A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Finishing Sowell’s Thoughts On “Race and Politics”

Last week I posted Parts I and II of Dr. Thomas Sowell's series on "Race and Politics".  I won't offer much in the way of my commentary here, but I wanted to at the very least link to both Parts III and IV that came out last Thursday and Friday, respectively.

Part III discusses the erroneous notion most have that there is an exclusive link between "causation and morality".

An excerpt:

Today's racial dogmas are no more realistic, when they try to dismiss or downplay behavioral and performance differences among racial and ethnic groups, blaming different outcomes on the misdeeds of others. Nothing is easier to find than sins among human beings. But the fatal misstep is to assume that those sins must be the reason for the differences we see.

The more fundamental question that almost never gets asked is whether there was ever any realistic basis for expecting different racial, ethnic or other groups to all have the same skills and orientations, even if they all had the same genetic potential and there were no injustices.

Those who see differences among groups as being due to environment, rather than heredity, too often think of environment as the current immediate surroundings. But a major part of any group's environment is the culture that they have inherited from the past.

In Part IV, Sowell hammers some convincing nails into the "multiculturalism rules!" coffin:

One of the most ominous developments of our time has been the multicultural dogma that all cultures are equal. It is one of the many unsubstantiated assertions that have become fashionable among self-congratulatory elites, with hard evidence being neither asked for nor offered.

But, however much such assertions minister to the egos of the intelligentsia and the careers of politicians and race hustlers, the multicultural dogma is a huge barrier to the advancement of groups who are lagging economically, educationally and otherwise.

Once you have said that the various economic, educational and other "gaps" and "disparities" of lagging groups are not due to either genes or cultures, what is left but the sins of other people?

Sins are never hard to find, among any group of human beings. But whether that actually helps those who are lagging, or just leads them into the blind alley of resentment, is another question.

We are all blessed to have access to the clarity and wisdom of Tom Sowell.