{"id":7292,"date":"2015-03-17T05:43:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T05:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/03\/17\/ross-douthat\/"},"modified":"2015-03-17T05:43:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T05:43:43","slug":"ross-douthat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/03\/17\/ross-douthat\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross Douthat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Op-ed commentary at The New York Times<\/em> is abominably bad.  But there are a couple or three exceptions, one of which is the work of Ross Douthat. This from For Poorer or Richer<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But the basic point is this: In a substantially poorer American past with a much thinner safety net, lower-income Americans found a way to cultivate monogamy, fidelity, sobriety and thrift to an extent that they have not in our richer, higher-spending present.<\/span><\/p>\n

So however much money matters, something else is clearly going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The post-1960s cultural revolution isn\u2019t the only possible \u201csomething else.\u201d But when you have a cultural earthquake that makes society dramatically more permissive and you subsequently get dramatic social fragmentation among vulnerable populations, denying that there is any connection looks a lot like denying the nose in front of your face.<\/span><\/p>\n

But recognizing that culture shapes behavior and that moral frameworks matter doesn\u2019t require thundering denunciations of the moral choices of the poor. Instead, our upper class should be judged first \u2014 for being too solipsistic to recognize that its present ideal of \u201csafe\u201d permissiveness<\/a> works (sort of) only for the privileged, and for failing to take any moral responsibility (in the schools it runs<\/a>, the mass entertainments it produces<\/a>, the social agenda it favors<\/a>) for the effects of permissiveness on the less-savvy, the less protected, the kids who don\u2019t have helicopter parents turning off the television or firewalling the porn.<\/span><\/p>\n

This judgment would echo Leonard Cohen:<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you can say that I\u2019ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure \/<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And without dismissing money\u2019s impact on the social fabric, it would raise the possibility that what\u2019s on those channels sometimes matters more.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Why Progressives Mislead<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Op-ed commentary at The New York Times is abominably bad.  But there are a couple or three exceptions, one of which is the work of Ross Douthat. This from For Poorer or Richer: But the basic point is this: In a substantially poorer American past with a much thinner safety net, lower-income Americans found a … Continue reading “Ross Douthat”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decline-of-the-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}