Letters To A Young Conservative (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
I greatly value Mr. D'Souza's logical arguments against liberalism (and agree with most of those arguments), but he often lets his religious beliefs taint his thinking (gay marriage). Here were some memorable pieces that I thought either humorous or thought provoking:"There is some overlap in the moral vocabulary that liberals and conservatives use. Both speak of 'equality,' although they mean different things by the term. Conservatives emphasize the equality of rights and they are quite willing to endure inequalities that are the product of differential capacity or merit. Liberals emphasize the equality of outcomes, and they tend to attribute inequality to the unequal opportunities that have been provided by society.""I was also troubled by the radicalism of the feminist professors on campus. These women made statements to the effect that all males were potential rapists. One professor said she could barely walk around the Dartmouth campus because the tall tower of Baker Library upset her so deeply. To her, the tall buildings at Dartmouth were "phallic symbols." I swear, this woman's definition of a phallic symbol was anything taller than it was wide. And because these women were famous for bringing their politics into the classroom, your grade was likely to suffer if you didn't agree with them.""[The government's] power of coercion, which is inherent in the nature of government, fundamentally undermines the liberal claim that the government is doing a moral thing by helping people.t“Let me show you why this is so. I am walking down the street, eating a sandwich, when I am approached by a hungry man. He wants to share my sandwich. Now if I give him the sandwich, I have done a good deed, and I feel good about it. The hungry man is grateful, and even if he cannot repay me for my kindness, possibly he will try to help someone else when he has the chance. So this is a transaction that benefits the giver as well as the receiver. But see what happens when the government gets involved. The government takes my sandwich from me by force. Consequently, I am a reluctant giver. The government then bestows my sandwich upon the hungry man. Instead of showing me gratitude, however, the man feels entitled to this benefit. In other words, the involvement of the state has utterly stripped the transaction of its moral value, even though the result is exactly the same.”“I have a friend in India who has been trying to move to the United States for years, but he can’t seem to get a visa. Finally, I ask him, ‘Why are you so eager to come to America?’ He replied, ‘Because I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat.’”“I continue to be surprised by the rapid rate at which technology spreads from the affluent class to the general population. We have seen this with VCRs, with computers, with cell phones. During the 1980’s, cell phones were mainly used by yuppies driving expensive cars. They were a status symbol whose social prestige derived from their relative scarcity. Today, cell phones are ubiquitous at every socioeconomic level and their status value is down to nil.“The liberal realist (admittedly a thinly populated group) may admit all this, and yet insist that technological capitalism creates scandalous levels of inequality. In the short term, this is sometimes so. In the long term, however, technological capitalism is a powerful vehicle for promoting equality. This is not widely recognized, so permit me to explain.“A hundred years ago, the rich man drove a car and the poor man walked. That was a big difference. Today, the rich man drives a new Porsche and the poor man drives a second-hand Honda Civic. That is not such a big difference. A century ago, rich families avoided the cold weather by going to Florida for the winter. Meanwhile, poor families braved the elements. Today, most families, whatever their economic status, enjoy central heating; but the poor have benefited more from this invention because it has alleviated a situation from which they previously had no escape.“Perhaps the best illustration of the egalitarian effects of techno-capitalism can be shown by life expectancy statistics. In 1900, the life expectancy in America was roughly fifty years. Rich people lived to the age of sixty, while poor people on average died at the age of forty-five. There was a fifteen-year gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. Today, life expectancy in America has climbed to seventy-eight years. The rich guy lives to the age of eighty, while the poor guy drops at the age of seventy-six. This is still a gap – four years – but it is vastly smaller than the fifteen-year gap of a century ago. And what has closed the gap? Advances in medicine, in nutrition, in crop yields, and so on.“My conclusion? Technological capitalism has done more to raise the general standard of living, and to equalize the circumstances of rich and poor, than all the government and philanthropic programs put together. This fact severely undermines the liberal view that aggressive government redistribution is needed to prevent growing and enduring inequality.”“Don’t affirmative action policies fight discrimination? No. Consider two virtually identical scenarios. A white guy and a black guy apply for a position. The black guy is better qualified; the white guy gets the position. That’s racial discrimination. Here is the second scenario. A white guy and a black guy apply for a position. The white guy is better qualified; the black guy gets the position. That’s affirmative action. Now, in what sense is the second result a remedy for the first? It is not. All I see are two instances of racial discrimination.”“How does affirmative action hurt blacks? African Americans face two serious problems in America today. The first is ‘rumors of inferiority.’ Many people don’t like Koreans or Pakistanis, but hardly anyone considers these people inferior. With blacks, however, there remains a widespread suspicion that they might be intellectually inferior. Far from dispelling this suspicion, affirmative action strengthens it. Affirmative action conveys the message to society that ‘this group is incapable of making it on its own merits.’ Racial preferences are a sort of Special Olympics for African Americans. Such preferences devalue black achievement, and they intensify doubts about black capacity. The second problem facing African Americans is cultural breakdown…”“One reason liberals support political correctness is that they believe stern social controls are needed to prevent insensitivity and bigotry because those things gravely injure the self-esteem of women and minorities. So, too, many liberals don’t like standardized tests because some people do better on those tests than others, and liberals worry that poorly performing students may suffer blows to their self-esteem… Self-esteem is a very American concept and Americans, perhaps more than anyone else in the world, tend to believe that feeling good about yourself is an essential prerequisite to performing to the best of your ability… In a democratic society, self-esteem is claimed as an entitlement. Self-esteem in the West is largely a product of the romantic movement, which exalts feelings over reason, the subjective over the objective… But does stronger self-esteem make students learn better? This seems dubious. Institutions such as the Jesuits and the U. S. Marines have for generations produced impressive intellectual and motivational results by undermining the self-esteem of recruits… Several years ago, a group called the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem conducted a study to explore the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance. The study found, to its own evident chagrin, that higher self-esteem does not produce better intellectual performance. Nor does it produce more desirable social outcomes, such as lower teen pregnancy or reduced delinquency… Consistently, American students score higher on self-esteem. Yet on actual reading and math tests, American students perform near the bottom. Similarly, within the United States, black males have the highest self-esteem of any group. Yet on academic measures black males score the lowest… None of this is to suggest that the research on self-esteem shows no relationship between self-confidence and academic performance. There is a relationship, but it runs in the opposite direction. Self-esteem doesn’t produce enhanced achievement, but achievement produces enhanced self-esteem… [So] when I study hard, discover the meaning of a poem, find the amoeba under the microscope, see my way through a difficult math problem, then I feel exhilarated, and my self-esteem is justly strengthened.”“Despite his disgraceful personal conduct, Bill Clinton was not a bad president. He fought for a landmark free trade agreement, signed welfare reform, and moved the Democratic Party to the political center.”
Funny and entertaining advice on how to remain a conservative in the looney left indoctrination camps we call colleges. D'Souza is a bright guy who adds a touch of humor to what it means to be a conservative.He suggests that conservatives fight against "political correctness", which is actually an attempt at thought control. Certain supposedly elite schools actually made it a punishable offense to laugh at someone. They called it "inappropriately directed laughter". D'Souza suggests that people fight this nonsense by exposing the intellectual emptiness of many liberal positions. He recommends publishing a journal entitled "Feminist Thought" full of nothing but blank pages. He also recommends putting a Maya Angelou poem in the middle of a bunch of drivel to see if anyone can tell the difference. There was a discussion in the late 80's about whether or not those with AIDS should be forced to wear some sort of identification to try to slow the spread of the deadly disease. The Dartmouth Review, a conservative student newspaper, took suggestions as to what the identification should be. One conservative professor recommended they get their butts tattooed with the words from the sign above Dante's gate to hell in The Inferno: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. Hilarious!
What do You think about Letters To A Young Conservative (2005)?
I think I adore this man, but I also find parts of him so angry and a bit repulsive. But, as a scholar and American supporter, he has my utmost gratitude. If I had the opportunity to shake his hand, there is a small chance, I would fall at his feet and bathe them with my tears. I also think I would like to feed him lunch and possibly mother him to some degree.56: A classic he writes, is a work that has survived the provinciality of its own moment in space and in time. ....It is less important for students to learn about the great books than it is for them to learn from the great books. The great books are about fundamental human questions; indeed, they are a kind of extended argument about these questions. The philosopher Leo Strauss writes,. 'Liberal education consists in listening to the conversation among the greatest minds.'I found this quote fascinating: 185 Irving Kristol: America does not have a single moral problem that another Great Depression would not cure.I'm so glad people like Dinesh exist. This poor world needs more of them.
—Michele
When I was in high school, a friend recommended this book. As I read through it, staunch neo-con that I was, I became unsettled. Although at the time, I was the anti-green everything person, his thoughts on GMO's and the environment made me think twice. His logic contradicted my religious beliefs that we should (which I wasn't at the time) be good stewards of God's earth. Basically, this book made me go back and reread the Bible and to become a eco-loving, Christian Libertarian. I really doubt that's what he intended!
—Rachel
I picked this up thinking it might be something along the lines of Burkean/Kirkian conservative thought, parsed through the lens of modernity and (necessarily) more succinct and abbreviated than the principal output of either of D'Souza's ideological forebears. It didn't take me long to realize it was more of a primer in that delightful culture war trademark tactic of How to Annoy the Other Side. Presumably, D'Souza felt he could crank out a barbed and amusing epistolary volume that would be lighthearted fun, whilst still imparting a broad outline of modern conservative tenets; I found it to be glib and increasingly irritating. For its intended audience, this will probably hit the spot in just the right amounts - for others, their reaction may well be closer to mine.
—Szplug
