In the Pixar movie Cars, the protagonist is told he must "turn right to go left." Needless to say, he ridicules the idea. It's absurd, goes against what he already "knows" to be true and is contrary to prevailing wisdom. However, he discovers that under certain conditions (a hard off-road turn) this is exactly what he has to do. The advice was counter-intuitive but the results proved it out in the end.
This is a remarkable analogy to the theme in Thomas Sowell's book The Vision of the Anointed. The planners, controllers, organizers and statists (ie: the anointed) have a prevailing vision whose rightness is its own justification, regardless of and often in spite of actual results. It represents a disconnect from reality and a denial of the fact that actions, not intentions, have consequences.
You can hear it today in the rhetoric that advocates more social programs and greater government spending, not because it works (it hasn't) but because "we know it's the right thing to do."
But just like Cars, sometimes ignoring world lessons in favor of what you "know" to be true just leads you to fly straight off a cliff.
This is a remarkable analogy to the theme in Thomas Sowell's book The Vision of the Anointed. The planners, controllers, organizers and statists (ie: the anointed) have a prevailing vision whose rightness is its own justification, regardless of and often in spite of actual results. It represents a disconnect from reality and a denial of the fact that actions, not intentions, have consequences.
You can hear it today in the rhetoric that advocates more social programs and greater government spending, not because it works (it hasn't) but because "we know it's the right thing to do."
But just like Cars, sometimes ignoring world lessons in favor of what you "know" to be true just leads you to fly straight off a cliff.
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