Coming apart
by Charles A. Murray · first published 2012
50% recommend45% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Data-heavy sociological study of how American society split into separate classes, with attention to elite enclaves, declining work ethic and marriage patterns. Suits readers outside the upper-middle bubble.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A critique of the white American class structure argues that the paths of social mobility that once advanced the nation are now serving to further isolate an elite upper class while enforcing a growing and resentful white underclass.
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…shifted to highly rewarding intelligence while wages for lower-skill work collapsed. This has led to the splintering of American society. It has nothing to do with race. I recommend Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, which is a thorough sociological study of this phenomenon and its effects.
on “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan” ↗Coming Apart by Charles Murray is an incredibly important book that goes into detail about this including immense amounts of statistical data. The core of American civilization is based on Judeo-Christian values and…
> The rise of inequality over the last four decades has created two very different Americas, and life is a lot harder in one of them. This would be a fascinating appendix for Charles Murray's book Coming Apart. If you liked this article, you might enjoy his quiz about which of these two Americas you are likely to live in: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/white-educated-and-wealt... (Edit: I scored 46 and…
on “Inequality and Web Search Trends” ↗Interesting book to read on the topic is Charles Murray's Coming Apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Apart_(book) Very much like this article, Murray focuses only on US, however, this is a global trend. A person born in Koškovce, Slovakia will move to Košice for…
on “Socioeconomic sorting at the metropolitan level is making America more polarized” ↗It's a great read despite its "evil" reputation. You'll be impressed by how meticulous Murray is. His style is 80% evidence and 20% conjecture, and he is always careful to separate the two. "Coming Apart" is also essential reading to understand modern society.
on “'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result” ↗…Trump seemed to go to delusional, fantasy-land places. What I'm coming to realize is that, being upper middle-class puts me completely out of touch culturally with the 50% that voted for Trump. The book Coming Apart, by Charles Murray is really helping me understand what is going on in America and what a cloistered life I've led.
on “Peter Thiel’s Bet on Donald Trump Wins Big” ↗There's another thing going on in parallel, namely, physical separation of elites from the rest. You may not agree with Charles Murray's political worldview, but the first part of Coming Apart has a nice analysis of how elites in the US aggregate in specific neighborhoods. But the problem is much wider IMO. Consider Russia. I read that 7% of its population is living abroad. In other words,…
on “Meritocracy and its discontents: The merits of revisiting Michael Young” ↗…changing much in young vs old. [1]. Also, the distribution is quite bimodal, a small number of US MSAs have tons of college grads (Boston, SF, NYC) vs. huge tracts of the US with few graduates at all. [1] "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray, highly recommended.
on “America's Young Adults at 27: Results From a Longitudinal Survey Summary” ↗The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all. Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".
on “The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead” ↗The best book on this topic is "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray. I highly recommend it.
on “All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class” ↗I recommend reading Coming Apart by Charles Murray, where assortative mating is discussed extensively. There are also some interesting articles you might want to read: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/upshot/marriages-of-power-...…
on “Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming” ↗There's a good statistical analysis of the declining work ethic in some classes of white Americans in Charles Murray's book Coming Apart. I recommend the book. It's not directly about this mainly, but the work ethic decline is statistically identifiable and localizable to a specific class of white American (who are also a class that people…
on “A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews” ↗If this kind of stuff interests you, check out "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray (yes that one)
on “Tiny Indian state proposes world’s biggest experiment with guaranteed income” ↗Further reading: Charles Murray's _Coming Apart_.
on “Unfit for work” ↗The book "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray is a thoughtful read on this topic.
on “The Refragmentation” ↗