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Book 1: Is Reality Optional? By Dr. Thomas Sowell

 Date finished: January 6



This is a collection of essays published by the Hoover Institution Press, which I had started, but now have finished. And I'm glad, because when I put it down in 2021, I had not gotten to the most relevant essays.

The essays are divided by topic: social, world, economic, political, educational, legal and racial. In his inimitable voice, Dr. Sowell examines social justice, radical ideas, misconceptions, tensions and other delicate issues through the gentle yet persistent lens of truth. 

On the topic of moral intimidation by experts (in this case, psychologists who tell us all how bad we are at parenting), Sowell observes, "Deep thinkers don’t have to produce evidence that what they say works. All they have to produce is anxiety in the rest of us."

Sowell does not claim to have extra-sensory keen insights into society. He simply points out what is in front of all of us. He takes a point of view to its logical conclusion. He compares the results to all the other results of the same type of thinking and asks, "Is that really working?" He also takes apart emotionally satisfying arguments that simply don't work. In his own words, "Much of the social history of the Western world ... has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good."

Intelligence is different from wisdom. The intelligentsia are infuriated that those of lower socio-economic status, lower education, and even actual lower intelligence can be far wiser than they. Yet Sowell -- one of America's most cogent intellectuals -- possesses both prodigious intelligence and deceptively simple wisdom. A few gems of wisdom in this book:

  • "Few today dare to advocate sweeping forms of despotism as the road to Utopia, but many are advocating single-issue policies that, put together, add up to despotism."
  • "The real mark of a bigot is that he claims rights for himself that he denies to other people."
  • "Racists may prefer their own group to others, but they prefer themselves most of all."

The tone of the book is conversational. Dr. Sowell's genius is that he can explain complex systems and ideas in an easy-to-understand and -remember way that virtually anyone able to reason and learn can comprehend.

In short, Sowell teaches the reader how to discern truth from charming rhetoric, how to probe an argument for truth, how to take the yardstick of history and hold it up to new ideas that sound ever-so-profound. Learning to think like him inoculates the reader against the slick packaging of very bad ideas. 

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