Matt Yglesias writes: …(continue to be confused by the widespread claim that the elites won’t tell you about this idea) Matt is referring to the two-parent family and the notion that elites will (after some point) lead fairly culturally conservative lives, but preach a more outgoing, tolerant, liberal morality at the social level, a morality
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Matt Yglesias writes:
…(continue to be confused by the widespread claim that the elites won’t tell you about this idea)
Matt is referring to the two-parent family and the notion that elites will (after some point) lead fairly culturally conservative lives, but preach a more outgoing, tolerant, liberal morality at the social level, a morality which “the lower classes” perhaps cannot handle. But do the elites in fact do that? Do the elites fail to tell the “lower classes” about the virtues of their (eventual) culturally conservative lifestyles?
I view the issue in terms of shame. In an earlier America, and indeed in many other societies in world history, there has been a certain amount of shame surrounding single parent families. I don’t view the Left as very willing to shame along this dimension. It does not fit their basic worldview, and furthermore single-parent women are such loyal Democratic voters it would be electorally counterproductive. So the net influence of the Left is to limit the amount of shame surrounding single-parent families.
Now to be fair, I think the Right wing shames on this issue much less than it used to. Some of that may be the Trump thing, some may be the rise of the “post-religious Right,” and some may be a simple recognition that such shaming has become counterproductive. It does not have a critical mass of social support behind it, not any more. But some significant segment of the Right wishes we once again could have a world where such shaming had real effect.
This point is perhaps easiest to see with suicide. Does the Left “refuse to tell people that suicide is bad”? Of course not. But does the Left shame those who commit suicide? If they do, I never see that on Twitter. Instead I see lots of sympathy and sorrow. But in traditional Christianity suicide is seen as a sin. Is that latter approach better? I don’t know! But I see people choosing their stances on this issue using mood affiliation, rather than obsessing over the data. I would in fact like to know whether shaming suicide (or how about bringing the shame upon the entire family?) limits the number of suicides.
The “elite Democrats” of course will shame on a large number of other issues, just not on those ones.
If you ever want to know what is going on with a particular issue, start by looking at who is willing to shame what, or not.
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Philosophy, Political Science, Uncategorized