What Is Actually Happening, June 3, 2016
06/03/2016
Most of these posts have been about the attempt to shut down dissent on same-sex marriage etc. Here's something on another question which is probably just as important: at The Federalist, "How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism". As I've been saying for a long time, "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind"--and as anyone with the least grasp of human nature ought to have seen would happen. As the Federalist writer says, the use of "white" as a pejorative is becoming both more common and less light-hearted. Of course there's no serious danger now, but to be a member of a politically and/or economically dominant minority is very dangerous if the mob's blood-lust gets going.
I see no reason to think that either Donald Trump or the majority of his supporters are deeply and seriously racist. But it can't be denied that he has attracted racists and doesn't seem terribly concerned about it. That also seems in part associated with the effect described in the article cited above. Last March, writing at USA Today, Glenn Reynolds opined that the hateful response of progressives (which includes of course most of the media) to the Tea Party helped to fuel the Trump phenomenon. Something to that, I think.
Economic matters really ought to be considered in any discussion of long-range social trends. I don't often talk about them because I really don't know what to say. There is no identifiable conscious movement with explicitly bad intentions there, as with these other matters. There seems to be evidence that we are heading toward a situation like what we've always decried in Latin American countries: a wealthy oligarchy, a small middle-class, and a vast number of poor. But there are so many forces at work that I don't feel competent to say much on the subject.
Just to pick one factor: I see a lot of people comparing the situation of working people in the present to that of the 1950s. Yes, it's true (well, I think it is) that a man could support a wife and family on a single blue-collar wage then. But goodness--think of all the vast social differences between then and now.
Just to pick one sub-factor in this factor: it's now the norm that both fathers and mothers hold down outside jobs. And I think the root of that development is the deliberate choice made by women to enter the work force. Feminism, simple desire for more material goods...there were a lot of factors at work there. Once that trend got underway--again, so it seems to me--I'm no economist--it became a vicious cycle, with both prices and wages reflecting the growth of the two-income family. And now we're at a point where that second income is no longer optional unless a family is willing not just to scrimp but to suffer financially. And then you add to that the cultural deterioration which makes lower-income neighborhoods, and the schools to which those living there must send their children, not just poor but physically dangerous.
In passing, it annoys me a bit--I want to say it amuses me, but more often it annoys--to hear progressives talk about the 1950s as a wonderful time for middle-class families. Since the late '60s we've been hearing how horrible it was, and still, in most contexts, "1950s-style" is generally a term of scorn. I remember fervent denunciations of factory jobs and an insistence that they were incompatible with a fully human society. A good lesson in "be careful what you wish for," I guess.
And now we're at a point where that second income is no longer optional unless a family is willing not just to scrimp but to suffer financially.
I'm not sure I agree with this. An additional difference between the 1950s and now is the vastly enlarged demand for consumer goods and conveniences: food on the go, gadgets of all kinds, large wardrobes, enormous residential square footage, travel, paid entertainment of all kinds, multiple vehicles. The current level of desire is not not some natural standard that defines what's not optional. It is still very possible for one income to support a family in a lifestyle similar to that of the 1950s, even in a high cost of living area. Most of my friends are doing just that.
Posted by: Anne-Marie | 06/03/2016 at 05:18 PM
That's true, but I'm thinking of specific families I've knownn, and they must be on a lower financial level, because they've really struggled, and in some cases been more or less trapped in bad neighborhoods. It wasn't just that they had to be frugal, but that they were frugal and still unable to make ends meet.
Obviously it depends greatly on what "one income" is. I think for most of the period when we were raising our children on one income we were about at the median national income level, and we pretty much fit your description. Not much to spare, but not doing without anything important, either. If we'd been say, 20% further down the income scale, it would have been pretty difficult.
Posted by: Mac | 06/03/2016 at 05:52 PM
But this exchange is an example of the reasons why I tend not to discuss the whole subject: it's so complex that it's hard even to be sure you have the facts right, much less an explanation of them. I mean, there's a constant flow of books and magazine articles trying to do both of those, and still vast disagreement.
Some bad trends have been worse in some areas. The disappearance of all those factory jobs, for instance, has had a worse impact on the Northeast than on the South.
Posted by: Mac | 06/03/2016 at 09:54 PM
To clarify: the "no longer optional" remark was meant in the context of relatively low-paying, relatively low-skill jobs.
Posted by: Mac | 06/04/2016 at 09:31 AM
Peter Hitchens hasn't had much to say about Trump or the election so far, but he said something in a similar vein on the 2nd.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/06/a-few-reflections-on-mr-donald-trump.html
"Soon after I arrived in Washington DC in the autumn of 1993, I found myself in a dinner-table argument with one of the many deeply liberal Washingtonians who populated the diplomatic and media circuits of that strange, lovely, melancholy city, which increasingly strikes me, when I now visit it, as a beautiful cemetery of vast, imposing sepulchres in which various deceased ideas lie at rest among lakes and woods.
He obviously despised my social conservatism, was shocked that I dared articulate it in such a place, and addressed me more or less as you speak to something you had found stuck to the underside of a café table.
I said that he should show me more consideration. I was, I pointed out, civilised, polite, a believer in freedom of speech and the rule of law, tolerant of opponents and inclined to listen to them. I was literate, informed, reasonably cultured. I felt very strongly that he and his faction were wrong to push their programme so hard – especially sexual revolution and mass immigration. I thought it was wrong anyway. I also thought that it would in the end infuriate so many people that it would endanger free society."
Posted by: Louise | 06/04/2016 at 06:15 PM
Well, that's rather prophetic. I only read what you quoted here--will have to wait till later for the rest. But it's good to hear a voice like that from the other side of the Atlantic. Most seem to just say the same sorts of things as American liberals, only with less knowledge and (if possible) more assurance.
Posted by: Mac | 06/04/2016 at 07:07 PM
I read the whole thing. Excellent. Thanks, Louise.
Posted by: Mac | 06/05/2016 at 10:49 AM
You're welcome. The similarities and the fact you both wrote them within a day of each other was very striking to me. There are only a handful of blogs I read daily, yours and his are among them.
Incidentally, for his trouble in writing that first paragraph, one (pro-Trump) commenter there has accused him of having perverse narcissistic tendencies.
So much for civil discussion.
Posted by: Louise | 06/05/2016 at 02:35 PM
I mean, the second and third paragraphs.
Posted by: Louise | 06/05/2016 at 02:36 PM
I think the rise in the cost of housing maybe contributed the most to the need for two-income families -- from the 2000 U.S. Census of Housing:
That 43% leap in the 1970s had mainly to do with inflation, didn't it?Posted by: Marianne | 06/05/2016 at 03:46 PM
"...one (pro-Trump) commenter there has accused him of having perverse narcissistic tendencies." Obnoxious, but could be a lot worse. That's one of the milder things I've seen from Trump fans. Though to be fair there are some people who have no illusions about Trump but think he would be better than Hillary (or Sanders). Or at least that there's a chance that he would be better. That's pretty sad when the choice comes down to which candidate is unpredictable enough that there's at least a remote chance of him/her not being a complete disaster.
Posted by: Mac | 06/05/2016 at 03:51 PM
Marianne, Also the cost of food has more than doubled.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 06/05/2016 at 03:59 PM
I'm certainly no expert, but I think that's true, Marianne, about housing costs being the biggest problem. And yeah, inflation changed the whole economic picture dramatically between 1970 and 1980. I remember as I was getting close to finishing a grad degree in the late '70s, when prices were shooting up, hearing about people with $300 house payments and thinking we would never be able to buy a house.
Posted by: Mac | 06/05/2016 at 04:03 PM
Food prices have certainly risen, but I Think I Read Somewhere (tm) that food prices today account for a smaller share of the cost of living than housing.
I sure wish I had bought that $80,000 house by the bay that we looked at ca. 1981. It seemed like a bit too great a stretch for us at the time. The land alone is probably worth $500,000 now.
Posted by: Mac | 06/05/2016 at 04:33 PM
Marianne, I think you're right. Housing has increased in price far faster than average inflation. There again, the standard has risen; the average size of new houses keeps going up, even though households are smaller. I guess that as long as builders can sell a more expensive house on a given lot, they have no interest in building a smaller, cheaper one.
Posted by: Anne-Marie | 06/05/2016 at 07:39 PM
We lived for seven or eight years in a house built, if I remember correctly, not later than 1930, perhaps the late '20s. When it was built it was part of a newly developed subdivision. I'm not sure what economic class it would have sold to. Middle-middle class, maybe? Or maybe even upper-lower-middle. Certainly not upper-middle or above. One thing that was striking was the size of the closets: at most two phone booths in area, and not more than head-high. Even for people like me and my wife who are not very clothes-conscious they seemed small, and would be completely unacceptable to most middle-class people today. Clearly people in the market for which the house was built did not have a whole lot of clothes.
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 12:06 AM
"Obnoxious, but could be a lot worse. That's one of the milder things I've seen from Trump fans."
Yes, it's not exactly frothing at the mouth stuff, but I took it as worse than it looks because I understand narcissists to be people with no conscience, who aim to destroy people's lives. That probably wasn't what the commenter meant, but it is what the words mean (from the POV of psychology, at least).
Posted by: Louise | 06/06/2016 at 09:47 AM
That sounds closer to sociopath than narcissist. I don't think of narcissism as necessarily involving hostility to other people. Really I'm not sure what if anything is the distinction between "narcissist" and "egotist."
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 10:13 AM
Maclin, I think we lived in the same house. ;-)
We raised our kids in a 30s bungalow,and the closets were exactly as you describe. They were so narrow that when the doors were closed, the hangars were at an angle.
Of course, my current home, built in 1896, had no closets until it was renovated in the 30s?, at which time they built one closet in the foyer.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 06/06/2016 at 10:33 AM
Yeah, you really have to take rising living standards into account when trying to assess the current situation. People are always quoting Rerum Novarum (etc.) about the requirement that employers pay a man enough to support a family. Well, yes, but there are a lot of assumptions in that statement that make it difficult to see how to apply the principle in our time. And "support" at what level? What Leo had in mind at the time would undoubtedly be unacceptable now.
About those closets: on reflection I think "two phone booths" is probably an overestimate of the size of the ones I remember. Our current house, which is a cheap prefab built in the early or mid 1970s, has closets in the bedrooms that are at least twice as big as those in the earlier house. But the house overall is about the same size.
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 11:40 AM
btw, Maclin, I think my next movie contribution will be "Babe." Nobody else is listed for that are they?
Posted by: Louise | 06/06/2016 at 12:00 PM
I'm sure they're not. I only have one or two other specific date commitments and I don't think it/they specify the movie.
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 12:43 PM
I agree with the view that housing prices have been a big part of making single-income living unaffordable. The median house price in my city just passed $740K, and this for houses which are, by and large, pretty old and not very large. Our previous home, a row house over 100 years old and just 13 ft wide, sold for almost $500K. My in-laws just paid almost $700K for a single-floor bungalow. Housing is crazy around here.
Posted by: Craig | 06/06/2016 at 02:03 PM
Wow, that sounds like DC.
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 03:36 PM
That IS crazy, Craig. You might be able to live in rural NW Mississippi and commute and save money.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 06/06/2016 at 03:58 PM
"I only have one or two other specific date commitments and I don't think it/they specify the movie."
Mac, go ahead and put me down for June 29. I've got something in mind, and if I can get it to you before then I will.
Posted by: Rob G | 06/06/2016 at 05:07 PM
Ok, thanks. We're covered for this week and next week (the 15th).
Posted by: Mac | 06/06/2016 at 06:21 PM