The pandemic wasn't isolating; the lockdowns, mandates, "passports", propaganda and censorship were. To use the framework from the article, none of these made anything better but did make everything a whole lot worse, except of course for the minority who enriched themselves immensely. A visitor to Florida circa 2021/2022 could find a thriving and social place while NY and ilk were still gray and unrecognizable. Sorry I know it was a minor point at the end but it sounds like Moynihan was above all someone who didn't care about partisan narratives and sought to see things clearly. To rebuild our intermediary institutions, so many of which failed us so badly, it is really important to drop the euphemisms about the last 3 years.
Moynihan lived in an era when it was possible to make common cause with elected officials and their appointees on one issue even if he disagreed with them on other issues. With denizens of the left and right requiring fidelity to their preoccupations, every one of them, is such cooperation possible today?
The Moynihan Report did not discuss the collapse of the "family" but only the collapse of the Black family. It represented a racism which does not take into account the high rates of poverty among Black families. A critical statistical analysis showed that if the researcher takes into account (ie controls for) poverty and urban residence there was no difference in the rate of single parent households between Black and White families. Although at the time he attributed the high rate of single parent Black families to a culture of poverty that just money would not resolve, he changed his approach with the Family Assistance Plan. This legislation would have provided significant income support to Black families in the South. This program was defeated by the Congress; a key component was the impact on the availability of cheap labor. Wilber Mills was critical and stated in the Congressional record "who would iron my shirts?"
The pandemic wasn't isolating; the lockdowns, mandates, "passports", propaganda and censorship were. To use the framework from the article, none of these made anything better but did make everything a whole lot worse, except of course for the minority who enriched themselves immensely. A visitor to Florida circa 2021/2022 could find a thriving and social place while NY and ilk were still gray and unrecognizable. Sorry I know it was a minor point at the end but it sounds like Moynihan was above all someone who didn't care about partisan narratives and sought to see things clearly. To rebuild our intermediary institutions, so many of which failed us so badly, it is really important to drop the euphemisms about the last 3 years.
Moynihan lived in an era when it was possible to make common cause with elected officials and their appointees on one issue even if he disagreed with them on other issues. With denizens of the left and right requiring fidelity to their preoccupations, every one of them, is such cooperation possible today?
The Moynihan Report did not discuss the collapse of the "family" but only the collapse of the Black family. It represented a racism which does not take into account the high rates of poverty among Black families. A critical statistical analysis showed that if the researcher takes into account (ie controls for) poverty and urban residence there was no difference in the rate of single parent households between Black and White families. Although at the time he attributed the high rate of single parent Black families to a culture of poverty that just money would not resolve, he changed his approach with the Family Assistance Plan. This legislation would have provided significant income support to Black families in the South. This program was defeated by the Congress; a key component was the impact on the availability of cheap labor. Wilber Mills was critical and stated in the Congressional record "who would iron my shirts?"
Not that Moynihan didn't have his virtues, but he came across as so pompous.