A Conflict of Visions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Conflict of Visions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A Conflict of Visions is a book by Thomas Sowell. It was originally published in 1987; a revised edition appeared in 2007.[1] Sowell's opening chapter attempts to answer the question of why the same people tend to be political adversaries in issue after issue, when the issues vary enormously in subject matter and sometimes hardly seem connected to one another. The root of these conflicts, Sowell claims, are the "visions", or the intuitive feelings that people have about human nature; different visions imply radically different consequences for how they think about everything from war to justice.

The rest of the book describes two basic visions, the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions, which are thought to capture opposite ends of a continuum of political thought on which one can place many contemporary Westerners, in addition to their intellectual ancestors of the past few centuries.

Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate calls Sowell's explanation the best theory given to date. In this book, Pinker refers to the "constrained vision" as the "tragic vision" and the "unconstrained vision" as the "utopian vision".

The Unconstrained Vision

Sowell argues that the unconstrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially good. Those with an unconstrained vision distrust decentralized processes and are impatient with large institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe there is an ideal solution to every problem, and that compromise is never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of moving forward on the road to perfection. Sowell often refers to them as "the self anointed." Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exist some people who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.

The Constrained Vision

Sowell argues that the constrained vision relies heavily on belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man is naturally inherently self-interested, regardless of the best intentions. Those with a constrained vision prefer the systematic processes of the rule of law and experience of tradition. Compromise is essential because there are no ideal solutions, only trade-offs. Those with a constrained vision favor solid empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the constrained vision demands checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest.^[3]

***

AND NOW...

THE 

INFAMOUS "LARGER THAN LIFE" CROSS 

WITH 

IT'S "NON-SENSICAL" WRITING!

"HIS IS HEARING IMPAIRED.  

PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION HE CAN BE VERBALLY AGGRESSIVE."

~(BOBBY B. RASULNIA)~

JAMES WAGNER THE HIGH PRIORITY PRESBYTERIAN  ELDER PRESIDENT OF SECULAR METHODIST EMORY UNIVERSITY  VS.  BOBBY B. RASULNIA  JUST A NORMAL PRIORITY USELESS GREEN ACRE FAGGOT'S IRANIAN URANIUM ENRICHMENT CONCUBINE 

 HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!

FOLLOWED BY THEIR ...
FIVE(?)ADDITIONAL(?)COMPLAINTS

THE HOSEA JOKE BETWEEN ME AND HER HUSBAND BOB

(just another pernicious prevaricating cunt actually)

FOLLOWED BY...

THE

EMORY RUB-Ah-DUB-DUB THREE(?)MEN IN A TUB

Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub. 

And who do you think were there?

               ` The butcher,                           the baker,                             the candlestick maker, 

and all jumped out of a rotten potater. 

It was enough to make a man stare.'

A Time for Courageous Universities

James W. Wagner

Emory University

Address to the National Press Club

25 April 2007

Good morning to all of you, and thank you for joining us on this first “Emory Day

at the National Press Club.” I must say—not only to the Emory alumni who are

present but also to those of you in the Fourth Estate—that my colleagues on the

faculty and in the administration who have traveled here to be part of the panel

discussions later in the morning are among the most committed, the most

passionate, indeed, the most courageous scholars and teachers in the country.

Whether their vocation is to forge a new and more deeply humane understanding

of the many “voices of Islam,” or to extend health care to the millions of

uninsured, or to expand the political franchise and rights of minorities and

women—these are distinguished scholars whose work will repay your attention.

I’m very proud to be able to share this day with them.

Of course all of us come to a discussion of higher education still very

much affected by the events of last week in Blacksburg, Virginia. Our prayers

and thoughts continue to be with the families of those who died and with the

community of Virginia Tech.

If we needed a reminder that the university is not an ivory tower, nothing could

have demonstrated that fact more terribly, more horrifically, than those hours on

the Virginia Tech campus, when the university as a microcosm of our society wason display. I want to say more about this in a few minutes. But first let me say

something about our purpose for being here.

We have come here, in part, to dispel a myth or two about Emory. A

university that does not play Division I basketball or football finds it hard to be

noticed in our infotainment culture.

Although Emory is known in many quarters as “Coca-Cola U” – and although we

remain indelibly proud of the cola-generated Candler and Woodruff legacies that

have been so momentous for us — Emory now competes on a national, and

indeed, a global stage for talent and resources. Our admissions program is

among the most selective in the country, admitting only one-quarter of all

applicants this year, to the celebration and sometimes consternation of many a

loyal friend and alumnus; our degree programs rank internationally among the

best, elevating the stature of the whole as the parts become stronger and

stronger.

Among the aspirations to which we call ourselves in our vision statement

is the call for Emory to become a destination university. Supporting that

aspiration is that fact that our home city is a flourishing base, a destination itself

growing (in the last 6 years) faster than any other metro area in the country, and

offering strong partnerships and collaborations with the likes of CARE, the

American Cancer Society, and the CDC. All of these things provide benchmarks 

by which we can track the progress that Emory has made in the past three

decades to find its place among the top twenty universities in America.

In addition to getting the facts straight about Emory, we have come here,

in part also, to show off this constellation of stars — just a dozen who will have to

stand today for many hundreds of others. We have left behind wonderful

scholars who have made great impact – people like Dennis Liotta who is

committed to drug discovery and was the co-inventor (along with his colleague

Ray Schinazi) of the most widely-prescribed retroviral drug to control the ravages

of HIV/AIDS. And people like Frans de Waal, who, owing to his work on nonprimate

behavior, Time Magazine has just identified as one of America’s top 100

interesting people. Or people like Harriet Robinson, who is leading human trials

of a potential HIV vaccine. Or people Like Natasha Trethewey who just last

week was awarded a Pulitzer prize for her poetry. But the faculty that are here

will give you a good flavor of the caliber of engaged scholarship that is so evident

on Emory’s campus.

As a research university we work at the usual things that all American

universities are up to—expanding the frontiers of knowledge, slaying ignorance,

discovering cures for disease, and, of course, finding places for people to park.

With the exception of finding parking space, perhaps, all of these other things,

related to academic achievement, are in some ways the easiest things we do.

But although academic enrichment is a very important part of the work of a

leading university, our world needs universities that can play a still more critical

role. That role is to provide a forum where people who disagree violently can do

so without actually resorting to violence. That role is one that requires courage,

because the more fully we embrace it, the more profoundly we are opened to

internal dissension and external criticism. It is a role not being played adequately

by any other institution in our increasingly fractious society. And it is about that

role – that risky role that requires such courage - that I wish to commit the

remainder of my remarks.

You here today don’t need me to tell you what kind of world we live in.

Those of you in the media report on it every day. And the rest of us —who rely on

you professionals to give us fuller insight into our world—also know first-hand

that American civic life has grown harsh. It’s not quite the Hobbesian state of

nature, where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But we may

sometimes fear that we’re devolving to that. We probably can’t (and mustn’t)

blame it on the Internet, television, talk radio. No, most of these are, in the truest

sense, mere media – conduits – for ideas and movements that would find other

means of expression even if electronic communications did not exist. It’s simply

that we live in a contentious and often polarized world. Many who work as

researchers and teachers in universities are prone to vilification or worse, from

true believers of the left and right – from those who oppose the use of animals to

test new drugs or vaccines, no matter how many years of human life they might

redeem from pain or death; from those who oppose research-driven state

policies requiring the use of seatbelts or the use of vaccines to prevent diseases

in children; or for that matter, from those who contest the teaching of evolutionary

theory, a foundation stone of the modern life sciences. The list could go on and

on in considerable detail, reminding us all of the unexpected way, at this late date

in the history of the West, that science and reason themselves have become

subjects of controversy. If you have former friends who now keep a distance

because of political disagreement, changes in religious belief or practice,

or contention over the way to raise children—well, you can count yourselves part

of what seems to be a growing club.

All of us are familiar with the famous line attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald,

that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in

mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Less famously,

Conor Cruise O’Brien (contributing editor to The Atlantic magazine) described an

intellectual as “someone who is prepared to admit when another has made a

point in a debate.”

On both counts it’s fair to wonder whether our society has lost some of its

capacity for instilling—or at least requiring—this kind of intellectual

capaciousness, this (perhaps uniquely human but too often underemployed)

ability to experience or understand life from another person’s perspective. Can

you imagine the talking heads on some of the cable TV channels and AM radio

stations pausing in the middle of their heated exchanges and saying, “You know,

Bill, or you know Sean, or you know, Tim – I think you have a point there.” It

doesn’t happen, or at least it doesn’t happen often. We are a society

increasingly trained to hold on like bulldogs to a narrow way of viewing things.

Perhaps it is in our sense of surety, founded or unfounded, that we find comfort.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean. Passing through an airport I noticed

in a shop a miniature glass globe, a biosphere, containing a half-dozen live red

shrimp and a stalk of an underwater plant. This air-tight, water-filled container

creates a perfect, self-contained environment: the seaweed produces oxygen for

the shrimp, which in turn produce carbon-dioxide for the plant and “groom” it by

eating microalgae off it. These biospheres require nothing further—no need to

add water, air, food, plants, or anything else. You can put it on your desk and

forget about it.

Most of us have encountered persons or communities who would like to

exist in a similar kind of “bubble.” Sure, they go about life in the real world of work

and play, but they would prefer not to have to upset the perfectly comfortable

balance of thought in their mental framework. They would prefer that no new

ideas enter their self-consistent belief system, and that no new mental (or moral)

energy be required of them. Presumably, this is the “foolish consistency” about

which Emerson warned us.

In more modern parlance, people who exercise such foolish consistency

could be described as “fundamentalists,” (exercising comfortable self-consistent

fundamentalism) except that that term tends to have a particularly religious

connotation for many of us these days. But fundamentalisms come in various

stripes.

Consider the political fundamentalist. A study published by Emory

Professor of Psychology Drew Westen, who will talk on one of the panels here

today, demonstrates that after voters make up their mind about a political

candidate, rational activity stops. The brain processes new information in a way

that reinforces positive emotions toward a preferred candidate, while tuning out

information that threatens this positive response. In other words, we resist being

disturbed by facts from outside our bubbles. “My mind is made up—don’t confuse

me with the facts.”

Indeed, the characteristics we normally find in religious fundamentalism—

rigidity of belief, intolerance of alternative practices, and personal derogation of

those who are different—some would say apply to American political life as well.

A fundamentalist mindset leads to the dangers of excluding and even demonizing

those who disagree with us. I could name examples on either end of the political

spectrum and in almost all areas of intellectual endeavor (science, philosophy,

law, business, even health and healing, but you know them as well as I do.

Universities have sometimes been accused of practicing our own form of

fundamentalism. They have not always offered a welcome place for wrestling

with religious faith, for example. On the one extreme - At some colleges and

universities, faculty and students must toe a certain line defined by dogma—so

that scholarship is not so much informed by faith as determined by it. At the other

extreme - At most research universities, I’m afraid, faith is set aside as a

charming anachronism, and religion is viewed through the lens of dispassionate

objectivity, if it is permitted to be discussed at all.

Both of these models ignore the capacity of human intelligence to believe

one thing while passionately examining its opposite. Both also diminish the vital

need for persons of differing perspectives to understand each other’s intellectual

constructs.

Given our human tendencies to grasp tenaciously to our opinions and to

seek the comfort of foolish consistency, one begins to appreciate more clearly

the essential and distinctive role of the university to create habitats where we are

safe, but where it is also impossible for us merely to exist like shrimp in a bubble,

instead of truly living where it is impossible merely to exist without being

challenged also to live. The business of a university is to set us free from our

self-centered universe, to enable us to perceive the world from others’

perspectives, and to empower us to make a positive impact on society. Let me

repeat. The true purpose of the university is to lead us out of our self-centered

universes to a place where we can gain insight, not merely information; The

university mission is as much about gaining wisdom as about gaining knowledge.

But how does the exercise of that mission get carried on a university

campus? Well, for Emory, consider what Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman

Rushdie, the Dalai Lama, and former President Jimmy Carter have in common—

besides, as you may have heard, their acceptance of faculty appointments to

teach Emory students. Beside their Emory connections, the other thing they

share is a commitment to precipitating and engaging in what some have called

impossible conversations. By “impossible conversations” I mean those

conversations people tend NOT to engage in because of the discomfort caused

by political differences, religious dogmatism, or the deep-seated prejudices that

attach to race, gender, and sexuality, because such conversations risk scratching

the glass bubbles of our self-contained, self-consistent belief systems. It’s easier

to cut off conversation than to cut through the knottiness of some issues. It’s

certainly easier to walk away than to walk beside someone whose views we

violently oppose.

The lasting contribution of the university tradition lies in its dedication to

fostering – indeed, to requiring -- such “impossible conversations.” - a

requirement along with the thirst for intellectual diversity that allows us to view

the world from other’s perspectives. Now, engaging in impossible conversations

does not mean that we have to find resolution to every problem; but it does mean

that we do have to engage. Such engagement rarely happens outside of

universities. As we have discussed already, it cannot happen on certain TV

programs and AM radio shows. It does not happen, except by accident, in the

well of the U.S. House or Senate, or in the halls of the United Nations, or in any

other political venue where rhetoric is employed instrumentally, for political ends,

and where what passes for debate is not genuine debate, and when the rules

often are invoked to stop debate rather than enhance it. It often does not happen

in our religious communities, which more frequently take the path of schism than

resolution. Such impossible conversations sometimes do not even happen

among some married couples or in some families.

Only the university is required by its mission to take pains to set the stage

and define the rules for fair and honest engagement over issues of great

moment. Only at a university can discussion be moderated so that all sides have

an opportunity to be heard. Perhaps it is owing to this reputation and expectation

for inquiry and objectivity that our presidential debates in America are held on

university campuses. Universities also insist on non-violence - that those who

wish to speak leave aside hate speech and ad hominem attacks, and couch their

ideas in language that assures that people will want to listen - that even deeply

offensive ideas can be discussed without offending people.

This sounds like a noble aim and it is at the root of the distinction between

academic freedom and freedom of speech, but the process can be messy and

unpleasant. And sometimes it opens universities to public scorn. Think of the

barrage of protest launched at universities in the 1980s and 1990s when they

tried to establish codes by which to define civil discourse. Hate speech, carefully

defined, was to be avoided; threats against persons on the basis of race, gender,

ethnicity, or religion were ruled out of bounds. The aim was to promote the kind

of community where people could trust that they could in fact articulate

outrageous ideas without suggesting that their opponents should die, and could

in fact be protected from such threats themselves.

Critics of both the left and the right came down hard on these universities,

denouncing as “PC” the kind of self-definition that these communities attempted.

What these critics missed was that universities are in fact engaged in a worthy

kind of PC – not the “political correctness” that has been the bogeyman of so

many commentators, but rather, PC as a kind of “passionate civility.” Universities

must have the courage to EN-courage their faculty members and students to

engage passionately with the ideas that excite them, but to do so civilly—with

respect for the persons who espouse those ideas.

One of the prouder, recent moments at Emory occurred in February, when

the University community gathered in our Glenn Auditorium to talk about

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, President Jimmy Carter’s controversial book.

(For those of you who may not be aware of or have read the former president’s

book, it presents an argument – as an attorney might – assembling and

connecting facts and events, which conclude that the principal barrier to the

peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians lies with the policies and

practices of the Israeli state. As you can imagine, this conclusion has been

offensive to some.) President Carter’s talk, however, was an exercise in

passionate civility and a commitment to begin holding one of those impossible

conversations. Some members of the Emory community felt the need to hold

one of their own community members accountable. Carter, in turn, wanted to

explain his position more fully within the University family. The intense but civil

and courteous discourse that ensued was a model for what our universities and

indeed our civilization should seek. The audience of students, faculty, and staff

members—many of whom disagreed violently with Carter’s perspective—did

what a university (and perhaps only a university) does best: it practiced a

passionate but nonviolent way of engaging respectfully, honestly, and

purposefully while trying to understand complex truth.

I do not know whether anyone’s opinions were changed on that day by

President Carter’s words. But I do believe that some minds were changed by

participating in the process. They were made stronger, more open, more nimble,

more capable of understanding, through the practice of impossible

conversations. And that particular conversation continues at Emory, bringing into

the conversation voices from on-campus and off with various perspectives.

And here is another example, made all the more current and necessary by

the recent flap over Don Imus. For the past two years, and for the next three

years as well, Emory is engaged in something we call the Transforming

Community Project—an effort to engage everyone in our university community,

from faculty and students to administrative assistants and groundskeepers and

alumni and lab technicians, in probing conversations about race in our institution.

Like every other university founded in the South before the Civil War, Emory has

slavery in its past. Like every other institution in America, Emory is made up of

people who often have a difficult time talking frankly with each other about race,

especially across racial lines. Emory is one of only several dozen colleges and

universities in the country—out of more than 700 that applied—to be awarded

grants by the Ford Foundation through its Difficult Dialogues program to carry out

this project. In fact we at Emory believe so much in the necessity and likely

positive outcome of the project, that we are investing more than $2 million of our

own funds in seeing it through. We want to transform our community, and in the

process we hope to model the way for other American communities to be

transformed. We want this so much that we are willing to risk failure in the

attempt. And risk, after all, is the necessary dark side of courage.

This particular notion of institutional courage can be deepened and

extended, though. There’s a special courage required to continue as a university

“family,” so-called. Although the bonds of the biological family don’t exist, the

courageous university community adopts the practices of healthy families – at

least in the following way. The faculty members who vehemently dispute each

other’s arguments—as several of Emory’s professors have disputed President
Carter’s—are willing to engage passionately in the debate while remaining in
community with each other. Just as Emory will not sever its ties with the Carter
Center, as some have urged, neither will Carter’s fiercest faculty critics sever
their own ties with Emory - aggrieved as they may be. To me this is the special
quality of universities, and the particular reason why we can and must have
courage. We must give harbor to the unpopular but well-argued, the marginal but
potentially fruitful believing that in the fullness of time, some of those unlikely or
unwelcome ideas, just one or two of those uncomfortable critics, may be the very
ones in whom we find new meaning and hope.

Now I can hear your skepticism: Sure, you say, this is easy in a university
“family” After all, tenured professors can to go at each other hammer-and-tongs
in the safety of their cloistered campuses, where nothing much is at stake, and
where the work of Classics scholars, lab-rat feeders, and sentence diagrammers
in freshman English courses has little or no impact on the lives of long-haul
truckers, low-income single mothers, Wall Streeters, or our fellow human beings
who suffer misery, war, and environmental degradation in places like Darfur,
Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Come on, I hear you say, what courage is necessary
when your job is guaranteed except in the event of proven malfeasance, moral
turpitude, or failure to show up?

It may be that our image of the academy is still informed too much by
stereotypic images of the sixties: long-haired philosophers in bell-bottoms and
denim vests seeking to appear relevant to their young charges in the SDS.

Let me offer another image a counter-image, a real image, in fact: It is the
image of a middle-aged historian in a business suit, lecturing to a packed hall of
250 with the Internet transmitting his every syllable to a dozen other campuses
around the country, recounting with considerable detail and passion why he has
broken with a former U.S. President, a friend and colleague of a quarter-century’s
standing, over the critical differences in their shared devotion to the achievement
of peace in the Middle East. That image, of course, is of Professor of History Ken
Stein, earlier this month at Emory, continuing the riveting “impossible
conversation” that has engaged so many on our campus since President Carter’s
publication of his controversial book. This is courage – to continue the
conversation, to stay involved, to talk but also to listen, to respond.

The Great Seal of the State of Georgia, which Emory of course calls
home, displays the state’s motto: “Wisdom, Justice, Moderation.” Interestingly,
these are three of the four cardinal virtues identified by Aristotle, three of the four
great virtues on which all the rest of moral life depends. What’s the fourth virtue,
the one missing from the seal? Well actually, it is the one that Aristotle identified
as the first and it is a virtue to which we have referred several times: Courage.

Aristotle, in some ways the “Father of Ethics,” points out that “Courage is the first 1
of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees the others.” Wisdom
and justice—even the discipline of moderation necessary to avoid the extremes
of passion—will not last without courage. As you observe the progress and
achievements of Emory, and other research universities, we do of course want
you to be cognizant of our achievements – our Nobels and Pulitzers and Rhodes
scholarships, our grants and contracts, our patents and cures. But also look at us
through the frame of PC – of passionate civility. Are we passionate – do we
care? Do we care deeply and profoundly about the antagonisms and needs of
our world? And do we care civilly – with respect for persons, with nonviolent
debate at a time of violent disagreement? Are we hosting and even insisting
upon impossible conversation over such matters a Palestinian - Israeli conflict,
about race and difference, about campus security, about stem cell research,
about religions and the human spirit, about shifting political tectonics, about the
future and affordability of health care. If so, that is the PC test – the test that
shows whether we have not only passionate civility but the practical courage -
that you have every right to expect of Emory, and of every university worthy of
the name.

Thank you very much. 

 

The King has sent his daughter
To fetch a pail of water
Achoo! Achoo!

We all fall down! 

'Ashes on the water, 

ashes on the Sea, 

we all jump up 

with a one, two, three!"

"THE SAME AS THE OCEANS WERE OUR FIRST HOME...

THE SAME THEY WILL BE OUR LAST HOME."

TAO~g(SENTIENT PUDDLE OF ALL SENTIENT PUDDLES)d~OG