Jason Riley and John McWhorter — The Life and Work of Thomas Sowell

The Glenn Show

Glenn Loury

Politics, Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week John and I have something a little different for you: An interview with Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley about his recent book, Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell. We discuss Sowell's ideas, their influence, and his place within the pantheon of American (and black America), intellectuals. Among his innumerable contributions, Sowell's books—especially A Conflict of Visions, Knowledge and Decisions, and Basic Economics—are a particular focus of this wide-ranging conversation. We also get into a broader discussion about black intellectuals, conservatism, and the academy.

And don’t worry, Substack subscribers, John and I will be posting our monthly Q&A later this week. Stay tuned!

As always, I’m curious to know what you think. Let me know here and on Discord.

0:00 Intro

1:10 Comparing the legacies of Thomas Sowell and George Schuyler

5:27 Making the case for Sowell’s significance

16:55 The task of the popularizer

23:55 Why Sowell’s book A Conflict of Visions is important

31:15 The norm of inter-group disparity

40:47 What happened to Glenn’s generation of heterodox Black intellectuals?

50:12 Why it’s hard to be a conservative in academia

59:54 Where is the left-wing critique of progressive racial politics?

Links

Jason’s book, Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell

Sowell’s book, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggle

Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper's talk with Adolph Reed

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Okay, we're on the way. Welcome, Jason. How are you doing? I'm good. Good and John. Good morning. Good morning.
0:09.0	Glen Lowry here, the glint show at blockaheads.tv and at glintlawry.substac.com.
0:15.0	I'm with my conversation partner, John McWorter every other week. Glen and John, the black guys at blockaheads.tv. Hold forth here.
0:23.0	And our special guest today is Jason Reilly who writes for the Wall Street Journal and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in the author of a new book, Maverick, a biography of Thomas Sol, published by basic books.
0:39.0	And we're going to talk to Jason about his biography of Thomas Sol. So excited to be doing that with you this morning, Jason.
0:47.0	I'm excited to be here with both of you guys. You know, I've been following your work for for a long, long time and learned a lot about it. And so I'm a little intimidated, but happy to be here.
1:02.0	Well, Jason, Jason, I ask you a cool question. Sure.
1:08.0	Tom Sol, a magnificent life.
1:14.0	But tell me in terms of where the conversation with the capital C is today, especially today, would you say that his is a story of victory, a story of failure or something in between.
1:31.0	Where do you place a soul? So for example, to make a very facile comparison. And I'm not, this is not a leading question. I just, this is a real question.
1:42.0	Skyler, George Skyler, you kind of look at his trajectory, how it went.
1:46.0	In a way, you feel like it didn't work. He kind of passed away in ignominy, basically. And some of us today read him and we think, hey, wait a minute.
1:56.0	But at the time, he just went.
2:00.0	How would you situate Sol's contribution, which I think is larger than Skyler is still in terms of that perspective?
2:09.0	Well, I don't think the story is over yet, John.
2:13.0	I think that I'd like to see more people out there thinking like Sol and with a larger appreciation of his scholarship.
2:24.0	I'd like to see more than there are, but there are more than there were.
2:30.0	I think he has had an impact.
2:33.0	I hope so.
2:35.0	He's, you know, he's been skeptical. First of all, you mentioned Skyler. And I think your characterization of Skyler is largely right.
2:45.0	He had a run there from the 1920s around the 1960s and in my research for the soulbook, Skyler's name came up quite a bit, including and talking to Tom.
2:58.0	But I do think that that soul's legacy is as far larger than Skyler's. I mean, he did pretty much die in obscurity.
	...

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