I have been a professional personal coach for almost 20 years and I can assure you that the "demise" of our society sits squarely on the shoulders of the Baby Boom generation!
We have suppressed, repressed, and subjugated our brains, our bodies, and our better selves with media, marketing, money, advertising, and technology...believing it's "never enough" and we are never "good enough."
We make love to our smart phones instead of one another, ingest all manner of anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, sleep meds and now opioids...rather than get a professional coach, counselor, or therapist to talk about - and heal - what's really harming and hurting us. (Despite being raised during a time in history when the value of emotional and mental therapy was proven highly beneficial.)
Rather than cultivating our intrinsic wisdom, creativity, and humanity...we turn to Gurus and gadgets, would-be political saviors, apps, and online “relationships.”
We perpetuate the Victim-Perpetrator paradigm by slapping a label on the victim, condemning the perpetrator..and then washing our hands of it all without ever getting to the source of what isn’t working in our lives, our relationships, our communities, and in our world.
Time for the grown-ups…to grow up. There is help out there…look up from your smart phone and you’ll find it!
12
Maybe if conservatives would stop vilifying and alienating anyone who doesn't fit their narrow definition of valuable people, they would be able to form more social bonds. Maybe when they start recognizing that minorities, gays, the working poor, and people who don't go to church are also human beings, we won't be so isolated.
16
Why do conservatives keep blaming liberals for their own faults? It is what they always do, and now Trump has elevated the art of projectionism - falsely accusing your opponent of the very wrongs you actually commit - to a conservative acme. The truth is the Trump-loving red states have the highest divorce rates, the highest rates of teen pregnancy, the highest rate of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the highest rates of illegal drug use, and the highest death rates from drug addition. The reality is they continue to elect tax scold Republicans who won't spend money on improving their roads, their schools, their health, or their economic woes. But instead of addressing their problems with truth and reality, they find it easier to blame those smart enough to avoid their mistakes. Accepting the Trump lie that he alone can fix their lives is easier than actually fixing their lives. Joining the cult is easier than thinking for oneself.
22
As a Gen Xer I also experienced this phenomenon of the older generation damning us just as we were reaching maturity. It’s a disturbing pattern and poisons what should be an exciting coming-of-age.
6
"In some ways this is a very conservative message: Strong and supportive local communities are essential to helping people live their fullest lives."
Please. What part of "Strong and supportive local communities" is conservative? Everybody needs these, but inside the conservative bubble, only white, christian people are entitled to them. This piece focuses on the increasing, mostly self-inflicted problems of the white lower classes, while completely ignoring the problems of non-whites, who are relegated to second-class status from birth.
14
I have masters in planning from two New England state schools. Community building is easy to talk about but hard to implement. Local economic development is inspiring to many, but was largely untouched as a subject. Local governments don't really create jobs other than expand commercial development if they can and are at the mercy of larger forces. Activist communities can make things happen on a small scale.
Maybe conservatives think liberal, educated young women are to blame, because their ideal life is used as a selling point in one way or another across all industries, including the media.
4
In what demographic is the child free movement growing? I suspect in the Lena Dunham demographic.
Also, the right is lurching even further towards hyper individualism with their new mantra:
"I, and I alone..."
7
Does this article offer a specific solution? No. What is glaringly missing is the obvious solution to making communities stronger: FUNDING
Funding. Something even the conservative writer cannot bring himself to face much less say out loud.
What do you think would happen to communities if the stress and financial burden of healthcare was no longer a weight on people's shoulders? What would happen if the public school system had sufficient funding to where the teaching profession attracted the best and brightest who didn't also have to supply their students with supplies and could focus on teaching? What if parents had the confidence and the burden of worrying how their child would go to college wasn't a factor? What if, and this is a big one, many families didn't have to have multiple part-time jobs with differing schedules because big corporations no longer operated under a model of a large part-time workforce instead of full-time so that they didn't have to supply benefits (healthcare)? Lots of companies like FedEx and others do just that. The consequences of huge corporate desires for perpetual profit growth is killing America and the American family.
If you look back at American's heyday....the era conservatives love to reminisce about (me too), two things are obvious:
1. Taxes on the top were MUCH, MUCH HIGHER (we had more money to fund things)
2. There were VERY FEW LARGE CORPORATIONS
The ultra large, stock market funded corporation has been a scourge.
17
A lot of us coastal liberals having been pointing this out for more than a decade. Our family units are far more stable, intact and free of unwanted early pregnancies because we know those are things to strive for. We're the ones teaching and learning about birth control and STDs. We're the one wanting to put resources into public schools, public health and public education. We're the ones a PTA meetings -- and we're the one who believe "community" means more than shouting about god at the local evangelist's ziggurat.
Right-wingers have deluded themselves and their bitter, dysfunctional voters into believing that yapping about "family values" is the ultimate mark of conservatism. Of course not a day goes by without some right-wing politician or public figure owning up to sexual affairs and amoral habits. Because you're not really serious about it - not serious about using objective data and thoughtful analysis to guide public policy, and instead simply voting FOR more guns and voting restrictions and AGAINST any birth control and environmental preservation because of your "feelings."
No one is buying your snake oil and more except the dead-enders and Trumpers and entrenched political and think-tank plutocrats. Your finely honed mythology about "the real America" is just another transparent scam, and our younger generations will no longer be taken in by it.
23
Mr. Carney joins Mr. Brooks in the camp of conservatives who seem too late to realize the policies they promote are destroying the middle class and pointing to liberal policies as the answer. Perhaps it's time for both to switch sides. It may not be too late to be part of the solution.
13
So if I might invent a new phrase here, "It takes a village".
Who'd have thought people really couldn't go it alone, but need each other's support to make life more bearable and fulfilling?
8
Churches and sports as the main venue for community engagement? Puh-leez. How about community gardens? Modern libraries that help kids kids study, and adults keep current? Schools, of course, day care centers and pre-schools, and elder care facilities? How about community health centers, and parks, and farmers' markets?
These latter venues do not seem to trend toward authoritarian hierarchies and patriarchy. Perhaps that is why conservative writers prefer sports and churches (oh, and don't forget "fraternal organizations").
9
It takes money to support good education, build libraries, stock shelves, have theater and sports programs, all the activities that make a community hum. That money is no longer there. Healthcare, insurance, costly transportation, to name a few, are some of the culprits. People want different than what we have now and voted for Trump - erroneously - because he promised a different future. They should have looked at his business acumen - none - before giving away the store.
Instead of allowing Trump to pull people apart with his racist screeds, we need to realize that everyone wants the same thing. The wealthy will not pay higher taxes because people like Trump just spend it on unnecessary walls. Yet those higher taxes are needed to provide hope for young people, so they don’t just get pregnant or otherwise throw their lives away.
We need leaders with vision and the ability to communicate it successfully. I don’t trust any politicians today - especially Republicans. Their judgement is awful and their view of our country worthless.
6
The socially conservative right seems to have a special hate set aside for outspoken and politically active women. One wonders if it is only a matter of time before some cracker preacher starts screeching witches.
8
"Why do conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay?" They've always done it. This is not new. It is part of their patriarchal playbook and at the same time meant to encourage reverse ageism. "The adults in the room" turned out mostly or entirely corrupt each and every time Republicans use this claim. They've used it ever since Nixon to blunt the effects of movements generated by the youth of our country. As far as birthrate, there is a reason left unstated that is far more devastating that I hear and that is that the coming effects of climate change make them fearful of subjecting loved ones (their potential children) to the results. This could be the first generation to actually not have kids because, well. Why bring them to this life which may become a living hell? By not having children they are actually loving their children more by not having them at all.
5
Two items are important in the Carney essay:
1. The children of Oostburg are apparently "backed" by John Calvin and the Dutch Reformed Church's theory of pre-destination - anyone not in Oostburg is left on the cloth poster board and doomed to Hell.
2. All the statistics on marriage can be summed up by listening to one word in the film "Princess Bride" -
"Mawwage" --- Peter Cook as the Vicar
2
It’s interesting the author never considers how Republican policies encourage just this kind of thing. I’m not talking about ‘individualism’ but rather crippling student loan debt, the unlikelihood of social mobility, no paid family leave, no subsidized childcare, difficult to obtain birth control, no health insurance, no tax cuts for middle class and on and on and on.... if Republicans truly cared about families their policies would support them.
12
The reality is that "Liberal Elites" are more educated and therefore make better life choices. The current vanguard of the conservative movement, poor rural whites and evangelicals, equally reject science, facts, empiricism, and progress out of ignorance, fear of the unknown, and lack of mobility - much of which is self-imposed. Any recovering addict will tell you it's very hard to look in the mirror and admit your failings and that you need help, and the current conservative base is in dire need of assistance. But will Fox News and the billionaire donor class convince them otherwise - to keep their puppet voters in line with the over-simplified, single issue, us vs. them rhetoric that has been used to dumb down their base for the last 40 years? Or will the conservatives realize the hypocrisy, irony, and projection that has engulfed their causes and break free of the authoritarian-worship, poverty, and ignorance their movement has ben confined to? Considering how siloed current political groups are, how anathema pragmatism and bipartisanship has become to the extremists, and how targeted the messages of subservience have become from Breitbart, Fox News, InfoWars, Facebook, and so on, I have little hope for a resurgence of classic conservatism. I think the group has been relegated to a new reality of willful ignorance, sexual predation, financial exploitation, and misogynistic fetishism by the new torch holder of the the GOP, our grifter-in-chief himself, Donald Trump.
13
Or, maybe the liberal elites just don’t believe their own messaging (propaganda), which has been pushed on the other classes for decades. Such wisdom as women don’t need men; marriage is oppression; motherhood is less valuable than career/job; religion is nonsensical myth; and small towns are ignorant backwaters not worthy of its most talented progeny.
3
The liberal elites traded away good jobs in the name of free trade and now want illegal immigrants taking whatever jobs are left.
4
Whoa there, “liberal elites” gave away those jobs? Which party is for unregulated, unfettered capitalism, breaking the backs of unions and taking away worker protections, and profit above all? Pretty certain those are “conservative” goals. As for the jobs the “illegals” are taking, have you looked into what employers are saying? They have jobs, they’ve tried to hire American workers, but there are too many Americans who don’t want them, or aren’t qualified for them, or can’t pass drug screening. None of those issues are the fault of “illegals”.
11
I have a nephew who is a heroin addict. He has been sent to prison multiple times. There are no government-sponsored programs to help him. He has no community to turn to for support. He has been ostracized from his conservative community because he does not live up to the standards they have set for him.
It is not only the local community that has failed him. This country, our society have failed to help. We have failed to see the hardships of other people as real, rather than punishment for a sinful life. His family faces the same challenges and limited skills many families face. They also face the challenge of his addiction. What should they do? How should they know what to do?
This support could come in the form of public health programs, but the GOP says no. Tax cuts are more important than supporting someone who is failing due to personal weakness.
We create the problem when we want to punish personal weakness rather than help someone who is struggling. Not everyone can make it on their own and the GOP refuses to understand that. Only reward the ones who are strong enough to make it on their own. Families and communities that fall short will crumble because they are denied even the most basic need for acceptance.
I am a bleeding heart liberal. I am not afraid of people who are not like me. I do not believe we show our strength by who we hold down, but by how much we can do to lift others up.
15
@RN Anyone who knows anything about dope addicts should know that it's one of the least difficult substances to kick. Heroin withdrawal is a few days of insomnia and diarrhea. That's it. Long term down-regulation of spinal and cerebellar opioid receptors and the accompanying decrease in neurotransmitters released by endogenous opioids definitely leads to a lot of discomfort and depression, but it's hardly life-threatening. The problem is the weak-wills and rationalizations that keep people coming back to the dope instead of making progress in the other direction. The way mothers and fathers will justify substance abuse over their children is irrational. These people need more than my money helping them, they need some serious introspection, which society is likely unable to provide.
Compare that to alcoholism where someone who quits cold turkey has the potential to seize and die after about 3 days off the sauce. Alcohol detox is one of the most dangerous withdrawals and often requires inpatient services, hospitalizations, and large quantities of benzodiazepines to prevent catastrophic neurological injury. The alcoholism crisis in this country dwarves the opioid crises by orders of magnitude, but we never hear about it. How come?
If you were truly compassionate, you'd realize the opioid crises is more a crises of personal accountability and self-respect, instead of trying to paint junkies as anything other than a selfish burden on everyone around them.
3
The error here in thinking that these people vote against their self interest is that in the current political system, their interests are not represented. At all. They know that so they vote for something, anything different because their world hasn't changed since FDR but for the worst, starting with Taft-Hartley in 1947 right up to *trade* deals that are wholly designed to put the screws to labour. Please understand that before being so quick to condemn those with little on its way to none.
2
Why are Cons so obsessed with Lena Dunham? I know exactly 0 liberals who have ever brought up Lena Dunham in a conversation. She's not influential in any of our lives.
6
All I can say is, read these 3 books:
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
Generation of Sociopaths by Bruce Gibney
3
"You know what family values mean? That's hating the same people your grandfather hated." - Robert Anton Wilson
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
6
Dunham is a rich kid that fooled the media into thinking she spoke for a generation. It was a vain farce from day one, and the Times eagerly helped perpetuate it. Tim, you apparently fell for it too by positing your completely scatter-brained theory of local communities, individualism and values around someone so inauthentic. No offense, this piece makes very little sense. Dunham is wholly irrelevant in 2019. What she stands for is someone who latched onto the power structure fed to her by the baby boomers and Hillary Clinton. That third-way Democratic feel-good platitudinous nonsense propping up the corporate establishment... It turned out to be a massive delusion by both Dunham and the mainstream media. The 2016 election proved it. Now Dunham is tripping over herself to gain acceptance to the new "in" crowd. The DSA joining, AOC praising, "dirtbag Left". And they despise her, but that's her aspirational "community" now. So, that is really the new value system paradigm you're looking for. Just look at this past weeks Sunday NY Times. Flip through each section and recognize that the cultural zeitgeist shown here is basically a foreign language to most Americans. This is an op-ed about the bubble, by the bubble, from inside the bubble. Nice work.
2
@F. Jozef K. i agree with you. Dunham has a publicist who probably has a hand in the story line to keep her relevant. This is a big crooked business filled with lots of followers and very few real leaders. Our government is totally disfunctional as well. Social media is a massive distraction to young and old, brainwashing us all. Eating our minds from the inside out. Delusional. Delusion. Crash and burn...
1
Start by telling your fellow conservatives that old white uneducated rural citizens are not Real America. They’re just old white uneducated and rural
9
Good analysis. I had long noted that Republicans were a major causer of declining families, but this puts it into a framework of facts.
3
Well, Trump is on his third marriage, plus Reagan was our first divorced president, and both are olds.
5
Bribes to Get Into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?
A new college admissions scandal is just the latest proof of a grossly uneven playing field.
2
As a non college educated but highly trained professional, woman aged 40, and single mom to 3, I think the author needs to learn to adapt to a changing landscape. Also, I would like to know where the similar info is on males. Will there be a follow up?
Many reasons why...
First there is the money issue. Kids are ridiculously expensive. Especially in already expensive states like MD, CA, NY, etc. Homes are expensive. Daycare is expensive. Commutes are long and tiresome.
Then we have time. My children are in college and high school. I work at least 60 hours a week and have for many years. Today I was on the road for over 3 hours, it’s now 7pm and I have at least 5 hours of work to catch up on. I am not the only one putting in long hours over 1-3 jobs. In order to parent children or have a successful relationship you need to have time.
Now back to money. When you are so deep in debt that all you do now is work to keep your head above water, do you really think people are staying married because they WANT too?
Lastly, why aren’t we adapting better? Marriage is not a needed thing anymore. If the only families we continue to respect and admire are the “intact” ones, I think we have an even bigger problem. Instead of saying that’s the best way and socially shame people, we should embrace and support them.
6
Well said. Thank you.
Mr. Carney, shouldn't the women you referred to in your 2nd paragraph be a Wellesley rather than a Wesleyan graduate?
3
This op-ed by Mr. Carney is somewhat disingenuous.
One of the prominent media outlets which has consistently slammed Millennials has been The New York Times. I could link to numerous "biased" op-eds and "unbiased" news articles which portray Millennials in a negative light. In fact, if you consistently read The Times each day, you might conclude Millennials are a generation of murderers who plan to smother Baby Boomers to death in their feather-beds.
As such, Mr. Carney's implication that Millennial vilification is done by "conservatives" does not past the laugh test unless he includes The Times in his list of conservative publications with "right-leaning editorial pages."
Furthermore, Carney ignores the fact that The New York Times was one of the newspapers which played a key role in pretending that Lena Dunham represented the Millennial generation. The Times repeatedly touted Dunham as "the voice of the Millennial generation" in several articles despite an outcry by Millennials that this was not the case. (And, of course, The Times always had an open slot for Dunham's latest vapid op-ed which was billed as the Millennial voice.)
I understand that Mr. Carney wishes to promote his forthcoming book, and the purpose of this op-ed is to do just that. But, please, let's not distort reality and retcon the past just to boost our book sales.
(Since The Times' FAQ states that "we welcome criticism," I am certain this comment will not bother the moderator.)
1
I did a quick search of the Washington Examiner, where Mr Carney, the author, is a regular columnist. I don't see this column appearing there. Perhaps the title is changed.
Seriously, publish this opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, or another "conservative" outlet. Otherwise any self-reflection espoused here is disingenuous and ineffective.
8
The highest crime,poverty and murder rates are in t he red states, they also need the taxes paid by blue states to the treasury to prop them up yet all they do is put down their benefactors.
6
I take your points, Mr. Carney. You're a gentleman and a scholar.
But to be fair, Lena Dunham is really annoying.
2
"It takes a village" has great relevance on any day when it comes to constructing society.
It ought to be remembered when commentators make broad statements, that India still manages to hold itself together on far , far less than the poorest US communities do. That is not to suggest we all should hope to be rendered the income of Indians but that there are places where social cohesion seems more important than kilo-bucks of income.
We have somewhere lost some of the retaining screws and bolts that usually hold societies together, even in the absence of immense incomes and roaring Western industrial economies.
3
It would be because liberal millennials are the most radical group of Leftist the world has yet seen. It is a sign of the times when we have muddied the waters to the point when the youth don't even believe in biological sex anymore. We have Leftist millennials in our government making openly antisemitic remarks all the while cozied up to Islam and open cultural Marxists. All of these people commonly exhibit The Dunning-Kruger effect of an unwavering self righteousness all the while being naive and ignorant in their youth. You have Lena Dunham who are proud, celebrate and even encourage abortion, it is one thing to accept that it happens but to celebrate it is a ludicrous as celebrating the car accident you caused. These and more are the reasons conservatives are tired of and believe that these unwitting children are direct contributors to what could be the downfall of all that our forefather built here in America.
Poor Carney, how awful to discover that the white picket fence America the Republicans wistfully claim to represent is no more. You didn't "starve the beast"; you ate the seed corn.
In your racist desire to make sure no unworthy person (minority, woman, immigrant) took advantage of a single tax dollar, all of which are earmarked for the upper class, you killed the goose that laid the golden egg for you.
Besides, the GOP never cared about them. They were just window dressing and at this point, they aren't needed any more. Why worry when you have Russian bots changing the votes for you?
What? You still want us to pretend you stand for something other than brazen self-interest? Community? That takes investment.
Ah, don't despair. Rural whites attend schools that teach to the test and never promote critical thinking, so they have no idea how they have been had, only that they have been.
Trust me, when the last t.v. flickers out in fly-over country, it will be broadcasting Fox News.
7
@nora m
Brilliant.
2
Today in Miami, listening to NPR on the radio to a discussion about the budget proposal including a sizable amount to help working parents with child-care costs. I was surprised and more than a little upset about the call-ins, consisting largely of males protesting about having to pay taxes to help raise somebody else's children.
There was the caller who proposed that if you can't afford to bring up a child on your own, don't have any, and he who having decided not to have any children, was willing to pay for bridges and highways, but not for education or childcare. When did people become so self-centered?
4
@Elizabeth
I'll bet that same guy voted against your ability to have an abortion, too. Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of "conservative thinking."
3
“...the fault of feminists graduating from Wesleyan with women’s studies degrees, declaring marriage to be archaic and motherhood to be oppressive.”
I believe the author meant to write “Wellesley,” rather than Wesleyan. Having lived in Middletown, CT, for some time it’s more a hot bed of other degenerative activities than feminism. Lay off the Methodists! They have enough of their own misguided troubles at the moment without mistakenly assigning them the labels of other institutions.
2
The Medium is the Massage.
Keep gobbling it up.
The Lisa Dunham zero sum extreme strategy is just more divisive outrage porn, make me feel good about myself, false narrative designed to ignaite the trumpster bottom feeders.
I work with a lot millennials. They are young engineers living miles from home, designing power transmission systems, they are young Iron Workers and Carpenters building the New York skyline. They are the men and women of our armed forces. They are first responders. All proud and working hard. Maybe some people should stop spending the families money on cheap beer, cigarettes and lotto tickets, turn off Fox News and join the young millennials that are building and serving out our country, if they can hack it!
3
There are more two-parent households in the U.S. than reported.
Thank the economy for that.
In a Deep South town where I once lived, most of the mothers did not marry the fathers of their children so they could get government assistance as single mothers. The fathers lived in the homes, though.
Poverty can alter traditional norms as a means for survival.
3
After a generation of assassinated leaders, the moderates and conservatives got to carry on with their awful agendas that have festered over the last 50 years, and got this country in the broad spectrum cesspool we're in today. The legacy we left to this generation is the fault of Nixon opening up China as a business partner with no foresight; Johnson and the military; insert war criminal Kissinger between Nixon and Johnson; Reagan, with deregulation and privatization along with a crew of grifters that rival Trump's Administration; Bush Sr and that entire Republican Congress; Clinton with bad labor laws, sexual harassment and industrialization of prisons; Al Gore who lost his backbone and Tipper, giving up and handing over the election with the help of the SCOTUS to Cheney and Bush, who I almost would trade for Trump and Pence. Add to that list SCOTUS decision that Corporations are people; Catholics and the Moral Majority teaming up and loading up their attorneys to Federal and Supreme Courts, adios Roe v Wade!
I still can't fathom how Howard Dean's campaign for President was derailed by an overenthusiastic state primary victory speech.
So to the argument that it's suddenly the 30 somethings and under liberals ruining the country, it's way too late for that blame.
The true accolades for the current state of the union goes to all of the above and so many more. GenXrs and Millenials are just getting the inheritance of 50 years of mismanagement, criminal activity and greed.
3
So, While Santorum is waiting for the rapture, people like Hillary are actually laying down what has driven our species for 100,000 years pretty well. Who knew?
4
To be clear, American conservatives (AC) now refers to bible thumping, socioculturally intolerant, angry (mostly white) people with no moral core. They are fiscal liberals, want to feed freely at the government teat, and want "others" disenfranchised (but paying into their kitty pot). They have religious justification for why they should rule, and why their tribal leader (Trump, Cyrus) is anointed by god.
Lena did not cause their crusade against education, justice, the environment. She did not vacuum their intelligence, nor orchestrate their surrender to superstition and dogma.
If ACs (who remain as horrified today as they were when they thought slaves would be freed) had a moral core, they would have to own the issues that afflict their tribes (from the nice marchers in Charlottesville to suburban families that quietly want their neighbor deported or gassed).
Rural Pennsylvania and Appalachia, GA, AL, MS, AK - are theirs. They own the hate-radios, the churches, the crumbling roads, lousy schools, the absent healthcare. It is their heroes, their church leaders caught too often stealing from the till, doing meth, and found in bed with the wrong kind - that have caused the problem. Not coastal students of post modern lit.
It is a vicious circle: ACs created the conditions in which their nice voting block continues to fester, so they have a voting block. Blame Lena or whomever, this is a problem of their making.
3
Every time I read a conservative take on our “declining society,” I think about the stupidity of the working class that routinely votes for Republicans who despise them.
Ronald Reagan was a joke that set this country toward ruin.
5
Who is Lena Dunham? No, really. If I gluggle her on the internut webwork thing am I going to be frightened? I am a bit fragile since Nov. 2016, so please, friends out there in the cyborg space, advance notice would be much appreciated.
@David
Remember when conservatives were apoplectic with the TV character "Murphy Brown" when they found out she...oh, I don't know, said or did something they thought meant women were going to ruin their world? That is about the import of this article's premise. Dunham starred in a self-effacing comedy where women aren't second-class citizens, or if they are treated as such, they attempt to confront it with humor and unsatisfying relationships. Not really worth Googling about.
1
Given that I’m not looking to birth new children into a world that is facing irreversible climate damage in less than 15 years, I really don’t care what other people think about anyone not marrying off to have lots of babies.
4
"The community backs their children." In short, it's not populated by overwhelmingly selfish people.
4
This article is the slightly warmer tone deafness from the Right that we’ve come to expect. It’s community and religion based vs economic based. Sure. Based on a study in a boom town.
Marriage correlates pretty well with having a stable job that gives you enough money and enough time to have a life. The only exception is when you’ve convinced yourself that imaginary friends are more important than anything else. Utah, super religious. Western Michigan, super religious. That’s not the reality for most people.
It’s pretty simple, if enough people have a job that pays them enough money and gives them enough time to have a life, they usually do, regardless of political affiliation.
If people don’t have time for this, and are not super religious than what do you do? It takes a family is condescending, it takes a decent job and an area that looks like it can support good jobs for the long haul, not the short haul like Frack Town USA.
And this is the drivel that comes from a Think Tank. Great
1
Imagine that, a self-professed conservative spouting reasonable opinions complete with supporting data. Most of this ilk are eager to simply repeat nonsensical right-wing talk radio propaganda. What kind of conservative are you anyway Mr. Carney?
Simple explanation. Highly intelligent, ethically sophisticated elites can tolerate a lot of freedom. Dumb, morally primitive people cannot tolerate a lot of freedom. The Europeans have understood this for centuries.
2
No mention of the potential government has for promoting and maintaining healthy communities. Conservatives need to drop the conviction that government is the enemy. Read a good history of the New Deal.
2
It is hilarious to blame our perceived social slide on liberal millennials. LMs can’t be credited with the embrace our fundamentalist brothers have exhibited for a President with a moral vacuum at his core.
4
I hardley ever encounterd divorced families until I lived in the sticks over 40years ago. It seemed everyone had someone divorced within their family orbit.
1
Ubiquitous Internet pornography and its influence on millennials plays a large part in the decline in marriage, decency and stability in American culture.
The minds of the young have been so corrupted by porn that the young today think there are 161 genders and no biological sexes; that love & fidelity are uncool; and the fallacy that one can change biological sex by amputating healthy body parts. A quarter of young people have a chronic sexually-transmitted disease and a huge number are confused about whether they are male or female. A quarter of young people are suffering from one mental illness or another. Who would want to marry people who are such a mess? Maybe it is a social good for defective organisms not to be reproducing.
Millennials have created hookup culture --- one where they spread disease, despair and lack of real human connection by making sex a meaningless act done with strangers that one summons up for the night on Tinder. The heterosexual young have taken up the sexual mores of the promiscuous Grinder bunch. Real human connection and the idea of love have been jettisoned in favor of exploitive loveless hookups. No wonder the young are depressed.
The reasonably sane and smart young people see that we are in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction and that climate change is going to totally scrag the future; and the smart conscious young have no desire to bring children into what will be a suffering overpopulated mess of a world.
Millenials did not create the hookup culture. Baby Boomers and Gen Xers all had well documented hook up cultures.
Lena Dunham is like a modern day Jane Austen, minus the pretentious modesty.
As to the matter of a “Global Village,” we’ve been warned for some time now. Marshall McLuhan may have been impressive, but he wasn’t actually a prophet.
Society would be so much less aggravating if more people read books for entertainment.
“Marriage is slowly dying in Scandavavia.. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents.”
Must be the income inequality and lack of a social safety net.
@God
Marriage may be dying their, but those societies are thriving. They are not suffering from gun violence, opioid addition, raging income inequality, massive poverty pockets, and lack of healthcare. They are merely, rightly, shucking archaic religious demands of the past. They are proving organized old-time religion is often part of the problem, not part of the solution.
2
I am 82 and grew up in rural upstate NY and these people have always been there. Except in those days it was called common law marriage. My son and his wife never got married until their daughters insisted on it. The only reason for marriage is to get health insurance.
If we actually needed more people it would make sense to promote marrying and having children. But we don't, and trying to get everyone to do so is out of place. We can find connection in so many other ways. For starters, there's social media. If you have that, who needs heroin or children?
The first person that I stopped speaking to during the Presidential election assured me that her vote for Trump meant that she was voting for what was in the best interests of her family. Since that time, her family has lost their home (they now live in a trailer), her only daughter was divorced (for the second time), and she pops opioids in hopes of staving off the pain of morbidly obesity. And she still blames Obama for every ill that she has suffered in her life. She is the picture of every elderly white female voter in the South that voted for the most immoral man to ever sit in the Oval Office, in the hopes that he somehow personally cared about her and would solve all of her problems. The Republican party has long since abandoned personal responsibility in favor of finger pointing. I wonder if Fox News bears any responsibility? Turns out, "deplorable" was a fitting word choice.
9
Interesting, our friend doesn't appear to give much consideration to working conditions, apart from the gasfield boom jobs. Let em eat apple pie is sure to work.
1
It is a lot easier to built strong healthy communities when parents to be actually earn a living wage. Absent that, the community doesn’t stand a chance.
2
The wealthy conservative elites in the right wing media and in gov't need to keep expounding on the Lena Dunham fallacy because they are not interested in addressing any issues that might need to be resolved by a "nanny state" with the help of tax dollars. Mr. Carney remains vague about proposals. Is he thinking of anything beyond traditional right wing ideas for reducing the separation of church and state?
Another use of the Lena Dunham fallacy is to keep conservatives who are agnostic on the dogma of no new taxes, and seem open to the kind of initiatives that Democrats could support (like subsidized childcare) firmly in their camp.
4
There may be other factors at play for why poor women have high rates of out of wedlock pregnancies.
(1) In low income Black communities a significant proportion of the male population has been incarcerated. That has reduced the number of 'available' men. Even Black men that have never gone to jail still face significant discrimination in hiring making their economic prospects (thus an important reason for marrying them) poor.
(2) Another problem is that red states have for 20 years eliminated sex education or taught abstenance only sex ed. While their peers who go onto college may eventually get the information they need, those that only graduate from highschool are not likely.
(3) Red states have made it difficult to get an abortion to end an unplanned pregnancy. However, the barriers most effect the poor and working class.
It is about time social conservatives realized that many of their 'solutions' just don't work. Getting tough on crime, ending effective sex education, and restricting abortion have only been broadly counter productive for families.
5
If poor and working class America wants family values to return as the status quo for all, they need to vote for it. Sadly, many still trust tea party Trumpian Republicanism. The Democrats are the party of family values these days, which explains why the majority of the top 10% tends to vote for them.
1
It's always amusing to see someone connected with the American Enterprise Institute, an organization that consistently places profit above everything else, lamenting the loss of the communities they've worked so hard to destroy.
8
Remember when New Deal policies were bipartisan? When FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon all had polices to invest in infrastructure and the next generation? When public college in most states was tuition-free or nearly so? Remember when the salary of one teacher or wages of one union worker on an automobile assembly line were enough to afford a house to raise a family in?
We don't have that anymore because starting with Carter's repudiation of the New Deal, all we've had is conservative economic policies out of both parties (with liberal, anti-discrimination policies from Democrats).
Those are facts. History. I'm 60 years old and remember back to the 1960s. I watched things fall apart.
And who among all presidential candidates has made the policies that built the post-war middle class his signature policies? Who among the presidential candidates has been called extreme and impractical and accused of promising ponies?
There is one such candidate, and he is going to unite liberals and conservatives around the policies that actually did make America great. That made American schools the envy of the world. That put a man on the moon. That gave me tuition-free college at the University of California. They call him a socialist, but that's what they called FDR, too.
The times they are a-changin'.
5
I'm still mulling over why the author believes "networks of friends and neighbors" are optional for single people.
3
As I live and breathe. A self-professed conservative quoting Hillary Clinton — in a good way! And touting the benefits of societal goods like public education, public parks, and public libraries!
Next thing you know, he’ll be praising the taxes that pay for these things. The sky must be falling, somewhere.
7
Forty years of anti-New Deal, Reaganite, neoliberal economic policies pursued by both parties starting with Jimmy Carter are the reason for societal decay.
The state of the country is entirely the fault of selfish Baby Boomers, who took everything for themselves and will leave millennials with a student debt, a gig economy, and global climate catastrophe.
2
I'm amazed that someone would use the words Reaganite and neoliberal in the same sentence!
1
This is a smart analysis. But the debate over who is to blame for such a widespread and fundamental problem is misleading and distracting. There is no organized group of people out there who designed this system and maintain it. It emerged from the chaotic clashing of different social, economic, and technological forces. For better or worse, there is no one to blame.
Of course, if you look into any one social or political group's motives, you'll find plenty of ugly self-interest and cynicism, but that's not actually a smoking gun proving they caused a problem. It's just evidence of humanity's flawed nature.
What we really need are feet on the ground, reporting and analyzing the problems from the ground up, not global theories of blame that lead only to more chaos.
1
I write these comments from my perspective as a senior citizen of 80 years but I do not "wax nostalgic" here. My family, though "ideal" from the outside, had its problems.
However, I was nurtured by my caring neighborhood. As children we played freely and pursued our interests. But at some level I think that we knew that the adults around us were attentive and caring. I could knock on any door and someone's parent would take over.
My mother died when I was 9 years old. Our next door neighbors--a widow and her daughter--took us under their wing and softened the pain of the next few days.
Neighbors all around us cared about us and welcomed us into their homes. No one could alleviate the loss of a mother but all of them became a community of caring.
Today I live in a similar community. As I struggle with the challenges of aging, I have neighbors who reach out. They shovel my snow; they give my home-baked pastries every weekend; they offer to shop for groceries; they give me their phone numbers should I need any help.
It may take a village to raise a child but it also takes a village to keep a senior citizen connected to the world.
13
The conservative argument, including the one made by Mr. Carney, has always been based on an idealist framework: proper values lead to strong communities, and strong communities lead to strong families, which then leads to higher birth rates and a stronger economy. The tail wags the dog. In this case the dog - an economy that is organized to provide living wage jobs, housing, and essential services for working class people - is the outcome, not the foundation, of strong families. Unfortunately for Mr. Carney, 200 years of evidence shows that the arrow of causality is actually pointing in the reverse direction. Families and children aren't possible if ordinary folks have no jobs, or have poorly paying jobs, little to no taxation of wealth, and no essential public services that provide for them, their children, and their retirement. Where these things are present families, in whatever configuration is desired, and healthy and happy children are possible. It should go without saying that "values" - whatever their content - are founded on a material substrata, and where that substrata is weak or broken anomie reigns.
9
It is my observation that what young people see in social and traditional media tends to demean traditional behavior including marriage. Unfortunately for these same young people it is much more likely they will succeed in both personal and financial terms if they are in a stable marriage.
2
From my late twenties to now I have lived in the same area. My once very robust circles of friends have splintered and refactored in to 4 main groups.
1) The ones that moved away
2) The ones who got married and had kids
3) The ones who got married and didn't have kids
4) The one who stayed single
In group 1 some had kids some didn't, but regardless I see them or otherwise contact with them at most a few times a year. That doesn't mean we are not friends, just that we are not as close as we used to be.
In group 2, we see each other maybe once or twice a month. But very, very rarely without the kids being around and almost always on weekends.
In group 3 we see each other rarely as almost across the board they all seem to go out to parties with other couples without children. You can guess what they do there.
In group 4, a little surprisingly, we see these people the most as they seem more than happy to come over for meal or help out with something. But almost always only during the week.
Lastly there is a 5th group. Parents of the our kids friends. We mostly see these people at birthday parties.
2
I love reading these types of things because it is so obvious the West is circling the drain at warp speed that even some of our elite feudal lords on the coasts are getting nervous. There are so many reasons for societal collapse. I personally choose to blame baby boomers, and the forces that created the baby boomers — war and Revolution. And throw in Reagan, Milton Friedman, the Clintons, Greenspan, Obama, Trump, and the coming clown show of candidates for POTUS. Nothing can stop the process.
Of course, I hope I am proven wrong. Probably too harsh on the Dems. Don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Motherhood is oppressive - sorry for letting the truth out. Signed, liberal millennial mother of 2
98
@Jmf
Motherhood doesn't need to be as oppressive as it is in many rural locales. Here, the lack of community institutions and poverty described in this column are greatly exacerbated by very traditionalist evangelical churches who preach very traditional sex roles and demand that women submit to the family decision made by their husband as rightful leader of the family. Who wants to marry into that? It's ironic that the same churches who denounce Sharia law as part of their Islamophobia, have basically constructed their own, conservative Protestant Sharia.
The intense individualism that modern conservative has endorsed may be part of the problem, but enforced male privilege is at least as big a part. We now have angry male incels irate that they can not find sex or a permanent partner. Men have to make the deal more appealing for women. One thing I see among college-educated men and women is a lot better sharing of household and child-rearing tasks than in my parents' generation, far more joint decision making, far more respect for the wives' careers, and a whole lot more happiness. My mother, a woman of great potential -- certainly smarter than my father, led an unnecessarily circumscribed life.
The international planning community learned that if you want to lower the traditionally very (unsustainably) high birthrates and reduce poverty and create social progress, then you need to focus upon improving the education and well-being of women. Learn it in the US.
42
@allentown
"One thing I see among college-educated men and women is a lot better sharing of household and child-rearing tasks than in my parents' generation, ... and a whole lot more happiness."
Agreed. I see my daughters in marriages that would have been inconceivable to my parents. It took 2 generations to build a model that works for two whole human beings.
26
today's comments are really smart
good going
2
I went to college in one of the towns that Mr. Carney is writing about. That town had a vibrant downtown full of merchants that supported all those things that Mr. Carney writes about.
That town then had a Wal-Mart. It then experienced the bipartisan NAFTA.
It now has the college and working at Wal-Mart. The merchants of downtown and the factories -- gone.
Why plan for a future that unregulated capitalism has created? Why plan for a future that seems not to exist?
Why plan for a future determined by those on the coasts who care not for what they only visited at 30,000 feet?
6
@blairga
The same thing has happened to rural communities all over the country. The mid-west doesn't have a corner on that market. Visit rural Vermont, Maine, New York, Washington, Oregon. The same thing is there. Hollowed out Main Streets with a burger shop, a pizza place, a Walmart for the wealthy and a Dollar Store for everyone else. Ops, forgot the payday lender!
9
this is the inevitable result of believing that low taxes should be the only goal of elected officials. And when any tax is seen as a betrayal, then it is always a race to the bottom. those with means move somewhere nicer, only depleting the tax base farther. communities require structure and long term thinking. cutting taxes does not get you schools, parks, and libraries.
11
"That hyper-individualist lurch by the right could be waning, though. As the rural working class has moved into the Republican Party, conservatives are increasingly attuned to declining family formation and crumbling community in much of America."
Uh, you'll have to show me some actual evidence of that before I can see the Republican party doing anything other than enflaming rural working class resentments.
8
Most people view feminism and feminists as somewhat or extreme left-wing. Reality is very different. Listen to country music lyrics. D I V O R C E and thousands of other popular songs clearly show the normalization of divorce and multiple marriages in our society. Along with teen pregnancy, these have become the norm in working class families, not only urban but in particular in rural families. These facts do not seem to fit the solution offered in this article. The article proposes, as do many conservatives, that we restore the institution of marriage as the right and proper, government blessed way of raising children and living together in sexual relationships. How marvelously 19th century that all seems. Queen Victoria would be delighted.
However, the families they wish to save have evidently voted with their feet in the matter long since. What we need is a society that can nurture diverse families. In particular, we need to alter our culture, our institutions, and our government regulations to fit this new paradigm of married and unmarried sex, married and unmarried parents of children, and people choosing who their partners are on the basis of their character, not on old social conventions. We need to find solutions that fit the actual problems, not what people wish the problems were. If individual freedom means anything, it means the right to choose marriage or not, and to whom.
11
I don't want to promote 'family formation'. I want people who do not really want to have children to quit having them. Declining birthrates are not something to be decried, but something to be celebrated.
12
If community is vital, relocating is not the answer.
3
Never ceases to amaze how the pull yourself by your boot straps crowd never take responsibility for any of their failings. Whether on an individual level or collectively as a voting block. Dangerous actually, when your belief system can be summed up as: I could be anything if I work hard enough, if it wasn't for the liberal elite.
9
@Zg
I've always had difficulty with the bootstraps metaphor.
If indeed it were possible to pull one's self up by the bootstraps, surely the result dictated by gravity would be to find one'self flat on one's back
2
Has there ever been a focus group study where people are brought into a room with no prep and no internet lifeline and asked to define "liberal" and "conservative" and explain why each is good or bad? Getting past the triggering labels seems to me like a start in defeating the "divide and conquer" strategy that has benefited true elites while us hoi polloi duke it. Is anyone else sick of hearing the terms carelessly and lazily thrown around to troll and incite?
5
@Princess Pea
I think I read recently in the book "Against Democracy" that only 20-some percent of people in the poll/study/whatever-it-was can accurate define those terms.
2
Back in the days the conservative, religious right wants to go back to, women had to get married or else they had no way to survive. Their job was to keep house and have kids. Now, especially in the big cities, many women are valuing careers and their own interests before settling down.
Education is going up and religion is going down.
7
I've lived several places in the US. At my most conservative, I'm a "Rockefeller Republican;" in reality I am more (agressively?) liberal.
If I had it to do over again, the large town to small city Midwest is where I would choose to raise a family. In California, it is the redder areas (north, Sierra foothills and Central Valley) that offer the same ambiance. But what is the problem?
Jobs, jobs, jobs. Just like the rural areas of the Midwest and plains, these areas offer decreasing opportunities for stable, reasonably paid employment (a modest home to own, a medium age car or two, some sort of post-secondary education). And with that loss comes the exit of young people and family formation. It is a vicious cycle.
6
Want parents involved in their children's schools? Pay a living wage. If you're working 2 and 3 part-time jobs you don't have time for the PTA, the church, the sports leagues, etc. Want to strengthen the social fabric? Provide universal full-day, full-year daycare. Parents can work full-time, get benefits and have the time and a little spare change to engage in their community. You cannot separate the unfair working conditions that blue-collar and many white-collar families endure from the crumbling of our country's social fabric.
20
I could have sworn I read this article in the Times in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and the 10's. The wheel keeps spinning, little changes. Same arguments, same reactions.
3
Why do conservatives keep blaming "elites" or alternately "those people" for societal decay? I think it should be obvious by now that the Republican/Fox party long ago stopped looking for solutions, instead looking only for scapegoats.
10
Perhaps your next article, voicing legitimate concerns about systemic breakdowns will explore, in our divided nations, regions, urban, suburban and rural areas, communities and neighborhoods, as well as families, the lessening of civility between... Mutual trust between...Mutual respect between...A lessening of mutual help between...The incidence and prevalence of complacency about... and complicity in..., enabling a toxic WE-THEY culture which violates. Dehumanizes. Stigmatizes. Excludes. "Outsiderizes!" Disempowers. By harmful voiced and written words. By done-deeds. Selecting and targeting a created "the other(s)." Daily. In a myriad of ways. Empowered by OUR accepting personal unaccountability by OUR elected and selected policymakers.Of all parties. At all levels and places. Local. Regional. National.When mantra-madness deletes menschlichkeit, FAMILY, as a system, PROCESS, outcome, value, norm and an ethics-creating-reinforcing and transmitting site becomes little more than semantic surrealism. A shiboleth to be sounded. Whatever the gender Identity of the couple. Including the lost label "The Family of Man."
1
Socialism means being part of a community - other people!!
7
@EdwardKJellytoes
We fail to remember and respect the fact that we are social animals. We could never have left the jungle on our own. We need each other, which is why solitary confinement is so debilitating. The right wants to ignore that fact because it is easier steal our lunch if we are alone.
2
That is such a naïve statement. Please...socialism requires “everyone” to pull their respective loads, that and communism ask for perfect societies to function. That is why truly socialist societies thrive in small well controlled countries, ie: Denmark & Sweden. And theses places have been socially agreeable to that stringent communal effort. If everyone doesn’t play along, the structure falls apart!
Capitalism with all its faults, allows for the weak, the lazy, the strong and the middle of the road to co-exist....we support one another, just open your eyes...such ignorance is really appalling
2
This is rich. Devoid of any apparent sense of irony, the author blames an "erosion of social trust...," "...the plague of social isolation," "...the absence of social scaffolding..." and a lack of "social capital" for the decline of families and two parent households. He says strong public schools and good libraries help educate children and provide beneficial "social networks."
Yet the author, his employer, and his "conservative friends" have spent the last four decades destroying unions, wiping out pensions, deliberately starving public schools, denying funding to arts, and generally insuring that wages are low, health care is unaffordable, and college for the kids is out of the question.
And why? Here comes the irony, because AEI and Mr. Carney's conservative friends loudly denounce public policy that attempts to provide for all the above as SOCIALism and have fought tooth and nail to prevent its adoption.
I wonder what explains the decline of social capital?
27
I keep reading about various reasons for the breakdown of the family: lack of good-paying and secure jobs, crumbling communities and social isolation, feminism, etc.
All those things are stressors but the true cause of family breakdown occurred when people abandoned organized religion in the 60’s. The “me” decade followed along with an escalating divorce rate that has been very damaging to society. Commitment to marriage is a decision. I grew up poor but my parents were deeply committed to their marriage and overcame any obstacle life presented them. We kids eventually prospered. The United States cannot continue to be a great nation when more than fifty percent of women under thirty are having children outside marriage. This needs to be communicated to the public as it once was, even if it offends some.
4
@Kathy I suppose we could all strive to be more like the current leader of Evangelical Christians in the US: Donald Trump.
But then, I'm not sure that all of us having 5 children from 3 different women (all of whom we've brazenly cheated on) is going to do much for the breakdown of the family.
Or we could become Catholics, and be part of an organization that protects perverts first and the "least among us" last.
Maybe the problem isn't that Americans have rejected religion, but rather than religion has rejected us, along with their own tenets.
10
That might make sense if church attendance correlated with successful marriages and two parent families. How’s that correlation?
4
I grew up in a small town in "flyover country" that was all white, but socio-economically diverse. I don't think the problem is individualism.
I graduated high school in 1998. Today, the majority of friends I have who went to college are in their first marriage, approaching their 10th anniversaries, and have young children and stable lives.
The majority of friends who did not go to college are divorced or never married, and have kids in high schoo. Their lives are frayed and chaotic.
I think it comes down to this:
Upper middle class culture is very positive, self efficacious, affirming, and fact based. College educated people don't post every feeling on Facebook. They quietly work out "drama", which is usually minor. They believe hard work and attention to process and rules will result in success. They tend to use positive language in their daily lives.
Lower class culture is negative, superstitious, dramatic, and emotional. Working class people post every feeling on Facebook, believe Jesus or a psychic or "the power of prayer" will solve their problems, and easily get argumentative when "disrespected." Their speech patterns are negative.
This goes deeper than explicitly held values to innate patterns that children learn from their mothers.
The difference between now and then is that a generation ago, strict mores held all people in families, whether they liked it or not. Now, you only have a family and stay in one if you want and can manage it well.
11
@anon
I should emphasize that I am talking about people who lived in the same town, went to the same good schools, played on the same soccer teams, and had access to similar levels of opportunity. This is an area where manufacturing companies are desperate to hire working class people and offer good wages and benefits.
So this is not a matter of divergent opportunity, socio-economic segregation, or "Republicans Destroyed Everything."
There are real, deep cultural differences between lower and upper middle class people, differences that are increased dramatically by the freedoms that came about as the result of the sexual and cultural revolution and lead, in the absence of strong exterior social mores, to very different outcomes.
2
Difference between Lena Dunham's portrayal of a family life and a conservative's family life:
In Girls, her father is gay and comes out of the closet to live a full life.
In a conservative family's "tight-knit" community, the father is guilt-tripped into going to "conversion" therapy.
6
It's not a "Lena Dunham fallacy." She has nothing to do with it.
It's an Ayn Rand fallacy. Worship of her gospel of individual greed and narcissism has everything to do with it.
14
Excellent essay. As it states, the reality is that most liberals, like most Americans, live pretty conservative, bourgeois lives.
Right wingers blame social dissolution on the Lena Dunham-ification of our culture because it's easy to do so. Liberalism is associated with permissiveness, overturning of traditions, contravening of norms and limits, hedonism, social entropy and chaos. It's about shedding stigma, anything goes, don't judge. Every choice is okay.
Well, not every choice is okay, and successful liberals know that as well as anyone. Unfortunately, they don't preach what they practice.
4
I think the author underestimates the impact of economics—low wages and job insecurity threaten community institutions that support families as well as harming families themselves. Nonetheless, this piece is a welcome counterpoint to the usual content of Russ Douthat’s columns.
6
@Timothy Carney, did you mean strong women graduating from Wellesley College, one of the Seven Sister colleges (frequently mistaken for but invariably distinct from Wesleyan)?
2
Most of these people are reaping what they themselves have sown. If those in rural white communities had voted for reasons other than god, guns, and gays , they wouldn’t find themselves in this situation.
Relatedly, I like how this is only a problem because it’s affecting whites. Remember when “conservatives” painted the high birth rates in Latinx communities as boogeymen?
4
The party of family values, supposedly Republicans, do nothing but make it hard to live in this country. What do you think will happen when they give almost two trillion dollars away to the yachting class. Schools go down. Neighborhoods go down. People don't care because they're too poor to care. This is the result of all the good Republicans out there who were duped into believing that a vote for Republicans is a vote for a great America. Republicans will eventually turn us into a third world country. You can kiss family values goodbye if you put it up against the true god of the Republicans: money.
11
Honestly? There is an airlessness to small towns and 'community life' that I'm glad I escaped: "won't someone think of the children!" around everything you do. Those picket fences (since we are going with retro metaphors) hide a lot of abuse and sad stories and lack of agency.
Give me the big city life, my friends and my childlessness with my long-term husband (another immigrant from 3000 miles away) any day.
5
Everybody likes to blame their own failures on someone else. It's a lot easier than looking in the mirror.
3
"It's the economy, stupid," (No offense intended.)
We live in a society where even an upper middle class family may be one serious illness away from bankruptcy. The newly minted college college graduate likely starts out with a burden of loan indebtedness.
As to the working class and poor, the Republicans systematically to destroyed trade unions and hence union wages. Industries were decimated by free trade reforms that weren't backed by programs to enable people and communities to adjust. That destroyed communities.
Climate change is going to force an end to the fossil fuel industry and transitioning to wind and solar etc. will be highly disruptive unless lit's a lot better managed than globalization was. Add to that the upheaval we anticipate as a result of automation and AI and we face an future of even more rapid change and uncertainty.
We live in an economic and physical environment that is changing too rapidly for human beings to adapt, and we have only a primitive social safety net. The great wealth that our society produces has been channeled toward providing more opulent lives for the very rich.
Deciding to marry and have a family doesn't make much sense if you have no assurance that you will be able to care for yourself and your children.
We need to start with the economic issues. I think we'll discover that, with a sense of security and opportunity, people will do much better organizing their own lives and their communities. See the Green New Deal.
6
The reason conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay is fairly obvious. That is what today's conservatives do: blame others. We can get into a lot of nuance here, but let's keep it simple. The core value these conservatives are espousing is that other people are responsible for anything and everything they do not like, and that these people should be demonized. Intellectually dishonest? Socially divisive? Morally objectionable? Certainly - but oh so easy.
14
If I was a liberal millennial, I wouldn't take this blame personally, especially since there's more than enough blame to go around for anyone and everyone, especially if you happen to be a dyed in the wool conservative who fails to realize that his/her holier than thou hypocrisy is the root cause of the social decay that's destroying this country.
5
Glaring omission from this analysis: FAMILY PLANNING! Birth control and abortion are essential tools for people who want children and are consciously working toward the conditions in work and life that will enable them to raise happy, healthy families.
6
This from a Visiting Fellow at AEI? I was not aware that marijuana was legal in DC, MD or VA.
1
I look as regularly as I can at 7Days, an arts, food and politics weekly newspaper with a strong progressive bent published out of Burlington, VT. I always browse the classifieds and was struck last evening by the fact that the majority of the posted openings were part-time or voluntary that might move into a part-time position. Voluntary? That made my head explode. Do they think the readers looking for jobs are of a Paul Manafort ilk? It speaks volumes to me of the trouble Vermont faces with our aging population and whiteness let alone Amerika. It is a depressing and pathetic time in Amerika and we still have two years of the Grifter-in-Chief as president. I wonder how much more he, his family, and his ilk will be able to steal?
2
The oceans were filled with plastic, the ice caps were melting, and we were trillions in debt years before millennial were born. My stupid generation was creating endless wars around the world when they were babies. I don’t know what any of our problems have to do with Lena Dunham, but maybe her generation will solve some of the crises that were foisted upon them. Of course, it won’t be without a fight.
3
It strikes me that conservatives very often don’t even know that of which they speak in this regard. To wit, “liberal elites” and “coastal elites” are often fictions—or, at the very least, gross exaggerations—of their catty imaginations.
If I may offer one small, personal example: I, as a scholar, am often accused of being such an elitist. Yet, these accusers, to a person, are always stunned silent when they hear me retort that my wife and I, in retirement, find ourselves presently dependent on food stamps. Our current finances place us unmistakably among the poor; indeed, we are poor (financially speaking). So the elite-busting reality: many, if not most, of us on the left, contrary to conservatives’ largely imaginary stereotype, are an integral part of “real America.” To assume and speak otherwise will be their undoing in 2020.
5
It's a big problem with many moving parts but after reading this it's obvious that the lack of a good education, is driving a streetcar named misery. This is an American enigma given the wealth of our nation and the poverty of so many people.
One needs look no further than MS, WV and other deeply red southern states to see a 'polio of the mind' where education is ridiculed, science shunned, and religion is rampant, amid a sea of proud ignorance, obesity, diabetes, disability, addiction, and death.
It's our problem and we can fix it, but we have to turn off Fox and right wing blowhards, vote DEM at all levels of government, restore sanity to taxation, shun religious nonsense, and then push education down to the grass roots of our society.
5
“Why do conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay?”
Dumb question. Conservatives weaponize anything they can use against liberals and rationalize and justify (or lie, deny, and cover up) anything bad conservatives do.
7
"This is an opportunity for some rare left-right agreement"
Doubt it.
For the simple reason that the core animating and organizing principle of the right is hating/owning the libs.
6
I live in a small town outside a big Northern city. Youth sports, YMCA, church-sponsored groups, involved parents are the norm. I neither know nor care about our marriage stats: one is either 100% married or 0% married, and that's her or his business.
Politics is quite polarized; we send a Republican or a Democrat to our congressional seat about every other year.
Politics has no effect at all on parental involvement in baseball, softball, summer swim, you name it. The guy calling balls and strikes at the 10 and under ball game could be (theoretically) wearing a MAGA hat or a Bernie Sanders flyaway wig.
Our schools, our public schools, are excellent institutions preparing our young folks well for college or other vocations. We love our schools, Ms. DeVoss.
We get together to help each other raise our kids in a safe, fun, challenging environment, and we do it well.
It's part minding your own business so all kids experience a welcoming community, part finding spaces where we can get together and make good and useful things happen.
And the biggest part: we really want all this and are willing to spend oodles of time, effort, care, and money to make it happen.
2
Perhaps I could take this more seriously if the author didnt confuse Wellesley and Wesleyan
2
"...people are living fairly conservative lives, complete with intact families and tight-knit communities...."
.... except that if you were to have actually watched Girls, you'd realize that the father did not end up in "conversion" therapy which is actually what is happening in a "tight-knit" conservative family.
And isn't that what conservatives hate the most about Lena Dunham?
2
Ah, The 1950's...the socialist paradise that saw the GI Bill provide free college for millions of Americans, a tax rate for the top 1% of upwards of 90%, Labor Unions from coast to coast, guaranteed vacations, and public school teachers who were well paid and whose schools were well funded and banks weren't the parasitic blood suckers they are today (See Wells Fargo).
You're 1950's conservative utopia looks a bit different when you look at it truthfully doesn't it trumpets?
8
Don't you love these right wing otherwise smart columnists that fully admit that some of their party's basic outlooks, morals, foundation and overall thinking is severely misguided and flawed at the core. Yet they still clainm to be "on that side".
David Brooks has made a carrer out of it.
When does an intelligent person have that light bulb that goes on that says "If the rest of my ilk are just plain wrong why am I still in this camp?"
4
And in all this political tugging and righteous declaration, are children of single parents to be declared inferior? Are all single parents rotting incompetents?
1
A generally sensible article. I think much of the left and right agree that the way to raise healthy young capitalists or socialists is in a vibrant community or neighborhood; for some reason liberals live in a community and conservatives live in a neighborhood. Good neighbors, religious institutions (churches, synagogues and mosques), good schools (government and non-government), libraries, local sports teams, and of course a functional economy set the stage for sound family formation. Of course working against all this is a media celebrating the latest celebrity unwed mother and ubiquitous porn. When your 16 year old son is in his room downloading porn while his 14 year old sister in in her room doing her homework you can expect certain consequences. In 20 years she will be a successful entrepreneur and he will now be in the basement downloading porn. Behavior, sound and unsound, has consequences. Just about every government program, at all levels, should be means tested for its impact on family life. As for Lena Dunham I will take a pass. It seems an obscure reference. Few have heard of her. Let's add that to the Bill of Particulars against Charlie Rose. I realize when you talk a lot you will say something foolish. Charlie actually referred to Ms. Dunham as a Dylanesque representative of her generation. But Dylan did speak for a generation, Dunham is a nonentity, known primarily to family and hard working publicists. Good column.
1
The article delicately fails to mention that all these community supports cost money for infrastructure, as well as the leisure afforded by one job with regular hours and a living wage. When the government withdraws its support for the laws and investments that make this possible, like grants to build playing fields and minimum wage laws, they don't happen. The private sector is just not going to step in and do this. That's why the places with fracking see no uptick in family formation: no government support for community initiatives, and hostility to unions and the minimum wage. They're primarily red. Plus wealth from resource extraction alone has a bad track record creating strong communities, more strong men (and I mean men, see e.g. the Middle East) and top down governance. The blue states will keep producing most of the GDP and new families.
4
"Strong public schools and good libraries give parents the tools to raise educated and curious children."
Really? Mr. Carney--the avowed policy of your team (A.E.I., Washington Examiner) has been to vilify "socialized public education" and to cut spending on public goods...such as libraries. And to privatize any and everything, especially schools.
So what exactly do you have in mind that might serve to support strong public schools and good libraries?
7
Massachusetts, that bastion of liberal elitism and poster child for the socialist plague threatening the country ranks at or near the top in percentage of college degrees, fewest gun deaths, lowest crime rates, highest incomes, best public schools, best public health outcomes, percentage of health insured individuals, lowest unemployment, standard of living, receives one of the lowest per capita returns on federal tax dollars compared to revenues collected and enjoys a lowering divorce rate. These are all long term indicators of entrenched social well being, in spite of a relatively high cost of housing and an opioid crisis that seems to be waning. Must be doing something right. Conservatives could take note.
6
@John Murphy
Hasn't Massachusetts had several moderate GOP governors recently? Including one named "Romney?"
I don't see MA implementing Free College, Medicare for All, or making aggressive strides towards racial integration (how did busing work out for supposedly woke Bostonians?)
I live down the road in Connecticut. Yes, New Englanders are well educated, rich, and have a high standard of living. I absolutely love our local public school - it's better than most private schools. We also have far lower percentages of low income minorities than many other states (like Mississippi or California), which makes it much easier to have Nice Things.
Even with all that we are not nearly as liberal as we think we are. Connecticut came within a handful of votes of electing a Trumpist Tea Partier as governor.
Get talking to white people living outside of Westport, and you will hear a lot of complaints about immigrants and urban minorities wasting our tax money on welfare and crime and discussion about how we need to lower taxes.
And even those supposed liberals down in Westport aren't too happy about the idea of school regionalization.
2
@anon, Can't speak for Westport, but i lived in Boston all through busing and well after, and I can tell you 35 years later Boston is very different and much more diverse city today. You should visit. And there are indeed discussions about free tuition at 2 year state colleges, and Medicare For All isn't really an issue since, as you point out we had a Republican Governor who supported a conservative idea that works beautifully, Romneycare, that was passed by a Democratic controlled state legislature. It's not party that should matter, it is policy!
1
@John Murphy
You are right on so many levels. Tell anon Boston is now offically a "Minority Majority City"- more minorities than white people.
I'm sure, like myself you were semi=horrified at moving to the south where states regularly. uniformly rank at the bottom in all the areas you mention( Health, education, wages et all). And then having to endure slights about how everyone "up there" is morally corrupt, city slickers etc. - when the true morality of the N. East plays out in much better outcomes civically),
Healthcare for all etc. - implemented by a Republican Governor).
The real chuckle comes with a saying oft heard in the Soith "We don't care how you did it up North" - and then you have to go to their underfunded D.M,V.'s live next to uncleaned up toxic waste sites and walk streets with no sidewalks on Sundays because the bus doesn't run.
5
One of the huge factors in breaking up marriages is the underemployment and underpaying of male workers. People marry expecting not only love and companionship but also an improvement in their economic life. Though we might say it is okay for a wife to make more money than the husband, in point of fact it often causes great conflict. If the husband is then out of the workforce, not being productive with no apparent sign of forward movement, divorce follows.
The ease of divorce has helped to create a culture where there is very little tolerance for failure. Over charge your credit card? Divorce. Bill collectors constantly calling your house? Divorce. Car breaks down, no money to fix it? The same. People come to expect divorce.
Millions of men have dropped out of the labor force, trying to make it through life with occasional jobs and the randomness of living single. These are the "discouraged workers" who don't show up in labor statistic much at all. There are plenty of jobs but many don't offer the potential for a decent life and the support of a family. "Get by" jobs, nothing more.
One report in recent years showed that almost 50% of residents of the southern states had negative marks on their credit reports. That means they not only had no assets to fall back on in times of difficulty, they would also have trouble getting loans or credit cards.
All of this shows the difficulty of living without any wealth or underlying assets, creating a downward spiral.
1
In times past, when there were fewer women in the workforce, women were more financially dependent on their husbands. Now, with most women making their own way, divorce becomes easier overall. With all the problems that come up in a marriage, if a husband isn't productive financially, a wife can say, "Who needs this guy?" without fear for her own future. (This is not an argument for return to the bad old days, please, when women did not have any financial independence from their husbands and were often effectively trapped in a bad marriages.)
1
In his list of community organizations that tend to make people more attuned to marriage, the author fails to mention trade unions. For a long time, factory trade unions provide a social center for their members and their families. The decline in manufacturing also has led to the removal of trade union halls from the lives of workers. I suspect that the author omitted trade unions from his list because as a conservative he considers them as intruders in the unequal relationship between owners and their employees,
2
My wife is from a small town, and one of the reasons why she left is that she didn't fit in with the community. The churches were evangelical. The sports programs in her high school were focused on boys' sports, like football. There wasn't much there for her. She told me once that she didn't realize she could carry on a full conversation with someone her age until she left her hometown. She describes small town life as lonely and isolating, not homey.
Of course, I met her as an adult here in NYC, so she's always seemed like a nice normal person who fits in in any crowd and has a lot of activities and hobbies and groups of friends. I wonder if all those people who weren't able to leave are more like her and just can't find "their people" and don't want to rock the boat.
3
@Brian
I'm from small town flyover country. I tried NYC out for a decade - graduate school, first professional job - and it was OK for awhile but I was glad to leave. I cannot imagine living there the rest of my life.
I absolutely love small town life. We live in a semit rural town in Connecticut now - little colonial, white picket fence, marriage, 3 kids. We know all our neighbors. It reminds me so much of the small midwestern town I grew up in (except even nicer). It is wonderful, not suffocating. I told my urban raised husband I wasn't living anywhere with lots smaller than an acre. I grew up seeing stars. I want to see stars. I want to drive down empty country roads.
I think people sort themselves out and end up where they are happy. New Yorkers think NYC is awesome because they are surrounded by people who chose to be there.
I think NYC is fun for a few hours but frankly awful long term. I love small town life.
A lot people I know in my current town and in my midwestern hometown love small town life too.
Don't assume they are stuck. A lot of small town folk in flyover country would rather die than live in NYC.
The conservative argument along these lines, that my individual effort should be directed solely to my own aggrandizement, is more and more obviously not just political, but economic as well. Increasingly conservative politics is about greed: making and keeping wealth while disregarding the consequences of that growing wealth to the benefit of society at large.
Conservatives, of course, make the argument that greed is good, driving the engine of capitalism for the benefit of all. That argument though, has always been self serving, and still is. While we may be able to agree that a bit of greed can serve such a purpose, we should not overlook the obvious reality that increasing wealth increases one’s ability to leverage one’s wealth even further. It isn’t always a virtuous circle.
The capitalists and the socialists are neither all right nor all wrong. As in most of life the truth is somewhere in the middle. The sorts of communities needed to support families require some degree of constriction of greed for the benefit of others. Some capitalists get that, but many don’t.
2
There is a name for the movement to build or maintain local communities via social infrastructure and improving institutions such as schools, baseball fields, and libraries: liberalism.
There is nothing left of traditionalist "conservatism" in the modern Right, which is defined by its interest in utterly wrecking all stabilizing social forces in American life.
8
Speaking as someone who works in television, I can assure you the reason you see Lena Dunham's on TV and not Joe Schmoe average American is because... wait for it... it's TELEVISION. Shows about the vast majority of people living the same types of lives as everyone else are not shows that get made. The whole point is to show the audience something they don't see everyday. Something outside of their own experience, at best to entertain them, at worst to provoke them. The fact that the GOP chooses to revolve their various identity narratives around fiction says a lot about their relationship with the truth.
4
"Rick Santorum responded to Hillary Clinton’s 'It Takes a Village' with his 2005 book 'It Takes a Family.'"
The subtitle of Santorum's book: "Unless You're Gay."
Conservatives' concern about the breakdown of social networks and community would be more convincing if they didn't single out entire groups for exclusion from these communities. The crux of every conservative social argument always boil down to: "1. Marriage, family, and community are key to individual health and vitality. 2. Gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married, form families, or join our community." The unstated (but deeply felt) conclusion to their argument: LGBT people aren't entitled to health and vitality.
There can't be a left-right union on the importance of strong communities because the right's vision of community starts and ends with a wall that's built to keep undesirables out.
6
Because it's politically convenient, obviously.
Author seems to be laboring under the adorable delusion that Republicans (or politicians generally, for that matter) are interested in the greater good. They aren't. They're interested in winning the next election. "It's the fault of coastal liberals" plays better in the short term than "actually those coastal liberals are better at marriage and raising families than you are, and it's because your social institutions suck and need to be rebuilt."
11
"The better a place is to raise kids, the more people you’ll get raising more kids."
Our kids had well educated parents (PhD, LLB). They in turn are well educated (MD, BSc Math/CompSci).
But those educations were impossible without political/community infrastructure, services and will. The PhD was debt free (scholarships, teaching assistantships) The LLB was debt free. The BSc--debt free. The MD incurred 200K debt--but compare US med school tuition and debt. It was almost preceded by a BFA/Music--a few courses shy--debt free.
K-12 was a French Immersion stream in the public school system--they graduate fluently bilingual. Free. They were born in wonderful hospitals. Free. (Well--taxes are a little higher than US).
But just as important were extracurricular community offerings--lessons of all sorts: dance, music, swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, skiing and horse riding. All of which had subsidized fees.
Both parents worked. There were wonderful daycare centers. And later we'd often pick the kids up after they walked to the public library after school. They loved the library and the librarians loved them. Not Free--library cards--$5/year..
10
Mr Carney is right about the disintegration of families and social connections. And it's also happening in coastal big cities. Unsurprisingly, he ignores the real cause of this disintegration: An economic system that greatly enriches the wealthiest few but leaves most everyone else ever further behind. It's a game of musical chairs, in which the wealthiest believe they are entitled to all the chairs even though they don't have enough rumps to sit in them.
Young people who start their adult lives as indentured servants of debt, along with the awareness they will be less well off than their parents, don't feel secure enough to marry and procreate. They're too busy trying to service their debt. Family members are also too busy with precarious jobs to offer much connection.
The only "friends" worth cultivating are "network connections," who are also competitors for the dwindling chairs. That's why the only "social activities" that are consistently attended are Toastmasters and "networking clubs" that might help in grabbing a chair before a competitor.
And with health care a privilege, and neither public nor private safety net, a layoff or health problem can mean destitution. That fearful existence is inimical to the health of both individuals and society.
That's why any conservative who pontificates about the decline of family and society reeks of hypocrisy. Their party's agenda of helping wealthy donors collect all the chairs continually exacerbates the problem.
8
Agreed, we need the entire tax-base to fund community support for healthy family life.
We also need community support for unhealthy family prevention, aka birth control. Most folks need some time to play around before they settle down. If they're deprived of that, by sex-shaming and obstacles to full-choice health care, the result is unplanned pregnancies and short-lived marriages.
3
Time have been good, and have been bad before.
But in the 40’s and 50’s it was en vogue to have a technical education, marry, get a good job and sticking to it, and marriage, family, home ownership was on the raise.
In the 2000’s and 2010’s it is en vogue to be stressed out 20 something with a Liberals Art Major on some field no one pays for, complain that you have to pay for college, live in your mom’s house until your 30’s and complain that the other generations are to blame.
It is a fact. I see it everyday. My office is a mix of young and much much older. The much more older all work hard, some are with the company 20+ years. The young ones are on their 3rd job since graduating, finding themselves, complaining they have to work and quitting a year later.
Why would the same job and work environment create such different reactions? Simple – what the individual person thinks. How they think is how they approach life.
If your education is Girls then yes you praise failure, complain all the time and take years to ‘find yourself’. Just wait until you reach your 30’s with a resume listing barista, office, shelve stocker, Bernie Sanders volunteer, nanny and waitress jobs in 7 years with a Major on some Liberal Arts, and the kids behind you in their early 20’s want the job just as much. Guess who gets the job? Hint – not the one who cannot hold a job.
It’s called culture.
3
@AutumnLeaf Translation: "You kids get offa my lawn!"
I have worked with plenty of lazy old people, and my professional goal is to eventually get to be a lazy older worker.
3
Growing up poor in 1950s Brooklyn was wonderful because we had great public schools, phenomenal libraries, parks and playgrounds full of all ages everyday of the week and safety and security to be out all day. It was a diverse mostly immigrant population with all the richness that includes. Public transportation took young people anywhere they wanted to go and all the beaches were public not covered with private clubs.
2
Supporting families "should be a conservative goal"? Well, they talk about that, but there is also the part about how they are the party of the Koch brothers, so their goal is slashing everything public. You can't have both. The Democrats (at least the Democratic wing of the party) have programs to support communities and families, and they also believe in having programs and paying for them. It forms a coherent world-view. The Republicans, on the other hand, want to talk about family values and strong communities, but they also need to keep their Ayn Randian billionaires happy. So the family values part remains just talk.
6
I'm getting tired of the Conservatives who want to take us back to the "family values" of the 1950s, the "Father Knows Best" years, where conventional families were filled with unfulfilled women chained to cleaning, childcare, & cooking. Those who worked could aspire to being a secretary, nurse, or elementary school teacher. No wonder that the most prescribed drug of the mid-1950s was Valium, the little blue pill - and almost all were prescribed for women in the ordinary 2-parent, one-breadwinner, 2.5 children families in the newly created suburbs. Conservatives, in my 71 years of experience, seem to suffer from a pervasive inability for introspection, preferring to pick a "foreign" demon to blame all of the troubles of society on. Remember that the counter-culture hippies of the '60s all were the children of the "Leave it to Beaver" & "Ozzie and Harriet" era. They saw the materialism & the cultural wasteland that was the Conservatives' dream past & the first thing they did when they got out of that suburban house with the white picket fence was to create a counter-culture rich in post-beat literature, sex, drugs, & rock & roll. I know, because I was one of them.
3
@Beartooth
You are describing Baby Boomers.
1
Mr. Carney makes useful points regarding the importance of community and institutions, even if the picture he paints is incomplete. The benefits of strong public schools, sports leagues, PTA, and libraries should be clear to everyone, not just conservatives. Unfortunately, promoting ‘community’ and ‘family’ has previously been used to front pointless veiled attacks on other issues, including birth control, same-sex marriage, and others.
Carney’s picture is incomplete, however, because investing in community must occur in tandem with middle class prosperity. Schools and social groups require the commitment of community time and resources. If a lower-middle class family sees their inflation-adjusted income sliding, won’t that make them hesitant to pay into these community ‘investments’? That’s even discounting the further influence of libertarian opportunists, who never fail to remind us that every tax increase leads to waste and that people on public assistance can’t be trusted, so we must drug test them. So much for community and common good.
Ultimately, I do agree with Mr. Carney’s core point: strong communities promote resilience and well-being. But we must be willing our time and (ahem) money into sustaining them.
4
A question for M. Carney: When did you come to the realization that it does, indeed, take a village? I doubt that revelation happened to you at the time Clinton borrowed that phrase.
So called conservatives have been lining up for decades trying to purchase our commons. Toll roads. Private water and sewer companies. Private fire departments. Private armies.
All designed to enrich the donors with our collective treasury.
40 years after the New Deal America was in better collective condition than any other time in our history. The government, through the G.I. Bill created a middle class never before seen in human history. We built infrastructure, here and abroad. We sent men to the moon.
40 years after Reagan we can't fill our potholes.
I thought republicans were going to impeach Obama when he said: You didn't build that by yourself. Your society and your government helped you. The outcry was as bad as Hillary's "It Takes a Village" from so called conservatives.
When t rump, and hopefully the republican party, is finally relieved of the reins of government we humans will have about a decade to reverse the extremes of climate degradation. All because the coal mine owners and the oil well owners and those who profit from despair have not accepted that they do not own the world.
As far as the pockets of our Nation that are struggling and not having babies. That is good. We don't need any more people born into families that support t rump.
6
This is simply another example of how the United States is too quickly turning into a third world country. I lived in the third world for three years and learned that legal marriage is frequently only for the middle and upper classes. The poorer people live together, have children, and then the man leaves to live with and to have children with someone else. Raising children in a nuclear family requires a stable job with adequate income to reduce the stress and fear of inadequate finances. Out of stable families comes stable communities with churches, good schools, sports fields and other activities for children and their parents.
11
Millennial women want:
- careers
AND
- spouses that bring home the bacon
If economically successful millennial women marry economically successful millennial men (AKA the status quo), economic inequality will continue to be exacerbated.
Marriage is no longer an apparatus by which poor families can move upward.
1
While there are occasional good points in this piece, especially the parts about the importance of social institutions such as vibrant libraries, sports fields, and playgrounds to provide members of our society with the foundational infrastructure upon which to build and afford strong social relationships and child-rearing, there is one big flaw early on. This notion that falling birth rates is some big bad thing, is situated entirely in regressive cultural biases, and is in fact counter to the actual reality that falling birth rates are both perfectly normal and even beneficial in a society reaching post-industrialization. Frankly it has taken far longer for birth rates to fall than it should have.
5
Some conservatives see a correlation between the rise of women in the workplace with a decline in traditional male jobs. In parts of the country where the idea of the male breadwinner underpins family and society, a shortage of men who are financially able to fulfill that role inevitably leads to a decline in marriage rates.
1
Maybe the GOP is afraid Dunham will run against Trump. I would vote for her in a second!
2
Why do conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay?
Because the younger generations flourish on the worldwide web, while conservative society is a dying breed, hanging onto obsolete and trite catchphrases while growing nothing but cobwebs.
3
The diagnosis is accurate, but there is a naivete or willful ignorance at the base of this...the idea that Mr. Carney's fellow conservatives (at least the ones in power) actually care about solving these problems and improving these communities would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Solving these problems would require serving the people and not the special interests that are keeping Republicans in office.
11
In a true free market--something that conservatives espouse--hard work, morality, and plain-capability tend to end up collecting in certain populations, while laziness, entitlement, and incompetence do the same in others.
White, middle-America is now more and more full of the latter, while diverse, coastal-America is more and more full of the former.
This is exactly how free markets are designed to work over time. It's what Regan wanted, and what liberals fought against.
Hey, I'm a liberal. I vote for unions and other things that provide a leg up for the (lazy, entitled) middle-America crew. But they spit in my face and call me a socialist. So I'll stick to my coastal elite city and enjoy my stable life with my long-term partner and decent, walkable neighborhood. And the so-called "real Americans" can stick to their rural lifestyle choices and get fatter, poorer, and less moral every year.
My only real concern is that I pity their children. So I will continue to vote to provide decent education for them, despite their parent's ungrateful entitlement.
9
So once again Moynihan is proven right. It just took a little longer to destroy working class whites. They had an economic advantage now destroyed by globalism. Government sponsored these trends.
2
"Strong public schools and good libraries give parents the tools to raise educated and curious children"
Maybe this is why the Red (neck) States are seeing declining morality -- they hate paying taxes that go to public education and public libraries in their own community.
Better to pay for tax cuts for rich East Coast Liberals like me. Hey, my portfolio is up $2M since you elected Trump. How are y'all doing? Those factories and coal mines re-open yet?
8
Sure, blame for fall of morals, intelligence, education and society upon the Democratic “Liberals” - how easy! Obviously this is not the case for it is the “progressive liberals” that fight the hardest to keep society together and move it forward, to “progress” for the betterment of all.
The outrageous, almost ubiquitous hypocrisy of the Right, the former GOP now turned Trumplican with no morals of ethics, that is most to blame and last to take responsibility for social decay. It is they that will have to explain this to their children.
3
Listen to any conservative talk show and you will find that the main theme behind all topics is to blame someone else. Sometimes there is a verified culprit, but mostly they round up the usual suspects.
Very quickly the storyline gets old and I think to myself - why can't these people get on with their lives? Go do something useful instead of wallowing in anger.
6
@John I agree, but the problem is much larger than just the conservative movement. Listen to any liberal conclave and you will find the patriarchy is to blame, slavery (despite having ended over 150 years ago) is to blame, racism is to blame, but nobody with a problem is to blame for it.
Both sides need to consider if the important thing is to fix the problem or to fix the blame. Usually, it seems the latter is more satisfying.
I have never watched "Girls", only vaguely aware of Lena Dunham, got a traditional fam with kids and wife - and am a straight line lefty. I got stuck at the premise of the name of the fallacy. It was downhill for me from there.
2
"Turn on any talk show, open any right-leaning editorial page, and you’ll see it." Hello? Why would anybody with any sense or a brain do that?
The right has demonized women for decades, when before they were content with just denigrating them, treating them as chattel and impregnating them as often as they liked.
Marriage was devised to protect property of the rich. Under the iron fist of the church, the poor were obliged to marry or suffer the consequences of living in sin; for women that meant ostracization or death.
Today, there's no purpose in marriage other than to make splitting property and children really messy and protecting jobs for family lawyers and judges. And when half of marriages end in divorce, it doesn't say much for the institution. And obviously marriage is not a necessary element in getting pregnant.
Yes, Mr. Carney, raising kids is hard, especially when you don't want them, can't afford them and can't get an abortion. It's more than hard in a country that won't provide affordable health care, housing, decent education and a living wage for its people.
It's worse than just hard. It's immoral, cruel and wrong. But it's the GOP way. It's promoted by Fox, our very own state-run media outfit, Limbag, and the rest of the "right-leaning" propagandists who blame liberals for every perceived wrong.
9
It’s the same old story: the Right and the conservatives want to hang onto BOTH their versions of communities, AND the capitalism that makes them more and more impossible.
You could handle a lot of it with good regulation, but they’re agin that, too. And gawd forbid anything interferes with cash flowing upwards.
6
Name a Republican politician in the last 50 years who did not equate being a Democrat to being evil, liberal, a communist, anti-American, an atheist and responsible for the ills of society. It isn't because there's a scintilla of truth in these attacks, but it does rile up and redirect the anger of voters who are really threatened by the Republican policies that are anti-family, anti-working class, anti-women, and anti-minority.
7
This essay is half right and half wrong. College-educated women are considerably more likely to be married and to live in stable households. But the assertion that more children are born where there is more community support is flagrantly false. Poor and working class women have much higher birth rates than the upper middle class. To write about families without apparent knowledge of child-bearing patterns is shockingly inept.
3
Why do conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay?
Why do "conservatives" keep behaving in nothing other than contrarian ways? Nothing is EVERY THEIR fault, & everything, every problem that exists is the fault of someone or something else.
Seems like a character fault. The kind that denies the inevitability of change.
4
Though nobody in Trump's America will actually read this piece or pay any attention to the latest sociology stats. The writer has a point that Dems might gain some ground by talking about marriage and families, but the lingo only preaches to the choir.
1
This is the result of poverty. Poor paying or no jobs for uneducated ppl (ex: death of manufacturing), decreased religious practice and weaker religious communities, opiods. It's just interesting that marriage and 2 parent family units are down in the red states and pregnancy out of wedlock, or even in committed relationships and substance abuse is way up. These ppl voted for Trump to fix this. He can't. Will any sour on him? No, because he's a religion and members of a religion double down and explain away any conflicts with their belief system.
5
As this piece documents, Conservatives—Republicans, anybody who pulled the lever for Trump—are nothing but talking points of extreme, fake alarms to the under-educated and economically left behind. There are no real ideas there, only tactics to divide and dismantle.
1
What do Utah and northern Virginia have in common? Mormons. Lots and lots of Mormons. And no matter their political inclination (generally very conservative), they are excellent at forming communities, pulling together, and building up their youth.
1
30 plus years of Hollywood reagan's Vodoo Economics created millions of paycheck-to-paycheck zombies wandering around wondering what happened.
5
Racism is eating American communities away from the inside. Communities that have not faced or discussed or learned about how the long history of racism divides this country now associate any sort of public good with helping the "other" at the cost of themselves, so they undermine it all.
2
People on the Right blame millenials for the decay they, themselves, helped create for the same reason that they blamed the dog, their sibling, or the kid next door for literally everything theyndidnwromg in childhood: they lack morals and any sense of personal responsibility.
1
It's funny how the right go on and on talking about freedom, liberty, etc, yet want everyone to conform to some sort of Stepford wife syndrome. Women are for birthing and men are for work, having mistresses and ignoring their children, saying that is woman's work. The 1950s were not great for everyone.
2
They blame millennials to frighten America's version of pro-Brexit voters, and because they have to blame someone other than themselves for their failures.
2
Surely Mr. Carney and the NYTIMES editors and readers know that Charles Murray published this book six years ago. Coming Apart describes exactly this chasm between the lifestyles of the more successful versus less successful swaths of American society.
Nothing, and certainly not this subject, fits neatly into Liberal and Conservative narratives. The sole reason to tack Ms. Dunham's name onto anything (the phenomenon or the headline) is click-bait.
3
Well, liberals in the past decade have advocated for the legalization of marijuana and prostitution and third term abortions. To them, doing drugs is cool, so of course 20 somethings arent going to be rushing to take vows for the rest of their lives. They hate religion and anything that has to do with customs and tradition. Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, they profess its the responsibility of everyone else to pay for their contraception. To liberals, its everything goes.
Morality? Thats so regressive. Family values are dirty words to them.
After considering all of that, what did you expect?
So marriage is the answer. Not clear what the question is
2
A nation of loners so says Timothy Carney. Actually, it is the suffocation of the conservative way of life that really threatens our family formation in that public safety, never a GOP strong point, continues to disappear.
My brother lives in a town in western Michigan that is dominated by Dutch Reformists. To all appearances it seems almost idyllic until one scratches the surface, he is not religious and is not "from there" and is treated as if he does not exist. Maybe some of the problems the right of center conservatives are facing is that they are exclusionists. Variety breeds a healthier community. The right wing has become socially and politically inbred.
3
Why is the author’s book described as “forthcoming”? It’s already out, is excellent and provides considerable data in support of the arguments advanced here.
Dan 'Potatoe' Quayle told us the erosion of family was Murphy Brown's fault 30 years ago. Now it's Lena Dunham. It seems the Right just loves to point fingers.
4
Does this mean it’s no longer the fault of 70 yr old hippies?
I recall the reason us 70 olds went bad was Dr Spock. Who’s Next?
1
The right is intellectually dishonest - I'm shocked.
4
The irony of conservative’s ideal family with a male head of household is that when you look at societies that are rigidly, male dominant, traditional and conservative they tend to be incredibly more violent, especially towards women and children, than societies that are more liberal with aspirations of human and equal rights and freedoms.
When you work towards legislating equality you tend to get societies who start to question that violence and push back rather than accept and keep it hidden.
Just think about the nations or sub/cultures, today who are the most dangerous and violent....I will bet you they don’t care one bit about women’s rights or anyone else’s rights for that matter.
3
Isn't it obvious that working class men can no longer support a family? Do they not discuss this at the American Enterprise Institute?
6
You know, "community" comes from the same word roots as "communist".
And both seem to be frowned upon by our libertarian oligarchs, who never met a Rand they didn't like.
4
"What do Utah and, say, Northern Virginia have in common? Certainly not politics or income levels. Rather, they both have robust community institutions, whether they be sports leagues, strong public schools or vibrant churches."
Ah, so you have no medical insurance, no concern. Your kids cannot afford a college education, no concern. No jobs, no concern. You have a vibrant church and a sport league. Nice!! Now please move, you're blocking my Rolls.
1
So what you're is that it takes a village to raise a child? That sounds a bit familiar.
1
The Republican Party doesn't really have any policies that favor ordinary Americans -- only their rich donors. Thus, the GOP promotes and spreads "fear of the other" in order to garner enough votes for its pro-rich agenda.
Liberal millennials are the next and newest scapegoat. The GOP knows that its current base is literally dying off, so it is pitching this fallacy to the brainwashed youth in America's bible belt. A desperate attempt to keep hate alive.
5
I heard that it only cost $100 to have a child in Hawaii.
Has it occurred to people in these conservative communities that maybe they should QUIT watching TV? Shut off Fox News, Lena Dunham, & YouTube? And maybe ESPN too. Spend your life doing things & being with real humans, not watching fake stuff.
Here’s one thing I’ve noticed about those so-called elites I’ve observed (and many of them did not start out elite, BTW). They barely know who Lena Dunham is. They don’t watch much TV because they are busy.
And here’s something I’ve also observed; ultra conservative rural people spending huge amounts of time glued to the Tv, especially Fox, but also shows they claim to hate. What’s with that?
Turn off the boob tube, y’all!
3
"Mr. Albrecht’s’s phrase 'their children' struck me. The kids aren’t just the parents’ kids. They’re Oostburg’s kids"-Carney.
Is the author really writing that it takes a village to raise a child?
1
When Hillary Clinton said it takes a village to raise a child she was ridiculed and villified by many of the same people mentioned here. Americans are hypocrites - they love themselves much more than they love their neighbors.
2
Now this 'conservative' makes a call for his party to look to the gain votes by appealing to a certain social group just as the republicans in the past were suppose to target those of color. Actually they will look for another way to dupe them!
There is blame enough to go around: Greedy businesses. Corrupt politicians. Abusive churches. Rampant consumerism. Monetized news networks. All of these things are about taking and they destroy community. What builds community is people giving of themselves.
1
The Right blames every generation of free thinkers for decay!
1
Ask yourself what is missing in this article? Race, immigrants, undocumented immigrants, homosexuals, diversity. Conservatives have embraced racist dog whistles and the outright racism of Donald Trump, going back over fifty years. How can they now embrace a strong social fabric, when it is filled with, (along with white people) all these others, whom they denigrate daily. Every "Village" has black, brown, Asian, immigrant, undocumented immigrants, and on and on, as well as white people. That is the true Conservative challenge and quandary.
4
Why are conservatives worried about the 'birth rate?' Want to have children? Go for it. Don't want to? It's your business.
2
People used to belong to churches, PTAs, mens' and womens' clubs, sports leagues (theirs and their kids). About the only thing we have left is youth sports. This is not a right or left issue; it affects all of us.
Women won't marry men if they aren't going to contribute; if they're going to be just another mouth to feed. In addition, because men get joint custody of children if they are identified as the father. Women don't want to marry or even acknowledge paternity unless they can trust the man to be there to help form a home and raise a family. Working class men need to both have a steady job and want the responsibilities of a father and a husband. The steady jobs are lacking, and so are the values of responsibility. Women who can support themselves are able to make a choice; this is a good thing. That they choose not to marry shows where we fail as a society.
I don't think either the left or the right has more than part of an answer to this difficult problem.
1
Most of these counties have welfare as their largest employer. If not that a hospital. And, now those are leaving rural areas.
Why not embrace socialized medicine in those areas by building government hospitals? Beginning socialized medicine in these communities would bring better paying jobs and support jobs that come along with hospitals and medical communities.
Before anyone criticizes socializing hospitals think again. The government has been keeping hospitals afloat for years. This day is coming. But it would be good if it could help those communities in other ways.
1
Ya know, there might be an easier explanation - it's an economic decision. Gone are the days of single income middle class families. Faced with the option of a family, or a job (note I did NOT use the word career), or having both, "Middle American" is eschewing the norm of the 1950's
1
The author could easily find the answer to his moral turpitude if he was not so obsessed with his own identity as a conservative. Be liberal. Reject the false morality of the conservative movement and accept that liberals just do it better.
The community support structures the author laments losing are paid for with taxes, and opposition to taxation is the GOP's raison d'etre. A safety net means families need not balkanize in the face of financial pressure. Reproductive rights and women's rights lead to later marriages that stick together and produce stronger families.
It's time for conservatives to look outside their movement for answers. They sure haven't been successful fomenting decency and "conservative" results from within. Perhaps the broken ideology that put Trump at the top is also responsible for the rot at the bottom that the author so laments.
10
Mr. Carney, if you want "a village", please consider helping to raise the minimum wage in your community. No one can build a family on $7.65 an hour, and not everyone, no matter how intelligent they are, is going to start a new tech business, attend an Ivy-League school, or become a real estate magnate. Someone has to clean the toilets, fix the plumbing and heating, and flip burgers for the children of the elite.
6
Stable communities follow from stable, well-paying jobs. The author notes the demise of factory jobs, but ignores the fact that nothing has replaced them. Fracking jobs are transient. They don't lead to strong communities.
The economy has changed. The non-college educated middle class has disappeared. Even the college educated middle class is struggling.
The solution? Invest in people. Train them for the industries of the future - clean energy, robotics, whatever else leads the economy.
And make the gig economy work by providing benefits, good salaries, paid vacation, etc.
All of which can be done with a strong, progressive government.
6
Last summer my husband and I moved to a high tax state, New Hampshire. There is no sales tax or state tax on earned income but very high property taxes and fees for car licenses, plus income tax on interest and dividend income. We share our house with three generations which provides me in house assistance with my about to be 91 year old husband. Because of the high property taxes home prices are far lower here than any on the place we have lived. What else do we get for our high taxes? Interconnected hiking trails all over the city, a vibrant downtown core, lots of parks and city sponsored festivals, conservation easements which allow farms and orchards to stay in the same families making fresh food and recreation opportunities close by, two theaters providing live performances in the downtown core (and a third under restoration), active programs for seniors, restored historic mansions with arts programs, two real book stores, and we just opened a shelter for the homeless. Almost forgot to mention one of the most important here in snow country. The municipal snow plows have our streets cleared before most people have to go to work. And our hospitals are non-profit and the schools excellent. You get what you pay for is definitely true here.
10
This is a thoughtful examination of the thinning social fabric in communities and it’s impacts: the weakening of social networks and deteriorating of family well-being. I am curious as to why the right blame the elite for all of this when there is probably blame to be found in many places. It seems to me people need to look into their own mirror and ask some tough questions instead of shifting blame to others.
3
At first I thought ‘blame for the breakdown of society always goes to “The kids these days”’
Of course that’s not the point. The way I see it conservative thinking has a split personality. On one hand the erosion of social conventions is bad and caused by “liberals” and on the other had, economically, everything is a transaction in a market. This transactional market thinking about everything crowds out all social interactions between unacquainted community members. Every interaction is a transaction with accounting. If you spend all your time hustling between three jobs you have no time for social niceties.
The hollowing out of the middle class is part of it. The heart of the problem from my perspective is that very conservative laissez faire capitalist notions have become pervasive in America since Reagan. Only communities with some free time or extremely resilient social institutions can keep the notion that by helping one another we help ourselves.
I don’t know what government policies can help, but we definitely need to emphasize the non-transactional and *economic* social interactions that hold us together. I will happily share my excess resources with others in need *through whatever means* if I understand this. This is the koombayah spirit that economic conservatives love to laugh at. It will take much more than a village to realize we’re all in this together.
1
"Marriage is hard. Raising kids is harder."
I think this about sums it up. No matter the social infrastructure, the community in place -- marriage is hard, raising kids is harder. It could bet that social media has educated youth to this fact, and they'd rather have an easier life. In the past, a young person couldn't research the difficulty of raising kids, now their is a whole industry around communicating these hard truths. The message: you have to REALLY have your act together to stay married and raise children. The internet changed the game, pulled away the veil.
4
Strong communities do support families, but you know what else does? Policies that make it feasible for families to function. Before Little League and trips to the library, people need paid time off from work, predictable work schedules, access to affordable health care, maternity and paternity leave, affordable day care, sick time, and, most of all, a living wage: full time workers should be able to support a family.
It is mind blowing to me how much conservatives lament the erosion of family, yet refuse to support any kind of policy that would support and strengthen families. This is not a failure of local schools, churches, or little league coaches, this is a failure of us all, as a society, to support policies that allow families to exist, let alone flourish.
10
Everything you count comes out of the pockets of employers. What value does a family or even a life outside of work provide to the workplace? Unless they’re going to pick up a shift of two, a spouse and kids are a distraction from work. You know, the stuff that pays for everything you’ve got.
1
@From Where I Sit
No. It doesn't all come from employers.
We are all paying very high premiums, copays, and fees for health insurance and medication, while insurance and pharmaceutical companies are bringing home billions in profits. I think it's pretty easy to see how the money already being spent could be reallocated so that it supports families and not giant companies.
And considering that 50 years ago, the head of a company made maybe 10-15 times what the lowest paid employee makes, and now, the head of industry make hundreds of times what the lowest paid workers make, I think it's safe to say that the laws regarding corporation, which used to be designed to protect people and communities from abuses, have eroded to the point where they are not working for us as a society anymore. Saying that we can't support families because it costs corporations too much is absurd. All of us have been paying too much to support the very very wealthy, and families, communities, all of us have been hit hard by these policy changes.
4
@TM
If you have a job then your life is paid for out of your employers pocket. There’s no denying that. Which is why my employer is adamant that his employees don’t attend college, or get vacations because then he would be funding things that are detrimental to his business.
Nice to read that a conservative thinks that Hillary Clinton was right: it does take a village.
I also think that another contributor to the communities and life lost that Mr. Carney is lamenting is the loss of unions. When workers had a strong voice, a place at the bargaining table, when the 40 hour week was a guarantee, when health care was part of the bargain, when pensions were guaranteed, families thrived. Now left on their own against corporate greed and lack of concern for workers the communities fall apart.
I don't know how to bring back unions, but I know that they are needed.
9
For two generations, Republicans have been touting their idea of "freedom": an atomistic society, and in particular economy, where business can operate free of not only legal constraints on profit seeking, but also social ones. The result has been an economic environment where people can't count on secure employment or secure incomes. Their work hours can be reduced from week to week with no warning, and traditional fringe benefits are largely a thing of the past. So even if a working-class person is making decent money this week, he/she has absolutely no reason to expect the steady employment at good wages that is a prerequisite for marriage and child-rearing. This is the change that is destroying working-class America, not the social liberalization that so enrages conservative values scolds. But to admit this might argue for stronger minimum wages, labor laws and social insurance. So Republicans funded by corporate America are perfectly happy to shake their fingers at Lena Dunham; it distracts from the real cause of the problem.
7
It is absolutely economic in origin. You need a steady, decent paying job to afford sports. Schools that are underfunded are going to ditch PTA, and who's going to join if they can't afford the dues? Who's going to have time to attend PTA meetings when they're working 2 or more low paying jobs? Or the one job they have schedules them for the evenings when those meetings take place? Who wants to go to church and be brow-beat for donations/tithes when you struggle to pay the rent?
Conservatives bemoaning the destruction of community and family have only themselves to blame, for they were the ones who cut the funding for the foundations.
9
@Gusting Exactly. The rent is too high for the income, and that is making shacking up the roommate option. When the baby comes, the benefits for being unmarried outweigh the advantages of marriage.
This situation is squarely on the seniors, who are not investing in the infrastructure needed for adding apt complexes to smaller towns, keeping wages low, not funding public pensions, and are giving themselves huge property tax deductions while they age in place in their empty nest, shoving costs of education onto the young. I got mine and to bad for you is all they have to say. And their actions match their words, as they head off to their second home for the other half of the year.
1
@Gusting
Do churches really "brow-beat" poor people for donations? That would certainly go against their teachings. From what I've seen churches generally provide far more benefits to the poor and the homeless than they would ever ask in return.
Marriage is returning to its roots as a device for consolidating wealth. So we see more solid marriages among the upper classes. Love, nice as it is, is both transient and subjective, and has shown itself as a poor basis for a lasting relationship.
Property, on the other hand, tends to present a strong argument for permanence.
Those with little or no wealth can pop in and out of relationships with relative impunity. The wealthy are stuck in theirs. That's why when scandals come to light, it is usually among those to whom marriage is primarily a business arrangement.
2
The wealthy conservatives who control Republican policies contribute to social decay by privatization of school systems that separate economic classes. Every other advanced country aids families by guaranteeing health care and maternal benefits and subsidizing child care, anathema to American conservatives. Liberals are more family-oriented than conservatives.
5
The "mating pool" problem has been well documented by those who study poverty. Mr. Daniels would be wise to read up on it. The problem is that many sensible low income woman do not want to tie her (and possibly her kid's) future and economics to a man with low and inconsistent income. Too often these men also have different priorities in the spending than women sacrificing for their kids. Also, a high percentage of low income men are involved in the court system, which also drains finances. There's a well known racial component here too-a disproportionate number of black males are ensnared in the legal system. Many sensible women don't want to support a spouse as he pays the cost of court involvement. For example, in my state a DUI can cost $10k if a family has the means to pay it. I'm not suggesting that most low income men are irresponsible, but many are. Middle class men can be irresponsible with less penalty to their spouses and offspring.
3
I have a suggestion for Mr. Carney, suggest that conservatives stop carping about "big government," taxing the wealthy, government benefits for the poor and underemployed, and the need to privatize essential services like education.
Poor communities now lack the resources and will to re-create the social structures that used to keep their people together. Some of them are still suffering from disasters related to climate change and lax government regulation of polluters. So take a look at where solid communities are thriving -- in states where the government is a partner in taking care of its citizens.
You conservatives just don't get it.
5
Permit me a ‘liberal’ rejoinder to the Lena Dunham Fallacy: the Wolf of Wall Street Fallacy, after the film that portrayed ambitious finance people breaking down doors to join a rapacious and sleazy boiler room investment trader, and based on real, not fictional, events.
The so-called American Dream has been distorted into amassing enormous wealth, not through honest work and ethical values, but via exploiting loopholes, lobbying for beneficial legislation for one’s own business or industry, and outright cheating — an attitude personified by our current president. The real American Dream aims for a decent life and decent pay for real work, and includes the he kinds of societal infrastructure referenced in this column. Rugged Individualism, for all its celebration in our society, is a fantasy story to which we cling at our peril.
5
Small towns, large cities, local neighborhoods all need one thing- small businesses and jobs i.e. opportunities.
When the malls destroyed main streets, when the internet destroyed the malls, businesses and jobs eventually disappear.
Local businesses are often the leaders in local charities, supporting sports programs, schools and churches.
Jobs, of course, insure the viability of a town, city or neighborhood. But jobs also bring people together. Think of our heyday of industry when thousands would report to work, share lunch together, join the company sports teams, and retire together, making room for the next generation to take over. That creates community cohesion, sharing the same experiences and at times vision for the future.
We have neglected the American worker for too long, they are the lynchpin to thriving communities and country.
3
What the piece is saying is true, but also a bit out of context. It takes a village, but it takes a strong local economy to build a village. Take a look at those strong communities anchored nowhere near urban centers, and I'll bet there is something to feed good jobs and robust tax bases. Look at this through the lens of NAFTA, TPP, globalization in general - and we'll get a more complete picture.
1
>"That hyper-individualist lurch by the right could be waning, though. As the rural working class has moved into the Republican Party, conservatives are increasingly attuned to declining family formation and crumbling community in much of America."<
Really? As exemplified by the trump true believers? As exemplified by trump himself and the spineless Republican enablers in Congress? Take a look at the just released Republican budget; really pushes to shore up the critical institutions the author cites. A statement like that would require some strong evidence to be taken seriously.
2
I am that liberal elite with a stable “conservative” lifestyle. I lived in Northern Virginia, which Mr. Carney uses as an example, for decades and raised my two children there. Lucky them! They got the benefits of having good public schools, sports leagues, safe neighborhoods, and ubiquitous models of well educated, hardworking adults. The expectations that they would apply themselves in all they did went far beyond the walls of our house. It did indeed take a village.
We all now live in a “laid back” west coast city, and my young-adult children are coming to understand the framework of their childhood. Perhaps too much conformity and competitiveness, but also the power of a good education and self-discipline.
The sociologist Robert Putnam has written extensively about many of these issues. I think it's unfortunate that Mr. Carney did not acknowledge Putnam's work or cite any of his major findings.
Also, I think it's important to consider how the social isolation that Carney (and other thinkers) discussed is *shaped by* economic hardship; the two are not mutually exclusive.
4
Heteronormative much? Your usage of "family" ("intact families", "two-parent households are down") clearly indicates that you have a very specific, very limited definition of family. There are hundreds of thousands of us who have families of choice rather than biology; those families contribute at least as much to the stability and well-being of individuals and communities as families that meet more traditional and conservative definitions.
1
This article doesn't do justice to the conservative critique.
Yes, many red states have experienced more family breakdown, but a significant part of that is that many red states have large African-American populations, and family breakdown in those communities has been particularly intense. That supports the conservative critique, which is that non-elite communities are more dependent on strong social values and are less able to survive the liberal attack on those values.
The conservative claim is that the elite modeled behaviors like scorn of religion, drug use, and attacks on the traditional family. Being the elite, they could handle these behaviors. But the rest of the country couldn't.
The author's argument seems to be "It's not about Lena Dunham (i.e., the elite's attack on traditional values) and it's not about economics, it's about community institutions." But the conservative critique certainly encompasses the breakdown of community institutions, like the church and the family. It is precisely that breakdown that they attribute to the Lena Dunhams of the world, sending messages like "You don't need a man to have a baby, drugs are fine, church and the PTA are for squares, if you do see a traditional family it is probably a sham covering up abuse," etc.
3
"Turn on any talk show, open any right-leaning editorial page, and you’ll see it: The reduction in marriage rates and birthrates in America is wholly and singularly the fault of feminists graduating from Wesleyan with women’s studies degrees, declaring marriage to be archaic and motherhood to be oppressive."
And the complainers are mostly (creepy) middle-aged men and women. There's a lot of jealousy being directed here at young women who are perceived as leading privileged lives. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Lena Dunham seem to personify this to these sad-sack aging conservatives who are jealous of youth
5
Thanks to the efforts of Republicans to deregulate everything and sacrifice community values for the interests of large corporations, our nation is now mostly ghost towns. The good jobs have left, and the locally owned buisnesses have been wiped out by chains and the internet, leaving mostly just WalMart and Dollar General. Every town looks pretty much the same and there is nothing going on, and more and more of the population becomes unhealthy, obese and addicted to opiates. I believe it is the soullessness of corporate uniformity and brutal capitalist utilitarianism, along with the lack of unique, endearing features like local coffee shops and beautiful public parks, that makes people give in to depression, hopelessness, and all of the problems that go along with them, like drug addiction and broken family structures. Republicans love Wall Street above all, and Wall Street couldn't care less about healthy communities or people's failure to thrive on a massive scale. It's time to put communities first, and to see corporate profits as a means to produce economic benefits for society, not as ends in themselves.
11
Children aspire to the goals set by the adults around them. If your parents are wed or most of the people in your social circle are/have been wed, then you would also rate marriage as important. The tragic truth of those areas with depressed marriage rates is that it becomes a cycle. The reason that increased economic value don't have their minds turn to marriage is that they simply don't value the institution enough, since they rarely see it in life around them.
2
I've been with the same woman for 31 wonderful years.
And no, we will never marry.
Why would we want to gum up our love with god and this dirty conservative government?
Fairy tales and bureaucracy are not compatible with romantic love.
As for kids?
Why subject innocent life to this dyng world?
5
Lots of ‘excepts’ left out. Stronger churches, except for LGBT members of the community. They need to get out. Sports leagues? Great, except some kids prefer music and theater, not allowed, too fey. Motherhood? Fine, except don’t expect support if mom tries to have a career. Conservative America welcomes all except _______ fill in the blank with so many labels. They can frankly blame themselves for their crumbling social fabric.
7
"conservatives have a simple, single target for blame: liberal elites"
This reminds me of how "progressives" have a simple, single target for blame: the Koch brothers.
4
We do?
Thanks; I hadn’t known. I mean, here’s me, thinking it was capitalism, right-wing Bible-thumpers, greedy corporations, industrial polluters, clowns marching down the street with Tiki torches chanting about Jews, lunatic Trumpists....
I think this op-ed is wasted in the Times. How many readers of this paper learned anything from this piece that they didn't already know?
Mr. Carny's message should be aired on Fox News and in the conservative press. Even then, it probably wouldn't change minds.
1
Did you seriously just use Utah as your example? Your explanation for Utah is simple - The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints -- and it begs the fact that Democrats represent at least one spectacularly urban district from Utah in the House of Representatives. I might also say that your use of geography helped you not say anything outright racist, but as everyone else has said, all you did was shift the blame from the party which has been appealing to "family values" without actually meaning it.
Lena Dunham? I’d call it more like a June Cleaver syndrome—so-called “conservatives” are stuck back in the 1950’s, if not the 1750’s.
“Rugged individualism,” that perennial American myth that says that through hard work you can achieve anything, never really existed. Along with “community” and social institutions you could also include the wealth created by slave labor and share croppers (meaning, poor whites were exploited along with blacks). Not to mention stealing Native American land and resources.
There’s a huge sign on the side of a large steel mechanical shop building in Tabernash, Colorado; watch for it along the north side of US Highway 40 as you drive through—that says, “WE built this; not OBAMA!” You see, a major component of why blue-collar conservatives blame “liberal elites” is—duh—because rich conservatives have spent decades brainwashing them into believing their propaganda...so that the rich can continue to exploit THEM.
Community, absolutely. Honesty? That’s a harder lift for conservatives.
411
@David Walker: The "rugged individualism" myth reminds me, there is another version of this that you see a lot on the left end of the spectrum also: the "if you can dream it, you can be it" idea. There's the same focus on individual aspirations (and, stereotyped aspirations -- everybody wants to be the prima ballerina, nobody wants to be the lighting technician or the busy person over there with a clip-board.)
I haven't got a very clear idea of where this leads, and of course I don't want to say that every kid shouldn't end up fulfilling their dreams, but... it's something to think about.
19
@David Walker I am a progressive and I find your knowledge of American history interesting. Was the U.S. built by slave labor and/or sharecroppers? NO. In 1860 70-80% of America's wealth was centered in the North East and the Mid-West. That is the main reason the South lost the Civil War.
In addition you have no idea what it took to settle the United States. Since you don't read history I can recommend two well know authors that might "elighten" you about what it was like and where the term rugged individualism arises; e.g. James Fenimore Cooper (American frontier in 1750's) and Willa Cather (settling the West in the 1800's).
One last thing, Colorado has only one state-wide elected Republican, Corey Gardner. So please take the sign in Tabernash with a grain of salt. We vote in this state and put effective policies before politics or ideologies.
7
@C.G. And worth noting that James Fenimore Cooper and Willa Cather were both New Yorkers.
12
The short version: If you make it easier, people will have more intentional children. That generally means a marriage and a cohesive family.
Question: Do we need more children? Or should we figure out how to keep our economy going while we reduce our population? We'll have to endure a glut of elders, but that is an inevitable result of reducing the population. Things should stabilize afterwards.
4
So, communities do things together when there's money for it, and they feel safe doing it. If you slash social funding from ALL sources, whether it be governmental or church-based, and if you make it unsafe by allowing guns everywhere, then no one will feel safe and no one will want to pay for unsafe places.
It's pretty easy...
4
Kind of shocking not to see any connection between the social issues and economics. But I guess that would be a Marxist analysis.
All kinds of factors to blame for the destruction of the old American economy but Wall st. and tech are the biggies. Both of those industries are headquartered on the coasts, and that's where all the money from all those annihilated jobs has gone. No wonder that's where families are doing well.
1
Of course attack women. Attack anyone so you will not be seen. The Left must realize that every attack by the Right is hiding something. And all the Right does is attack.
The Left is pure losers because they fall for every attack. It is all attack all the time. Right wingers ain't got no good ideas, so they attack everyone.
1
Its the economy, stupid. Its the media, stupid. These two factors are stirred within a conservative pot to be served up as suggestions and flat out lies. I don't know a single millennial living a "Girls" life as shown. Dunham is the flip side of Ivanka Trump: another rich kid with a leg up on life, easy entre into the media world. Not so for the average kid from media school. Media simply loves a shocking story. This inflames conservatives who fail to own their own part in creating the Miserable Millennial life. Reality check: young women and men want marriage and family, but its too expensive. The truth about the despair of millennial lives is glossed over by media: terrible job choices, crushing college loans, poor housing. Sexual needs are arranged by dating apps, not Auntie or Uncle. Its all FOMO, not fidelity. Then there is the immorality of the Clergy, a group of mostly white men setting such a poor example for us all with there own mix of bad behavior: child abuse, racism, love of money, cuts to the social safety net. Social decay? Look to the Boomer generation, but that is another story.
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@et.al.nyc My millennial children are thriving. Yes, they are still paying college loans, but they have rich, interesting, productive lives. They are very hard working and have a finger on the pulse of where the world is going and how they want to fit in it. And they will take over and make changes to our country.
5
The people who elected Donald Trump have no place to lecture anyone on social decay. The sooner this older generation of sanctimonious buffoons moves along the better for all of humanity.
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@drew Hate to break it to you, but if you look at voting stats, a lot of millenials also voted for Trump, and a lot of Gen X, Y, and Boomers voted for Clinton. Also, if the solution were just the older generation dying off, where did the first set of problems originate? It's just not that simple.
Thank you for mentioning libraries. Anyone who has been to a library recently will tell you these places are often the bedrock of a great community!
6
I don't know "Girls" or who Lena Dunham is. I wish writers and pundits would refrain from using pop culture references to make their point. The pervasiveness and over saturation of this stuff is arguably part of the problem.
6
@Bailey:
Good point. There is a lot of "hip" writing that assumes everyone else is just as hip as the author. I suspect this author is not a typical millennial hipster, but the effect of using popular-but-not-universally-known references is the same.
Increasingly, as I look at the news, I see more names of people and things that are completely unknown to me. Even if you try to 'keep up' with things, it starts to feel overwhelming, and one can feel increasingly alienated from the larger culture.
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Yes....but I think David Brooks has already written this column several times!
1
Every problem is everyone else's fault - the American right
4
Family and community are eroding in America — drug deaths and suicide are way up, marriage and two-parent households are way down...thanks to 30 plus years of Hollywood reagan's asinine Trickle-Down nonsense.
It ain't rocket science.
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Huh....this type of community decline has been going on in the black community for decades, if not centuries. And, almost entirely by design. I agree with the author that we need local governmental policy to support building strong communities. Let’s make sure we include Black and minority communities in any programs the government might come up with. I’m not surprised, but I am still outraged at the out pouring of sympathy for poor whites when their communities decline, versus the finger pointing and blaming of black communities in particular when they are in the same position.
785
@Dee728 Honest question: has our government not recognized or attempted programs to address black poverty and family problems? I don't have specifics but it seems like good programs have been attempted (affirmative action comes to mind).
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@keith Affirmative Action only helps a small subset of graduating seniors get into selective colleges. Quick: What percent of American HS Seniors enroll in a selective college, say the top 250 schools? Maybe 15%?
My point is that AffAct helps a smaller subset of African Americans & Hispanics than you currently realize.
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@Dee728
The scarcity of good paying jobs contributes to white, small town community decline. Now the finger has pointed South--It's the "Illegal Aliens" pouring across the boarding bringing drugs and mayhem. It used to be: "It's the blacks' own fault they are poor, uneducated, drug addicted..etc." Now it's: "It's someone else's fault that we're poor, uneducated, drug addicted...etc."
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"social decay"? you must mean white supremacists and cabinet secretaries who justify imprisonment of mothers and infant asylum seekers.
2
Sports leagues ?
Yeah, but point out that it’s the “village” and you get called an anti family socialist.
1
Too late.
I like the idea of congregating communities around public schools. Make schools and libraries the centers of the small and not so small towns. Add to that community colleges and art centers. You will have more educated people who will marry more and make more money. Churches are not necessary.
2
@MB That would be a good idea, but their orange hero just submitted a budget gutting education. She references a town in Wisconsin. Scott Walker did the same thing there.
1
@MB Churches are the problem, they are there to collect money and control people's brains. I have no desire to have them in my neighborhood which was turned around by residents bending together to make it better for everyone.
It’s great that some conservatives are finally recognizing that America’s strength lies in its cities. But I’m not sure what policy proposals are supposed to follow from that.
How exactly are you supposed to build strong communities in rural areas that don’t have the population density required for functional public spaces and are not already united through daily work or weekly church meetings? Is this a call for urbanizing red America, or abandoning “fly-over country”?
And let’s not forget that even our most successful cities are not just playgrounds for “coastal elites.” There’s plenty of social decay in urban areas, too. What would a conservative urban policy look like? It can’t just be a call for a religious awakening or more sports leagues — many of these communities have vibrant churches and social life built around sports. But after decades of red-lining, the war on drugs, broken windows policing, underinvestment in schools and jobs, and (at least in some cases) rising cost of living due to gentrification, our cities are long overdue for policies that help build up local communities instead of tearing them down or displacing them. Are conservatives ready to help with that?
3
I'm from suburban Maryland and went to Tennessee a few years ago to do some genealogy research. When I met some second and third cousins, they quickly started lambasting my liberal home and lifestyle. When I pointed out that Maryland has much lower divorce rates and lower births out of wedlock, they became enraged.
6
From my research on the economic decline of rural and urban areas of this country I find that a more socialist approach has helped to reverse this decline in many communities. Business,educational,and civic leaders have come together to change the economy’s of depressed areas. Individuals coming together as a social group tackle problems. But then socialism is such a bad word today. Second many small Townes and urban areas have been revitalized by another bad word” immigrants “ these foreigners have brought economic and social stability to a number of areas. Too bad the present administration is blind to these facts.
3
@Vincent The word socialism has been used and abused . all civilized societies including primitive ones are by definition social entities. We can only exist and survive in a social setting. That is true for animals and humans alike.
Why do conservatives blame any liberals for every problem facing the country?...because they are politicians with no interest in solving problems, but are focused on retaining power and pandering/anesthetizing their base who have no ability/desire to grapple with nuance and the real root causes (and solutions) to difficult problems. Yes, declining morality and fraying social fabric probably have something to do with the cultural revolution of the 60s, but they also have a lot to do with declining economic prospects, increasing secularization (leaving somewhat of moral vacuum for communities ill-equipped to create and abide by a set of values not seemingly handed down from a higher authority), the decline in behavior and trust in institutions, and government ineptitude/indifference to actually bolstering the institutions and mechanisms that foster a moral society (education, the arts, healthcare, civil rights, insert your own). But no one wants to hear that in the base and fewer would understand it. Far easier to blame liberals and misrepresent what they stand for than to tell people 'it's complicated', especially when you don't give a damn about the people and are just looking for a way to cut social programs, ignore civil rights, and ignore anything that would imply taking a dollar from the special interests who are lining your pockets and put it toward improving the country.
4
I am liberal, while I have never been a HRC supporter, Hillary is correct in that strong communities (villages) maintain families, not the other way around as Rick Santorum asserts. This may be the biggest difference in real life between what it means to be a liberal or conservative.
My own life's experience of having been born and raised in very rural New England in the 1950s has taught me that family is critical, but family cannot survive a New England Winter without the community, nor should we ever try to. I do not think conservatives could ever understand that we have an individual and communal obligation to make sure that everyone of our neighbors has enough firewood to get through the winter. The reason why you put up more firewood than you would need each Fall is just in case your neighbor runs out. We are each other's insurance, that's what I learned in the Winter of 1956.
Conservatives just don't get it - they don't want to get it.
14
'It takes a village' is not the answer, otherwise the many villages that have been hollowed out by putting money (for a few) before the human needs of the many would still be intact.
Fracking to fill tankers of LNG sold globally.
Family farms destroyed by the global commoditization of crops.
Boarded up Main Streets.
Public education starved for funding.
Tax giveaways to those who don't need it from stadiums to big box stores and global commercial giants.
Tax cuts (and a tax code written by and for the wealthy) for the 1%.
Broken healthcare system.
Higher education costs that are hard to justify.
Abject disregard for science and truth in general.
When conservatives start truly putting people first in ways that support quality of life villages will thrive. Yammering on about marriage, child bearing, sports and churches is missing the forest for the trees.
8
In Florida, Conservative households still highly value marriage (my wife married me when she was 23, I was 28), we both have MBA’s, have a solid income and go to church every Sunday. So what is this premise that the social institutions of marriage are crumbling in ‘Trump Country’? Couldn’t be further from the truth.
5
One tree does not a forest make.
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@Jaime Rodriguez: You offer pure anectdotal evidence, which does not say a whole lot.
Let's look at the big statistical picture (see https://www.statista.com/statistics/621703/divorce-rate-in-the-united-states-by-state/). The highest divorce rates are in Nevada, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alaska, Florida. Other than Nevada - with its special drive through chapels and other wild divorce centers - all are RED states that voted for Trump. The bottom of the scale is a mixture of red and blue states.
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@Jaime Rodriguez
All you've provided as counter-evidence is your particular family situation. As the writer of the pieces bemoans a "hyper-individualist lurch", I find your comment rich, to say the least.
14
The decline in marriage and birth rates isn’t per se a bad thing, especially for poor women. If it means a chance for a poor girl to get an education and run from her hometown and that’s what she wants, go for it. Consumption-driven economies have to adjust to population changes that are better for women, women don’t need to have babies because companies need to sell more stuff. And the clickbait of putting Lena Dunham’s name in this article’s title is laughably transparent.
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@Rill It may be nigh impossible to raise a family on a minimum wage job, but it's no fun to do it as a single woman either. And being single and poor does not make it easier to get an education and leave your poor neighborhood. More likely, a poor young woman will stay living at home because multiple low wage jobs in a family will make paying the rent easier than moving to a new city and finding a job and coming up with first and last month's rent and a damage deposit. The world looks a lot different in Dorchester or Worchester than it does in Newton.
1
@Rill Except that for too many poor women, what actually happens is they have kids with men who won't stick around and help raise them, so they have to struggle to make it work by themselves. For people who don't have much in the way of material things or opportunities, having something to love is very meaningful -- there is a gut feeling at the root of these decisions that could be described, in short, as "If you're a mom, you're somebody." Our economist approach to analyzing reproductive decision-making fails to understand this.
1
@Ceilidth But why bring more kids into this situation? It's all doomed to repeat itself without birth control and education.
I love this article - full of facts from a conservative, seriously, this is good stuff.
First - stop writing stuff like this - “In some ways this is a very conservative message: Strong and supportive local communities are essential to helping people live their fullest lives.” Liberals want the same thing.
It’s the same drivel that equates liberals to “supporting terrorism” because they support certain rights - stop it.
Ok - but this is a great article and being a conservative writer there’s actually a bridge here to be built.
I think both the vocal conservatives and the liberals have hitched their wagon to “individualism” - first the dumb Ayn Rand and the second the dumb tech entrepreneurs who sound like Rand but are more like early 20th century monopolists.
The motivation for individualism is different - conservatives want economic freedom and liberals want lifestyle freedom and freedom to disrupt the “system”
I actually think millennials want both and old leaders don’t get it - both parties are off mark.
There is room for a third way - economic freedom and a safety net within our means and stop policing /shaming thought and norms - the world is progressing, get over it
Doesn’t help that the “institutions” like the Catholic Church and company town corporates have let people down and that “institutions” are intolerable to progress- the third way needs to fill the gap
3
It has never been a "Mirror-Mirror" on anything, when it comes to Republcans doing any questioning or self reflection what they are and should be blamed for. Like scratching parts of the 1965 Voting Rights act into obviliion for people black and brown people. Who does that? Republicans in Power/Money/No Compassion for other Americans. 1950 is not returning. Thank GOD!
1
I don't know what you mean, I never thought this.
Excellent piece.
1
If you want to play, "you kids, get off my lawn", there has to be a neighborhood worth investing in.
1
Although you only mention Hillary Clinton in passing it certainly seems that you are merely restating her thesis?
Human overpopulation and pollution is literally killing our planet. Why bemoan our diminishing birth rate? Choosing not to reproduce is a sane and responsible choice.
6
The problem is that reproduction isn’t waning, it’s just taking place more often out of wedlock among the so called working class.
I suggest "conservatives" stop denying other citizens' the right to marry, especially under the brainless trope that that right "hurts" them.
9
To answer the question in the subtitle - I have no idea. Maybe they got tired of blaming it on Boomers.
2
Conservatives blame Millennials because their only play is to blame SOMEONE. It is the cornerstone of their platform; blame, bluster, deflect, and rile. Anger clouds rational thought and the last thing they want is people thinking about how badly their policies have played out.
5
“Community” also involves our physical infrastructure. If I’m in the suburbs, there are vast distances between schools,parks, stores, homes, separated by highways with fast moving cars. No sidewalks, few bike paths to get to and from daily life activities. Similar in big cities, and now we have to worry about guns. (I lived on a corner street in Chicago - nice neighborhood - where people shot their guns into the air for fun as they drove past our house.) Our public schools are struggling, even in better city neighborhoods - the better ones are supported by fundraising from parents of well to do kids, and the inner city schools get nothing. When you make it hard to get to your community or feel safe in it, insularity is the result.
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@Sarah Conner
Your comment reminded me when our family moved to a small town from a big city. I was shocked to find a lack of programs, amenities, and activities for children to keep them active and out of trouble. What I saw were kids aimlessly roaming the streets versus what I had been used to in a larger urban center: after school programs, more sports opportunities, summer day camps, etc. No wonder many the kids in this small town ended up going down the drug and alcohol path, not continuing on to higher education and generally getting “stuck” in a poor life trajectory.
13
@Sarah Conner "(I lived on a corner street in Chicago - nice neighborhood - where people shot their guns into the air for fun as they drove past our house.)"
No you didn't. But if you really want to play the game, which neighborhood was the nice one with all the guns? As a native Chicagoan, I can tell you the violence and crime is extremely isolated, and isn't occurring how you described in the "nice" neighborhoods.
2
@Melba Toast
This is exactly correct, Melba. I lived for over 5 years in the Lakewood-Balmoral part of Andersonville. There were maybe 2-3 shootings in the Edgewater area in that time, and a single murder up near Loyola. Very sad, but nowhere near the hyperbole yahoos like to spout about Chicago when they obviously have no connection to the city and its complex and diverse array of neighborhoods.
2
Your article mentions college educated individuals. I put the blame for this situation on the leftist/lib ideas implanted into the students minds since the 1980s. You really can't blame the GOP or the dems. It is the 60's generation who became professors/teachers that I place the blame on. I know many of them and I have lost total respect for every one of them. They dodged the draft and never did a real days' work in their life.
2
The right has always sought to shriek and point to scapegoats for cultural breakdowns. Before Lena Dunham it was dirty hippies. The McCarthyite smear machine has been rehabilitated and has been humming for the past 30 years after a pause during the 60s and 70s.
It's purpose is distraction so we will all forget who has the loudest, most persistant voice in our culture: commercialism and those who benefit from the shallow and inauthentic images and impulses it propagates.
173
Augment this insightful essay by reading Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone." This prescient work documents the successive decline in "social capital," that is, community institutions and behavior in the USA since the late 1950's. It enumerates its causes and predicts its harmful results.
1
I think people's( not just conservatives) problems with Lena Dunham's character's on girls is that they were so narcissistic and irresponsibly, dysfunctionally, and not even capable of seeing the connection between action and consequence. It was like watching a slow motion train crash that you could not turn away from. I hoped that it reflected little but the pampered insular liberal Brooklyn world she is from.
1
Strong social institutions require lots of volunteer hours to coach those teams, run the PTA and organize church events. Fewer families have the luxury of a stay-at-home or even part-time working parent to make these hours possible.
3
To my leftist ears, when I hear Republican arguments about how the left is destroying marriage and the American family, what I hear is “if only women weren’t allowed to work, then we would be able to raise a family on a single income and the wife could stay home with the kids, the way it was intended to be. Allowing women to work just raises the cost of living for everyone. And, to boot, I don’t want to have to report to a female manager.”
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@Mark H. Zellers
And many women have worked outside the home for generations, as telephone operators, maids, nurses and school teachers. They often had to after being abandoned by their husbands. But they weren't allowed to have any decent paying jobs. And as an example of current discrimination now that men are being trained as nurses, note the discrepancy in pay!
36
@Mark H. Zellers ditto. I also think the expectation of male fidelity within a marriage is tied up with women working, another reason to chain us up in the kitchen. Maybe I just watched too much Mad Men though.
20
@Mark H. Zellers
Your "if only women weren't allowed to work" comment is right on the nose. People need to wake up. Republicans might publicly wring their hands and pretend to sympathize with the high cost of childcare, lack of maternity leave and workplace discrimination, but their [lack] of actions speak louder than words. There's no govt mandated maternity leave for childcare because they actually want maternity to spell the end of a woman's career, relegating her back to the home. There's no effort to stop workplace or pay discrimination because they want women to be financially dependent on men via lack of career opportunities and lower pay. Lack of action on these issues isn't an oversight, it's an intention.
22
On this subject, what the right blames liberal elitists for is supporting women to be independent. In the old days, most women felt had so few paths to their own economic security, they had to stay with a man no matter how selfish (or worse) he might be. Having babies was the main opportunity for status and fulfillment and, of course, raising a family still deserves recognition, but a woman is free to choose other paths.
1
"My fellow conservatives, who rightly lament America’s turn away from marriage and the dropping birthrate..."
Marriage for the sake of marriage is meaningless. Is a loveless marriage somehow better than a vital relationship between people who are not married?
I'm not saying marriage is useless or has no place, but if we view it dispassionately then it's not hard to see that it's a societal construct and not necessarily something with an intrinsic value.
And what's wrong with a dropping birthrate? The world is wildly overpopulated, and that overpopulation puts great stress on the planet's ability to sustain itself. Use of resources by an overpopulated society increases climate change.
The world could use a period of negative population growth or at least static rather that constantly increasing.
5
One one hand, rural cultures settled by mercantile societies - Utah, Wisconsin, Western Michigan, that relied upon free trade and the exhcnage of ideas, and on the other hand rural cultures settled by slaveholding societies that relied on hierarchy and authoritariism.
Certain societies crumble under the liberty that modern life provides while others thrive. It's like the prisoner and prison guard who can't handle life outside of the prison setting. https://medium.com/s/balkanized-america/the-11-nations-of-america-as-told-by-dna-f283d4c58483
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@Brian So your claim is that Utah was settled by a society that believed in the "free...exchange of ideas" and not "hierarchy and authoritarianism"?
11
@Brian
That's a really interesting perspective. What surprised me about Utah is that even though it's a red state, the church itself acts as a bit of a liberal social safety net for its citizens. Need food? Go to the church supply, need help with mortgage or discounts? the churches can point to resources. There is also a heavy focus on local education and financial support and the tech industry here is booming. Even the public streets and parks are all amazingly well maintained.
It strikes me that you need a balance between red and blue. It's too bad the red has gone off the rails of hysteria and trying to control things they have no business in controlling. I want my wine in Walmart darn it!
Unlike the more heavy-handed religions, the Mormons are more like your muttering mom when you tell her about your deviant behavior. They might give a disapproving look but they aren't grounding you and preventing you from success either. There is a decent live and let live culture here. While many LGBT feels the need to live closeted there are more and more living open lives and I think that's awesome. It will show the community that it's normal and nothing to have crazy misconceptions about.
3
A large number of the "non college educated" segment of the population who are doing so poorly are African-Americans who are suffering from the effects of systemic racism. When African-Americans are incarcerated at 5 times the rate of Caucasians, the toll on their prospects for employment, marriage, and child rearing are incalculable. De facto segregation of schools means that African-Americans are also disadvantaged when it comes even to primary, let alone higher education. The extreme wealth gap between whites and blacks and the systemic defunding of state colleges and universities, which requires even middle class white students to go deeply into debt or join the military to get a secondary education, makes it even more difficult for African-Americans to build the strong families and communities Mr. Carney speaks of.
4
Mr. Carney writes as though tight knit communities are the answer to a decline in marriage and family.
Why, then, do he and his conservative brethren at the AEI and Washington Examiner support the kinds of "education reform" that are destroying public education in communities all over America?
Why, then, do he and his colleagues support policies that repress wage growth and have led to the current wealth gap in America?
Why, then, do conservatives persistently undermine the health and human services that make life bearable for poor folks?
Why, then, do they so adamantly oppose unions, which have historically been a wonderful source of community as well as a mechanism to support working class folks?
The "hyper-individualist lurch" he bemoans is caused by the "you get what you deserve, you deserve what you get" philosophy that has been the conservative mantra for nearly 40 years.
56
Why do these articles and studies always focus on women? Women are not all the same. Some want kids. I didn't and don't. The problem is, people think that women should "aspire" to marriage and once married, they should "aspire" to having children. I was 42 a few years ago when I got married. It was my choice. My husband was 48. Neither one of us had been married before, neither one of us had or wanted children and we had happily had serious relationships with others since our 20s. We consider each other equal. If we weren't equal, I would rather be single. The world isn't ready to embrace equality. Until it is, the only equalizer for women is to choose a mate carefully and not have children. It's never fair otherwise.
2
@atb
I believe they focus on women, because for the most part, the decision to marry or have kids ultimately lies in women’s hands. Also, women have gained more social mobility, espcecially educated women. So it makes for something to study and watch. The changes, as a whole, lie in women, not necessarily in men. Unless you count the increasing amount of men opting out of the workforce.
What too many commentators fail to consider is that the economic failure of so many working class communities is a result of the social failure of those communities to educate their children, build community and robust social infrastructure.
The economic challenge is not the cause of social failure; social failure is the cause of economic failure. It's easy to blame "the economy" and "rich people", but good schools and good communities are built on the backs of good people, not money. People and money will flow to good communities, jobs will flow to good education.
6
@OneView When industry leaves the community, "good people" and their children will move to areas where there are jobs, leaving retirees(of which I am one) and those with little ambition, or those who cannot afford to leave. A shrinking tax base means less money for schools. You have it backwards. Economic opportunity is the foundation for robust communities and good education. Over the last forty years I have watched our little towns devolve from strong and healthy working class communities into what one imagines he might find in depressed Appalachia. We had one of the largest aluminum smelters in the country(gone), two large chemical plants(with employment roster down by 80%), natural gas industry( employment down by 80% in some cases, gone in others). The current gas boom employs transient workers almost exclusively. If there is social failure here, and I believe there is, it can be linked to the lack of economic opportunity.
@OneView
Hear, hear!
Our Industrial Age school system is not up to its task. We are generally ignorant in subjects that are born from our humanity, like art, music and literature, and their rich multicultural histories. I don't know how we can learn to care about each other when every argument comes back to 'the struggle to survive', as if we are literally living in a jungle.
Both my sons in their early 30s have partners, but marriage and children are out of the question. Even though both have decent jobs those aren't secure. And both are stressed with all the over time, commuting and cost of living.
7
I agree with the author but want to add a yet unverified factoid. The places where family most declines also tend to be places where taxes are considered taboo and legislatures routinely do what they can to not invest in social support.
In today's world anyone scratching to make a living, much less a good one, would be nuts to take on family life. It's a recipe for extending suffering to others, including our offsping.
As one interviewee said, "our kids".
245
@v
I hear a lot of young people say they will not be having kids. Given that the birth rate in the country is already under the replacement rate (and the anti-immigration feelings of the current administration), that is to good news for the country.
7
@v
I hear a lot of young people say they will not be having kids. Given that the birth rate in the country is already under the replacement rate (and the anti-immigration feelings of the current administration), that is not good news for the country.
5
First Brooks seemingly changing his mind on reparations and now this. Have some right-wing writers seen the light? I think not. They are most proficient at rationalizing. They know that Trump's extremism is tainting the product they are in the business of promoting. "Strong communities," people caring about their neighbors sounds nice, but so what? I'll believe real change is coming when they start talking about regulating corporate excess and taxing the wealthy in proportion to their privilege.
16
@silverwheel I hear what you are saying, but lasting changes start from the ground up. Support and encouragement for involvement at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder has to come from those with more education and means.
3
@Rick Papin
Agreed.
Disinvest in PUBLIC schools and universities. Let creative destructors rip apart communities for profit. Let big companies out of their pension liabilities. Let drug companies and health insurance companies run healthcare and bleed us dry. Then pit working whites , whose security is now threatened, against poor black and brown minorities, who never had security. This is the Reagan outcome. Sunny Ronny. Rugged individualism. The wealthy and multinational companies are snickering at what they managed to pull off. No one wants to get married or have kids because, quite frankly, they don’t have time between the 2-3 jobs with no benefits. Actually, they’re being rational, even smart, not having kids. How can conservatives even lament this situation, they created it.
1262
This is something of a red herring: blaming Reagan (and Chicago economics) sounds good/insightful but I'm not sure its real.
Its not in vouge to cite Charles Murray but "Coming Apart" is now 10 years old and easily the most important non-fiction work of the last 25 years. Working class whites have been abandoned, diminished and scapegoated by our moneyed rulers.
It is the UPPER CLASS whites who preach a "find your passion" squishy idealism yet get married, stay married and have children at much higher rates.
This same upper class says "all are welcome" but aren't worried about their jobs because they are employed in industries where soft skills (not easily replicated by immigrants) are supreme.
It is hypocritical dishonesty that should make you enraged: for all the talk about the GOP pulling the ladder up behind them, it is upper class liberals who do this (w/ a heaping of moralizing on top about how bigoted working class whites and Latinos are).
15
Disinvest in FAILING public schools that refuse to change and universities that send their graduates into the world with useless degrees saddled with debt. Let creative destructors rip apart communities in the name of progress. Let people exclusively blame drug companies and health insurance companies for poor life choices that are bleeding them dry. Then create a narrative that pits working whites, whose security is in fact sometimes threatened, against poor black and brown minorities, who are sometimes offered security but often do not accept it. Sunny Ronny. Rugged individualism. The overeducated NIMBY’s and multinational elitists puff out their indignant chests while quietly giving thanks they’ve managed to avoid that which they helped to create. Most people want to get married or have kids, quite frankly, but should think about getting a job with benefits and then a second and possibly a third before doing so. Actually, it’d be smart, even rewarding, to work for the future of children who have not yet arrived. How can liberals begrudge people not in the narratives they create?
3
@Sharon
The contributing factors that lead up to our current situation are... well... everything combined. This article reviews those effects when close to home. On a larger scale I see that `growth' in our nation since the yuppie years has evolved with more gated communities on one side, rentals and trailer parks on the other, and big box stores with added concrete in between.
I would like to see us be more thoughtful.
Proud to be your neighbor just down the road in Kent, OH.
19
It seems to me women have a choice today and that may be behind declining numbers, marriage-wise. My career path had one (traditional) goal - get married and raise a family. My daughter's career path, driven by the modern realization that women can actually take care of themselves, is very different from mine. Whether she chooses a traditional route involving marriage and family, or to support herself without a spouse, she has far more opportunity than my generation did. Perhaps this is the Lena Dunham way...to me it's the obviously right way...
123
@Anne Flink, Yes, but that "choice" is driven by the lessening odds of landing a suitable mate.
9
Well, and the article specifically says that women with college degrees marry more frequently - and those are the women with more choices.
I think choice explains the drop from 85% for everyone, but not the big gap between rich and poor.
13
But is it better for children? @Anne Flink
5
I agree with much of the article, and I don't see the problems as a 'right' versus 'left' issue, I see it is a deeply human issue. Americans are getting lonelier. We forget that we're primates and like all primates community must be at the heart of survival. I love watching a lot of nature documentaries and when I watch those chimps and gorillas and orangutans grooming each other so lovingly and how all the females in the clan will gather together to take care of the newborns, its in those moments that I feel most human. When you see how easy it is for animals to reinforce their bonds and how effortless it is for them to show each other love, why can't we humans be that for each other? When I watch a pride of lions they are so close knit! I'm an atheist so I don't necessarily believe that god must be the end all be all to form community but everyone needs that base, that sense of 'I belong' and everyone I love belongs.
78
@Keely,
There is much more to church than religion. As an adult convert to Roman Catholicism I can say that the community-forming and sustaining aspect of church does provide that loving care for each other. Perhaps, to those on the outside, that self-caring community looks like smugness or exclusivity, and there surely is some of that, but there is much more. Government may be able to support and enable solutions to community building, but government cannot do it for us. That is on us; civic and religious communities matter.
6
Saying that the key to a strong family-oriented society relies, at least in part, on strong public institutions such as a good public school system and well-funded libraries is anti-ethical to the Conservative movement. When institutions like that exist kids are curious and learn about their world. The last thing that the conservatives in this country want is an educated populace that is curious about the world around it. You all are much easier to control with fear when you stay in your own little pocket of the country, tuned into Fox News and listen to what the smart white men tell you is good for you. As soon as you learn, you realize they don't have your best interests at heart, only their wallets.
7
I come from a working class background. Specifically, I was raised by my mother, who had a rare union job, and my grandmother, in Appalachia.
Working class Americans no longer aspire to marriage and parenthood because conservative governments, state and federal ( and please note I didn't say Republican) have eroded the social safety net to the point that marriage and parenthood are concepts fraught with risk.
Read about the difficulties landing a working class job that is actually 40 hours, instead of 35, done purposefully so people don't qualify for health insurance. Would you want to go through pregnancy without health insurance?
Read about the difficulties in finding a working class job that doesn't have a floating schedule. Would you like to work out childcare for a job with no set hours and no set days?
Read about the difficulties in finding a working class job with paid sick leave. Would you like to have to weigh the balance of staying home with a sick child versus paying the rent?
And yes, some of that could be helped with greater community connection. But here's a secret: a lot of that community connection was lost because grandparents are having to work too; retirement is no longer a viable option as income inequality grows, cost of living goes up, and wages stagnate.
Do you want to see the social fabric knit back together? It starts with a more equal distribution of wealth, and a commitment to worker protection.
1168
@Sally No, you didn't say Republican, but I wonder why not. Where have Democrats lead the way in eroding the social safety net?
85
@Sally This would make sense except that before the 1940s there was no social safety net at all, or good healthcare. People also routinely worked way more than 40 hours per week. And people married and raised families for all of time before the 1940s.
24
@kas Family also had kids earlier and fewer women worked - so the issue of "trying to find childcare" at least, didn't exist for most people.
58
Note the most important aspect of the two areas selected to show that the economy doesn't count.
Utah is the center of Mormon society. Western Michigan is the Dutch Reformed focus.
The two cultures, precapitalist, imported intact from far away, provide no blueprint for healing the disaster of Red America. Their lesson is that you should have built a network of people like you and settled it in the wilderness a century or two ago.
The mainstream of American society, the melting pot of which we bragged for decades and decades, expressed an opposite principle.
For tens of millions, whose peasant life had been torn apart and replaced by industrial agony, and then prosperity, the glue holding it all together was working-class culture: a job; fighting for humane conditions and wages; caring for one another; building unions, the working class substitute for religious networks.
Globalization did not devastate the precapitalist cultures. It did ruin working-class America, centered in the world's greatest industrial engine, the Midwest from the Rockies to the Appalachians.
That's forty years of battering. The few years of weak recovery count for little, myopic econometrics notwithstanding.
The elite's Blue yuppies form a natural focus for the anger of its rejected Red proletariat.
Drugs and divorce don't result from failing to pull oneself up by one's boot straps. That's blaming the victim. They're caused by the elite's junking of its working class for a cheap one abroad.
91
@alyosha
I don't think Democratic voters are the ones who supported the true elite's junking our working class. (The true elite is the billionaire class. Every other "elite" doesn't have that power to direct the governments.)
15
@alyoshay
You talk about the elite's red yuppies? I think yuppies are generally conservative, no?
The right was smart to coin the phrase "liberal elite," but it seems time for us to use "conservative elite," which fits folks like Trump and the circle around him perfectly.
21
@alyosha
Hold on a second.
Mormonism wasn't imported. It was home-grown in upstate NY.
11
Fracking is a poor example to prove a point. It may in fact be the example that disproves the theorem. Seattle has robust libraries because we have the tax base to pay for them. We have a booming Little League (biggest fields of players in a generation) because we have parents who will pay the 150 bucks to get the free baby sitting while they relax after a 50 hour work week. They work at jobs that are stable, well payed and long term. Fracking jobs have one out of those three things. Stable and long term boring holes in the ground ain't. I don't disagree that library and little league are nice. I just say they are a byproduct of financial success. Put differently, if you think you can replace Amazon's fifty thousand jobs with sports teams for kids, you are kidding yourself.
3
Pretty much my entire social circle is comprised of intact familes.. two parents with one or multiple kids. I interact with dozens of families on a regular basis and we support each other and each other's kids steadfastly. And yet, because of the same 'lena dunham' effect, we're seen as a threat to family values by the right as the couples are almost exclusively same-sex. The irony is rich.
191
@AB Very rich. I'm a Democrat and have been all my adult life. I also am very conservative when it comes to family life. I do realize life is very different today then it was when my husband and I were raising our 3 sons. But we were fortunate, we lived in a tight-knit neighborhood.
Whats amazing is its still tight-knit 40 years later. Actually some of the same people live there and some of their children are living in the houses their parents owned. And, the community we lived in was progressive.
Somehow, and I don't have the answers, we need to find a way to help communities rebuild those assets that support family life.
15
@wolf201. Taxation and spending in the public interest is how “communities (build) those assets that support family life” including minority families.
27
Good jobs are the glue that enables people to start and lead productive lives. America is falling apart because we have a winner take all race to the bottom. End of story
8
My sense was t is not”individualism,” but feather rank selfishness that is poisoning us all. Selfishness of spirit has replaced charity.
4
When I was growing up in what would be considered a conservative Catholic family by today's standards (though my parents were modern and really, very open-minded), I wanted 9 children. When I went to college, I figured I would marry by 30 (I married much younger) and have maybe 3 or 4 kids. We ended up having 2 children. Between long commutes, other family obligations, etc., it's what happened. I would have liked a larger family, but unlike my grandmothers and mother, I had more choices, and besides even 4 seemed a bit much in light of no good maternity leave policies, FMLA notwithstanding, or lack of support for excellent childcare. Most of the people I know who have had larger families from my hometown ended up doing it in the military, because there is much more support for the large family lifestyle, even if it's not ideal for everyone. People do what works and it doesn't mean there's a societal breakdown or some new type of selfishness operating in their lives.
"It takes a village."
Hmm, I wonder who popularized that phrase.
4
The idea that America was “little house on the prairie” dies hard with these folks
Punishment should be either the lives they now lead or they must read 100 year old newspapers for life.
Things don’t change that fast with people, technology makes it seem that way.
I'm on the far left. I'm gen X. I don't blame millennials for social or economic issues--that mess was made for them and they are more open minded and kind than previous generations, on the whole. That said, they need to get off their phones.
1
@Justice As a fellow Gen Her, I agree. We actually have more in common with them than Boomers.
If the Right is guilty of “hyper-individualism” the Left is equally guilty of splintering our national identity into a thousand shiny slivers. As this process continues unchecked it will create such narrow identities that no meaningful “village” can be said to exist.
So both Right and Left are getting the same result (division, loss of common values) by operating at different levels of society.
8
If the Republicans on the Supreme Court manage to overturn Roe v. Wade, the gulf will widen even more. The Red States will ban abortion, increasing teen pregnancies, school dropout rates and poverty. In the Blue States, liberal abortion laws will allow women to postpone motherhood, pursue higher education and establish successful careers and marriages.
Conservatives' greatest talent is self-righteously shooting themselves in the foot.
10
@Carson Drew Funny how the legalization of abortion has accompanied the decline of the family, social mores, and the rise of alienation...
@Carson Drew Studies have shown that upper middle class teens ("Elites" who tend to live in Blue States) use birth control more than impoverished teens, so they don't get pregnant in the first place.
@Quinn: Lots of other things have "accompanied the decline of the family, social mores, and the rise of alienation." Correlation doesn't imply causation.
1
Certainly Ms. Dunham is not to blame for the decimation of working class families- it's unlikely she has ever met a person from that class.
But the overall "sexual revolution" since the early 60s has served elite educated wealthy people like Ms. Dunham very well (hugely expanded sexual freedom, individual power and economic opportunity etc.) while crushing the poor and undereducated. Folks like Ms. Dunham, with money, power, media and huge social privilege don't need traditional structures for stability; in fact, those very structures can seem oppressive because they keep people like her at a social "9 out of 10" when they want to get to "10/10". But those same structures Ms. Dunham etc want to dismantle allow poor people to reach maybe a "5/10". Her "10/10" puts poor folks to a "2/10" at best. Deplorable indeed.
1
@keith
Poor and rich and working class youngsters have been having sex for centuries, and in the 60's birth control enabled women to take control over their bodies and not get pregnant. Hallelujah!!!!
If men were able to get pregnant or had to take birth control, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Poverty, lack of education and resources, not the sexual revolution, crushes underpriviledged people,
as does the religion that allows the illusion of sin and redemption, also related to sex.
"My fellow conservatives, who rightly lament America’s turn away from marriage and the dropping birthrate, need to ask why “real America,” including the most dedicated parts of Donald Trump’s base, is seeing the intact family crumble."
Donald trump should be the poster boy for not getting married. He sets no example for anyone.
3
The author makes some good points. However, he skirts the elephant in the room and that is continuous republican support for Trump. The GOP's embrace of Trumpism is what is fracturing relationships and communities. Friendships, volunteering partners, familial bonds have fractured because we have a president, party who pits American's against each other with falsehood and fear. In the past, people could accept voting differences. For instance, if you voted for Romney or Bush, your circle of friends saw it merely as ideological differences. However, with the rise of Trump and the current republican party, it is no longer a question of ideology but the battle for the soul of this nation. This is why people have stayed in their echo chambers. What benefit is it to engage when your community, friends, family are constantly defending falsehood and lies?
5
@Jean Rhys
It may be satisfying to blame Trump and his supporters for the nation's ills, but this is a long-term trend; its roots go back decades. Right wing and left wing politics are both to blame and have worked against each other to pull communities apart.
1
Let's get it straight. She went to Oberlin, not Wesleyan. I pay attention to these things... I graduated from Oberlin, my daughter from Wesleyan.
1
Mr. Carney’s case, while reasonable and evidentially supported, will never make it to the ears of conservatives. The intellectual and moral rot that has devastated the Republican party has rendered the vast preponderance of conservatives immune to reason and amenable only to the most simplistic solutions that point the finger of blame squarely at the Other. Unfortunately however, the Other (liberals, immigrants, socialists) are the only one proposing solutions that would actually solve their problems.
11
What Carney describes as a "hyper individualistic lurch" I see as a concerted campaign over decades to undermine the common good in favor of unfettered "taking" of public resources for private profit. Paying taxes to support public schools, transit, and other public infrastructure is anathema to so-called conservatives, As is restricting the "right" of the individual or corporation to pollute the environment, no matter whether it harms the livelihood, health, or very survival of the larger community.
16
Would like to see comparable marriage figures for men — as well as the numbers tracking their declining rates of education, employment, and income. Marriage is not the “deal” it once was for women, nor is it a safe haven for child-rearing. Going it alone, which is often where we end up after dealing with the foibles and debts of our former spouses, can be infinitely easier and more satisfying.
3
Marriage is over-rated. Taking care of your kids is under-rated. That's where society's emphasis needs to be.
7
@Yo
You are so correct, thanks for saying this.
@Yo
I agree completely. Married for 35 years too.
You left out the role of opiates, Purdue Pharma, and the corrupt FDA in accelerating the decline of communities, and creating a giant mountain to climb to reclaim them.
3
@Dr. M And corrupt doctors... don't forget who wrote those scripts.
1
Women who go to college can more easily get jobs and therefore unlike women of the 50's and 60's can support themselves without marriage. Women in rural America without college educations not only can't support themselves as easily. Sex and parenthood are attainable activities.
3
Great article -- reminds me of an argument made in Thomas Frank's great book "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
For decades, parts of the Right have externalized blame to the evil liberal "other" for social decay to keep up the never-ending culture war that keeps them in office. Socially liberal POVs and individuals are omnipresent in Hollywood and popular media, so it makes them an easy target.
In reality, as this author points out, the story is about the erosion of community.
Some of this has been hard to avoid - technology-driven changes to the economy has changed the job landscape and increasingly moved jobs and money to cities.
A lot of it, though, is due to the Right's policy. Taxes are what pays for good schools and community institutions. Marriage rates decline, and divorce rates go up, due to economic anxiety. Corporate handouts and tax breaks create economic anxiety while stronger social programs, unions, et. help decrease it.
The Right wouldn't win elections if they let the people know this, though.
12
@TR
Support family leave, reasonable working hours, child care, vacations and sick leave, helping our neighbors, watching out for each other , being inclusive and caring about each other as human beings, each and every one worthy of care, is what it takes.
I can't volunteer if I work 60 hours and go home to feed and clothe my family and am exhausted.
Families are far apart these days, the support system of 50 years ago is shredded. We need to support families and NOT WITH A TAX CREDIT ALONE!
@TR You really don't think the decline of community and family is in part related to the rise of divorce and the decline of stigma attached to having out of wedlock children? The sexual revolution, which de-stigmatized pre-marital and casual sex? The lack of stigma attached to drugs and alcohol use? The decline of religion? Come on...
If the state of millennials are to blame, then blame the generation that raised them.
3
The right turned away from families and community when they became dedicated to one goal....making the rich richer. Think that’s funny? One piece of actual legislation in two years and what was it?
11
It is old folks, ever angry at those who will replace them.
And may it be soon. The old have wrecked our nation and our planet. Begone.
3
I have often said that once people start receiving Social Security and Medicare they should stop voting, sort of a conflict of interest. Wow, that gets a conversation rolling. What I really am thinking is that we baby-boomers have really mucked things up (just ask my passionate environmentalist unmarried college graduate daughter). We NEED to let the younger citizens mold the future. We do not know better.
3
@Anne, using that logic, people should stop voting if they start using food stamps or receive any type of government assistance.
I see several issues at work here. Unless you are willing and able to constantly re-educate yourself and be willing to change, you will become, not just unemployed, but irrelevant. There are several drivers: automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D printing. Layered on top of these is climate change.
The threat of irrelevance is scary.
3
@Ed Hubbard It's very scary. I know of a US radiology practice that uses doctors located in India to read x-rays. That means the owner of the practice can hire less expensive "labor" while still billing patients large amounts. Who knew that even MDs' livelihoods in the US would be at risk in our increasingly digital economy?
1
What relief to hear someone promoting schools, libraries and sports leagues and not just churches as an antidote to declining communities. I don't think commentators necessarily mean to say that the church is the main solution, but it often comes across that way.
10
@Syliva Church and religion isn't just a way to create a sense of community. It also instills a moral code that today, post cultural revolution, most find too constraining. Casual sex, drug and alcohol use, divorce, out-of-wedlock children - all of these things were (and are) heavily stigmatized in traditional, religious cultures.
The Republican Rightists will blame anyone for the mess they are in.
Over in Ross Douthat's column this morning, Ross was smearing Jimmy Carter for the Trumpence mess.
The only one that that bunch never mentions is FDR.
They don't want to remind the young ones that there once was a truly competent president.
Put the blame squarely where it belongs: On the Republicans. They are the ones making women into forced breeders.
"Family values"?
Talk to those "Kids In Kages" at the border and you'll learn everything you need to know about Republican Family Values.
17
Schools, churches, sports leagues, and neighborhoods.
Once again, the arts isn't even a thought.
8
And WHICH is the party if "family values?"
3
Remember the conservative ridicule of a woman with the audacity to claim that "it takes a village" to raise children?
17
Values that promote strong communities through mutual support networks such as churches build strong families. Values that undermine community and promote self interest prevent the formation of families that endure. So it is ultimately an issue of worldview. Every idea has consequences.
Let’s work together to find and promote the good ones. We might want to stop the name calling though and the hate toward those who don’t vote like us. I don’t think our side has all the good ideas and I don’t think the other side is only made up of stupid evil people. That lie keeps us apart and keeps us from finding the values that building great communities with flourishing singles and families.
35
@phil
The problem comes when one side pushes farther and farther to extremes, reducing social support systems, subsidizing the wealthy, relentlessly abusing opponents, and refusing to compromise.
8
@philas I would start by revoking the tax exempt statuses of churches, to weed out the corruption of priests and pastors, and create true community resources. From the Catholic Church, to mega churches the divisiveness and exclusionary behavior of church communities towards people unlike the members, and exemplified by the Mormon church, which is essentially a socialist government of its own for it’s own, well, until that “problem” is resolved, society will not be enriched by organized religion or it’s worldview.
10
Here are some other factors that slow family formation, that the author did not touch on in this piece:
- People are less interested in actually meeting people. People are even less interested in having sex in the first place. You can do everything online and never leave the house.
- Declining wages and economic/social mobility. Kids are expensive enough already; why have a kid if you can barely keep yourself above water?
- Crippling levels of debt and economic/political uncertainty.
- Healthcare is expensive, and having a kid requires lots of doctors visits and a hospital stay.
- Internet-borne social isolation, tied with the the crushing FOMO that drives services like social media and Tinder.
- Climate change makes the world worse every year; why bring a kid into this hellscape?
- Widespread obesity, drug addiction and a plague of diagnosed mental health problems; young people today suffer from depressive conditions at very high rates. No doubt all of the above contribute.
- I'm sure you can think of many more.
The author presents an extremely sanitized and pat explanation of today's social trends. Looking at it in a political lens is only so helpful; these are systemic, "bipartisan," issues that cannot be mollified through public policy. We'd have to re-do the past 40 years for a chance to have a different present reality.
2
@Nick
Correction - I meant to say "UNdiagnosed mental health problems"
Good piece and very well argued. Unfortunately, poking holes through an argument of the American right wing is actually an incredibly easy game and does nothing to inject facts and logic to the discourse of Fox News. The decline of marriage is caused by liberal elites? Lowering taxes on the wealthy will help poor people? Asylum seeking families from Central America are dangerous invaders? Syrian refugees are terrorists? Voter fraud is rampant by illegal immigrants? Donald Trump is an honest and competent president? I could go on all day. The problem: pointing out the fallacy of obviously false right wing arguments will do nothing to actually convince the people that blindly believe whatever lie they are told by Fox and the GOP.
7
As a life-long Democrat who grew up in Iowa small towns, I applaud Mr. Carney's column. This isn't a right-left dilemma; it's a quality of life dilemma. Any community can become a village, whether in the heart of a city or in the heartland. It takes faith, hope and love to pull a village together and keep it humming. Oostburg, Wisconsin, has the formula.
2
Conservatives have to blame someone for our problems. They won't blame their religious bigotry and discouragement of real intellectual knowledge of what is wrong with Christianity. They are among the most immoral, the most alienated, the most addicted in our population but they blame socialism, liberalism, and all that. Hypocrisy is nothing new among conservatives.
7
This is about economics. Decay in working class towns is due to the lack of good paying working class jobs. It is that simple. As long as we pay people poorly and expect them to work most of their lives to make ends meet, we stunt the growth of the community.
24
@Typical Ohio Liberal But as the article pointed out a rise in incomes due to fracking did not change matters and poorer areas like Utah still have strong family values.
1
@NSH
Good paying jobs are also jobs that don’t require 60-80 work weeks to attain financial security.
What isn’t discussed about fracking, despite its wage increases: 1) jobs are located out of traditional towns; workers, typically male, live in barracks known as “man camps”;2) the hours are incredibly long.
You can’t build a family or a community when you’re displaced from both.
2
@Typical Ohio Liberal
"Decay in working class towns is due to the lack of good paying working class jobs. It is that simple."
If it was that simple, then why was there a decline in community when fracking brought more high paying jobs? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016717302085
In the 1930s there were few high paying jobs, yet social bonds were strong. https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/family-and-home-impact-great-depression
The comments today are somehow more thoughtful and generally less partisan than most. Maybe there is hope
The thing that has always anchored families has been decent jobs that can provide the resources that keep economic tensions acceptable, fund the schools and libraries and sports and churches that unite families, and the funds to unite communities to take on new opportunities to improve all lives
Rich and upper middle class neighborhoods can do this. In fact families move to these enclaves specifically because they do provide that
The groups left behind simply spiral down.
In all honesty this has been a problem in rural communities for decades. Manufacturing in river towns for a long while provided an alternative. But technology has largely eliminated the advantages of being on a river, reduced labor demands in general, and created this real world.
We cannot wish it away. The manufacturing that may again return to our shores will not be unskilled labor intensive. The upper middle class and upper class are not going to move to poor towns with bad schools. And more charity, forced by the government via taxes or voluntarily given, is not going to restore the pride of family or community
We need more good jobs. We need salaries to rise via productivity gains. For all their faults Republicans seem to do more to address these issues, and are slowly moving lower class workers in their direction.
2
@John Morton
name one thing the Republicans have done to
'address these issues'
1
@John Morton
You lost me on Republicans are doing more to create productivity gains. How? Tariffs? That’s killing farmers and the metals industries. New NAFTA? It’s worse than the old version? Withdrawing from TPP? That eliminated the one significant check on China. Tax cuts? Largely stole from the middle class to elevate the wealthy.
Which party favors increased hourly wages, workers rights, smart manufacturing....? It isn’t the GOP.
Ever since the days of the Moral Majority/Silent Majority, it been the same. Those places, those states, the current Red states have had the highest divorce rates, lowest education rates, highest murder/suicide rates, lowest income rates, highest sickness/chronic ill heath rates, etc. etc. You get the picture - if its good they have low rates, if its bad they have high rates. You would think that after all these years, it might finally sink in that what they are doing isn't working every well. For all their Bible thumping and ranting, all they are getting is a worst life for their children (and now their grandchildren and great-grandchildren). Some people are slow learners.
5
This is a feature of the far-right: every social problem is derived from moral decay. They are the anti-Marxist political faction, after all.
Besides, they frenquently associate this moral decay with the rise of socialism (the "silent/Gramscist revolution" theory).
The problem here is that the criterium they use to designate what is or isn't moral decay is precisely what gets you closer to socialism according to their world view, so socialism = moral decay. By exclusion, capitalism = moral virtue.
Take, for example, LGBT rights. LGBT = getting farther away (i.e. weakening) from the institution of family. Since family is the foundation of private property, that means LGBT = socialism. Therefore, LGBT = moral decay = socialism.
5
Marriage and children, probably just as depicted in "Father Knows Best", it is extremely easy to chastise the "liberal, educated" women. The truth is partly true, but for different reasons. Women have and continue to have less and less options but they are much less willing to be suffocated within a bad and abusive marriage with less support to raise healthy and happy children. The destruction of the family is the result of the undermining of the economy, education and healthcare.
The current Conservative ideology is the remove more and more options rather than recognize a problem of their creation. The families in middle America have been decimated by the collapse of the Economy, Education and Healthcare. There will be no return to the previous standards of marriage and family without the support of these three standards.
9
The economic argument is important. Who sponsors the sports leagues? Who donates for a new scoreboard? Who is contributing to maintain the church?
If the main employer leaves town, the secondary businesses also go downhill.
The problems in America's communities began at the top, in America's boardrooms, and specifically with the notion that shareholder value is all that matters.
Republicans need to start making changes at the top, and the values will "trickle down."
11
Another thing to consider is how much control women have over their reproductive lives. I'm betting in that in those more conservative places women are also having babies younger. It's much harder to build stable marriages when you start having babies as a teenager.
The right may want to take a lesson from those more liberal communities; good sex education and the availability of contraceptives can make a huge difference in life outcomes.
13
In my experience, the author is right to point to a virtual epidemic of social isolation in the country today. But strangely he fails to mention what I see as one of the biggest reasons for it: too many adults have to work full time in order to have a decent standard of living. And I'm not talking about anything extravagant, just a modest home, a reliable vehicle for getting to work and carting kids around, health insurance, and money for bills, groceries, and maybe--if you're lucky--a little fun.
With so many people working full time, too few have the time or energy to build and sustain social relationships. At least, that's how it is in my life.
13
Just look around. This is not about traditional values, liberals and conservatives or any of the tropes and memes that fill our days. What I see constantly are people of all ages, but particularly the young, lost in their screens. Even at a restaurant they do not interact with those they are with, choosing phony social media interaction wit non-present and non-threatening so-called friends. This is no way to have any village or community.
9
I am glad to read a "conservative" voice make the case for strong public schools. I am also glad to read the shout-out to Oostburg, one of the many communities that make up Sheboygan County. I do find it ironic that the previous Republican administration here in Wisconsin did much to damage public education here: starving the system of funds; tying the hands of local communities' ability to make up for that loss; making the very profession of teaching an undesirable choice due to low pay and lack of respect. Perhaps that tide is turning here, but it could well take a generation to repair.
18
All well and good, and, yes, the right is always demoguedly decrying the "enemy within", but it is also obvious that the good things missing in the communities of the poor are present in the communities of greater means the economic stress of families is less. Better pay, better jobs, less time spent keeping it together would go a long to addressing these concerns.
7
Until conservatives come to grips with the fact that social collapse is the fault of their own economic and social policies, they'll be writing these articles over and over and over. You can't advocate for tax cuts for the owners of WalMart, elimination of the estate tax, the destruction of unions, the gutting of Social Security, "voting with your feet" by moving out of your community when times get hard, corporate personhood, cutting spending on education, and propping up failing industries like coal mining rather than coming up with something like the Green New Deal to restructure employment opportunities in those areas while simultaneously lamenting the destabilization of communities. it's those policies that destabilize them. It's not Trumpism, it's Conservatism writ large (which has come to its logical conclusion in Trumpism) that fosters the very problems that Conservatives can't figure out how to relieve.
45
I always find it curious to hear people say the decline in marriage and church attendence is a bad thing. In reality it is the opposite. These institutions have had their day time for a new generation to show that commitment is not about getting married and if you want to believe in another philosophy to get you through life then you have choice. The country is finally moving in secular direction like Europe. As Bob Dylan said over 50 years ago to my generation.
"Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’"
10
@Edward
Wow... love Dylan!
As our sons and many of their friends approach their 30s we hear them say that they see that the economy will not allow them to have lucrative careers, own their homes, build savings accounts, and other standard goals of the Boomers. Worse yet, they wonder why they should even try when the climate is just going to get worse. Why bring children into this world when all they will have is misery?
Interconnected communities indeed strengthen people’s access to a better life, for sure. But if your community does not work together to show the children that they can do something about climate change, that there is a realistic chance of a future without atmospheric catastrophe, then why should they work hard for some dream that is sure to be destroyed?
This ennui will only get worse as climate impacts continue. We Boomers have a sacred responsibility to show our children they are wrong. We need to model climate fighting for them, and leave them government policies that will actually reduce emissions. The policy we need today to show them that the future is not bleak is Carbon Fee and Dividend. It puts money in their hands to spend as they see fit. It will reduce emissions by 40% in 10 years. It reduces premature deaths due to pollution. They will see that, and maybe it will change their minds. That’s why I’m working for HR763.
9
Republicans rarely, if ever, point to St. Ronnie of California as the ultimate source for much of the social inequity and systemic dissolution we see today. "Government is the problem, not the solution." Remember that one? Three decades later we can all see the results.
17
@Jason Shapiro actually go back slightly further and thank William Powell and the Powell memo; he’s the architect of the Republican policies of the last 45 years. Ronald Regan was the first opportunity the RNC had to implement them nationally.
5
"That hyper-individualist lurch by the right could be waning, though. As the rural working class has moved into the Republican Party, conservatives are increasingly attuned to declining family formation and crumbling community in much of America."
Huh? Where? How do you get to "waning?"
5
I spent 4 years in Alabama in the early 70's. I married my first, only and still, wife as I left. I knew very few people, my age, then early 20's, who were not divorced at least once. They also were amongst the most devout, judgmental, right wing people I ever met. The few liberals I knew and have kept up with are still married to their first spouses.
17
@dhkinil
The people who preach (and judge) the loudest usually are doing so to make themselves feel better about their own
"sins" of the past.
I wonder if the correlation between education and marriage rates have something to do with division of labor. It would seem to me that within communities where conservative ideas prevail and traditional gender roles prevail, women might simply see zero point in marriage. If a woman is going to not only have to work outside of the home (which is a necessity in most cases where you're subsisting off of minimum wage) and then are expected to come home and do all of the house work as well (as is expected with traditional gender roles), what's the point?
It would make an interesting project to go ask conservative and poorer women their reasons. I imagine too that answers may vary by race. Obviously, this topic is much more nuanced than this editorial can dive into.
7
The most important legal contract most working class people ever enter into is the marriage contract yet it’s not available in written form so all its terms and conditions — and numerous blank spaces— can be clearly understood beforehand. That’s for a reason. If it were available in clearly written form and signatures were required marriage would become obsolete overnight.
3
This is a refreshing and accurate op-ed, and I'm happy to see that it comes from a conservative. Now, if he can just get his fellow conservatives to listen, I believe there is real hope for a left-right joining of hands to build stronger local communities.
7
The parenting practices of families determine a lot of whether or not the kids will be successful human beings.
Patient, reasonable, mature people make better parents, whether single or married. The ability to defer gratification and the ability to set and meet goals basically co-occur with maturity and emotional self regulation.
Impulsivity, anger, and self-indulgence are a different picture and indicate worse parenting skills.
College completion is a decent (but not perfect) sorting hat for which of these groups a person/their future family falls into.
Empathic and patient parenting from a high school educated single mom is better than brutality and anger from a college educated married mom.
The key is empathy and patience, aka emotional self regulation, which give a person the ability to teach emotional self regulation to a child.
5
The effects of our technology are also undermining our communities, both large and small. We buy on line never leaving our homes or taking our children to the mall. I never visit my library anymore as I borrow electronically on line. Now we can order from grocery stores and restaurants to deliver at our doors. In work, we no longer meet face to face but on Face Time. Most of all the self-involving cell phone may be the biggest enemy of community. This is why schooling, after-care, organized sports, scout troops are essential to build community from the young up.
7
Mr. Carney, you're observations are astute but very limited in scope. These magical families where people sit around the dinner table, say grace and compete with each other to name all the state capitals have been decimated by corporate and government sponsored greed; what you call hyper-individualism.
Without an adequate social net that includes health care, child care, elder care, attention to education, an open library and funding for the sports teams we can't rebuild the core community. We can't responsibly have more children.
Unless the current GOP has an acute bout of schizophrenia, discovers their spines AND their moral compass and suddenly understands the benefits of social services, nothing is going to change.
32
It’s worth noting the volunteer and unpaid labor which make possible the operation of churches and civic organizations. It’s not necessarily true that traditional community ties are less appealing. It may be more true that fewer people are available to participate. There are fewer 9-5 jobs with weekends free.
22
Three very important reasons for the decline in marriage are: 1. the disappearance of the stigma on sex outside of marriage, 2: the change in the stigma on 'unwed' motherhood, and 3. the decline in the stigma on divorce.
These three changes in stigma, when combined with the ability of women to 'work outside the home' and the loss of affiliation with community institutions, have made the institution of marriage very much less attractive. In ages past society has 'required marriage in order to condone sexual relations and pregnancy/childbirth. And society has placed great stigma divorce. And societal institutions provided support for raising children.
There could be an 'economic advantage' to marriage. But that requires the necessary planning, saving, and cooperation that are not skills in strong evidence in lower income communities, for a myriad of reasons.
This is why those who have the resources to go to college also have the economic advantages to combine incomes and raise children who will also go to college. For these people marriage (and re-marriage)has economic advantages provide the money to raise children together.
The "Girls' mostly got married, didn't they? Not a testimony against marriage, at all.
8
@elained: I think there is one more powerful, related factor: Since divorce began to proliferate in the US in the 1970's, people of all ages have been broadly socialized to the notion that marriages very often just don't work out. People have been born, raised, and come of age in a society where it is an accepted idea that married relationships get stale, people get tired of one another. I think that the wariness born of that knowledge permeates society today. I think it's maybe not "good" necessarily, but it's certainly more realistic than what was there in the past.
1
I don’t think anyone is actually noticing, but all that stuff that makes a village work is also what makes a democracy work. When we get around to working together to make decisions that work for the people in the village, we will begin to establish a firmer foundation for our democracy.
26
"Strong public schools and good libraries give parents the tools to raise educated and curious children."
Very true and fairly obvious although neither the Trump budget or the Republican budgets for last few decades reflect this reality - instead they are intent on starving them directly or indirectly.
31
You hit the nail on the head. Republicans are all about not spending resources on public infrastructure or community assets. Schools? Lindsay graham says the money for a new school in Kentucky is better spent on a border wall. Parks? Playing fields? Park and rec? A waste of money. Libraries? Ditto.
If you look at “liberal communities” they do spend tax dollars on these assets and they reap the rewards. Families, marriage, children.
This is the great divide. Republicans are reaping what they sow. And blaming it on others.
16
@BMD Those are local, not federal responsibilities. Communities need to stop looking for others (the Federal government) to solve their problems.
The answer is pretty simple, when faced with problems that are seemingly intractable, politicians find it a lot easier to play the blame game then to actually come up with solutions. When the problems of the breakdown of marriage, of community, of drug use and poverty and unemployment were found mostly in the inner city among minorities, the conservative response was 'those people have opportunities the way anyone else does, the breakdown in the family and poverty is caused by liberal social policies, and that the people in those communities would rather live on everyone else than work", and the people in today's failing communities nodded their heads and said "of course, there is something wrong with THOSE people"
Today the same problems, for much the same reasons, are hitting rural areas and cities in the rust belt, and the conservatives now seeing this with 'their people', can't blame them; so they blame liberals, they blame same sex marriage and college educations, rather than the real reason, that people in the rural areas face much the same as inner city people have faced; bad schools, lack of good jobs available, drugs, hopelessness and yes, anger and rage (the people burning cities in the 1960's were not all that different than the MAGA crowd). Like inner cities, a lot of what has happened in these places is neglect, ignoring the consequences of globalization and corporate greed, which are to a large extent conservative points of pride.
20
This emphasis on sports leagues is really interesting having observed the way very small children interact. These leagues are mainly for boys and include baseball, basketball, and soccer. The little girls are mainly restricted to soccer. Why I don't know. It's true that parents are involved and spend a lot of time with these leagues starting at the tender age of 4 or even younger. Where do the little girls come into this scenario. Where are their leagues? This is so typical of Republican right wingers to think that there is only one gender in this world. Try better.
10
You can't just brush off the economic aspect of this trend. Once upon a time, generations of people relied on the availability of jobs at the local factory, and the factory relied on the community to produce its workforce. This led to a reciprocal relationship in which companies saw the value of supporting schools and community institutions, and people participated in large part because that's just what respectable people did. In the 1980s, when we decided companies no longer had any obligation to their workers or the communities they lived in, working people had less and less incentive to engage with their communities, and support for community institutions eroded. Family takes work, and when there is no longer much reward for doing that work, nor any sanctions for ignoring it, people naturally stop caring. The same corporations swung their support to politicians who preached that individualism was everything and support for community institutions of all kinds, from labor unions to public schools, was just socialism. Conservatism set out to destroy the middle class, and the symptoms Carney refers to are the result.
25
You are so correct. Watch this next election. The GOP will shout socialism about any community organizations. They want private, for profit schools. Little if any public spaces, parks or libraries.
We’re out for ourselves; there’s no such thing as community.
3
@ls
I read something in the local paper about a bill passing where teachers would be required to teach about socialism and communism and why it failed.
It reeks of state-sponsored indoctrination. This is why people are not trusting established sources of truth because they are starting to see how biased it really is.
Why? Because conservatives don't want to blame themselves. Their policies are the real culprits because they oppose a social safety net, education, attempts at universal health care, gun safety, access to birth control and other women's rights while trying to impose evangelical dictates on a society that is demographically more mixed than they would like. They also tilt the political playing field with voter suppression, gerrymandering, black money and a Supreme Court stacked with conservative justices who help maintain a tyranny of the minority over a liberal majority. All this causes a feeling of hopelessness that leads to social decay.
40
Watching what has happened in the past 30+ years in rural flyover country has been illuminating. The personal selfish self interest conservative meme took over the community. Instead of being a community, it is now everyone for themselves. The traditional civic groups like Eagles, Elks, Rotary, etc declined so much they are almost extinct. What used to be strong support for a strong public school system became no new taxes. The minute the children graduated high school, the parents became an automatic vote against any school funding or bond issues. The surrounding agriculture changed with equipment and technology. Less than half the number of actual farmers producing more grain than ever. The high school graduates go away to college and half of them never return. The jobs for the educated are not available where they used to live. Marriage? Yes, an endless cycle of marriage and divorce for the less educated, a delay for the educated but by in large, they stay married if they marry later but those are not the ones remaining in rural communities. Conservative breast beating about the decline of family is just that, sound and fury signifying nothing. Their base of support is where the family and community is declining most rapidly. They need to look inward as to why their policies and their politicians have caused the problem.
36
@tom
No new taxes for schools end up meaning school district consolidation in rural areas. This means the community loses one more sense of identity when the local high school closes and the district high school is in a 'rival' town.
7
Consider Trump's new Federal budget proposal in the context of this article.
52
@Ed
Good point, Ed. It will be interesting to see if Timothy Carney's organization takes a formal stance opposed to the budget. I'm willing to wager they won't. I'll even give odds.
2
@Ed
The 2020 'budget' In other words, read it and weep.
2
Even in our wealthy neighborhood, young adults don't get married until the children are older. This is partly because healthcare for children appears to be more expensive when the parents are married than when the birth mother is unwed. Healthcare was not mentioned by Mr. Carney.
6
Please explain what you mean by children’s healthcare being more expensive if you are married? As far as I know, single mothers with good jobs are not eligible for any special benefits .
1
@Susan Hayden The single mothers are unemployed, living with their parents, over age 26, and have a boyfriend. It is possible the pregnant young adults had jobs, but quit when they became pregnant.
Conservatives always seek to shift blame to others to distract Americans from the fact that Republican leaders through their policies seek to crush the Middle Class, gut Democracy, and further enrich their economic overlords. No mystery. They have been doing it for many years.
53
@Trajan for decades
1
Maybe women aren't marrying as much as they used to because there's really no benefit to women in marrying. Why should they? What does it provide to them that they can't provide themselves? There's just no point. With most marriages still following the traditional model, with women doing most of the housework, plus working outside the home, why should young women want that? And, as more women decide not to have children, or have just one child, there's even less reason. It makes complete sense that marriage will probably phase out over time as an ideal way to live. As young women look ahead at their lives, there's no longer much reason to view marriage as a goal.
21
@Ms. Pea
Do most marriages in the under-40 demographic adhere to the women:housework model? In parts of the south, sure, but in Washington State? Color me skeptical.
1
Teachers' strikes, shrinking school budgets, and a Secretary of Education, whose policies and personal gain come from privatizing our institutions of public education, are part of the problem. As cited by this article and the many comments it inspired, community schools, once the pillar and pride of small town America, have been decimated by consolidation, budget cuts and declining student populations.
The tech revolution has up-ended the methods and goals of traditional education, leaving an entire generation at the mercy of rapid change and obsolescence, entering adulthood faced with inflated housing and healthcare costs, exacerbated by diminished safety net social programs.
Thirty years of incessant right wing messaging has convinced many that their government is no longer worthy of trust or respect. The intellectual and social bonds that once gave Americans a sense of purpose, pride, and their place in a shared enterprise, have been steadily eroded by forces beyond understanding or control. We are, as individuals, becoming ever more isolated and disconnected. The need for unifying institutions and principles is more urgent today ever before.
37
Perhaps one of the factors contributing to lower birth rates is the concern by young people that the earth cannot sustain many more humans. Carbon pollution, withering natural resources - especially water in states like California - and the spectre of automation are just a few of the issues facing the people wondering whether they should start a family.
40
@Christine My son is 21 and that is why he says he will not have children (he is willing to adopt). That mighr change if he meets a partner but you are correct that is a concern.
6
My hunch is that many conservatives think the "liberal" popular culture is vulgar and aggressively secular, disdainful of the religious belief that is so important to many people, including (surprise) many on the left. And I think they have a point.
8
@JM
They would have a point, except that the religious belief that conservatives applaud is not one based on the values of the faith they proclaim is based around hatred and around issues of sexuality, like gays, pre marital sex and abortion (which obviously liberals have different notions), yet these supposedly religious conservatives support a president who is one of the most vulgar, amoral people ever to inhabit the presidency (basically supporting him because he promotes the hate they feel, and on the hope he will be able to get rid of Roe and turn back gay rights, including trying to ban same sex marriage again). Worse, the evangelicals that are dominant in Trump nation,turned into cheerleaders for the conservative uber capitalism, the poor are poor because they are lazy, the whole 'prosperity gospel' that Jesus blesses the rich, and worse, that the social safety net is socialism and evil; meanwhile, the conservative religious people have no problem with the record concentration of wealth in the CEO class and the very rich, arguing that is 'God's plan', while liberals, including the 'liberal elite wealthy' are arguing that that concentration of wealth is morally wrong.
7
@JM
Our current president is" vulgar" and "disdainful of the religious belief that is so important to many people," yet that appears to be perfectly okay with his fundamentalist base voters and their leaders and with certain members of Congress. That's rather disturbing, and the blatant hypocrisy is appalling.
Popular culture is something I can choose to ignore (and mostly do so); the President of the Unites States and his policies and the people he has working for him have an effect on my life and well-being and are not so easy to ignore. I'm much more concerned about the latter.
3
@JM
It may be but that still does not address why large part of America have marriage/divorce and drug issues, including conservatives who are disdainful of liberal popular culture.
1
What about the concept that this is not really a conservative republican problem, but a symptom of dying dysfunctional communities, that just happen to be populated by conservatives. It appears you’re describing the symptoms of the disease, without naming the illness. Humans have moved from place to place to better gather food and other resources. The notion that all zip codes must continue to thrive goes against history. Politicians and the constituents constantly speak of job creation, but there are just too many rural communities to develop. Why should companies invest in areas with poorly trained and educated populations, with epidemiologically very poor health outcomes. How the discourse has veered into a liberal vs conservative lifestyle just demonstrates how far we are from having a honest discussion on what to do about a large country sparsely populated communities. For millennia humans have moved around for survival, urban areas are thriving because motivated individuals move to take advantage of greater opportunities. Some move for better opportunities while others get left behind. There is no amount of economic growth that will lift all these communities. In the meantime, well meaning social scientists will analyze whether it’s a right or left, conservative or liberal, educated vs uneducated problem. Let’s call it a dying community problem, with the symptoms you described.
30
@JCGMD
Well written. Why do people feel the need to blame the policies of different political parties for a problem which may not be a problem, just the evolution of population changes?
We are not farmers in the fields any more. We have become a complex technological interdependent world. The individualism of the Christian Right or the Reagan Republicans has become an outdated philosophy. Many parts of the country have been left behind in this technological revolution, nafta was designed to help the large companies not the workforce. Men more than women have taken the brunt of this decline in manufacturing jobs and this has helped to weaken the family structure. If we are to change things then a massive program to reinvest in America’s workforce is needed. The present Trump budget proposal does not bode well.
20
"We are not farmers in the fields any more. We have become a complex technological interdependent world."
----------------
That complex technological interdependent world is perched atop—precariously, some might say—the everlasting soil that has been, is now, and will continue to be tilled to keep us alive. Our technological accomplishments are nearly godlike, but they are far from invulnerable to catastrophe; and when the great catastrophe strikes, as it always does, those of us who derive hubristic pleasure from fancy baubles will rediscover the humility that comes from hands covered in dirt and blisters.
10
@Jason
You miss the point. At one time the US was a rural country, where many people were involved in farming, from the founding until the time roughly of the civil war, the majority of people lived in rural areas farming and the businesses that supported it. After that, farming became less and less of the population, as people moved to cities because of the industrial revolution, and more importantly, farming became more and more mechanized. Farmers used to have large families, because they were needed to work the farm; as farming mechanized, and today (for the good or bad) have become corporate farms, you don't need that many people farming. Today the rural population is around 15%, and those directly working in farming is much less than that. No one is saying farming is unimportant, but rather that people in rural areas not involved in farming or businesses supporting farmers may need to move.
1
Why do conservatives continue to back policies that defund education and other social programs that support communities? And why do they see funding of such social programs and education as a threat to be fought against? There is definitely potential for some common ground between liberals and conservatives.
29
@RJ I agree that there SHOULD be common ground for liberals and conservatives. My experience is that where a certain strain of conservatives lose their enthusiasm for “education and other social programs that support the community” is where they are required to be physically around “those people”. Depending on where you live, “those people” might be of a different race, economic strata, or religion, or, all of the above. The result? Charter schools, private school vouchers, church-run (but taxpayer-funded) social support programs, segregated neighborhoods, closed public libraries. Convinced of their superiority and feeling a fundamental need to be physically segregated from their inferiors, these folks therefore see any program that serves and unites the broad community as unworthy of their support.
3
"Robust community institutions, whether they be sports leagues, strong public schools or vibrant churches..." Sorry to state the obvious, but all these things depend on money, either private resources or taxes. The author's dismissive attitude about poverty or inequality is naive. As other commenters have pointed out, this pattern of social breakdown has been well documented for other groups that in the past have also suffered from poverty and government indifference. In this sense, the complaints of conservatives are obviously misdirected, given their usual blind spot on social inequality, but their animosity does have a point, however. The weirdness coming out of certain "liberal" quarters -with all the "non-binary" and "gender-bending" lifestyles- is just too much for many people. And Lena Dunham's self-obsessed characters were really insufferable. I never made it through a complete episode.
6
@Diego
Lena Dunham is an actor and producer and does not make public policy. You can turn her off if you don't like what she creates. Unfortunately, citizens cannot necessarily "turn off" the effects of government officials and the policies they create.
And exactly how is the author being dismissive of poverty and inequality in his op-ed piece? He is pointing out how a lot of communities are being left behind by not only poverty but also by self-imposed social isolation and "hyper-invidiualist" attitudes fostered by the right wing element in this country. These are unfortunate truths.
4
@Diego
“Weirdness”? That’s quite a cavalier dismissal of real people’s lives.
1
Things conservatives have taught us to devalue: unions, civic engagement, and anything with public in the name--transit, health, school, land, parks, policy, media, service. Yes, churches can support a community to a degree, but between the catastrophic revelations of abuse and general secularization, they are simply less appealing than they once were. Just like families, churches require an infrastructure of community and connections between people to do their best work, and the down-side is that they may well exclude certain groups of people from their care. Robust communities require responsive local government and financial support, ie taxes, the one thing conservatives have taught us to hate most.
179
@Ellen Thomas
BINGO!
7
@Ellen Thomas
Absolutely spot on. YES to taxes.
7
@Ellen Thomas. And the elites' hatred of taxes that support all those things with the word "public" is the reason they will leap at the chance to use the SOCIALIST label on every progressive policy in the coming 2020 election cycle. Just watch what happens to the proposal to fund PUBLIC transit with a tax on multi million dollar, non-resident, second homes in NYC.
8
Like most AEI writers, Timothy Carney starts with a conclusion and writes his way backwards to a thesis. The recent assumption is always "communities are the building block of healthy society." The implicit assumption is a "healthy society" is one with high marriage and birth rates. Although Carney at least doesn't bother explaining why these are desirable metrics. The reader then follows a sometimes tortured line of thought proving how communities solve all social problems. If only we all went to church more...
I've lived in Utah for almost a decade now. Whatever Carney is smoking, it isn't legal here. His description of community does not describe how Utah functions in reality nor does he capture the elements which make the state prosperous. I'm actually a little offended my hometown was lumped into this example.
Utah has high marriage and birth rates because a highly patriarchal religion defines success by the number of children you have. The Utah economy is prosperous because, at least for now, the professional labor market is relatively slack compared to the college educated population. It's relatively easy to find a high paying job because Utah doesn't have enough native talent in the sectors of economy that are growing. They don't have enough talent because aforementioned church stigmatizes Utah in a negative way. Fewer young professionals want to move here.
I guess "community" contributes to our success but not in the way Carney means. It's a negative association.
32
@Andy As as often the case, commenters claim to speak for a large group when they shouldn’t. You seem unhappy “here.” My family experience in Utah is simply different. There are diverse politics in SLC, the key differences are that anger and insult don’t permeate discussions. The work ethic is strong, and there is affordable housing. The state does not participate in confiscatory taxation and despite this the infrastructure is good, and health care and the University system is excellent. And of course, there are the mountains.
3
@LTJ
I'm happy here. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stayed. Although, the work ethic is weird, affordable housing is very subjective, and I've never felt oppressed by taxes anywhere. I have however felt oppressed by religious vies I don't share controlled by a state legislature gerrymandered into a conservative super majority. I can't disagree with the university, health care, or mountains though.
That said, you shouldn't focus on the people who stayed. You should focus on the people who didn't stay. Essentially every non-student medical student I know packed up their bags just about as quickly as they could leave. I had one young doctor literally tell me she didn't want her son growing up in Utah. Silicone slopes doesn't fair much better.
Utah has some problems some people, particularly white LDS males, don't like speak publicly about.
2
@Andy
I can't quite agree. I'm a transplant from Washington and growing up Mormon probably made me less scared to move here for work. The church was horribly pushy in Washington and me not being active anymore worried it would be worse here. Luckily overall they bother me less and are there if I need them.
I agree it's easy to find a high paying job. I could land 12 interviews within a 5-mile radius in a month and come up with a great offer. I don't see this as a bad thing. Why would I want more competition when my money goes WAY further here then if I was still in Seattle or San Fran making maybe 20k more and paying 70k more a year in rent.
Many of my co-workers have 5-6 kids but they have to survive on one income to make that happen. My only issue with this is that many managers or bosses don't understand my need for flexibility as a working mom because my husband isn't home taking care of everything like their wives are.
A trend I am seeing that is hopeful is more tech companies offering remote options as a way to attract talent. This was super rare even 3 years ago and now I'm seeing it offered more often than not. This is huge in helping families out.
Also while not perfect many business owners here aren't evil. They do seem to have more of a sense of civic responsibility and it reflects in their policies.
I'm a newly rabid liberal but I can't deny I enjoy living in Utah compared to Seattle.
All well and good, and as a parent, I agree, but the author conveniently fails to mention how the alignment of rural America and the republican has led to the downfall of both. The Republican Party has an unpopular agenda (for good reason) favoring tax cuts and the owners of capital over labor and the only way they can sell it is through fear and blame.
50
Having been a teacher in a rural-suburban school serving mostly white students who were a mix of working class and middle class, I saw up close the effects that socio-economic status and educational levels (that is, their parents') had on my students. The more rural/working-class kids seemed more filled with despair, because they were smart enough to look ahead and see the bleak road they would almost certainly tread. Turning to drugs, petty crime, and early pregnancy with or without marriage seemed like options they couldn't help but exercise. The kids who had plans to go to college were more optimistic, even when they weren't realistic about what graduating college, and life in general, would require of them in the next ten years. The tone of the national discourse at least since the rise of the Tea Party, and certainly since the ascension of Trump, is a form of child abuse, and abuse of the poor generally, since it encourages them to hate what they can't achieve themselves, and fear what they don't understand. Both sides have no use for them, really, except for the political hay that can be made from exploiting them. But I'll take the left's exploitation over the right's any day. It seems more benevolent, less mean-spirited, and not quite as rapacious as the right, who just want more cannon fodder and cheap unskilled labor.
106
@Jack
While I generally agree with your premise it may be deeper than just that rural suburban. I grew up in a rural farm community in Minnesota and moved to suburban Arkansas when I married. What struck me the most was expectations. In my small, 500 people, town it was expected one would attend college and/or farming. The community supported this expectation by supporting the school, extra-curricular activities, raising funds for scholarships for students. In Arkansas it has been the opposite, there is a lack of support for education and teachers, expectations are low in regards to higher education and a mindset “it was good enough for me and my grandpappy it’s good enough for my kid”, and a “don’t go thinking you’re better than me just cus you got educated”. The way our state government treats the poor is spiteful, degrading and does nothing to grow our state from the bottom. Thank God for Mississippi, our state motto.
8
Can we finally abandon this "past-its-sell-by-date" terminology of Left and Right?
In the 19th century, when robber barons were creating institutions which destroyed community, left wing libertarian socialists were actively working to create community.
In the 1960s and 70s, New Left activists and sympathizers like E.F. Schumacher looked back to the vision of the libertarian socialists to find inspiration for the 20th century.
Both movements are remarkably in tune with the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity, which states, in essence, that for all societal problems, **begin** at the smallest scale possible (remember Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful"?)
So if a solution can be found at the civic level, without the government intervening, that is ideal. However, unlike the caricature of the original libertarian socialism, the psychopathic libertarianism of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, subsidiarity also acknowledges that some things (utilities, banks) are most supportive of communities when they are publicly owned.
What does this have to do with "Left" and "Right"?
Neuroscientific researcher Dan Siegel has taught his "wheel of awareness" exercise to over 30,000 people. Finding that open, heartful awareness which transcends all ethnic, cultural, racial and national barriers is the ideal foundation for a unified global community. Based "in" that awareness, we will spontaneously create institutions that support an integral community.
www.remember-to-breathe.org
2
My daughter, 30, just got engaged. She is only the second in her larger cohort of high school and college friends to do so. Clearly, they are all viewing their 20s as the decade to pay off college debt, find secure jobs, save, and somehow get a decent affordable place to live. Even with both partners working, NYC rents and co-op prices are off the charts. A two or three bedroom apartment, large enough for future children, is way beyond their reach - a pipe-dream. There is a class of apartments in NY known as “Junior 4s” which they are all trying to get their hands on. These have a living room, kitchen and bedroom, and then a very small 4th room next to the kitchen that can be used as a dining space, office or nursery for a baby. Open houses are packed with prospective buyers.
Marriage, children? It scares them to death when they look at their paychecks, subtract housing costs, student loan payments, healthcare and even tiny contributions to retirement savings, then add in childcare costs. Yet developers and real estate firms get huge tax breaks and tax abatements for building huge luxury condominium skyscrapers.
And then there’s the GOP tax plan which favors the rich. And the GOP propensity at the state level to starve education budgets, leaving communities with dilapidated school buildings, poverty level wages for teachers and 25 year old textbooks, let alone funding for arts and sports. And the GOP attacks on Obamacare, threatening healthcare for millions. Oy!
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Does anyone think it is ethical to have children under conditions where you can't take proper care of them? This may be part of the reason for reduced birth rates. With the existential challenge posed by climate change, we will be entering a phase where all children will have to live in a much more impoverished world than ours. When this becomes clear, I expect the birth rate to fall again. This exaggerated sense of personal autonomy we have seen over the last couple of decades will fade away as people realize it is just the illusion of control. Their lives will be, to a large degree, controlled by historical forces. How autonomous can you be when you are coated with radioactive dust after a nuclear attack? How about after the economy has been fully disrupted by the effects of climate change.?
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@HM In that case, Conservatives are going to have way more children than liberals, as conservatives don't believe in all that AGW mumbo-jumbo.
2
The conservative version of the nuclear family was an American institution, but that institution was repressive of women. The stay at home mom who was not allowed to open a bank account is gone, and good riddance. The Ozzie and Harriet idealized life only existed on television anyway, so let's all face reality and move on and not try to bring back a fantasy. Personally, I like having half the population engaged in government, science and employment. Looking back at the disaster of the last century, I think things can only get better. It's time to move on from these fantasies of the past and embrace the realities of today. And "no", coal isn't coming back either.
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@Jim Dennis, My mother raised six children and was a stay-at-home mom. The same was true of my aunts who raised six, five, nine, six, and one child. They disagree with you. They stayed at home because they could.
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@Ryan - My mother was a stay at home mom and so were most of the women in my family. It's great when it's a choice and when those women are involved in hobbies, volunteer work etc., not so great when it's thrust upon women as part of right wing ideology.
19
There’s a word Republicans are at war with that we need a healthy dose of to hold communities, thus families, together: socialism. The party of “family values” has been championing policies that threaten family stability, such as trickle down economics (that has been destroying the middle class and making the poor poorer) and public spending ;that would otherwise keep communities vibrant).
29
Fascinating and thought-provoking column. Here are my thoughts.
First, the United States used to have a thing called "the commons", which was land that could be used by any and all. Over time, the commons translated into "the public", as in public libraries, recreation centers, and the like. The left still believes in this idea, but over time the right has moved away from it, especially as more and more non-white people have joined "the public".
Second, right-wing media has promoted a siege mentality that actively encourages conservatives to be frightened of anything outside their norm. Liberals are bad, cities are bad, black people and brown people are scary and only want free stuff, blah blah blah.
And third, the right thrives on the idea of "rugged individualism"; never mind that red states parasitically live off of blue states with only a few exceptions.
This column states: "Strong public schools and good libraries give parents the tools to raise educated and curious children. Strong church communities reinforce values and provide social networks for parents."
The right wing doesn't like public schools and doesn't want to raise "educated and curious children", but children who believe what their parents believe and do what they're told. Conservative church communities have been weaponized to support Trump.
Yes, raising children takes a village. The right doesn't want to be part of one.
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"Poverty isn’t the only curse in these places — there’s also the plague of social isolation."
Yes. Social isolation as exemplified by a motto like "I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
50
Marriage has declined for two reasons and not enough government and the institutions it provides isn’t one of them. One reason is women - thanks to feminism - have decided that men are the enemy and the other reason is men have realized that the only purpose of modern “marriage” is to transfer wealth from men to women.
4
@God i'm not so sure about that. i live on the coast, i am a feminist, i work, have four and i have been happily married for over 25 years.
24
@God same here. Proud feminist, married ten years, have twins and my third due any day. Love my husband, my awesome little boys, my job, and my life. I make a bit more than my husband, we both work hard but put family life before career advancement. Feminism doesn't change family life, it changes the guys who women choose - caring, responsible, creative guys have an advantage over guys who all they have to offer is their outdated sense of entitlement when women don't need someone to support them but want a real partner. Wouldn't you rather be actively wanted as a person rather than your paycheck needed to sustain a lifestyle?
5
@God: I guess you want to go back to the good old days of "Leave it to Beaver", when women got married young (all virgins, of course, except for those who got knocked up and had to disappear for a while), when women were kept barefoot and pregnant and dependent on men.
Like IlF, I am a feminist, mother of three wonderful children (all of whom are in loving, heterosexual relationships), happily married for the past 35 years to a wonderful man, working full time and certainly contributing to the overall wealth of the family.
German saying: Als Gott den Mann schuf, hat sie bloss geübt. ("When God created man, she was only practicing.") Reading your post, I see convincing evidence that she was only practicing with you.
3
After the financial crisis of 2009, federal budget cuts were cut. This resulted in massive cuts at the state level in which schools and social programs were singled out. Costs previously borne by the state were passed to municipalities generating more cuts in social programs at the local level. Colleges raised tuition to correct for receiving less money from the states. So, for the last 10 years, there has been a thrashing of the kinds of programs meant to give people a leg up on education and getting a good job. It is no wonder that folks have responded by eschewing traditions like marriage when they discover they can't afford an education and have no prospect of earning a good living that will allow them to have children whom they can clothe, feed and educate.
26
I think that the one crucial point missed in this article is the impact and democratization of social norms through television, streaming, and social media that now allow individuals in less liberal communities to experience the lives lived in those more progressive places. Call it education or call it national awareness, but it gives someone the ability to not only see the world through the lens of their immediate social bubble. Marriage rates will continue to drop, less kids will be born and education will rise. All very good things to make this world a more sustainable place to live. ‘Liberal elite’ is just another xenophobic term to label those not like you.
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@Dan, Let's not confuse television with real life. Education is a non sequitur here. How do you know? I predict that the peasant-class type of immigrant will continue to have large families and education will have little or nothing do do with it, leaving whites and educated blacks in the dust.
1
Generally speaking it’s because they have no stake in the country, their self centered approach to life disregards anything that doesn’t directly apply to them, or benefit them.
It’s a lack of work ethic, ambition and general patriotism.
It’s a very bland generation, which is not to say they are not good people, but if they were a flavor, they would be vanilla ice milk.
On another note, the generation behind them are a force to be reckoned with, I work with several, there is a generation on the move.
4
While Lena Dunham may not specifically be to blame, I do think mass media and popular culture have played a huge role in the destruction of these communities. There is a pervasive message of godlessness, immorality, and despair projected (sometimes subtly, sometimes not) by popular television, music, and movies. Under this constant barrage, the values that held were the glue that held society together have dissipated, leaving behind isolation and distrust.
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@Greg It's not what's on television so much as television itself.
1
I would instead blame previous generations for social decay. They have taken steps to ruin our environment and have voted in "leaders" that have sunk our economy. Why raise a child in a country or an Earth with such a grim future? Who can afford to economically and/or emotionally?
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@Kristy since my generation has ruined the planet by our voting choices perhaps yours should start to vote
@Susan M Hill I'm a Gen X'er and I vote. I know a lot of millennials who are very politically involved and vote. I blame my own generation and those that come before it to bad choices, not millennials.
Income inequality up, marriage rates down. Coincidence?
It’s unlikely to be the only factor, but income inequality is likely a significant one. Easier to raise a family if one can afford to.
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Mr. Carney: I have no objection to strengthening community institutions but to you and other thought leaders who always include "sports leagues" in your list of primary prescriptions, please add "arts groups" which are equally important but woefully underfunded.
There are many boys and girls and men and women who are motivated and uplifted by arts programs more than sports. It's not a matter of one over the other, but while policy makers lavish public money on sports stadiums and college athletic departments, school music departments are cut from budgets and local theaters scrape by on bake sale proceeds. Arts should have equal footing with sports in rebuilding communities.
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@Jamakaya
I would go even further. Very often, the students who are bullied by the jocks and cheerleaders thrive or at least find some refuge in the arts. Funding for football and basketball actively contributes to a social hierarchy based on dominance. Although women's basketball has come a long way, football remains a grossly masculine sport—and the most visible in the landscape and architecture of high school campuses, at least in the Midwest and South. Football puts large armored men literally at the center, ringed by spectators.
Track and field, tennis, and swimming are all sports for life that can be enjoyed regardless of gender.
I was once at my daughter's school for an academic showcase, and the atrium was filled with full-color, larger-than-life posters of the school's male athletes. (And yes, a reasonable response from anyone reading this comment is "That's Indiana for you.")
19
Hear, hear! Support the arts!
I don’t play sports. I DO play music, and through music I’ve found a lifelong, vibrant community — and yes, we certainly do take care of each other, celebrate marriages and births, mourn losses.
I’m grateful to my parents every day that they gave me music. I can’t imagine my life without it, except I know it would be smaller, meaner, lonelier.
Gotta go practice.
11
@Jamakaya
Hear, hear! My children played on sports teams (soccer, swimming, and water polo) but it was the friends they made in band and theater who have stayed in their lives. The experiences from music and theater are the ones my kids still talk about, ten years after graduation. Also, my kids will go to a concert, dance performance or play; but rarely, if ever attend pro sports events; so music and art is where their discretionary spending money goes as well.
4
In my conservative town, parents who supported increased education budgets year after year suddenly opposed them. The reason turned out that the youngest of their children, all of whom went to public schools, graduated high school.
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@Dr. OutreAmour They were voting for their interests, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Unlike their counterparts in other parts of the U.S., who are easily shamed into voting against their own interests.
1
@Andrew M.
You mean they were voting for their individual interests, not the interests of the broader community.
I don't have children at all, but I'd rather have the children around me well-educated.
8
In studies of generational social mobility at the neighborhood level, it has been shown that neighborhood norms, like two parent households (married or not), are as important as individual family structure. In other words, you might not live with two parents, but if that is common in your neighborhood, your social mobility is enhanced in a similar way. This is a powerful example of the influence of the community on individual children.
Schools are becoming more important in the community as parent engagement is being strongly encouraged, not just in sports but also in celebrations and academics. This is especially important as a point of social interaction in diverse communities, that might otherwise tend to be segregated by different religious or cultural lives.
13
@Look Ahead I raised my kids as a single mom, albeit with lots of help from my ex, who was deeply involved in their lives. But both he and I worked - and what was invaluable to us was not that there were married families in our community - but that quite a few of the moms were stay at home moms. Invaluable for those times when childcare issues broke down and neither of us was able to take off work. There is no question that it takes a village.
17
Having fewer babies reduces the nation’s carbon footprint. That’s a good thing. As for helping family values, fixing the redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the Amercan economic aristocracy would be a good place to start.
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If you look at the numbers, although the rich are getting richer the middle class and poor are also getting richer, just not as much. The "poor" in our country live very well compared to the poor in the world. Income inequality is not the cause of social decay. @Harvey
1
So the fault lies with highly educated women not marrying. So if those women would only stop going to school and get pregnant, all our problems would be solved? Ever think, who's not asking them? That maybe highly educated men and women want to delay marriage by mutual choice? You know, freedom? What conservatives say they favor?
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@Ken Hanig Did you read the article? The writer shares statistics that show uneducated women are less likely to marry than their educated counterparts.
3
@Ken Hanig uhhhh you did not read the article
1
Why do conservatives blame millennials?
Because, in their minds, their POV and actions are blameless (or least at fault).
24
@Douglas Brockway Simple - because conservatives are the Keepers of All That Is Holy And Righteous (as ordained by Gaw-duh and St. Reagan).
Those whippersnappers born after 1985, those brats who won't get off their lawn and won't stop checking their cell phones and won't stop eating overpriced avocado toast -it's their fault.
They are the ones who bring with them destruction and decay and downfall to the Shining City On The Hill.
Heaven knows, it's not the fault of the venerable and wholly blameless conservatives who've held the balance of power for the last 40 years.
1
Statistics mean nothing to the ignorant, and Conservative leaders have learned that hate is an intoxicating emotion that drives voters to the polls, even if it results in self-harm and the continued degradation of family values.
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The decline of marriage is the result of many actors. Since the postwar economic expansion, and the concomitant expansion and conglomeration of industries, the pressure to consume, have better housing, and better paying jobs contributed to transience that undermined existing communities as people moved away, like the Dodgers did from Brooklyn.
Extended families became spread out decreasing the immediately available support for parents who were finding themselves living in "new" communities. With the resulting dilution of community and family ties, came the compensatory overheating nuclear family relations that fractured marriages.This, along with the women's movement, that viewed marriage as an expression of patriarchy dd further damage to marriage and family structures.
Add to that the provision of support that AFDC and other social programs provided to unmarried mothers, the reducing stigma of having a child without a partner further weakened marriage. It became a method for impoverished unmarried teenagers to skip late adolescence that crossed over into the more moneyed levels.
Culture changes and you can't go backwards, something difficult for the right to understand. But they despair at change with the same knee jerk mentality that the left is willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to promote change. Perhaps, if both sides would support our basic need for reciprocity in economic, social and family relationships we would be better off.
8
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is the decline of family formation leading to an economic decline in rural areas and small towns, or is it the other way around?
I'm no social scientist, but it seems far more plausible to me that the decline in family formation is the result of conservative policies going back at least to Reagan that have gradually undermined the aspects of our society that made a rising tide "lift all boats." Even today, as Trump brags about the economy, it is clear that the lion's share of economic growth continues to be captured by the very few.
Oh, and I would love to have seen what Mr. Carney thought when Hillary Clinton's "it takes a village" concept came about. "It takes a village" is a concept involving altruism and valuing the connections in a society. It is about social capital. It is the opposite of the "makers and takers" ideology of so many conservatives. The way the "takes a village" concept was derided by conservatives at the time was just galling.
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You know what changed for working class communities and families, particularly throughout the Rust Belt and flyover states that led to loss of community and "family values" among those who should loudest about them and NOW put on red MAGA hats, and fill their hearts with hate?
It was the demise of the unions. Yes, the labor union, that HATED enemy of capitalists, tycoons, and fascists everywhere. It provided sanctuary, protection, brotherhood and sisterhood, masses large enough and strong enough to fend off management's desire and NEED to divide & conquer to keep wages low and exploitation high. And unions provided fertile ground for family growth, building, and, yes, marriage.
Unions changed America and for the better. They prevented the excesses of anarchic capitalism, provided a foundation for social welfare networks, starting with FDR's Social Security, ensured workers' rights, ended child labor and, most importantly, when all of these things were achieved, reduced disruptions in society. The peaceful 1950s (with the 1955 Ford Sedan in the picture) was a nation where the working class, by a vast plurality, was Union and prosperous.
So what changed? As Phil Ochs pointed out in 1965, the White leaders successfully convinced union workers that the Civil Rights movement was a threat to them, when it wasn't, stoking false fears. Then came Reagan with his era of total war on Unions, eagerly backed by the Right.
And with the demise came the social breakdown lamented.
534
Companies moved manufacturing from the US to the rest of the world because unfortunately the wonderful gains garnered by unions made American labor much more expensive than labor elsewhere. Further, union rules made it much more difficult for companies to adapt and be service oriented (the cafeteria supervisor not being allowed to help clean dishes or cook food because the union insists that only its workers do that, but refusing to allow their workers to do more unless a lengthy negotiation took place). Capitalists may not like unions, but it is the unions who forced their hands. @Dadof2
6
@Dr B It used to be that we made, for example, quality textiles in to clothing that was made well enough to pass down through family members.
Clothing isn't SUPPOSED to be so cheap it's disposable. Appliances aren't supposed to be so cheap that they're not repairable.
You've forgotten what the actual cost of the quality goods was, and what the investment in quality goods was.
You've forgotten what investment in American Labor costs, and what it's worth.
26
@Dadof2 NAFTA killed unions. There's no way American factory workers can compete with Mexicans making $5.00 an hour. Ross Perot predicted this in 1992: "the great sucking sound of U.S. manufacturing jobs flowing to Mexico." Just as bad, NAFTA allowed the U.S. to send cheap food to Mexico, which wiped out tens of thousands of small farmers down there. So they illegally migrated to the U.S. in search of work. Isn't globalism great?
9
Pretty narrow focus here. No mention of student debt, the “gig” economy, stagnant wages, higher rents, childcare costs, etc. High divorce rates have been going on for at least three generations, so it’s a wonder that anyone gets married;certainly no wonder why they might wait. Throw in coming of age in the great recession and there are plenty of reasons not to get married at 25. Certainly, no reason to blame Lena Dunham.
153
There are profound networks and vibrant communities of people who are living and working and struggling against the very vision of the soul deadening oppressive economically unjust world the American Enterprise has for decades been striving to bring about.
35
I graduated from Wesleyan in the mid 80's-what Mr Carney described about the liberalism of that school was true back then. But no fear Mr Carney-the typical Wesleyan grad is now wealthy, family connected to wealth and opportunity, and set to get that big job in finance or risk management while living in that first apartment in NYC paid for by the parents. Never fear, Mr Carney, Wesleyan is safe for the wealthy elite.
22
Conservatives often forget that it took an enormous amount of self-sacrifice on behalf of the community (you know, the NATION) to deal with poverty and defeat fascism. The generation that lived through the Depression and WWII understood that it was communities and the nation that pulled together to deal with the worst economic crisis up to that time and the worst war the world's ever seen. We were as close to socialism during WWII as we've ever been. Let's not forget that.
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@trillo
I think you're spot on. However it's a good thing that we don't live all the time like we're in an industrial wartime economy. Total war has a way of bringing the nation together, as you mention, but it's not exactly conducive to the pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, etc.
2
Schools, day care, a living wage for an 8 hour day, local parks, local libraries, unions, political clubs, book clubs, local food markets and shops . . .
Wishing for these won't make them happen. Building them into our civic fabric will. Vote Democratic!
370
"Why do conservatives keep blaming liberal millennials for social decay?"
Well, the snarky answer is either its the usual projection on their part or its another case of them not taking responsibility for their lives.
But I think it has more to do with income inequality.
72
Refreshing perspective from a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of The Washington Examiner that looks at potential solutions vs the tiring "blame game." Would love to hear his thoughts on financing a family-first agenda. Day care, support for public education, extended parental leave, equitable health benefits...lots of hot topics that his conservative colleagues would choke on..yet at least he's started the conversation.
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"Marriage is hard. Raising kids is harder. ...become more feasible when they are supported by a very local,...strong community schools, churches, sports leagues...neighborhoods."
From a 76 year old, married 55 years with 3 grown sons. The above is not my experience over the decades. Number 1 is, a good paying job. Number 2, a stable work environment. Number 3, family team work. Number 4, repeat 1, 2, and 3.
Good neighborhoods, schools etc are niceties, but stability of the family is first, and decent wages and readily available work is essential, and that helps to create a stable family unit. Oh, and children are the bond that keeps Mom and Dad plugging away.
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@cherrylog754
I good neighborhood is not just a nicety if your kids aren't safe enough in your neighborhood to get to school. A good school isn't just a nicety if the administrators aren't competent and if the community doesn't support the schools. I've lived in both kinds of neighborhoods with both kinds of schools, and there's a huge difference. And the data backs this up: school achievement and later earnings are closely related to the neighborhood kids grow up in. A good job and a strong family are a great start, but environment dictates the circumstances of children's lives to a great extent. Often so much that a decent job and a strong family aren't enough to overcome them when they're negative.
59
@trillo The point I was trying to make was, without a decent wage or ample job opportunities, and tight family unit, where does that leave you? Nowhere, menial jobs, poor housing, daily struggles, and little chance available for those niceties.
4
@cherrylog754
100% agree. It's amazing how often spouses fight less when the bills are paid. How they have more energy to spend nurturing their children if they aren't dying from stress from bills or job insecurity.
Life, when I have a job compared to when I don't in terms of family harmony, is huge.
3
All good to hear. But let's reflect on the ridicule heaped on HRC when she wrote it takes a village. Even an innocuous effort by Michelle Obama to highlight the value of vegetables was treated with scorn.
There may be reasonable conservatives, but their voters are treated to a diet of what is really just rude comedy.
We who come from families that are college educated and mostly intact only despair.
So... I suggest that the writer should direct his effort to reform conservative media. We don't need to hear your lesson, so speak to those who do.
598
@Terry McKenna Spot on.
10
@Terry McKenna Great comment, that could be aptly reposted to almost every single opinion article written in this paper.
8
@Galt Well said Mr. McKenna.
4
The cause of changing our social mores is the creation of a permanent economic underclass.
That creation is a result of Republican economic policy which has led to huge differences in wealth between the haves and have-nots.
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Synopsis:
“we Republicans have been wrong wrong wrong for decades, we have ruined the lives of our voters and this country, and we’re now saying that everyone should vote for anyone but Republicans”
Yes, yes, and yes.
219
A low birthrate is not a problem. It is the only long-term solution to multiple ecological and social problems. The important thing is to provide good opportunites for all children.
91
Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce. Maybe those who choose to not marry in the first place are simply avoiding divorces later on. That would make not getting married a logical, intelligent and practical choice.
43
That often repeated stat is actually not true.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/heart-the-matter/201704/do-half-all-marriages-really-end-in-divorce?amp
1
I agree wholeheartedly with this article. Politics/social media have replaced many of the social institutions of the past even areas of the country where you might think otherwise. I’m not sure how this get fixed.
5
Of course marriage is hard; raising kids outside of marriage is even harder.
I am pretty sure that the authors' deep wisdom and profound revelations do not apply to the dysfunctional inner cities, where marriage is uncommon, the Norman Rockwellian notion of family is pretty much unheard of, and there are multiple generations of husband/father-absent households.
Indeed, do any inner city parents and kids even know who Lena Dunham is? Or care?
30
@Mal T
I wonder if your phrase "inner cities" is code for black people? I live in rural Maine and there are no black people and the same dynamics apply. Open your eyes.
4
@Concerned Citizen
Yes and no. It's poverty, inequality, education, and they are inextricable with culture.
1
@LS: OK, but these were all WHITE people in Southern Ohio -- 100% white. They can't claim race prejudice or slave ancestry. They have access to K-12 education FREE -- many vocational programs -- low cost community colleges -- Pell Grants for such -- Head Start for all the poor pre-schoolers. Our state DOES have expanded Medicaid and nearly all are on it, so they can have free health care, free medications, free dental care -- but DON'T GO!!!! Their kids all drop out by 9th grade or earlier. They smoke pot and do hard drugs, and have babies out of wedlock to get welfare & food stamps.
What "inequaltiy" causes you to cook meth in your trailer? what "inequality" makes you pop out 7 kids on welfare, no husband -- 7 different fathers -- when the Planned Parenthood IN TOWN offers you free birth control, even sterilization????
1