The Vision Of The Anointed: Self-Congratulation As A Basis For Social Policy

The Vision Of The Anointed: Self-Congratulation As A Basis For Social Policy

Thomas Sowell's provocative critique of liberalism's failures The Vision of the Anointed is a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and other social pathology. In this book, "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts -- and sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a whole set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites. These elites -- the anointed -- often consider themselves "thinking people," but much of what they call thinking turns out, on examination, to be rhetorical assertion, followed by evasions of mounting evidence against those assertions.Review"This is as compelling an explanation as any for the seemingly disproportionate amount of condescension and politically correct invective that emanates from the liberal side of the political spectrum toward the conservative opposition."?Scott McConnell,Wall Street Journal"As always, Sowell's analysis is well informed and displays a great deal of that increasingly uncommon quality, common sense ... In the largest sense,The Vision of the Anointed is a book about the perils of ideology -- those dazzling intellectual-moral constructions that seduce the unwary into ignoring the way the world works for the sake of dreams about the way it must."?Roger Kimball,The American Spectator"Mr. Sowell's eye is sharp, and everyone who has been up against progressive orthodoxy will find his or her own candidate for Most Annoying Liberal Kiss-Off Award."?Suzanne Garment,Washington TimesAbout the AuthorThomas Sowell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of dozens of books and the recipient of various awards, including the National Humanities Medal, presented by the President of the United States in 2003.