“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
—2 Timothy 4:3,4
Thomas Sowell, whose national columns appear regularly in the Joplin Globe, is quite good at telling local conservatives what they want to hear, or at least what they think they want to hear.
In today’s offering, he extolls the virtues of old industrialists and inventers—”heroes”— like “Rockefeller, Edison, Ford and the Wright brothers.” These people, Sowell says, revolutionized our lives and made America a better place to live.
And so they did. No one—and I mean no sane person—would argue with Sowell that in so many ways such ambitiously creative and enterprising folks have enriched our lives.
But that, of course, isn’t really Sowell’s point at all. What he really wants to do—and this is what pleases his readers—is to bash those mythical meddling liberals, who obviously hate the rich and powerful and want to punish them at any cost. He saves his obvious and typical jab for the end:
But today we seldom even know the names of those who have made these monumental contributions to human well-being. All we know is that some people have gotten “rich” and that this is to be regarded as some sort of grievance.
Many of the people we honor today are people who are skilled in the rhetoric of grievances and promises of new “rights” at someone else’s expense. But is that what is going to make a better America?
Get it? The myth that conservatives love to tell each other is this: While those virtuous John Galts are out there holding up the American sky, success-hating liberals and progressives are kicking them in the shins with their worries—”grievances,” as Sowell phrases it—about some of the obvious negative consequences of industrialization and advancement.
In Sowell’s column today he inadvertently gives an example of what I mean. Crediting Rockefeller for “cost-cutting innovations” he writes:
Before he came along, gasoline was considered a useless by-product that petroleum refineries often simply dumped into the nearest river. But Rockefeller decided to use it as a fuel in the refining process, which made it valuable, even before automobiles came along.
While we can all applaud Rockefeller for finding a “cost-cutting” way of using gasoline, we have to ask: What if he hadn’t found a way of utilizing it? Would it be okay in Sowell’s world to just keep pouring gasoline into our rivers? Huh?
One of those bothersome grievances brought by the liberals that Sowell and other conservative writers hate so much is industrial pollution. I suppose we could simply let each industry pollute the air and the water until someone comes along and finds a use for the pollutants, but we would live in a much different America if we did: “Look kids! The river’s on fire again! I’ll get the marshmallows!“
Now, it happens that also in today’s edition of the Globe is a story headed, “Man pleads guilty to dumping light bulbs.” The man—a businessman—was a contractor who replaced a lighting system for another business in 2008. Rather than dispose of the nearly 800 pounds of fluorescent tubes, the man—a businessman—simply dumped the mercury-tainted hazardous waste on land he claimed he thought was his aunt’s. Turned out it wasn’t.
But the point is this: Should the man—a businessman—be allowed to dump 800 pounds of hazardous waste even on his own property? Should there be a “grievance” brought against him for that, or should we just wait and see if the man can find some later use for his “by-product”?
Which reminds me of a story I read in the paper earlier this month. It concerned a local and, no doubt, proud Republican legislator from Carthage, who is a member of this year’s pro-business, anti-regulatory Missouri House. The story began this way:
CARTHAGE, Mo. — If there are persistent odor problems from a reopened Renewable Environmental Solutions plant, state Rep. Tom Flanigan, R-Carthage, wants a state law on the books to respond.
I am sure Rep. Flanigan was quite eager to join his conservative Republican colleagues in Jefferson City in order to get started on making Missouri attractive to businesses—despite the fact that Republicans have practically turned the state over to business interests—but it is interesting that Mr. Flanigan has no problem with pursuing his “grievance” against polluters:
Flanigan on Thursday introduced a bill that would require a company to forfeit its state operating permit and face financial penalties if it persistently violated state air and water pollution standards.
Actually, Flanigan’s grievance against polluters is not just his grievance in this case. He is rightfully representing the neighbors of the former RES plant (which shut down in 2009), some of whom are pursuing the matter in court and fear that an ongoing effort to reopen the plant will result in more odor problems and diminish their quality of life.
And that’s the point. Is Rep. Flanigan a nannyish liberal who wants to exact revenge on the rich with his anti-pollution legislation? No, he’s not. He is merely representing his constituents, who have been aggrieved by a local business, and presumably he thinks other Missouri residents would benefit from his legislation.
In the same way, liberals and other “do-gooders” and “nannies” don’t want the government to regulate businesses because businessmen are filthy rich and don’t deserve the rewards of entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and hard work. But that’s the myth that liberal-hating Thomas Sowell and other conservatives tell and sell to their readers and listeners.
No. Liberals believe that we have a better world not just because today’s Fords and Rockefellers provide us with cars and gasoline—which undeniably add to the quality of our lives—but because they provide us such things without unnecessarily polluting our air and water.
And many of those Fords and Rockefellers wouldn’t worry much about the quality of our air and water if it weren’t for those who, in Sowell’s words, “are skilled in the rhetoric of grievances and promises of new “rights” at someone else’s expense.”
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
Jim Wheeler
/ January 25, 2011At one time I admired Thomas Sowell because he wrote lucidly about simple economic virtues, as he does in the piece you review here. Since those days I have come to understand that such reasoning is often facile, as it is here and as Duane so well points out.
His essay prompts me to offer an additional perspective on the general subject. It is one thing to successfully have a great idea or invention and exploit it to become rich, and quite another to examine the detritus left in the wake of such exploitation. For example, Thomas Edison revolutionized the electric power industry along with the likes of George Westinghouse. They both capitalized on the work of Nikola Tesla who was a technical genius but a poor businessman. The moral of this matter, I submit, is that the successful execution of money-making does not always entail justice, that elusive quality about which we have blogged much.
Here is another point in support of that moral. The cream of American intellectual talent is going not to engineering, science or medicine, but rather to finance. Is finance a socially-productive field? Does it improve society more than, or even as much as, those other fields? I think the answer is clear, but if it is not clear to you I recommend you see the two Michael Douglas movies about Wall Street. I watched “Money Never Sleeps” last weekend and found it instructive.
To paraphrase a well-known sports saying, here’s Gordon Gekko’s motto: “Money isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing.”
To drive home the point, to equate financial success with social probity is facile.
Jim W.
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Duane Graham
/ January 25, 2011Jim,
You wrote, “to equate financial success with social probity is facile.” Yes, yes. And to further drive home your point I would add that to necessarily equate any and all success with social probity (as some folks tend to do) is facile. I suppose it is possible that Charles Manson could conceive a cure for cancer while he languishes in prison, but I don’t think we would erect a statue in front of St. John’s in his honor.
Duane
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johnnykaje
/ January 25, 2011I love the Internet:
http://politicalcorrection.org/mobile/factcheck/201101250020
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Duane Graham
/ January 26, 2011Kaje,
Media Matters is vital these days. Keeping track of the nonsense on the right taxes my meager resources, and it’s nice to know someone is on it full time. I like this graph from Ezra Klein, one of the best liberal journalists working today, which MM used to refute just one of Ryan’s falsehoods:
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ansonburlingame
/ January 26, 2011Let’s see, facile. Here in an online dictionary definition:
1.moving, acting, working, proceeding, etc., with ease, sometimes with superficiality: facile fingers; a facile mind.
2. easily done, performed, used, etc.: a facile victory; a facile method.
3. easy or unconstrained, as manners or persons.
4. affable, agreeable, or complaisant; easily influenced: a facile temperament; facile people
Jim has been slinging that word around lately. So now he thinks Thomas Sowell fits the above dictionary definition, right? And Duane agrees with him, right?
Am I taking anything out of context?
Anson
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Duane Graham
/ January 26, 2011Anson,
Jim said Sowell’s reasoning was facile, in the sense of simplistic. I have so argued many times about Sowell. Jim also said it is facile to equate financial success with social probity, with which I agreed emphatically. Now, what’s your point?
Duane
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Jim Wheeler
/ January 26, 2011Anson,
The first definitions that comes up on my computer dictionary, and the one I intended for the context for “facile” is this one:
adjective
1 (esp. of a theory or argument) appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial.
Jim W.
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ansonburlingame
/ January 26, 2011to both,
I went online and printed the definition exactly as found therein. Jim’s other definition did not show up but I do not disagree with it as well.
Using Jim’s definition, basically simplistic, or superficial, I believe all of us can be so accused. Face it my blogging collegues, we are not experts on anything in which we opinion, frequently. I don’t even consider myself an expert on matters related to nuclear energy, my current topic in my blog.
So in my view we can all be labelled facile, very facile. Most of the subjects upon which we opinin are extraordinarily complex. Just arguing about the effect of raising taxes, which we all sound very “pat” in our opinions far exceeds our research or intellectual skills. I only speak directly for myself in that regard for sure. I won’t accuse you of such lack of authority, but…..?
Sowell on the other hand is a scholar of emminence with a long, long track record of research, author of many books, careful and deep study of the issues upon which he writes, etc. You do not like the conclusions that he reaches as a result of his long study but to call him superficial or simplistic is unneed to express your “facile” disagreement in my view.
I on the other hand do not like Krugmans conclusions on similar issues. But I never discount his Pultizer Prize nor have I ever called him superficial that I recall. If I did so, I retract it. But disagree with his conclusion, you bet, as “facile” or superficial or unstudied to any depth as my views might be.
I don’t even consider Gene Lyons superficial. I for sure disagree with him views but I give him credit for doing enough research to make his point publicly as he so chooses.
And we all know for sure that trying to comment on current issues in 400 words or so can’t even “touch” the depth of such issues. But books on such subjects cannot be published in newspapers or even blogs. And I don’t think any of us are published authors of any emminence.
You can of course use whatever terms you choose to express disagreement. But sometimes I may “fill my hands…” over the use of some of those terms, as facile as my hands may be.
THAT’s my point, Duane. Do you have it now or need I “write a book” on the subject.
Anson
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Jim Wheeler
/ January 26, 2011Anson,
That economics is complex is for sure an understatement that I’m sure none of us would challenge. But that statement actually supports my opinion about Thomas Sowell. His essays are typically written in simple, everyday language, and they therefore likely appeal to the average reader. Competition good, bureaucracy bad. Hard work good, taxes bad. Innovation good, regulations bad. An exaggeration perhaps, but not much.
Given his learned background, as you note, he is obviously aware that economics is not as simple a subject as his newspaper columns lead one to expect, and I therefore conclude that he is simply trying to convince the average reader that HIS opinions on an extremely complex and contentious subject are the correct ones. I don’t fault him for trying, but because they are written in a facile manner, neither am I convinced by them. Different opinions by people just as learned as he are easy to find.
Jim
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Duane Graham
/ January 26, 2011Anson,
In an odd way, you raise an interesting point.
Jim has explained quite well the problem with Sowell. And don’t miss the point that neither Jim nor I have called Sowell “simplistic” or “superficial” in terms of his credentials or his intellect. It’s his arguments as presented to us that have that quality.
In any case:
1. Of course, all of us could just shut up and leave everything to the experts and let them run the world without criticism. If that would shut up Rush Limbaugh, I’d think about assenting to that one.
2. Except the experts often disagree. Now, what?
3. I will admit that there are some things beyond my ability to understand sufficiently, like relativity and quantum physics (or why you have an inordinate and paralyzing fear of the national debt). And even though I have read a lot about relativity and quantum mechanics and have seen many demonstrations, I don’t grasp them well enough to explain them to a first-grader, let alone criticize physicists who write about them. And I never will. It’s just not the way my brain is constructed, I suppose.
4. But politics is different. And so is political philosophy, indeed, philosophy in general. Sure, there are professional philosophers who can write nearly unintelligible papers (unintelligible to non-professionals) and can dazzle us with nuanced brilliance, but when it comes down to it, philosophy is for everyone. At least for anyone who can critically evaluate the facts of experience, which is my preferred definition of philosophy.
If you read Plato, for instance, it is quite different from reading what professional philosophers write about Plato and his philosophy. Plato is relatively easy to read and understand, but professional philosophers who interpret him are not always so.
My point is that politics is for everyone, too. Sure, there is jargon and other basic knowledge necessary to know in order to talk intelligently about it, but it is not a subject best left to the experts. Politics is about groups of folks organized in one way or another to make decisions that affect them. It has to with psychological and social behavior and the acquisition and application of power. Thus, it behooves everyone to know something about it, and because it involves human relationships, it is not off-limits to the non-experts.
5. One of my biggest problems with Thomas Sowell is his utter—and damned simplistic!—disregard for politicians. I happen to think politicians are (or should be) professional political artisans. Good ones, in both parties, know what they are doing in terms of doing what politicians do. I hate it when Sowell, and other conservatives, attack politicians wholesale, as if there is something illegitimate about being a politician. There’s not. Our revered Founders, for God’s sake, were politicians. And while it’s fair game to attack any individual politician for his particular philosophy or for being a poor politician in some respect or another, it is not fair game to attack him for simply being a politician. That, my friend, is superficial.
Duane
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ansonburlingame
/ January 26, 2011To both,
OK, Sowell dispite his brillance writes to the “common man” to help such people understand complex things. People do it all the time for many reasons. A good teacher does it, takes a difficult subject and presents it step by painstaking step so students can learn over time.
I believe your problem with Sowell, whether you admit it or not is the CONCLUSIONS he reaches through his simple message. Hard work good, taxes bad, regulations bad, innovation good are to some fundamentally sound principles (though not to you for sure) and they reach those fundamental conclusions through simple explanations.
If a good liberal wrote an “Idiots Guide to Economics” and lead to the conclusion that the Welfare State was “good”, I would be all over his ass just like you seem to enjoy jumping on Sowell’s as well. It is the conclusions reached that you think are wrong and you defend your views by calling him simplistic or superficial.
Rarely could I do it as a student long ago, take complex things and reduce them to understandable simplicity but still valid principles. I in fact studied quantum mechanics in 1964 and was clueless what it really meant.
But today I could sit for an hour with you Duane and explain at least some parts of quantum theory to you and would not violate any known principles of that complex subject in doing so. My simple explanation would be “true” as far as it went.
A Phd in physicst might call my session with you facile, but you would have a much better grasp of quantum theory than you now seemingly have.
I was going to focus on commericial nuclear energy this week but then had to read your blog. I then had to post my own view of what was said last night.
My conclusions were very simple and straight forward but very true to me. Now I suggest you not refer to me as facile in that blog. I added a last sentence to show what I would do.
Anson
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