Lemming Tracks: What Works, What Sounds Good

This isn't a political blog.

On the other hand, the Lemming doesn't march in lockstep with the day's intellectual fashions. More about this: "About the Lemming."

This post isn't for the sensitive or conformist reader. There'll be two more today, so skipping this one shoudn't hurt.

Still with me? You've been warned.

'It Sounded Like a Good Idea'

A thought for the day:

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good."
Thomas Sowell, Is Reality Optional? (1993)

That's from a longer excerpt:

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them."
Thomas Sowell, Is Reality Optional? (1993)

In both cases, from The Quotations Page.

The Lemming remembers the 'before' and 'after' Mr. Sowell cites. The 'good old days' weren't an idyllic time of peace, love, harmony and picket fences. They weren't just simply awful, either.

Mr. Sowell - in the Lemming's opinion - has a point.

The Lemming isn't quite as surprised that social engineers enjoyed such a long period of acceptance. They're in the same little subculture as traditional information gatekeepers. And that's another topic: "What is an Information Gatekeeper?," Another War-on-Terror Blog (August 14, 2009).

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