Today is a day of beginnings. It’s Rosh Chodesh. It’s the first day of my new Headship at Gesher Yehudah/Yeshiva Prep. And it’s the first time I’ve posted a book review to my blog but not sent out as a Monday Morning Reading to Netivot, which feels rather strange. I’m hoping it’s a good beginning, and that I’m able to keep up my reading and reflections. On to today’s book!
I was a bit surprised that I’d never come across the writing of Professor Thomas Sowell when I was introduced to him recently by a friend. He’s a professor emeritus at Standford’s Hoover Institute (at this point, he’s in his mid-90s). He’s described both as a conservative thinker and libertarian, and I’m not always sure when people are talked about this way where one category begins and the other one ends (or if . I’ll note that he isAfrican American, which feels superficial and irrelevant to the quality of his ideas, but given his relatively conservative thinking, gets noted frequently.
The book I read was The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Justice is defined here as following a process that abides by a set of agreed upon rules. To ‘do’ justice is to follow those rules. Cosmic justice, on the other hand, of which social justice is a subset, is, for example, about righting moral and historic wrongs, and equality of outcomes rather than opportunity. These are much grander than simply justice, and follow no set of agreed upon rules, even if they do have a moral substrate to them. Moreover, it puts the power to decide which wrongs, and how they should be addressed, in the hands of one group in society (the ‘social justice’ group) to determine. The consequences of this kind of thinking, and the move away from equality, liberty, and freedom that it has engendered, is one of the main thrusts of Sowell’s argument. What’s most incredible about this book, written in 2002, is how perfectly he seems to have understood the world of today from the ideas of 30 and 40 years ago: the impact of the ‘social justice’ movement and their non-liberal values; the different way in which the term “justice” is used and the implications of each; and the lack of awareness of the consequences of ideas in the social justice space. Unfortunately, we are living through the consequences of these ideas, just as he predicted – or perhaps just saw more clearly.
His chapter on “The Tyranny of Visions,” and the way people of ideas are particularly susceptible to tyrannical action at the expense of individual rights and liberty, was very powerful. On the other hand, the last chapter titled “The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution,” while cogently argued, struck me as a too-faithful argument for constitutional originalism. To the degree that the other chapters seemed open and thoughtful, this one seemed ideological and relatively narrow.
Sowell has a keen eye, a quick wit, and is an excellent writer. If you want a deeper diagnosis of how the practices today evolved from the ideas of the recent past, this is worth your time.
Just Because I Liked It:
- I was recently introduced to the podcast Acquired, and am loving the episode about Costco.
- I totally enjoyed Tyler Cowan’s recent conversation with the historian Alan Taylor, who has written a new book about the American Civil War.
- Although my reading habits are quite different, I thought this blog post by Ted Gioia about his approach to reading and books was interesting.