Social Justice Fallacies (Thomas Sowell Book Review)

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  • Опубліковано 21 гру 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 129

  • @juniorjamreonvit9271
    @juniorjamreonvit9271 9 місяців тому +29

    Thank you for bringing attention to Sowell. More people need to know about him.

    • @SeanMcDowell
      @SeanMcDowell  9 місяців тому +4

      You’re welcome and I agree 💯

  • @annbrucepineda8093
    @annbrucepineda8093 9 місяців тому +22

    After their marriage, Candace Owens and her husband were guests at Liberty University. She was asked to name her favorite book and she said something like, anything by Thomas Sowell. I have since listened to his interviews and audio books. What a brilliant man!

    • @michelle_c2345
      @michelle_c2345 9 місяців тому

      Be careful with Candace. I was always a huge fan of hers but I heard (not sure if it’s true) that’s she’s anti-Israel. Broke my heart. Some of these very good Christian’s and conservatives who are so awake to everything yet somehow are anti-Israel it makes no sense to me.

  • @PhilosophyofDataScience
    @PhilosophyofDataScience 9 місяців тому +43

    Basically Thomas Sowell helps us to avoid the Leviticus 19:15 pitfall, and understand how the social justice movement shows partiality toward "the poor" (or classes seen as poor even if they are not).

    • @adamduarte895
      @adamduarte895 9 місяців тому +2

      Exactly! Also hello fellow data scientist

    • @Aperson8394
      @Aperson8394 3 місяці тому +1

      Thank you for leading me to this verse. I’ve been searching for with dilemma/ balance in with Bible!

    • @rafaelgonzalez4175
      @rafaelgonzalez4175 3 місяці тому

      Do not throw stones if you live in a glass house. Every person alive, is human and in the human race. Anything else is social injustice. Tell that to Thomas Sowell...

    • @Aperson8394
      @Aperson8394 3 місяці тому

      @rafaelgonzalez4175 what lense are you looking through when you when u say anything else is social justice?

    • @rafaelgonzalez4175
      @rafaelgonzalez4175 3 місяці тому

      @@Aperson8394 Can you read??? Do you read?? Or do you just comment with what you want to say???
      Copied for context.
      what lense are you looking through when you when u say anything else is social justice?..
      I said Social "INJUSTICE"

  • @PhilosophyofDataScience
    @PhilosophyofDataScience 9 місяців тому +26

    Love Sowell. Appreciate anyone who is able to effectively ignore convenient narrative for good reasoning based on good data. He's helpful for believers to understand how compassion can actually be connected with better outcomes, rather than weaponized toward deleterious effects on the very targets of compassion.

    • @MaryMay-n3z
      @MaryMay-n3z 9 місяців тому

      I'm copying and pasting this mostly because I'm lazy.
      Was Thomas Sowell christian. Was he using the bible as the foundation for his beliefs. No. He wasn't a professing Christian, didn't even pretend to believe
      and he never did.
      Im not allowed to believe systemic racism is real cause apparently its all marxist or something.
      So if we're going by that standard youre in error and i should focus tons of effort on purging you and your beliefs from the church.

    • @MaryMay-n3z
      @MaryMay-n3z 9 місяців тому

      You're causing division, you're pushing extrabiblical beliefs on people, you're trying to convince people to believe things the bible foesmt require you to, youre leading people astray from the simplicity of Christ.

  • @warsharkproductions6550
    @warsharkproductions6550 9 місяців тому +57

    Finally, Thomas sowell getting more recognition

  • @imnotanalien7839
    @imnotanalien7839 9 місяців тому +9

    Great discussion.
    ❤Dr. Thomas Sowell🇺🇸

  • @biblicalworldview1
    @biblicalworldview1 9 місяців тому +8

    34:50 that is a part of critical theory called standpoint epistemology.

  • @StumblingThroughItAll
    @StumblingThroughItAll 9 місяців тому +15

    @Sean McDowell if you haven't read Sowell's "A Conflict of Visions" and "Vision of the Annointed", those address more of the worldview which lay at the foundations of political philosophy. I think you'd really enjoy a read through those books as well.

    • @SeanMcDowell
      @SeanMcDowell  9 місяців тому +6

      Thanks, I haven’t read those!

    • @StumblingThroughItAll
      @StumblingThroughItAll 9 місяців тому +7

      @@SeanMcDowell Highly recommend them! "A Conflict of Visions" has been one of my go-to's when trying to understand much of the conflicts in political philosophies of our current moment. Super prescient IMHO.

  • @intrepidus3378
    @intrepidus3378 9 місяців тому +3

    Paused at 31:28.
    "All of the knowledge necessary to fix certain inquities within society"
    This is the crux of it for me. Only God has the power to shape the environment to His will. The rest of us are constrained to curing the inequities within our own hearts. When we try to reach outside of ourselves and bend our environment to our own will we get it good and hard. This is pride and its inevitable outcome.

    • @johnnycamp1584
      @johnnycamp1584 6 місяців тому +1

      The lie from the father of lies is, "You'll be like your creator and know good from evil."

  • @jennifertallbear4480
    @jennifertallbear4480 2 місяці тому +1

    Not just brilliant but more so willing to be truthful and find what is there🙌🏻❤️🙏🙏🙏

  • @markeroberts5133
    @markeroberts5133 9 місяців тому +2

    Thanks! First time I can recall an overtly Christian podcast featuring Thomas Sowell! Much appreciation to you for doing this and an equal amount of hope this show will introduce him to many.

  • @debbydoodler33
    @debbydoodler33 9 місяців тому +9

    Love that you're discussing Sowell! What an incredible gift he is. I've only seen interviews with him but hope to read his books in the future.

  • @paulafields3711
    @paulafields3711 9 місяців тому +4

    "How is the world broken? Why do people suffer? How do we fix it?"The knowledge of how to fix things is actually in God our Creator. The more we rebel against Him and His ways the further away from answers we get. Imo. I think Thomas Sowell's book would be an interesting read. Thanks for this discussion.

  • @tyleradamson7242
    @tyleradamson7242 9 місяців тому +6

    Love that you are reviewing Sowell! The man is so direct and well thought out, I think your hypothesis of other intellectuals avoiding him altogether even though he is so well recognized, is in fact a concerted effort to discredit him with silence, so they don’t have to engage any of his ideas. What a life story too, he’s fantastic.

  • @slumbermoon
    @slumbermoon 9 місяців тому +18

    Sowell is the epitome of academic insight & common sense

  • @midimusicforever
    @midimusicforever 9 місяців тому +10

    There is a big overlap between social justice and true justice, but it's not fully overlapping for sure!

    • @karl3549
      @karl3549 9 місяців тому +3

      I agree that there is an overlap, but I don’t think it’s as big as it tends to be advertised. I think an unfortunate (and dangerous) overlap in the Venn diagram is that cultural Marxism is taking an ever-increasing portion of the “social justice” circle.

    • @John-fk2ky
      @John-fk2ky 9 місяців тому

      I don’t see how there’s any functional overlap, at least not anymore. Even the phrase “social justice” is tainted by its association with frankly idiotic initiatives and “reversed” forms of discrimination.

    • @michellepeterson6320
      @michellepeterson6320 9 місяців тому +1

      @@karl3549 need to be VERY careful with the overlap...it will creep

  • @Xiy114
    @Xiy114 9 місяців тому +6

    It's one of the reasons why some governments fear their citizenry.

  • @joanhuffman2166
    @joanhuffman2166 9 місяців тому +12

    See also his book Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell.

  • @arhabersham
    @arhabersham 9 місяців тому +2

    Thanks so much for covering this, good sir ❤

  • @JenE3377
    @JenE3377 5 місяців тому +2

    Dr Sowell has lived experience, the ability to think, moral bravery combined with great intellect.

  • @kevingp12
    @kevingp12 9 місяців тому +3

    Great episode to discuss sowell

  • @flamesintheattic
    @flamesintheattic 9 місяців тому +2

    At the root of every ancient religion is the notion that only the individual can relieve suffering within themselves. It is not a group activity.

  • @markmcflounder15
    @markmcflounder15 9 місяців тому +2

    Just a minor correction or update: the simple pencil story.
    Dr. Jay Richards must have gotten that from Dr. Milton Friedman whose lectures I can't recommend enough.
    Dr. Sowell was a staunch deep rooted Marxist & read all of Das Kapitel. He ended up taking one of Milton Friedman's classes. And, that did not change Sowell's mind. When Sowell took a government job his Marxist worldview shattered.

  • @jamiemcvay130
    @jamiemcvay130 9 місяців тому +2

    I love Thomas Sowell! If I was given the super-power of appointing the US president, I would appoint Sowell.

  • @TSis76
    @TSis76 9 місяців тому +5

    Priveleges?? Or factors? Unless people were always rewarded for a certain demographic, they are factors. Factors may have been earned with lots of blood, sweat, tears, and struggles.

    • @metapolitikgedanken612
      @metapolitikgedanken612 9 місяців тому

      Yes, it is a bit misleading what they are doing there by pricking terms like privileges. It can also be a cultural credit people are getting there. Simply based on general experiences.

    • @charlesbruneski9670
      @charlesbruneski9670 9 місяців тому

      ​@metapolitikgedanken612
      Which is why they can then claim preposterous things like:
      "Math is racist"
      "Being on time is white privilege"
      And, all other aspects and examples of disparity supposedly equaling oppression... with no evidence.

  • @MotekiEZ
    @MotekiEZ 9 місяців тому +3

    Didn't even know he had a new book!!

  • @highlander-jb6jv
    @highlander-jb6jv 9 місяців тому +1

    Sowell is a national treasure. Sean, Sowell has also written a whole book called "The Quest for Cosmic Justice." It seems to cover in more detail some of the ideas in this book.

  • @johntobey1558
    @johntobey1558 9 місяців тому +4

    I would also review Glen Laurie who is an Economist at Brown University who is also a conservatove and openly crotocal to the corrupt vision of the Black Lives Matter and the Ibraham Kendi non-semse and his corrupt project at Boston University.

    • @SeanMcDowell
      @SeanMcDowell  9 місяців тому

      Glen is sharp-I’ve seen some of his stuff.

  • @Koala-md07
    @Koala-md07 9 місяців тому +1

    Read Leonard E Read’s “I Pencil” Dec 1958 he goes thru how a pencil is made in that book.

  • @sporadicfaneurysm
    @sporadicfaneurysm 9 місяців тому

    🤔 agree naman ako mostly sa mga sinabi, pero may mga points lang na may reservations ako, esp. sa bandang dulo.. para kasing may hulog pag dating sa ilang ideologies.. sa tingin ko gets ko naman somewhat kung anung pinanggagalingan nun, pero siguro meron pa ring mga bagay-bagay na di nila nakikita (?) at for sure meron ding di ko nakikita, kaya iwan na lang natin na ganyan sa ngayon.. 💁🏻

  • @biblicalworldview1
    @biblicalworldview1 9 місяців тому +8

    You have done your audience such a service by promoting Thomas Sowell. A lot of these ideas have come out in other works of his, like Discrimination and Disparities, but he thinks so clearly on these issues and completely debunks the shallow Ibram X Kendi narrative, where either there's something wrong with black people or it's racism, without allowing a third way of culture and many other factors. This ideology goes all the way back to Jean Jacques Rousseau and has a thread going through Karl Marx and the Frankfurt School that moved to Columbia University from Germany. Rousseau had a basic philosophy that man was born good, but society and property corrupted him. It is a complete Utopian ideal on which the French revolution was partially based. Utopianism is based on the idea that man is basically good, which is why it always leads in atrocities and disaster.

  • @Apriluser
    @Apriluser 9 місяців тому +3

    Does justice need an adjective?

  • @williamdaniel8942
    @williamdaniel8942 5 місяців тому

    At 37 minutes Sean mentions wanting a fuller fleshing out of "Cosmic Justice." Thomas Sowell wrote a small book, doing just this on "Cosmic Justice." It is available from Amazon.

  • @metapolitikgedanken612
    @metapolitikgedanken612 9 місяців тому +1

    Sorry, but how does he at 5:40 ff know that genetic disparities aren't the cause for other disparities?
    Also, how does he know that "Nobody does accept that any longer"... There for sure are those that do and they also have demonstrated their theory sufficiently. Obviously there are group differences that play a role.

  • @charlieshammer6129
    @charlieshammer6129 9 місяців тому

    Mr. Sowell is truly brilliant, I got excited thinking he might be on your show. Great show anyway!

  • @DAWN001
    @DAWN001 Місяць тому

    Social justice is one of the many forms of collectivism, which ignore the many different individual circumstances within the collective identity groups. Authentic justice can only be achieved at individual level, equality under the law.

  • @johnnybravo3869
    @johnnybravo3869 9 місяців тому +2

    Question: Is it a Talbot thing to wear t-shirts with blazers?

  • @cherilee2
    @cherilee2 3 місяці тому

    So why the druming? It interferes with hearing and understanding the content.

  • @lukeemily6644
    @lukeemily6644 9 місяців тому

    I would love to hear your thoughts on Sowell's "The Vision of the Anointed." Are David French and Russell Moore members of the evangelical anointed?

  • @iceman4660
    @iceman4660 9 місяців тому +3

    Sowell a living legend. A sidenote. He was a Marxist when he was much younger.

  • @jamesbarton1969
    @jamesbarton1969 28 днів тому

    The pencil example actually comes from Sowell's teacher, Milton Friedman.

  • @jensonlim9907
    @jensonlim9907 9 місяців тому +2

    Didn’t even realise Sowell is still alive!

  • @sargentd3125
    @sargentd3125 4 місяці тому

    Good read

  • @DAWN001
    @DAWN001 Місяць тому

    24:50 I know families that have a whole wall of expensive books just for decoration/showing off 😂
    Proxies of success such as having 50 books are just proxies which correlate with the real drivers of success. You can bring your children to the library regularly and spend a lot of time reading with them without having to own any books. Thomas Sowell definitely didn’t own that many books when he was a kid, but his friend introduced him to the local library.

  • @Gweidemann
    @Gweidemann 9 місяців тому +1

    "God is the source of all justice. He alone is its source." • Jeanne J. Rousseau.

  • @erikjohnson2594
    @erikjohnson2594 9 місяців тому +2

    This episode hasn't started yet. if you are able to actually interview the Great and Elusive Thomas Sowell, I will be very impressed.

  • @johntobey1558
    @johntobey1558 9 місяців тому +3

    Also read Woke Racism

  • @lukemiao4454
    @lukemiao4454 9 місяців тому +1

    Jarvis Williams and Anthony Bradley love him too, so he's not just an "anti woke" grifter that should be summarily dismissed, he and his ideas should be taken seriously even if you don't agree with all of them.

  • @nikitanipon9166
    @nikitanipon9166 Місяць тому

    me encanta lo que dice thomas sowell
    “Nunca entendí por qué es egoísta quere quedarte con el dinero que ganaste y NO es egoísta querer quedarte con el dinero de los demás “

  • @PaulVanZandt-o9x
    @PaulVanZandt-o9x 9 місяців тому

    You said a mouthful when you quoted Sowell asking whether social justice advocates' priorities are the poor themselves or their own vision of the world. I think that's a legitimate question that all social justice warriors need to ask themselves. But I think it's equally legitimate to ask Christians, “Do you really want justice for all people - even the ones whose lifestyles you don't agree with - or are you just promoting your vision of the world?” What I so often see is that Christians, especially evangelicals, are not as interested in making life better for marginalized people as in advancing what they see as correct doctrine.

    • @John-fk2ky
      @John-fk2ky 9 місяців тому

      I’m sorry, but you are going to need some actual examples and clarification, because what you have here is, frankly, illogical.
      Aspects of Christian doctrine:
      1. Do not steal. Benefits should be self-explanatory.
      2. Do not lie. Benefits are self-explanatory.
      3. Respect parents. Benefits should be obvious but are lost on most people.
      4. Adultery is wrong. How this is not obvious to all is beyond me.
      5. Premarital sex is wrong. Check out the statistics. Many problems would be fixed in society if this were followed.
      6. Homosexuality is wrong. Actually look up the statistics for this one rather than foolishly follow your emotions. Gay men, despite making up 2% of the population, make up half of all new HIV patients. Lesbians have an inordinately high domestic abuse rate. Both groups have high divorce rates within a few years if they marry at all, and of those that do stay married, only a fraction remain monogamous.
      7. Transgenderism is wrong. Just look at the suicide rate. Nearly 50% of both pre-op and post-op transgender self-identifiers commit suicide regardless of where they live and level of affirmation received. The idea that this is something healthy is ludicrous.
      8. Polyamory is wrong. Relationships between two people are hard enough. Adding more people to it just increases risks of jealousy and other negative emotions.
      If followed widely, Christian doctrine would solve or mitigate quite a few problems. What do you expect people to do that isn’t already being done? You can argue for expanding those efforts, but what do you think is being neglected that doesn’t require a Christian to compromise his or her beliefs?

  • @JudithBurgess-j1r
    @JudithBurgess-j1r 12 днів тому

    Each child is born into a different family.

  • @garysweeten5196
    @garysweeten5196 3 місяці тому

    Galatians 6:2-4 puts it clearly. “Bear each others’ burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.” A burden is an overwhelming issue that we cannot handle by ourselves. A young family’s wife and mother is ill and needs our assistance. We can take food, offer child care, donate funds, pray. Paul says in verse 4 that we are to let people with loads carry them personally. A load is an issue that others can and need to carry themselves. If they do carry it personally it will give them confidence to carry on. We teach that the Golden Rule tells us to do for others what we want them to do for us. What we call.”The L/ead Rule” tempts us to do for others loads they are called to do themselves. And, “The Stone Rule” is trying to do for others what only God can do.” The Social Justice Warriors are forcing the culture to push Lead and Stone Rules. Galatians 6 says that destroys the recipients.

  • @JenE3377
    @JenE3377 5 місяців тому

    Unjust not injust!

  • @busyb8676
    @busyb8676 9 місяців тому

    He apparently did not touch on the fact that women have not been treated as equals in most societies. Where they are the emotional success of the family produces more productive happier children and a healthier society.

  • @JohnTBlock
    @JohnTBlock 3 місяці тому

    Also factors that have nothing to do with racial preference, such as geography, where you're born or raised, can have tremendous impact on personal outcomes....Sowell speaks to education in "Dismantling America", comparing public schools in Harlem in his youth ('39 - '46) to the best white schools in NY.... very little differsnce!

  • @babyfacedkayos
    @babyfacedkayos 9 місяців тому +1

    Diversity in medicine is wildly important. I only go to black doctors when available because they have insights that white doctors likely won't. Black dermatologist. Black primary care. Tuh.

  • @kevingp12
    @kevingp12 9 місяців тому +1

    🎉

  • @CMO999
    @CMO999 4 місяці тому

    There are inequalities baked into the system, but they favour minorities.

  • @jelly7310
    @jelly7310 9 місяців тому +1

    Thomas Sowell was born and raised in America. Harlem if I'm not mistaken.
    He's NOT an African American. Just American.

  • @catherinemelnyk
    @catherinemelnyk 9 місяців тому +2

    It's still a mystery to me why black people in America identify as "African" Americans, as if you couldn't tell their historical identity. But, I'm a Polish-Ukraianian Canadian but I don't advertise my heritage, even though I'M VERY PROUD of it. Totally bizarre.
    That aside, I do have several of Thomas Sowell's books which are excellent.

    • @andrewjohnson8232
      @andrewjohnson8232 9 місяців тому +3

      Because American communities and personalities are built on their collective sense of pride and place rooted in a sense of social and individual ethnic history - a sense African Americans have been systematically and brutallt denied.
      They are the only group forced to Americas against will, whose massive, fundamental, contributions have been denied, and which was forbidden by law and mob rule, not only from being American, but also from being human.
      Unlike you, they have had any sense of identificatiom with a nation, society or ethnicity, systematically eradicated and denied.
      The fact that you feel you have the right to grant and withold your respect at will, and ask a question of something which shoild be so searingly obvious to you, should in fact be the answer to your own question.

    • @catherinemelnyk
      @catherinemelnyk 9 місяців тому

      @@andrewjohnson8232 There's a clip with Morgan Freeman in an interview on this topic.

    • @andrewjohnson8232
      @andrewjohnson8232 9 місяців тому +1

      @@catherinemelnyk
      There are 47 million people of African descent in the US, with millions more throughout the American continent.
      They didn't arrive in America as African, they were branded, very literally, in America as African.
      Might you consider listening to their history as well as dismissing it by choosing to listen only to people who will endorse your dismissal?

    • @treytaylor1511
      @treytaylor1511 Місяць тому +1

      ​@@andrewjohnson8232 Thank God sensible people like you still exist. I called out this bullshit in my comment. I'm not even sure why this video was uploaded.

    • @andrewjohnson8232
      @andrewjohnson8232 Місяць тому +1

      @@treytaylor1511
      Thanks man - likewise.
      Sowell is deeply problametic. Brilliant mind, brilliant academic - one of the best American academic writers, and isn't saying alot of what his w't' fanbase think he's saying, a fact he exploits.
      The problem is, when you're brilliant enough to represent a certain kind of threat, you will have the opportunity to sellout - and my man took it, fixing his commentary on that fraction reality which appeals to his w't' fanbase as the truth, deliberately blindsiding himself to everything else.
      Thanks again, appreciated. Peace and strength to you.

  • @markmcflounder15
    @markmcflounder15 9 місяців тому

    I see why the Left so dismisses & ignores Sowell.
    Discrimination & Disparities starts off with the enormous advantage of the 1st-born & a group of the top 1% of IQs. He goes on to say if we can't get equality of outcomes in the same family how could expect to do the same in a country???
    The outcomes of the people with the top 1% of IQs had huge array of differences. Some were huge successes & the converse was also true.
    He mentions that the income/wealth of Eastern & Western Europe is much greater than any group in the US. He goes on to show the influence of rivers between Eastern & Western Europe.
    One of the parts I find the most intriguing is the history of Scotland. My ancestry is Scottish on both sides of my family. England had been conquered by the Romans & that put England ahead. Thus, England oppressed Scotland & Ireland. Scotland was a backwaters place & something like no Scottish noble could write his name in the 1500s. Then in the 1700s there was a sudden flourishing & advancement. David Hume wrote in this era.

  • @donald6277
    @donald6277 9 місяців тому

    Sowell is great. But the question of what Biblical justice is was not discussed.

  • @TheJohnnywbred
    @TheJohnnywbred 7 місяців тому

    Black football players don’t want to be punters is one example.

  • @jonathancampbell586
    @jonathancampbell586 9 місяців тому +1

    Bless You, Dr. Sowell Diversity Should NOT be Our guiding Priciple and Yes, We are Not
    " Bricks! "

  • @SquirrelOnIce
    @SquirrelOnIce 9 місяців тому +3

    There is one clear genetic difference between the races...and that's the average height and physique of Oriental Asians (a group of which I am a part of) and the Blacks 😂
    It is what it is. To endeavour to eliminate this difference is a fool's errand.

  • @TonyThomas10000
    @TonyThomas10000 9 місяців тому +1

    These sound like straw man arguments. Social justice is not making everyone completely equal. The definition from Chat GPT: "Social justice refers to the concept of fair and equitable treatment of all individuals within a society, regardless of their background, identity, or socio-economic status. It encompasses the idea that every person should have equal access to resources, opportunities, and rights, and that systemic barriers and inequalities should be addressed and eliminated." What is not mentioned is that African Americans were enslaved for hundreds of years and not allowed to marry and have families. That may explain why only 30% of blacks are married. In addition, wealth creation has been decimated in the black community by redlining and economic disparity. Finally, blacks are not a monolithic group and some are middle and even upper class based upon what their ancestors were able to achieve.

  • @stephenbailey9969
    @stephenbailey9969 9 місяців тому

    Absolute justice? That is God's domain.
    But the scriptures describe the divine acts to ameliorate human brokenness, to teach a better way, whether it be the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, etc.
    What we call 'social justice' is an attempt to actually apply those principles to the affairs of men.
    Because radical individualism is a falsehood. We always exist in the company of other people.

    • @markeroberts5133
      @markeroberts5133 9 місяців тому

      What do you find in Sowell's writings advocating radical individualism?

    • @stephenbailey9969
      @stephenbailey9969 9 місяців тому

      @@markeroberts5133 Discussing the concept of 'social justice', not specifically Sowell.
      However, Sowell's ideas and conclusions for the last three decades have been used by the libertarian and conservative individualists to rationalize their prescriptions, even if Sowell himself has a differing philosophy.

  • @cooper60
    @cooper60 7 місяців тому

    The mental gymnastics of these Christians....smh

  • @andrewjohnson8232
    @andrewjohnson8232 9 місяців тому +2

    The story of Africans in America is one of the most brutal in world history, yet that history, according to Sowell and his groupies - the largely unaffected beneficiaries of that brutality - that history is merely a side issue to the creation of the haves and the have nots in America today.
    A people violently forced to a place entirely against their will, violently denied wage, violently denied a choice of labour, violently denied family structure, violently denied personal development, violently denied personal security, violently denied personal autonomy, violently denied education, violently denied the right to secure a private economy, violently denied national history, violently denied personal dignity, their humanity questioned, examined, denied, parodied ridiculed, and denounced in education, media, commerce, by law, government and social habit for four centuties, a lifetime short of half a millenium, are somehow meant to have erased any legacy of that with the concessions to full citizenship rights that they have hard fought for and hardly won in the last 30-odd years?
    Without African Americans, America's presence on the world stage would be very much thinner. That is a MASSIVE overachievement. Had they ever been paid what they have earned at anytime in history, there would be no reason for Sowell to invent their underachievenent with an update of the same denunciations of their himanity which has always served Americans so well.

    • @jimmock1155
      @jimmock1155 9 місяців тому

      I find your worldview interesting. You look across centuries and want to award those alive today? I wish it worked that way. I was born a mixed breed “Heinz 57”. No distinct heritage. No inheritance. Poor. I had to look around and make myself valuable to the world I was born into. That’s how my world seems to work.

    • @andrewjohnson8232
      @andrewjohnson8232 9 місяців тому +1

      @@jimmock1155
      You're clearly a great example, from what you say, but the situation you overcame was and is real, not imagined.
      Of course people can overcome their individual situations, even in the worst conditions, but that doesn't address how any collective came to be in a bad situation.
      Simply because something is not an absolute, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
      Not sure what you mean by "award those today".
      America's wealth is not a perpetually spontaneous generation, it is the product of the past, to which the commodification of the American land was and is absolutely key: the econmic foundation of America to which its African population is the absolute key, not simply in terms of labour and manpower, but in knowledge, skill, technique and innovation.
      You cannot separate centuries of brutally enfoced disparities, and outright fraud and homocidal robbery, from the disparities that exist today, unless you are acidically baleful or stupefyingly moronic.
      And how baleful and moronic would one have to be to look at America's half millenuim of history, and conclude that today's disparities exist because there are people who do not spend enough time in the library?

    • @markeroberts5133
      @markeroberts5133 9 місяців тому

      Use Sowell's own criteria: "compared to what?" Slavery and all its compulsions have afflicted humanity forever. While magnifying the Western or more specifically American participation in slavery, be sure to compare it with the Arab-Muslim slave trade . . . which killed and maimed multiples more than the Western trade (which Christianity ended, in the UK first & then in the USA). Arab-Muslim slavery continues to this day: see Ronald Segal, "Islam's Black Slaves" (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001). "in some cases, the estimate is that for every slave sold at auction, 10 died on the way. And slavery continues today in the Sudan and Mauritania. The strength of this account is the meticulous documentation. . . ."

    • @andrewjohnson8232
      @andrewjohnson8232 9 місяців тому

      @@markeroberts5133
      Not only will I say you are right on that account, but I also believe that the rise of Islam was Africa's destruction.
      Where once stood the great African kingdoms of Kush, Numidia, Titchit, Cathage, Egypt, Axum, Zimbabwe, Punt, Kongo, now stand either Arab Islamic Republics, or the ravages of kingdons wasted by their rise and ideology, still pushing south. The last place to fall was northern Sudan.
      Europeans did not create the slave trade in Africa, they bought into it.
      None of that however, has anything to do with Sowell's ludicrous position, that the disparities viciously and relentlessly enforced, both at executive and social levels, for the vast majority of America's history, have nothing to do with those disparities as they have existed over the last three or so decades. How can anyone even begin ro take that seriously without appealing to an almost comically wilful malevolence?
      Not only did Europeans buy into the trade, but also into the colour caste system created by the afore mentioned invasions and as well into the related perverse obsession with complexion which - contrary to popular rhetoric - is not native to Europe where complexion was not an issue in the way it has historically been throughout Asia.
      If the Oriental slave trade is not spoken of as it deserves to be, it is because the West does not place any significance on Africa and has a long and multi-layered cademic tradition of glorifying the Orient - I imagine you may have even baulked a little at Egypt, Carthage and so on, being mentioned as African history - the habit of erasure sticks fast.
      In the sense that Sowell argues that African American approaches and habituations to their situation can either be useless or counter-productive, he is right. In the sense that wishes to present that as an explanation for their situation and absolve American government and society of any responsibility, is completely blindsided; a failure of thought.
      Sowell relies heavily on heavily abridged historical narraitives and cosequently entirely bogus historical comparisons.
      Malcolm X told of a friend of his, a complexion as rich as newly pressed molasses, who enjoyed entrring segregated places wearing a turban.
      One evening while dining in a southern restaurant he asked the waitress what would hapoen if a 'gro wanted to dine there. To which she replied: "Don't worry sir, no ger would ever dare try to come in here".
      It's much easier to spend time in a library, when your literacy is welcome.

  • @christiandad5920
    @christiandad5920 9 місяців тому

    While i agree that there is no 'superior' race, to just throw away genetic influences is both disingenuous and cowardly.
    I might be wrong here but half the review argues about NO genetic determinism and instead argues about environmental influences but then argues AGAINST the chess piece theory being applicable. My question is if there are NO genetic disparities in outcomes why cant we just change the environmental or cultural influenecs of an individual and get equality in outcomes? Im not arguing for genetic determinsm per se, but to ignore it is like i said before disingenuous and cowardly. This with the perspective that we are ALL equal of worth in the eyes of God, made in His image.

    • @cooper60
      @cooper60 7 місяців тому

      What do you mean cowardly are you implying genetic inferiority...Are you suggesting that Neanderthals were a higher intelligence people when your ancestors were inter-breeding in Europe? Remember everyone started off brown first.....

  • @Diq_Cheese
    @Diq_Cheese 8 місяців тому

    He's american, a large percentage of black Americans are not from Africa.