Robert VerBruggen on parenting trends; Dan Williams on Big Disinfo; Eric Cohen on American Jews and campus protests; Frank Furedi on students then and now
I hope by announcing that I've never been any good at life planning (I actually can't conceive of it - like other people talk about having no mental images - even, and am far too impulsive to get far anyway) this won't sound too judge-y/arrogant: the social engineering of the 20th century, both at home and abroad, has been to reward precisely those people who do not plan, or cannot plan - who concomitantly tend to be the least productive. As there is likely a genetic component to this, it's easy to see its dysgenic effect - and I don't really understand why anyone would care for government to try to reverse with the left hand what it long ago created with the right, and continues to do so. What is this obsession with wanting to have everything both ways all the time?
This is why I can feel only puzzlement amounting to derision for the oft-commented contention that e.g. Palestinians are ordinary folk who "want what's best for their children" and do not support terrorists and thugs but are prevented from seeing these feelings [plans] expressed in the world.
Ordinary folk they may surely be, but you have a situation where the world (not just western, Muslim world also) has encouraged Palestinians to breed without regard for whether they can feed or otherwise provide for themselves. And repeat, and repeat, selecting for those who do not plan. If I am sympathetic, it is to the extent that - at the outset, in 1948 - as with people all over the world during that period! - they had been subject to chaos, rather than being congenital poor planners like myself. (I mean, a people who had caused so few problems in the preceding centuries that they scarcely had an agreed-upon name!) But just as surely as if they were born with my deficit, the habit of procreating without regard for what life will be like - without a plan for improvement - was carefully nurtured in them by the international community.
We think of the left as nurturing their grievance, midwifing their victimhood - and while this is surely true, what matters was the nurturing of all those extraneous babies.
I see this same thing go on in the US, so I don't mean to call out the Middle East particularly, though obviously it's not confined to Israel even there.
This may work for the parents, but it fails miserably for children. Study after study shows the horrific impact of fatherlessness:
- 85% of currently imprisoned youths grew up without fathers.
- 70% of male sociopaths grew up without fathers.
- 70% of youths currently in state-operated correctional facilities grew up without fathers.
- Children from fatherless homes are twice as likely to drop out, twice as likely to commit suicide, and far more likely to abuse drugs.
- Girls who grew up without fathers are four times more likely to become mothers before the age of 20.
- According to Chicago Police Department records, the neighborhoods with the highest murder rates are also the neighborhoods with the most births to single mothers.
All true. But it may be that single parenting does not cause the bad outcomes so much as that the same inborn predilections are a major cause of both. Men with poor impulse control and a bit (or more) of narcissism are more likely to get women pregnant with little concern about the consequences. They are also more likely to commit crimes. Their kids have a predilection to be the same way. Women with a predilection to non-permanent relationships with unreliable concern for birth control have daughters who have similar predilections. There are all sorts of psychological terms like "poor executive function" and "present orientation".
It's like the problem with "college graduates make $X more than non-college graduates." That's largely because college graduates are smarter, more conscientious, and more able to "play the game". You can't make everyone rich by pushing them into college, holding their hand, and getting, um, loose about standards.
In his essay, "The Welfare State's Legacy" (link below), economist Walter E. Williams wrote:
"The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Fifty years later, more than 70 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Here's my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?"
Williams has also noted that:
- In 1918, the illegitimacy rate among black teenagers was lower than that among white teenagers.
- In New York in 1920, 80% of black children lived in two parent families.
- In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 12%.
Clearly, something changed between 1960 and today. Williams believes that it was the huge expansion of the welfare state. You believe that it was a change in genetics driven by rises in "poor impulse control" and "narcissism." What caused this amplification of men's "inborn predilections"?
"Clearly, something changed between 1960 and today. Williams believes that it was the huge expansion of the welfare state. You believe that it was a change in genetics driven by rises in "poor impulse control" and "narcissism."
No, no, no. I believe the predilections were always there. But they were kept from leading to a lot of today's bad outcomes by various cultural and practical realities. One of the big changes is the expansion of the welfare state.
Another big change is that for many responsible people, having children (and to a certain extent, getting married) has gone from a foundational step of adulthood to a capstone. This leads to them having few or no children (and to more unmarried people).
"I believe the predilections were always there. But they were kept from leading to a lot of today's bad outcomes by various cultural and practical realities. One of the big changes is the expansion of the welfare state."
So the predilection was prevented by not having a welfare state?
Foundational to capstone - this may be mostly true among the well-educated and even the middle class but not so much among the population most likely to become single parents.
If you know that having a kid without a man committed to you will lead to destitution, there's an incentive to resist unprotected intercourse. If you know that the government will give you money (and maybe food stamps, fuel assistance, housing) because you need it to raise your kid, there is less of an incentive.
It's the difference between, "Do something stupid and you'll have to pay." and "We can't let bad things happen to you no matter what you did."
I don't know how reflective they are of anything other than their time, but a trope of 19th century novels is young people unable to marry as yet because they have nothing to marry on.
In your first post, you cite a lot of negatives to the children of single parent families. One in particular is that 85% of men in prison were fatherless.
In your second post, you cite that in 1918, 80% of black children lived in two parent families and in 1940, 88% of black children were legitimate.
Do we have statistics that indicate significantly lower levels of criminality in 1920? My understanding is that, for example, murder rates were at roughly 8-9/k in the 1900-1940 period. And they were similarly 8-9 in the 1970-2000 period.
If living in a two parent family made such a difference, wouldn't we expect the 1900-1940 murder rate to be much lower?
I'd suggest the following:
Of course it's good to have two parents, assuming that the two parents aren't abusive or neglectful of a child.
The early 20th century data probably contains a lot of nominal two-parent families that were, in practical operation, single parent families. Keeping violent, abusive parents around children didn't help anything.
The more interesting question is why the ~ 1940-1970 and ~ 2000-2020 periods look like better periods?
1900-1940 had higher murder rates for reasons other than marital status.
Regarding your question, I don't know why you think those two periods look better but level of policing, size of prison population, crack epidemic, etc. are all factors. Levitt found that availability of abortion reduces crime.
And... agree with what you're saying. There's a lot going on here, which makes it fruitful to step back and ask whether "the decline of the two parent household" is really driving the bus here.
Seems to me it's not. That doesn't mean it's not a bad thing and not worthy of study, but it does mean that the straightforward implication Richard was making, that somehow if we get rid of single-parent families, we'll no longer have criminals and sociopaths, seems unsupported.
I guess I believe your data source but it's not what I expected. Either way, I see why you picked those years.
I think your paraphrase of Richard is a gross exaggeration of what he actually wrote even if everything he said were wrong. Beyond that, I agree it seems clear from murder rate data that single parent households weren't driving the murder bus 1970-2000 but that doesn't make any of his statements untrue.
It doesn't. Change in circumstances does. So what was different between blacks and whites? Herbert Gutman, whose The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom publicized how high black marriage rates had been, told a story like this. Black people were more likely to tolerate pre-marital sex, even getting pregnant and giving birth as an unmarried youngster. It proved the woman was fertile. Men were less likely to see her as unmarriagable. She generally then got married to have a male to provide for her and her child.
This changed in the city and with "welfare". You got money for having a kid, but you lost it if you had "a man in the house". So a single mother got pickier about who (and whether) she married. The process spiraled. Things get noticed when in March, 1965, the Labor Department published Daniel Patrick Moynihan's The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, showing major racial differences in single parenthood. But it was lambasted at a White House conference, respectable opinion hated him for it, and the Johnson administration then hoped it would just sink out of sight.
Yes, but the children in those cultures have a lot more opportunities for unsupervised free play and self discovery. It all offsets in the end and any differences in outcomes is clearly just systemic racism.
"The infantilization of campus life” follows directly from the infantilization of westerners in general, which in turn follows from the paternalism, and especially these days, the maternalism inherent in the welfare state. It’s not called the nanny state for nothing.
“He champions what he calls The Exodus Project, which means that Jews should abandon the Ivy League altogether and instead attend colleges in the South and elsewhere that are welcoming.”
You know that the world is upside down when the KKK has outsourced its anti-semitism to the elite universities in the East such that the South looks hospitable by comparison.
"The South" is cover for "Red States", which is true but would be a little too on the nose. The left almost anywhere in Europe and in much of the Third World has been irreversibly and rabidly antisemitic and anti-Israel for decades, and it was only a matter of time until American progressives rectified the fragile unprincipled exception and went that way too and took the whole Democratic Party with them down that sewer. Now they undeniably have, so, for American Jews, it is a time for choosing. I've already seen a few choose to remain married to the left, marking the occasion by stamping their foot down on a small velvet bag and smashing the moral compass within.
"has been irreversibly and rabidly antisemitic and anti-Israel for decades, "
Don't confuse "antisemitic" and "anti-Israel." Antisemitism is indefensible, but "anti-Israel" is today a very rational policy since Israel was founded immorally--by stealing other people's land--and is currently attempting to commit genocide against the Gazans. There is also a current ICC application out for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the corrupt leader of Israel.
"Israel was founded immorally--by stealing other people's land"
Huh? Israel was created by the UN during a war that resident Palestinians initiated against resident Jews and which Egypt, Jordan and Syria immediately attacked having agreed to divide the spoils of victory among themselves. Ummm, better check the history!
I think you two are talking past each other. In 1900, the land where Israel is now was inhabited mostly by people who were Arab and at least nominally Muslim. It became a British colony in 1919 after WW I. A substantial number of Jewish people migrated there, spurred by bad times in Europe (culminating in the Nazis and WW II), a movement (Zionism) to "ingather" the Jewish diaspora into their biblical lands, and relatively favorable British policy.
So in the aftermath of WW II, the victorious powers acting through the UN, felt that part of the British colony should become independent as a Jewish "ethnostate". The neighboring Arab nations didn't approve and attacked. Israel won the war and became a fact. But this fact was not accepted a morally correct. Israel was considered foreigners on stolen land.
Now the cynical could say, "Sure, it's an immoral ethnostate, but so is every country in the region--maybe every country in the world. And actually, most Israel Jews are no longer immigrants from "the west" but from other parts of the Middle East, where they were pushed out by Arab/Muslim ethnostates (the Mizrahi,). So they really are natives to the region."
Indeed. I was trolling. Yours is as reasonable a summary of the past 100 years as mine was.
Attempting to persuade using one's moral beliefs, as Robert M does, is futile. I had some time yesterday to look at American 'discussion' about Israel's war in Gaza. I was unimpressed.
I live near university of Illinois urbana-champaign. Most of downstate illinois is very red but urbana is very blue and champaign nearer the middle. I suspect that most of the southern or red state schools - duke, vanderbilt, emory, and some public schools - that a student looking for an ivy alternative would consider would also lean liberal.
I’m a Southerner by half my heritage (the other half is damnyankee) and old enough to clearly remember the South in the 50s. It took over a hundred years for Southerners to disengage from the KKK. Your comment made me think that it is going to take a hundred years for Palestinians to disengage from Hamas. Now that is depressing…
Considering the mess that campuses are today, let me pitch Presbyterian colleges. They are the classical liberal types of liberal arts schools, and they put a great deal of effort into getting their students to graduate. These are not necessarily Southern or red states schools (even though Presby is in South Carolina). My son went to Macalester (MN), and they got him past the finish line. I’ve heard good things about Milliken (IL), Hanover (IN), Centre (KY), and Maryville (TN) as well. Jewish students, specifically, might consider the advantages of a small college with close interpersonal ties between students and faculty, and one without the protests, etc.
"Today when institutions of pastoral care, students’ welfare, counseling and guidance have an all pervasive presence on campuses it is worth recalling that in the 1960s students were expected to more or less able to fend for themselves."
That's absurd. All of that was present in the 60s and 70s. Counseling and guidance has long been available. You just don't like the types of care provided today. I'm not arguing you are wrong on that.
If you can't see it, maybe this will change your mind - Dorms and cafeterias. Is that fending for oneself? I wouldn't be surprised if it were more likely for students today to live off-campus on their own.
The number of visits for "counseling and guidance" is much higher today than in the 60s and 70s. Back then most people considered it a little out of the norm, only for use if you had a real problem. Today, such services are pushed by the administrations as a completely normal thing, to be used whenever things don't seem to be going right. And to a large extent, that's how young people see them.
So you want to go back to when mental health services were stigmatized? That has nothing to do with being an adult.
As I see it, parents today tend to be more involved in their kids college life. That is good and bad. More students are more strongly demanding that schools protect them from "harm." That's maybe partly ok but seems to go quite a bit overboard on verbal "harm." Besides that, I don't see a huge difference.
This is going to sound snotty but, Stu, the fact that I described a change does not mean that I think it is all good or all bad, or that I "want to go back". The right therapy with the right therapist can be wonderful. On the other hand, one of the reasons that "[m]ore students are more strongly demanding that schools protect them from "harm." is that that's what their authority figures (including various therapists) tell them. If you have a problem, don't try to solve it yourself or with your peers. "Tell a teacher or therapist." Be afraid to do unstructured play away from watchful eyes. You should have a big demand for protection from harm and we will provide the supply. (Yeah, some times I turn into a cynical economist.)
But your comment was not on that topic and left out those details. In combination with what I quoted, your comment very much reads like you meant adults fend for themselves instead of getting help. After rereading the thread, it still does even if it now seems that's not what you meant.
>In the 1960s and 1970s, the rules on campus governing sexual conduct were thrown out. In the 21st century, the nannies have come back with new, strict rules.
My daughter is going to BYU in the fall. The old nannies never left so there is no need for the new nannies.
The "urge to crush dissident narratives" also arises in part from the sheer bullying nature of oh, so many academics these days. Bullies hire more bullies.
In the essay, Cohen writes a paragraph that might be worth pondering:
“Every Jew should celebrate when young Jews in the diaspora decide to move to Israel; to marry their lives and destinies to the re-born Jewish state; to raise Jewish children who will serve in the Israeli army, speak Hebrew as their first language, and live in the sacred land of our ancestors. And we should especially admire those young American Jews whose response to the war against Israel is to join the Israeli army, to hear the call of Jewish history, to trade the well-trodden path of American college life for the underground tunnels of Gaza and the dream of marrying under a huppah in Jerusalem.”
Should we react to this paragraph in the same way that we react to, for example, similar langauge regarding the Chinese diaspora:
“...overseas Chinese have vowed to emulate and carry forward Dr. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionary pioneers' lofty spirit of working with unshakable resolve to revitalize China, saying they will unite and strive to contribute to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Xi's speech is encouraging, said Wang Junxiao, president of the Brazilian Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, adding that overseas Chinese had made important contributions to the cause of national liberation, and will carry forward the great spirit of the pioneers of the Revolution of 1911 and strive for the great cause of the national reunification and the early realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.”
One might be excused for having a sneaking suspicion that there are some who might endorse Cohen’s call yet reject out-of-hand and full-throatedly condemn the “Hindu-nationalism” of a Modi canor the cultural conservatism of an Orban. Is this a problem? Are there certain identity groups that deserve to protect and defend themselves and others that deserve only to be eliminated in the greater interest of globalist cosmopolitanism?
At a micro-level, should the power of home-owner associations and gated communities and the like simply be abolished in the interest of grander schemes? It seems as if the first part of every YIMBY legislative prooposal that rolls down the pike is to interfere with private ordering of housing investments. If YIMBY is so apparently pure good and NIMBY so purely evil, shouldn’t the national and supranational realms be subject to the greater good of the grand schemers as well? After all, the UN, the ICC, and the EU have been so….whatever.
My gut instinct is to say what I take from the Exodus Project is that anyone who wants to retain some smidgen of personal autonomy and dignity, really needs to figure out how to eye from the cosmopolitan Eye of Sauron, but a less emotional response might be to reject good vs. evil thinking and to study and find constructive alternatives that do not sacrifice all to either pole. And to Cohen’s credit, I think that is what he attempted to achieve in his essay.
There’s little to choose in my view. Puerile narcissism and a refusal to recognise objective reality is common to both sets.
This elevation of the 68ers and Vietnam anti war forces needs to stop and the drivers of those movements must to be recognised for what they were. Otherwise we just go on repeating the same mistakes albeit with slightly different classes of person.
True. I do not much warm - in the context of the rich Western world - to 'activists' and 'protestors' full stop....and it's high time all this bogus simulcrum of 'liberty' was de-sanctified. In places like Iran and Afghanistan where protesting is brave and dangerous it's a different thing altogether....and very noble. In the West though, it is 90% performative narcissism. That was as true in the 60s as it is now.
Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to be taught by the hippies in the 80s and 90s in high school and college. They were an interesting lot with a special fondness for Castro, fear of plastics and artificial colors, and purveyors of strange conspiracy theories about supermarket bar code scanners (as opposed to manual cash registers). Underpinning all of it was a sense of superiority albeit totally irrational and easily parodied.
Whenever I hear Arnold say that the hippies were different from today’s protesters, I instantly think of this clip and start to wonder how accurate he is being. Seriously, what is this blah blah blah nonsense?
Yes 'twas ever thus...when I was at a UK university in the early 70s, the fashionable thing to be if you saw yourself as politically enlightened was a Maoist. Given what you say here I think you'd find this an interesting read: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/love-of-the-people
And in places like Iran and Afghanistan there are material rights to protest. It’s completely different in western democracies no matter how imperfect they may be.
“I think of the Gaza protesters as too intellectually feeble to argue with anyone.” Yes, also they’re frightened conformists: they do exactly what is expected of them by their bougie parents and faculty. Radical chic.
The welfare state subsidized single-motherhood- full stop. What you subsidize you get more of- full stop. Debating this basic fact is tedious.
I'm very confused how a sentence like that was sandwiched between two sentences saying it didn't lead to single parent in the quote Kling chose.
I hope by announcing that I've never been any good at life planning (I actually can't conceive of it - like other people talk about having no mental images - even, and am far too impulsive to get far anyway) this won't sound too judge-y/arrogant: the social engineering of the 20th century, both at home and abroad, has been to reward precisely those people who do not plan, or cannot plan - who concomitantly tend to be the least productive. As there is likely a genetic component to this, it's easy to see its dysgenic effect - and I don't really understand why anyone would care for government to try to reverse with the left hand what it long ago created with the right, and continues to do so. What is this obsession with wanting to have everything both ways all the time?
This is why I can feel only puzzlement amounting to derision for the oft-commented contention that e.g. Palestinians are ordinary folk who "want what's best for their children" and do not support terrorists and thugs but are prevented from seeing these feelings [plans] expressed in the world.
Ordinary folk they may surely be, but you have a situation where the world (not just western, Muslim world also) has encouraged Palestinians to breed without regard for whether they can feed or otherwise provide for themselves. And repeat, and repeat, selecting for those who do not plan. If I am sympathetic, it is to the extent that - at the outset, in 1948 - as with people all over the world during that period! - they had been subject to chaos, rather than being congenital poor planners like myself. (I mean, a people who had caused so few problems in the preceding centuries that they scarcely had an agreed-upon name!) But just as surely as if they were born with my deficit, the habit of procreating without regard for what life will be like - without a plan for improvement - was carefully nurtured in them by the international community.
We think of the left as nurturing their grievance, midwifing their victimhood - and while this is surely true, what matters was the nurturing of all those extraneous babies.
I see this same thing go on in the US, so I don't mean to call out the Middle East particularly, though obviously it's not confined to Israel even there.
This may work for the parents, but it fails miserably for children. Study after study shows the horrific impact of fatherlessness:
- 85% of currently imprisoned youths grew up without fathers.
- 70% of male sociopaths grew up without fathers.
- 70% of youths currently in state-operated correctional facilities grew up without fathers.
- Children from fatherless homes are twice as likely to drop out, twice as likely to commit suicide, and far more likely to abuse drugs.
- Girls who grew up without fathers are four times more likely to become mothers before the age of 20.
- According to Chicago Police Department records, the neighborhoods with the highest murder rates are also the neighborhoods with the most births to single mothers.
All true. But it may be that single parenting does not cause the bad outcomes so much as that the same inborn predilections are a major cause of both. Men with poor impulse control and a bit (or more) of narcissism are more likely to get women pregnant with little concern about the consequences. They are also more likely to commit crimes. Their kids have a predilection to be the same way. Women with a predilection to non-permanent relationships with unreliable concern for birth control have daughters who have similar predilections. There are all sorts of psychological terms like "poor executive function" and "present orientation".
It's like the problem with "college graduates make $X more than non-college graduates." That's largely because college graduates are smarter, more conscientious, and more able to "play the game". You can't make everyone rich by pushing them into college, holding their hand, and getting, um, loose about standards.
In his essay, "The Welfare State's Legacy" (link below), economist Walter E. Williams wrote:
"The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Fifty years later, more than 70 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Here's my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?"
Williams has also noted that:
- In 1918, the illegitimacy rate among black teenagers was lower than that among white teenagers.
- In New York in 1920, 80% of black children lived in two parent families.
- In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 12%.
Clearly, something changed between 1960 and today. Williams believes that it was the huge expansion of the welfare state. You believe that it was a change in genetics driven by rises in "poor impulse control" and "narcissism." What caused this amplification of men's "inborn predilections"?
https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/09/17/the-welfare-states-legacy
"Clearly, something changed between 1960 and today. Williams believes that it was the huge expansion of the welfare state. You believe that it was a change in genetics driven by rises in "poor impulse control" and "narcissism."
No, no, no. I believe the predilections were always there. But they were kept from leading to a lot of today's bad outcomes by various cultural and practical realities. One of the big changes is the expansion of the welfare state.
Another big change is that for many responsible people, having children (and to a certain extent, getting married) has gone from a foundational step of adulthood to a capstone. This leads to them having few or no children (and to more unmarried people).
"I believe the predilections were always there. But they were kept from leading to a lot of today's bad outcomes by various cultural and practical realities. One of the big changes is the expansion of the welfare state."
So the predilection was prevented by not having a welfare state?
Foundational to capstone - this may be mostly true among the well-educated and even the middle class but not so much among the population most likely to become single parents.
If you know that having a kid without a man committed to you will lead to destitution, there's an incentive to resist unprotected intercourse. If you know that the government will give you money (and maybe food stamps, fuel assistance, housing) because you need it to raise your kid, there is less of an incentive.
It's the difference between, "Do something stupid and you'll have to pay." and "We can't let bad things happen to you no matter what you did."
When Fulmer said something changed, you said no, no, no. Now you seem to be agreeing with him.
Foundational step -> capstone
I don't know how reflective they are of anything other than their time, but a trope of 19th century novels is young people unable to marry as yet because they have nothing to marry on.
In your first post, you cite a lot of negatives to the children of single parent families. One in particular is that 85% of men in prison were fatherless.
In your second post, you cite that in 1918, 80% of black children lived in two parent families and in 1940, 88% of black children were legitimate.
Do we have statistics that indicate significantly lower levels of criminality in 1920? My understanding is that, for example, murder rates were at roughly 8-9/k in the 1900-1940 period. And they were similarly 8-9 in the 1970-2000 period.
If living in a two parent family made such a difference, wouldn't we expect the 1900-1940 murder rate to be much lower?
I'd suggest the following:
Of course it's good to have two parents, assuming that the two parents aren't abusive or neglectful of a child.
The early 20th century data probably contains a lot of nominal two-parent families that were, in practical operation, single parent families. Keeping violent, abusive parents around children didn't help anything.
The more interesting question is why the ~ 1940-1970 and ~ 2000-2020 periods look like better periods?
1900-1940 had higher murder rates for reasons other than marital status.
Regarding your question, I don't know why you think those two periods look better but level of policing, size of prison population, crack epidemic, etc. are all factors. Levitt found that availability of abortion reduces crime.
Why... just looking at a big picture thing like murder rates:
https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_083892.pdf
And... agree with what you're saying. There's a lot going on here, which makes it fruitful to step back and ask whether "the decline of the two parent household" is really driving the bus here.
Seems to me it's not. That doesn't mean it's not a bad thing and not worthy of study, but it does mean that the straightforward implication Richard was making, that somehow if we get rid of single-parent families, we'll no longer have criminals and sociopaths, seems unsupported.
I guess I believe your data source but it's not what I expected. Either way, I see why you picked those years.
I think your paraphrase of Richard is a gross exaggeration of what he actually wrote even if everything he said were wrong. Beyond that, I agree it seems clear from murder rate data that single parent households weren't driving the murder bus 1970-2000 but that doesn't make any of his statements untrue.
Before 1960 blacks were more likely to be married than whites. How does anything inborn explain the reversal in marriage rates by race?
It doesn't. Change in circumstances does. So what was different between blacks and whites? Herbert Gutman, whose The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom publicized how high black marriage rates had been, told a story like this. Black people were more likely to tolerate pre-marital sex, even getting pregnant and giving birth as an unmarried youngster. It proved the woman was fertile. Men were less likely to see her as unmarriagable. She generally then got married to have a male to provide for her and her child.
This changed in the city and with "welfare". You got money for having a kid, but you lost it if you had "a man in the house". So a single mother got pickier about who (and whether) she married. The process spiraled. Things get noticed when in March, 1965, the Labor Department published Daniel Patrick Moynihan's The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, showing major racial differences in single parenthood. But it was lambasted at a White House conference, respectable opinion hated him for it, and the Johnson administration then hoped it would just sink out of sight.
Yes, but the children in those cultures have a lot more opportunities for unsupervised free play and self discovery. It all offsets in the end and any differences in outcomes is clearly just systemic racism.
"The infantilization of campus life” follows directly from the infantilization of westerners in general, which in turn follows from the paternalism, and especially these days, the maternalism inherent in the welfare state. It’s not called the nanny state for nothing.
“He champions what he calls The Exodus Project, which means that Jews should abandon the Ivy League altogether and instead attend colleges in the South and elsewhere that are welcoming.”
You know that the world is upside down when the KKK has outsourced its anti-semitism to the elite universities in the East such that the South looks hospitable by comparison.
"The South" is cover for "Red States", which is true but would be a little too on the nose. The left almost anywhere in Europe and in much of the Third World has been irreversibly and rabidly antisemitic and anti-Israel for decades, and it was only a matter of time until American progressives rectified the fragile unprincipled exception and went that way too and took the whole Democratic Party with them down that sewer. Now they undeniably have, so, for American Jews, it is a time for choosing. I've already seen a few choose to remain married to the left, marking the occasion by stamping their foot down on a small velvet bag and smashing the moral compass within.
"has been irreversibly and rabidly antisemitic and anti-Israel for decades, "
Don't confuse "antisemitic" and "anti-Israel." Antisemitism is indefensible, but "anti-Israel" is today a very rational policy since Israel was founded immorally--by stealing other people's land--and is currently attempting to commit genocide against the Gazans. There is also a current ICC application out for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the corrupt leader of Israel.
"Israel was founded immorally--by stealing other people's land"
Huh? Israel was created by the UN during a war that resident Palestinians initiated against resident Jews and which Egypt, Jordan and Syria immediately attacked having agreed to divide the spoils of victory among themselves. Ummm, better check the history!
I think you two are talking past each other. In 1900, the land where Israel is now was inhabited mostly by people who were Arab and at least nominally Muslim. It became a British colony in 1919 after WW I. A substantial number of Jewish people migrated there, spurred by bad times in Europe (culminating in the Nazis and WW II), a movement (Zionism) to "ingather" the Jewish diaspora into their biblical lands, and relatively favorable British policy.
So in the aftermath of WW II, the victorious powers acting through the UN, felt that part of the British colony should become independent as a Jewish "ethnostate". The neighboring Arab nations didn't approve and attacked. Israel won the war and became a fact. But this fact was not accepted a morally correct. Israel was considered foreigners on stolen land.
Now the cynical could say, "Sure, it's an immoral ethnostate, but so is every country in the region--maybe every country in the world. And actually, most Israel Jews are no longer immigrants from "the west" but from other parts of the Middle East, where they were pushed out by Arab/Muslim ethnostates (the Mizrahi,). So they really are natives to the region."
"I think you two are talking past each other."
Indeed. I was trolling. Yours is as reasonable a summary of the past 100 years as mine was.
Attempting to persuade using one's moral beliefs, as Robert M does, is futile. I had some time yesterday to look at American 'discussion' about Israel's war in Gaza. I was unimpressed.
"The South" is cover for "Red States",
I live near university of Illinois urbana-champaign. Most of downstate illinois is very red but urbana is very blue and champaign nearer the middle. I suspect that most of the southern or red state schools - duke, vanderbilt, emory, and some public schools - that a student looking for an ivy alternative would consider would also lean liberal.
I’m a Southerner by half my heritage (the other half is damnyankee) and old enough to clearly remember the South in the 50s. It took over a hundred years for Southerners to disengage from the KKK. Your comment made me think that it is going to take a hundred years for Palestinians to disengage from Hamas. Now that is depressing…
Considering the mess that campuses are today, let me pitch Presbyterian colleges. They are the classical liberal types of liberal arts schools, and they put a great deal of effort into getting their students to graduate. These are not necessarily Southern or red states schools (even though Presby is in South Carolina). My son went to Macalester (MN), and they got him past the finish line. I’ve heard good things about Milliken (IL), Hanover (IN), Centre (KY), and Maryville (TN) as well. Jewish students, specifically, might consider the advantages of a small college with close interpersonal ties between students and faculty, and one without the protests, etc.
"Today when institutions of pastoral care, students’ welfare, counseling and guidance have an all pervasive presence on campuses it is worth recalling that in the 1960s students were expected to more or less able to fend for themselves."
That's absurd. All of that was present in the 60s and 70s. Counseling and guidance has long been available. You just don't like the types of care provided today. I'm not arguing you are wrong on that.
If you can't see it, maybe this will change your mind - Dorms and cafeterias. Is that fending for oneself? I wouldn't be surprised if it were more likely for students today to live off-campus on their own.
The number of visits for "counseling and guidance" is much higher today than in the 60s and 70s. Back then most people considered it a little out of the norm, only for use if you had a real problem. Today, such services are pushed by the administrations as a completely normal thing, to be used whenever things don't seem to be going right. And to a large extent, that's how young people see them.
So you want to go back to when mental health services were stigmatized? That has nothing to do with being an adult.
As I see it, parents today tend to be more involved in their kids college life. That is good and bad. More students are more strongly demanding that schools protect them from "harm." That's maybe partly ok but seems to go quite a bit overboard on verbal "harm." Besides that, I don't see a huge difference.
This is going to sound snotty but, Stu, the fact that I described a change does not mean that I think it is all good or all bad, or that I "want to go back". The right therapy with the right therapist can be wonderful. On the other hand, one of the reasons that "[m]ore students are more strongly demanding that schools protect them from "harm." is that that's what their authority figures (including various therapists) tell them. If you have a problem, don't try to solve it yourself or with your peers. "Tell a teacher or therapist." Be afraid to do unstructured play away from watchful eyes. You should have a big demand for protection from harm and we will provide the supply. (Yeah, some times I turn into a cynical economist.)
I entirely agree.
But your comment was not on that topic and left out those details. In combination with what I quoted, your comment very much reads like you meant adults fend for themselves instead of getting help. After rereading the thread, it still does even if it now seems that's not what you meant.
"We are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God."
>In the 1960s and 1970s, the rules on campus governing sexual conduct were thrown out. In the 21st century, the nannies have come back with new, strict rules.
My daughter is going to BYU in the fall. The old nannies never left so there is no need for the new nannies.
The "urge to crush dissident narratives" also arises in part from the sheer bullying nature of oh, so many academics these days. Bullies hire more bullies.
I didn’t listen to the youtube, but I did read a Cohen essay which seems related: https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/politics-current-affairs/2024/05/the-exodus-project-a-jewish-answer-to-the-university-crisis/
In the essay, Cohen writes a paragraph that might be worth pondering:
“Every Jew should celebrate when young Jews in the diaspora decide to move to Israel; to marry their lives and destinies to the re-born Jewish state; to raise Jewish children who will serve in the Israeli army, speak Hebrew as their first language, and live in the sacred land of our ancestors. And we should especially admire those young American Jews whose response to the war against Israel is to join the Israeli army, to hear the call of Jewish history, to trade the well-trodden path of American college life for the underground tunnels of Gaza and the dream of marrying under a huppah in Jerusalem.”
Should we react to this paragraph in the same way that we react to, for example, similar langauge regarding the Chinese diaspora:
“...overseas Chinese have vowed to emulate and carry forward Dr. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionary pioneers' lofty spirit of working with unshakable resolve to revitalize China, saying they will unite and strive to contribute to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Xi's speech is encouraging, said Wang Junxiao, president of the Brazilian Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, adding that overseas Chinese had made important contributions to the cause of national liberation, and will carry forward the great spirit of the pioneers of the Revolution of 1911 and strive for the great cause of the national reunification and the early realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.”
(http://www.news.cn/english/2021-10/10/c_1310235655.htm )
One might be excused for having a sneaking suspicion that there are some who might endorse Cohen’s call yet reject out-of-hand and full-throatedly condemn the “Hindu-nationalism” of a Modi canor the cultural conservatism of an Orban. Is this a problem? Are there certain identity groups that deserve to protect and defend themselves and others that deserve only to be eliminated in the greater interest of globalist cosmopolitanism?
At a micro-level, should the power of home-owner associations and gated communities and the like simply be abolished in the interest of grander schemes? It seems as if the first part of every YIMBY legislative prooposal that rolls down the pike is to interfere with private ordering of housing investments. If YIMBY is so apparently pure good and NIMBY so purely evil, shouldn’t the national and supranational realms be subject to the greater good of the grand schemers as well? After all, the UN, the ICC, and the EU have been so….whatever.
My gut instinct is to say what I take from the Exodus Project is that anyone who wants to retain some smidgen of personal autonomy and dignity, really needs to figure out how to eye from the cosmopolitan Eye of Sauron, but a less emotional response might be to reject good vs. evil thinking and to study and find constructive alternatives that do not sacrifice all to either pole. And to Cohen’s credit, I think that is what he attempted to achieve in his essay.
Ultimately, it appears that a Jew has no alternative but to be a Jew. The rest of the world will not let it be otherwise. Not even America.
There’s little to choose in my view. Puerile narcissism and a refusal to recognise objective reality is common to both sets.
This elevation of the 68ers and Vietnam anti war forces needs to stop and the drivers of those movements must to be recognised for what they were. Otherwise we just go on repeating the same mistakes albeit with slightly different classes of person.
True. I do not much warm - in the context of the rich Western world - to 'activists' and 'protestors' full stop....and it's high time all this bogus simulcrum of 'liberty' was de-sanctified. In places like Iran and Afghanistan where protesting is brave and dangerous it's a different thing altogether....and very noble. In the West though, it is 90% performative narcissism. That was as true in the 60s as it is now.
“90% performative narcissism”
Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to be taught by the hippies in the 80s and 90s in high school and college. They were an interesting lot with a special fondness for Castro, fear of plastics and artificial colors, and purveyors of strange conspiracy theories about supermarket bar code scanners (as opposed to manual cash registers). Underpinning all of it was a sense of superiority albeit totally irrational and easily parodied.
Whenever I hear Arnold say that the hippies were different from today’s protesters, I instantly think of this clip and start to wonder how accurate he is being. Seriously, what is this blah blah blah nonsense?
https://youtu.be/lsO_SlA7E8k?si=flD_BOyd8GLfzhqw
Yes 'twas ever thus...when I was at a UK university in the early 70s, the fashionable thing to be if you saw yourself as politically enlightened was a Maoist. Given what you say here I think you'd find this an interesting read: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/love-of-the-people
Am I right in thinking that Savio was a hyphenated American?
And in places like Iran and Afghanistan there are material rights to protest. It’s completely different in western democracies no matter how imperfect they may be.
“I think of the Gaza protesters as too intellectually feeble to argue with anyone.” Yes, also they’re frightened conformists: they do exactly what is expected of them by their bougie parents and faculty. Radical chic.