A Vision of a More Perfect Vision

Conflicting visions of the perfect society are a tricky thing to negotiate.  Imagine, for example, a municipality which levied taxes in order to pay for a state-supported brothel; think of it like a public park.  Also imagine that the workers in the brothel are conscripted; think of it like the military draft.  Now imagine a society where 51% of the people think that such State Brothels are a good idea and 49% think they are morally repugnant.  What should that society do?

We discussed that problem in my tutorial last week.  Suffice it to say that the students in the tutorial all thought the idea was terrible, but had a hard time figuring out why it should be prohibited. 

The prompt for the discussion was Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed.  Sowell doesn’t discuss the brothel question (of course—no self-respecting author would ever raise such a topic for serious consideration); he has a very different agenda.  Sowell’s book is an exercise in skewering the zeitgeist, the attitude of the modern American Left to see the world as if they are the Anointed Ones and They know the Truth unlike those Benighted Folks who disagree with them.  Sowell spends page after page taking apart the idea that the view of the Anointed is obviously right.  Sowell thinks the opposite to the View of the Anointed, what he call the Tragic View, is better.  He argues those with the Tragic View at least are willing to try to understand the Views of the Anointed, but the reverse is not true.  Sowell has little patience for the Anointed.  Indeed, if you were part of the Anointed, this book would seriously irritate you.  At one point in the midst of reading the book, I got to wondering to whom this book was written.  It would have a nice appeal to people who agree with Sowell and just want the reassurance that someone who knows a lot of stuff agrees with them.  Then I realized that Sowell’s real audience is people who have not yet formed a world view—he wants to save everyone from joining the Dark Side.

And that led to the question which started this rumination.  What does a society do if there are two diametrically opposed world views?  How do you achieve compromise on things which the two sides view as moral absolutes.  You value Freedom; I value Moral Restrictions; how do we compromise?  Either prostitution is allowed or it is not.  Either infanticide is allowed or it is not.  And the side which does not have its preferences enshrined into Law will think the social order is unjust.  But, does anybody really think we should just put laws against murder up for a vote and say “Majority Rules”?

The Vision of the Anointed is thus a mixed bag.  It is full of great examples and studies and arguments.  It is in some ways a Handbook on Social Science Research which can be Used by Conservatives in a Debate.  (Hard to believe the publisher didn’t think that would make a good title for the book—but it is an accurate title.)  On the other hand, it is a frustrating book for settling the larger issue of why someone should choose Sowell’s Vision or the Vision of the Anointed.  It isn’t clear how to address that question though.  Do you pick your underlying vision of society on the basis of social science research?  At some point, we have to acknowledge that a society can only function as a society if there is a shared moral-cultural order underlying it.  What do you do when that shared set of beliefs disintegrates?  We are in the process of finding out.

Curiously, the musical group Anointed does not have what Sowell calls The Vision of the Anointed.  Go figure.