Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
Regarding our Uncommon Knowledge interview on the new edition of his book, Intellectuals and Society, this email from Dr. Sowell:
Dear Peter,
In our discussion of intellectuals, I mentioned ego as a factor in their unwillingness to seriously engage opposing visions. However, this is not all purely personal ego.It can also be ego on behalf of the intellectual class as a whole. As Schumpeter said of John Stuart Mill: "Mill, however modest on his own behalf, was not at all modest on behalf of his time. 'This enlightened age' had solved all problems. And if you knew what its 'best thinkers' thought, you were in a position to answer all questions.I do not mean to repeat what I have previously said on Mill's attitude of speaking from the vantage ground of definitively established truth. But I mean to add that this attitude, besides being ridiculous, made for sterility and--yes-- superficiality. There is too little attention to groundwork. There is too little thinking things through and much too much confidence that most of the necessary thinking has been done already."
There is a chapter on John Stuart Mill in my book titled "On Classical Economics," which gives a couple of examples of this tendency, as well as a critique of "On Liberty." I refrained from expressing an opinion about his relationship with Harriet Taylor, while she was married to her first husband, before marrying Mill after his death. Hayek seems to have considered their relationship during her first marriage not to have included sex. However, I recall one of her letters to Mill, while he was writing "Principles of Political Economy," I believe, when he used to visit her on weekends in her country retreat. In that letter she said, "I yearn unspeakably for Saturday." Now, I like economics as well as the next guy, but I cannot say that I ever yearned unspeakably for it.
Tom
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Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
No one yearns for the dismal science.
Nov '10
Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
Hilarious. Bless that man.
Oct '11
Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
Thomas Sowell is a national treasure. Thanks, Peter, for bringing him to the attention of a lot of people who would not otherwise have known him.
Jan '12
Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
Perhaps someone already has, but we ought invent some sort of metric for rating how often an author's written words make us literally laugh out loud. However the metric works, the dry wit of Tom Sowell would rank in its highest reaches.
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 11:35pmJan '12
Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
I love his point about Mill's generational ego and the enlightenment's abandonment of what Chesterton, Russell Kirk and others refer to as 'the Democracy of the Dead'. E.G. even if one age can so pervert itself as to say, reject the norm of marriage being a relationship between a man and a woman, the sensible among that crooked generation would listen to the voices of all generations and take the more sensible view.
Apr '12
Re: Dr. Sowell on Unspeakable Yearnings
Dr. Sowell mentioned on a recent Ricochet podcast, I forget which one, that if he had his time again he might have focused on photography. Peter, could you convey to him that I, and I assume many others on Ricochet, are profoundly grateful for his academic efforts, for what it's worth? I just can't get enough of his books: so wry and so wise.