There Are No Solutions

At 96 years of age, Thomas Sowell is one of the most formidable minds in contemporary American thought. Without any desire to bask in the media spotlight, he personifies integrity as a scholar, a luminary whose body of work combines empirical rigor, historical breadth, and an unyielding commitment to human dignity irrespective of race. His insistence on true meritocracy—judging individuals by their capacities and achievements rather than by collective grievances or engineered outcomes—marks him as a rational defender of the individual against the sentimental collectivism that has come to dominate elite discourse.

Sowell’s philosophy rests on what he terms the Tragic (or “constrained”) Vision of human nature, a perspective that confronts the permanent limitations of mankind and rejects the utopian—and revolutionary—fantasy of perfectibility. This vision, elaborated most systematically in A Conflict of Visions (1987), supplies the intellectual architecture for his entire oeuvre and explains both his enduring influence among serious readers and the studied neglect he has received from much of the academic left.

Then there are those who look at this same imperfect world and all they see is injustices (”inequalities”) everywhere and want to blow it up and replace it with some untried wet dream that in their delusion will finally usher in “just” world. And by justice they mean equality of result.

I believe these differences have a genetic basis, which explain why they both have existed throughout history and will continue, at least until, by some miracle of genetic engineering, people are made “equal” or happy in their inequality as was the case in “Brave New World”.

The Trees - Rush

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
And they're quite convinced they're right
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light

But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream "Oppression"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
"The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light"

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

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