I think we're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional. We have kids in elementary school who are being urged to take stands on political issues, to write letters to congressmen and presidents about nuclear energy. They're not a decade old, and they're being thrown these kinds of questions that can absorb the lifetime of a very brilliant and learned man. And they're being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about. It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint, and more important to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different, and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. They disregard that. They hear something, they hear some rhetoric, and they run with it.
About This Quote
About Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell was a contemporary American economist. Thomas Sowell is an American economist, economic historian, and social theorist. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he is a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Politics — Governance, civic duty, and the structures of power