The Arrogance of the Anointed

Review of The Vision of the Anointed, by Thomas Sowell; Reprinted from Issues & Views, Fall/Winter 1996

"The days of the dole in our country are numbered." Can you believe that these words were spoken by President Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, as he revved up the engine to put the "War on Poverty" into action? It now seems hard to believe that the trillions of dollars earmarked to expand "services" to the poor were designed to eliminate the future need for welfare and, ultimately, to reduce dependence on the dole.

Harder to believe is the fact that when, early on, evidence began to show the disaster that welfare was turning into, as it tended to increase the numbers of dependents, this information was ignored. Actually, even earlier than that, statistics made clear that the number of poor had been decreasing in the decade before the 1960s. But this kind of information was in conflict with the prevailing vision which tolerated only one way of looking at the programs created by the welfare state.

It is this arrogant approach to public issues that Thomas Sowell examines in his book, The Vision of the Anointed. The "anointed" are those liberal intellectuals and political elites who have shaped social policy for the past several decades and who set the standard by which the rest of us must live. In general, these elites do not seek reality as a foundation for policy making; instead their quest is for a "vision," which comes wrapped in a particular set of assumptions. Why is this?

Because a vision offers what Sowell calls a "special state of grace" for those who believe in it. In fact, a vision just has to be believed in. Nothing need be proven, when it comes to the soundness of the vision. Those who accept the vision are deemed to be morally on a higher plane than those who do not. Therefore, those who oppose expanded anti-poverty programs, for example, are not considered to be merely in error, but in sin. They do not exist on the moral high ground as do the anointed.

Sowell offers dozens of examples of obstinacy in maintaining certain policies, long after the programs generated by such policies have proven wrong and often, even destructive. Despite initial claims that bigger and better welfare programs would help more people become self-sufficient, the very opposite happened. The number of people receiving public assistance more than doubled from 1960 to 1977.

But did this stunning fact move the anointed to acknowledge failure? Indeed, it did not. Instead, politicians and media proponents of these failed programs simply redefined the original goals, while demanding moral merit for their good intentions. Sowell writes, "In short, no matter what happens, the vision of the anointed always succeeds. Evidence becomes irrelevant."

Sex Crusaders

The crusaders for sex education to be spread throughout public schools and other channels gathered steam in the 1960s. The federal government greatly expanded its own expenditures on sex education and so-called family planning clinics (a strange name for centers supposedly established to prevent pregnancy among the young), and mandated that states promote these programs as well. Sex education was depicted as a way to combat illegitimacy and venereal disease. Organizations like Planned Parenthood reported on a supposed "crisis" among the young.

So, what are the facts? Sowell shows that before the "sex educators" came on the scene, fertility rates among teenage girls had actually been declining for more than a decade since 1957. The rate of infection for gonorrhea declined every year from 1950 through 1959, and the rate of syphilis infection was, by 1960, less than half of what it had been in 1950. These were the facts of the "crisis." Critics had opposed these programs on the grounds of common sense, claiming that sex education would lead to more sexual activity, not less, and to more teenage pregnancy.

And the results? As sex education programs spread, between 1970 and 1984 birth rates rose 29% among unmarried 15- to 17-year-old girls. There was a massive increase in abortions, which more than doubled during the same period. Among girls under 15, the number of abortions surpassed the number of live births by 1974. The percentage of unmarried teenage girls who had engaged in sex was higher at every age from 15 through 19 by 1976, than it was just five years earlier. The rate of teenage gonorrhea tripled between 1956 and 1975.

And what was the response to this shocking and truly tragic turn of events? The advocates of sex education simply beefed up their crusade. In spite of mounting evidence, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the leading promoter of sex education, continued to proclaim the value of sex education and school-based clinics. Opposition to sex education continued to be dismissed as a "simplistic view," the anointed’s favorite putdown of their opponents.

And on and on it goes. Sowell describes one fiasco after another, each of which brought about exactly the opposite result than that promised—in criminal justice, on racial policies, in policies on the "homeless," etc.

Sowell suggests great frustration on the part of those who oppose the anointed’s policies, because the prevailing liberal vision totally permeates all the country’s major institutions—the media, academia, and the religious community. The saturation is to such an extent that many people grow to adulthood unaware that there is any other way of looking at things. Opponents of the prevailing vision are generally depicted as "benighted" through the publications and media outreach of mainstream institutions.

Denigrating the Masses

Sowell cites the tendency of the anointed to denigrate the masses, to destroy the myths and "illusions" which they presume abound among the public. Patriotism is viewed as one of their prime targets. During the recent controversy over a Smithsonian Institution exhibit on an outstanding American World War II fighter plane, a Smithsonian official, in a memorandum, warned his staff members that the exhibit should avoid an "overly heroic/patriotic tone." Those who objected to this and other examples of downplaying American achievements were dismissed as people who preferred "fantasies."

The Smithsonian’s own view of its mission was that it should "tell visitors immediately what we are about and how we’d like them [the public] to change." To these anointed, writes Sowell, the purpose of a taxpayer-supported institution is to express the ideologies of those who run it and to brainwash the visiting public with their particular vision.

Ordinary people are never viewed as autonomous decision makers. Instead, the family is seen only as a recipient institution for government largesse or guidance. Sowell claims that since the autonomy of the traditional family is incompatible with the fundamental goals of the anointed, the family is inherently an obstacle. It is the family that stands in the way of schemes for central control of social processes, which is at the heart of the anointed’s vision.

When it comes to divisiveness, the anointed apply the concept of polarization not to themselves, but to their opponents. Whether they are pushing mandatory busing of schoolchildren, or forcing the issue of homosexuals in the military, these are not thought of by the anointed as polarization which they are creating. It is only others who object to the anointed’s pet crusades who are said to be creating polarization. Sowell says that an ominous consequence in such attitudes is that there is no logical stopping place in creating polarizations that may tear a society apart, or lead to a backlash that can sweep aside the basic institutions of a free society.

Quoting the wisdom of historians Will and Ariel Durant, Sowell might also be offering the sum of his reasoned vision as well:

Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.

The Vision of the Anointed is in bookstores and is sold by Laissez Faire Books (800) 326-0996; http://www.laissezfaire.org.

Copyright © 2001 Issues & Views