State Sponsored Suicide

We've lost the concept of shame.  Or more rightly put, we're only allowed to use it in socially-approved ways now 

The President and the left can scold their greedy conservative enemies about social justice, The First Lady can lecture us on eating our vegetables, but woe to those who enter the public square and preach time-tested, millennia-old Judeo-Christian morality like hard work and being true to your spouse and children.

We can no longer shame "men" who would rather mooch off of the rest of us than get a job, or those serial impregnators who have fun and run, leaving us to foot the bill.  We can no longer shame people for out-of-wedlock births that produce litters of children in single-parent government-provided apartments that are really gang-controlled cell blocks.  Irresponsible adults condemn children to a life of poverty, crime, ignorance and social dysfunction, and the responsible adults who work hard and pay the bills simply keep their mouths shut and go about their business.

MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant is damn near the only entity publicly calling out bad behavior.  Unfortunately, it is swimming in a sewer of sin and societal decay, diluting its effectiveness.  Despite this, Sixteen and Pregnant shows the consequences of irresponsibility, and does so gently, by example, without preaching.

But we need to start preaching and getting in people’s faces over their behaviors.

"Wanna act like a stupid cracked-out Hollyweird pig?  Then get a job that provides you enough money to do it on your own damn dime and you won’t have to put up with the rest of us excoriating you for staggering through life brain-dead and tapping the rest of us to pay for your mistakes.  Pull your head out!!!"

That's what I want to say, and others bigger and smarter than me are saying it as well, only in nicer terms.

Klaus Schwab, whom I gather is some kind of international plutocrat and a Davos Man, ventilated this lament at the latest global cognoscenti conclave:

"We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

"Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. (Breitbart)

A Moral Morass

We are in a moral morass, and the elites have led us here.  By their own venal behavior in the world's marketplaces of business and finance, but also by their tacit approval of destructive behavior.  Throwing state money at the poor salves some consciences, but it's done nothing to help the poor pull themselves out of poverty.

State-sponsored social projects have resulted in a split between Belmonters (the haves) and Fishtowners (the have nots), according to the central thesis of Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart.

Murray notes that before the 1960's, the rich and the poor shared many demographic traits, common mores and shared American values.  Now, they are miles apart.  Percentages in both groups were comparable for marriage, out of wedlock births, unemployment, crime, and church attendance.  All of these social indicators have gotten much worse for Fishtown, while the Belmonters enjoy stability.  Both groups are in a feedback-fed spiral, one virtuous and the other corkscrewing ever downward.

Preach What You Practice

Progressives have generally accepted Murray's observations, but they disagree vehemently with his conclusion:

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices. (WSJ - Murray)

Progressives want more redistribution and government programs.  Niall Ferguson explains why this is folly:

So what is to be done to heal the rift between Rich America and Poor America? There are two obvious problems with the standard liberal prescription of increased welfare spending, financed by higher taxes on the rich. The first, as Murray points out, is that the welfare programs of the Great Society era were in many ways the cause of the breakdown of social order in working-class America.

The second is that this is a very strange time to want to import the European welfare state, with its aspiration to provide everyone with comfort and security from the cradle to the grave. In case you hadn’t noticed, that system is currently on the brink of fiscal collapse in its continent of origin.

Murray’s conclusion is that Americans need to steer clear of Europe and instead get back to their roots. We should scrap the institutions of the New Deal and Great Society and replace them with the system of guaranteed basic income he first proposed in In Our Hands (2006). And we should pin our faith on the four traditional pillars of the American way of life: family, vocation, community, and faith. These, Murray argues, were the true foundations of the American project, from Kennedy all the way back to Washington. (Ferguson)

If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

A little shame wouldn't hurt either. The fear of shaming myself and my family is what kept me from stealing when I needed more money, or from engaging in other behaviors that were fun at the time but could end in destruction, tragedy or... shame...

My parents also taught me that the bird with the broken wing and the sick fox I captured and nursed back to health had to eventually be let go. We are financing societal dysfunction that has condemned millions to crime-infested neighborhoods and failed schools.

More money and more government has only made things worse for the poor. For the tens of millions on the bottom, The War on Poverty has been lost, and it's not a Great Society. It's time to try something different.

See Also (Walter Russell Mead is especially thought-provoking):

The Welfare State is Destroying America

David Brooks - The Great Divorce
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 1
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 2