Originally Posted by Austin
My comments below are my observations from knowing people from all walks of life and political persuasion. Please do not assume that I have a dog in the fight one way or the other.

Originally Posted by JonLaw
He just made the point that maybe we are sending too many kids to college

One of my first tasks when I started managing people was to drop college degree from the job description and from the corresponding job reqs. I don't need an Einstein to reboot servers.

I do need a couple of super smart people, but everyone else just needs to be articulate, disciplined and honest. I could care less if they even finished HS.

Originally Posted by islandofapples
Now I hope someone engages in a juicy conversation with me about this because there is NO way I have anyone in real life to talk with about this stuff at the moment! (And my husband and I agree on this stuff, so the convo ends quickly.)

But you are married. You live the base values. Same for my wife and I. Even if though we appear to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Day to day our lives are very similar. People with very varied views and from all walks of life and all nationalities provide a stable home for kids.

IMHO, for men, work is the way they get "civilized." I saw it when I farmed, I saw it in the Army, and I see it at my job now. It teaches people how to interact rationally to further the goals of the company. It binds people to a community and gives their lives purpose. So does family. And Church. And clubs. And other organizations.

I know quite a few people who are in the bottom 10%. Their lives are chaos. Much of their problems have to do with immediate gratification and emotional immaturity. And a lot has to do with drugs or the heavy media culture (TV) that promotes immediate gratification.

And men are not held accountable for leaving their families and women are not held accountable for stealing a husband.
Our society is highly mobile and people can easily cut and run.

I know of two cases where women have able bodied husbands with jobs and 2 and 4 kids where the man left. That is unnacceptable. These men would take a bullet for their kids, so what is a little pain each day to be there for them? Again, immediate reward vs long term success.

Another problem is that our current social safety net rewards women who leave their husbands while the kids are not of age. In the past, the families were held together by economic necessity. There are a number of "single mom success stories" that gloss over the hundreds of others who struggle and whose kids are wrecks. Its up to the school, sports coaches, scouting coaches, and others to be their dads and its not enough. Its very painful to watch.

And our tax policy punishes marriage. If my wife and I divorced, we'd bring home a lot more after taxes. What kind of message does that send? If we'd lived in sin from the beginning, we'd have 50K more in the bank. That's not chump change.

Originally Posted by islandofapples
So are we supposed to broach the topic of marriage? Or at least admit to ourselves the truth about the class divide, as Murray sees it?...

Yet, they do have a true responsibility to set some sort of example and to try and understand the rest of the people in America who are affected by their choices.

The "white man's burden" comes up for discussion again.

A hard discussion about delayed gratification and doing one's duty is the most important one to have and the most important example to set. But it is not.

Show me one TV show or movie that discusses this that is not Christian in its source. And show me a "secular" show that does not make fun of this. Modern Family is fun to watch. But its not reality.

At its root, the Church is about moral education. That is why it so successful at creating social stability. What passes for moral education in society today is "eating green" or "saving the whales" not "staying married for your kids" or "do not steal a spouse." or "do not get pregnant until you are ready."

But these are "old fashioned" values that are seen as tied to religion, rather than facts of the human condition regardless of the time or place.

Some more reading:

The rise of a large group of rootless people is nothing new.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots

Some other ideas on decline and rebirth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss-Howe_generational_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/summary-of-dr-bruce-cordells.html


Well, I agree with you about all of that, ha.

I know quite a few families that are in that lower bracket and I've seen many many instances where the mom and dad don't get married (but sometimes do cohabitate), because if they got married, the mom would lose the government health benefits, food stamps, etc. My best friend from high school actually did this.

I don't really negatively judge her too much for her choices, but if I'm honest, I'd say that the culture she is living in (the depressed town where I grew up) really supports that sort of lifestyle. All her friends are doing the same, so it is the new normal.

But I do see laziness. Her boyfriend does work and provide, but isn't as mature as I expect a man with two kids to be. She could have taken online classes at a community college - completely for free, on the government's dime, but kept putting it off and then decided to have a second baby.

I want to say "It is her life, she can do what she wants."... but I'm falling into the trap of political correctness, then.

Some things are harder for her.. She didn't have an education and probably isn't right for a 4 year college, but I think could certainly do fine in a 2 year program.

If she went back to work at her crappy job, it barely paid for the day care and didn't have health insurance.

If she married her boyfriend (he has a manual labor job that pays about double minimum wage), his income was high enough that it would disqualify her for medicaid and food stamps... but it wasn't high enough for them to actually pay for health care! And the employer didn't offer any sort of affordable option for them to pay into.

Diapers, formula and baby food are fairly expensive for someone on a low income, but breastfeeding and cloth diapers aren't really supported or very well-known. Everyone also feeds their kids really processed unhealthy junk food-- because it is cheap and it is the "norm".

So they are spending all their money on this stuff and don't have the support or knowledge about how to buy and make healthy home made food (or why they should do that)... and money saving things like cloth diapers (which can work for a low income mom who stays home and has access to a washer and dryer) or breastfeeding (instead of costly formula and the reason these moms like wic and food stamps...)

She could have made much better choices, but the culture permeating her area supports the choices she ended up making. So that is the first problem and is the reason Murrary thinks we need to bring back his favored "virtues".

Plenty of educated people would say that I'm imposing my own values about healthy eating and saving money onto another group of people and that that is unfair / offensive / etc... but that is the whole point Murray was trying to make. We aren't willing to impose anything on anyone or say one way is better than another even if it is or might be.


But the second issue he doesn't address is how to bring us out of it. His solution is to just get rid of the social programs. In the short run this would mess up a lot of people's lives... But he might be right in the long run. Because if that safety net wasn't there, more men would have to take care of their families and you wouldn't have the catch 22 I mentioned above.

He also pointed out that men used to take pride in taking care of their family, but now the government covers the basics for this group and the incentive to "step up" and do whatever it takes is somewhat gone.

But something HAS to be done about the cost of health care. Seriously. It is way out of line with what at least 1/3 of Americans can even afford.

Last edited by islandofapples; 02/20/12 10:49 AM.