A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles | Thomas Sowell

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles | Thomas Sowell | My Book Review ...

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A Conflict of Visi...

	A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles Thomas Sowell William Morrow & Company, 1987 - 273 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews
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highly recommended

Fantastic read, simple and thought-provoking

Some others have already commented on the basic premise of the book: the dichotomy between a constrained and unconstrained view of human nature and the logical conclusions and "visions" that arise based on that difference, so I will leave that summary aside.

This book is a fantastic read for many reasons: the writing style is incredibly clear and simple, and Sowell is adept at conveying his ideas in a manner that should be easily understandable to any reader. Sowell appears to show a commendable level of detachment in that there does not seem to be much of a personal value judgement placed on either of the two schools of vision (i.e. without reading other texts, the reader may not be able to distinguish whether Sowell places himself within the "constrained" or "unconstrained" vision).

Another reviewer commented that this dichotomy was rather simplistic, and I tend to agree. However, I see this as a strength rather than a weakness. Sowell gives a more general view of the derivation of certain viewpoints and the logical implications of a certain conception without getting distracted by every specific application. He does not explain every thought or viewpoint, but he provides an exceptionally clear framework through which you can view these thoughts and viewpoints on your own.

I found the quotes he used to be very illuminating, but I agree that they should be viewed in the proper light. The quotes are interesting as articulations of the "constrained" or "unconstrained" views in the particular context in which they are used, and should probably not be carried beyond that. For example, characterizing a particular decision of Holmes as arising from the constrained view is instructive and illustrative, though it could lead to the erroneous assumption that Holmes was a consitent examplar of the constrained vision. That said, the quotes were certainly not misleading if the reader confines them to their context and they tended to clarify and enhance illustrations of the application of these views.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever heard someone espouse a certain viewpoint and thought "How can they possibly believe that?" It provides a good basis for understanding how these differences arise.

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My Book Review ...

1. AUTHOR BACKGROUND & PROFILE
Before giving my personal perception and opinion about this book, I would like to start with get to know the profile and personality of Thomas Sowell. The reason being is to screen whether the author's use of language and evidence is more tend to reflect his individual's personal background OR is more tend to the fact than personal opinion that consists of no benefit of interpretation, inference, or value judgment (though I am aware that to some degree, bias or personal interpretations could not be avoided). Below is the information about Thomas Sowell's background and activity that taken from Wikipedia.

"Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina on 30 June 1930, he is a prominent American economist, political writer, and conservative commentator. He is presently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
In North Carolina, where he was born, his encounters with white people were so limited that he didn't believe that "yellow" was a possible color for human hair (A Personal Odyssey), and later moved with his mother and siblings (his father died before he was born) to Harlem, New York City. There he attended the highly selective Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out when he moved out on his own at the age of 17 because of money problems and a deteriorating home environment. He soon after served in the US Marine Corps as a photographer and pistol instructor.
After his service, he earned an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College, an A.M. in Economics from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, known for its Chicago school of economics.
Sowell is both a popular columnist and an academic economist. Sowell primarily writes on economic subjects, in which he generally advocates a free market approach tocapitalism. In addition to this Sowell opposes Marxism providing a critique that Marx never had a labor theory of value. Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action or positive discrimination" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell)
From the information given above (see underline), he is more likely dominant on the side of constrained vision. For more detail about constrained and unconstrained vision will be discussed below.

2. ISSUES PRESENTED & OVERALL THESIS OF THE BOOK.
In overall, Sowell, as a deep thinker, is trying to represent his observations, study, research, and analysis regarding the deeper root cause of why two different big groups with its political opinions happen too often to be coincidence and it is too uncontrolled to be a plot. Explicitly, I would guess that he is talking about the conflict of vision between liberals and conservatives or socialists and libertarians.

The main keyword, as the root cause, to explain this fundamental political difference is about vision, that more likely also contains the aspect of fanaticism. The different vision among these two big groups is considered as the main resources of the conflict of logical consistency that Sowell identified in his preface that "we sacrifice for our visions and sometimes, if need be, face ruin rather than betray them". He also added that "Visions are very subjective, but well-constructed theories have clear implications, and facts can test and measure their objective validity" in the topic of the role of visions.

The discussions regarding vision will be grouped into two broad categories - the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision. Constrained vision based on theory of moral sentiments by Adam Smith that talk about moral limitations of man in general, and his egocentricity that can not be changed as inherent facts of life. This theory still leave any possibility to its extent into making the best moral and social benefits, BUT still within that constraint that unchangeable as Smith mentioned as both vain and pointless. As an economist, Smith's constrained vision is supplemented by Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton in political perspective about: "an infirmity inherent in the fundamental nature of things" or about "the imperfection of the institutor, Man". Another figures as Sowell's references for constrained vision are: Hayek, Hobbes, Milton Friedman, etc.

Unconstrained vision based on theory of Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, a work as remarkable for its fate as its contents. He believed that the intention to benefit others as being "of the essence of virtue," and virtue in turn as being the road to human happiness. For Godwin, the real goal of incentive was the long-run development of a higher sense of social duty. In the issue of trade-offs VS solutions, in contrast with constrained vision's belief, the unconstrained vision believed that where moral improvement has no fixed limit, prudence is of a lower order of importance. Man is, in short, "perfectible"- meaning continually improvable rather than capable of actually reaching absolute perfection. In the issue of Social morality and social causation, human actions were dichotomized by Godwin into the beneficial and the harmful, and each of these in turn was dichotomized into the intentional and the unintentional. Another authors citing other than Godwin, are: Rousseau, Veblen, Galbraith, etc

3. WHAT IMPRESSED ME AND MADE ME HAPPY
* Sowell's statement of facts is more dominant than his own opinion that the accuracy can be verified by objective observation and wide usage of reference from both sides of the group of constrained vision and unconstrained vision
* The language style is more denotative than connotative. I like the way Sowell in his honesty respect the difference between this two political group with each of its own strengths and weaknesses. He mentioned that: "Virtually no one believes that man is 100 percent unconstrained and virtually no one believes that man is 100 percent constrained"
* His personality, background, or training or even political preference as a conservative prominently does not affect his intellectual reasoning and statement in this book. I am impressed with Sowell's statement regarding realization about these two fundamentally different assumptions about knowledge and reason with its applications into social process. He does not attack one of them, but instead, suggested on building two things on these two different foundations such as: 1). More awareness of the diversity of visions and their dynamics, and 2). Special attention to visions of equality, visions of justice which are central to the ideological conflicts of the age. (p. 98)
* He does not show any excessive critical tone or any bias of his statement to either one of the two different groups through his words. He is basically free of value of judgment, careless comparisons, and of propaganda in his analysis reasoning.

4. WHAT MADE ME UPSET
* Following Hayek, Sowell maintains that the constrained vision offers little scope for the application of moral theory.
* The constrained vision is more likely to give more pessimistic atmosphere regarding man's potentiality. They are rarely guided by morality, usually prejudiced and irrational, even usually takes every opportunity to take advantage of other people for personal gain. But perhaps more fundamentally, the constrained vision views these negative characteristics as nearly unalterable. As Sowell puts it, "The constrained vision is a tragic vision of the human condition." Mankind's problems flow necessarily from the irremovable flaws of the human character itself.
* I do not really agree about the statement made by Sowell regarding the gap between the actual and the potential is much smaller in constrained vision than in unconstrained vision.

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Sowell's political philosophy

This book is a thorough analysis of the polar differences between "conservative" and "liberal" viewpoints. The author's beliefs are clear, but the argument is persuasive. Most issues are neither black nor white, but shades of gray. Most policies are decided as a compromise between the polar extremes. This book brings bright clarity to the analysis of complex social and political issues, and explains with conviction the differences between conservative and liberal ideas of social decision-making.

This book should be required reading in any Western country

Why? Because it provides the clearest explanation I've ever read of the primal undercurrent that has driven Western thought along its binary path (collective vs individual) over the past 500 years.

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3 Stars Is Generous...

First, let me preface this by saying I am a huge fan of Thomas Sowell. I read his columns religiously and have read many of his other books--the entire second half of my copy of "Vision of the Anointed" is copiously dog-eared, highlighted and asterisk'd. I am not the partisan opposition.

That said, this book was stupefyingly dull. In "Vision," I read some passages over and over, amazed at their profundity. Likewise, on 3 or 4 occasions I did the same thing in this book. However, to get to those 3-4 profound paragraphs you have to slog through 250+ pages of the dryest material you'll ever run across. This thing reads like a philosophy textbook (or the "ChomskyBot:" search for it on Google). It requires an incredible deal of concentration to make sense. It seemed that no one sentence, or collection of two or three sentences, had independent meaning. I had to read an entire paragraph or page just to get a glimpse of the superficial meaning of a concept Sowell was trying to explain. As a whole the thesis and book itself are meaningful, but there are so many paragraphs that could have been left out on account of their mind-numbing redundancy (another reviewer mentioned this) or because the message was so nebulous.

As an example, here is a fairly characteristic sentence from the book:

Social decisions evolve systematically from the interactions of individual discretion, exercised for individual benefit, in the constrained vision--servicing the common good only as an individually unintended consequence of the characteristics of systemic processes such as a competitive market economy (p. 103).

Now this passage has meaning, but if you have the attention span or ability to concentrate of a mere mortal (like myself), this will be VERY difficult reading. It's hard to believe the average person could grasp the meaning of this book after even three reads.

In summary, despite a couple of profound passages and overall meaningful message, this book is bogged down by its own redundancy, opacity and length.

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