Is America coming apart? Some days, it certainly seems so. Take the tumultuous 2016 election cycle, and add to it Brexit, fears over globalization and automation, a reaction on the left against Wall Street and the big banks, and a million other news items, and you have a brew that smells of a spoiling American — maybe even Western — economic, social, political, and cultural order. If America and the West are being exposed for their divisions between mainstream and elite, between those disenchanted by the 21st century and those eager to embrace it, we will need to pull some seriously innovative public policy and cultural levers to fix the situation. Will something like the universal basic income do the trick? What are we not thinking of that could?Few are better poised to answer these questions than award-winning intellectual Dr. Charles Murray, who seemed to prophecy many 2016 phenomena in his 2012 book Coming Apart:The State of White America, 1960-2010.

 

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  1. billy Inactive
    billy
    @billy

    Wow. How much did Audible have to pay to get that endorsement from Charles Murray?

    • #1
  2. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    It’s nice to hear Charles Murray recognize the malicious effects of immigration on Americans other than those of his class.

    His book “Coming Apart” totally ignored the subject of immigration as a catalyst for the cultural split and working-class decline the book was supposedly describing. (Open your copy to the index and look up “immigration.” There is no entry.)

    Murray is right that our upper class is getting too big for its britches. The specific way this attitude is expressed is by the assumption of transnational sensibilities. That’s why the majority of their fellow citizens view our cognitive elite as strange and foreign – Barack Obama being a perfect example.

    The job of politics in the 21st Century will be persuading or forcing our misguided citizens of the world to emigrate emotionally back to America.

    • #2
  3. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Thanks for the interview.

    • #3
  4. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Freesmith:It’s nice to hear Charles Murray recognize the malicious effects of immigration on Americans other than those of his class.

    His book “Coming Apart” totally ignored the subject of immigration as a catalyst for the cultural split and working-class decline the book was supposedly describing. (Open your copy to the index and look up “immigration.” There is no entry.)

    Murray is right that our upper class is getting too big for its britches. The specific way this attitude is expressed is by the assumption of transnational sensibilities. That’s why the majority of their fellow citizens view our cognitive elite as strange and foreign – Barack Obama being a perfect example.

    The job of politics in the 21st Century will be persuading or forcing our misguided citizens of the world to emigrate emotionally back to America.

    I would say your Mr. Obama is a caricature of the trans-national. He pretends to have wide experience on many continents–he attended elite institutions–did he ever learn a second language?

    So from one pretty important point of view, he’s nowhere near as aware of the trans-national something or other experience as many a Texan…

    Look to your new oligarchs instead–they are likelier to experience life as post-political, post-boundary, post-national institutions…

    • #4
  5. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    Titus Techera

    “your new oligarchs instead–they are likelier to experience life as post-political, post-boundary, post-national institution.”

    Post-, Trans…whatever. By any prefix they are in essence aliens on our shores and need to be treated as such.

    One thing they do not do is put America first.

    Put your mistress ahead of your family and see how long your family stays together.

    • #5
  6. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    It’s simple and people with multiple children know the process well.  Kids of different ages and sexes can figure out who wants to play with what toy, (private market) but will fight to our dispair over which movie/TV to watch (public good) and will do so until the parent or the oldest kid imposes a dictatorship.  The rest is just details.  Indvidiual electronic devices and multiple TV’s (decentralization) solve the problem.  Now about Washington.

    • #6
  7. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Freesmith:Titus Techera

    “your new oligarchs instead–they are likelier to experience life as post-political, post-boundary, post-national institution.”

    Post-, Trans…whatever. By any prefix they are in essence aliens on our shores and need to be treated as such.

    One thing they do not do is put America first.

    Put your mistress ahead of your family and see how long your family stays together.

    I sympathize, but the truth is that it is not merely the oligarchs who need America: America needs them, too. Some kind of accommodation is necessary. Until now, the oligarchic claims–infinite immigration & lower taxes–have rewarded the most productive, inasmuch as America rewards productivity. But this has angered deeply the less productive classes. The oligarchs may win; the democrats may win; or some accommodation may be arrived at–these possible outcomes & their consequences need to be weighed carefully…

    • #7
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