Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
1–10 of 59 posts
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#2I suspect that all the programs meant to help people are actually a part of the problem. Not directly, because helping people doesn't really hurt (except maybe in a "don't feed the wild animals" sort of way, but most consider that negligible). But more in a "somebody else's problem" or a "bystander effect" sort of way.
In other words, the existence of programs to help people in need -- and worse, large federally funded and administrated programs -- make people feel as though it's not their problem and also that they're already doing something to help: paying their taxes and not voting against these programs. I say large federally funded programs are worse only because that makes the responsibility far more diffuse and the ability to influence ever more limited.
So the programs to help aren't directly bad, but the knock-on psychological effect is that they absolve people of any personal need to help (since they're already helping in a very vague and miniscule way) and that leads them to not take any (additional) direct action.
It feels like the inverse case of the tragedy of the commons.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#3A strong, common culture is the only historically verified way to escape the prisoners dilemma of social interactions. We've done a pretty good job of destroying that for the last fifty years in the west.
"We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#4A strong, common culture is the only historically verified way to escape the prisoners dilemma of social interactions. We've done a pretty good job of destroying that for the last fifty years in the west. "We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Yet violence has dropped impressively in the west in the last 50 years, both in crime statistics and in the absence of wars between major powers. And the last 50 years mark many incredible advancements in society: civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, the first attempts to take sexual violence seriously, etc. etc. etc. I'd much rather be a random American today than 50 years ago.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#5I suspect that all the programs meant to help people are actually a part of the problem. Not directly, because helping people doesn't really hurt (except maybe in a "don't feed the wild animals" sort of way, but most consider that negligible). But more in a "somebody else's problem" or a "bystander effect" sort of way. In other words, the existence of programs to help people in need -- and worse, large federally fund…
You are making the assumption that without these programs people would actually do something themselves to solve other's problems.
In my opinion most people would just try to rationalize it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
Government funded programs might be inefficient and open to abuses, but are better than the real alternative that would be doing nothing at all.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#6A strong, common culture is the only historically verified way to escape the prisoners dilemma of social interactions. We've done a pretty good job of destroying that for the last fifty years in the west. "We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Yet violence has dropped impressively in the west in the last 50 years, both in crime statistics and in the absence of wars between major powers. And the last 50 years mark many incredible advancements in society: civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, the first attempts to take sexual violence seriously, etc. etc. etc. I'd much rather be a random American today than 50 years ago.
Agreed.
I cringe when people say how things are going for the worse constantly.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#7The last few decades in the US have seen a shift from 1 parent working sufficing to support a family to 2 parents working beening needed for middle class living, and longer hours than before. And more kids have only 1 parent in the household. There simply isn't time for participating in the community-building activities that filled the gaps before. So we are more isolated, and people's lies are in a more fragile balance.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#8The last few decades in the US have seen a shift from 1 parent working sufficing to support a family to 2 parents working beening needed for middle class living, and longer hours than before. And more kids have only 1 parent in the household. There simply isn't time for participating in the community-building activities that filled the gaps before. So we are more isolated, and people's lies are in a more fragile bala…
I know lots of my friends have families where single income would sustain them but both husband and wife go to work.
We have stigmatized staying at home and raising children as a society.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet violence has dropped impressively in the west in the last 50 years, both in crime statistics and in the absence of wars between major powers. And the last 50 years mark many incredible advancements in society: civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, the first attempts to take sexual violence seriously, etc. etc. etc. I'd much rather be a random American today than 50 years ago.
Agreed. I cringe when people say how things are going for the worse constantly.
Sometimes it's because things are objectively worse. Cringing doesn't change the facts.
The original claim that we're less violent is easy to debunk, and has been debunked by many people. See e.g.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/john-gray-steven-...
But more than that, it's clear that economics and politics have become prime vectors for social violence in the 'developed' West: particularly economics, which has been used as an ideological excuse to destroy the possible future prospects and current living conditions of entire generations now.
Unemployment in - say - Spain for the under-25s is more than 50%. The rate in the US is around 12%, but that disguises the fact that many 'jobs' barely pay a living wage now, where fifty years ago even starter jobs offered comfortable salaries.
The destruction has been justified by a steady stream of clearly wrong 'economic theories' that don't stand up to even the most basic undergraduate-level scrutiny. See e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt
So yes - things are objectively worse for many people.
The fact that some people are doing okay and a tiny minority are doing really well doesn't change that.
Getting this stuff wrong has very real long-term social and political consequences. It's irrational to ignore that.
Re: Robert Putnam on the gap between rich kids and poor kids
#10The last few decades in the US have seen a shift from 1 parent working sufficing to support a family to 2 parents working beening needed for middle class living, and longer hours than before. And more kids have only 1 parent in the household. There simply isn't time for participating in the community-building activities that filled the gaps before. So we are more isolated, and people's lies are in a more fragile bala…
I know lots of my friends have families where single income would sustain them but both husband and wife go to work. We have stigmatized staying at home and raising children as a society.
Who is this "we" ? People without kids?