Here is the Economist article.

http://www.economist.com/node/21546010

Sometimes reading what the other side contends can help broaden your perspective. I read the reviews and even though I don’t entirely agree with his point of view on the lower class, I’ll probably read the book anyway. I’m intrigued by the idea that lower class white America is falling apart because it has abandoned conservative ideals. This sounds like a plea to return to the 50’s with Levitowns spring up overnight and Dad in blue suit and red tie taking the metro into town while mom raises the kids “Leave it to Beaver” style in dress and pearls. The whole dynamic of Amerca has changed since then, smokestack industries have moved away and the factories that sustained the blue collar worker are gone. The service industry has taken over as the rust belt lost jobs and people who now have nothing to strive for but unemployment and underemployment. I’ m interested to see what Mr. Murray has to say about it. skeptical INQUIRY. We can’t inquire unless we do the research!

Cap’t Jack

Err… What new book?

Thanks!

Take care,

Derek

harry canyon - 17 February 2012 04:06 PM

Err… What new book?

Thanks!

Take care,

Derek

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/0307453421/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326770266&sr=1-2  Here’s a link.

Thevillageatheist - 17 February 2012 03:54 PM

Sometimes reading what the other side contends can help broaden your perspective. I read the reviews and even though I don’t entirely agree with his point of view on the lower class, I’ll probably read the book anyway. I’m intrigued by the idea that lower class white America is falling apart because it has abandoned conservative ideals. This sounds like a plea to return to the 50’s with Levitowns spring up overnight and Dad in blue suit and red tie taking the metro into town while mom raises the kids “Leave it to Beaver” style in dress and pearls. The whole dynamic of Amerca has changed since then, smokestack industries have moved away and the factories that sustained the blue collar worker are gone. The service industry has taken over as the rust belt lost jobs and people who now have nothing to strive for but unemployment and underemployment. I’ m interested to see what Mr. Murray has to say about it. skeptical INQUIRY. We can’t inquire unless we do the research!

Cap’t Jack

You’re so right Jack; after talking about it for this period of time, I want to read it and critique it now!  I violated the rule of dispassionate inquiry.

Allright I’ add to my to read list:

Reinventing the Sacred , by Stuart Kauffman,

The Age of Nationalism.  Hans Kohn

The Coming of the Book.  Febvre and Martin

Social Origins of Dictatorships and Democracy.  Barrington and Moore Jr.

Modern Political Geography.  Richard Muir

The Anarchical Society.  Hedley Bull

The Expansion of International Society.  Hedley Bull

State Formation and Political Legitimacy.  ed. Ronald Cohen and Judith D Toland

Coercion, Capital and European States.  Charles Tilly

The Formation of Nation State In Western Europe - Charles Tilly Ed.

Civilization and Capitalism.  Fernand Braudel

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.  Emil Durkheim

Sociobiology Edward O Wilson -Consilience, Johathon Haidt

War Before Civilization - Lawrence H Keely.

Nuer Religion - Evans Pritchard

Magic, Science and Religion - Bronislaw Malinowski

A History of Christianity - Paul Johnson

Did God Have A Wife - William C. Dever

How to Read the Bible - James Kugel

Goddess, Whores, Wives and Slaves, Women in Classical Antiquity. - Sarah B Pomeroy

How Jesus Became A Christian - Wilson Barre
The Historical Figure of Jesus - E.P. Wilson

The Early Church - Henry Chadwich

Trust - Francis Fukuyama

The Churching of America - Finke and Stark

Sacred and Secular - Pippa H Bellah & Ronald Inglehart

Religion and Politics in Religion - Robert Booth Fowler et al.

Civil Religion in America - Robert Bullah - The Robert Bullah Reader

Divided by God - Noah Feldman

The Rise of Christianity - Frend

Constantine and the Christian Empire – Odahl

Jerusalem:  The Biography – Simon Sebag Montefiore

Jerusalem, Jerusalem:  How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World - James Carroll

Forged – Bart D Ehrman **

The Malthusian Trap – Alan McFarlane – Int. Encyc. of Social Science 2nd ed. 2007

Political Order in Changing Societies.  Samuel Huntington

Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World,”  John Shelby Spong

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

 

BTW I started this thread to discuss the article about overprotecting kids and keep the discussion of this book separate.  Doesn’t appear to be working.  Any comment on the article that actually initiated this thread.

You started the thread, so I imagine you would be the first one to come up with a comment. Linking to a page is not a comment.

Ok Gary, I see your point but rather than list the books that I presently have in my library I’m just going to send a picture and let those interested in what I read sort it out! 

Cap’t Jack

Back on topic, American kids born after the mid seventies are (were) most definitly overprotected; the results of that mistake are already pouring in.

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

To add to Mike’s post we now have the modern phenonema of the helicopter parents who train their kids to believe in entitlement. They are the soccer moms at the games and even follow their kids to college where the professors have to tell them that it’s time for their precious to grow up. So many of them are unprepared when they enter the adult world of competition. This is a middle class problem and not so much in the blue collar world of single parents, or children abandoned to be raised by grandparents or the state. It’s definitely created a wider gap between the groups going from one extreme to the other. I hope that Murray addresses this in his book. I’d be interested in reading his take on it.

Cap’t Jack

“Mr Murray pleads instead for “a civic great awakening” that will see the upper class sally forth from its SuperZips to talk the less fortunate into marrying, working harder and becoming better neighbours”

Focusing on working harder.

I think if the “upper class” is working harder it’s because they get pleasure out of the work and are well rewarded.

So the question is how to achieve that for the less fortunate?

And if you just say you can’t but get them to do it anyway, you are asking them to spend a great deal of their time being very unhappy for very little reward.

Stephen

StephenLawrence - 19 February 2012 06:17 AM

“Mr Murray pleads instead for “a civic great awakening” that will see the upper class sally forth from its SuperZips to talk the less fortunate into marrying, working harder and becoming better neighbours”

Focusing on working harder.

I think if the “upper class” is working harder it’s because they get pleasure out of the work and are well rewarded.

So the question is how to achieve that for the less fortunate?

And if you just say you can’t but get them to do it anyway, you are asking them to spend a great deal of their time being very unhappy for very little reward.

Stephen

Good point.

One possible solution for the blue collar workers is to give them more money for working harder. The cost of living typically eats up those working for minimum wages and many I know of now work two jobs just to keep the bills paid. It makes one wonder if there is actually a formula for successfully pursuing the “American dream”, or our version of it anyway. BTW, the technical colleges are filling up with those displaced workers who have been laid off or lost their jobs when the factories shut down. They are retraining for service fields or practical skills. Ex. Here the nursing field is wide open and every graduate I know of has found a job. We have several hospitals and health care facilities in the Tristate area and the pay is decent.

Cap’t Jack

Thevillageatheist - 19 February 2012 06:43 PM

One possible solution for the blue collar workers is to give them more money for working harder. The cost of living typically eats up those working for minimum wages and many I know of now work two jobs just to keep the bills paid. It makes one wonder if there is actually a formula for successfully pursuing the “American dream”, or our version of it anyway. BTW, the technical colleges are filling up with those displaced workers who have been laid off or lost their jobs when the factories shut down. They are retraining for service fields or practical skills. Ex. Here the nursing field is wide open and every graduate I know of has found a job. We have several hospitals and health care facilities in the Tristate area and the pay is decent.

Cap’t Jack

My view may be extreme, but I don’t really think the “American dream” is a real thing for the say, under 40 crowd. Owning a nice house with retirement at 67 and a nest egg to live off of is probably not in the cards for me and my age group; I accept it though.

Thevillageatheist - 18 February 2012 01:13 PM

Ok Gary, I see your point but rather than list the books that I presently have in my library I’m just going to send a picture and let those interested in what I read sort it out! 

Cap’t Jack

The list isn’t what I have in my library.  It’s what I am intending to read (eventually ).

My real point on this particular work is that I have read numerous studies with the same viewpoint over the past 45 years.  Like the Bible, statistics can be used to support any position.