Thomas Sowell on the Constrained vs Unconstrained Vision of Human Nature

Discussion

Michael Shermer:

"Underlying the political policy of equal outcomes is the blank slate model of human nature, which holds that since people are inherently equal any inequalities in education, health, wealth, income, housing, home ownership, employment, crime, imprisonment, and the like, can only be the result of societal, political, and economic discrimination, rather than inequalities in intelligence, creativity, drive and ambition, personal responsibility, history, and of course luck, good and bad. Once such discriminatory policies are eliminated, blank slaters believe, such outcome inequalities should disappear.

So, the deepest problem with wokeness is that it based on a flawed theory of human nature, a point made by Thomas Sowell in his 1987 book A Conflict of Visions, in which he argued that the vision one holds about human nature—either as constrained (conservative) or unconstrained (liberal) — determines if one emphasizes equal opportunities or equal outcomes. “If human options are not inherently constrained, then the presence of such repugnant and disastrous phenomena [inequalities] virtually cries out for explanation—and for solutions. But if the limitations and passions of man himself are at the heart of these painful phenomena, then what requires explanation are the ways in which they have been avoided or minimized.” Which of these natures you believe is true will largely shape which solutions to social ills will be most effective. “In the unconstrained vision, there are no intractable reasons for social evils and therefore no reason why they cannot be solved, with sufficient moral commitment. But in the constrained vision, whatever artifices or strategies restrain or ameliorate inherent human evils will themselves have costs, some in the form of other social ills created by these civilizing institutions, so that all that is possible is a prudent trade-off.” In fact, as Sowell generalized the underlying principles, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

(https://michaelshermer.substack.com/p/why-i-am-no-longer-woke)