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Consequences Matter: Thomas Sowell on “Social Justice Fallacies” | Uncommon Knowledge — Transcript

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0:00two events in the life of today's guest
0:02he just turned 93 and he just published
0:06his latest book
0:07Thomas Seoul on uncommon knowledge now
0:11[Music]
0:21welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter
0:23Robinson after Growing Up In Harlem
0:25Thomas Saul served in the United States
0:27Marine Corps then received an
0:29undergraduate degree from Harvard a
0:31master's degree from Colombia a
0:33doctorate from the University of Chicago
0:36after teaching at universities that
0:38included Cornell Brandeis and UCLA Dr
0:41Soul became a fellow at the Hoover
0:43institution in 1977 Thomas Sowell is the
0:47author of some 40 books including his
0:51newest volume social justice fallacies
0:54and this past spring he turned 93. Tom
0:58welcome back to uncommon knowledge oh
1:00good being here you know I can't help
1:02thinking reading your background if only
1:04you'd been a little bit more industrious
1:06you might have been able to make a name
1:08for yourself
1:11social justice
1:13Dr Martin Luther King in 1963 quote I
1:16have a dream
1:17[Applause]
1:21[Music]
1:24they live in a nation where they will
1:27not be judged by the color of their skin
1:29but by the content of their character I
1:32have a dream
1:33[Applause]
1:34and you write
1:36Dr King's message was equal opportunity
1:39for individuals regardless of race
1:43in the years that followed the goal
1:45changed to equal outcomes for groups
1:49what now Rose to dominance was the
1:52social justice agenda
1:57if the social justice
1:59those backing the social justice agenda
2:02could have everything they wanted
2:04what would the country look like
2:07uh we'd be killing each other
2:12all right
2:13can you give me intermediate steps
2:16in other words what is the social
2:18justice agenda what do they want they
2:21want everybody to have have we equal
2:23equal outcomes or as close as they can
2:25get to it unfortunately you don't have
2:31you don't have the preconditions for
2:33that
2:34even in the same family I one of the
2:37examples I I use in the book is uh
2:41among
2:43among five child families right uh the
2:47National Merit finalist is the firstborn
2:50just over half the time that is more
2:54often than the other four siblings
2:55combined this if the fifth born is six
2:59percent of the time
3:01and so there was even where you have
3:04almost ideal conditions they're born to
3:06the same parents raised under the same
3:08roof and they are not the same
3:12because all kinds of things matter
3:13including birth order oh absolutely
3:15absolutely all right let's you you take
3:18on various fallacies here let's take on
3:20a couple of them the equal chances
3:23fallacy
3:26even in a society I'm quoting you social
3:28justice fallacies even in a society with
3:31equal opportunity people from different
3:33backgrounds do not necessarily even want
3:37to do the same things in American Sports
3:39blacks are very overrepresented in
3:42professional basketball
3:44whites in professional tennis and
3:47Hispanics in Major League Baseball
3:51why is that telling
3:53because the the implicit assumption you
3:56know sometimes explicit assumption is
3:58that in a world where everything was
4:00fair everyone's treated fairly you would
4:03have uh things would be
4:06representative of the population the
4:08demographics as a whole and all these
4:11various activities right imagine a black
4:13kid born in Harlem
4:15and he's born with a a body identical
4:19that of Rudolph the ray of the great of
4:22a ballet dancer there's the odds are a
4:26thousand to one that he'll become a
4:27ballet dancer much less another Rudolph
4:30the redo I mean he would be uh looked at
4:33strangely by all his uh friends in the
4:36neighborhood if he even wanted to do
4:38that what you mean he wouldn't even
4:40think about it right right right right
4:41right so you mean to say that when you
4:45tried out for the
4:46you tried out for the pitching position
4:48in the Brooklyn Dodgers and they didn't
4:51hire you you were not being
4:52discriminated against
4:54actually I was trying out off the first
4:56base on the real real reason I messed up
4:58was that my position was Senate field
5:00but in order to be a good center field I
5:03need hours and hours of practice and and
5:07it was it was a very bad spring I got
5:09very little practice and so I figured by
5:10at least I I I won't go out and make an
5:13idiot of myself and send his feelings
5:15I've made an idiot of myself at first
5:16base
5:17all right
5:19um
5:21chess pieces fallacy the chess piece is
5:23fallacy explain that one well Adam Smith
5:26uh had a very low opinion of abstract
5:29theorists who imagined that they can uh
5:32control a whole society with the ease
5:36with which one puts uh puts chess pieces
5:39where you want them on on a chessboard
5:41and so
5:43there's this notion of this inert mass
5:46of people down there and then the
5:48wonderfully brilliant people at the top
5:49who ought to be telling them what to do
5:51and there's no thought that uh first of
5:54all those times don't even notice the
5:56people's uh
5:58individual conditions who are very
6:00different from themselves and when they
6:02try to help they make things so they can
6:04make things disastrous
6:06you discuss the theory of Justice this
6:09is under knowledge yes a theory of
6:11Justice which is in certain circles
6:14certain circles every University in the
6:15country the philosophy Department
6:17political science you'll get it in
6:19sociology this is the big book oh yeah
6:22on social justice written by John Rawls
6:24philosopher at Harvard
6:26quote I'm quoting you Tom Rawls refers
6:29to things that Society should arrange
6:32you quote him a range that's the word he
6:35uses and then Tom Soul says interior
6:37decorators arrange governments compel it
6:42is not a subtle distinction
6:44explain that
6:47well if you're going to try to get some
6:49kind of result you have to specify
6:52through what kinds of mechanism you
6:54expect to get that result and different
6:56mechanisms whether it's the government
6:57the market uh the Red Cross whatever
7:00they have their own individual things
7:03that they're good at and not so good at
7:05and so you can't get the social justice
7:08result that you want unless you have the
7:11kind of uh institution that's likely to
7:13produce that result politics is not that
7:16kind of institution and yet they all
7:18implicitly rely on government yes
7:20redistribution of wealth uh adjusting
7:23using legal regimes to adjust the
7:26proportions of various groups that get
7:29certain jobs they all rely on government
7:31and what's distinctive about government
7:33is
7:34it's the one institution that can send
7:36you to jail yes all right and that's the
7:40point is that's dangerous we shouldn't
7:41want more government more hands in the
7:43power of the politician yeah one of the
7:44real one of the real problems is that
7:46you have people making decisions
7:48for which they pay no price when they're
7:50wrong no matter how high a price other
7:53people pay
7:54and right now the the the homicide rates
7:57are beyond anything that were around
8:01let's say uh prior to 1960
8:04uh and I mentioned in 1960 in this case
8:07uh because that's when the Supreme Court
8:09remade the criminal law they discovered
8:13rights in the Constitution that no one
8:14had noticed for over a century uh and
8:17and they were impervious to evidence
8:20so contrast
8:22your neighborhood in Harlem when you
8:25were in eight and nine and ten-year-old
8:26boy
8:28with what we see in neighborhoods in
8:30Chicago today oh my gosh people are
8:33astonished when I tell them I grew up in
8:35Harlem I can't remember ever hearing a
8:37gunshot
8:38and then I I I've chat with my relatives
8:41who grew up in similar neighborhoods in
8:43Washington and down in North Carolina
8:44they never heard us gunshot when they
8:47were growing up
8:48uh you know I remember going back to
8:51Harlem some years ago to do some
8:54research at High School
8:55and I looked out the window and there's
8:57this park there near the high school and
9:00I mentioned in passing that when I uh
9:02when I when I when I lived in Harlem I
9:04was as a kid I would take my dog for a
9:07walk in that Park and look so hard I
9:10came over the students faces
9:12people have no idea how much has
9:15retrogressed over the years uh in the
9:18black community and and how much of what
9:21progress has been made has not been made
9:23by politicians or by charismatic leaders
9:26uh
9:28if you one of the things that drives me
9:31crazy are people who uh cite Trends over
9:34time without
9:38deciding where they're going to start
9:39the the the the the the the time period
9:42for example as I said all sorts of
9:44wonderful things happened in the 1960s
9:47and Beyond
9:48uh and especially for the minorities and
9:51the poor and so forth uh so I what I did
9:54I said no well you care if you if you
9:55start the data in 1960 we don't know how
9:57much how much uh was a result of that
10:00and how much the results of other things
10:02that also applies in other things though
10:04for example one one simple one uh many
10:08people say you know we're off native
10:09wrote this book in 1965 and as about the
10:13automobile safety and so on as a result
10:15there were laws that by the government
10:17and the and the the death rates went
10:20down after that which is true in itself
10:22but the death rate went down at a far
10:25higher rate prior to his writing the
10:27book and this was the continuation of of
10:30a trend that went back uh another 20 or
10:3330 years because the market because car
10:36manufacturers when it came right down to
10:37it had very little interest in getting
10:39people killed yeah you killed off your
10:41customers your chances are you won't
10:43sell as many cars
10:44right
10:45the big fallacy at least I take this is
10:48in many ways the heart of the book
10:49racial fallacies
10:52now
10:53in this section in this chapter on
10:55racial fallacies you begin
10:58almost all of this book is addressed to
11:00the current moment but in racial
11:02fallacies you start by going back about
11:05a hundred years yes to lay out the
11:08progressive position in the 1910s and
11:1220s in and for some years afterward I'm
11:16quoting you in addressing the massive
11:18increase in immigration from eastern and
11:21southern Europe This begins this massive
11:22increase in Immigration begins toward
11:24the end of the 19th century and Carries
11:26On Through the 1920s and addressing the
11:28massive increase in Immigration
11:29progressives
11:31claimed that these new immigrants were
11:33inherently genetically and therefore
11:37permanently inferior
11:40so your argument is that a century or so
11:42ago progressives believed roughly the
11:46same about polish and Italian immigrants
11:49that whites in the South had long
11:52believed about black oh yes
11:54all right social justice fallacies I'm
11:57going to read a quotation that I'd like
11:59you to take us through this material
12:01with the passing years more and more
12:03evidence undermined the conclusion of
12:06the genetic determinists
12:08Jews who had scored low on the 1917 Army
12:12mental test began to score above the
12:15national average on various tests as
12:17they became a more English-speaking
12:19group
12:20a study showed that black orphans black
12:23orphans raised by white families had
12:26significantly higher average IQs than
12:29other black children close quote
12:32so in the century since this you call
12:36them
12:36genetic determinants which is one way of
12:39putting they were racist they believed
12:41that some races were permanently
12:42inferior yes and and should be
12:45eliminated and we've learned that's
12:46total nonsense
12:48but even more than that we've learned
12:49that IQ is malleable is that correct I'm
12:52not sure what you mean by malware well
12:54that that is to say that this ranking of
12:57or the the rat or the ranking changes
13:00are stupid in 1917 because they score
13:02badly on tests but they started yeah on
13:04tests written in English written tests
13:05written in English Okay and people who
13:07who spoke English did better when those
13:09deaths or that or that or that blacks
13:11have a certain fixed IQ ranking and yeah
13:15and then you have black orphans raised
13:16by white families in other words a
13:17different cultural or uh yeah but even
13:20before that's that's 30 wasn't done
13:21until 1976. but even as of the time
13:24World War One
13:27uh the data show that black soldiers
13:30scored below white white soldiers uh and
13:33this is one of the reason reasons so if
13:35you're you need people with contrary
13:37opinions to to be able to be free to
13:39attack things uh the people who believe
13:43that that this this is genetically
13:44determined they said that's it that's
13:46the answer and they moved on some other
13:48people said let's look at it more
13:50closely they discovered that black
13:52soldiers from New York uh uh
13:55New York Pennsylvania Ohio uh one or two
14:00other states scored higher than white
14:02soldiers from Mississippi Alabama
14:04etc etc and as I mentioned in the book
14:07uh people genes do not change when they
14:10cross a state line
14:12uh uh uh the problem is when you have
14:15people who are crusading for some idea
14:18whatever the idea is and they find some
14:20data that fits what they believe that's
14:22the end of the story as far as they
14:24concerned which is fine if there are
14:27other people with with contrary ideas
14:29who will look closer for something that
14:31goes the other way and then get listened
14:33to yes yes
14:35by the way you describe in the book The
14:37Flynn effect yeah discovered by your
14:40your friend the late James Flynn can you
14:43describe that that's fascinating well
14:45the the idea of the genetic determinist
14:48is that you had to uh rid the country of
14:51these these uh inferior races because
14:53otherwise the national IQ would go would
14:55go down over time because the poorer
14:57people had more children than the Richer
14:59people uh and so that that went on for
15:04here again the IQ Data there that that
15:08the genetic determinants were relying on
15:10looked like it supported what they said
15:12but Jim flan decided that uh well first
15:16of all you have to understand what an IQ
15:18score how an IQ score has arrived at
15:20whatever number of uh questions answered
15:24correctly is the average at a given time
15:28uh is given the number 100.
15:32because uh when you do these tests
15:34especially with children uh if a
15:37six-year-old child uh scores uh the same
15:40as a 12 year old child uh uh that means
15:44the 60 year old child is either much
15:46brighter than usual or the 12 year old
15:48child is a lot less than the usual and
15:50so you compare the all the six-year-old
15:52children and whatever the six-year-old
15:54children how many questions they answer
15:56correctly that becomes 100 and then
15:59similarly for all the other ages right
16:01so you can do that and at an adulthood
16:04at some point you simply say adult and
16:06non-adult all right now that sounds very
16:08very innocent in itself
16:11but what what happens when people start
16:14answering more questions correctly than
16:16before the Next Generation he answers
16:18more questions now the now the number of
16:20questions answered by the second
16:21generation becomes 100.
16:24and so over time as more and more people
16:27black white and whatever are answering
16:30more and more questions correctly uh the
16:33the the tests are renormed so so having
16:37an IQ of 100 uh in 1925 is not the same
16:41thing as having IQ of 100 in 1935 or
16:451950 and this is exactly what was going
16:47on yeah people of all different kinds
16:49were were yes and it's smarter crudely
16:52but once Jim Flynn
16:55decide to go back to the raw data
16:58not just take take the take the IQs how
17:01many how many questions was this and he
17:03just he discovers that the number of
17:05questions being answered correctly was
17:07increasing by large amounts roughly one
17:10statistical uh uh deviation deviation
17:13right uh uh from from one generation to
17:17the next which is big yes
17:19and and so uh the the number the number
17:22of questions that the blacks were
17:24answering you know I'm saying around
17:262000 uh uh and having an IQ of 85 would
17:31have been an IQ of 104 back in 1947.
17:36and so all this information was was
17:39being uh ignored because they people
17:42took the IQ test as if that was a fixed
17:45num fixed number of uh questions I
17:48answered correctly and so you take the
17:50lid off that one the Flynn of the Flynn
17:52effect shows that the opposite of what's
17:54Happening that instead of the national
17:56iQ going down it was going up it was
17:59going up and so we have this fascinating
18:02discovery that somehow or other the
18:04conditions of Modern Life that requires
18:07more abstract thinking somehow it's
18:09bringing in um uh the whole group of
18:12girls right the whole group is rising
18:14all right all right from the progressive
18:17position a century ago to the
18:19progressive position today racial
18:21assertions have ranged from the genetic
18:23determinism that we just discussed which
18:25proclaimed that race is everything as an
18:28explanation of group differences to the
18:30opposite view that racism is the primary
18:34explanation of group differences yes
18:38how did this happen
18:40oh it happened because a lot of people
18:42arrived at that same conclusion and they
18:46had IQ High IQs and phds and that was
18:49the end of the story as well as far as
18:51many people were concerned
18:53all right I mean a high IQ and low
18:56information is a very dangerous
18:57combination
19:00I I have to sorry but you once told me
19:04I'm talking to a Harvard Man of course
19:06I'm very conscious of this and you once
19:08told me
19:09Peter
19:10the main advantage of earning a Harvard
19:12degree is that you never again in all
19:14your life to have to be intimidated by
19:16anyone who has a Harvard degree
19:19listen Tom for the most as I read this
19:22book for the most part
19:24it's objective it's it's objective
19:26throughout it's calm it's analytical
19:29but when you take on this modern
19:30Progressive position that racism
19:33accounts for anything
19:35there are passages
19:37in which you're angry I felt that there
19:39are passages in which there's emotion
19:41that is very close to this so let me
19:43just read a little bit okay median black
19:45family income has been lower than median
19:47white family income for Generations
19:50but
19:51the median per capita income of Asian
19:54groups is more than fifteen thousand a
19:56year higher than the media per capita
19:59income of white Americans is this the
20:01white supremacy we're so often warned
20:03about
20:04for more than a quarter of a century in
20:06no year as the annual poverty rate of
20:09Black married couple families married
20:12couple families been as high as 10
20:14percent
20:15and in no year has the poverty rate of
20:17Americans as a whole been as low
20:20as 10 percent if black poverty is caused
20:23by systemic racism do racists make an
20:26exception for blacks who are married
20:32I guess you're allowed to be angry
20:34yes
20:38yes
20:40so
20:43do you have the feeling when you're
20:45addressing this
20:46notion that racism accounts for
20:48everything
20:52do you have the feeling that there's
20:53that the that the arguments are subtle
20:56it's persuasive you can forgive someone
20:58for buying that argument or do you have
21:00the feeling that it's willful
21:03that the case is so clearly mistaken
21:06that there's a willfulness about it
21:08no I I don't I don't I think that the
21:10the people don't look for for certain
21:13evidence and therefore they don't find
21:15it
21:16and so from from the on the basis of
21:18what they know at a given time this may
21:21be very plausible the problem is that
21:24you know what you really need are other
21:26people with different orientation who
21:28are who who are skeptical and who will
21:31then look for things and find things
21:33that are very different from that uh one
21:36of the one of the things that uh
21:39like that I found uh interesting what
21:42was the the uh
21:44fact that there are various counties in
21:47the United States which are among the
21:49poorest counties in in the country and
21:51six of those Counties have have uh uh a
21:55population that ranges from 90 percent
21:57white to 100 white Appalachian counties
22:00yeah Kentucky yeah Kentucky and Ohio as
22:03I recall yeah and and but mainly is this
22:05is the hillbilly communities right and
22:09of course there's that great book that
22:10was written in the hillbilly allergy it
22:12was on the best seller list for more
22:14than a year consecutively and what's now
22:17Senator Vance yes and and
22:19there these are people who have faced
22:22zero racism they are white and they're
22:25white and and zero racism and also there
22:28back in the 30s when they did IQ studies
22:31uh their IQs were not only at the same
22:34level as those of blacks they had the
22:36same pattern namely that that the young
22:38the young people where they were black
22:41or hillbilly uh would have an IQ very
22:44close to the national average
22:46at age six but by the time they were
22:49teenagers it kept going down and down
22:51and down because it's relative to the
22:53other other people of that age group and
22:56they simply would not were falling
22:57behind uh so it was clearly not
23:00biological it was it was social
23:02but uh despite that these these
23:07hillbilly counties had uh income incomes
23:10they were not only lower than the
23:12national average they were lower than
23:14the average of black incomes
23:18for a period of half a century it may
23:21have been longer than that because I
23:22only went through half a century but in
23:24every study that was done over that half
23:27century they scored lower their family
23:30incomes were lower than the family
23:32incomes the blacks so obviously there
23:34must be other things that cause people
23:36to be poor other than racism all right
23:40people in low-income American hillbilly
23:43counties already faced zero racism
23:45because they are virtually all white yes
23:48yet they have lower incomes than blacks
23:50just as you were saying in other words
23:53some Behavior patterns seem to pay off
23:57now this book is dedicated
24:01to fallacies to showing errors in
24:03premises and errors and Analysis it's
24:06not dedicated to an alternative
24:09explanation nevertheless you've got this
24:11argument lurking in here
24:13that it's the way people live it's the
24:16way cultural yeah so what are the
24:18patterns that pay off
24:20well all my Heavens that's a much much
24:24larger book than those well you've got
24:27time on your hands
24:29uh
24:32in terms of policies or public policy
24:35what does not pay off is having
24:37charismatic leaders uh depending upon
24:40government to do things because if you
24:42look what has happened to blacks before
24:44and after that there was a massive uh
24:48government effort on their behalf
24:53the poverty rate among blacks if you
24:55start in 1940 instead of 1960 because
24:571960 is the magic number for people who
25:00are saying the government you see all
25:02these wonderful things and life's
25:03Advanced because of it in 1940 uh the
25:08black poverty rate was 87 percent
25:10uh by 1960 it was down down to 47
25:14percent that's dramatic uh ninth what
25:18from 1960 to 1970 it went down and
25:20notice it went down to uh 30 percent
25:24and in night and in 1970 affirmative
25:27action was now in place it went down to
25:3029 percent
25:32so in the in the 20 years prior to 1960s
25:36the black poverty rate went down by 40
25:38points and in the 20 and in the 20 years
25:41after 1960 it went down by 18 points uh
25:46but again you saw the same thing you had
25:48with what was the Ralph's Nader effect
25:49you see it started in 1960 you missed
25:52this you missed all of that so you've
25:55got in this book this is a point you
25:56make
25:58again and again in the section on racial
26:01fallacies that I started thinking of it
26:04I don't think you use these terms but
26:06this is not an original thought with me
26:07I started thinking of it as a as a
26:10hidden century
26:12of black progress yes from emancipation
26:16with the end of the Civil War
26:19through to
26:201965 let's say the Civil Rights Act of
26:241964-65 through the early through the
26:27mid 60s you've got a century and you
26:29argue that black educational attainment
26:33Rises yes
26:34black property rate drops dramatically
26:37yeah and these are people who started
26:40with no property overwhelmingly
26:42illiterate this is from the moment yeah
26:44the sort of the the year zero in 1865
26:49for African Americans and they climb and
26:52and the other point that you make at a
26:55number of places is that the black
26:57family is overwhelmingly intact yes
27:01most black people yeah and uh not only
27:06not only do people take credit for
27:07things that were not not not there doing
27:10uh they Overlook the negative things
27:13that came in after the 1960s as a result
27:16of policy in 1940
27:20uh 17 of black children were raised in
27:25single parent homes Seventeen percent
27:28Seventeen at the end I forget the exact
27:30date in in the 20th century but it but
27:33uh after these wonderful reforms were
27:36put in that quadrupled to 68 of black
27:40children were being raised in single
27:43parent homes now there's a whole
27:45literature on all the bad things that
27:47happen to kids who are raised by single
27:49parents whether they are black or white
27:52American or British the studies show the
27:55same things one study said that uh
27:57fatherlessness has a bigger effect than
28:01even race and poverty
28:03and certainly I think back in my own
28:06life I was I realized how fortunate I
28:09was
28:10because even though my biological father
28:14died before I was born I I would and I
28:17was adopted I was adopted into a family
28:19where I was the only child uh in a
28:23family of four adults uh and and these
28:26were not people who were out having an
28:28active social life someplace the life
28:30was there in the home they gave you
28:31their time yes yes and I remember years
28:34later when I became a parent and like
28:36other new parents I wanted to know when
28:38it was a kid supposed to do this when
28:39he's supposed to do that when I said I
28:41said uh how old was I when I started to
28:45walk
28:46and uh just sort of the long-surviving
28:49member of the family raised me said
28:50Tommy nobody knows when you could walk
28:52somebody was always carrying you
28:56you know but so you had four adults
28:58doting yes yes yes
29:00and that that's that's what and and then
29:04part of the part of the the rise of
29:06blacks before was because of things that
29:08were done by blinds uh I I thought
29:11example I think of a lot was a kid who
29:16grew up in Harlem at the same time I I
29:18did we was in the same
29:20school you live two blocks from me uh
29:24and we met many years later by accident
29:27on the street in San Francisco and we
29:29talked about the old times and one of
29:31the things he mentioned to me that
29:32because he had gone on he was making
29:34more money than I was uh and and he
29:37would become wealthy and he lived
29:39overseas with servants and he came back
29:41and moved out to the wine country and
29:43all that stuff
29:44but one of the things that struck me he
29:47said that he could remember times when
29:48he was growing up when his father would
29:51sit at the dinner table watching the
29:52children eat and not eat anything
29:54himself
29:57now it's not it's not that's what and
30:00now the father isn't even there yes
30:02that's right that's right so that
30:05those kinds of things are what do it
30:07right
30:08social justice fallacies the Civil
30:11Rights Act of 1964 was a major factor in
30:14ending the denial of basic
30:16constitutional rights to blacks in the
30:19south
30:20but there is no point trying to make
30:22that the main source of the black rise
30:25out of poverty nor can the left act as
30:28if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
30:30solely their work a higher percentage of
30:33Republicans than Democrats voted for the
30:36ACT close quote
30:38so this is this you're saying something
30:41here which is
30:43it is it's it's shocking it's heretical
30:46yeah you're saying well you're saying
30:48the Civil Rights Act
30:50ensured equality before the law that was
30:52overdue it was necessary it was just
30:56that's an accomplishment in American
30:57history yes but
31:00at about the same time we get the
31:02creation of a vast expansion of the
31:04welfare state
31:06and it does people harm yes it harms the
31:11African-American family
31:13it leads to fatherless have I got your
31:16argument right yeah and you want to
31:18stand by that yeah the other and the
31:20other thing too it a Civil Rights Act
31:22was not what got blocks into
31:24professional occupations uh
31:27in the decade prior to the to 1964. the
31:32number of blacks and professional
31:34occupations doubles
31:36so this is not this is not the result of
31:39the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
31:42all right
31:43Tom a few uh
31:45closing questions here
31:49first of all
31:50may I read to you this is a note to
31:53readers from The New York Times in 2020.
31:55all right the Nationwide protests over
31:58racism and police violence have prompted
32:00A Renewed focus on a long-standing
32:02debate whether to capitalize
32:05the term black
32:07we here at the New York Times have
32:08talked to more than 100 staff members
32:11the feedback has been thoughtful and
32:13nuanced thoughtful and nuanced mind you
32:15and we've just started just we've
32:17decided to start using uppercase black
32:19to describe people and cultures of
32:21African origin close quote the New York
32:24Times capitalizes black
32:28but you don't Tom Soule how dare you
32:31engage in this act of Defense
32:33oh it is amazing the things that people
32:37can can focus on uh it it may seem to be
32:42a big issue to the New York Times I
32:44suspect that the people who are being uh
32:46uh murdered in these uh big cities are
32:49like New York and Chicago may have a
32:51somewhat different view of the
32:52importance of of what is capitalized and
32:55not capitalized Tom let me read a few
32:58single sentences from social justice
33:01fallacies I'll read a sentence you tell
33:03us what you meant
33:05stupid people can create problems but it
33:08often takes brilliant people to create a
33:11real catastrophe
33:13that is so my gosh think of this
33:16catastrophes of the 20th century you
33:19mentioned the genetic determinants
33:21they drew the conclusions from their
33:24reasoning that uh you had to to put an
33:28end to certain races because they they
33:31would they had what they call Eugenics
33:33but what was later called genocide and
33:36so that idea originated with the
33:38progressives uh and there was a
33:41progressive who wrote a book with that
33:42theme uh which was translated into
33:45German and Hitler called it his Bible
33:47and so this this Holocaust you draw a
33:50line from the progressive eugenesis to
33:52Adolf Hitler he drew the line he drew
33:56the line and wrote a letter of fan mail
33:58letter to to the author of that book and
34:01saying that that book was his Bible and
34:03we see what that led to uh
34:06during during the 1920s in reaction to
34:10World War II one which was so what so
34:12bad the idea arose among the
34:14intellectual Elites that the way to
34:16prevent war was to stop which was to
34:18stop arming you see and you saw
34:21disarmament was the weight of avoid a
34:23war
34:24uh no evidence made the slightest uh
34:27impression on them uh and they and they
34:30blundered the West into into a war that
34:33probably would never have happened
34:34because the the
34:36totalitarian dictatorships the start of
34:39that war were well aware that the United
34:42States Britain and France had an
34:44industrial capacity greater than theirs
34:46and you don't you wouldn't ordinarily
34:48attack countries that have greater
34:50industrial capacity than yours unless
34:53you thought that they weren't they they
34:55were gutless and were and were foolish
34:57enough not not to remain armed and for
35:00three years of that war their Axis
35:02Powers won every single battle the
35:05Western democracies lost in Europe and
35:08Asia wherever they fought
35:10uh in 1942 uh
35:13Western traditional such made a speech
35:16and we said uh we have a new experience
35:19we have Victory and when they won that
35:21victory in El Alamein and Northern
35:24Africa that was the first battle won by
35:27the Western democracies in a war that it
35:29was already three years old and from
35:32that point on especially when the United
35:34States came in and the American
35:35productive capacity was mobilized then
35:38then it turned around
35:40uh today people who are trying to say we
35:43need to disarm in order to have uh you
35:46know peace don't understand in a nuclear
35:48age you're not going to get three years
35:50to figure out what's going on you're
35:53either going to be uh ready on the first
35:56day of that war or you are going to lose
35:58it
36:00in politics the goal is not truth but
36:03votes absolutely
36:06and why does that matter
36:09oh it it it it it it it matters because
36:12uh if you can get people to believe that
36:15their problems are all due to races
36:17uh you will get their votes
36:19but if you say but if you look at the a
36:22lot of data on different things you
36:24discover that's not the case this is
36:27very doubtful if all that races in the
36:29country today have half the negative
36:32effect on blacks as the teachers unions
36:34have
36:35because the teachers unions keep the
36:38schools lousy uh in areas where where
36:43the people who send their kids to school
36:45do not have the option to send them to a
36:48private school if the schools are bad
36:50you make the point that in Harlem there
36:52are charter schools that rent space in
36:56public schools and there are tests well
36:59go ahead you know what I'm referring to
37:00yes yes yes in fact there's a school
37:04I I thought the way to figure out the uh
37:08difference between the public school and
37:10the charter school the regular public
37:11schools and Charter Schools is to
37:13compare them in the same build when they
37:16when both schools are located in the
37:18same buildings so you have comparability
37:20that's so it's the same group when you
37:22same neighborhoods same bills yeah so
37:23everything uh uh and and when you do
37:26that what I found was that uh this
37:30the uh charter school kids and these
37:33low-income black neighborhoods pass the
37:36math test at a rate more than six times
37:39as high as that of the Public School
37:42located in the very same building and
37:44the main difference between the charter
37:46school and the public school yes the
37:48public school is run by the teachers
37:50unions the charter schools do not have
37:52to have unions at all in most cases
37:55one of the most extreme examples was a
37:59school that I went to when I was in
38:00Harlem uh and in that particular school
38:03only seven percent of the regular public
38:07school kids passed the math test
38:10uh in the uh Charter School 100 past it
38:14uh uh that they proficient they have
38:18different levels proficient means you've
38:20passed and there's a level above that
38:22when you've done more than what is
38:24necessary for that uh in that particular
38:26school only two percent of this of the
38:28charter school kids scored as low as
38:31proficient the other 98 percent were in
38:34the top bracket above proficient last
38:37last question here last quotation Tom
38:41one of many things that no individual no
38:45institution and no Society has any
38:48control over is the past yes
38:52why does that matter
38:55because when we talk we talk about
38:57groups and we we talk about their
39:00environment we usually mean their
39:02tangible current surroundings but of
39:05course all the groups have had different
39:06paths
39:07uh when the when the Irish the Jews and
39:10the Italian uh immigrants were were
39:13coming to America
39:15uh it was common for Irish for for
39:18Italian and Jewish neighborhoods of New
39:20York's Lower East Side to be represented
39:22by Irish politicians
39:25and why is that because if you look at
39:28what happened before they ever got to
39:30America you can see that the Irish had
39:32reasons to organize in a political kind
39:35of way the Jews and the Italians did not
39:38their circumstances it wouldn't have
39:39made any difference and now when they
39:41get to New York they were they may be
39:43living in the same neighborhoods and so
39:45forth and the tangible surroundings are
39:46the same but the whole past of the three
39:49groups is very different and even when
39:51it's the Italians and the Jews rise to
39:54the prosperity it's in different
39:55Industries it's indifferent occupations
40:00and the past means that we should never
40:01expect groups to end up evenly
40:04distributed across the past but but even
40:07such a thing as age people don't realize
40:09some American ethnic groups are a decade
40:12older than others and some are more than
40:14two decades older than others so the
40:16Japanese the difference between blacks
40:18and white is not the largest the
40:20difference in the country the Japanese
40:22Americans have are
40:24higher than Mexican Americans but even
40:27larger amounts Japanese Americans have a
40:30median age of 52 uh Mexican Americans
40:34somewhere in the 20s 52 year old people
40:36make more money than 20 year old people
40:40Tom would you close our discussion
40:45by reading a passage
40:48from social justice fallacies
40:52oh well if I still agree with it
40:55do we want the mixture of students who
40:58are going to be trained to do Advanced
41:00Medical Research to be representative of
41:03the demographic makeup of the population
41:05as a whole
41:06or do we want
41:08students with the highest probability of
41:11finding cures for cancer and Alzheimer's
41:15do you want airline pilots chosen for
41:19demographic representation of various
41:21groups or would you prefer to fly with
41:23pilots who are chosen for their Mastery
41:26of all the complex things that increase
41:29your chances of arriving safely at your
41:31destination
41:33consequences matter or should matter
41:36more than some attractive or fashionable
41:39Theory
41:40more fundamentally do we want a society
41:43in which some babies are born into the
41:45world as Heirs of pre-packaged
41:48grievances against other babies born the
41:51same day
41:52blighting both their lives or do we want
41:55to at least leave them the option to
41:58work things out better in their lives
42:00than we have in ours
42:03Thomas Saul author of some 40 books
42:05including social justice fallacies thank
42:09you thank you
42:11for uncommon knowledge the Hoover
42:13institution and Fox Nation I'm Peter
42:15Robinson
42:16[Music]

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