{"id":444,"date":"2012-01-23T12:15:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T12:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/?p=444"},"modified":"2012-01-23T12:15:36","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T12:15:36","slug":"another-interesting-thoughtful-wsj-article-i-expected-to-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/01\/23\/another-interesting-thoughtful-wsj-article-i-expected-to-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Another interesting, thoughtful WSJ article I expected to hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New American Divide
\nThe ideal of an ‘American way of life’ is fading as the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage and religion and the upper class becomes more isolated. Charles Murray on what’s cleaving America, and why.
\nhttp:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html?mod=googlenews_wsj<\/a><\/p>\n

The little blurb that Google presented made me think that this was another condescending article that explained that things were bad because stupid poor people were stupid and poor, but decided to give it a chance. The author deliberately removes race from the discussion, the demographics are all about non-Latino whites (why does anyone think that Latinos are white anyway? they all look fabulously tanned to me!), which should help eliminate some mindless arguments about irrelevancies. It isn’t all fabulous; I particularly thought this was poorly written:<\/p>\n

\nThe 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.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the article appears to be chock full of actual stats (I didn’t pursue the numbers (and didn’t notice a link to do so)) and largely appears to be agenda free so presuming the author didn’t simply make the numbers up, it would seem that there is worth in considering what appears to be his thesis: the educated elite needs to rub elbows with the rest of the population and the uneducated, un-elite need to get married and get jobs. I am not convinced that financially things have remained static since the ’60s (the author says wages have remained the same after adjusting for inflation, something that jibes with what research I have done), I believe that actual purchasing power has declined by some 50% over the intervening period, which is one of the reasons why there are so many households that require two incomes to remain solvent.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I recommend the article to my reader(s); it gives a thoughtful view of the divide that is settling in to our country, puts the ‘blame’ on likely inevitable cultural forces (as opposed to political forces) and discusses some approaches to ameliorate the effect. I doubt his screed will have any impact, but in my own small (tiny) way, I want to promote it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New American Divide The ideal of an ‘American way of life’ is fading as the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage and religion and the upper class becomes more isolated. Charles Murray on what’s cleaving America, and why. http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html?mod=googlenews_wsj The little blurb that Google presented made me think that this was … Continue reading “Another interesting, thoughtful WSJ article I expected to hate”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,16,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-education","category-government","category-psychology","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sol-biotech.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}