Thomas Sowell (an excerpt)

I ran across a book over Christmas break entitled, Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell. It was eye opening and started me on a Thomas Sowell reading frenzy. In the last couple of months I've also read and would recommend The Quest for Cosmic Justice as well as Ethnic America: A History. I have learned so much about politics, human nature, and economics from Mr. Sowell that my head is spinning from it all, it's almost been too much information to absorb in that short amount of time.

So while I sort my thoughts the following is an excerpt from his essay The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution:

"A quarter of a century before he delivered the Gettysburg address, Abraham Lincoln gave another speech, much less celebrated but all too relevant to our theme and times. In an 1838 address in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln asked where future dangers to the freedom and security of the American people might be found. It was not from foreign enemies, he said, but from internal threats. If and when the fundamental principles and structure of American government should fall under attack, "men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity" and "strike the blow against free government."

What is particularly significant about Lincoln's warning is that it was based on a vision of what human beings are like, and especially what talented and ambitious leaders are like. To Lincoln, the historic achievement of American society in establishing a new form of government was in jeopardy from later elites precisely because that achievement was already history:

The field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot.

While the ambitions of some might be satisfied with "a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair," Lincoln said, "such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle." He added:

What! Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napolean? - Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. - It sees not distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memories of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.

That some leader dangerous to the basic institutions of American society would arise, Lincoln thought inevitable. Safeguarding those institutions would require a public sufficiently united, sufficiently attached to freedom, and sufficiently wise, "to succesfully frustrate his designs." Today it would also require a public sufficiently resistant to incessant criticisms and condemnations of their society for failing to achieve cosmic justice. Moreover, if the dangers in our own times were limited to those of "towering genius," there would be much less danger than there is. However, all that is needed are towering presumptions, which are increasingly mass-produced in our schools and colleges by the educational vogue of encouraging immature and inexperienced students to sit in emotional judgement on the complex evolution of whole ages and of vast civilizations.

Political leaders are not the only ones with a vested interest in opposing the existing framework of American society, precisely because it is the existing framework, so that supporting it offers no path to the kinds of glory that they seek. The intelligentsia have exactly the same incentives as Napoleonic politicians, even if the glory they seek is not necessarily direct political power in their own hands, but only the triumph of their doctrines, the reordering of other peoples lives in accordance with their own visions, a display of their own intellectual virtousity, or simply a posture of daring in the role of a verbal dandy. The easiest way to achieve all of these goals is to disdain the beaten path, as Lincoln put it, and to attack or undermine the fundamental structure of the American political system and society."

Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (New York: Free Press, 1999) pp. 147-149

Viva Tommy! Sheds a little light on things doesn't it? This is not only a bipartisan criticism, it also serves as a warning to look into your own heart to see the areas where you disdain the beaten or the ancient paths as my buddy John likes to call them.

"This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'" - Jeremiah