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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
Filled with facts but lacks to bring in the intersectional identities or nuances when it comes to equity initiatives. Builds a dangerous rhetoric that social justice is harmful through very limiting information.
Sowell has a few decent points. However, his writing is choppy and hard to logically follow. He has many straw arguments. His perspective is solely that of an economist and not a sociologist. I found his book ironic and poorly written.
challenging
medium-paced
3.5
This book is written from the perspective of an economist and not as a sociologist or philosopher etc. so don't look to him for abstract theory or moral posturing!!! He's only interested in examining how these concepts play out in real-world outcomes and public policy. Which, like argh, fine, whatever. I get it. But for my personal enjoyment, I would've preferred more depth in exploring underlying social dynamics.
I do appreciate his hard look at desired versus actual outcomes. We really need to examine where certain policies actually leave us. Sowell illustrates how many well-intentioned racial inequality initiatives are not only misguided but also harmful to the very communities they claim to help. FINALLY someone talked about how patronizing it is to be told by so called white liberal academics that they know all the answers for solving your problems. Such "knowledge fallacies," as he explains, have lead social-justice advocates to conclude wrongly that decisions made by the government to help certain populations will be superior to those made by individuals themselves. He quotes a plethora of leftists, from Rousseau to Ralph Nader all expressing a disdain of the individual and a corresponding belief that elites, in the form of government, must protect the public from itself. Very rude.
The other point I really liked was on equal outcomes. He talks about how “the kind of world idealized by social justice advocates— a world with everyone having equal chances of success in all endeavors— was not only unattainable, but that its fervent but futile pursuit can lead to the opposite of what its advocates are seeking.” I think he's right. Are any of these ideals are even possible? What would we have to give up in order for them to be executed. And even if they were executed, would they actually lead to the desired outcome? People are not "inert chess pieces" and you cannot just "arrange" things the way you want because things are not fair.
The book was very interesting and leaves a lot to consider especially for someone like me, who leans more ideologically left. I can also see how some might view Sowell as a "Black bootstrapper" suggesting we focus less on systemic inequality and race. Fair! Sometimes he glosses over history too quickly for my liking, but if we're being honest, attributing race to every dang thing stops us from taking a nuanced view of complex issues today. Regardless of race, people have agency (sorry).
But at the same time the book left me feeling a bit...conflicted? He says that people will use certain data to prove their point when dealing with empirical evidence. And that they remain "largely impervious to evidence or conclusions contrary to their own beliefs," but isn't it a bit ironic because how do we know he’s not doing the same thing? He pulls from certain data and comes to these conclusions that even I would argue are a reach. How do we know he is not also unintentionally or intentionally bias and skewing the stats? Idk man, it's hard to trust anyone.
Either way, I like Thomas Sowell. This is the first book I've read by him and while I might not agree with him on everything, I appreciate the points he made and the perspective he brings as a Black person. The book was worth the read.
This book is written from the perspective of an economist and not as a sociologist or philosopher etc. so don't look to him for abstract theory or moral posturing!!! He's only interested in examining how these concepts play out in real-world outcomes and public policy. Which, like argh, fine, whatever. I get it. But for my personal enjoyment, I would've preferred more depth in exploring underlying social dynamics.
I do appreciate his hard look at desired versus actual outcomes. We really need to examine where certain policies actually leave us. Sowell illustrates how many well-intentioned racial inequality initiatives are not only misguided but also harmful to the very communities they claim to help. FINALLY someone talked about how patronizing it is to be told by so called white liberal academics that they know all the answers for solving your problems. Such "knowledge fallacies," as he explains, have lead social-justice advocates to conclude wrongly that decisions made by the government to help certain populations will be superior to those made by individuals themselves. He quotes a plethora of leftists, from Rousseau to Ralph Nader all expressing a disdain of the individual and a corresponding belief that elites, in the form of government, must protect the public from itself. Very rude.
The other point I really liked was on equal outcomes. He talks about how “the kind of world idealized by social justice advocates— a world with everyone having equal chances of success in all endeavors— was not only unattainable, but that its fervent but futile pursuit can lead to the opposite of what its advocates are seeking.” I think he's right. Are any of these ideals are even possible? What would we have to give up in order for them to be executed. And even if they were executed, would they actually lead to the desired outcome? People are not "inert chess pieces" and you cannot just "arrange" things the way you want because things are not fair.
The book was very interesting and leaves a lot to consider especially for someone like me, who leans more ideologically left. I can also see how some might view Sowell as a "Black bootstrapper" suggesting we focus less on systemic inequality and race. Fair! Sometimes he glosses over history too quickly for my liking, but if we're being honest, attributing race to every dang thing stops us from taking a nuanced view of complex issues today. Regardless of race, people have agency (sorry).
But at the same time the book left me feeling a bit...conflicted? He says that people will use certain data to prove their point when dealing with empirical evidence. And that they remain "largely impervious to evidence or conclusions contrary to their own beliefs," but isn't it a bit ironic because how do we know he’s not doing the same thing? He pulls from certain data and comes to these conclusions that even I would argue are a reach. How do we know he is not also unintentionally or intentionally bias and skewing the stats? Idk man, it's hard to trust anyone.
Either way, I like Thomas Sowell. This is the first book I've read by him and while I might not agree with him on everything, I appreciate the points he made and the perspective he brings as a Black person. The book was worth the read.
There were many great points made in this book, but none of them were backed up with references to the data and where it came from. It was more a point of how data can be twisted, versus the actual story.
Assuming the points Sowell made were true, there were huge factors ignored regarding starting points for wealth and inheritance, which feels like a disservice to leave out. Although he remarks that you can't change the past, that doesn't mean the past has any less power to change the future.
I agreed with his assessments of advantages of having the same career as your parents, and how some of that can be influential in schools. I also agreed with the point about teaching children the value of thinking for themselves and formulating arguments. We do need to show both sides of the story, and if we are using past events as a reference point, it gives students the benefit of seeing how things shook out and what the results are.
Essentially, I agreed with a lot, but also wanted more from some of his points. All in, I feel it's a valuable read, even with the places it falls short.
Assuming the points Sowell made were true, there were huge factors ignored regarding starting points for wealth and inheritance, which feels like a disservice to leave out. Although he remarks that you can't change the past, that doesn't mean the past has any less power to change the future.
I agreed with his assessments of advantages of having the same career as your parents, and how some of that can be influential in schools. I also agreed with the point about teaching children the value of thinking for themselves and formulating arguments. We do need to show both sides of the story, and if we are using past events as a reference point, it gives students the benefit of seeing how things shook out and what the results are.
Essentially, I agreed with a lot, but also wanted more from some of his points. All in, I feel it's a valuable read, even with the places it falls short.
My god, this was so boring. This book is full of bog standard anti-social justice arguments, which like, fine, whatever, but ugh. Defending payday loans is...interesting fiscal policy.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Is This An Overview?
There are many factors that create disparities between people. Human bias that is part of discrimination is a single factor, among many factors. Discrimination does not have a monopoly on creating disparities or even always a dominant factor, as there are many factors that influence human achievement. There have been societies with industries dominated by ethnic minorities, who did not control politics or other social aspects. People with the same skill sets, do not necessarily want the same things, do not want the same outcomes. As people do have different skills, different people and groups can excel in some achievements while lag in others.
Nature itself is not egalitarian, as resources are not distributed equally between political boundaries. Knowledge can be used to transform nature, but not all societies have equal access to the same information. Geographically linked people have more access to information and develop faster than geographically isolated people. Even with access to information, cultures need to be receptive to different ideas to make use of the information. Not all cultures are receptive to different ideas.
What Can Be Done About The Disparities?
Social justice activists may want to fix social problems, but that does not mean their claims and policies achieve their goals. Intervention in society is claimed by social justice activists as needed to ameliorate the problems, but they can fail to share supporting evidence that intervention is needed. Social justice activists tend to hide evidence of how the problem they sought to ameliorate was ameliorating before their intervention, and do not share evidence of the problem being exacerbated after the intervention.
Politicians who advocate social justice to gain votes, learn to enact politically desirable policies even as there are negative consequences for society. Society might suffer, but the politician gains political support. There are increased chances that terrible policies are enacted for their political desirability, when the politicians do not face the consequences of being wrong.
People react differently to the imposition of rules and policies than expected. They do not simply accept and carry out someone else’s grand design. Policies can have the reverse consequences than expected, such as raising tax rates with the expectation of increasing tax revenue, can have the consequence of lowering tax revenue as people find ways of avoiding the taxed activity or product. Alternatively, lowering tax rates can increase tax revenue as more people will find the activity or product attractive.
Caveats?
While the author shares the biases of the opposition, the author has biases of one’s own. There are various examples of how the opposition used evidence incorrectly or did not share the appropriate evidence, while the author presents favorable alternative evidence to support the authors’ claims without questioning the evidence in the same way.
This book contains examples and ideas found in various other books that the author wrote, without many changes to the examples or additional examples. This book can be used as a short reference book to the authors’ other books.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Did not enjoy reading this whatsoever, should probably shelf as a DNF because I blew through the last half in an hour just to get it over with. Questionable dissection of social justice ideaologies and even more suspect use of evidence and statistics. Correlation does not equal causation!!!