Two Americas, Growing Apart

[Valin]

Reason:

Charles Murray offers a better way to think and talk about class.

Jonathan Rauch

June 2012

 

Unless you live in a cave, you know the controversial work and reputation of Charles Murray. Losing Ground, published in 1984, proposed eliminating welfare as we knew it and became the template for conservative welfare reform. The Bell Curve (1994) proposed that America is sorting itself relentlessly by IQ, and that race is an intractable part of the picture. The unjustly neglected In Our Hands (2006) proposed cashing out most federal subsidies and programs and focusing on making government less intrusive rather than just less expensive (a better plan than conservatives’ current one of wishing the New Deal out of existence). In between Murray found time for a libertarian manifesto, a history of the Apollo space program, and a survey of human creativity. Like him or not, he has written many original books.

 

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Coming Apart is different. Very different. Now within sight of 70, Murray calls the book “my valedictory on the topic of happiness and public policy,” and possibly “my valedictory, period.” What he has done, this time, is to ditch the contrarian persona and stay squarely within the bounds of the conventional and the known. Still more surprising: Far from inflaming a sensitive debate, he has found a way to defuse one. By coloring so resolutely inside the lines, he has found, at last, a compelling, attention-getting way to tell a story about class in America.

 

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* Helpfully, however, Murray saves his hobbyhorses for the final chapter, where readers can easily ignore them. Also to his credit, he is half-hearted about his remedies, because he knows they probably won’t work. Here he commits an act of integrity. Book editors always insist on a last chapter that lists things “we” (whoever that is) can do to solve the problem. Coming Apart does not include that chapter. No bromides about cutting the capital gains tax rate or revitalizing manufacturing.

 

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* Step one in solving a problem is identifying what the problem is.

 

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010, by Charles Murray, Crown Forum, 400 pages

 

 

 

I am disappointed that Dr. Murry does not address those vitally important questions of the day...Where was Barack Obama born, the Trayvon Martin case, The whole Mitt Romney Barack Omama canine issue.