an 'American way of life' is fading

[tango]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLE_Video_Top

This article is a great read but very long. Accordingly I imagine very few will get through it. The article tries to define what has happened to the "American culture" (American way of life) by comparing trends in marriage, single parent homes, industriousness, and crime between the wealthy and the middle class.

People are starting to notice the great divide. The tea party sees the aloofness in a political elite that thinks it knows best and orders the rest of America to fall in line. The Occupy movement sees it in an economic elite that lives in mansions and flies on private jets. Each is right about an aspect of the problem, but that problem is more pervasive than either political or economic inequality. What we now face is a problem of cultural inequality.When Americans used to brag about "the American way of life"—a phrase still in common use in 1960—they were talking about a civic culture that swept an extremely large proportion of Americans of all classes into its embrace. It was a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work and religiosity.Over the past 50 years, that common civic culture has unraveled. We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions.

[RedPhoenix]

If enough Americans look unblinkingly at the nature of the problem, they'll fix it. One family at a time. For their own sakes. That's the American way.

---that pretty much sums it up.

[HuZkurZ]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLE_Video_Top

This article is a great read but very long. Accordingly I imagine very few will get through it. The article tries to define what has happened to the "American culture" (American way of life) by comparing trends in marriage, single parent homes, industriousness, and crime between the wealthy and the middle class.

People are starting to notice the great divide. The tea party sees the aloofness in a political elite that thinks it knows best and orders the rest of America to fall in line. The Occupy movement sees it in an economic elite that lives in mansions and flies on private jets. Each is right about an aspect of the problem, but that problem is more pervasive than either political or economic inequality. What we now face is a problem of cultural inequality.When Americans used to brag about "the American way of life"—a phrase still in common use in 1960—they were talking about a civic culture that swept an extremely large proportion of Americans of all classes into its embrace. It was a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work and religiosity.Over the past 50 years, that common civic culture has unraveled. We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions.

De Tocqueville believed, if I recall correctly, that the masses that form (tea party, flea party) do so because they are discontent but not destitute. The group with utopian (socialist) ideas haven't a clue about how to achieve what they want nor have any idea of the difficulties involved with achieving it.

Do you see that thought as descriptive of the flea party? It seems to me that the flea party is fighting for the policies that contributed to the issues that have led to our decline. A robust economy can only fix the problems to an extent. The moral decay is another huge issue and IMO this can only be reversed when we portect the right to life and there is one side of the political spectrum that owns this stance. Chi wrote a great post regarding this.

Thoughts?

[huskrthill]

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.

I think Bill Cosby tried doing something like this... what was the reaction?

[RedPhoenix]

So the Republicans are the only ones that can save the country? And you don't see the problem with that type of thinking?


(Sorry, I forgot to quote you HuzKurz, my post was in response to yours.)

[huskrthill]

So the Republicans are the only ones that can save the country? And your don't see the problem with that type of thinking?

I'm assuming that was a response to HuZkurZ, not me...

[HuZkurZ]

So the Republicans are the only ones that can save the country? And you don't see the problem with that type of thinking?


(Sorry, I forgot to quote you HuzKurz, my post was in response to yours.)

Yes, I think what republicans, not RHINOS or dems, stand for is the best way to attempt to solve our problems. I believe your point is needed as well, of course, I have to assume what you meant since you either don't really know or aren't confident in what you meant.

[RedPhoenix]

I personally feel that both parties have valuable insight in the direction of this country and that the WORST thing we can do is to only listen to one side and consider them our saving grace and end all be all for answers. I personally find that to be dangerous to the long term health of our country.

[HuZkurZ]

I personally feel that both parties have valuable insight in the direction of this country and that the WORST thing we can do is to only listen to one side and consider them our saving grace and end all be all for answers. I personally find that to be dangerous to the long term health of our country.

I agree and unless there is a pub in the WH, super pub majorities in the senate and congress, doubtful, there will be valuable insight from both parties but the agenda will be driven in a direction I believe is best. After all, we have recently seen what can happen when one party has the WH and large majorities in both houses, who would want that?

[ShuckIt]

If enough Americans look unblinkingly at the nature of the problem, they'll fix it. One family at a time. For their own sakes. That's the American way.

---that pretty much sums it up.

Unless those families only look to government to fix it for them, which is quickly becoming "the way"

[unmartin]

I personally feel that both parties have valuable insight in the direction of this country and that the WORST thing we can do is to only listen to one side and consider them our saving grace and end all be all for answers. I personally find that to be dangerous to the long term health of our country.

I honestly don't understand how any person can think that their "party" agenda is absolutely right in every aspect....that is why I have always laughed at hard core political type people

[tango]

Unless those families only look to government to fix it for them, which is quickly becoming "the way"

The following from the article. The writer separtes the wealthy from the working class in two different imaginary communities and sites statistics since 1960. He indicates the upperclass in "Belmont" and the working class in "Fishtown". He suggests that prior to the 1960s all groups interacted in their daily lives but since the 1960s the upper class have become more isolated and both groups do different activities and do not interact. The next two sentences in the article are controversial:

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.
As I've argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of.
But, for practical purposes, understanding why the new lower class got started isn't especially important. Once the deterioration was under way, a self-reinforcing loop took hold as traditionally powerful social norms broke down. Because the process has become self-reinforcing, repealing the reforms of the 1960s (something that's not going to happen) would change the trends slowly at best.

[RedBlack&Blue]

Another writer comparing America to a utopian vision of this country that never really existed for all races, nationalities and creeds. (For example, Mitt Romney's grandfather left America in 1885 for Mexico to escape religious persecution. http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-16/p..._s=PM:POLITICS)

The writer's bio sort of says it all ..

Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His new book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010" (Crown Forum) will be published on Jan. 31.

And if you want to see a fractured nation, just look at America in the years just prior to the Civil War. Anything we're dealing with today is a tea party compared to that era (pardon the pun).

[tango]

Another writer comparing America to a utopian vision of this country that never really existed for all races, nationalities and creeds. (For example, Mitt Romney's grandfather left America in 1885 for Mexico to escape religious persecution. http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-16/p..._s=PM:POLITICS)

The writer's bio sort of says it all ..

Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His new book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010" (Crown Forum) will be published on Jan. 31.

And if you want to see a fractured nation, just look at America in the years just prior to the Civil War. Anything we're dealing with today is a tea party compared to that era (pardon the pun).

You might consider reading it with an open mind. What do you think about the statistics in the following?

Marriage: In 1960, extremely high proportions of whites in both Belmont (imaginary town of upper-class) and Fishtown (imaginary town of working class) were married—94% in Belmont and 84% in Fishtown. In the 1970s, those percentages declined about equally in both places. Then came the great divergence. In Belmont, marriage stabilized during the mid-1980s, standing at 83% in 2010. In Fishtown, however, marriage continued to slide; as of 2010, a minority (just 48%) were married. The gap in marriage between Belmont and Fishtown grew to 35 percentage points, from just 10.Single parenthood: Another aspect of marriage—the percentage of children born to unmarried women—showed just as great a divergence. Though politicians and media eminences are too frightened to say so, nonmarital births are problematic. On just about any measure of development you can think of, children who are born to unmarried women fare worse than the children of divorce and far worse than children raised in intact families. This unwelcome reality persists even after controlling for the income and education of the parents.In 1960, just 2% of all white births were nonmarital. When we first started recording the education level of mothers in 1970, 6% of births to white women with no more than a high-school education—women, that is, with a Fishtown education—were out of wedlock. By 2008, 44% were nonmarital. Among the college-educated women of Belmont, less than 6% of all births were out of wedlock as of 2008, up from 1% in 1970.

[RedPhoenix]

The following from the article. The writer separtes the wealthy from the working class in two different imaginary communities and sites statistics since 1960. He indicates the upperclass in "Belmont" and the working class in "Fishtown". He suggests that prior to the 1960s all groups interacted in their daily lives but since the 1960s the upper class have become more isolated and both groups do different activities and do not interact. The next two sentences in the article are controversial:

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.
As I've argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of.
But, for practical purposes, understanding why the new lower class got started isn't especially important. Once the deterioration was under way, a self-reinforcing loop took hold as traditionally powerful social norms broke down. Because the process has become self-reinforcing, repealing the reforms of the 1960s (something that's not going to happen) would change the trends slowly at best.

I had a bad feeling about this article when one of the first few sentences said how good the whites had it. The underlined portion of the above also seems to have a hint of racism about it. Almost like he is saying....things got really crappy when civil rights were effectively enforced. So now instead of a neighborhood taking care of those uppity negroes, the negroes relied on the government to protect them.

And he seems to desire a roll back to Jim Crow with his final sentence.

Do you support this train of thought Tango?

[RedBlack&Blue]

You might consider reading it with an open mind. What do you think about the statistics in the following?

Marriage: In 1960, extremely high proportions of whites in both Belmont (imaginary town of upper-class) and Fishtown (imaginary town of working class) were married—94% in Belmont and 84% in Fishtown. In the 1970s, those percentages declined about equally in both places. Then came the great divergence. In Belmont, marriage stabilized during the mid-1980s, standing at 83% in 2010. In Fishtown, however, marriage continued to slide; as of 2010, a minority (just 48%) were married. The gap in marriage between Belmont and Fishtown grew to 35 percentage points, from just 10.Single parenthood: Another aspect of marriage—the percentage of children born to unmarried women—showed just as great a divergence. Though politicians and media eminences are too frightened to say so, nonmarital births are problematic. On just about any measure of development you can think of, children who are born to unmarried women fare worse than the children of divorce and far worse than children raised in intact families. This unwelcome reality persists even after controlling for the income and education of the parents.In 1960, just 2% of all white births were nonmarital. When we first started recording the education level of mothers in 1970, 6% of births to white women with no more than a high-school education—women, that is, with a Fishtown education—were out of wedlock. By 2008, 44% were nonmarital. Among the college-educated women of Belmont, less than 6% of all births were out of wedlock as of 2008, up from 1% in 1970.

You might consider not assuming that I didn't read it with an open mind.

While I don't dispute some of his individual statistics, like the one above, I do dispute his overlaying them as a historical norm for America.

There are way too many factors involved to do so. Here are just two: The shift from an agrarian society to an urban one, and the increase in life expectancy.

Now, if you want to throw in a host of other societal changes, then his premises become even more suspect.

It seems more like he started out with an end in mind and found information to support it.

[FLA4NEB]

I had a bad feeling about this article when one of the first few sentences said how good the whites had it. The underlined portion of the above also seems to have a hint of racism about it. Almost like he is saying....things got really crappy when civil rights were effectively enforced. So now instead of a neighborhood taking care of those uppity negroes, the negroes relied on the government to protect them.

And he seems to desire a roll back to Jim Crow with his final sentence.

Do you support this train of thought Tango?

Proportionally there are more whites on government assistance than blacks...no need to bring race into this. We have a cultural break down that knows no racial boundaries. I think you are reading into it what you want to support your view that you are an independent thinker.

[RedPhoenix]

Proportionally there are more whites on government assistance than blacks...no need to bring race into this. We have a cultural break down that knows no racial boundaries. I think you are reading into it what you want to support your view that you are an independent thinker.

He brings race into the article in the second sentence. The first time I read through it, that statement stood out but I put it aside to read the article critically. I left it alone after that and didn't think much of it really until tango separated out the paragraphs i quoted, which then REALLY stood out again.

This is the same guy that wrote The Bell Curve correct?

[OmaHusker]

Proportionally there are more whites on government assistance than blacks...no need to bring race into this. We have a cultural break down that knows no racial boundaries. I think you are reading into it what you want to support your view that you are an independent thinker.

Agreed. I don't have them on hand, but the I believe decline in marriage and the increase in children born out of wedlock are even worse among African-Americans. I believe also that Asian-Americans is the only ethnic group where the stats are not scary.

[OmaHusker]

I specify white, meaning non-Latino white, as a way of clarifying how broad and deep the cultural divisions in the U.S. have become. Cultural inequality is not grounded in race or ethnicity. I specify ages 30 to 49—what I call prime-age adults—to make it clear that these trends are not explained by changes in the ages of marriage or retirement.

If he had just opened with, "For most of our nation's history, whatever the inequality in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens, we maintained a cultural equality known nowhere else in the world" there'd be those who would scream, "Sure, if you were of the privileged white class!" He's merely agreeing. Historically, the evaporation of the "American way" has been less drastic among whites. To point out the magnitude of the decline among that segment is to point out how bad it really is.