> A few years ago, I’d written a couple of pieces about “cancel culture,” and suddenly people were asking to interview me about the phenomenon.
One of my first blog posts to be widely circulated mentioned “lookism” and how masking during the pandemic had convinced me that looks-based biases were real. Those few paragraphs of text led someone to extend me a speaking invitation for a DEI panel. [which I declined]
Thankful for Thomas not giving in to silly social games. It is a serious bummer that educators don't understand or don't care that higher standards create better educated, and more capable students.
I have always deeply admired Thomas Sowell, and I thank you for sharing a "comparative lives lived" from your vantage.
Regarding demanding academic courses and reading workloads, I found myself fondly recalling the course I took in graduate school at Harvard with Prof. Judith Shklar on Enlightenment political theory. Shklar was almost motherly with her grad students, but the love was tough. Her course reading lists were enormous and her grading standards remorseless.
She never allowed undergraduates into the room because they would be demolished. Inevitably, though, when Shklar asked the students in the room on the first day of the seminar whether any were undergrads, a couple of ambitious young scholars smiled and raised their hands. "Bye bye!", she chirped and waved them out of the room.
The Harvard grad students were well aware of Shklar's expectations and the grueling standards of the course, which they called amongst themselves "a forced march through the Enlightenment." One hapless grad student in the room, however, was a clueless "code share" from the MIT program. He sat at the table the first day with drawn face and glazed eyes reviewing the course agenda, with several thick volumes prescribed for each week of the seminar. "Are we supposed to pick one of these books each week to read for class?", he asked hopefully. "No," replied Shklar abruptly. "You read them all."
I didn't get my best Harvard grade from Shklar, but it was one of the most rewarding academic experiences of my life-total immersion in a subject under one of the most brilliant minds in the field.
There is a lot here, and I thank you for it. “People who are everybody’s friend usually means they are nobody’s friend.” This is true and I still have some tendency to get burned by this, even in old age. With so many unpleasant people in the world, we tend to believe the pleasant ones.
I had not noticed that Sowell never seems to lose an argument! But as soon as I read it I saw it was true.
Thanks for sharing these lessons and reminding me that I need to get reading Sowell. The bit about scarcity breeding gratitude and your observation of kids disdaining their room full of toys is a microcosm of the problem of material abundance in the Western world.
The academy is broken, philistinism galore: how the world should be not how it is. Facts, as per Sowell. But Orwell complains of the same problems, so maybe it’s not a new thing.
That said there is something malevolent about the way unauthorized ideas are punished, people are destroyed. The orthodoxy is frightening, seems like a precursor to something more, something broad and sweeping like a future Kristallnacht. It is the left liberal that has shutdown, ominously.
He is a total hero. There is a documentary type film out about him, it's relatively recent, and I think (no time to google this) by the same guy who wrote the biography of him.
A vague British equivalent of Sowell - up to a point - is Dr Anthony Daniels, who writes under the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple. He's remarkably prolific and produces the same kind of thoughtful good sense one appreciates so much in Sowell, but more steeped in art, literature etc.
Thanks for reacquainting me with Thomas Sowell’s autobiography. I listened to it on Audible a couple years ago. My interest in following you, Rob, is for many of the same reasons I think so highly of Thomas Sowell’s works and conclusions. Both of you value facts over opinions, and your lives inform your conclusions.
In a better society than ours, Thomas Sowell’s name would be legend; his writings required reading, and; his meticulously researched insights into cultural and economic history common knowledge.
Sowell is pure gold from top to bottom. I completely understand his reasons for not wanting to go into politics - family trade offs, etc. But man-o-man, how things might have been different if he had been the first major national black leader instead of Obama (not that the media would have given him a drop of positive ink.) As he so famously says, "There are no solutions, only trade offs." We fans and admirers have him as a lighthouse for hopefully several more years.
“I had to tell them that the worst rumors I had heard at AT&T were not as bad as what I had personally experienced in the academic world. They thought I was joking.” - having worked extensively in corporate America and academia, I agree. The pettiness of academic circles is Kindergarten level. There is a lot of politics in business but at least you get paid far better.
> A few years ago, I’d written a couple of pieces about “cancel culture,” and suddenly people were asking to interview me about the phenomenon.
One of my first blog posts to be widely circulated mentioned “lookism” and how masking during the pandemic had convinced me that looks-based biases were real. Those few paragraphs of text led someone to extend me a speaking invitation for a DEI panel. [which I declined]
Thankful for Thomas not giving in to silly social games. It is a serious bummer that educators don't understand or don't care that higher standards create better educated, and more capable students.
I have always deeply admired Thomas Sowell, and I thank you for sharing a "comparative lives lived" from your vantage.
Regarding demanding academic courses and reading workloads, I found myself fondly recalling the course I took in graduate school at Harvard with Prof. Judith Shklar on Enlightenment political theory. Shklar was almost motherly with her grad students, but the love was tough. Her course reading lists were enormous and her grading standards remorseless.
She never allowed undergraduates into the room because they would be demolished. Inevitably, though, when Shklar asked the students in the room on the first day of the seminar whether any were undergrads, a couple of ambitious young scholars smiled and raised their hands. "Bye bye!", she chirped and waved them out of the room.
The Harvard grad students were well aware of Shklar's expectations and the grueling standards of the course, which they called amongst themselves "a forced march through the Enlightenment." One hapless grad student in the room, however, was a clueless "code share" from the MIT program. He sat at the table the first day with drawn face and glazed eyes reviewing the course agenda, with several thick volumes prescribed for each week of the seminar. "Are we supposed to pick one of these books each week to read for class?", he asked hopefully. "No," replied Shklar abruptly. "You read them all."
I didn't get my best Harvard grade from Shklar, but it was one of the most rewarding academic experiences of my life-total immersion in a subject under one of the most brilliant minds in the field.
There is a lot here, and I thank you for it. “People who are everybody’s friend usually means they are nobody’s friend.” This is true and I still have some tendency to get burned by this, even in old age. With so many unpleasant people in the world, we tend to believe the pleasant ones.
I had not noticed that Sowell never seems to lose an argument! But as soon as I read it I saw it was true.
Thanks for sharing these lessons and reminding me that I need to get reading Sowell. The bit about scarcity breeding gratitude and your observation of kids disdaining their room full of toys is a microcosm of the problem of material abundance in the Western world.
Loury speaks the truth! I hope you "put some blood" on your memoir.
Great post; I've always thought Thomas Sowell's works should be required reading in high schools.
The academy is broken, philistinism galore: how the world should be not how it is. Facts, as per Sowell. But Orwell complains of the same problems, so maybe it’s not a new thing.
That said there is something malevolent about the way unauthorized ideas are punished, people are destroyed. The orthodoxy is frightening, seems like a precursor to something more, something broad and sweeping like a future Kristallnacht. It is the left liberal that has shutdown, ominously.
He is a total hero. There is a documentary type film out about him, it's relatively recent, and I think (no time to google this) by the same guy who wrote the biography of him.
A vague British equivalent of Sowell - up to a point - is Dr Anthony Daniels, who writes under the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple. He's remarkably prolific and produces the same kind of thoughtful good sense one appreciates so much in Sowell, but more steeped in art, literature etc.
Thanks for reacquainting me with Thomas Sowell’s autobiography. I listened to it on Audible a couple years ago. My interest in following you, Rob, is for many of the same reasons I think so highly of Thomas Sowell’s works and conclusions. Both of you value facts over opinions, and your lives inform your conclusions.
In a better society than ours, Thomas Sowell’s name would be legend; his writings required reading, and; his meticulously researched insights into cultural and economic history common knowledge.
Sowell is pure gold from top to bottom. I completely understand his reasons for not wanting to go into politics - family trade offs, etc. But man-o-man, how things might have been different if he had been the first major national black leader instead of Obama (not that the media would have given him a drop of positive ink.) As he so famously says, "There are no solutions, only trade offs." We fans and admirers have him as a lighthouse for hopefully several more years.
“I had to tell them that the worst rumors I had heard at AT&T were not as bad as what I had personally experienced in the academic world. They thought I was joking.” - having worked extensively in corporate America and academia, I agree. The pettiness of academic circles is Kindergarten level. There is a lot of politics in business but at least you get paid far better.
Loved this newsletter topic, and I appreciate the thoughts and analysis you gave. Really interested in reading the book now, thank you!
I have so many authors I want to read, and he has always been one if them. Thanks for this article. I'm moving him to the top of my list.
Excellent book review. Thanks. Especially appreciated the part on being perceived as an expert. So insightful and at the same time humorous.