>One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever? Two things that seldom seem to go together are genius and common sense. When I try to think of people with both, the first name that comes to mind is Milton Friedman. But it is a struggle to try to come up with more names after that. The “self-esteem” dogma has triumphed so completely in our educational system that you have all sorts of people spouting off about all … Continue reading >Thomas Sowell