Kathianne
10-24-2008, 03:54 AM
Aristotle v. Plato:
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/23/thomas-sowell-election-oped-cx_pr_1024robinson.html
The Point Of No Return
Peter Robinson 10.24.08, 12:00 AM ET
Thomas Frank, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, writes about ordinary folks back in his home state of Kansas as a kind of reverse model. You can do all right, he argues, by watching the way those farmers, small businessmen and homemakers vote--which is to say mostly Republican--then voting the other way.
David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, writes about Patio Man, the college-educated, affluent voter who lives in the country's newest suburbs. Patio Man leads a good life. He wants to keep it that way. But he likes to think of himself as open-minded. He'll vote for the candidate who does the best job of sounding progressive--but not too progressive.
Then there is Thomas Sowell, the economist and political philosopher. He prefers an older way of looking at American politics--a much older way. In his classic 1987 work, A Conflict of Visions, Sowell identifies two competing worldviews, or visions, that have underlain the Western political tradition for centuries.
Sowell calls one worldview the "constrained vision." It sees human nature as flawed or fallen, seeking to make the best of the possibilities that exist within that constraint. The competing worldview, which Sowell terms the "unconstrained vision," instead sees human nature as capable of continual improvement.
You can trace the constrained vision back to Aristotle; the unconstrained vision to Plato. But the neatest illustration of the two visions occurred during the great upheavals of the 18th century, the American and French revolutions.
The American Revolution embodied the constrained vision. "In the United States," Sowell says, "it was assumed from the outset that what you needed to do above all was minimize [the damage that could be done by] the flaws in human nature." The founders did so by composing a constitution of checks and balances. More than two centuries later, their work remains in place.
The French Revolution, by contrast, embodied the unconstrained vision. "In France," Sowell says, "the idea was that if you put the right people in charge--if you had a political Messiah--then problems would just go away." The result? The Terror, Napoleon and so many decades of instability that France finally sorted itself out only when Charles de Gaulle declared the Fifth Republic....
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/23/thomas-sowell-election-oped-cx_pr_1024robinson.html
The Point Of No Return
Peter Robinson 10.24.08, 12:00 AM ET
Thomas Frank, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, writes about ordinary folks back in his home state of Kansas as a kind of reverse model. You can do all right, he argues, by watching the way those farmers, small businessmen and homemakers vote--which is to say mostly Republican--then voting the other way.
David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, writes about Patio Man, the college-educated, affluent voter who lives in the country's newest suburbs. Patio Man leads a good life. He wants to keep it that way. But he likes to think of himself as open-minded. He'll vote for the candidate who does the best job of sounding progressive--but not too progressive.
Then there is Thomas Sowell, the economist and political philosopher. He prefers an older way of looking at American politics--a much older way. In his classic 1987 work, A Conflict of Visions, Sowell identifies two competing worldviews, or visions, that have underlain the Western political tradition for centuries.
Sowell calls one worldview the "constrained vision." It sees human nature as flawed or fallen, seeking to make the best of the possibilities that exist within that constraint. The competing worldview, which Sowell terms the "unconstrained vision," instead sees human nature as capable of continual improvement.
You can trace the constrained vision back to Aristotle; the unconstrained vision to Plato. But the neatest illustration of the two visions occurred during the great upheavals of the 18th century, the American and French revolutions.
The American Revolution embodied the constrained vision. "In the United States," Sowell says, "it was assumed from the outset that what you needed to do above all was minimize [the damage that could be done by] the flaws in human nature." The founders did so by composing a constitution of checks and balances. More than two centuries later, their work remains in place.
The French Revolution, by contrast, embodied the unconstrained vision. "In France," Sowell says, "the idea was that if you put the right people in charge--if you had a political Messiah--then problems would just go away." The result? The Terror, Napoleon and so many decades of instability that France finally sorted itself out only when Charles de Gaulle declared the Fifth Republic....