English II: "Flattering Unction," excerpt from "The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell

One such danger is the prevailing social vision of our time—and the dogmatism with which the ideas, assumptions, and attitudes behind that vision are held.

Today, despite free speech and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality.

Different visions, of course, have different assumptions, so it is not uncommon for people who follow different visions to find themselves in opposition to one another across a vast spectrum of unrelated issues, in such disparate fields as law, foreign policy, the environment, racial policy, military defense, education, and many others.

To a remarkable extent, however, empirical evidence is neither sought beforehand nor consulted after a policy has been instituted.

Momentous questions are dealt with essentially as conflicts of visions.

Discordant evidence may be dismissed as isolated anomalies, or as something tendentiously selected by opponents, or it may be explained away ad hoc by a theory having no empirical support whatever—except that this ad hoc theory is able to sustain itself and gain acceptance because it is consistent with the overall vision.

Similarly, when Malthus attacked a popular vision of his time, exemplified in the writings of William Godwin and Condorcet, he said:
I cannot doubt the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt their candor.

He called Malthus '"malignant," questioned "the humanity of the man," and said, "'I profess myself at a loss to conceive of what earth the man was made.''

A contemporary writer has summarized the differences between those with the vision of the anointed—the left—and others this way:
Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive. possibly evil.

One reason for the preservation and insulation of a vision is that it has become inextricably intertwined with the egos of those who believe it.

Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious.

A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.

These substitutes for arguments are, almost by definition, more available to adherents of the prevailing vision, whose assumptions are so widely accepted as to permit conclusions based on those assumptions to pass muster without further scrutiny.

These substitutes for arguments are, almost by definition, more available to adherents of the prevailing vision, whose assumptions are so widely accepted as to permit conclusions based on those assumptions to pass muster without further scrutiny.

This vision so permeates the media and academia, and has made such major inroads into the religious community, that many grow to adulthood unaware that there is any other way of looking at things, or that evidence might be relevant to checking out the sweeping assumptions of so-called "thinking people."