Briefly Reviewed: November 2024

Social Justice Fallacies

By Thomas Sowell

Publisher: Basic Books

Pages: 224

Price: $28

Review Author: Preston R. Simpson

Thomas Sowell is well known to most conservatives, having written dozens of books on economics, culture, education, and race in his long career, which is still going strong — despite his advanced age of 93 — with the publication of his newest book. Social Justice Fallacies examines the mindset and methods of those American elites who see racism as the underlying cause of the financial and academic struggles of minorities in the United States. For those familiar with Sowell’s work, the concepts and some of the data he analyzes in this book will not be new. He has discussed most of the ideas in earlier works, among them The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective (1983), Race and Culture: A World View (1994), The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (1995), The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999), and Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy (2000).

Sowell begins with a brief history of the views of English progressive thinkers in the late-18th to mid-19th century who share a certain mindset with the progressives of today. These include the notion that society should be guided, if not ruled, by an educated elite (themselves, of course); the desire to find a moral basis for the misfortunes of some groups and inequalities among groups; the desire to “dismiss critics as uninformed at best, and confused or dishonest at worst”; and the refusal to allow evidence to shape their conclusions. The bulk of the book studies this latter problem.

Progressives of the 19th and early 20th centuries believed in genetic determinism, the idea that less successful races were genetically inferior. Progressives of the present day believe the opposite: that less successful people are the victims of racism. Sowell points out that history and data have much to teach here. In the past, immigrants from Greece and Italy were classed as less bright and unable to deal with abstractions by people who seemingly forgot the contributions Greeks and Romans had made to art, architecture, language, and philosophy centuries earlier. Study of intelligence-test results of white and black soldiers during World War I revealed that, overall, blacks scored lower than whites. But when broken down by region, it turned out that blacks from Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania scored higher on the tests than whites from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Sowell observes dryly, “People’s genes do not change when they cross a state line. But some states do have better schools than others.” Furthermore, there are groups of whites in remote parts of Scotland and Britain whose IQs are similar to those of black Americans. The common feature is “isolation, whether geographic isolation or social isolation.”

As for the causes of economic differences among the races, modern social-justice advocates ascribe virtually all to racial discrimination. The problem with that conclusion, however, is the large amount of readily available data that do not fit the hypothesis. Examination of black poverty rates, for example, tells different stories depending on when one begins looking. If one begins in 1940, 20 years before the civil-rights laws and expanded social-welfare policies of the 1960s, one sees that the rate of black poverty fell dramatically (from 87 percent to 47 percent) during those two decades. It fell to 30 percent by 1970 and then leveled off by 1980. In other words, the black poverty rate showed its steepest drop before any significant government action, and it stalled with the onset of measures against racism. Furthermore, social-justice advocates almost invariably ignore Asian Americans (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians), whose average income is higher than average white Americans’ and who outscore them on intelligence tests. If racial discrimination causes black poverty, the racists have somehow overlooked Asians. In addition, according to Sowell, data from 2020 show more than nine million blacks with higher incomes than the median of whites.

Family structure is likewise overlooked or ignored. The data show that the poverty rate for married black families is noticeably lower than the rate for Americans as a whole (which includes many unmarried). Sowell poses this question: “If black family poverty is caused by ‘systemic racism,’ do racists make an exception for blacks who are married?” Families headed by single white women have a poverty rate more than double that of married black families. Sowell again: “In other words, some behavior patterns seem to pay off.” Thus, attributing to discrimination the statistical differences between the races requires one to explain away or disregard a lot of information.

Sowell has no use for affirmative action in education as a means of advancing the cause of black and Hispanic Americans. Leaving aside the question of its unfairness to other groups — notably Asian Americans, as adjudicated in a recent U.S. Supreme Court case — Sowell argues that it actually disadvantages blacks in some cases by placing them in academic settings for which they are not adequately prepared. He marshals considerable evidence that blacks with good admissions test scores, when placed in classes with students with exceptional scores and pre-college preparation, find themselves unable to keep up and either fail to graduate or drop down to less rigorous fields of study. On the other hand, black students with similar test scores who attend schools with their academic equals graduate in higher numbers and do better in later professional challenges such as the bar exam or medical-licensing tests.

Modern progressives further pursue their quest for justice through tax policy as well as attempts to control wages, prices (especially rent), interest rates, and lending policies. These elites think they know better than the people they are trying to help, but the laws passed end up hurting these latter. One of my favorite Sowell quips (although not found in this book) is: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. I am inclined to believe that hubris and self-righteousness prevent social-justice warriors from looking for the trade-offs. Sowell observes that many intellectual elites “seem to regard themselves as promoting a more democratic society, when they preempt other people’s decisions. Their conception of democracy seems to be equalization of outcomes…. That is very different from democracy as a political system, based on free choices by members of the voting public, to determine what laws and policies they want to be governed by — and which individuals they want to put in charge of the government, to administer those laws and policies.”

My only point of disagreement with Sowell is in his book’s last few pages, where he addresses what can be done by those who do not follow the social-justice vision of the elites. In essence, he says we should “get facts.” He closes with a quote from the late historian and journalist Paul Johnson: “The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” The facts are there. The problem is getting the willfully blind to look at them.

Coached by Josemaría Escrivá: Lessons in Discipleship

By Fr. John Henry Hanson, O. Praem.

Publisher: Scepter

Pages: 112

Price: $14.95

Review Author: Trent Beattie

As valuable as the writings of St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom are, I cannot help but wonder if their type of holiness is still possible today. Things have changed so monumentally since the time of these two Fathers and Doctors of the Church that sanctity almost seems to be meant for another era. Right?

St. Josemaría Escrivá could not disagree more. This Spanish priest, who flew in airplanes and died fewer than 50 years ago, made the universal call to holiness the hallmark of his life. He was only 26 when he founded Opus Dei (“Work of God” in Latin) to encourage the living out of the Catholic faith on a practical level, especially in the workplace. This way of life is needed now more than ever — even among those not included in the 95,000 souls formally associated with Opus Dei, and especially among those who are unfamiliar with its founder.

Though not an Opus Dei priest himself, John Henry Hanson, O. Praem., has assembled a little introduction to the group’s dynamic founder. Anyone unfamiliar with its subject would benefit from reading Coached by Josemaría Escrivá, but men — especially young men — would benefit most. Masculinity demands a challenge to noble action, and this is what Fr. Hanson provides. His concise, insightful, and straightforward book ends with a call to holy action. After all, what good is reading about what to do if you do not actually do it?

Before the action, however, some guiding virtues are necessary — and the most foundational is humility. Consider St. Josemaría on the Incarnation: “Think about it slowly…. He, being God, humiliated himself; man, puffed up with self-love, tries to build himself up at any cost, without recognizing that he is but a creature of clay, and poor clay at that.” Later in the book, Fr. Hanson reminds readers that “without humility as the foundation of our life in Christ, there will be no life at all. There might be external imitation, and plenty of inspiring ideals and wishful thinking in the mind of the disciple, but until we descend into the depths of our nothingness, no edifice can rise.”

Indeed, even in secular life, weakness and failure are always present or nearby. Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest tennis players ever, played with an ankle condition for several years. Despite this weakness, he has won over 1,000 matches and 92 tournaments, including a record 14 French Open singles titles. This remarkable success occurred alongside failures, as Nadal has lost over 200 matches in his career.

One match Nadal barely escaped was in 2015 against Tim Smyczek, a Catholic and fan of St. Josemaría. Though Smyczek could have gone along with a line call against Nadal that would have benefited him greatly, he placed sportsmanship above winning. In fact, St. Josemaría would say, as Fr. Hanson mentions in the book, that doing the right thing automatically equals success, even if the right thing is not immediately followed by the material results we had hoped for. Brad Soderberg, an assistant coach of men’s basketball at the University of Virginia, shares Smyczek’s appreciation for St. Josemaría — and for a foundational philosophy of play that places virtue above victory. Although a virtuous man can win games, simply being better than someone else is not the goal of play — or of life.

The purpose of life is to be united with Christ, and that means plenty of sacrifice. Fr. Hanson quotes St. Josemaría: “We are not walking with Our Lord unless we are spontaneously depriving ourselves of many things that our whims, vanity, pleasure, or self-interest clamor for.” Readers interested in overcoming selfishness and becoming strong and joyful will find Coached by Josemaría Escrivá to be an asset. This gritty, challenging book can draw souls from spiritual slumber and lead them toward holiness.

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