Since 2015 we’ve seen an increase in petitions and movements to denounce professors. Typically a professor says or writes something, then a group of students protests. The students demand that the professor be censured or renounced by the university administration, or by his or her colleagues. The event is amplified by social media and by secondary, agenda-driven news outlets, pressuring other professors to take sides and declare themselves publicly. (There is a different script for pressure from right-wing sources off-campus).
The two highest profile cases so far involved Erika and Nicholas Christakis, at Yale, and Bret Weinstein, at Evergreen. We also had the case of Rebecca Tuvel, a philosopher at Rhodes College, in which the pressure campaign did not come from students but rather from other professors. In all of these cases the professor in question was on the left politically, and had said something that most professors did not find offensive. As far as I can tell, most professors outside of the immediate conflict zone supported the accused professors, thought it was inappropriate to subject them to punishment of any kind for what they said or wrote, and thought that these denunciation campaigns ultimately reflected badly on the academy.
Now, in late August, we have a case that may play out differently because the professor in question is a conservative who has made a conservative argument about poverty and culture. She made the argument a few days before the events in Charlottesville. Students at Penn have demanded that the university denounce her, and many of her colleagues did so.
Here are the basic facts. Amy Wax is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is also a longstanding member of Heterodox Academy. On August 9, Wax did what members of Heterodox Academy sometimes do: she challenged a widely held viewpoint. She published an op-ed at Philly.com titled: Paying the price for breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture. (Wax had a co-author: Larry Alexander, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, but for simplicity, and because Wax is at the center of the controversy, I’ll focus on her.) Wax opened the essay with a list of declining social indicators (e.g., the opioid epidemic and the decline of male labor-force participation) and then asserted something that conservatives have been saying since the 1960s:
The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture…. The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups. That trend also accelerated the destructive consequences of the growing welfare state, which, by taking over financial support of families, reduced the need for two parents. A strong pro-marriage norm might have blunted this effect. Instead, the number of single parents grew astronomically, producing children more prone to academic failure, addiction, idleness, crime, and poverty.
She then followed up with the phrase that has elicited most of the objections: “All cultures are not equal.” Here is the entire paragraph:
All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. These cultural orientations are not only incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and reciprocity among Americans. If the bourgeois cultural script — which the upper-middle class still largely observes but now hesitates to preach — cannot be widely reinstated, things are likely to get worse for us all.
In response to the op-ed, a group of students and alumni, mostly from the anthropology department, wrote an open letter, a Statement on Amy Wax and Charlottesville, signed by 54 Penn students and alumni. They criticized Wax and Alexander for:
extolling the virtues of white cultural practices of the ‘50s that, if understood within their sociocultural context, stem from the very same malignant logic of hetero-patriarchal, class-based, white supremacy that plagues our country today. These cultural values and logics are steeped in anti-blackness and white hetero-patriarchal respectability, i.e. two-hetero-parent homes, divorce is a vice and the denouncement of all groups perceived as not acting white enough i.e. black Americans, Latino communities and immigrants in particular.
The letter includes a call to action:
This is the time for members of the University of Pennsylvania community who claim to fight systemic inequality to speak up, especially those anthropologists and scholars who claim an understanding of culture and who recognize culture talk’s deleterious potential as a vehicle for racism and sexism… We call for the denunciation, not of racism as some abstract concept “out there” — in Charlottesville, in America, by the poor uneducated white or by an individual racist ideologue — but for a denunciation of racism at the University of Pennsylvania. In particular we must denounce faculty members that are complicit in and uphold white supremacy, normalizing it as if it were just another viable opinion in our educational tenures at the University. We call for the University of Pennsylvania administration — Penn President Gutmann and the deans of each school — as well as faculty to directly confront Wax and Alexander’s op-ed as racist and white supremacist discourse and to push for an investigation into Wax’s advocacy for white supremacy.
This call to denounce Wax was answered by 33 of her colleagues at the law school—nearly half the faculty—who signed and published an Open Letter to the University of Pennsylvania Community. In it, the law professors affirmed Wax’s right to express her opinions, but said:
We write to condemn recent statements our colleague Amy Wax, the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at Penn Law School, has made in popular media pieces. In an op-ed published recently at Philly.com, Wax and a coauthor wrote that “All cultures are not equal,” going on to claim that various social problems would be “significantly reduce[d]” if “the academics, media, and Hollywood” would stop the “preening pretense of defending the downtrodden,” because that would lead to “restoring the hegemony of the bourgeois culture.” In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian about the op-ed, Wax was quoted as saying that “Everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white Europeans,” because, in the phrasing of the DP article’s author, “Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior.” … [they then affirm Wax’s right to express her opinions, then say:] We categorically reject Wax’s claims.
Those are the basic facts.
I think it is important for the academic community to reflect on this case. In the wake of Charlottesville, all of us on campus might encounter passions among our students beyond even what we saw in the previous academic year, a year in which violence and the justification of violence became more common on campus. This year, we are likely to find many more professors accused of “white supremacy.” Professors and administrators may face many more campaigns designed to get them to sign open letters and collectively denounce colleagues. It is important, therefore, that we think about this case carefully and draw the right lessons. When and why should professors come together to denounce and condemn other professors? Of course we are always free to dispute each other; Wax’s colleagues could certainly have written essays or a collective essay debating her claims and pointing out flaws in her reasoning, but when is it morally and professionally appropriate to issue a collective public condemnation of a colleague?
I think such collective actions are only appropriate when colleagues have clearly and flagrantly violated their professional duties. I mean things like data fabrication or taking bribes to produce dishonest academic papers desired by a trade association. I would include writing a racist and hate-filled diatribe in that list, but is that what Wax did? She wrote an essay on the importance of culture for poverty-related outcomes, and the Penn students asserted, in their open letter, that such “culture talk” has “deleterious potential as a vehicle for racism and sexism.” The students are certainly correct that claims by a professor about the value of bourgeois culture could be misused by racists to say that one race is inherently superior to another. But does that make any discussion of cultural differences taboo? Does that make Wax a white supremacist for saying that culture matters for poverty-related outcomes, that not all cultures are equally good for escaping poverty, and that the 1950s American “bourgeois cultural script” was particularly good for that purpose? No, and here’s why.
The most intellectually exciting project I’ve done in the last ten years was to moderate a bipartisan working group composed of 14 of America’s top experts on poverty. We worked together for 15 months to analyze the existing research literature and write up a set of principles and proposals that we thought would actually work to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility. Our report, sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, was published in December 2016.
In poverty debates, scholars on the left generally emphasize economic and structural causes, including systemic or structural racism, and there is a lot of evidence that these causes matter. Scholars on the right, in contrast, generally emphasize the importance of personal responsibility, the cultivation of virtues and skills, and the benefits of marriage, and there is a lot of evidence that these factors matter a great deal too. In fact, research by one of our members (Richard Reeves) shows that for children born into the bottom quintile of the income distribution, if their parents are married, they are just about as likely to end up in the top quintile as to remain in the bottom. It’s not quite that simple; marriage doesn’t create perfect mobility by itself, but its antipoverty effects are very large.
It was thrilling to moderate the group because after some tensions in the early meetings, the group settled into an extremely productive relationship that allowed the insights of each side to emerge, get refined by challenge, and then contribute to an emerging and novel approach. Viewpoint diversity allowed us to see the full problem of American poverty and then offer a far more comprehensive set of remedies than if we had all been on the same political side.
Our group almost hit an impasse: some of the scholars on the left were hesitant to say that marriage itself matters (as opposed to long-term committed cohabitation); some scholars on the right were hesitant to say that long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) were a powerful way to break the cycle of poverty. We finally agreed to say both, and we developed a clear formulation about the importance of creating better environments in which to raise children. We agreed to urge the importance of “delayed responsible parenting.” We knew that marriage promotion interventions are generally unsuccessful, but given the huge importance of marriage for the outcomes of children, we thought it was urgent to try to change social norms in poor communities. Here is how we put it (with emphasis on culture added):
So what can be done? We’ve said that marriage matters. But past government efforts to encourage unmarried parents to marry have not proven very effective. Promoting marriage to strengthen American families isn’t primarily an issue of specific policies or programs in any case: it’s in large part a question of culture. Political leaders, educators, and civic leaders—from both the political left and right—need to be clear and direct about how hard it is to raise children without a committed co-parent. We’ve effectively reduced major public health problems, such as smoking and teen pregnancy, through changes in cultural attitudes facilitated by public information campaigns. According to a review of the research by contraception expert Adam Thomas, mass media campaigns about the consequences of unprotected sex have reduced unplanned pregnancies. We propose a campaign of similar scope to emphasize the value of committed coparenting and marriage. It’s not a small thing for leaders to be clear in this way—cultural norms are influenced by the messages leaders send. Major cultural norms have been changed many times before when leaders expressed firm and unequivocal views about even entrenched cultural attitudes, including norms surrounding civil rights and gay rights. Presidents, politicians, church leaders, newspaper columnists, business leaders, educators, and friends should all join in telling young people that raising kids jointly with the children’s other parent is more likely to lead to positive outcomes than raising a child alone.
In other words, Wax was correct, based on the available evidence and expert opinion, to argue that “a strong pro-marriage norm” would reduce poverty and blunt or reverse the pernicious social trends she described at the beginning of her article.
In our report we drew heavily on the work of Belle Sawhill, a widely respected expert on child poverty at the Brookings Institution. Sawhill herself had recently argued for the importance of culture change, and of having kids at the right time, to reduce poverty:
The genie is out of the bottle. What we need instead is a new ethic of responsible parenthood. If we combine an updated social norm with greater reliance on the most effective forms of birth control, we can transform drifters into planners and improve children’s life prospects… The drifters need better educational and job opportunities, but unless we come to grips with what is happening to marriage and parenting, progress will be limited. For every child lifted out of poverty by a social program, another one is entering poverty as a result of the continued breakdown of the American family. If we could turn back the marriage clock to 1970, before the sharp rise in divorce and single parenthood began, the child poverty rate would be 20 percent lower than it is now….
We need more (and better quality) child care and a higher minimum wage, as well as serious education and training for those who are struggling to care for their families. But government alone can’t solve this problem. Younger people must begin to take greater responsibility for their choices. The old social norm was, “Don’t have a child outside of marriage.” The new norm needs to be, “Don’t have a child until you and your partner are ready to be parents.” Whether or not it was a realistic norm in the past, it is now — precisely because newer forms of contraception make planning a family so much easier.
Again, marriage, and norms promoting marriage-like behavior, are among the most powerful known antidotes to American poverty.
Ultimately, all of us, including Sawhill and Wax, are building on the insights of sociologist (and later Senator) Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his famous report on the state of black families, which he wrote while working for the Labor department during the Johnson administration. What is less widely known is that Moynihan wrote a private memo in a format suitable for his boss (Willard Wirtz, the Secretary of Labor) to give to President Johnson, underlining the absolute urgency of re-tooling federal policy to promote and not undermine marriage and family stability among African Americans. Moynihan argued that the decline of marriage was the “master problem,” the “principal cause” of the problems facing Black America, and he predicted that African Americans would not be able to attain equality if this problem was not addressed.
Unfortunately, Moynihan was roundly condemned as a racist for his analysis of the black family and the importance of marriage, and his advice was largely ignored. He was socially shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard. It wasn’t until several decades later that sociologists began saying (quietly) that he was probably right. Now Wax is being pilloried for broaching the same topic — for saying that marriage and culture really really matter, and that some norms, some cultures, are more conducive to success in modern America than others. Does anyone seriously believe that all cultures are equal–either morally (including the culture of Nazi Germany) or as packages of norms and practices that are likely to lead to success?
Wax is provocative. I have seen her speak, and she clearly enjoys challenging received wisdom. Until recently such vigor and fearlessness were considered virtues in the academic world. In today’s far more charged and perilous academy, many of us have become timid and try to avoid saying anything that might upset anyone–even things that we know to be true and relevant to the topic being discussed. Wax has not caved in to the new pressures on academic speech, and this explains some of the reaction to her writings.
So what should Wax’s colleagues do about her provocative essay? Are the Penn students correct that Wax is an “advocate” for white supremacy? If so then a group denunciation may be appropriate. Such accusations are common on the internet, but professors should not accept such wild charges about their colleagues without clear evidence. Slurs and guilt-by-association are not enough. Wax made an argument about culture and poverty—one that has been espoused in some form by some of the country’s top poverty researchers, one that appears to be correct in its general outlines, and one that perennially offends many people. This case is therefore an excellent way to test the courage and integrity of the modern academy: How should professors, deans, and college presidents respond to professors who say things that are true but that offend some people? What would Socrates, Galileo, and John Stuart Mill advise us to do?
I have gone to great lengths to show that Wax’s central claim about culture is probably correct because the necessity of protecting dissent is clearest when the dissenter brings an important and neglected truth into the conversation. But the choice to denounce or not denounce should not really hinge on whether Wax was correct in this particular instance; it should hinge on whether she was making an argument in good faith using methods of argumentation that fall within the normal range of her part of the academy. There are no footnotes in a Philly.com opinion essay, but in Wax’s other writings on family law it is clear that she knows and is informed by the relevant social science research. Do Wax’s colleagues believe that her essay in Philly.com constituted a profound violation of professional ethics, akin to data fabrication or taking a bribe? Or do they just believe that she was wrong?
I said earlier that I think it is important for the academic community to reflect on this case. In the coming academic year, many of us will receive multiple emails from students and friends asking us to sign open letters and petitions denouncing each other. My advice is to delete them all. We already have bureaucratic procedures for investigating charges of professional misconduct. If you think that a professor has said or done something wrong then write an article or blog post explaining your reasons. But every open letter you sign to condemn a colleague for his or her words brings us closer to a world in which academic disagreements are resolved by social force and political power, not by argumentation and persuasion.
Post Scripts:
1) This post is part of my larger effort to call attention to the rising role of intimidation and fear, which are distorting life in the academy, interfering with both the research we conduct and the education we provide. I oppose intimidation whether it comes from the left or from the right, and whether it affects students or faculty.
2) I have made my own views on white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the president’s hesitancy to condemn them clear in this article.
3) Watch HxA member Glenn Loury interview Amy Wax about the controversy on The Glenn Show, Aug. 28, 2017.
4) Jonathan Klick, one of Wax’s colleagues who signed the open letter against her, has written a direct response to some of Wax’s claims; we have published it on the HxA blog.
Opinions expressed are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by Heterodox Academy or any of its members. We welcome your comments below. Feel free to challenge and disagree, but please try to model the sort of respectful and constructive criticism that makes viewpoint diversity most valuable. Comments that include obscenity or that sound like a tirade or screed are likely to be deleted.
I think why this has occurred is an important task to take up. Amy Wax expressed that a 1950s American “bourgeois cultural script” was preferred.
What happened in the 1960s – that intersects with the marriage and child rearing successes needed from in this piece?
2nd wave Feminism…which is now on 3.0-4.0 version. Divorces rates skyrocketed – no fault divorces are brought in the majority by women (around 70%). Marriage rates (in 2015) were at a 40-year low. Divorces/Marriages in the U.S. are at around 48.3% as of 2015.
Divorce equals duplication of household requirements, which leads to less savings, more debt, and we know, poor outcomes for children. Before 1970, 1-income homes existed far more frequently, and traditional roles of gender, kept a verified balance in kid’s lives.
But, hey, independent women are the rave, right? Well, they aren’t happy, if certain studies are to be believed. Abortion: how many of those have transpired in 45 years? Kids are more prone to autism, odd dietary allergies, and higher-educated women, are not having kids at replacement levels of population, due to delaying procreation and missing the window altogether, likely increased birth issues too. (Education reduces birth rates; increases desires for higher status men…)
But those men are losing ground economically – in manufacturing jobs offshored and less college attendance (around 43%) – and deemed unworthy of many modern women’s time. Especially, if men mention the falsities such as the wage gap or “rape culture”. (I am unmarried, and not an MRA, BTW.)
Which leads to gender studies and their kissing cousins with postmodern thought poisoning the well. Demonizing men – especially those white ones – has fueled this. It’s spreading to Engineering – Purdue hired a Postmodern Engr. Education Dept Head Riley:https://tinyurl.com/kl95bsh.
Selling marriage to Feminists? Now?Good luck
I completely agree. ‘All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy’ . The caveat is important. This is not a normative statement, but an empirical one. It reminds me of Ernest Gellner’s critique of cognitive relativism in Nations and Nationalism and in Words and Things (that modernity not just another ‘cognitive style’) – but also his observation that, like it or not, any successful modernity pushes social structures, language, modes of cognition, categories of thought, personality structure, processes of social-psychological development – in one direction. It seems that very basic comparative anthropological/historical-sociological texts and findings of the last 100 years are becoming almost unmentionable on the modern campus
It appears that the families of these disruptive black students at Richland School District may not espouse bourgeois values. They appear to support anti-intellectualism and negative peer pressure. This young black woman was bullied by other black students at her school because she was a good student. Her parents are suing the school. https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/36302/ It may be impossible to reintroduce bourgeois values via culture change initiatives without first creating authoritative conditions in our schools and communities. But instead, we blame the white bogeyman. Thus, it may be too late.
Leading with ‘all cultures are not equal’ was unnecessarily provocative, because it takes the discussion out of the purely factual realm. Instead she could have simply pointed to the likely or demonstrated effects of certain cultural norms and their abandonment. One of the architects of the Great Society programs confessed that their research led to the conclusion that an intact family was the strongest predictor of future criminality, but since that conclusion was politically inconvenient it was buried. (They wanted to claim that poverty and racism are key.) Social science is often a veneer for propaganda.
Much of the (politically motivated) research can not be replicated. It turns out that poverty is not a particularly strong predictor of crime when other independent variables are introduced.
Wax seems to have her sights on the right ends, but trips up when it comes to the means of getting there. For culturalists like Wax, the answer to the decline in bourgeois norms always seems to lie with the imposition of authoritarian force to marginalize those who don’t seem to be conforming.
But complex societies like ours cannot function well with Stepford-like social conformity. I agree that society works best when 85-90% of people settle into bourgeois social norms. But what of the other 10-15%? Complex societies require that some number of people not tie themselves down to hearth and home. The problem with post-WWII social conservatism is that it obsesses over the activities of this 10-15% minority, and pays little attention to developing institutions to support and sustain bourgeois norms in a positive way for the other 85-90%.
Culture is almost always a consequence of economic incentives. Bourgeois cultural norms rarely take hold and remain intact in the absence of a positive program that keeps the the barriers to entering bourgeois life low for young families. That’s the key. Bourgeois norms are failing today precisely because the barriers to entering that life are too high, and have been too high for three decades. That failure has nothing to do with abortion, same-sex marriage, or immigration. Bourgeois norms are failing because they lack support, not because they’re under attack.
The problem with today’s social conservatives is that they aren’t social conservatives; they’re authoritarians (typically, conservative Christians) who use the decline in bourgeois norms as an opportunity to attack those who defy their authority (feminists, immigrants, gays, etc.). All the while, these authoritarians continue to promote economic policies that make it difficult for young families to opt for bourgeois social norms.
Wax identifies a serious problem. She errs in suggesting that culture-based discrimination is the answer to that…
Please show evidence of Wax supporting the “imposition of authoritarian force to marginalize those who don’t seem to be conforming.” Merely noting the significant correlations between certain behaviors and success or failure should not be deemed authoritarian.
I’m referring to culturalists generally, of which Wax is an example. In quoting me, you conveniently (and dishonestly) edited out that portion of what I said. After all, it is probably no accident that Wax’s loudest cheerleader this weekend is Rod Dreher, a man who’s devoted much of the past decade to railing against same-sex marriage, often in ways that smack of rank duplicity.
It’s a difference without a distinction.
You wrote, “For culturalists like Wax, the answer to the decline in bourgeois norms always seems to lie with the imposition of authoritarian force to marginalize those who don’t seem to be conforming.”
IF you did not mean to include her, the “like Wax” is misleading. I simply questioned why you lumped her into a mix you deem authoritarian. If you did not mean to include her, I could easily call your statement “dishonest by implication.” I won’t because I find attacks on persons, based on floppy inferences, distasteful.
Oh…I support same-sex marriage so your “after-all” implication smacks of too little empiricism and too much supposition. Again.
janby,
If it’s a distinction without a difference, then why did you elect to eliminate those few words from the quote, and then not include ellipses to indicate that you had eliminated part of what I said. Your own actions prove that there is a difference.
Other culturalists were/are peripheral to my question. Had I asked you about culturalists LIKE Wax, it is possible you would have elided past a discussion of Wax and answered more generally. I simply wanted to know why you lumped Wax into the authoritarian mix. IOW, I questioned the juxtaposition and had no interest in the broad group of culturalists.
You began with a term — culturalists — followed by “like” and a name — “Wax.” You followed with an accusation of an authoritarian impulse. Ergo, you lumped her into the mix of culturalists with an authoritarian impulse.
I’ll try to remember your demand for perfect ellipses should the need present itself. Instead of distinction without a difference, I should probably have called it nit-picking the inconsequential.
You were not edited out. There is a hard limit of 2000 characters per post. I commomly have to edit my posts to stay under the limit
And Janby is not a moderator. He has no control Over your post. Neither do I
janby,
Dude. My question was a rhetorical question. Your own conduct is an implicit admission that there is a difference. End of argument. Pwned.
Bobby, my life experience has revealed to me that living by bourgeois values is the most common ticket to economic success. I have not seen nearly as strong a correlation between rejecting these values, even when born rich, and later success.
I grew up middle class in a modest house in the 50s and 60s, but in Beverly Hills. I found that those BH classmates who turned away from their parents’ bourgeois values fared much worse than their parents.
On the other hand, I started a furniture manufacturing company with $990 in 1972 and grew it into one of the larger such companies on the West Coast. I have known hundreds of entrepreneurs who started with almost nothing who achieved wonderful success. It is hard for me to think of any who achieved long term success who did not adopt or stick with bourgeois values. And I cannot recall one who had grown up rich.
But I do agree with you that finding economic success today IS more difficult. The reasons I see for it have been spearheaded by the left: unionization that led to many of our manufacturers becoming dinosaurs when the Japanese and then the Chinese imports entered our markets; and then open borders leading to lower wages for the few remaining manufacturers.
But the most powerful trend that is ending jobs for all but a certain educated and PC elite (see the firing of James Damore who rejected the orthodoxy at Google) is the concentration of economic and political power among a select few companies, led by GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple). GAFA’s growing power spells the end of many US jobs. GAFA consolidated its power during Obama’s 8 years. I am not saying the establishment GOP would have done much better, but the left is pushing their orthodox culture and they own every major power source in the country, except for Trump and Breitbart.
The odds are that the Left/GAFA will continue to neutralize Trump and grow their power. Where is the countervailing power? Profs Haidt & Wax…
I agree that bourgeois norms make good practical sense, and that most people do better living by them. I wish you the best in your business.
The expectation that the right to disagree is not enough, and that if I disagree with you, that some official censure must follow, might be indicative of a spoiled brat problem. That’s just conjecture on my part.
NPR had a fascinating interview today with neuroscientist/psychologist, Lisa Feldman Barrett, about a couple who lost control of their vehicle in the rain and skidded directly into the path of an oncoming truck. The truck driver, Tommy, emerged without a scratch but the couple’s young daughter was killed and the husband suffered a brain injury. One year later, Tommy successfully sued the family for HIS emotional distress. Following the accident, he viewed himself as a baby killer and had not worked for seven months or driven for a year. Amanda, the mother of the dead child, had returned to work in six weeks. She expressed shock, outrage and fear over the suit while Tommy expressed the terrible toll the trauma took on him and felt his response was totally out of his control.
Barrett stated that neuro-science does NOT support the emotional experience as an indication of something objective about the event. People DO have control over their emotions BECAUSE concepts are not hardwired. And emotions emanate from perceptions. Essentially, she stated, “You become more the architect of your own experience.” Barrett even mentioned how difficult it was for her as a progressive to acknowledge the science in light of potential implications.
So, in fact, science says that people’s PERCEPTIONS of Wax’s words create the outrage, anger, fear, NOT Wax’s words. So unless Wax’s colleagues actually believe that anyone who doesn’t jump on board their outrage train is either scared or morally defective, they should ponder the possibility of an alternative script/construct. Why aren’t ALL good people on the outrage train calling for Wax’s head???
It seems obvious to me that putting the locus of control over one’s feelings within oneself is far preferable and healthier than putting the locus of control over one’s feelings in the wider society. Effective coping strategies are so much more compassionate just as Wax’s pathway to success is.
Self control is a bourgeois value (and must be categorically rejected—sorry, I couldn’t help myself…).
I’m smiling…Couldn’t help myself…….CUZ perception told me your comment was smile-worthy. And, I don’t look for the cringe when an alternative presents itself.
In all seriousness, that sounds like an interesting case, and a great example of how our reason and our emotions need to be trained to have a good life. This used to be a central topic of a liberal education (Plato, Aristotle, etc.), but that seems to have been removed from the curriculum. Like Wax’s life-script, the Western canon has been devalued, to our detriment.
The case was interesting enough that it went to Missouri Supreme Court where the truck driver prevailed in his suit. Ironically, it wasn’t until he shucked the role of helplessly-buffeted victim and exercised his agency, that he prevailed at living a productive life.
The big issue with the Western canon is that its supporters insist it rule unchallenged and unintegrated with other systems of thought. This is no heterodoxy worth the name.
Great article. I wonder how Penn will respond.
I’m not sure why marriage is seen as an institution for “white people” (whoever they are), though. Marriage has been the foundation of society.
Our society is overflowing with so-called adults who are obsessed with their own happiness and with very little tolerance for discomfort. Any children they produce are just taken along for the ride. When will people stop experimenting with their children’s lives?
Truth be told, anything other than the nuclear family (father, mother, child) is experienced as a loss by the child, even if the child is raised by loving surrogates. Children need their mothers. Children need their fathers. Children need stable homes and stable communities. They need concerned and committed adults who are paying attention and who have expectations for their accomplishments and behavior. They are not pets.
Sometimes the nuclear family breaks down. My own mother died when I was four. She was 30 years old and left four young children behind, including a newborn. My father had been orphaned, so he was not in great shape emotionally. My aunt (my father’s sister whose fiancé had been severely brain-injured six months before my mother died) came to care for us. There was a lot of pain. They did the best they could, but there were problems. In retrospect, I am in awe of them. And I cannot imagine how I would have felt if the chaos I experienced at home was the result of “choice”. They responded to painful loss to the best of their ability, and I am grateful.
I come from a white, middle class family. We had expectations for our conduct and our accomplishment. We lived in a stable community with good schools. We all came through it.
Is it any wonder that children who are born into chaos are struggling? Their homes are unstable. Their fathers are not involved in their lives. Their mothers are overwhelmed or worse. Their communities are unstable and dangerous…
Note the larger pattern.
Every time somebody “asserted something that conservatives have been saying since the 1960s,” the assertion was supported by empirical evidence and sound logic.
And every objection to it was supported at least partly if not entirely by emotional reasoning and cognitive distortion of the type described in The Coddling of the American Mind.
This, I contend, is one of the chief root causes of most of the problems we see today.
The education system largely fails to teach students basic rules of evidence, sound argumentation, and a solid grounding in human nature. It largely excels at teaching them emotional reasoning on behalf of the Utopian dream of social justice.
This, from Haidt, on the Charlie Rose TV show:
> The education system largely fails to teach students basic rules of evidence, sound argumentation, and a solid grounding in human nature. It largely excels at teaching them emotional reasoning on behalf of the Utopian dream of social justice.
Count your blessings. If the kids in college today had a good grounding in logical debate, they would be a serious and influential force in American politics.
The most “racist” aspect in those opposing Ms Wax are those who condense all of Western history under the umbrella of “white culture”. It would be too inconvenient to acknowledge the attributes that lent to the development of western culture was the result of centuries of interracial violence between Franks, Romani, Danes, Celts, Vandals, Goths, etc, etc. Regardless of what the post modernists believe, these divides were as deep as any we see today, probably more so. The fact that western civilization rose above these conflicts to produce pluralistic societies is what makes it unique. The values enshrined as a result of this process are not attributable to skin color, they resulted from millennia of human suffering. As such they provide a map for anyone who wants to advance from the mire of tribal thinking. Is it perfect? Hardly, but it is a far better than anything humans have created up to present.
The nomadic early Europeans were large tribes, not races. The Franks, Romani, Danes, Celts, Vandals, Goths were communities of tens of thousands of people, like a large football stadium. The Huns and Magyars had different genetic backgrounds, but the others were part of the same migration. By most definitions of race, they would be the same race, but, they had hundreds of traits to know their own tribe. Our in-group intuitions are flexible; our first in-group is determined by our mothers.
One huge difference between yesteryear and today is the inequality of wealth. Each Vandal could only possess what he could carry. And so, he would not have many more things than his cohorts.
Nicely explained, and you are correct in that academia should not bend to social taboos and shall be open to discuss even the sensitive issues.
I wonder how does the studies in marriage fit with Nordic societies where co-habitation and divorce rate are very high (up to 60%) but yet have a good social welfare system.
I would be surprised if their kids do much worse in school and later in life. Similar to what the Dunedin Study has found – if I recall correctly after a crisis, social welfare is essential for the future of the children affected.
Comment I wonder the same about the Nordic societies. I hope Wax responds.
In the meantime, I agree with Jonathan Haidt about the absurdity of a group of professors attacking another professor for an op-ed piece. There is much to be said on the merits of what I take to be Wax’s argument. But this habit of mob intimidation is appalling.
Response to question about Nordic marriage: demographers note that the Nordics specialize in “virtual marriage” — stable conventional long lasting relationships that mimic marriage in many respects, but just without the legal formalization. Not quite as good for kids as marriage, but much better than the volatile serial cohabitation/single parent pattern that now increasingly dominates among American lower SES people.
It’s very hard to know how we can ever fight against genuine racism when 9/10 things that are labelled ‘racist’ are just the Left deliberately broadening the term for the sake of bullying people off terrain they want control over.
Prof Haidt, BRAVO! .. that took tremendous courage to publish. It is a mark of distinction for HXA.
You did conclude with a modest call to action to your fellow academics. You suggested they reflect on this case, and advised them to delete requests to denounce each other.
But most important, professors now have an example of what you require in order to gain your backing.
May many more brave souls come forward.
The value of hard work has long predated the bourgeois class. It was extolled in Biblical Old Testament times: Proverbs 4:20.
What was even more troubling about the professors’ condemnation letter was the implied invitation (encouragement?) for students to submit complaints on Wax to the Penn administration for anything that may have disturbed them in her classes. Thus an invitation to tie her up in bureaucratic investigations.
Folks took the Amy Wax essay too personally because they inferred a moral condemnation when she merely charted the path to success. In fact, the numbers themselves make the condemnation by virtue of a strong correlation between single-parenthood and poverty in an advanced economy. Obviously, there are exceptions: those with strong support systems, the high-earning cohort which can pay for help, and the exceptionally disciplined and highly motivated. That still leaves a significant group floundering.
But anyone who cares one whit about the well-being of others would emphasize the best, most practical road to achieve such well-being. I view Wax’s essay as an act of kindness. This reality-kindness doesn’t always come packaged with pretty bows. Parents, coaches, bosses, loving families KNOW this.
Perhaps the time has come for policy shapers and makers to focus more on fostering practical alternatives given the reality of single-parent households. Further, perhaps policy shapers and makers could articulate and frame bourgeois values in financial terms — one-income families — rather than cultural/moral ones. This could mitigate the sting of things. It also opens up new avenues for problem solving. For example, redesigned two-household homes with some shared common areas. Affinity partnerings. Well, the list is endless.
Lastly, group condemnation makes me queasy particularly when aimed at a person rather than an action or idea. I still subscribe to the sanctimony-sucks and the pluck-the-boulder from-your-OWN-eyes school of thought. Sanctimonious individuals ALWAYS feel they are on the moral high-ground. The finger-pointing profs are NO different. But history tells us that the sanctimonious get it wrong. A lot. The fact that recognizably good folks have a different opinion should give pause for thought.
This follows from victimhood culture described in another Heterodox Academy blog post:
Victimhood culture follows from the faith and trust in “intelligent,” “educated,” “expert” third parties to run society and make decisions for the rest of us who are too stupid or too uninformed to know what’s in our own “best interest” or to get out of our own way.
This, in turn, follows from the rationalist delusion of the WEIRD-thinking Platonic idealism of the three-foundation righteous mind.
The cognitive style of this psychological profile goes all the way back to Plato; arguably the first liberal.
While HAs defense of Amy Wax is warranted and well stated. I think there is more for HA to do here, although it might not be time yet.
Conservative libertarians like myself will be watching this closely. From our perspective the students in the academy making these demands look a hell of a lot like Mao’s red guard.
If Wax goes down and gets fired, I expect nothing less than for HA to back a lawsuit against the school.
This is a battle the forces of viewpoint diversity HAVE to persevere in.
If she is fired and gets no recourse, I will consider it a huge loss for HA and a death knell for my culture.
No one is as persuasive in arguing her point of view which is to say the POV of the majority of the members of HxA as Amy Wax. But as a nonacademic I struggle with the term “white supremacist”. I know it is a slur, but taken literally and neutrally is it not correct when applied to prof. Wax and others? Why can’t we call a spade a spade? Or must it be rejected because all individuals regardless of ethnicity can absorb the traits associated with white middle class culture and because it is such a loaded term?
PS The recent exchange on the philly.com essay between Glenn Loury and Ms. Wax on prof. Loury’s show on bloggingheads tv is worth checking out
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/47423
Since when is marriage white supremacy? You may not be aware of this but a lot of African-Americans are happily married. And if you ever venture outside the bubble, you will find that most believe in the same “bourgeois” values that I do.Hispanics as a group, probably believe in them more than white Americans. They are strongly family-oriented, very religious and have a great work-ethic
If what you write were true we wouldn’t be seeing these disturbing numbers. In 2013, 72 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent to American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white women, and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women.
You are doing an excellent job of arguing my position. The best anti-poverty program is a mommy and a daddy. How exactly is that “white supremacist”? All cultures are NOT equal. I live in a majority Asian community. They live in my neighborhood for the same reason I moved here – Good schools. My neighbors in back are an African American couple. They moved here for the same reasons. Ask them if they prefer the “culture of the hood” to boring bland suburbia. I am pretty sure they do not miss the gunshots at night. And over the years I have had many Hispanics work for me. I have also worked in Central and South America. The Hispanics I know have very strong family values.
The poverty rate in the United States in 1964 was 19%. Now it is 15% despite massive amounts of spending on programs for the poor. Today, only 39% poor families are headed by a married couple. If you want to change those numbers you have to change the culture.
Most elite white liberals are either happily married or will be. But for some reason they cannot admit that THEIR culture is superior.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/
It’s about as white supremacist as saying “airplanes fly and magic carpets don’t” is white supremacist (given that nearly all modern physics came from white people).
Complete madness. Ideas are separate from skin colour.
Dear Tom,
1. Please do not assume you know the views of the majority of HxA, or of any group, absent data.
2. It is not correct to call Amy Wax a “White Supremacist” based on her essay. (I have no claim to understand the inner workings of her, or anyone else’s, mind — and anyone who thinks they do has delusions of mindreading grandeur). But we were talking about her essay.
3. Why is it “incorrect”? What is “White Supremacy”? It is an ideology that calls for the legal and political domination and/or exclusion of non-White groups from a society. We are talking about the U.S. here, so it would mean advocating laws, rules, and practices that institutionalize white superiority.
There is nothing in Amy’s essay that constitutes such a call. In fact, her entire point is that what she calls bourgeois values — emphasis on family, hard work, and civility — constitute a pathway for anyone’s success. Embracing those values, she argues, is a pathway toward the reduction of group based inequalities.
Whether or not I or anyone else agrees with this is irrelevant. It is most certainly not on the same intellectual planet as White Supremacy.
If you want to make such an extreme claim, please quote her essay. Show us all where she advocates for laws, policies, and practices that ensure the domination by Whites or which justify practices that do so.
The idea that Amy Wax is on a political/intellectual par with the killer of Charlottesville strikes me as bizarre.
4. Neither she, nor I here, have denied the role of discrimination in also producing people’s life outcomes. I suspect she and I might not completely agree on the relative contributions of the two.
But her point was just that the idea that people have NO personal responsibility or agency is simply not justified by experience, history, and real world data.
And that is psychology, sociology, and history. It is not “white supremacy.”
Thanks to Professor Jussim. The term “white supremacy” is being egregiously and promiscuously abused today as a weapon of destruction against anyone and anything that departs from a progressive agenda.
The point of our op ed was that a set of habits, behaviors, and values — which, it so happens, historically flourished and were most highly developed in parts of Europe that happened to be white — can help people succeed in modern societies today. Those cultural practices and values can be embraced by anyone regardless of race or background. Adopting and endorsing them is not “white supremacy,” and it is muddled and downright dangerous to suggest that it is. That term should be confined as Jussim suggests to refer to the legal exclusion of non-whites from political participation and power, which every decent society rejects.
I think it’s ridiculous to claim that “white supremacy” only means the legal exclusion of non-whites, and does not include people who believe in the inherent superiority of white people. That argument is analogous to those who say that there’s no repression of free speech unless the government imprisons you for speaking. This doesn’t mean you are a white supremacist, but your definition of the term is far too narrow.
Hello Amy: Great article by the way. It inspired me as it has reflected my community-building work for 25 years. I wrote the grant and my organization received one of the mini-grants to promote healthy marriage in impoverished communities during the Bush era. That professional approach does not work, as Jon wrote above. Culture change via truth speaking and authoritative advocacy from community leaders across the racial and economic spectrum will work. That is why it is so important that people like you show the courage to write honest prescriptions like you did. We must break through denial, delusion, politics, and deceit, to focus on community health. The attack on you by the SJW horde was deceitful, and designed to perpetuate wrong-think. It enables bad habits and bad behaviors. It normalizes deviance. It is a post-modern sham argument. It concludes that anything bourgeoisie white people have primarily created is necessarily bad. Keep trying to move the Overton Window. Prescribe the Red Pill.
Dear John K. Wilson,
I think you make a fair point, that it is reasonable to characterize someone who claims an “inherent superiority of white people” (your term) as a “white supremacist.”
By your standard, however, Amy Wax’s essay is exactly the opposite of “white supremacy.” There is nothing in her essay about the “inherent” superiority of white people.
To be sure we are using our terms in the same way, here is dictionary.com’s definition of “inherent”:
existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute.
In contrast, Amy Wax’s essay points entirely to cultural and personal values and practices as sources of group differences. There is nothing there about “permanent” or “inseparable” group differences.
People, according to her essay, regardless of racial, ethnic or cultural background, who work hard to be gainfully employed, have children inside rather than outside of marriage, and who embrace respect and civility as ways of life will be more likely to have decent lives for themselves. Amount of “inherent” superiority? Zero, nada, naked, nude, 0 degrees Kelvin, vacuum, in absentia.
Now, her essay does suggest that, when there are differences between groups in their adherence to the ethic her essay describes, such differences may to some degree account for their differences in outcomes. My guess is that the idea that group differences in values and practices can account for any group differences in outcomes is very upsetting to some people.
And the role of those group differences is definitely a debatable topic. But it is not remotely “white supremacy,” because the argument is exactly the opposite of “inherent” superiority of whites.
Replying to Prof. Wilson,
Well if “white supremacy” is broader than my concept, we need a “rule of recognition,” a precise definition of what is and is not a token of the type. What represents an example of “white supremacy,” such that we should denounce it and, if possible, get rid of it right away?
Truly our life depends on it. We are surrounded by the products of European thinking, innovation, ideas, enterprise (from people who happen to be white). That is our culture — the best of it. Just to give one tiny example (there are hundreds), a friend of mine in the field tells me that the people on the cutting edge of developing effective cancer treatments are, both historically and presently, 95% white males. May change some day, but hasn’t changed yet. More importantly, their contributions come to us in a straight line from the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution, which are practices, developments, and traditions coming to us almost entirely out of Europe. So are effective cancer treatments examples of “white supremacy,” irremediably tainted and to be discarded? A perfectly good question, and one to which we would like to know the answer.
Here is a historically accurate if inconvenient truth. The list of the benisons of modernity, which includes most of the advances that we enjoy in our country and worldwide today and every day, are overwhelmingly the product of the European peoples and their cultural practices, operating in European intellectual traditions. That list is very, very long.
Shall we abjure all of this, give it all up? Professor Wilson should tell us, and give us a definition of “white supremacy” that we can work with.
Hi Amy,
Your phrase — (from people who [HAPPEN] to be white)” — makes a critical distinction mostly lacking in the dialectic around race and economics. Today, one often hears slurs prefaced by “You white people…” as if the characteristic discussed emanates from merely being white. Yet, white people whose behaviors fall short of the “success” template fare extremely poorly and have throughout our country’s history. Non-whites who DO subscribe to the “success” template fare quite well.
Even the US slavery dialectic would be better framed around the phrase “people in power who mostly [HAPPENED] to be white,” because world history clearly shows that slavery was/is a failing of those who have power. Riots and terrorism show that this can even be true of those who have collective power.
If words really matter as much as many assert – arguable – then the phrase, “who happen to be…”, should be enshrined as the path to more fruitful dialogue.
Question for Prof Wilson: Do you also have a problem with people of color who freely express a belief in the inferiority of whites along with the superiority of people of color? Countless examples abound even at the highest echelons of society in contrast to the statistically miniscule group of pathetic folks asserting inherent white superiority. And, wouldn’t society benefit far more from a focus on the “legal exclusions of non-whites,” as Amy noted, than on the unproductive, often-craven-you’re-a-supremacist BLAME GAME.
People who buy into critical race theory use the term white supremacy to mean perceived racial bias. This definition has now influenced a set of social justice activists, manifested in a number of academic articles and popular pieces. I disagree with that definition, but it has become cemented as the proper term for racial bias among certain scholar and activists.
I did a video that contextualizes and explains the cultural revolution that needs to attack ideas such as those put forward by this courageous writer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6ZRI5KXOY&feature=youtu.be Also take a look at the Daily Caller article from this morning that shows us who these revolutionaries really are. http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/03/anti-trump-resistance-groups-spreading-north-korean-propaganda/
“One group is Refuse Fascism, a well-funded “resistance” group created for the express purpose of opposing President Trump’s administration. Internal presentations from a Refuse Fascism conference last month said the group intends to make America’s leaders lose “international legitimacy” as a way of ultimately bringing down the Trump presidency, as TheDC first reported.
The other group is Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has played a leading role in anti-Trump demonstrations across the country.
Both groups have consistently echoed North Korean talking points that demonize America while excusing Un’s genocidal regime, and both groups have instructed their followers to distrust American media reporting that reflects negatively on North Korean leaders’ oppression of their own people.”
Professor Martin implies that we should just give into this abuse, mangling, and weaponizing of the language. But any definition or terminological move that turns a set of propositions or positions in a legitimate debate into a slur, with the purpose of tarring and intimidating one side, should be strenuously and relentlessly resisted. What is “cemented” needs to be “uncemented.”
(Chris Martin) One can only pray your definition of “white supremacy” never becomes institutionalized. Is this “perceived” racial bias how we get terms of alleged microagressions such as “Anyone can succeed in America” or “Where do you come from” that are set like land-mine traps for new college students to fall into?
BTW this has jumped the shark into the “real” corporate world. (See Google controversy, ESPN Robert E. Lee, YouTube, journalists, media ect… ect…)
I guess in the age of internet/social media it takes no time for ideas from academia to have immediate consequences to the wider culture. It took at least over 100 years from the time Marx wrote his doomed Manifesto for the bloody outcomes of that idea to become evident. In the 2000’s what begins as a small campus fringe idea percolating in the “Studies” area of the Humanities takes no time to infect the wider culture, with the consequences of people losing their jobs and reputations. This really makes evident the conservative Richard Weavers book “Ideas have Consequences” eerily prophetic as it was published in 1948.
Maybe the intellectuals in the Critical Studies arena need to be critiqued on the outcome of their ideas on the wider populace. You know, have some skin in the game and all that.
Amy, I have tried to uncement it, but my efforts have led me to believe that this is a permanent change. (Also, I’m not a professor.)
Excellent response.
It is sad to see that students are better at hearing dog-whistles than listening to (or making) arguments. Much worse to see professors do the same. (Although, to be fair, an op-ed is an invitation to think, not a fully worked out argument. This blog
post makes a compelling case that the topic is well-worth thinking about).
Does anyone remember the simpler days of the culture wars and the scandal of Murphy Brown?
The majority of my success as an individual is due to how I was raised by my family. How did my family become an upper-middle class black family? By following the things Wax talks about in her op-ed. My grandparents worked hard in a time where blatant racism happened everyday. They managed to succeed because they worked hard, promoted education, and always tried to present themselves in a dignified manner. My parents did the same and the success of the family only increased. I say this because the truth is staring us in the face, single-parent families are in general a recipe for societal dysfunction. There is a reason two or more individuals have been involved in raising a child in successful societies, because it is a lot of work.
Now, I am first to say that marriage may no longer be a strong institution within my lifetime. The loosening of gender expectations of women and the increasing number of alternatives to married life for men will likely kill marriage as a large, influential institution. However, the core principle of success remains the same. If you want to have children you need to have a partner to help you. If you want to succeed, you need to work hard. Obviously not everyone has the same starting point but these ideas have been shown time and again to work. If we don’t follow these principles you will continue to see poverty increase and standards of living fall.
Well said. I recall a discussion about success that had the full-bodied refrain “Thank your parents!”
Another defense of Wax, with some similar notes:
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/modern-liberalisms-false-obsession-with-civil-war-monuments-1504045658
It’s sad that having “family values” is considered oppressive and partisan, but that’s where we are (and have been for many years).
Surely you know “family values” is an anti-gay dog whistle.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Family_values
Yes. I am also aware that good ideas can be used for not-so-good purposes, or by not-so-good people. Making all ideas partisan props seems to be a problem.
Aahhh, you’re funny. ‘Dog whistle’. Well, you sure heard it. The race-obsessed see racists behind every tree, and the gay-obsessed see Mrs. Grundys behind every keyhole.
But sometimes, like now, a cigar is just a cigar. And family values are the strongest fabric and bulwark of our wonderful culture. As your reference source initially states, before it dives off into the weeds of leftist conspiracy theory.
If you are going to advocate for gay parenting, I hope you would urge them to adhere as closely to traditional family values as they possibly can.
So, I’m not clear on whether you are mean “family values” in terms of 1 man breadwinner and 1 female homemaker and that is the only proper family, or whether you mean a safe, stable and loving home that values education and fosters responsible children.
YON, are you suggesting the entire English language is rife with dog whistles when spoken by one who is not of your orthodox faith?
So unless we all embrace the cultural Marxist, identity politics, Post-Modern orthodoxy with its constantly changing rules of language, we can no longer participate in your version of society?
No thank you.
YON, I’d say that in this context “family values” refers to facets of the 2-parent/income home that alleviate poverty.
Seems like you—unintentionally or not— are bringing a “moral majority” viewpoint into the discussion when it has not been raised anywhere in the article being discussed and is more than likely an outdated trope.
Whether they be a family of two men, of two women, or any other combination thereof, I think anyone can plainly see that family values are at least efficacious from an economic perspective.
Sorry YON. I was agreeing with Perry’s comment: two parents, in a committed, family-centered relationship—tthe gender roles and income requirements are not essential, although I also believe people can disagree on this point (and I don’t think Wax made any comment). Promoting this ideal seems to be good sense, and not necessarily political. That doesn’t mean it has not been used for political purposes (hence my quotes around family values), but the idea itself is a pretty good one. (so much so, there are whole academic disciplines devoted to arguing against it!)
Having read Dr. Pinker’s Blank Slate I understand that how children turn out is about 50% genetics and 50% experience, but the experience comes more from peers than parents. So it seems that if parenting styles don’t really matter, then any positive role of the parent must be in guiding the child toward the right experiences. Is this correct?
You are looking for politics where none exist. Family values means family values – that’s it! It means raising children in a loving home with two parents. Could those parents be gay. AFAIAC, yes – as long as they are in a long-term loving relationship and preferably, married.
And yes, many Liberals and nearly all illiberals discount the importance of family in their search for cultural relativism.
The alternative is a continuation of one-night stands and multi-generational poverty. Not a good way to raise children.
Jimmy Marvin, Parents can influence a child’s peer group, so, that increases their influence if they choose that. See your local UU congregation, a good peer group.
I stand by my claim that anytime you put “family values” in quotes, you are introducing ambiguity.
https://harpers.org/archive/2017/03/family-values-3/
I strongly agree that family values, as Nitzchean clarified, are critical to raising kids that will help us in the future.
You can’t know that the majority of it is down to how you were raised by your family as you’d need to account for shared genetic factors.
All that’s relevant is that SOME of it is down to how you were raised.
Donald:
The loosening of gender expectations of women and the increasing number of alternatives to married life for men will likely kill marriage as a large, influential institution.
I am not as pessimistic as you. As it turns out the elite Liberals who argue for cultural relativism are commonly either married or will be. They do not practice what they preach.
The real issue is with poor communities. Out-of wedlock births are climbing within in all ethnic groups in poor communities. I believe that this is a function of the loss of the influence of religion in these communities as well as loosening of cultural taboos regarding premarital sex that occurred in the 1960’s.
Thank you for your post
Wrong. Elites largely do practice what they preach. They just don’t preach it in the way that you would probably prefer. In other words, they largely preach by promoting a positive message concerning the core merits of bourgeois life. That said, they recognize that not everyone is wired for domestic life, and make reasonable accommodation for those for whom certain alternative lifestyles may offer a more beneficial estate.
The failure of social conservatism is that it has very little positive to say about the merits of bourgeois life, and makes very little effort to ensure that those attracted to that life face low barriers to entry. (In fact, it’s elites who generally support policies that would lower barriers to entry into bourgeois life.) At the same time, social conservatism focuses its efforts almost entirely on trying to deny reasonable accommodations to the 10% of the population who experience no attraction to bourgeois life.
Elton John didn’t cause Hillbilly Elegy. But you wouldn’t know that if you’d been listening to the proponents of social conservatism for the past two decades.