“Social visions are important in a number of ways. The most obvious is that policies based on a certain vision of the world have consequences that spread through society and reverberate across the years, or even across generations or centuries.” – A Conflict of Visions
A new and troubling entry in today’s cultural battles, drag queens parading their wares in front of small children, including infants, was probably not on anyone’s 2020 bingo card. Unfortunately, what began in underground bars, as a form of adult entertainment and a subset of gay culture, has made its way to the public square, to the chagrin of many parents. Even for the often-depraved modern progressive movement, this is one odd hill to die on. The idea of children stuffing dollars into the shorts of men dressed like women, often with silly-sized breasts hanging naked in the wind, is a mockery of female sexuality and an old stereotype long put to bed. Now, this ugly stepsister of the never-ending LGBTQ alphabet soup has compelled many states and localities to pass legislation prohibiting adult-oriented entertainment from the view of children, triggering a bizarre new culture war with seemingly no end in sight.
In Thomas Sowell’s 2002 book, “A Conflict of Visions”, Sowell details the two main competing visions, the constrained and the unconstrained, that are driving policy debates, and in turn, division in American politics. These binary philosophies are shaped by our conception of human nature with one seeing nature as set in stone, with existential constraints, causing society to act within limits, while the other sees human nature as flexible and open to constant improvement. While the constrained vision draws on history and tradition that evolved over the ages, believing that the experience of many is greater than the expertise of a few, the unconstrained opt instead for the wisdom of elites as the determining factor in providing just outcomes in an unjust world.
Sowell reveals how visions shape our thoughts and form the foundation on which theories are built. A vision is our sense of how the world works, and therefore, how we perceive problems and choose to solve them. In the constrained view, society needs morals and laws to mitigate the worst aspects of human nature. In the unconstrained view, social engineering must decide outcomes in advance, with nothing left to chance. There are no T charts in the unconstrained vision that measure the pros and cons and the costs involved. Instead, to them, outcomes are everything.
The constrained vision pairs most closely with classical liberalism and the idea that the rule of law determines the rules of the game. Power is decentralized, relying on dispersed knowledge held by many as preferable to top-down authoritarianism. Capitalism is the economic system best suited to a society where equal opportunity for all provides unequal outcomes. Thus, as the great equalizer, free enterprise allows the average man to determine his own path forward. The constrained vision also supports the idea of spontaneous order where processes, rules, and evolution of social institutions like marriage and family provide the most freedom for people to live as they wish. Merit, supported by incentives, is the foundation of the constrained vision. It should be unsurprising that the constrained vision also supports judicial restraint and originalism by interpreting the Constitution as it was originally written. As such, limited government is the political system that best avoids the abuses caused by human weakness.
The unconstrained vision, on the other hand, is most closely related to progressivism and the politics of the left, with their utopian views of a perfected society. Theirs is a system of central planning and manipulation of equal outcomes, even if that means mitigating natural differences that elevate one over another. Since they believe in a zero-sum game with winners and losers, one man’s success is another man’s failure. Therefore, they believe that forced equality is necessary to balance an unfair and unequal starting point. Unsurprisingly, the unconstrained vision abhors capitalism for its unequal results, believing that wealth must be shared regardless of who earns it. Those of the unconstrained mindset believe that poverty and unemployment are the causes of crime, and therefore, criminals are simply victims of their own circumstances. Therefore, it is the society that must be repaired, not innocent offenders. The unconstrained view supports the idea of the Constitution as a living document in need of constant revision, with the original Constitution seen as a barrier to progress and their need for an expanded government to create equal outcomes. To them, equity is more important than tradition, rules, history, and processes.
One real-life application of the dueling visions is the difference between defined contributions and defined benefits for retirement accounts. The private sector supports the idea of a 401k where individuals contribute a portion of their incomes towards retirement savings, often matched by the employer. Defined benefits, on the other hand, are often found in plans negotiated by unions, where the desired financial outcome is decided in advance, regardless of company and stock performance, leaving businesses obligated to meet impossible demands. This is a clear reflection of process versus fixed results.
As the war over the appropriateness of drag shows involving children continues to be fought, it is unlikely that either side will cede any ground. With marginalized members of an oppressed group on one side, and followers of tradition on the other, their opposing visions and longstanding views will see to it.
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