In his interview with Charlie Rose, Charles Murray speaks about his new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. Murray’s argument is that the upper middle class and working class in America are separating on some key, core behaviors and values. We’re seeing the “collapse of the central cultural institution in one particular part of America” – meaning the collapse of marriage among the working class. The most stunning statistic in his data-filled book, Murray says, is this one: In 2010, among the white upper middle class, 83 percent of adults 30-49 years old were married. In 2010, only 48 percent of working class whites were married. (Murray, by the way, says he has changed his mind on same-sex marriage, an arrangement he once opposed.)
In addition, we’re seeing a “clustering” among the new upper class and elite, which is leading to an increasing isolation between them and the rest of American society, something Murray believes is creating problems for both the upper class and the working class. Murray praises the new upper class for its commitment to traditional values, something he would not have done in the early 1970s, but criticizes it for not “preaching what it practices.” He says they should act more like the elite in Victorian England at the end of the 19th century, who helped “re-moralize” their society (for more, see the groundbreaking work of the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb).
In speaking about what concerns him the most, Murray mentions the increasing denial of access to what he calls “institutions of meaning” – marriage, community, faith, and vocation. Those are the domains within which human beings find deeply satisfying lives. Murray argues that we have “denuded those sources of satisfaction” for the working class in ways we haven’t for the upper class, and that has harmful human consequences.
A personal word on Charles Murray. For some of us of a certain age, Murray was an influential figure in our journey to conservatism. His 1984 book, Losing Ground, argued that the ambitious social programs of the Great Society not only did not accomplish what they set out to do (help the poor and disadvantaged); they often made things worse. I recall hearing Murray speak about welfare and poverty at an event and being struck by his decency, intelligence, and obvious care for the poor. (Murray was a member of the Peace Corps in the late 1960s.) His critique wasn’t based on indifference to their condition; it was based on concern for their well-being. He believed liberalism had failed “the least of these” and conservatism had something to offer in its place. (I would call it an early iteration of compassionate conservatism. Murray would not.)
The world has turned many times since Losing Ground was published. And now, almost 30 years later, Murray has written yet another climate-changing book. He ranks among America’s most important public intellectuals. And among its most humane as well.
Stephen J. Gould would disagree with you. But I wouldn't. n
Heard him recently on a radio interview, he certainly demonstrates a great deal of introspect into changes within our society, especially causes and results. Katrina was a great example. For probably the only time in the life of so many of the residents of those "project homes," their destruction led to a new beginning, allowing them to escape from the circle of poverty to which they were born.
Murray is one of those thinkers who can transform the way you view the world. His contributions have been immensely important (and criminally under appreciated). Keep up the terrific work, Mr. Murray.
I saw that interview yesterday after having pvr'd it and I'm not going to erase it any time soon. I think your précis of the substance of what Murray said is excellent and your agreement with him is notable even though you don't say as much. n nMurray says that his book isn't cause oriented and that he decries programmatic solutions. That said, not many people are going to uproot to small towns, as did he and his family, to ensure mixing with socio economically diverse folks and to ensure his two younger children did that. His plea for upper middle class and their elites re-moralizing America and proselytizing for the kinds of virtues he affirms and for them to lead by example, as he says he did, isn't, I don't think, going to take. Which suggests to me that on his analysis, things are going to come apart even more, which to him means ultimately the end of civic order and the end of a manageable nation. n nIn this sense, his is a deeply pessimistic analysis. n nThat aside, and that's a big aside, I am quite moved by your small piece on him here and your vaunting of his strong sympathy for those whose condition he would like ameliorated. That in him is evident from the interview and brackets the ideological attacks against him by those who only want to see themselves reflected as they gaze out at what the world has on offer.
I am pessimistic also, unfortunately. I feel this beautiful country of ours is slowly but surely coming apart at the seams. Our children and grandchildren will have to build a new civilization out of the ruins.
Liberals don't want to hear the drumbeats. They want to continue to vilify, tax and berate the white middle class without realizing that as a revenue producer, it is eroding. Those former bastions of safe jobs are now off shored or worse, given to folks who come here illegally and work off the books for less. Unions don't help by demanding higher wages when the competition is stiff. White middle class kids are told to stay in school and reach for higher achievement only to graduate to a reality of student loans and part time jobs. In the meantime, Obama and DNC insiders continue to sell via media soundbite that there's more money to be had by "taxing the rich." Who are "the rich?" I guarantee that Kanye West and Paris Hilton could give up all their wealth tomorrow and this president would still have to raid the accounts of middle class families to enact his costly agenda. We cannot afford four more years of this.
"Uprooting to small towns" sounds kinda neat until you scratch the surface. Aren't people migrating away from small towns because of the lack of job opportunities? What are all these outmigrating "elites" going to do for a living in small-town South Dakota?
Currently there is an influx of population into the Dakotas, and what they are doing is drilling for oil.
The Sixties ruined the American working class. For the elite kids, being a "hippie" was nothing more than a fling, a fun episode with long hair, beards, sex, drugs, and rock on the way to Harvard Law School. But, as Tom Wolfe long ago noted, long after the elite kids had cut their hair, cut out the serious drugs, started families, and gone to law school, the poor working class kids were still caught in the destructive "lifestyle" the elite kids had briefly made cool. The workers still had the long hair, the drugs, and the "free love," not to mention the anti-intellectual attitudes the elites had merely played with before they settled down. The combination of the globalized collapse of manufacturing and the self-destructive Sixties lifestyles the working class was trapped in gutted them socially and economically. And they are now the core of the Republican yahoo party.
I would say, deeply positive. The symptoms are beyond arguement; he proposes that the cause AND the solution lie in adults persisting in a commited relationship with another adult, to the benefit typically of both adults and any children that they may raise. AND that marriage as an institution is an off-the-shelf buttress for creating and sustaining such committed rtelationships and furthermore it's a possible solution which while it may not be what all people care to chose, is opposed by few as a choice for others. Rarely do we have a problem, which most recognize as such in his description, where the suggested solution plus an institution supportive of it are proven to work well more often than not and are either of them opposed by few. n nPresumably getting in to specific measures to promote and to support such relationships and/or various arrangements for marriage would be to enter territory where one would find far less unanimity – but I suspect that those disagreeing with a given specific, might well have one of their own to put forward, which is rarely the case in most social/political disputes. n nGood news, I say!
It's too bad Charles Murray now supports same-sex marriage. I thought he had more wisdom than that. Someone should give him George Gilder's Men and Marriage to read.
Yes I agree. The idea of same-sex marriage is way stupid and unhealthy for any civilization.