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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2010, All articles, text, web pages property of
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About
Ivan W. Parkins: Dr.
Parkins is a retired professor of Political Science from Central Michigan
University. He received his PhD from
the University of Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval
Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval
officer during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama. He is a recent widower with three
daughters, 3 grand children and 2 great grand children. Dr. Parkins has written extensively, having
authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column for many years. |
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Front Page |
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In This Issue: *Intellectuals and
Society, A review of Thomas Sowell’s book *New Americans and
Multiculturism, a reprint from issue 24, Vol. 1 in 2008 *Rebellion of
Youth, Is it Revolutionary?, a reprint from Page 9 * |
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INTELLECTUALS
AND SOCIETY A review of Thomas Sowell’s book, Intellectuals
and Society By Ivan W. Parkins Thomas
Sowell: black, ex-communist, ex-Marine, PHD in economics, professor,
columnist, author of books on a variety of subjects, and scholar in residence
of the Hoover Institution is author of INTELLECTUALS AND SOCIETY, 2009. It is, as he says, about intellectuals not
for them. He first
came to my attention with a popular article relating to causes of inequality
of incomes among social groups. The
media emphasis of the time was upon racial discrimination. Sowell pointed out that it was generally
accepted among those informed regarding income distribution, in nearly all
societies and times, that youths began work inexperienced and at low income
levels. (My wife and I had once
discussed this with a guest couple over dinner. All four of us had post-graduate degrees
and were professionally employed at middle levels. All of us had also worked for months or
years at low wage, “no future,” jobs—in my case; 20 cents per hour in
1938.) As workers acquire training and
experience most earn better incomes.
Somewhere, usually in later middle-age, people reach their highest
income level. Of course
that is typical only for large groups, individual cases may vary. But what Sowell demonstrated was that, for
groups as defined by the census, the average ages of the persons as listed in
ethnic groups explained much more of income distribution in America than the
loudly deplored discrimination did. What the census figures showed was that
Jewish people, on average, lived in older families with fewer children;
Asiatic were next; whites, divided into several national origin groups were
scattered through the middle; and Latinos, blacks and native Americans had
the highest portions of very young members found in any of the ethnic groups. INTELLECTUALS
AND SOCIETY, without devoting much attention to either health care or
President Obama, is very much relevant to our present political situation. |
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Sowell, page 2 of his book on the subject, says……….. that
“Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.” His point is that the chief product of many
intelligent people is words, and words may be almost the only product of some
people. It is not that ideas are of no
importance, but their importance depends heavily upon their relationship to
reality, and in many cases that is scant. Thus Einstein’s ideas about our
cosmos were lightly regarded at first, when their validity began to be
confirmed by the observations of astronomers and to explain phenomena not
previously understood, they became a revolutionary discovery. Einstein also had ideas about politics;
they have not done well. Some people
of high intellect produce bridges or remove brain tumors. For them whether their bridges handle the
weather and the traffic and whether their patients benefit from the surgery
are real world tests. For some
intellectuals there is almost no real world test. Their words may sound good, but they have
no applications sufficiently specific and material in nature to establish their
validity. Such people are especially
common in the writing, teaching, and advocacy professions. For several
generations, and especially in the l960s and 1970s, America has experienced a
huge growth in intellectuals of the words only type. And, they have banded together
increasingly, depending heavily upon “peer review” for authentication of
their work. But, peer review as
validation is not really much different than the group loyalty that we
deplore in teens, who are usually lacking in real world experience. Even
brilliant individuals can accumulate and comprehend only small portions of
the accumulated experience embodied in modern cultures. If the individuals rely too little upon the
experiences and viewpoints of others who are quite different from themselves,
they will, almost certainly, be wrong in much of what they do. The Youth Movement of the 1960s and 1970s,
made disregard for others, and the past, pillars of their belief, and the
youth movement grew largely from persons teaching in and enrolled in the
liberal arts, especially humanities and social sciences at our leading
universities. It gained momentum and
power from vastly expanded journalistic and legal elements in our
society. Real world experiences and
research have proven doubtful, if not invalid, a large part of the anti-war,
anti-gun, and anti-patriotic and other anathemas of intellectuals in our
recent past. “The
creation of nations out of tribes, in early modern times in Europe and in
contemporary Asia and Africa, is the work of intellectuals,” according to
distinguished scholar Edward Shils. But whatever their historic role in
various other times and places, intellectuals in Western nations today are
largely engaged in creating tribes out of nations. INTELLECTUALS AND SOCIETY,
page 305. |
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New Americans and Multiculturalism By Ivan W. Parkins One of the greatest of liberal, mainly
Democrat, changes to America in recent decades has been
multiculturalism. Regarding this and
related matters, I recommend Michael Barone’s book, THE NEW AMERICANS: HOW
THE MELTING POT CAN WORK AGAIN. Barone compares Irish immigrants during
the mid-nineteenth century with the great migration of Black Americans north
from the Old South, especially that since 1940. He also compares Italian and later Latino
immigrants, and Jews with recent Asians.
All are interesting, but the Irish/Black comparison is especially
sharp in the political lessons that it offers. Barone concludes that “race, as liberals
have wisely insisted for years, is an arbitrary category.” But, “the descendents of past immigrants
have now become deeply interwoven into the fabric of American life.” It can happen again. “There is less overt bigotry and
discrimination,” now. “The greatest
obstacle…is the American elite”; it, since the 1960s, does not promote
assimilation. He points out that in one major respect
the Irish fared much better than recent Blacks. Both came from crude and repressive
environments, poorly educated, inclined to violence and uncivil. Both also relied heavily on their own
churches. The Irish soon learned the
advantages of discipline and civility in Catholic schools; the Blacks
encountered public schools that would change to accommodate their
shortcomings. Partisanship is not emphasized by
Barone; with the 2008 election pending, it will be by me. Multiculturalism, and its implied divisions
of America, is mainly an innovation of liberal Democrats, and mainly since
the Vietnam era. It has been imposed,
or “sold,” as an example of acceptance of other cultures as equal to, and as
appropriate as, our own. Actually,
from my own experiences, it seems to be more a rejection of traditional
America and of the chief types of leadership that America has produced. Do liberal Democrats really want to
improve upon the America that we have known, or do they plan instead to
replace that with a quasi-Marxist nirvana, their own ”creation”? |
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The attached letter to the editor was
written 37 years ago in response to an article regarding prospects for
revolution. REBELLION OF YOUTH, IS IT
REVOLUTIONARY? LETTER
TO THE EDITOR, University of Chicago Magazine, Nov/Dec 1971: To The Editor: Has
the rebellion of youth really been revolutionary in nature? My question
is not meant to discredit Ralph W. Conant, whose article [“The Prospects for
Revolution,” May/June ‘71] appears to be a competent and rational summary of
events from the prevailing academic viewpoint. I aim to challenge the
rationale, which my colleagues have made conventional. Their interpretation
of youth’s rebellion is, I contend, narrow, self-serving, and
inadequate. Among other things, calling the rebellion revolutionary
suggests that it moves with the current of history. Does it? May
it not be counterrevolutionary? The counter posing
of youthful protesters and the greater part of America’s institutional
leadership need not imply that youth is free of parochial attitudes.
When Conant refers to what “youth saw” he seems to imply that the vision of
youth was especially clear, but the youths in question were much too old to
be untouched by social affectations. Thus it may have been the specific
nature of their biases, which distinguished them. Since rebellion has
been centered in our most prestigious institutions and departments of higher
learning, it is convenient for academics to believe that the rebels have been
especially perceptive. A contrary view would almost certainly raise
questions about the quality of higher education. Are protesting
students speaking with incisive candor, or do they mouth the cant of a
divergent subculture? Do they speak primarily for a movement of their
own, or as “nouveaux savants” anxious to proclaim their membership in a
privileged class whose mature members are more discrete? Are they
actually opposing conspicuous consumption, or is their education itself a
socially accepted waste? Is the depth of their concern for the rights
of disadvantaged minorities to be measured by their own testimony, or by
their inclination to mix defense of those rights with such trivia as long
hair and pot? Does the appeal of the McCarthy and Lindsay type of
leader rest upon records of service, or upon reasonable anticipation of
performance, or is it chiefly a matter of style? Questions about
student life styles and curriculum requirements, as well as those about
Communists on campus, strike me as being peripheral in significance.
The key questions have to do with the nature and role of liberal education in
a society where leisure and information are abundant. Should we
anticipate that thinking of the most creative and humane sort will “trickle
down” only from a few cultivated minds, or have the numerous and varied
people who occupy the remainder of society major contributions to make? Generation gaps and alienation are commonly
used to describe the division between youths, especially those educated in
the liberal arts departments of our leading colleges and universities, and
the political leaders and private citizens who are sometimes identified as
the silent majority. It is a crucial part of my case that, while the
latter group have made numerous concessions to reconcile protesting youth,
the protesters have utilized everything from outlandish dress and obnoxious
language to planned insults and acts of destruction to assure that the gap
remained, a gap they view as the result of an intellectual and moral lag in
the rest of society. To compromise would therefore be degrading. In March of 1968,
Senator Fulbright interrupted Secretary of State Rusk with the admonition
that the senators needed no lectures on patriotism but that they were
concerned about the “pigheadedness” which seemed to guide American policy.
Usually, men of Fulbright’s standing manage, as befits their advanced
achievements in intellectual style, to be more circumspect. The
Senator’s outburst was significant. From the protest viewpoint, the
division in America has been between the pig heads who react to conventional
symbols of patriotism and piety and those discerning individuals who perceive
and pursue humane values. That estimate of America’s social division is
now dramatized in the CBS program “All in the Family.” Television
deserves far more attention in explanations of the youth rebellion than
Conant gave to it in his article. How else could a burgeoning youth
movement have learned so quickly to identify its leaders, its issues, and its
most effective tactics? Where else have persons of liberal learning
expressed themselves so freely to such wide audiences as they have in the
news and public affairs programs of television? Freedom, especially freedom of verbal
expression, has been a major issue of the rebellion. Is a laissez faire
approach to verbal expression inherently more valid than a similar approach
to business enterprise? May not both have acquired their aura of
sanctity as political objectives of privileged groups? Does unlimited
freedom for intellectuals to attack the symbols by means of which less
articulate people communicate contribute to knowledge and communication, or
does it amount to a unilateral privilege of aggression? I suggest that
the readiness with which the more articulate professions deny that social
harm and personal injuries result from unbridled use of language is as crass
a bit of hypocrisy as any elite has ever advanced in rationalizing its own
privileges…. |