Posted on 11/22/2025 5:29:00 AM PST by Fester Chugabrew
November 22, 2025
I will start with a long quote from Students for Liberty as published November 10, 2025.
-------
In 1987, [Thomas] Sowell published A Conflict of Visions, and it explained something everyone experiences but nobody can articulate: why political arguments feel like talking to aliens.
The book isn't about left versus right. It's about something deeper. Two different ways of seeing what humans are capable of, what knowledge actually is, and how society should be organized.
The core friction point that makes campus debates impossible:
One vision sees social problems as emerging from basic human constraints. Scarcity is real. People are naturally selfish. Knowledge is limited and dispersed. We can't change these facts, only build institutions that work with them.
The other vision sees problems as failures of will or wisdom. With the right leaders, the right education, the right system, we could solve these problems. Human nature isn't fixed. It's waiting to be improved.
Sowell calls these the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions of human nature.
The constrained vision accepts that humans are flawed, selfish, and limited in knowledge and virtue. We can't perfect people. We can only design systems that channel self-interest toward social benefit.
This is Adam Smith watching the butcher, the brewer, and the baker. This is Burke warning against tearing down institutions we don't fully understand.
The unconstrained vision believes human nature is malleable, even perfectible.
Give us enlightened leadership, proper education, rational planning, and we can transcend our limitations. This is Rousseau's noble savage corrupted by bad institutions. This is the modern progressive seeing every social problem as solvable with enough political will.
Neither vision is stupid. They're both internally coherent. But they're running completely different operating systems.
Watch how this single difference cascades into every political position:
On healthcare, the constrained vision asks: Who decides? Who pays? What are the trade-offs? The unconstrained vision says healthcare is a human right, and the only obstacle is political will.
On crime, one sees human nature plus bad incentives. The other sees systemic injustice creating criminals who wouldn't exist in a just society.
On education, one trusts evolved competition between schools. The other trusts expert planners to design the optimal system.
The deepest divide is about knowledge itself.
The constrained vision believes knowledge is embedded in evolved systems: market prices, cultural traditions, common law. No expert or committee can possibly know enough to redesign society from scratch. This is Hayek's fatal conceit.
The unconstrained vision believes articulated reason trumps tradition. Enlightened minds can see what the masses cannot. Progress requires trusting experts to override outdated customs and redesign institutions rationally.
This is why your debates with colleagues go nowhere.
The constrained vision asks: "Compared to what alternative?" It deals in trade-offs, second-order effects, unintended consequences.
The unconstrained vision asks: "Compared to what's possible?" It seeks solutions, not compromises. It judges systems by their ideals, not their alternatives.
You're not even playing the same game.
Once you see this framework, everything clicks into place.
This isn't about intelligence or compassion. It's not really about left versus right. It's about whether you believe human limitations are binding constraints we must accommodate, or temporary obstacles we can overcome through reason and will.
Every other political position flows downstream from this foundational assumption.
Understanding this changes how you engage with the world.
You stop wasting energy arguing surface-level facts with people who have incompatible premises. You start recognizing the deeper vision driving their positions. You can predict where people will land on new issues before they even speak.
You gain the ability to address root assumptions instead of spinning your wheels on symptoms. You become someone who actually understands the structure of political conflict, not just another person shouting into the void.
The Preamble has six stated objectives from which every public office flows. As such it presumes an imperfect state of affairs that necessitates legal code, beginning with the text that follows. I would argue, therefore, that the Constitution operates from the constrained vision of human nature. That means, from a practical standpoint, that anyone who takes the oath of office should be examined along these lines. When questioning candidates for public office, the lines of inquiry ought first fall along this distinction rather than specific policy aims. Why? Because if the roots are sound, the tree will naturally bear the fruits of freedom and prosperity.
1.) Is it possible for a person to hold a combination of these two visions without being self-contradictory in the extreme, or to gravitate toward one while allowing for the other? 2.) Is it possible to hold the “unconstrained” vision of human nature and still speak and act in accord with the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution?
2. I think it is impossible to hold the unconstrained vision and to act in accord with the Preamble of the Constitution. The Progressive philosophy is in direct contradiction to the Constitution, with its limits on governmental power.
bfl
And the corruption of those who take charge of the polity, extracting the goods and services that are necessary itself, and once secured keep what they can for themselves and distribute what is necessary to keep the whole racket going. And there is nothing new in this. This is Plato's "Ship of Fools" expressed in the Republic 2500 years ago and just as true today as it was during the collapse of Pericles's so-called Golden Age.
I saw the title, and I am a huge fan of Thomas Sowell, that book of his “A Conflict of Visions) being one of the most influential political books that I have read, right up there with “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers and “The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek.
Thank you for posting this thread.
I apologize for the length of my response, but as you may guess from my post, this is a key ideological touchstone for me. Sadly, I think this thread is not to get a wide viewing, because I firmly believe that if you posed this question of “constrained” versus “unconstrained” to many Conservatives, you might get a blank stare.
But I also believe that if the conflict is described without the use of the terms “constrained” or “unconstrained”, most Conservatives would grasp it immediately and understand.
I view this question as they key difference between Leftists and Conservatives, and I believe that the Christian faith describes the framework in which the “unconstrained” versions of man fundamentally conflict with the “constrained” versions of us.
The question: Can elements from the “constrained” version coexist with elements from the “unconstrained” version?
I maintain that these versions cannot permanently coexist in one person, since sooner or later, there will be an unhealthy cognitive dissonance will exist and manifest itself in unhealthy, even destructive ways. It is inevitable that at some point, one or more key beliefs from the constrained and unconstrained versions will come into direct conflict, hence the title to Sowell’s excellent book “A Conflict of Visions”.
That conflict may not occur or be recognized immediately, but over time, it is guaranteed to occur.
As Conservatives, we too have cognitive dissonance that occurs in us as well, but that cognitive dissonance is the size of a tiny ball bearing rolling around in our minds as we attempt to come to grips with it and find a way to logically eliminate that mental discord. As Conservatives, we consciously and/or unconsciously strive to eliminate that cognitive dissonance by educating ourselves in an attempt to reason it out of existence.
However, this cognitive dissonance is INHERENT in Leftism, where it is not present in Conservatism.
Leftists must, by nature believe in multiple things that cannot simultaneously be true. Leftists MUST, by necessity, engage in Orwell’s “Doublethink” from his seminal work “1984” in which the person holds two contradictory beliefs in their mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. It is a form of self-delusion. And it is necessary for Leftism which values the collective, not the individual. For Leftists to deviate from the collective is seen as unorthodoxy, to be searched out and eliminated. And they don’t stop at eliminating the unorthodoxy. When it suits their collective goals, they also view the elimination of the human being as a viable tool, which is why the Left’s hands are stained with blood from the beginning of the 20th Century. So Leftists must, by necessity, be chronically hobbled by this cognitive dissonance inherent in the ideologies of the Left.
As a result, they don’t have a small ball-bearing sized cognitive dissonance rolling around in their unconscious minds. They have a bowling ball-sized cognitive dissonance rolling inside their brains that rampages around in their craniums, destroying swaths of intellect and behavioral boundaries.
If you don’t believe I am correct in this, take a look at what you see in society today: The most severe and pathological displays of unbalanced and mentally ill behaviors emanate primarily from the Left. When you see a bunch of Leftists engaging in Primal Scream Therapy deep in the woods because a lumber company cut down some old growth trees, it is quite difficult to discount this behavior as a one-off of the Leftist world.
I just had this discussion the other night with my brother, in which part of the discussion centered around the unconstrained version of humanity, and how it does not work in groups of people ranging from the Pilgrims who landed in this country in 1620, up until the 330 million people we have today in the United States. (And, I might add… it has been shown not to work in every other group of humans ranging in size from 2 to 2 billion.)
It doesn’t work (the unconstrained version) because human nature is inherently the constrained version, not the unconstrained version. That is who we are as humans. We are the constrained versions of God’s creations. There is evil inherent in all of us. Without constraints (as in the unconstrained version of man) we are beasts, not men, because we embrace and become enslaved by that unconstrained evil that is, by design, not isolated and quarantined by our moral outlook as Conservatives strive to do.
When I used to work for a living, I would occasionally go to various corporate training sessions, and one of the key takeaways for me (which I do believe in because I believe it is valid) was that to accomplish a job in the most efficacious manner with the fewest resources and at the least cost, was to have everybody from the bottom to the top pulling in the same direction.
I believe that is possible with the constrained version of man in a constitutional republic such as ours, because the individual values that characterize us are aligned with the principles set forth in our constitution. (And, not surprisingly, the opposing side of that coin is exactly why the unconstrained version will not, and will never work-the unconstrained version of humanity is completely NOT aligned with the factual and observable human nature that God has created in us)
To me, that is the genius of the US Constitution… That it takes into account human nature, and tries to compensate for the weakest parts of it and protect us from those, while at the same time fully aligning with those parts of our human nature that leftists abhor.
It’s no secret that leftists view conservatism (and the values that are inherent in individualism, i.e. self interest, the desire for advancement in society, the inclination to be self-sufficient and succeed in commerce, etc.) with great contempt and disdain. We hear it constantly, that conservatives are “selfish”.
Leftists make these kinds of statements because they refuse to understand that all human beings are primarily self interested.
That concept in the “unconstrained” version of man, that we are perfectible, is a fundamental and inherent flaw in leftism.
Leftists maintain that humans are perfectible, and any imperfections in humans were introduced by our surroundings. They believe that the evils in our existence are due to factors such as poverty, ignorance, and disease. (There actually exists an acronym in their lexicon as a shorthand for this… “PID”)
Obviously, conservatives see this differently. In the “constrained” version of humanity, we understand as conservatives there are many distasteful and evil aspects of human nature that exist in all of us by default. We also believe that as individuals, we are not slaves to these things, and it is possible (especially with the help of a higher power such as a Christian God) overcome these shortcomings in our nature.
What , as conservatives, refuse to do is to turn a blind eye to these shortcomings in our nature. We believe that we must engage in direct combat with them and overcome them as individuals. Leftists believe that these flaws in human nature can be legislated out of existence all powerful government, and done in unison efforts by that all powerful government to address the evils of poverty, ignorance, and disease. (As an aside, conservatives view this outlook as prima Fasce flawed, due to the large number of human beings who are not poverty stricken, are not ignorant, and are not diseased in any way who engage in evil or criminal activity.
Additionally, leftists believe in altruism as a force for good. Many of us might agree with that, except for one key difference: “mandatory” altruism is evil, and a form of slavery as viewed and practiced by leftists.
When altruism becomes mandatory, it is no longer altruism. It is forced subservience to someone else’s goals.
And that is for the beauty of the way our founders created and implemented the Constitution of the United States.
They tried their hardest to protect us from the exact kind of people who populate the left in America today in general, and the Democrat party in particular.
When you understand this, you also fully understand why the First Amendment is there…
And why the Second Amendment is there.
I am wholly in agreement. I have, over the last year or two, embarked on a journey to find Christ in me, to be a Christian.
I have a conceit that I consider myself well read, but...I had never read The Bible cover to cover. How could I consider myself well read if I have never read the Bible????
I am almost done reading it, and there is a very significant observation that I have made, and many people I discuss it with agree-regardless of what time frame the Bible covers...times change, technology changes, but in my view, Human Nature has not changed significantly since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden.
All the vices seen from the beginning in the Bible are present, often in the exact same forms...today.
I’d say you will never want for examples of the latter.
Try Critical Thinking v. Critical Theory (if you wish a snappy turn of phrase).
The article is a nice observation that grossly over-simplifies the confluence of these theses.
It’s really quite simple - some people look at the world as it is and see injustices everywhere and want to blow up the status quo and replace with their untried untested wet dreams. Others look at the same world and try to make the best of it by learning and appreciating rules for living that have worked through millenia and gradually improve things as they can.
I believe that there is a genetic component to this difference. Specifically something in the genes that make some people highly uncomfortable with the sight of inequality. To them any lack of equality is injustice and the sight of that eats away at them.
Or fools vs wise men.
“Fools rush in where wise men never go”
Or radicalism vs conservatism. (same thing by different names) Radicals (fools} believe nature and man are infinitely malleable and they can be shaped into whatever “perfect” form they want, therefore they’re forever revolutionizing and uprooting whatever status quo exists, even those just created by them.
Conservatives (wise men) on the other hand look at the status quo and want to conserve what has proven to work over the centuries and try to gradually improve what hasn’t taking into account that there are unchangeable realities.
“It doesn’t work (the unconstrained version) because human nature is inherently the constrained version, not the unconstrained version. “
It doesn’t work because of its consequences (bad), not because human nature is “constrained”.
What do we mean by something “working”? Something works if using it gives the intended results. It has nothing to do with constrained vs unconstrained nature.
And no one is wholly constrained or unconstrained. We all have some of both with some at the extremes. It’s what politics is all about - coming up with the right balance between societal desire for change (unconstrained) vs the comfort of the status quo (constraint). It’s a constant battle between the two - radicalism vs conservatism. Always has been and always will be because of differences in human nature.
The relationship between individual and corporate life is best expressed through the family unit. Even then, things went sour between Cain and Abel.
As a citizen of the United States who is moderately engaged with civic realms, I am inclined to reject candidates for public office who subscribe to the unconstrained vision.
Over the past months and years I have been giving thought to, and developing tools to, expose them in hopes of limiting ballot access, or at least warning other citizens away from their perfidy.
Through the above post I hope to gain some clarity in understanding the manner and degree to which the unconstrained vision is incompatible with the Preamble. Your response is helpful to that end. I still have a lot more thinking to do on this subject.
I have not read Sowell’s work on it yet, but apparently he considers the unconstrained vision to be neither stupid nor incoherent, but if it is not in accord with the truth concerning human nature, it certainly is neither smart nor helpful.
“One vision sees social problems as emerging from basic human constraints. Scarcity is real. People are naturally selfish. Knowledge is limited and dispersed. We can’t change these facts, only build institutions that work with them.
The other vision sees problems as failures of will or wisdom. With the right leaders, the right education, the right system, we could solve these problems. Human nature isn’t fixed. It’s waiting to be improved. “
One item that Sowell (who I like a lot) left out from his list of things that cause societal friction is “people are different” - they have different abilities, talents desires, etc.
But there is a large strain of people in any society that believes everyone is equal and therefore they should succeed equally, and if they don’t somebody is keeping them down.
This desire for “equality” by large portions of society juxtaposited against the obvious reality that people are not equal and are not capable of equal success is one of the most constant problem of any society.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a great short story depicting the unavoidable conclusion of such thinking.
“Harrison Bergeron”
“The year was 2081 and everyone was finally equal!”
https://americanliterature.com/author/kurt-vonnegut-jr/short-story/harrison-bergeron/
The naive conceit that guns are inherently evil serves as an example that may fit within this conflict of visions. The unconstrained vision imagines a world without guns to be achievable, if not desirable, all the while ignoring the historic fact that tools of innumerable kinds have inflicted death and bloodshed and thus call for what we all should, and do, agree upon: provide for the common defense. Anyone who runs for public office while advocating the total abolition of guns is by definition self-disqualifying in terms of oath fidelity and should therefore not be allowed ballot access.
The concept of equality when applied to people raises the question as to what characteristics apply under the concept. I would wager very few.
“Created equal” under the Declaration seems invoke that with which are all endowed apart from any effort on their part: the unalienables. Everything else is a mess that necessitates legal code. For citizens of the USA that code derives from the six objectives stated in the Preamble.
I have spoken with dozens of public officials over the past months and it become all too clear that they need assistance in articulating the core purpose of their offices as related to the same.
bmk
““Created equal” under the Declaration seems invoke that with which are all endowed apart from any effort on their part: the unalienables.”
And what is it that which we are equally endowed with?
Our genes? Which determine our intelligence, height, whether we’re a beauty queen or a hag, diseases we may inherit, the color of our skin, our likes and dislikes, etc, etc, etc
I consider the “we’re all created equal” in the declaration a noble “feel good” lie that has actually ended up causing much of today’s societal problem by giving people that believe or want to demagogue that lie constitutional cover. (I’ll give the founders some slack, though. They didn’t know anything about genetics back then).
The most obvious truth on earth is that we are not all created equal, all you got to do is open your eyes and look at anyone around you.
Regarding the subject of equality, I like much more what Tocqueville had to say about it.
“There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. “
The “equality” expressed by the Declaration pertains to the intangible ideal of what it is to be human. The founders were not so ignorant as to eschew accidental differences, lack of genetic detail notwithstanding.
When I said something is "not working" it means to me that the efforts of "unconstrained" people and politicians produces results that are NOT in concordance with the principles of the US Constitution.
So, to people who are predominately "unconstrained" (the Left in general and the Democrat party in particular) they do not produce "results" within the constraints of the US Constitution, so that is what I am referring to.
And that has everything to do with a "constrained" versus an "unconstrained" viewpoint.
There are indeed differences in human behavior. And it is unequivocally clear from the results of at least a century that the difference which is referred to as unconstrained does not "work", and it has been proven over and over again not to "work".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.