Why White People LOVE Thomas Sowell | ArtiFact 59: Alex Sheremet, Dan Schneider

ArtiFact: Books, Art, Culture

Thomas Sowell has a reputation for unorthodox positions and intellectual chops, but does he deserve it? His comments on slavery, equality, freedom, and philosophical concepts are rather thin, while his claims about the public commons are hypocritical. In this video, authors and cultural critics Alex Sheremet and Dan Schneider go through some of Thomas Sowell's core beliefs, breaking down his logical fallacies, double standards, inconsistencies, and more.
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B Side topics: Quora as a hotbed for bigotry; Quora sciolism; who were the original inhabitants of Palestine; international vs. American coverage of Israel; the disappearance of Palestinian women; bad reporting on Hamas rape allegations; if an Alabama town was cordoned off like Gaza, there would be rebellion; distinguishing Jews, Israelis, and the government of Israel; anti-Semitism is the wrong term; the IDF has likely abused more Jewish women than Hamas; the Ottoman Empire had no right to sell Palestinian land; World War 3 vs. a regional conflagration; after Ukraine + Gaza, will China invade Taiwan; Alex is getting nervous about North Korea; John Fetterman wraps himself in an Israeli flag, members of Congress wear IDF uniforms on the floor; China, Vietnam, Ukraine; Dan: China has much smarter leaders than Russia & the USSR; China & the microchip wars; why America wants civil wars; why Heartland Theory seems to have won out; Zbigniew Brezinski’s conundrum; the Monroe Doctrine should be dissolved; Russia as the sick man of Europe; political legitimacy in America & abroad; the US needs drastic change; global warming proves democracy cannot respond to crisis; an even worse pandemic is coming; JN.1 variant & long COVID; the travails of blue collar labor; Alex: all pain can be solved with (unknown) physical movements; age & memory

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Background photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels.
Timestamps:

0:00 – Thomas Sowell in the grand scheme of things

1:46 – Thomas Sowell talks freedom, egalitarianism; notions of equality; growing up in poverty; the word “processes” as a scare-tactic; re-defining freedom; the “states’ rights” argument around the Civil War; does Thomas Sowell have any original ideas?

7:35 – “people have an ascribed status”; Thomas Sowell on affirmative action; Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, WEB Du Bois were all socialists; crafting polling questions; equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity; special privileges granted by government; slavery in a zero-sum game; how the rich exploit the public commons; Bill Gates depended on government services; welfare hypocrisy; libertarian arguments exempt themselves from pre-existing privileges

18:48 – a cartoon of Thomas Sowell saying cartoonish things; Thomas Sowell mislabels “cosmic justice”; Thomas Sowell’s Freudian slip; Thomas Sowell makes the worst possible boxing analogy

31:55 – Thomas Sowell vs. John Rawls; Thomas Sowell describes his great public school education; did a white teacher save Thomas Sowell’s life; Thomas Sowell’s hypocrisy; the role of teachers vs. other public servants; Thomas Sowell is not meeting his purported intellectual standards; Thomas Sowell likely benefited from de facto Affirmative Action

46:50 – is Thomas Sowell now “the mascot”?; why white people LOVE Thomas Sowell; do men lie for their ideals; Thomas Sowell’s mistakes on Vladimir Lenin; why does Thomas Sowell think he himself is not an “idealist”?

Tags: #politics #blackhistorymonth #sowell