• About
  • Photography

The Bully Pulpit

~ (n): An office or position that provides its occupant with an outstanding opportunity to speak out on any issue.

The Bully Pulpit

Tag Archives: Thomas Sowell

Our Students Are Taught to Feel but Not Think

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by jrbenjamin in Politics, Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American Schools, Conservativism, Diane Ravitch, education, Firing Line, Inside American Education: The Decline, Learning, Schools, Teaching, The Deception, The Dogmas, Thomas Sowell, thought, William F. Buckley

Thomas Sowell

“Science is not the only field in which American students are lacking in knowledge and — more importantly — in the ability to tie what they know together to form a coherent chain of reasoning. Many American students seem unaware of even the need for such a process. Test scores are only the tip of the iceberg. Professor Diane Ravitch, a scholar specializing in the study of American education, reports that ‘professors complain about students who arrive at college with strong convictions but not enough knowledge to argue persuasively for their beliefs.’ As Professor Ravitch concludes: ‘Having opinions without knowledge is not of much value; not knowing the difference between them is a positive indicator of ignorance.’ In short, it is not that Johnny can’t read, or even that Johnny can’t think. Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is, because thinking is so often confused with feeling in many public schools.

The phrase ‘I feel’ is so often used by American students to introduce a conclusion, rather than say ‘I think,’ or ‘I know,’ much less ‘I conclude.’ Unfortunately, ‘I feel’ is often the most accurate term — and is regarded as sufficient by many teachers, as well as students. The net result, as in mathematics, is that many students are confident incompetents, whether discussing social issues, world events, or other subjects. The emphasis is on having students express opinions on issues, and on having those opinions taken seriously (enhancing self-esteem), regardless of whether there is anything behind them…”

__________

Excerpted from Thomas Sowell’s 1993 book Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas.

Below, watch Sowell debating American schools in a 1981 episode from Buckley’s Firing Line.

More:

  • More people now have smart phones than clean water
  • Chomsky riffs on education and the value of work
  • Another hot take from Sowell — on the problem with a ‘living wage’

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Problem with Our ‘Immigration Policy’ Is We Don’t Have an Immigration Policy

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by jrbenjamin in Interview, Politics

≈ Comments Off on The Problem with Our ‘Immigration Policy’ Is We Don’t Have an Immigration Policy

Tags

Conservativism, debate, Government, Hoover Institution, Immigrants, Immigration, Immigration Policy, interview, Japan, Laos, Path to Citizenship, Peter Robinson, politics, Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell

“When only two percent of immigrants from Japan to the United States go on welfare, while 46 percent of the immigrants from Laos do, there is no single pattern that applies to all immigrants. Everything depends on which immigrants you are taking about and which period of history.

One of the things about the immigration debate is they talk about immigrants in the abstract — and there are no immigrants in the abstract.

An additional problem is that we don’t know who those people are that are already here. They may all be PhD’s from the University of Chicago, in which case they should all stay. Or they may in fact be people who majored in sociology at Berkeley, in which case we should get them all out of here as soon as possible.

But we don’t know. And that’s one of the problems of our so-called ‘immigration policy’: we don’t have an immigration policy, unless we control the border. It doesn’t matter what our policy is; if anyone who wants to cross the border can cross, our policy is just a bunch of words on paper.

And especially when they talk about people in agriculture. This is a country that has had a chronic surplus of agricultural output for decades on end, costing the tax payer billions upon billions of dollars. […]

Any discussion of people in the abstract drives me crazy. Because there are no abstract people. One hundred years ago, people understood that. So when there was a debate about immigration, there was a multi-volume set of tomes about the characteristics of immigrants from various countries — how do their kids do in school, what is there crime rate, what is their disease rate. All those things. That matters.”

__________

From Thomas Sowell’s interview with the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson last December.

In case I need to say it again, I don’t agree with some of the things I post on here. This is one of those things. Still, I love Sowell’s panache in this interview as well as the clarity of his seminal work Basic Economics, a primer on market economies that’s quoted in the opening paragraph above.

There’s more:

  • Krauthammer answers Can we be optimistic about America’s future?
  • Sowell just says it: The ‘living wage’ is a flawed concept
  • Mark Leibovich argues that ours is a political culture that rewards cowardice

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Thomas Sowell: The Obvious Problem with a “Living Wage”

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by jrbenjamin in Political Philosophy

≈ Comments Off on Thomas Sowell: The Obvious Problem with a “Living Wage”

Tags

Basic Economics, Capitalism, Conservativism, economics, Fair Wage, Finance, Free Market, Hoover Institution, Living Wage, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Peter Robinson, Salaries, Thomas Sowell, Wages

Thomas Sowell

“Wages and salaries serve the same economic purposes as other prices — that is, they guide the utilization of scarce resources which have alternative uses, so that each resource gets used where it’s most valued. Yet because these scarce resources are human beings, we tend to look on wages and salaries differently. Often we ask questions that are quite emotionally powerful, even if they are logically meaningless. For example: Are the wages ‘fair’? Are the workers ‘exploited’? Is this ‘a living wage’?

Such questions seldom get asked about the prices of inanimate things, such as a can of peas or a share of stock in General Motors. But people are believed to be entitled to pay that is ‘fair,’ even if no one can define what that means. ‘Exploitation’ and ‘a living wage’ are likewise emotionally powerful expressions without concrete meanings. If a worker is living, how can he be receiving less than ‘a living wage’ unless he is, as some have said thoughtlessly, ‘living below subsistence’?

No one likes to see fellow human beings living in poverty and squalor, and many are prepared to do something about it, as shown by the vast billions of dollars that are donated to a wide range of charities every year, on top of the additional billions spent by governments in an attempt to better the condition of less fortunate people. These socially important activities occur alongside an economy coordinated by prices, but the two things serve different purposes. Attempts to make prices, including the prices of people’s labor and talents, be something other than signals to guide resources to their most valued uses, make those prices less effective for their basic purpose, on which the prosperity of the whole society depends. Ultimately, it is economic prosperity that makes it possible for billions of dollars to be devoted to helping the less fortunate.

Nothing is more straightforward and easy to understand than the fact that some people earn more than others, for a variety of reasons. Some people are simply older than others, for example, and their additional years have given them opportunities to acquire more experience, skills, formal education and on-the-job training — all of which allows them to do a given job more efficiently or to take on more complicated jobs that would be overwhelming for a beginner or for someone with only limited experience or training. It is hardly surprising that this leads to higher incomes. With the passing years, older individuals may also become more knowledgable about job opportunities, while increasing numbers of other people become more aware of them and their individual abilities, leading to offers of new jobs or promotions. It is not uncommon for most of the people in the top 5 percent of income-earners to be 45 years old and up. […]

These and other common sense reasons for income differences among individuals are often lost sight of in abstract discussions of the ambiguous term ‘income distribution.’ Although people in the top income brackets and the bottom income brackets — ‘the rich’ and ‘the poor,’ as they are often called — may be discussed as if they were different classes of people, often they are the very same people at different stages of their lives. An absolute majority of those Americans who were in the bottom 20 percent in income in 1975 were also in the top 20 percent at some point over the next 16 years. This is not surprising.”

__________

Excerpted from Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics, a modern conservative’s primer on money and the market economy.

Below, watch the affable 84-year-old discussing the release of the fifth edition of Basic Economics with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson last December.

And there’s more:

  • How Jefferson fostered compromise on the national debt
  • David Ricardo outlines the principle of comparative advantage
  • Arthur Brooks on earning money versus creating value

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Today’s Top Pages

  • Einstein's Daily Routine
    Einstein's Daily Routine
  • "Coming" by Philip Larkin
    "Coming" by Philip Larkin
  • "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost
    "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost
  • Three Words Ben Franklin Crossed out of the Declaration of Independence
    Three Words Ben Franklin Crossed out of the Declaration of Independence
  • "The Tunnel" by Mark Strand
    "The Tunnel" by Mark Strand

Enter your email address to follow The Bully Pulpit - you'll receive notifications of new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Recent Posts

  • The Other Side of Feynman
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald on Succeeding Early in Life
  • The Man Who Most Believed in Himself
  • What ’60s Colleges Did Right
  • Dostoyevsky’s Example of a Good Kid

Archives

  • April 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (3)
  • January 2018 (3)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (3)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (2)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (2)
  • June 2017 (2)
  • May 2017 (2)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (4)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (8)
  • October 2015 (7)
  • September 2015 (11)
  • August 2015 (10)
  • July 2015 (7)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (7)
  • April 2015 (17)
  • March 2015 (23)
  • February 2015 (17)
  • January 2015 (22)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (17)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (9)
  • August 2014 (2)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (20)
  • May 2014 (17)
  • April 2014 (24)
  • March 2014 (19)
  • February 2014 (12)
  • January 2014 (21)
  • December 2013 (13)
  • November 2013 (15)
  • October 2013 (9)
  • September 2013 (10)
  • August 2013 (17)
  • July 2013 (28)
  • June 2013 (28)
  • May 2013 (23)
  • April 2013 (22)
  • March 2013 (12)
  • February 2013 (21)
  • January 2013 (21)
  • December 2012 (9)
  • November 2012 (18)
  • October 2012 (22)
  • September 2012 (28)

Categories

  • Biography (51)
  • Current Events (47)
  • Debate (7)
  • Essay (10)
  • Film (10)
  • Freedom (40)
  • History (122)
  • Humor (15)
  • Interview (71)
  • Journalism (16)
  • Literature (82)
  • Music (1)
  • Original (1)
  • Personal (3)
  • Philosophy (87)
  • Photography (4)
  • Poetry (114)
  • Political Philosophy (41)
  • Politics (108)
  • Psychology (35)
  • Religion (74)
  • Science (27)
  • Speeches (52)
  • Sports (12)
  • War (57)
  • Writing (11)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: