I am favorably impressed by this piece. I have relevant observations of life in the South in the 50s and 60s and how the “War on Poverty” guaranteed the outcome we see today. Think I will read some more of your stuff.
I am finding your more recent set of posts exploring some of these social science aspects very interesting, especially as you still have a direct or indirect link back to your core progress supporting factors.
My own experience sort of confirms your comments on social homogenization after 1940. As a child in the 50s/60s, I moved from the midwest to the NE, then to the NW, and to the South for HS, before returning to the midwest for college. My perception in these widely distant locations was that everything was pretty much the same, in general. As a child with a nonreligious upbringing, I also perceived the various religious groups as just one overall set of believers and was pretty ignorant of the interpretive differences that might have exercised members of one group vs. another. I had Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish friends in HS.
I knew Germans were a major element of American citizenry from Revolutionary times, but was surprised by just how large and impactful that "national" or ethnic group was across so much of the country, rather than just more localized influence in PA, IL, MO, and TX. Plus my parents (and thus I) were of German heritage, with 3 of 4 grandparents US citizens by 1890 or so. And the religious mixing was personal, as my mother was raised Catholic and my father Methodist. But I never asked them how they managed to get together across that divide :-).
Ref The New Upper American Class: "3. Massive bureaucratization of our institutions that just happened to provide the new upper class with cushy jobs that are relatively isolated from the need to produce results."
This certainly applies to a fair number of humanities and social science employment slots, but I have to admit even engineering has not been excused from opportunities for bureaucratic wastage.
I have to admit that the "hard" sciences are actually easier to find or make definitive conclusions, while the variability of humanity in the "soft" sciences makes achieving meaningful statistical conclusions more difficult, especially with smallish sized study populations, often cosnsisting only of college students. None the less, we now see a major lack of repeatability in too many scientific and medical studies, too.
'A strong divergence of political views, cultural views, and consumption habits of the professional class from the rest of America. The traditional views of the old WASP upper class were replaced by a Post-Modern Left-of-Center worldview'
This is also an interesting and popular phenomenon of inquiry but there hasn't been a consensus of its origins. Some people argue it is due to leftist/Marxist in key positions of power,but economic progressive policies like some of European nations haven't been implemented. Some argue it is due to racial income inequalities,particularly with African blacks who suffered from slavery and Jim Crow. Some argue it is due to higher participation of women who are generally more sensitive and agreeable,and potentially more reluctant to enforce authority. But men in institutions also seem to have adopted more of those traits.
My personal interest speaking honestly is how academic institutions as Pinker calls it 'replaced a culture of valor with a culture of victimhood'
There is quite a bit of "direct experience" writing about the nation we were before WW2. Here is just one tiny example from the deep south state of Minnesota where we celebrate our hyphenated identities just as fervently as did our grandparents and great-grandparents. https://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Paul-Alice-Sickels/dp/B0007EGGUW
I am favorably impressed by this piece. I have relevant observations of life in the South in the 50s and 60s and how the “War on Poverty” guaranteed the outcome we see today. Think I will read some more of your stuff.
I am finding your more recent set of posts exploring some of these social science aspects very interesting, especially as you still have a direct or indirect link back to your core progress supporting factors.
My own experience sort of confirms your comments on social homogenization after 1940. As a child in the 50s/60s, I moved from the midwest to the NE, then to the NW, and to the South for HS, before returning to the midwest for college. My perception in these widely distant locations was that everything was pretty much the same, in general. As a child with a nonreligious upbringing, I also perceived the various religious groups as just one overall set of believers and was pretty ignorant of the interpretive differences that might have exercised members of one group vs. another. I had Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish friends in HS.
I knew Germans were a major element of American citizenry from Revolutionary times, but was surprised by just how large and impactful that "national" or ethnic group was across so much of the country, rather than just more localized influence in PA, IL, MO, and TX. Plus my parents (and thus I) were of German heritage, with 3 of 4 grandparents US citizens by 1890 or so. And the religious mixing was personal, as my mother was raised Catholic and my father Methodist. But I never asked them how they managed to get together across that divide :-).
Thanks for sharing.
Ref The New Upper American Class: "3. Massive bureaucratization of our institutions that just happened to provide the new upper class with cushy jobs that are relatively isolated from the need to produce results."
This certainly applies to a fair number of humanities and social science employment slots, but I have to admit even engineering has not been excused from opportunities for bureaucratic wastage.
I have to admit that the "hard" sciences are actually easier to find or make definitive conclusions, while the variability of humanity in the "soft" sciences makes achieving meaningful statistical conclusions more difficult, especially with smallish sized study populations, often cosnsisting only of college students. None the less, we now see a major lack of repeatability in too many scientific and medical studies, too.
Shouldn’t the article end “Ex uno, multis” instead of “e pluribus unum”?
'A strong divergence of political views, cultural views, and consumption habits of the professional class from the rest of America. The traditional views of the old WASP upper class were replaced by a Post-Modern Left-of-Center worldview'
This is also an interesting and popular phenomenon of inquiry but there hasn't been a consensus of its origins. Some people argue it is due to leftist/Marxist in key positions of power,but economic progressive policies like some of European nations haven't been implemented. Some argue it is due to racial income inequalities,particularly with African blacks who suffered from slavery and Jim Crow. Some argue it is due to higher participation of women who are generally more sensitive and agreeable,and potentially more reluctant to enforce authority. But men in institutions also seem to have adopted more of those traits.
My personal interest speaking honestly is how academic institutions as Pinker calls it 'replaced a culture of valor with a culture of victimhood'
I think that it was many different causes coming together instead of one big cause. I will be writing a lot more about this in the coming months.
There is quite a bit of "direct experience" writing about the nation we were before WW2. Here is just one tiny example from the deep south state of Minnesota where we celebrate our hyphenated identities just as fervently as did our grandparents and great-grandparents. https://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Paul-Alice-Sickels/dp/B0007EGGUW