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The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass
Magnet decries the cultural and political views that absolve individuals of responsibility for their status as members of the underclass. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published February 28, 1993
About the author
Myron Magnet
17 books19 followersMyron Magnet, editor-at-large of City Journal, is the author of The Dream and the Nightmare and Dickens and the Social Order. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2008. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 1, 2023
Dose of reality
A portion of society doesn't seem to get it...you can offer help but you can't save people from themselves. We need to embrace individuals as people..
A portion of society doesn't seem to get it...you can offer help but you can't save people from themselves. We need to embrace individuals as people..
August 8, 2024
Some of the stats are dated but the premise holds true. This is an important book that should be read by everyone who thinks that the only thing we need do to fix a problem is throw more money at it.
Unfortunately, those who need to read it, won't
Unfortunately, those who need to read it, won't
February 19, 2020
This book should be required reading for all local government leaders, policy makers and mental health professionals who really desire to know the history and corrective actions recommended by the author to solve our homeless (as a part of the 'underclass') problems.
November 27, 2019
It is common for people to say the social and legal upheaval that began in the late 1960s and continues through the present followed the best of intentions. In some cases this is true; in others, for instance, the institution of racial quotas, preferences, and other forms of "affirmative action," it plainly is not.
What is clear across the board is the deleterious impact this catastrophe had on America, particularly its poor. Generations of working class people - regardless of whether they were first generation immigrants or the offspring of families that had been in this country several hundred years - were armed with the values needed to succeed. They worked hard, stayed in school or at least made it possible for their children to stay in school, got married and stayed married, maintained their belief America, and turned the country into an economic and in some ways even a cultural powerhouse.
That began to change in the late 1960s, and the changes picked up steam in the 1970s. Drug use, out-of-wedlock childbearing, grievance identities, and welfare dependency were normalized, while the values that had served earlier generations so well were derided as "square," hypocritical, "acting white, blaming the victim, and worse. The result was an underclass locked in multi-generational poverty despite living in the midst of an extraordinarily free and prosperous society.
In this book, Myron Magnet focused attention on the problem with great clarity. Culture matters. And when that culture promotes self-defeating behavior, many people will be defeated, regardless of how much is done to help them.
Indeed, if anything, Magnet understates the problem. As was pointed out in at least one when this book was published, middle-class and wealthier people benefit from a safety net. If the son or daughter of a middle-class family goes off to college and develops a drug habit, he or she likely will be pushed into treatment by parents or other relatives. Indeed, if the family has enough money, the drug user may end up in a high-quality, very expensive program like the Betty Ford Clinic. In contrast, the offspring of a single-parent home, whose family may be scattered and regard drug use as a relatively normal part of life, will not get the same push back onto the straight and narrow.
The same dynamic plays itself out across the entire range of social problems. Anyone may be tempted to dance along the edge of disaster, but if that person is part of an intact middle-class family with middle-class values, he or she will benefit from a web of forces pulling them back from the precipice. That middle-class risk-taker also probably will be aware of what is at stake, providing forceful incentive to turn away from disaster. The sons and daughters of the underclass, lacking those same cultural values, are much more likely to fall to the rocks below.
This, then, is the baleful legacy of the late 1960s to the underclass. This book should be required reading for policy makers everywhere. Throwing money at problems changes nothing. Rather, that effort must be focused in a useful direction. This book was a useful effort to achieve that focus when it was published in 1993, and that remains true today.
What is clear across the board is the deleterious impact this catastrophe had on America, particularly its poor. Generations of working class people - regardless of whether they were first generation immigrants or the offspring of families that had been in this country several hundred years - were armed with the values needed to succeed. They worked hard, stayed in school or at least made it possible for their children to stay in school, got married and stayed married, maintained their belief America, and turned the country into an economic and in some ways even a cultural powerhouse.
That began to change in the late 1960s, and the changes picked up steam in the 1970s. Drug use, out-of-wedlock childbearing, grievance identities, and welfare dependency were normalized, while the values that had served earlier generations so well were derided as "square," hypocritical, "acting white, blaming the victim, and worse. The result was an underclass locked in multi-generational poverty despite living in the midst of an extraordinarily free and prosperous society.
In this book, Myron Magnet focused attention on the problem with great clarity. Culture matters. And when that culture promotes self-defeating behavior, many people will be defeated, regardless of how much is done to help them.
Indeed, if anything, Magnet understates the problem. As was pointed out in at least one when this book was published, middle-class and wealthier people benefit from a safety net. If the son or daughter of a middle-class family goes off to college and develops a drug habit, he or she likely will be pushed into treatment by parents or other relatives. Indeed, if the family has enough money, the drug user may end up in a high-quality, very expensive program like the Betty Ford Clinic. In contrast, the offspring of a single-parent home, whose family may be scattered and regard drug use as a relatively normal part of life, will not get the same push back onto the straight and narrow.
The same dynamic plays itself out across the entire range of social problems. Anyone may be tempted to dance along the edge of disaster, but if that person is part of an intact middle-class family with middle-class values, he or she will benefit from a web of forces pulling them back from the precipice. That middle-class risk-taker also probably will be aware of what is at stake, providing forceful incentive to turn away from disaster. The sons and daughters of the underclass, lacking those same cultural values, are much more likely to fall to the rocks below.
This, then, is the baleful legacy of the late 1960s to the underclass. This book should be required reading for policy makers everywhere. Throwing money at problems changes nothing. Rather, that effort must be focused in a useful direction. This book was a useful effort to achieve that focus when it was published in 1993, and that remains true today.
July 20, 2016
A fantastic book. A brutally honest look at the plight of the underclass and a scathing critique of the policies that continue to harm them. This book should be required reading for any in government in any capacity.
April 19, 2013
Absolutely fantastic! A seminal work on the topic. Magnet brilliantly explains the deleterious effect of the social revolution of the 1960s.
April 20, 2013
Good!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews