Post: #1

Famous political thinker Charles Murray is the author of Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. Murray presents the case that in the U.S., there are two distinct cultures within white America which have formed over the last 50 years: The New Upper Class and the New Lower Class.

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Murray focuses primarily on white America because he wanted to avoid the complexity that race would introduce into discussions of class. Fifty years ago, white Americans were a homogeneous bunch, with mostly the same social and cultural norms. They watched the same television shows, ate the same food, and had the same rate of marriage and happiness across social classes. This is not true today. What happened?

Four Requirements For The Functioning Of American Society

Murray argues that the feasibility of the American project has historically been based on four founding virtues. He identified these virtues based on the writings of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and other key figures of the 18^th century:

1. Industriousness. This was a signature characteristic of Americans. It consists of the deep-seated American assumption that life is meant to be spent getting ahead by working hard to make a better life for oneself and one’s children. American industriousness fascinated citizens of other nations.

2. Honesty. For Thomas Jefferson, “honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” Many Americans are familiar with the stories of “Honest Abe Lincoln” and George Washington. This unique trait most observed by European intellectuals when they noted the willingness of Americans to obey the law. Tocqueville, during his journey throughout the U.S. in the late 19^th century, noted, “In America, the criminal is looked upon as an enemy of the human race.”

3. Marriage. The founders took for granted that marriage was the bedrock institution of American society. In fact, the founders often used the word “morality” as a synonym for fidelity, meaning to remain faithful to one’s spouse. The American concept of marriage was different from the European one, with its lack of arranged marriages and more religious roots.

4. Religiosity. Interestingly, Murray notes the relatively progressive views the founders held on religion. Jefferson was a Deist, Franklin did not believe in the divinity of Christ, Hamilton and Madison were suspected of being relaxed about their devotion to Anglicanism, and Washington was evasive about his views on Christianity. However, all of the founders were united in their view that religion was essential to the health of American society. The social institution of religion placed an emphasis on self-restraint and self-discipline, which the founders considered essential for civic bonds.

The founders were explicit in their belief that the American constitution would only work for moral and virtuous people who followed the above four precepts. As anyone can clearly see through mere observation, these values have eroded in American society.

The New Upper Class And Lower Class

Now let’s take a look at the data. Charles Murray defines the new social classes along educational and occupational lines. He has created a quiz here that measures how disconnected you are from mainstream American society.

To qualify for the upper class, individuals must have at least a bachelor’s degree and work as a manager, physician, attorney, engineer, architect, scientist, college professor or content producer in the media. For the most part, these are your stereotypical white collar careers. To be assigned to the lower class, individuals must have no academic credentials higher than a high-school diploma. If they work, it must be in a blue-collar job, a low-skill service job such as cashier, or a low-skill white-collar job such as mail clerk or receptionist.

For the lower classes, marriage has undergone a particularly dramatic transformation. Working class Americans 50 years ago would not even recognize their counterparts in modern America.

In 1960, high proportions of whites in both upper and lower social classes were married. For the upper class, it was 94%, and for the lower class it was 83%. In the 1970s came the great divergence. Among the upper classes, marriage has stabilized at 83% since the 1980s where it has remained. But for the working class, it has plummeted. As of 2010, only 48% of working class Americans are married. In 50 years we have gone from a 11% to a 36% gap in marriage rates between the two social classes.

Children of the lower class today are being raised in very different situations than their 1960 counterparts. For white Americans as a whole in 1960, 2% of children were born out of wedlock and only 6% for women with only a high school education. By 2008, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for lower class white women has jumped to a staggering 44%.

Other factors are disrupting and dividing the social classes as well. These include drug addiction in working class white neighborhoods, lack of social capital formerly created by religion in addition to marriage, and increasing economic competition from legal and illegal immigrants.

A working class man from 1960 would not even recognize the neighborhoods, norms, and families of his social equivalents in 2016.

Two Forces With Unforeseen Collateral Effects

Murray argues that since the 1950s, there have been two powerful forces that have had collateral effects which has contributed to ever greater social class division: changes in the college admissions process and the increasing value of brains in the job market.

Murray refers to the first force as “the college sorting machine.” This is the initial mechanism that brings people with distinctive tastes and preferences together. He states in Coming Apart, “People like to be around other people who understand them and to whom they can talk. Cognitive segregation was bound to start developing as soon as unusually smart people began to have the opportunity to hang out with other unusually smart people.”

Elite colleges changed their admissions policies to place a greater emphasis on intelligence and less on wealth. In other words, top colleges used to be filled with rich students, some of whom were smart. Today, top colleges are filled with smart students, some of whom are rich. In 1952, the average SAT verbal score of incoming Harvard freshmen was 583. By 1960, it had jumped to 678.

However, most of the students who did well enough in school to get into an elite college came from upper middle class families. So the upper middle class kids attended school with the wealthy, and the few working class students who get into top colleges rarely returned to their hometowns. This perpetuates the divide.

The second factor is the increased value placed on intelligence. Today, businessmen and mathematicians get paid far more and are afforded many more opportunities to create wealth than existed in 1960.

In the early 1990s, Bill Gates was asked what competitor would be most likely to draw potential employees away from Microsoft. Goldman Sachs, Gates answered. He explained: “Software is an IQ business. Microsoft must win the IQ war, or we won’t have a future. Our competitors for IQ are investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.”

Over the last century, brains became much more valuable in the marketplace. For high-tech economies, companies hire people who can improve and exploit the technology. For complex business decisions, businesses rely on people who can navigate through labyrinths that require advanced cognitive ability. regulatory ruling worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he is worth his many-hundreds-of-dollars-per-hour rate.

Furthermore, the bigger the stakes, the greater the value of small increments in skills. The corporation ranked 500 in 2010 was about eight times larger than the 500th-ranked corporation in 1960. Today, a worker who can add a few percentage points of profitability can be rewarded with several times as much income as a result.

Now What?

The first step we can take is to acknowledge that something has happened to America. People on both sides of the political spectrum point to different causes. But one area where both can agree is that the upper class must have a sense obligation to the lower class. It is reasonable to suggest that the upper class must preach what they practice. One way we can do this is to stop the myth that “all families are equal.” The elite must stop pushing social boundaries to the detriment of the lower classes. It is not true that a single mother, gay parents, and other forms deviant families are equally healthy for a civil society.

Observing the effects of the last 50 years, it is clear that the U.S. is coming apart. If there is any hope to halting or reversing the decline, the 2016 presidential election may be the last chance we have.

Read More: Our Decaying Society Has Created The Age Of Unreason

Posted on Sat, 23 Apr 2016 15:00:39 +0000 at http://www.returnofkings.com/85412/why-a...since-1960
Comments: http://www.returnofkings.com/85412/why-a...60#respond

Post: #2

"...the upper class must have a sense [of] obligation to the lower class."

That sounds like socialism. Which, by the way, has never worked.

Post: #3

(04-23-2016 03:44 PM)262 Wrote:  "...the upper class must have a sense [of] obligation to the lower class."

That sounds like socialism. Which, by the way, has never worked.

Obligation can mean different things, depending on your political orientation.

For the left, obligation might mean redistribution of wealth.

For the right, obligation might mean promoting a set of values by which to live.

Post: #4

Noblesse oblige:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige

Post: #5

(04-23-2016 08:38 PM)Lucky Wrote:  

(04-23-2016 03:44 PM)262 Wrote:  "...the upper class must have a sense [of] obligation to the lower class."

That sounds like socialism. Which, by the way, has never worked.

Obligation can mean different things, depending on your political orientation.

For the left, obligation might mean redistribution of wealth.

For the right, obligation might mean promoting a set of values by which to live.

I'll assume you don't mean the left version.

As for the right version, a productive set of values never sells to most of the lower class. Most of them would rather be placated with a twist of religion, ideology, or technology. Since that's what sells the most, that's what you have to sell to be in the upper class.

Like a good drug dealer though, the upper class doesn't get high off its own supply.

Also, note that the upper and lower classes are fluid. Sometimes a Zuckerberg builds a Facebook while an inheritor literally snorts up the family fortune.

(04-23-2016 09:48 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Noblesse oblige:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige

A nice, and dare I say it, blue-pill concept, but not red-pill reality. History shows that the more power you want - and the more you're willing to endure to get it - then the more selfish you need to be. You wouldn't be able to afford "noblesse oblige."

My main point with all the above is to say that while the upper class has certainly profited off the decline, the lower class consumers of the decline are not blameless either.

Post: #6

The problem is you have a Caligula-like element running the United States and the globalist element. I'd recommend watching the Caligula movie (1979) to see what I'm talking about. The Caligula element is anti-human, sadistic, bisexual, and mentally sick. To give you an example of a person who represents the Caligula-like element. I'd say Mitt Romney. Donald Trump even directly referenced his homosexuality during his campaign.

To give another more well-known entertainment example, I'd talk about the Game of Thrones. Through most of human history, men like Ned Stark (the patriarchy) have ruled. Life is generally as good as it can be for most people. Right now, we have Joffrey running the globalist element. Things are going to get worse if people like Caligula or Joffrey are in charge.

Post: #7

(04-23-2016 03:44 PM)262 Wrote:  "...the upper class must have a sense [of] obligation to the lower class."

That sounds like socialism. Which, by the way, has never worked.

I don't see why. A basic premise of Marxism is that the upper class is inherently opposed to the lower classes, and that anything that's good for the upper class is bad for the lower class. This mentality is contrary to the traditional conception of functioning civil society, whereby through national and religious solidarity the upper and lower classes may complement and buttress one another. This is precisely how nations have achieved greatness throughout history.

In other words, the assertion that the upper class should serve the national interest and thereby improve the lot of the lower classes is in fact a complete repudiation of Marxist ideology.

Quote:A nice, and dare I say it, blue-pill concept, but not red-pill reality. History shows that the more power you want - and the more you're willing to endure to get it - then the more selfish you need to be. You wouldn't be able to afford "noblesse oblige."

An implicit trait of noblesse oblige is that it's the prerogative of the strong, because the strong can afford to show virtue in their rule...it's the weak who scramble tooth and nail for every possible advantage. The great men of history utilized power for noble ends, never merely for themselves.

Let us not forget, even Machiavelli argued against Machiavellian rule in his later writings (most notably his Discourses on Livy).

Post: #8

^ I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Nations achieve greatness by providing incentives for maximum efficient output. The upper class can't be forced by weapon, religion, nationalism, or law to serve the nation or the lower classes; the upper class will simply abandon the nation and the lower classes for more grateful nations and lower classes when that happens.

That's why most multinational US corporations keep their profits overseas, for example.

On noblesse oblige, you can rationalize anything to be noble, especially to enlist or placate the weak. For example, Stalin and Mao probably thought or rationalized that they were utilizing their power for noble ends too. "So what if many died," they thought, "I think the communist cause is noble, and I'll enlist or at least placate the weak to it."

My point with these arguments is this: Stop looking to the upper class to save you. Stop asking them for a hand out. Your pleas will fall on deaf ears. Save yourself, and if you want to save your community, go get enough power to do it yourself.

Post: #9

I guess I view this in a totally different way. The white race is dying, decaying, imploding in a variety of ways. If I'm not the oldest man here I'd venture to say that I'm pretty close to it. When I was a young man a non scholarly inclined white kid from places like SW PA, NW IN or the south side of Chicago could find blue collar work in a mill, auto plant or manufacturing facility. The work might be dirty and monotonous, but it paid well. You could buy a house, a new car every 3 years or so, take a nice vacation yearly with the family and send the kids to college. That world of work started disappearing in earnest in the 1970s and now is just a shell of its former self. Hence you have the struggling white underclass that Charles Murray refers to in his book. So you can blue pill shame this group of people if you like but they had the rug pulled out from under them and their world torn apart. It is no accident that Trump has a good bit of support from this struggling class of people. I grew up in a rough and tumble environment in the rust belt north. It was urban, raw edged, blue collar but red pill and voted heavily for the Democratic Party. That party to which these people gave their votes and their loyalty now has nothing but seething contempt for them. So now the better half of the white race is doing well, although they don't know that most of them will be living Brazil style in walled off and gated communities in the not too distant future. The ones left behind can expect to fall further and further behind. They didn't need an effing handout before, they just need access to good jobs in a once great country where over 90 million potential workers are without jobs.

Post: #10

262,

I strongly disagree with your position on noblesse obligee, and I want to tell you a brief story, and ask you a simple question.

I'm part of a Facebook chat with a bunch of libertarian anarchists, all of whom think my support for Trump is misguided. Two of them are Hispanic Americans who think the Wall will be a disaster.

I asked both of them, "Do you feel any pride about the fact that Americans fought against and ultimately defeated the Nazis?"

What's your answer?

Post: #11

(04-24-2016 07:03 PM)262 Wrote:  ^ I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Nations achieve greatness by providing incentives for maximum efficient output. The upper class can't be forced by weapon, religion, nationalism, or law to serve the nation or the lower classes; the upper class will simply abandon the nation and the lower classes for more grateful nations and lower classes when that happens.

That's why most multinational US corporations keep their profits overseas, for example.

We can agree to disagree, yes. I should point out, though, that virtuous and wise upper classes understand that their position and success is due to the labor, industry and obedience of the lower classes; they also understand that basic principle of civilization that to whom much is given, much is expected. Egypt, Athens, Rome, Han China, Angkor, Tokugawa Japan, Venice, Britain...take your pick, every great nation in history will reflect this, and certainly not the abandonment attitude you describe.

Your maxim of "incentives for maximum efficient output" makes it seem as though you view a country as nothing but a factory, when it is far more complex and far more human than a mere economic equation. Civilization cannot be reduced to the act of making money, that is only a subset of a much larger and much greater project, which rests upon the judicious utilization of wealth generated and its translation into a harmonious collective. The longstanding inability to understand this among much of the right is why Thatcherism, for instance, was an abject disaster from which Britain may never recover.

Quote:On noblesse oblige, you can rationalize anything to be noble, especially to enlist or placate the weak. For example, Stalin and Mao probably thought or rationalized that they were utilizing their power for noble ends too. "So what if many died," they thought, "I think the communist cause is noble, and I'll enlist or at least placate the weak to it."

What you're citing isn't precisely a matter of noblesse oblige but means-and-ends morality, which is an answer (a very bad one, in their case) to an entirely different question. But as to the assertion that they believed in mutual obligation, quite the contrary, Stalin and Mao predicated their rule on absolute class conflict, and justified their brutality by casting their opponents as intolerable enemies of the so-called "progressive class". They sought not the cohesion of various societal echelons through common bonds but the destruction of those bonds and the triumph of their own "vanguard" over all others.

Stalin and Mao's basic assumption, drawn straight from Marx, was that the classes of a nation cannot possibly function harmoniously, that those above and those below can never complement one another but must always be in constant existential conflict. The great civilizations of history, whose rulers understood and practiced noblesse oblige (to this or that extent), make nonsense of this delusion.

Quote:My point with these arguments is this: Stop looking to the upper class to save you. Stop asking them for a hand out. Your pleas will fall on deaf ears. Save yourself, and if you want to save your community, go get enough power to do it yourself.

I very much agree with this, well put. (For the sake of clarity, noblesse oblige has nothing to do with handouts, but that's tangential to the point that you admirably made here)

Post: #12

(04-24-2016 10:15 PM)Saga Wrote:  

Quote:My point with these arguments is this: Stop looking to the upper class to save you. Stop asking them for a hand out. Your pleas will fall on deaf ears. Save yourself, and if you want to save your community, go get enough power to do it yourself.

I very much agree with this, well put. (For the sake of clarity, noblesse oblige has nothing to do with handouts, but that's tangential to the point that you admirably made here)

(includes MMX2010)

Post: #13

It wouldn't be fair of me to not include the rest of the story, so I'll tell it here.

When I asked the two people, "Do you feel pride in the fact that Americans fought against and ultimately defeated the Nazis?", the one person said the Russians defeated the Nazis.

And the other one said, Do I feel pride that "America" defeated Nazis? I feel fortunate and am thankful for the outcome, but pride? That would be foolish pride for something I had no control over. But I'll tell you this, my sense of gratitude is probably greater than your sense of pride."

I told him, "If your gratitude were genuine, you would feel pride." And, "Gratitude is the perfect word, and I'm glad you used it. Because gratitude is all about what other people have done for you."

-------

I'll spare you the rest of the conversation, but notice how he put "America" in quotes, and notice how he can't feel pride in something unless he feels he directly accomplished the task.

His Frame is predictable, and he feels that way because he's a second generation Spanish-as-first-language artist. He wasn't raised on the and history I was, and he hasn't gone out of his way to study American military history, like I have.

------

Noblesse obligee isn't socialism, and it's not maintained by force, but through pride. You have pride in your nation's accomplishment, and you tell yourself that no amount of personal accomplishment of any kind - (whether money, knowledge, women, children, nor popularity) - can outweigh the accomplishments of your nation.

Noblesse obligee doesn't drive around in fancy, expensive cars because the car is insignificant compared to the nation, so why would you want to trigger pride-destroying envy in your fellow citizens?

Noblesse obligee doesn't move Carrier air conditioning company to Mexico, because personal wealth in the hundreds of millions is insignificant compared to the beauty and well-being of the nation. So why would I move my company to Mexico?

Finally, in the Anonymous Bosch appreciation thread, scorpion made a small comment with huge impact. "Most of us would be insufferable if we were one-tenth as gifted as Bosch."

As someone who is one twentieth as gifted as Bosch, with a long, sad history of being insufferable, I know what scorpion means. When the really smart people in this country use their brains to get lots of money, but choose not to invest either heart nor money in "the stupid people", they undermine the Nation's Pride.

From there, the nation itself is undermined. And everyone suffers.

If they had more noblesse obligee, they'd be Donald J Trump.