Society Coming Apart

William Tucker reviews Charles Murray's new book, at The American Spectator, "The Coming Cultural Disintegration":

THE CULTURAL EARTHQUAKE that Murray has brought to national attention in Coming Apart goes as follows: Whatever the causes, the social disintegration that once seemed to apply only to African Americans has now engulfed blue-collar, white working-class communities as well. Men are dropping out of the workforce, single motherhood has risen to nearly 50 percent, crime has skyrocketed, religious faith is declining, and the chances for upward mobility are rapidly diminishing. As Murray concludes: "The absolute level [of social cohesion] is so low that it calls into question the viability of white working-class communities as a place for socializing the next generation."

Murray identifies what he calls the "founding virtues"—marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity—that were once shared by all Americans and held us together in a common culture. That culture was still intact on November 21, 1963, the day before the Kennedy assassination that Murray chooses as his benchmark. In graph after graph drawn from the sociological literature, he shows how these four qualities have deteriorated—not among the college educated, who spend most of their time disparaging those virtues, but in blue—collar communities where people are rarely educated beyond high school. By way of illustration, he applies this data to two real places, Belmont, an upscale suburb of Boston dominated by college graduates, and Fishtown, a working-class neighborhood on the fringe of Philadelphia where the once strong ethic of marriage and family is now falling apart.

The disintegration of Fishtown over the last thirty years is a grim and depressing story. In one remarkable passage, Murray quotes social workers from the 1970s as they expressed their frustration about how Fishtown residents wouldn't accept government programs:

"Kensingtonians [i.e., Fishtown residents] are psychologically unable to face up to their cultural and economic deprivation," said one Philadelphia social services administrator. "Pride prevents them from taking advantage of social services. For them to accept these services would be to admit they're not what they claim to be." The director of Temple University's Student Community Action Center lamented that "nobody knows how to work in the white community. Kensington doesn't want us there. It refuses to admit it's a poverty area."

There in a nutshell is the reason why white working-class neighborhoods were once so strong. But the government eventually won.

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Murray's book is here: Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.