The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that it is a better predictor of many personal outcomes, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this separation is a source of social division within the United States.
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.
Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and reportedly expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional euphoria.
Thomas Sowell is an American economist, author and social commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. He was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2002.
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.
The Club of Rome is a nonprofit, informal organization of intellectuals and business leaders whose goal is a critical discussion of pressing global issues. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy. It consists of one hundred full members selected from current and former heads of state and government, UN administrators, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe. It stimulated considerable public attention in 1972 with the first report to the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth. Since 1 July 2008, the organization has been based in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a non-fiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme is that car manufacturers resisted the introduction of safety features, and that they were generally reluctant to spend money on improving safety. The work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.
A Conflict of Visions is a book by Thomas Sowell. It was originally published in 1987; a revised edition appeared in 2007. Sowell's opening chapter attempts to answer the question of why the same people tend to be political adversaries in issue after issue, when the issues vary enormously in subject matter and sometimes hardly seem connected to one another. The root of these conflicts, Sowell claims, are the "visions", or the intuitive feelings that people have about human nature; different visions imply radically different consequences for how they think about everything from war to justice.
Polyculturalism is an ideological approach to the consequences of intercultural engagements within a geographical area which emphasises similarities between, and the enduring interconnectedness of, groups which self-identify as distinct, thus blurring the boundaries which may be perceived by members of those groups.
In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised. This theory of consent is historically contrasted to the divine right of kings and had often been invoked against the legitimacy of colonialism. Article 21 of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government".
Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study is a 2004 nonfiction work by economist Thomas Sowell.
Knowledge and Decisions is a non-fiction book by American economist Thomas Sowell. The book was initially published in 1980 by Basic Books and reissued in 1996. Sowell analyzes social and economic knowledge and how it is transmitted through society, and how that transmission affects decision making. The book's central theme of dispersed knowledge is drawn from F.A. Hayek's article "The Use of Knowledge in Society." Hayek said that this book expanded admirably on his original concepts and made them clear to lay readers, with examples of economic activity drawn from the real world.
Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically motivated, and even contemptible human pursuits. Anti-intellectuals present themselves and are perceived as champions of common folk—populists against political and academic elitism—and tend to see educated people as a status class that dominates political discourse and higher education while being detached from the concerns of ordinary people.
Walter Edward Williams was an American economist, commentator, and academic. Williams was the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author. Known for his classical liberal and libertarian views, Williams's writings frequently appeared in Townhall, WND, and Jewish World Review. Williams was also a popular guest host of the Rush Limbaugh radio show when Limbaugh was unavailable.
Intellectuals and Society is a non-fiction book by Thomas Sowell. The book was initially published on January 5, 2010 by Basic Books.
Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass is a collection of essays written by British writer, doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple and published in book form by Ivan R. Dee in 2001. In 1994, the Manhattan Institute started publishing the contents of these essays in the City Journal magazine. They are about personal responsibility, the mentality of society as a whole and the troubles of the underclass. Dalrymple had problems in finding a British publisher to help him turn his individual essays into a collection, so he eventually turned to American companies for publication.
Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas is a book by economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell that details Sowell's assessment of the state of education in the United States.
Libertarian perspectives on affirmative action consistently coincide with the way that libertarians view the state as a coercive power. Many libertarians believe that the state should not be used as an instrument of power in enforcing what they call positive discrimination.
Jason L. Riley is an American conservative commentator and author. He is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and has appeared on the Journal Editorial Report, other Fox News programs and C-SPAN. He is Black and writes about his Black experience in America as a conservative.
Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective is a book by American economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell. It was originally published by Basic Books in 2015, with an updated version published in 2016. In the work, Sowell argues against the notion that economic equality is solely natural, and examines geographic, cultural, social, and political factors that have contributed to the wealth of groups and nations.
