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In the tragic vision, individual sufferings and social evils are inherent in the innate deficiencies of all human beings, whether these deficiencies are in knowledge, wisdom, morality, or courage. Moreover, the available resources are always inadequate to fulfill all the desires of all the people. Thus there are no “solutions” in the tragic vision, but only trade-offs that still leave many desires unfulfilled and much unhappiness in the world. What is needed in this vision is a prudent sense of how to make the best trade-offs from the limited options available, and a realization that “unmet needs” will necessarily remain—that attempting to fully meet these needs seriatim only deprives other people of other things, so that a society pursuing such a policy is like a dog chasing its tail.
The Vision of the Anointed
Thomas Sowell
The writers of the 2001 videogame Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, presaged the absurd intellectual environment of the world wide web: “The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate … No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in ‘truth.’ And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
How Individualism Created Our Postmodern Culture
Alexander Blum
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."
Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle
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