Tags: productive discourse
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heres-why-poor-people-are-poor-says-a-conservative-black-academic/2015/09/03/df8ff1fc-1ab4-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html
- mistake is in identifying several valid contributors to why people are poor and then making culture the only thing that is contributing and ruling out systemic racism as a cause at all
- “Sowell is also right to point out that, contrary to the constant liberal refrain, economic mobility in America is not dead and that unequal incomes are not, by themselves, proof of unequal opportunity. But surely that is no reason to cavalierly dismiss a growing body of evidence of large and growing gaps between rich and poor children in terms of their physical, emotional and intellectual development and their later success later in life. As Sowell sees it, life has always been unfair, and if poor children start out with life stacked against them, they have no one to blame but their parents and their culture.”
- “Moreover, by his reasoning, any attempts to equalize opportunity would be counterproductive because they would deny society the higher output of the well-bred. In making such a calculation, however, Sowell never stops to consider what the ill-bred might have contributed to society if they had had a similar chance to develop their natural talents and capabilities."
- concept of intellectual combatant
- ”As an intellectual combatant, Sowell thrives on jousting with straw men whose existence he posits with little or no proof. In the world according to Sowell, liberals (including rich ones, apparently) are so filled with envy and resentment that they will deny billionaires the chance to create new jobs and new products if it means adding even a dollar to their incomes. Black leaders want to keep their people in poverty because otherwise they would have no purpose. The media and government officials systematically ignore and cover up racially motivated black-on-white violence (he knows about these incidents, according to the footnotes, from major news outlets). These are more like the rants of a talk-radio host than the considered judgments of a respected academic.”
- [[how do we stop encouraging intellectual combatants]]
- mistake is in identifying several valid contributors to why people are poor and then making culture the only thing that is contributing and ruling out systemic racism as a cause at all