Ten Lessons from ‘Intellectuals and Society’

Thomas Sowell’s ‘Intellectuals and Society’ describes what drives intellectuals, and what damages they have produced – and continue to produce – to society.  Typical of his other works, this one cites many references to back up its claims.  This is not a book written by solitary pondering.  Sowell could not have written this book without considerable time and effort exerted at compiling sources.

The ten lessons listed below are not the ten most important things this book says.  They are not even necessarily the most important things I learned (the items are not even listed in any order of importance).

I simply wanted to list down ten things I learned while read this book.

1. Special Knowledge – Many types of knowledge exist. Intellectuals possess a ‘special’ kind of knowledge that is not found in the general population. But this knowledge is taken (often wrongly) to be more important than ‘mundane’ knowledge.  Intellectuals often stray very far from their area of speciality, forgetting that knowledge does not necessarily travel with them as they cross other territories.  Chess grandmasters may be the pinnacle of intellectual skills in that game, but they themselves recognise that expertise in chess does not translate to expertise in politics or economics or indeed something closer, like poker.  Intellectuals seem to brush away this fact.  Even the very smartest intellectual possesses only a minuscule fraction of the knowledge of the general public.  Even taken collectively, the total knowledge of intellectuals is dwarfed by the knowledge of everyone else as a whole. 
   
2. Who Intellectuals Are – for the book’s intent, intellectuals are people whose work ‘begins and ends with ideas.’  Intellectuals do not build anything.  They just produce and propagate ideas.  There are many other professionals who engage in work requiring very high mental demands, but whose work does not end with ideas and therefore Sowell does not regard them as intellectuals (for the purpose of this book).  This latter kind include surgeons and doctors, engineers and architects, lawyers and business men, scientists and mathematicians (although Bertrand Russell when acting as a non-mathematician is included in the list of intellectuals).
   
3. Verbal Virtuosity – intellectuals very often frame reality with an inventive play of words to recast this reality into what it isn’t. They do not necessarily do this on purpose.  Very often it just happens as a result of an intellectual’s ignorance of the subject matter. Sowell gives the example of intellectuals calling for the abolition of ‘mandatory retirement.’ He says there has practically never been such a thing.  People who were let go by they employers due to age have always been free to work elsewhere.  They were not required by any law to not work anymore.
   
4. Intellectuals Have a Depp Need to be Recognised – because intellectuals do not do helpful work daily, they have a need to come up with new, exotic, exciting ideas. Whether there is proof that these ideas work is almost ignored.  They want to change the world.
   
5. Intellectuals can be Epic Fools – Sowell provides evidence that intellectuals have been supporters of Stalin, of Hitler, of unilateral disarmament in the face of Nazi Germany rearming, and many other examples.
   
6. The Media Does not Report on Reality – if you think about it, if the media reported only facts, people would not find them very interesting.  The media, like the intellectuals, have an interested in the new, exciting, and exotic.   Sowell unfortunately does not give guidance on where can find the facts, if the media cannot really be trusted.
   
7. Intellectuals Often Ignore Empirical Evidence – Intellectuals judge ideas, not by empirical evidence of its goodness, but by characteristics like ‘novelty’, ‘exciting', ‘complex’
   
8. Social Vision – Intellectuals have a ‘vision of the anointed’ , a vision of a world unable to improve without their (the intellectuals) wisdom and intelligence.  This vision Sowell contrasts with the ‘tragic vision’, where there is no solution – everything is a trade-off, civilisation people just lead their lives making their own choices in a world where civilised society is a veneer over barbarism forever threatening to spill out – and we can’t do much about that except strive to contain it.  This section is one of the harder parts for me to side with Sowell.  Much of society’s progress (material progress at least) is due to capitalists who have a vision of the world and who have staked their reputation and assets trying to put that vision (I would put the likes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, even though Sowell does not mention them).  Perhaps I have not understood it well yet.
   
9. Don’t Let the Intellectuals Run Your War – Sowell blames the intellectuals for the stunning weakness of France’s performance in World War II, despite it material military advantage.  He blames France’s military failure on the supine psychological attitude of the French, inculcated into its youth by the intellectuals running the education system.  Had it not been for pragmatic leaders like Winston Churchill,  intellectuals would have had Britain disarm completely in the naive hope that Hitler would do the same.  (Had that happened, I think Western Europe would be completely either under Nazi or Soviet rule)
   
10. Judges Shouldn’t be Making Laws but They are – Laws are supposed to be made by the Legislative branch of the government, and judges are to judges individual cases in light of those laws.  Judges sometimes rule in ways that make their rulings applicable ex post facto.