Thomas Sowell has been far too partisan and self-righteous in his interpretation of recent events, by my lights.
But then he goes and writes something brilliant.
"Intellectuals"
I can't think of a single disagreement I have with this column.
And it goes to why I trust noone to have all the right answers, no matter how smart they are (myself included). Because they so often don't. And, often, their failures have serious consequences, including intellectuals.
And not a single one of them likes to admit when they are wrong.
Plato was wrong. Philosopher kings are a bad idea. Average joe kings can often be worse, but not always, depending on how open they are to being wrong relative to their intellectual brethren.
A strong intellectual understanding of the world is definitely important. But being open to the fact that your framework and any and all its facets could be wrong is more important. Humility and decency trump intelligence, in my book. And they certainly trump intellectuals who are pricks or bullies, both of whom deserve the brush off no matter how smart they may or may not be.
Power, as Lord Acton observed, should be entrusted very little at all to anyone. That's what it meant to be a liberal to those who invented the term that both conservatives and progressive lay claim to today.
Liberal means liberty. And wiser people like Lord Acton, John Stuart Mill, Mary Wolstencraft, Baron de Montesquieu, John Locke, and their contemporaries like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Amartya Sen, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Ghandi, and the rest knew that.
They knew it because it was and they knew and know that it was the oxygen for real life, learning, and growth for the fate of humanity.
It is not a claim that is the mantle of any ideology, any country, any religion, any race, any ethnicity, any gender, or any one man or woman.
Freedom, and the right to determine one's own life and destiny, is the claim of every one of us. And it is not dependent on our economic, political, ideological, national, religious, racial, ethnic, gender or any other status.
Self-determining freedom is the claim of each human being independent of the claims to power of others, no matter what intellectual or other station they occupy.
No amount of intellectual rationalization of the power to encumber liberty makes it right or so. It only makes it one in the long line of rationalizations for circumventing and undermining the more genuine liberal democratic values and relationships that allow for more independent conscience and interdependent collaboration around individual conscience to take root and flower.
Intellect can be used to promote those liberal democratic values. And it can be used to stunt or block that growth.
But it is that claim to conscience that is more fundamental than any intellectual rationalization to the contrary.
And freedom and democracy will always offer those who take them seriously to challenge those who would take them too lightly.
