Soviet planners set out to fix the prices of goods and services they had to make approximately 24,000,000 decisions. That is a daunting task (even for those with the pride and arrogance to believe that their personal intelligence enabled them to perform it). For the millions in the marketplace, however, such decisions are made constantly and fairly straightforwardly. The question becomes—who do you trust, a handful of intelligent individuals (usually with expertise in a narrow field) or the collective wisdom of the total populace? The same is true with standard issues of public policy—should we place our lives in the hands of a handful of ‘experts’ or trust the accumulated wisdom of centuries and millions? The ‘intellectuals’ opt for the former. They are also differentiated by their world views. The ‘intellectuals’ are utopian and they tend to deal in abstractions. They believe that humans are perfectible and that social engineering can bring us to the promised land. They also often argue emotionally. They will decry ‘poverty’, e.g. and demand solutions while they fail to tell the electorate that ‘poverty’ is a moving target that they constantly redefine. At the same time they decry the distance between rich and poor, while presenting their arguments in terms of abstract constructs, failing to tell the electorate that actual flesh-and-blood individuals move across the categories. They will decry the income level of one group vs. another without telling the electorate that there are important demographic differences between the groups, the group that is largely older thus (and obviously) having greater income because they have greater experience and additional years to acquire skills, receive promotions, and so on. The intellectuals’ critics (usually ‘conservatives’) have a ‘tragic view’ of humankind. (Some would say that they see humans as ‘fallen’.) They believe that humans are capable of great achievements and societies are capable of growth, amelioration and success, but they also believe that human nature is something that is real and more or less constant. Dictators will arise and they will not always lay down their weapons or opt for peace and brotherhood. Public policy must be aware of human nature and policy makers must realize that in the vast majority of cases they are not facing a magical fork in the road which leads to either utopia or perdition; they are looking at concrete decisions that involve very real trade-offs. These arguments are made with a long succession of examples, including the views of ‘intellectuals’ on economics, social vision, subjectively-filtered ‘realities’ and ‘truths’, the law, war and race. While the book presents a great deal of material that material is articulated with lucidity and point. The book is not arcane or recondite; it is straightforward and compelling. If you want to know how we have arrived at a set of views that appear to be counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and both ‘respected’ and often wrong, this is the place to start. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of Thomas Sowell so it's very possible that my review is biased. Truly, Thomas Sowell is an American gem and one of the greatest thinkers, philosophers, economists, authors, speakers, etc of our time. He always gives me something to think about and manages to make subjects that could easily turn boring, into something interesting. I do recommend this book and I recommend reading it multiple times.

Thomas Sowell is, hands down, one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, and talented writers of the last century when it comes to analyzing ideas and trends around the world. I myself was introduced to Dr. Sowell a few years ago. His common-sense insight, interesting writing style, and occasional humor have done a lot to help me inform my own world-view. Sowell's book, Intellectuals in Society, is a crowning achievement that everyone should read, regardless of creed, or ideology. In such a tumultuous time politically, it feels easy to let our own emotions, or the words of those we see as on a higher intellectual plane, dictate how we see the world. Dr. Sowell does an exceptional job of looking at and dissecting the Intellectuals words throughout the history of America and the western world in general. When Sowell says "Intellectual," he specifically means those whose final products are ideas. The most damning point that Dr. Sowell makes is that unlike other careers who work or think on a high intellectual plane, such as doctors, engineers, or architects, the "Intellectuals" who's end products are ideas rarely, if ever, end up being held accountable for when said ideas don't work in practice. In fact, these ideas have in fact had devastating effects around the world, and caused millions upon millions of lives to be wrecked or downright destroyed. It is worth noting that Sowell himself may be considered an "Intellectual," but I believe that he is able to practice far more restraint and acknowledge the intellectual limitation far more than many, if not most, of his peers are won't to do. Sowell spends a good chunk of the book looking at empirical, historical data which shows the folly and utter fallacies of intellectuals throughout history. Many totalitarian regimes, specifically in the early to mid twentieth century, have been found to have been supported quite fervently among many intellectuals of the time, specifically many on the left such as H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, among others. Other examples of the folly among intellectuals include many of the prevalent views they had surrounding making piece treaties with totalitarian leaders, such as Adolf Hitler, as a means to avoid war. This was particularly evident among Neville Chamberlain. When future prime minister Winston Churchill expressed (in hindsight) very reasonable criticism of this piece treaty, he was scorned, and mocked, rather than actually challenged or debated. Ultimately, the refusal to hear out those like Churchille led not to piece, but to the most bloody war in human history in the form of World War II. The most interesting and worthwhile fallacy that Sowell points out is how real, flesh and blood individuals have been described by Intellectuals. The most notable hear is none other than chief justice Clarence Thomas. Sowell points out that while Thomas is accused of being a recluse, due to the fact that he doesn't like to attend political gatherings (and isn't too keen on self-promotion.) In actuality, Clarence Thomas enjoys speaking with regular people, and loves going on road trips around the country. he often likes to strike up a chat with regular people without so much as mentioning his role on the Supreme Court. This is yet another example of how the ideas of Intellectuals matter more to them and their ilk than actual, flesh and blood people. Dr. Sowell's book is dense, and is written in a way that may come off as somewhat inaccessible to some, though that isn't really a fault of the books, or of Dr. Sowell's writing style. As a matter of fact, it is a testimony to the craft with which Dr. Sowell wields his pen that the book remains as intriguing and informative as it does from start to finish. Thomas Sowell is a man who has done extensive and thorough research in every topic in which he covers, whether it be the economic fallacies of many Intellectuals, to law and order, to geopolitical issues, to more besides. Regardless of where one stands on any of these issues, I would highly recommend that you rent, or even purchase a copy of Thomas Sowell's brilliant, insightful, and meticulously well-written book. While Sowell himself thinks on a high intellectual level, he never condescends to the reader or his audience. This book will surely be of use if you're someone with a desire to think for yourself and have a desire to filter out the "spin" that it seems like we see all too often from those in politics, academia, the media, entertainment industry, and so forth. With that said, I highly encourage you to give this book a read.

No doubt Thomas Sowell Is one of the best economist that ever lived and arguably one of the very top economist still alive. This work on intellectual and Society was masterfully written, and presented in a way that the average lay-reader can understand. The book starts out by explaining Who is an intellectual. To which Thomas defined as the individual who makes a living by creating, aggregating, or curating ideas and presenting those ideas to society or specific groups. Thomas also highlighted the fact that non-intellectuals do have an intellectual component to them such as individuals who use their idea creation to do actual work or produce goods or services for society, he excludes these form of intellectuals from his definition. Thomas then break down a couple of areas were intellectuals have had tremendous influence across the globe. Namely, wars, laws, politics, etc. He then shows how these thoughts from these intellectuals have shaped Society over the century. My favorite phrase in this book is “intellectual virtuosity”. He presented this phrase after explaining the “tragic vision” of the more utilitarian or practical person to the vision of the “anointed vision” of the intellectuals. The biggest take away for me from this book is that intellectuals generally do not have “skin in the game” (al la Naseem Taleb). They face no consequence if their ideology turns out to be ruined us for societies, For example, Karl Marx or Lord Keynes. In fact when intellectuals fail society they just move onto the next ideology, or are exonerated by their followers who can torch themselves to prove that there was a win even within the rubble in the aftermath of the disaster created by their ideology. In my final analysis, this book is a great read. And like so much of Thomas’s work that debunk much of the fallacies and things we hold to be truths in society that are not so.

I nominate Thomas Sowell for the Eric Hoffer award for his penetrating analysis in Intellectuals and Society. He defines his subject matter as those persons who have ideas as the end product of their work. It seems fair to say that he is focused on those whose ideas are about social issues as opposed to, say, mathematics - issues such as economics, law, and war. In addition he deals with the intelligentsia, which along with the intellectuals "... would include those teachers, journalists, social activists, political aides, judges' clerks, and others who base their beliefs or actions on the ideas of intellectuals." Among the observations Sewell makes about the subject of his investigations the following seven stand out. 1. The end product of intellectuals is not amenable to immediate testing in the physical world. Engineers, doctors, and football coaches are subjected to such tests but not intellectuals. That raises the question: how are the end products of intellectuals - their ideas - judged? 2. They are judged by their peers, that is, by other intellectuals. Consequently, a kind of prevailing consensus arises which with the help of the intelligentsia permeates the culture. 3. They have a compulsion to put their ideas into action. It isn't enough to just sit on their hands and bask in the glow of intelligentsia approval. 4. They are inextricably connected to their ideas. It's as though to challenge their ideas is to challenge their life. 5. They view themselves as the anointed whose task is to enlighten the populace. One thinks of Obama resonating with San Francisco intelligentsia when he referred to his opposition as Bible thumping, gun toting rednecks. 6. They are never held accountable for failure. As time passes and history demonstrates the error of their ideas they do not fall into disgrace as would, for example, a doctor who killed his patients. 7. They are never right. Well, hardly ever. He does document one case where they were on the right side. As the saying goes even a stopped watch is right twice a day. The foregoing does not do justice to the rich narrative, the logic, and the numerous examples from history which make Intellectuals and Society so enjoyable to read. What I found particularly valuable was that certain insights fell into place for me. The testing of the end product by peer review rather than by physical reality is a case in point. The upshot of peer review as the standard of truth is that intellectuals as well as the entire amen chorus of intelligentsia are drawn into the world of social metaphysics. Nathaniel Branden, who coined the term social metaphysics, defined it as "... the psychological syndrome that characterizes a person who holds the minds of other men, not objective reality, as his ultimate psycho-epistemological frame of reference." To illustrate with a caricature, a social metaphysician sitting in a room feels water dripping from above. He doesn't look up to see if there is a leak in the ceiling; instead, he asks the person next to him if the ceiling is leaking. An affirmative answer gives him a feeling of certainty in his "knowledge" that seeing it with his own eyes would never do. If reality is the contents of other persons minds and if the contents of those minds are the intellectual's ideas that have passed peer review, it simply will not do to have those ideas challenged. To challenge those ideas is to destroy reality and you along with it. That explains why members of the intelligentsia get in such a tiff when they meet opposition. Von Mises must have had the intelligentsia in mind when he wrote "Most men endure the sacrifice of their intellect more easily than the sacrifice of their daydreams." Mayor Bloomberg would deny gravity before he would give up denying soft drinks to New Yorkers. Why is it that intellectuals have such an uncanny talent for being wrong? One would think they would be right maybe half the time. It can't be because there is only one right answer and many wrong ones; some issues such as going to war have only two alternatives - either you go or you don't go. It seems that part of the explanation is the premium put on novelty. Who among the intelligentsia would applaud an intellectual who simply stated the common sense obvious? Why not get attention with novelty when there is no penalty for failure? Perhaps some future investigator will provide a better answer to the question. In any event their penchant for leading society in the wrong direction is a very serious problem. As currently constituted the intelligentsia is a cancer on society. Many thanks to Thomas Sowell for enlightening us about the nature of this malady.

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As usual, Sowell makes his point with clarity and a preponderance of references and data. It can be a long read at times, but this is simply due to his attention to ensuring that his arguments are soundly supported. I wish that the people who need to read this would…..

Der amerikanische Ökonom und Publizist Thomas Sowell legt mit diesem Buch eine schonungslose Analyse vor, die den destruktiven Einfluss von Intellektuellen auf westliche Gesellschaften eindrucksvoll herausarbeitet. Intellektuelle sind für ihn Produzenten von Ideen, die primär an sozial- und geisteswissenschaftlichen Lehr- und Forschungseinrichtungen beschäftigt sind. Ihre Ideen und Vorstellungen werden dabei von Multiplikatoren, zu denen beispielsweise Lehrer oder Journalisten gehören, aufbereitet und vervielfältigt. So erreichen sie in modernen demokratischen Gesellschaften eine große Öffentlichkeit, wodurch sie ein geistiges Klima schaffen können, das sich auch auf den politischen Entscheidungsprozess negativ auswirken kann. Für Sowell ist ihr Wirken deshalb schädlich, weil die Intellektuellen ihre Ansichten nicht als überprüfbare Hypothesen verstehen, sondern als unverrückbare und feststehende Axiome. Jeder der es wagt, diese zu kritisieren oder zu hinterfragen, wird von den Intellektuellen als geistig und moralisch unterlegen eingestuft. Eine inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung mit Andersdenkenden wird damit vermieden. Die Kritik des Autors richtet sich vor allem gegen solche Intellektuelle, die ein perfektionistisches Weltbild pflegen. Sie halten sich selbst für "Auserwählte“, denen es obliegt, die Weltgesellschaft zu optimieren und die Menschen in eine bessere Zukunft zu führen. Dank ihres herausragenden Verstandes und ihrer moralischen Überlegenheit glauben sie besonders befähigt zu sein, eine sozial gerechte und dem weltweiten Frieden verpflichtete Ordnung entwickeln zu können. Die geeignete Implementierung einer solchen Ordnung erfolgt durch gesellschaftliche, politische, wirtschaftliche und rechtliche Planungen und Regulierungen, welche von akademisch geschulten Technokraten im Sinne der intellektuellen Vordenker realisiert werden sollen. Ein entgegengesetztes Weltbild, das von der Tragik der menschlichen Existenz ausgeht, stößt bei den zeitgenössischen Intellektuellen kaum noch auf Beachtung. Die Grenzen der Vernunft, der Plan- und Machbarkeit sowie die grundsätzlichen Härten des Daseins finden im Denken des intellektuellen Milieus keine Resonanz mehr. Der "Conflict of Visions“, den Sowell schon in den achtziger Jahren beschrieb, hat sich heute weitgehend zugunsten der vermeintlichen Weltverbesserer entschieden. Der schädliche Einfluss der intellektuellen Elite manifestiert sich in sämtlichen Subsystemen der Gesellschaft. Die kapitalistisch organisierte Wirtschaft ist dabei ein bevorzugtes Betätigungsfeld für eine meistens scharf formulierte Fundamentalkritik. Ungeachtet der Tatsache, dass sich der Kapitalismus allen anderen Wirtschaftsformen als eindeutig überlegen erwiesen hat, träumen Intellektuelle weiterhin von sozial gerechteren Alternativen. Im Bereich des Rechtssystems versuchen sie ebenfalls ihre Vorstellungen von Gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit umzusetzen. Hierzu interpretieren sie die Verfassungsordnung nicht als eine gewachsene Rechtstradition, sondern als eine "lebendige Verfassung“, die sie dem jeweiligen Zeitgeist ganz nach Belieben anpassen können. Die schwerwiegendsten Konsequenzen von intellektuellem Fehlverhalten stellen sich allerdings erst dann ein, wenn es um die Problematik von Krieg und Frieden geht. Sowell zeigt die verheerenden Folgen des Pazifismus auf, der von führenden Intellektuellen in der Zeit zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen verfochten wurde. Sowohl in Frankreich als auch in Großbritannien hatte sich eine Mentalität verbreitet, welche die Verteidigungsbereitschaft der westlichen Demokratien stark beeinträchtigte. Die totalitären Regime wussten bekanntlich ihren Vorteil daraus zu ziehen. Nach 1945 knüpften die Intellektuellen wieder an ihre pazifistischen Grundüberzeugungen der Zwischenkriegszeit an. Jetzt kritisierten sie aus einer moralisierenden Perspektive heraus die Logik der nuklearen Abschreckung oder den Krieg in Vietnam. Realpolitische Erwägungen spielten in ihrem Weltbild keine Rolle. Bis in die Gegenwart hinein halten sie an den alten Positionen fest, wie ihre einhellige Verdammung der amerikanischen Außenpolitik unter George W. Bush belegt. Im Unterschied zu Deutschland und weiten Teilen Europas gibt es in den USA aber noch relevante Gegenkräfte, welche den selbsternannten Weltverbesserern im Wege stehen. Sowell, der zu den prominenten Vertretern dieser konservativen Gegenbewegung zählt, hat mit seinem Buch einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Aufklärung über die unrühmlichen Machenschaften der Intellektuellen geleistet. Leider ist zu erwarten, dass seine Ausführungen in Deutschland ungehört verhallen werden. Jürgen Rupp

“Some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them” George Orwell is said to have remarked. Thomas Sowell analyses intellectuals’ self-confident promotion of their empirically challenged ideas via media, aides and activists, the influence of those ideas on governments and societies in place of experience or evidence, and the damage caused. Sowell defines intellectuals as people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas, in particular that they deal in the ideas and do not apply them. Scientists and engineers are not intellectuals. Mathematicians are not, so that Bertrand Russell as a mathematician was not an intellectual, however when suggesting in 1937 that Britain should completely disarm, he was. George Bernard Shaw, one of the great playwrights, felt confident in saying in 1939, just one week before war broke out, “Herr Hitler is under the powerful thumb of Stalin, whose interest in peace is overwhelming. And everyone except myself is frightened out of his or her wits!” – he was a professional as a playwright but an intellectual in geopolitics. What does it mean when someone we regard as brilliant, a genius, a mind so superior to ours, says or writes things so silly? One’s own intelligence seems so complex, but so changeable, puny, prone to error – we expect individuals of generally accepted great intellect somehow not to suffer these problems. Yet these demonstrably silly writings belie that confidence. Sowell separates thinkers into intellectuals, for whom far more knowledge and intelligence are available to some people than others, from those who emphasise specialization and social processes whose economic and social transactions draw upon the varied knowledge and experience of millions, past and present. Apart from the “no skin in the game” aspect of an intellectual, Sowell identifies the moralising element, describing an “anointed intelligentsia, on the side of angels against the forces of evil” while ordinary unintellectuals have a “tragic vision [which] is a vision of trade-offs, rather than solutions, and a vision of wisdom distilled from the experiences of the many, rather than the brilliance of the few”. For example, payday loans, where Sowell bravely argues against e.g. the New York Times’ attractive and furious argument against them (denouncing payday loan providers’ “triple-digit annual interest rates, milking people’s desperation” and “profiteering with the cloak of capitalist virtue” and describing a 36 percent interest rate ceiling as something needed to prevent “the egregious exploitation of payday loans”.) How could anyone decent argue against such obvious moral rightness? Sowell writes: “The sums of money lent are usually a few hundred dollars, lent for a few weeks, with interest charges of about $15 per $100 lent. That works out to annual interest rates in the hundreds - the kind of statistics that produce sensations in the media and in politics. The costs behind such charges are seldom if ever investigated by the intelligentsia, by so-called ‘consumer advocates’ or by others in the business of creating sensations and denouncing businesses that they know little or nothing about. The economic consequences of government intervention to limit the annual interest rate can be seen in a number of states where such limits have been imposed. After Oregon imposed a limit of 36 percent annual interest, three quarters of its ‘payday loan’ businesses closed down. Nor is it hard to see why - if one bothers to look at facts. At a 36 percent limit on the annual interest rate, the $15 in interest charged for every $100 lent would be reduced to less than $1.50 for a loan payable in two weeks - an amount not likely to cover even the cost of processing the loan, much less the risks of making the loan. As for the low-income borrower, supposedly the reason for the concern of the moral elites, denying the borrower the $100 needed to meet some exigency must be weighed against the $15 paid for getting the money to meet that exigency. Why that trade-off decision should be forcibly removed by law from the person most knowledgeable about the situation, as well as most affected by it, and transferred to third parties far removed in specific knowledge and general circumstances, is a question that is seldom answered or even asked.” The NYT’s “milking people’s desperation”, “profiteering with the cloak of capitalist virtue” and “egregious exploitation of payday loans” are examples of what Sowell calls “verbal virtuosity .. obscuring, rather than clarifying, rational analysis”. Would that analysis be so very difficult, in plainer words? If borrowers are assumed to have their wits, then laws or regulations would only be needed that prevented lenders using confusion (rather than outright fraud, which is already illegal) to hide loan costs or make them seem cheap. Given that one in ten of of us does not understand percentages, intellectuals’ focus on interest rates is probably misplaced, and borrowers must know more: the cost of the loan as well as its rate. If we wish something that protects borrowers too confused or incapable not to harm themselves with unrepayable loans, then legal, regulated lenders that cannot pursue defaulters with knuckle-crushers (and so have to accept defaults and factor them into loan interest, like any lender) are better than the loan sharks that Oregon-style restraints empower. Where do these intellectuals come from and why are they there, advising, lecturing, haranguing? As one might perhaps expect from an economist, Sowell discusses Supply and Demand… of intellectuals. Why is there a supply? People in utilitarian fields’ results are their own fame – cars, medicine, smartphones, etc.) whereas: “for intellectuals in general, where the primary constraint is peer response, rather than empirical criteria, currently prevailing attitudes among peers may carry more weight than enduring principles or the weight of evidence. This can produce patterns much like those found among another group heavily influenced by their peers - namely adolescents, among whom particular fashions or fads can become virtually obligatory for a given time, and later become completely rejected as passé, without in either period having been subjected to serious examination, either empirically or analytically.” Among the hundred public intellectuals mentioned most often in the media, only eighteen are also among the hundred intellectuals mentioned most often in scholarly literature. Furthermore, most public intellectuals speak outside their expertise (for example Noam Chomsky, the brilliant linguist, whose LALR grammars are much less known to the public than his extravagant political utterances, or John Maynard Keynes, whose biographer wrote “he held forth on a great range of topics, on some of which he was thoroughly expert, but on others of which he may have derived his views from the few pages of a book at which he had happened to glance; the air of authority was the same in both cases”,) or else their expertise is something that can only be tested by other intellectuals, and not empirically. The demand for intellectuals on the other hand is to an extent manufactured, due to an over-supply, by intellectuals, who put themselves endlessly forward, offering “solutions” to social “problems” or by raising alarms over some dire dangers which they claim to have discovered. Don’t forget that the demand for the output of non-intellectuals (cars, planes, medicine, etc.) is spontaneous in the public, whereas the demand for intellectuals has to be stimulated by this endless promotion. How can a few intellectuals have such an effect on governments, public policy and the public at large? Sowell describes the “penumbra” of journalists, teachers, staffers to legislators or clerks to judges and other members of the intelligentsia, whose influence on the course of social evolution can be crucial. In the case of teachers: “who lack either the inclination or the talent to become public intellectuals can instead vent their opinions in the classroom to a captive audience of students, operating in a smaller arena but in a setting with little chance of serious challenge. In such settings, their aggregate influence on the mindset of a generation may be out of all proportion to their competence—not simply in what they directly impart, but more fundamentally in habituating their students to reaching sweeping conclusions after hearing only one side of an issue and then either venting their emotions or springing into action, whether by writing letters to public officials as part of classroom assignments or taking part in other, more direct, activism” That problem has become entrenched in that this learnt activism is often tested in university interviews; in Sowell’s robust words: “As early as elementary school, students have been encouraged or recruited to take stands on complex policy issues ranging up to and including policies concerning nuclear weapons, on which whole classes have been assigned to write to members of Congress or to the President of the United States. College admissions committees can give weight to various forms of environmentalism or other activism in considering which applicants to admit, and it is common for colleges to require “community service” as a prerequisite for applicants to be considered at all—with the admissions committee arbitrarily defining what is to be considered a “community service,” as if, for example, it is unambiguously clear that aiding and abetting vagrancy (“the homeless”) is a service rather than a disservice to a community.” Should schools teach views of complex issues a lot, a little, or not at all? In any measure proselytising must cut into teaching basics accurately, and undermine the difficult business for the pupil of learning and understanding basics and outside classes evaluating complex issues in the world, trying to apply the basics correctly rather than falling for the much easier and more pleasurable route of following our instincts or prejudices, or the urgings of furious and righteous public intellectuals, at which point the process becomes self-sustaining and fact-free. What are the costs of all this intellectualism? How does one begin to calculate the costs of all the mistaken policy, the needlessly state-employed advisors, the subsidies, the deadweight loss of the mistaken interventions, etc. Intellectuals and Society is an attractively written book, but more so a very well informed work, with strong arguments against the expensive, sanctimonious intellectual.

One of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Wonderfully written and wildly relevant concepts.