America Against Itself - Charles Murray talks about the new class war.

I read this today and found it quite interesting. It is the most popular article on Spiked currently and thought some of you may be interested in the interview.

With the publication in 2012 of Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, political scientist Charles Murray – celebrated and denigrated in equal measure for his earlier works, Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) – produced a searing, searching analysis of a nation cleaving along the lines of class, a nation, as he put it, ‘coming apart at the seams’. On the one side of this conflicted society, as Murray sees it, there is the intellectual or ‘cognitive’ elite, graduates of America’s leading universities, bound together through marriage and work, and clustered together in the same exclusive zipcodes, places such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Boston. In these communities of the likeminded, which Murray gives the fictional title of ‘Belmont’, the inhabitants share the same values, the same moral outlook, the same distinct sense of themselves as superior. And on the other side, there is the ‘new lower class’, the white Americans who left education with no more than a high-school diploma, who increasingly divorce among themselves, endure unemployment together, and are gathered in neighbourhoods that Murray gives the title of ‘Fishtown’ – inspired by an actual white, blue-collar neighbourhood of the same name in Philadelphia.

It is in Fishtown that the trends Murray identifies as the most damaging over the past 50 years – family breakdown, loss of employment, crime and a loss of social capital – are felt and experienced. Its inhabitants have a set of values (albeit threadbare ones), an outlook and a way of life that are entirely at odds with those from Belmont. And it is between these two almost entirely distinct moral communities, that the new Culture Wars now appear to be being fought. Sean Collins, spiked’s US correspondent, caught up with Murray to talk about the cultural drivers of this latent class conflict; how it plays into the rise of Trump; and what can be done about this dangerous division.

One of the QAs

Collins: Do you see the culture divides and trends you identified in Coming Apart as contributing to the rise of Donald Trump?

Murray: Yes, I do. There are two developments. First, if you look at those people who are out of the labour force – what I call the ‘new lower class’ – they are no longer participating in the major institutions of American society. To put it crudely, I think they look upon Trump as sticking it to the man in a way they find gratifying. But I think they also look upon this as entertainment. I’m exaggerating to some extent, but there’s a sentiment of ‘well, this is a really interesting reality show, look at what this guy is getting away with, with all his outrageous stuff – let’s see what happens next’.

Then you have other people in the white working class who are getting married, holding jobs, playing by the rules – and they are pissed as hell. They see all of these shenanigans among the elites, the Wall Street types, for instance, with their 20,000-square-foot mansions. And most aggravating of all, they have to suffer the cognitive elite’s incredible smugness and condescension. The elites don’t even bother to hide this condescension towards the white working class. They are constantly making fun of rednecks, of evangelical Christians. And they talk about ‘flyover country’, as if nothing between the East Coast and West Coast really makes any difference. Indeed, cognitive elites are contemptuous of the working class. At the same time, working-class people, trying hard to makes ends meet, are being faced with an awful lot of competition for work from an influx of low-skilled, immigrant labour – an influx that the elites have encouraged and done nothing to stop. So, are they angry? Yeah. And is Trump a vehicle for expressing that anger? Absolutely.

Link

Is Murray's analogy valid? Is there a new class war being fought in America?

What has this to do with Manson.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
What has this to do with Manson.

Manson is on the ballot in 49 states, no?

a reply to: Morrad

"You can't kill me, I'm already dead". - Charles Manson

Fascinating read.

Good at calling out problems with the mindset both with the left and the right.

S+F

a reply to: Morrad

You might want to fix your title to reflect Charles Murray, the subject of the article, rather than Charles Manson, the murdering psychopath currently using up valuable oxygen in prison. Just a suggestion.

originally posted by: tigertatzen
a reply to: Morrad

You might want to fix your title to reflect Charles Murray, the subject of the article, rather than Charles Manson, the murdering psychopath currently using up valuable oxygen in prison. Just a suggestion.

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM..........

Thanks guys. It was late. Just a blip before I went to bed.

The whole Helter Skelter plan of Charles Manson was to incite a black/white race war which he felt would be won by the blacks. He thought that by hiding out in the desert with his "family" that they would come out of hiding after the dust settled and rule over the now black majority in the after math of the class war he instigated. That is why I checked out this OP.

Well, it isn't about Charles Manson, that's OK, but the title should get fixed. I believe it's only the mods that can fix it.

a reply to: Morrad

Now as for Manson, that creature should have been hung drawn and quartered.

He had his Family (cult hate filled twisted hippy followers) murder a Beautiful 26 year old if controversial actress Sharon Tate and other's in a frenzied and ritualistic attack and She was heavily pregnant, there are distressing images of the crime scene online which I just saw and which I wish truly that I had not, not a nice sight.

But to mention that beast whom ordered these murder's as if his opinion has any value at all is something that should not even be considered.

Such scum should not even be given a voice.

What is sickest as a fact is that he was and really is a no body, he got his fame by sending his brainwashed cult to murder this young woman and otherwise he would simply be a stain on a police sheet somewhere, probably though he murdered or had his follower's also murder other people.

I will never understand that mentality in seriel killer's and other attention grabber's, they equate fame with being great so making them into celebrity's merely justifies there self belief that they did something and gained something from it, his name and those of other seriel killer's should be erased from history but the name's of there victim's should be remembered.

Here it is, she was just two week's from giving birth.
I will not post the murder scene site and will never click on that type of page ever again after that.
en.wikipedia.org...
time.com...

Manson was something a Dog leave's on the side walk and nothing more.

a reply to: tigertatzen

I have contacted a mod to correct my silly mistake and have Manson changed to Murray. I was reading about Manson quite recently. Must have left an imprint in my mind.

Message to self: don't start a thread late at night when tired. Leave it until the morning and double check it.