Peter Robinson interviews Dr. Thomas Sowell

One area of interest (and life experience) for me is the mindset and popular influence of elites (especially legal and intellectual) on society. I have previously commented about my perception that most of these elites have abdicated their roles as guardians of society’s values and their obligation to set examples of “proper” deportment and association for those among the broader populace who look to them for guidance.

The Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson presents a series, “Uncommon Knowledge.” He has recently interviewed economist and historian of ideas Thomas Sowell, an intellectual’s intellectual. Sowell has a new book out, Intellectuals and Society, that sounds like a powerful indictment of the vanity of the intellectual class.

This is Part 1. They discuss the currency of the realm of intellectuals, ideas. Mastery of ideas in a certain (and often narrow) field leads to the “fatal misstep of intellectuals,” to consider themselves equally qualified in other matters to be leaders and determine policy. Worse, unlike those with “consequential knowledge” (knowledge whose content and value is tested by results, such as an architect’s blueprint), intellectuals are not held accountable for the failure of their “ideas.” I should add that, given the matters presented at the “job talks” given by applicants for faculty positions, most social science professors, including law professors, must breathe a collective sigh of relief at their ability to spin out ideological fantasies without accountability.

This is Part 2. They discuss the problem of much social science research, the almost inevitable intrusion of the intellectual’s desired outcome into the results of his or her studies, the empirical methodology chosen, and the production of the statistics on which those results are based. Sowell, an economist, mentions an interesting example of intellectual bias. Liberal economists emphasize a growing disparity in income between different categories of wealth/poverty. But they fail to account for the statistics that show the dynamism of wealth and the movement of individuals over their lifetimes among different levels of wealth.

This is Part 3. This is a tour de force. Almost every sentence Sowell utters is a powerful and valid indictment of the professoriate. The contemporary vision of intellectuals is almost unformly and drearily collectivist, based on a sense of entitlement to power. Decision-making should be transferred from the great unwashed to those who, like themselves, are the best and the brightest. I would characterize that as the professoriate’s pretensions to a divine right to rule, if the professoriate’s sense of self-importance were at least constrained, collectively, by a belief in God. Sowell points to one reason for this entitlement, the reinforcing echo-chamber of the academy and professors’ lack of experience in the “real world.” I had five years’ experience in the full-time private practice of law, plus another three years’ experience in part-time private practice, before teaching law school full-time. Today, our school is looking almost exclusively at candidates with no practical experience or with experience limited to a short period of government practice or practice with non-profit advocacy groups funded by contributions. Instead, we want people with advanced degrees in other disciplines, such as Ph.D.s, who have rarely, if ever, stepped outside the academic greenhouse. Hence, for personal affirmation from others within the closed universe of the academy, intellectuals pose as proponents of “social justice” and environmentalism and contrast their positions with the unwashed outsiders. As Sowell describes, there is less personal exaltation in less elitist views, such as belief in “judicial restraint, traditional values, and other features of the tragic vision [of human nature and existence].”  I can personally attest to such trends among my colleagues.
Favorite sentence: “You can become President of the United States with no contact to economic reality.” Second favorite: Sowell’s dismantling of the totally meaningless self-congratulatory Obama slogan: “We are the change we have been waiting for.”

This is Part 4. They discuss intellectuals and war. Sowell declares that this is not the process of thought, but a reaction. He correctly explains the Vietnam War as a loss, not by the military, but by the intelligentsia, “the opinion makers,” and, eventually, the politicians influenced by the dominant defeatist attitude. Then, there is this insight: Intellectuals love negotiated agreements. They love the process, regardless of the substance. If a few million people are thrown to the wolves to reach a negotiated agreement, it is a price worth paying. Intellectuals transmit their untested ideological assumptions to the broader masses through the schools, the media, and even the churches.
On a side note, they keep using Paul Krugman of the New York Timesas a foil. That is a bit unfair, as  Krugman is the epitome of an intellectual whose expertise in a narrow sliver of economics does not transfer outside his area of specialty. He is consistently wrong on events and detached from reality.

This is Part 5. They discuss the demand for intellectuals. While the public demands the services of engineers and practical scientists, the demand for intellectuals is manufactured by intellectuals themselves. One manner of this is the prediction and proclamation of crises and disasters to demonstrate their importance and get grants. The incursions of climatologists and similar types into politics and policies resemble a priesthood, another intellectual elite.