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A review by lpm100
Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell
informative
fast-paced
5.0
Book Review
Social Justice Fallacies
Thomas Sowell
5/5 stars
"Riffing on lots of older ideas."
*******
Thelonious Monk recorded the same songs over and over again over the course of decades, and he justified it saying that "I did it so that people will hear 'em."
And, in that sense, repetition of helpful ideas and debunking of misconceptions to the masses is a lot more helpful than the development of original ideas. (Sowell is a popularizer, and not primrily an original researcher.)
As entrenched as a lot of these misconceptions are, books like this need to be rewritten another thousand times.
Reading this book in particular reminds me of listening to a remastered cover of a favorite song.
1. Good, but predictable;
2. A few surprises;
3. Sharpening of other aspects in the remaster that may not have been in the original.
Of the book:
1. Readable from beginning to end in a few hours;
2. 130 pages over five chapters;
3. 536 point citations over 130 pages. 4.12 per page (really, it's more like 1200 sources, because some of the point citations have as many as 5 sources);
4. Sowell cites himself 36 times.
Interesting factoids:
1. John Maynard Keynes was actually a hardcore eugenicist and was a founder of the Eugenics society at Cambridge University.
2. Even though it has gone down the memory hole, genetic determinism and Eugenics was popular with the progressive / left-wing people a century ago. (Part of the benefit of an author who sources so heavily is that the paper trail is there.)
3. "The innocent sounding word 'arrange' cannot be allowed to obscure these dangers. Interior decorators arrange. Governments compel. It is not a subtle distinction."
4. "In his book, 'The New Freedom,' Woodrow Wilson arbitrarily defined government benefits as a new form of freedom, thereby verbally finessing a side concerns about expanding powers of government being a threat to people's freedom."
5. "There are more hockey players from Sweden in the NHL than there are hockey players from California, even though the population of California is nearly four times the population of Sweden."
6. Concepts fleshed out:
a. Reciprocal inequalities
b. Surrogate decision makers
c. Preempting decisions
7. White, female headed single parent families have had a poverty rate more than double the poverty rate of black married couple families in every year from 1994 to 2020.
8. "People are not hired or paid for their innate potentialities. They are hired, paid, admitted to colleges or accepted into other desired positions on the basis of their developed capabilities relevant to the particular endeavor.
9. "Madison Grant, whose book Hitler called "
'his Bible,' was likewise a staunch progressive of the early 20th century.... He was from a wealthy family in New York, and he was educated at Yale and the Columbia University Law School."
Second order thoughts:
Sowell has written so many good things that he could reasonably expected to spend much of his career sharpening and restating things that he developed in the first half. (To continue the musical metaphor: Billy Joel has not put out a new album in 30 years, but he still can sell out Madison Square Garden by replaying and riffing on his existing repertoire.)
Even Sowell's best book, "Knowledge and Decisions" was an exposition of already existing research.
The whole book reads like a broadside, but in reality it serves better as a reference book to study other topics more deeply.
It has elements from the following books of his that I've already read (and that he self-cites):
1. Knowledge and Decisions
2. Discrimination and Disparities
3. Race and Culture
4. Quest for Cosmic Justice
5. Affirmative Action....
6. Intellectuals and Society
7. Wealth, Poverty and Politics
8. Economic Facts and Fallacies
9. Charter Schools and Their Enemies
10. Housing Boom and Bust
11. Trickle Down Theory
12. Basic Economics
13. Race and Economics
14. Black Education, Myths and Tragedies
15. Man of Letters
16. A Personal Odyssey
17. Inside American Education
In addition, there are books But dozens of other authors that are worth reading in their own right.
Verdict:
Recommended. Wait until it gets down to about $10.
Social Justice Fallacies
Thomas Sowell
5/5 stars
"Riffing on lots of older ideas."
*******
Thelonious Monk recorded the same songs over and over again over the course of decades, and he justified it saying that "I did it so that people will hear 'em."
And, in that sense, repetition of helpful ideas and debunking of misconceptions to the masses is a lot more helpful than the development of original ideas. (Sowell is a popularizer, and not primrily an original researcher.)
As entrenched as a lot of these misconceptions are, books like this need to be rewritten another thousand times.
Reading this book in particular reminds me of listening to a remastered cover of a favorite song.
1. Good, but predictable;
2. A few surprises;
3. Sharpening of other aspects in the remaster that may not have been in the original.
Of the book:
1. Readable from beginning to end in a few hours;
2. 130 pages over five chapters;
3. 536 point citations over 130 pages. 4.12 per page (really, it's more like 1200 sources, because some of the point citations have as many as 5 sources);
4. Sowell cites himself 36 times.
Interesting factoids:
1. John Maynard Keynes was actually a hardcore eugenicist and was a founder of the Eugenics society at Cambridge University.
2. Even though it has gone down the memory hole, genetic determinism and Eugenics was popular with the progressive / left-wing people a century ago. (Part of the benefit of an author who sources so heavily is that the paper trail is there.)
3. "The innocent sounding word 'arrange' cannot be allowed to obscure these dangers. Interior decorators arrange. Governments compel. It is not a subtle distinction."
4. "In his book, 'The New Freedom,' Woodrow Wilson arbitrarily defined government benefits as a new form of freedom, thereby verbally finessing a side concerns about expanding powers of government being a threat to people's freedom."
5. "There are more hockey players from Sweden in the NHL than there are hockey players from California, even though the population of California is nearly four times the population of Sweden."
6. Concepts fleshed out:
a. Reciprocal inequalities
b. Surrogate decision makers
c. Preempting decisions
7. White, female headed single parent families have had a poverty rate more than double the poverty rate of black married couple families in every year from 1994 to 2020.
8. "People are not hired or paid for their innate potentialities. They are hired, paid, admitted to colleges or accepted into other desired positions on the basis of their developed capabilities relevant to the particular endeavor.
9. "Madison Grant, whose book Hitler called "
'his Bible,' was likewise a staunch progressive of the early 20th century.... He was from a wealthy family in New York, and he was educated at Yale and the Columbia University Law School."
Second order thoughts:
Sowell has written so many good things that he could reasonably expected to spend much of his career sharpening and restating things that he developed in the first half. (To continue the musical metaphor: Billy Joel has not put out a new album in 30 years, but he still can sell out Madison Square Garden by replaying and riffing on his existing repertoire.)
Even Sowell's best book, "Knowledge and Decisions" was an exposition of already existing research.
The whole book reads like a broadside, but in reality it serves better as a reference book to study other topics more deeply.
It has elements from the following books of his that I've already read (and that he self-cites):
1. Knowledge and Decisions
2. Discrimination and Disparities
3. Race and Culture
4. Quest for Cosmic Justice
5. Affirmative Action....
6. Intellectuals and Society
7. Wealth, Poverty and Politics
8. Economic Facts and Fallacies
9. Charter Schools and Their Enemies
10. Housing Boom and Bust
11. Trickle Down Theory
12. Basic Economics
13. Race and Economics
14. Black Education, Myths and Tragedies
15. Man of Letters
16. A Personal Odyssey
17. Inside American Education
In addition, there are books But dozens of other authors that are worth reading in their own right.
Verdict:
Recommended. Wait until it gets down to about $10.