Self-help for frustrated rich people - A review of Charles Murray’s new ‘book’ (via Hullabaloo)
So Charles Murray has a new book out called Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. And, lo and behold it appears to say that the reason for all our troubles is the bad character of poor people. What a shocker.
Greg Anrig takes a look at some of the excerpts in the Wall Street Journal and concludes that Murray is fudging the numbers. Again. And he’s blaming the usual suspects for bringing us all down. Anrig writes:
Murray goes on, as always, to blame the Great Society reforms:
The creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the enactment of civil rights legislation, and programs like Food Stamps and job training set in motion a vicious cycle that led lower-income whites to stop going to church, watch more TV, and feel more alienated from the rest of the society. Even though we now incarcerate a far higher share of our citizens than any advanced country and violent crime rates have plummeted, it was laxity toward crime back in the 1960s that explains why the gap in out-of-wedlock births became much higher over that time period. The logic for those explanations may be difficult to track, and maybe Murray takes a stab at providing some evidence in support of those claims in the book itself. But if past is prologue, that evidence is likely to be highly dubious.
The solution, Murray argues, is for the upper-class to start wagging its fingers at everyone else:
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.
That should work like a charm. And it’s good to know that Murray has finally figured out a way to escape his racist past —- he’s blaming poor whites for being too weak-willed to resist the lures of the welfare state that was designed for blacks. Perhaps that’s a form of progress.