Summary of Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Intelligence is the capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas. It is not enough to define intellect, as intelligence alone does not encompass intelligence in combination with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors. Wisdom is the rarest of all qualities: the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way that produces a coherent understanding.
#2 The term intellectual refers to an occupational category of people who primarily deal with ideas. The core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, not the personal application of ideas.
#3 The impact of an intellectual, or of intellectuals in general, does not depend on their being public intellectuals who directly address the population at large. Books with some of the biggest impacts on the twentieth century were written by Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud in the nineteenth century, and seldom read by the general public.
#4 The intelligentsia is made up of producers and disseminators of ideas, including teachers, journalists, social activists, and political aides. Those who are not producers or disseminators of ideas, but who are interested in remaining up to date with those ideas, are part of the intelligentsia.

Sujets

• Général
• Ideology

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669366560
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Intelligence is the capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas. It is not enough to define intellect, as intelligence alone does not encompass intelligence in combination with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors. Wisdom is the rarest of all qualities: the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way that produces a coherent understanding.

#2

The term intellectual refers to an occupational category of people who primarily deal with ideas. The core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, not the personal application of ideas.

#3

The impact of an intellectual, or of intellectuals in general, does not depend on their being public intellectuals who directly address the population at large. Books with some of the biggest impacts on the twentieth century were written by Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud in the nineteenth century, and seldom read by the general public.

#4

The intelligentsia is made up of producers and disseminators of ideas, including teachers, journalists, social activists, and political aides. Those who are not producers or disseminators of ideas, but who are interested in remaining up to date with those ideas, are part of the intelligentsia.

#5

The impact that intellectuals can have is significant, and it is important to understand their patterns of behavior and the incentives and constraints affecting those patterns.

#6

The fault line between intellectuals and non-intellectuals tends to run between those who have ideas that are ultimately subject to internal criteria and those who have ideas that are ultimately subject to external criteria.

#7

The impact of ideas on the real world can hardly be disputed. The converse, however, is not nearly as clear. While it is true that major changes in ideas are often triggered by great events, this is not always the case.

#8

intellectuals, in the restricted sense which largely conforms to general usage, are ultimately unaccountable to the external world. They are free from social standards, and they have often enjoyed immunity from even a loss of reputation after having been demonstrably wrong.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

When people operate as public intellectuals, espousing ideas and policies to a wider population beyond their professional colleagues, they may or may not carry over intellectual rigor into these more general, more policy-oriented, or more ideologically charged discussions.

#2

Many public intellectuals have been justly renowned within their respective fields, but many did not stay within their respective fields. As George J. Stigler said of some of his fellow Nobel Laureates, they issue stern ultimata to the public on almost a monthly basis, and sometimes on no other basis.

#3

The word knowledge is often used by intellectuals to arbitrarily limit what is considered knowledge. For example, someone who is considered a knowledgeable person usually has a special kind of knowledge, and that knowledge is valued more. But it is not always more consequential in the real world.

#4

While special knowledge is often articulated knowledge, other kinds of knowledge do not need to be articulated to others nor even be consciously articulated to ourselves. They are simply part of our knowledge base.

#5

The fact that highly educated elites have far more special knowledge than the population at large does not mean that they are superior guides to what should and shouldn’t be done in a society. The population at large may have vastly more total knowledge than the elites, even if that knowledge is scattered in individually unimpressive fragments among vast numbers of people.

#6

The free market, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions grown out of the experiences of the many are important to those who do not share the social vision prevalent among intellectual elites.

#7

The difference between special knowledge and mundane knowledge is not simply incidental or semantic. It has social implications that are very consequential. For example, it is far easier to concentrate power than it is to concentrate knowledge.

#8

The intelligentsia often advocate for courses of action that ignore the value, cost, and consequences of mundane knowledge. They often dismiss first-hand knowledge as prejudices or stereotypes, instead preferring to rely on abstract beliefs common among the intelligentsia.

#9

The intelligentsia’s attitude toward ageism is just another example of how they dismiss any adverse conclusions about any ethnic minority as prejudices, stereotypes, and the like.

#10

The Duke lacrosse case demonstrated the presumption of superior knowledge on the part of intellectuals with less knowledge than those they were writing about.

#11

The occupation of intellectuals is not the only one that overlaps with that of experts. For example, one may be an expert on Spanish literature, or existentialist philosophy, or one may be an expert on repairing automobile transmissions, or extinguishing oil field fires.

#12

The idea that experts should be used to make decisions is problematic. While they can be extremely valuable in certain situations, they are no substitute for systemic processes that involve numerous factors and individuals who are not experts.

#13

Economic central planning is just one example of top-down social engineering, and it has failed repeatedly. Other examples of this are lawyers and judges who have moved beyond their roles to using law as an instrument of social change.

#14

The implicit assumption of superior knowledge among intellectual elites underlies one of their demands: that actions, policies, or institutions justify themselves before the bar of reason. But many intellectuals have never fired a gun, and yet they are quick to demand changes in police procedures based on their limited understanding of police procedures.

#15

To demand that things justify themselves before the bar of reason is to demand that ignorance be convinced and its permission obtained. How can a brain surgeon justify what he does to someone who knows nothing about the brain or about surgery.

#16

The idea that what you don’t know isn’t knowledge is a factor in many references to earlier and simpler times by people who have made no detailed study of those times. This is not to say that experts have no role to play in a democratic society.

#17

The difference between carrying out a limited role and using that role to exert power or influence to shape wider social decisions applies to teachers who are classroom indoctrinators, as well as generals who overthrow civilian government.

#18

The idea that intellectuals can apply reason to every issue ad hoc is flawed. It can be applied to as limited a time period as one wishes, but it misses the implications of decisions over a longer period of time.

#19

The one-day-at-a-time approach has been applied to numerous issues, foreign and domestic. It is based on the implicit notion that intellectuals can define an issue in ways they find convenient, and what happens in the real world will remain within the confines of their definition.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

Many intellectuals outside of economics show little interest in learning the basics of economics, yet they make sweeping pronouncements about the economy in general, businesses in particular, and the many issues surrounding income distribution.

#2

The most fundamental facts about variations in income are in dispute, and people seem to be disagreeing about what is desirable for the future even when it comes to statistical categories. The media and many academics seem to be confusing what has been happening over time in statistical categories with what has been happening over time with flesh-and-blood human beings.

#3