As a Zionist, one asks "and what about American Jews?" They are by wide and large, middle class. The book does not deal with them (trying to avoid being sucked into America's violent racial debate) but one can surmise that the Jewish middle class tends to disappear even faster than native American middle class. A few will form part of the new high caste, that is, Jews will form a significant portion of the new high caste, but the majority of Jews will find themselves drawn into the Great American Sink of lumpenization (or is it lumpenification?).
American Jews are, if Murray is right, losing their social position. Even without the push of antisemitism, their lifestyle is being dislocated and they are being expulsed from economic niches they tended to occupy. Curcumstances are maturing and making ready these declassé Jews that are sinking into the great mass of American lumpen, to consider seriously the idea of leaving for Israel.
I have some relatives and friends in America who are much distressed by the ways of their sons and daughters, and they very fervently desire their children NOT to turn out like the American natives among them they are living. Some of them are sending them to vacations in Israel or are trying to integrate them into the reform synagogues they never visited.
If the dislocation described by Murray deepens, these people will try to find escape among decent, middle class environment and will not find it in America. Declassé Jews will not be able to find a decent social environment in the high class because they lack the professional cachet and have no capital. Will they come to Israel?
Some will, sure. But others will go to other countries of opportunity. Which countries are competing with Israel in attracting American middle class Jews? We have the Anglosaxon countries yet untouched by American decay: Australia, New Zealand, Canada; we have European countries like Germany, interested in receiving productive immigrants. And we have the new America: China. China is very friendly towards Jewish immigrants and offers excellent economic opportunities.
What should Israel do to direct the coming American Jewish emigration towards Israel? First, Hebrew and Jewish culture must be spread among American Jews; second, English should become a working language in Israel. This is being done: However amazing, our Central Banker is a Rhodesian Jew who found a good environment in Israel without much Hebrew, and we have many professors that function in English alone.
We cannot offer the same opportunities than other countries, like China or Germany. We could try to establish tacit agreements that those countries would make difficult for American Jews to move there, but that is difficult because - should America stupid enough to harass its Jews - everybody would be happy to have the Hollywood movie industry, the Silicon Valley computer industry and Wall Street financial industry move into their countries.
May be American social decay described by Charles Murray will take a crisis point, and instead of a prolongued process of emigration (like that of Argentine or South African Jewry), a rapid evacuation may be possible, like the transfer of Iraqi Jewry in 1950, or the Ethiopian community in 2000. Regarding Argentine Jewry, I think Israel lost the opportunity to pack the whole community into Hercules planes and bring them in mass to Israel in 1973, when the antisemite military dictatorship would have welcomed such action.
My point is that America is undergoing dramatic social changes: its middle class that is to say the Jews, are losing their positions. Zionism is more relevant than ever for American Jews. See you in Kever Benjamin City.
62 comments:
Let me anticipate the first thing that's going to go through the mind of every American who reads this.
"No, the vast majority of American Jews will be part of the elite upper class."
There are about 7 to 10 million Americans with a Right of Return ticket awaiting them. The only question is how many of them will make aliyah when, and how. Will they pack their belongings and send it by the Sochnut, or they themselves will be packed into IDF Hercules planes at night?
J - I agree w. you on almost everything but not on this. Every Messianic movement wants converts to join them in salvation - Mormons, Communists, etc. Zionists are no exception. But I would expect you as a cynical (and I mean that as a compliment) man of the world to see that you are allowing your wishes for a Greater Israel to color your analysis of the situation in America. American Jews have never been more secure or integrated into the highest levels of US government, finance, education, etc. If this changes, it will only be the result of events that are of unimaginable magnitude and unlike anything that has happened in the entire history of the US.
K
Since mass immigration will make the USA unlivable for 200M non-Jewish white Americans, can they come too?
Anon.
Haha. Charles Murray says that the middle class is sinking down into lumpen, while the higher class is becoming more Puritan - hardworking, honest, family, religion, social. Jews are essentially middle class, and that is the class that is disappearing in America. Charles Murray says that America is coming apart, that the educated class has no idea how the lower class is living (he includes a questionary in his book which is the most bizarre thing I ever read on the subject). My corollary to Murray's thesis is that American Jews will be first to feel the squeezing out of the middle class and the sliding down of their children into what I called the Sink of Lumpenification.
Of course this does not apply to K. whose children are high class material. But for every K there are five less successful Jews out there and ten mixed Jews, whose children are not studying at Harvard or working in the Silicon Valley.
No, Charles Murray says the American *working* class is sinking. They are losing their former aspiration to *middle class* values and both behaving worse and working less. One of the confusing things about the book is that when Murray writes about his "upper class," he is really describing the upper middle class. They represent most of the inhabitants of the well-to-d0 "superzips," and most of their wealth comes from earnings due to work. The true upper class derives its wealth from inheritance.
Yes, I think Murray's position is that the "middle class" J envisions doesn't really exist anymore.
IHTG,
Fishtown in Philadelphia was always working class, i.e. prole. It was never actually middle class, but 50 years ago, its residents aspired to middle class values, thus the relatively lower rates of social pathologies compared to the present. The ordinary middle class is not the focus of Murray's book. Most of his efforts are comparing the situation of the proles/working-class, represented by Fishtown, and upper middle class represented by Belmont, over time.
American Jews are overwhelmingly concentrated in the middle class and upper middle class. To that extent, they have not experienced the degradation of their socioeconomic position to the extent that the white working class/proles have. The American middle class may get hammered in the future by technology and outsourcing, the subject of some recent articles in The Atlantic, but that is not the subject of Murray's book. I'll add further that emigration to Israel wouldn't ensure that Jews would be able to preserve their middle class status. Israel is still a poorer, lower-earning country than the U.S., and its small economy may not be able to provide these potential middle class emigres with middle class jobs.
BTW, the real Fishtown, which is here in Philadelphia, was never Jewish. The Jews began their ascent into the American (upper) middle classes quite early. Just as with Asians today, it was very common for 1st generation American Jews, though themselves uneducated and barely literate (in English) to send their kids to the local Ivy League School (in Philadelphia to Penn, in NY Columbia, in Boston, Harvard, in Connecticut, Yale) and have them become doctors, lawyers, etc. This happened with surprising speed. Even Jews who themselves arrived as non-English speaking immigrants as late as their teenage years often caught up in school and went on to higher education. Compare this with say Mexican immigrants where this is virtually unheard of. The difference of course is 2 SDs of IQ distribution - this makes all the difference in the world. The 1st generation Jews may have worked hard but they were never "working class" in their heads or lifestyles.
Most American Jews are in Murray's Belmont and not Fishtown. The phenomena that Murray describes, such as illegitimacy, are quite rare among Jews.
J - this is one area where it helps to be there - despite our modern communications, sometimes you need "boots on the ground" to see what is going on. All of American society is infected with a moral rot and Jews are not totally immune. However, they are better positioned than most (IQ will get you pretty far) - they will be the last to feel the pinch.
I get the feeling that even Jewish Mischlings are mostly of high intelligence. As I have mentioned before, colleges serve as giant dating services. Jews are already filtered into the higher IQ institutions (most US Ivies approx. 25% Jewish). There, if they do not meet Jewish spouses, they meet a pre-selected group of high IQ goyim. There may even be some hybrid vigor advantages. Because of their inbreeding, the Jews are disproportiontely afflicted with various genetic diseases.
K
K
You are argueing that the "moral rot" affecting American working class is not touching the upper middle class, which lives in a separate and totally different physical environment.
In your case it may be true, but I dont believe it can be applied to the 7 to 10 million persons with Jewish ancestry in America. I had the same illusion of uniform economic success of Argentine Jews, yet when the crisis arrived, the AMIA (the central communal organization) was feeding tens of thousands. People stood on queue in the soup kitchens. I have never noticed so many poor Jews in Buenos Aires. Yet in the "Gran Buenos Aires" the outer neighborhoods, among the metropolis's 12 million inhabitants, there were many proletarian Jews that I have never seen. Those poor Jews could not pay Jewish schools nor Jewish clubs, and were too timid to join middle class synagogues. Most assimilated and disappeared among the local masses.
I have many friends who left Argentina and settled in Miami or Boston or New York. They are really worried about their children who have adopted the habits of American White lower middle class aka "moral rot". Some married Mexican girls, others dropped out of school, many became drug addicted (you may say there are no Jewish addicts, but I personally know of several boys).
Anyway, just as one million Russian Jews made a revolution in Israel, one million American Jews will may change the character of this country.
"They are really worried about their children who have adopted the habits of American White lower middle class aka 'moral rot'"
As Murray makes clear, the "moral rot" and degraded habits have most afflicted the working class/proles. They may be trickling into the middle classes, but he doesn't focus on that because he doesn't really analyze the lower middle class or the middle middle class in the book. Given that you wrote in your post that Murray's book was about the declining position of the American middle class, I suspect you are using the terminology in the same way here. It doesn't matter whether your acquaintances' kids' acquaintances call themselves "lower middle class." If they don't have college educations, they aren't middle class no matter how much money they or their parents earn, unless they are fortunate enough to have inherited significant wealth (by virtue of which they would be upper class rather than middle class). Again, Murray's book is about the decline of the working class/proles and the concomitant rise of a sheltered upper middle class via cognitive stratification.
Murray's book is about cognitive stratification of the American population. About 90% of Jewish youth attends college and most go on to higher degrees. Therefore you may say that the processes affecting the lower class have no immediate impact on Jews.
My point is that in a deeply divided society, where the upper class does not share the life experience of the majority, and is increasingly ethnically different from the mass of the people, is inherently bad for the Jews. I can imagine a situation where half or more of the lawyers are Jews while the 90% of the population is degraded lumpen that has no idea nor understanding of how the legal system works. It is a Bonfire of Vanities scenario, where a bunch of Jews impose the rule of the law over a a million blacks. I say we have been there, and it did not end well for the Jews.
May be America is different.
I am not happy with this debate because it puts me in a position that can be misunderstood that I wish evil to America and American Jews, and that is not true.
As an American, I think J's analysis is largely correct. Anecdotally, I think the split in American Jewry mirrors the historical European split, that is, between the relatively unassimilated, poor orthodox and the assimilated, relatively secular bourgeois Jews. The former group are not going to be assimilated, culturally or otherwise, into the lumpen category that they technically occupy. The latter group are highly assimilated, culturally and increasingly through marriage, into the bourgeoise as a whole (comprised of WASPs, East Asians, plus some Indians and Catholics).
Are American Jews in danger in the same way that European Jews were? I may be biased, but I vote no. The American education system and media have effectively inoculated the general population against overt anti-Semitism. The evil capitalist archetype is not Jewish, but probably WASPy to the extent it even has a clearly-defined ethnicity. Is there resentment amongst the proles of the finance industry, the legal system and other heavily Jewish sectors? Yes, but the same group who despise Blankfein probably worship Rand and Mises. Explicit anti-Semitism, in the American conscience, is inextricably linked to Nazism, regarded by Americans generally (and this includes American proles) as the greatest evil in human history. Obviously there are outliers, Pat Buchanan and other such figures, but they are marginal and enjoy little support (as compared to European far-right figures like Marine Le Pen).
Most Jews attend college, but I doubt that a majority go on to earn graduate degrees. If the economic position of the true middle class (i.e. not who you were describing) continues to suffer, they may lose their middle class status. Then the same "moral rot" that afflicts the working class may set in among them as well. That could affect a significant proportion of American Jews.
Regarding drug addiction above, there have always been Jewish addicts. Drug addiction transcends class. Wealthy investment bankers were heavy users of cocaine and speed in the 80's. Some probably still use today. And illegal drugs aren't available in Israel? I don't believe it. Israeli organized crime was heavily involved in Ecstasy production and distribution. I'm sure the other stuff gets in.
Jews in America have always been lucky in that they are not the only or biggest minority. There have always been other, bigger scapegoats to blame - blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.
K
There is anti-Semitism in America. Reading Stormfront, VNN, Majority Rights or even the comments at Sailer's will remind you. They blame Jews for exacerbating the situation that K describes through the 1965 immigration act, which, along with the manifestations of cultural Marxism (PC, affirmative action, etc.), they feel is eroding the position of whites in America. I recall that KmacD even discusses this in his books. Of course, the Jew-haters conveniently forget the original sin of slavery that brought large numbers of Africans to America. And they minimize the involvement of the Catholic Church in promoting the 1965 immigration act. Jews were a big part of that, though (Emmanuel Celler was the immigration act's most persistent proponent).
While Jews remain prominent in law, in other fields (e.g. the sciences), their influence is fading. When I visit the MIT campus, what's notable is not the presence of Jews but of Asians (in part this is because Jewish intelligence is evenly distributed between verbal and mathematical while Asian intelligence weighs toward the mathematical - the more liberal arts oriented Harvard remains heavily Jewish.) The top NY City public school is now 75% Asian. That's not a typo.
If there's going to be ethnic resentment in America in the future that is aimed at elites, I predict it will be aimed at Asians and not Jews. They are a more visible target.
K
K,
Jews may be shunning science if they have other options because it isn't lucrative but it is difficult. Smart 1st and 2nd generation Jews didn't have many options for careers. If they weren't educated, they could start a small business. If they were educated, science was as good a bet as law because the white shoe firms wouldn't hire Jews. Luckily for them, there were fewer science PhD's being pumped out at the time, and the American manufacturing base was stronger. It was actually possible to get a job in industry with a science PhD.
J
Today Americans Jews are the most successful ethnic group in the U.S. by any measure-- income, education etc. The one-standard-deviation advantage in IQ they enjoy puts them solidly in the cognitive elite that Murray writes about. You are not going to lure them to Israel because they are largely secular and have little reason to emigrate. The Jews you would get from America would not be like the Russian Jews who fled an antisemitic Communist country.
Have you ever visited the U.S.? If not, let me extend an invitation to you. I have a spare bedroom and bathroom. There is nothing like actually experiencing a place.
It goes much deeper than mere market driven career choices. When my daughter received her "genius" award (awarded for scoring above 700 on the SATs before age 13), the recipients were similarly (first generation) Asian dominated. 13 yr olds are not thinking about law vs PhD.
There is a unique interaction that takes place when you take a high IQ immigrant group and place them in a meritocratic society. This is basically a 1 or 2 generation phenomena and is basically over for the Jews in America. My family is somewhat unique among Jews in America because we arrived after WWII whereas the great bulk of American Jewish immigration was more than a century ago. Among the (not so many) Jews who were in my daughters groups were a fair # of children of Soviet Jews. The same phenomena occurs in other groups - many of the "affirmative action" admits in US universities are Jamaican, Nigerian, etc. (Why Kenyans like Obama should enjoy preference over say Filipinos let alone native born American whites is a question for another day). But this reaction is basically spent for American Jews. This does not mean that they have joined the lumpen proletariat but rather that they have settled into the American upper middle class. Going back to the genius group, whites in general were well represented (maybe 1/2 the group) but not OVERrepresented.
K
As a Zionist, my starting point is that the Galut is bad for the Jews and from there I follow that the transformation of American society into a two cognitively differentiated classes or castes will be bad for the Jews.
As K pointed out, America has been always a racially diverse country, which made it difficult to focus on the Jews. In that sense, the current ethnic makeup of America makes discrimination and persecution rather difficult, and Germany of the thirties will not repeat itself.
As a Zionist I build on the gradual erosion of the middle class position of the marginal Jews, who will be more receptive to the Zionist message. What will happen further no one knows.
"PC, affirmative action,"
Richard Nixon founded AA, not the Jews.
There is anti-Semitism in America. Reading Stormfront, VNN, Majority Rights or even the comments at Sailer's will remind you.
Ooo, KMax is so scary.
We're trembling.
J,
Zionist ideology can be as blinding as any other. Israel may be no better for the Jews than Galut. Israel concentrates the population making it easier to annihilate. Even if that doesn't happen, Israel puts Ashkenazim in contact with undesirable Arab culture and facilitates their cultural and genetic dissolution into the Mizrahi masses. It also forces all Jews to exist on a relatively resource-poor piece of land geographically far from the nodes of modern civilization.
If economic forces erode the position of middle class Jews, those who will be inclined to migrate to escape will be economic migrants more than they are ideological migrants. They will go where they can find the best job opportunities, which in most cases won't be Israel.
"Richard Nixon founded AA, not the Jews."
Yes, but the Jew-haters argue that this and other developments occurred due to the influence of cultural Marxism diffused into society by the Jews of the Frankfurt School and their liberal adherents. Their view is simplistic, but they don't listen to arguments, and they are able to persuade people on the fence to become rabid Jew-haters. Hell, KmacD and some other guy have podcasts at Counter-Currents discussing the "Jewish Question":
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/02/new-podcastgreg-johnson-money-for-nothing-kevin-macdonald-the-jewish-question-today/
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/02/mark-weber-on-the-jewish-question-today/
and they are able to persuade people
Nobody knows who KM is.
Yes, but the Jew-haters argue that this and other developments occurred due to the influence of cultural Marxism
So Nixon was held hostage in the White House by Frankfurt School?
Yes, but the Jew-haters argue that this and other developments occurred due to the influence of cultural Marxism
So Nixon was held hostage in the White House by Frankfurt School?
Please let me repeat that I am not happy with this debate because I wish the best to my American brothers and cousins. They live a secure and rich life, the government is absolutely loving them, and all the avenues are open to them. And they are a great support for Israel. May the American Diaspora prosper forever!
History continues. America is changing fast. And then came a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph...
"History continues. America is changing fast. And then came a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph..."
Yes, this could happen, but Israel is really no safer in the era of the Islamic (atomic) bomb, not to mention its many other problems.
"As a Zionist, my starting point is that the Galut is bad for the Jews..."
If all you have is a hammer, then everything you see looks like a nail.
If you have reached your conclusions even before you have commenced your analysis, then you are no longer in the realm of science (which depends on open mindedness)- you are in the realm of ideology or religion.
The Galut has been a 2,000 year (involuntary) experiment (an experiment that, BTW, we were forced into by Jewish extremists as much as by Romans). Sometimes it is good for the Jews and they rise to the very peak of their societies. Sometimes it is bad for the Jews and they are killed or expelled (ofttimes by the same societies). But on the whole, at least until the Holocaust, it worked out rather well. A rich and thriving culture was built in E. Europe. By dispersing the Jews, we did not put all our eggs in one basket. Only in the age of modern mechanized and industrialized warfare was an enemy of the Jews able to corral and exterminate a large # all at once. You don't see many Assyrians or Moabites or Phoenicians nowadays, but there are still Jews.
Meanwhile, Israel is a mere 60 years old. It is way too soon to see whether it will work out. It could fall apart in a million different ways due to internal and external enemies. Just as you J wish the Jews of the Diaspora well, I wish you and all Israelis well. The Jews of Israel are themselves better off with a powerful Jewish minority that stays put in America. You need us in New York and Washington and Chicago and LA, etc. more than you need up in Tel Aviv and Kever Benjamin.
K
The charm of our beloved "Kever Benjamin" lies precisely in how unnecessary it is.
BTW, speaking of new Pharaohs, the US gets a new one every 4 or 8 years. Whether they are rightist anti-Semites like Nixon who think that all Jews are Communists or leftist anti-Semites like Obama who think that all Jews are violent Kahane types who want to kill peaceful third world peoples, the one great constant has been support for Israel. No American politician can wholeheartedly renounce Israel and survive politically.
"The charm of our beloved "Kever Benjamin" lies precisely in how unnecessary it is."
That is also the source of its vulnerability. Its fate will be decided elsewhere by others.
Nixon did more for Israel than Leftists like Obama ot Carter, yet he continues to be hated.
Truth is, he was feared, and in politics, fear=hate.
Anon.
Re: "moral rot," it is without question true that various behaviors (e.g. coarse language in public settings, serial monogamy, excessively strident, confrontational demeanors) once relegated primarily or exclusively to proles and lumpenproles have spread to the American middle class, but, anecdotally, I would say they have spread to the upper class just as much. The more egregiously anti-social behaviors (e.g. teenage pregnancy) are still confined almost exclusively to the sub-proletariat, of which American Jews are definitely not a part. Of course there are individual exceptions, though.
The melting-pot ideology is as strong as ever, probably stronger. I don't see much of a future for American Jewish identity.
I can honestly say that I have never in my life heard of an unmarried Jewish teenage girl giving birth. It is literally unheard of. As pointed out, 90+% of Jews attend college - having a baby is incompatible with a normal college schedule.
K
Sarah Bernhardt was illegitimately born in the 19th century, and illegitimacy happened in the shtetls among the poorer set. But I think K is right that unwed teenage pregnancy is rare among 21st century American Jews. Socioeconomic status and educational background of the families is likely the predominant reason, but I suspect, remembering back to that stage of life, that Jewish girls (and guys) are not hot dating commodities in the hormone and appearances-fueled dating environment of high school.
I didn't say that Jewish girls weren't having sex - I said they weren't having babies. In the modern world these are two different things. Sex has nothing to do with looking "hot". Obese African-American girls from the ghetto do not look "hot" by beauty magazine standards but they pump out babies nevertheless.
K
The standards of the people having sex with the African-American girls are lower than the standards of the potential partners for the Jewish girls. Outside of an area with a large Jewish population, the Jewish girls will, on average, be relatively ugly compared to the set of their upper middle class high school peers (likewise for Jewish guys). Given odious female hypergamy, most of them won't settle for the attainable guys and so won't see much action until the larger dating pool in college where they will ride the carousel because the small set of guys that they and every other girl want won't commit to them.
First of all, most Jews (more today than in the past where every small town in the hinterland had a Jewish dry goods store) live in areas where there are plenty of other Jews. Murray talks about the "superzips" where the rich are concentrated - these also happen to be where the Jews are (Murray doesn't mention that but if you look at his map of the superzips it could also be a map of the Jewish population of the US).
2nd, G-d in his wisdom created, for every ugly girl, an equally ugly boy, so they all match up. But your notion that "hot" looking girls get more action is just plain wrong - in real life there is zero correlation.
Again this has nothing to do with pregnancy. Between contraception and the "morning after" pill, few of the girls in Murray's upper group (and this includes most Jews) get pregnant and of the few who do, they quietly get abortions (secular Jews have no qualms about abortion).
K
Alright, K, my point doesn't really have much to do with the pregnancy rate. However, an ugly boy for every ugly girl ignores the female tendency, even among ugly girls, to hold out for commitment from guys way out of their league and then to condescendingly settle for the ugly guys only after they are nearly used up. What a treat for the ugly guys so honored in the their late 30's and 40's. Better that the hypergamous females die alone with a thouseand cats.
You sound bitter. It's funny but when I lived in NY my wife had some older single female friends who did indeed live with their cats (I'm highly allergic to cats and detest them) so the stereotypes have a basis in truth. These girls were so picky that they never did marry so if their picky tendencies are genetic they will thankfully die with them.
K
Are you sure that you aren't the one being picky, rather than the women? Plenty of people of either gender overestimate their own attractiveness. I spent a few lonely years in my early 20s for this reason - as did my wife. It worked out in the end.
VC - This is not an original point by Anon 5:29 (not that he claimed that it was) and may have nothing to do with his personal experience (although I too suspect that it does to some extent). There is a whole body of work on the internet on the subject of hypergamous females, beta males, etc. I get the feeling that a lot of this is too reductionist - humans are complicated and cannot be reduced to the level of hamsters, but like any stereotypes there is a grain of truth in there and in a politically correct age a lot of this stuff can only be uttered on the internet and not in polite society.
K
I thought this was polite society.
Anon.
For the bitter grousers, any evidence of the Chateau/hypergamy narrative (referenced above) *cements it* as *the core principle of reality.*
VC's old fashioned broader perspective is a welcome breeze in that dank mental attic.
ram
I can honestly say that I have never in my life heard of an unmarried Jewish teenage girl giving birth. It is literally unheard of.
K, the fact that you never heard of it does not mean that it does not exist. I have heard of many abortions although I close my ears to rumors. Generally people keep these things in secret so to avoid ruining the girls's prospects. In Israel there is voluntary organization dedicated to convince pregnant girls not to abort but to give birth and give in adoption. They are always pestering for money, so there may be a hard core of facts. I agree that it is not a common ocurrance.
I said "giving birth" , not pregnancy. In the past, middle class (Jewish and non-Jewish) girls in America would give the child up for adoption but now they quietly get abortions, except for devout Christians (of which there are increasingly few). It's a pity because there are plenty of cougar women who are dying to be tiger moms but have let their fertility slip by. Such babies would be snatched up in an instant.
Just as with organ donation, one of the reasons that there is such shortage is that the authorities have interfered with the market - made baby/organ selling illegal. Anytime you cause the legal price to be less than the market price (or in this case set the legal price to zero), shortages will result - this is textbook economics. In these cases, people (adoption agencies, hospitals, etc. are making a living off of the products involved and they have convinced the government that it is "moral" to set the price of their stock in trade to zero. How convenient for them.
In case anyone hasn't figured this out yet, "non-profit" businesses behave exactly like other businesses (the money that they would have paid their stockholders instead gets paid to the executives as high salaries) with the added benefit that they don't pay taxes and that they get people to give them free things. There exists in America a whole category of scam charities where 99% of the money raised is used for "fund raising expenses". They have names that sound charitable or similar to those of legitimate charities. I get phone calls from them all the time asking for money. Believe it or not, this is perfectly legal. "Legitimate" charities are more or less the same thing except the degree is different (i.e. instead of keeping 99% of the money they keep only 1/2 or a 1/4).
K
J,
Perhaps the rate of unwed teen births is different in Israel compared to America? Also, are the examples you are aware of among middle or upper middle class girls?
Ram,
I would agree with you and K that the Chateau view is dark and probably an oversimplification, but it contains a valuable kernel of truth. VC's view is more optimistic and also has a kernel of truth in that one can only control his own attributes (with the exceptions of innate physical characteristics) and outlook. I won't delve into my personal situation beyond that.
Oh, c'mon, tell us. :-)
Seriously, in the current age, the problem is usually not too little disclosure, but TMI (too much information). My daughter came home shocked yesterday because for a school assignment (she's a high school senior) the girls were supposed to make a "me box" or something like that which was supposed to be autobiographical. They then explained the contents of the box to the class (why I am paying $30,000/yr for this is another question, but she's admitted to the college of her choice and is free to coast until the end of this school year. There will be no more "me boxes" at MIT). My daughter and most of the other girls kept it light - pictures of summer vacations, etc. but one girl felt confessional and gave a disturbing presentation of all her deepest family secrets - suicides, etc.
K
What is the kernel of truth, exactly? That when young people fail to get together, it's mostly the women's fault? What evidence do you have? Both men and women fall for people who don't notice them in return ... is there evidence that men do this more frequently than women? That women, on average, overestimate themselves more frequently than men do? Nothing in my experience corroborates this. It actually seems remarkably symmetrical to me.
I remember as a teenager saying horrible things with my friends about the "ugly" girls that we should have been dating. Somewhere online, 20-something women are grousing about how men make dating impossible, they don't notice the sweet girls, they all think they're Casanova and deserve a harem ...
I can't prove that it's mostly the females' fault, but I'll humor you and attempt to build a brief (non-comprehensive) circumstantial case to show that as well as the fact that the institutions of modern society are currently out of balance in women's favor. First, in the dating market, men propose, but women choose. Men face the vast bulk of in-your-face rejections. As for a sense of entitlement, the blogger at Hooking Up Smart (and others elsewhere) has shown that college women barely even notice the non-"alpha"** guys and certainly don't give them a chance. In the married setting, if a woman feels ennui in her marriage for even the most superficial bullsh*t reason a la "Eat, Pray, Love," it's selfish of us not to sympathize with her divorcing her husband and taking him to the cleaners. Needless to say, divorce and family law in the U.S. favors women.
Yes, some guys have unrealistic expectations. No question. But how low are they supposed to go? A significant proportion of young American women are now quite overweight, and thanks to a combination of fat acceptance activists and feminists, it's not acceptable to criticize the situation. This reduces the pool of tolerable women and increases competition for women among men. There has to be some chemistry. Are women the only ones who should be allowed to demand it?
**In degenerate modern culture, "alphas" are just as often trashy, violent tattooed thugs as wealthy guys with movie-star looks.
In reference to my end-comment above, the increasing prevalence of bad-boy "alpha" types is in part the result of a common, revealed irrrational female preference. That's who increasing numbers of them go for in their youth, knowing that they can choose who they really want since their independent incomes and failing that, the welfare state, obviate the need for provider males. This preference may be deeply rooted in biology, but the encouragement of cad and thug traits is also deeply destructive to civilization.
I really don't see college girls dating tattooed thugs. I don't know what world you live in.
K
Heh, I have the same reaction as K. Fat-acceptance activists defining public discourse? Widespread sympathy for divorcees? You have these elaborate theories, and they don't even remind me of the real world.
What I do see are lonely women, many of them sweet and generous (and thin!) ... presumably one for every lonely man. Incidentally, much as you write off fat girls as completely unworthy, I've heard frustrated women complain about the millions of men who are completely unworthy. I really think the situation is far more symmetrical than you realize.
Try talking to a woman about these things. Allow for the possibility that she isn't part of some giant conspiracy to fuck with you.
The tall, wealthy guy with movie-star looks and the tattooed thug are the two poles of modern-day "alpha." Both are cads, but the latter adds the mystique of the "bad boy." Young upper middle class women such as the ones we know are more likely to favor a man who resembles the good-looking clean-cut cad, but even cad traits by themselves are detrimental to society. That most upper middle class women don't end up married to the cads reflects that the cads won't offer commitment at least much as it reflects that the young women lose interest. For normal guys, the worst thing about this is that by the time a young woman loses interest, after spending much of her twenties on the "carousel," she's not nearly as much of a catch as she was before - sexually jaded, demanding and venal. Does this scenario describe every woman? No, but it unfortunately describes all too many of them in big cities and on college campuses away from their parent's watchful eyes.
"For normal guys, the worst thing about this is that by the time a young woman loses interest, after spending much of her twenties on the "carousel," she's not nearly as much of a catch as she was before - sexually jaded, demanding and venal."
More fantasy. When men get married today (in their late 20's or so as you say), are the women they are marrying virgins (outside of religious cults)? No, of course not. There has never been a society in history where humans abstained from sexual activity for decades after they became sexually mature. Does this mean that every girl who is not a virgin is therefore a sexually jaded, demanding and venal slut? I don't think so, but if you assume that they are, you are not likely to find much happiness.
The other fear of the Roissy crowd is that these selfish bitches will bear another man's child and then divorce you and force you to pay child support. Jealousy, even if imaginary is a dangerous emotion and will destroy a relationship and even lead to violence- see Othello, Pagliacci, etc. This is nothing new. Again if you go into a marriage with this bitter defensive attitude it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
K
"For normal guys, the worst thing about this is that by the time a young woman loses interest, after spending much of her twenties on the "carousel," she's not nearly as much of a catch as she was before - sexually jaded, demanding and venal."
More fantasy. When men get married today (in their late 20's or so as you say), are the women they are marrying virgins (outside of religious cults)? No, of course not. There has never been a society in history where humans abstained from sexual activity for decades after they became sexually mature. Does this mean that every girl who is not a virgin is therefore a sexually jaded, demanding and venal slut? I don't think so, but if you assume that they are, you are not likely to find much happiness.
The other fear of the Roissy crowd is that these selfish bitches will bear another man's child and then divorce you and force you to pay child support. Jealousy, even if imaginary is a dangerous emotion and will destroy a relationship and even lead to violence- see Othello, Pagliacci, etc. This is nothing new. Again if you go into a marriage with this bitter defensive attitude it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
K
Not sure if anyone is following this thready anymore, but I thought I would try to bolster the concept that even middle class women now dream of "cad-type" or "dark triad" alphas.
“What I found fascinating is that there are all these supermotivated, smart, educated women saying this was like the greatest thing they’ve ever read... I don’t get it. There’s a lot of violence, and this guy is abhorrent sometimes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/business/media/an-erotic-novel-50-shades-of-grey-goes-viral-with-women.html
The stratification of American society has happened before in the English speaking world, it is how London became the dominant force in England. Instead of having "superzips" spread out all over the country the way the US does now England centralized all of its Gentile brainpower in one location in the center of the country. The expulsion of 1290 probably helped get this process started since England lost its high IQ Jewish capital class and had to make the best use of its native brainpower. Having most of the high IQ in one place allowed the state to present challenging problems to those who were able to solve them. If we were to repeat this history then a single city on the center of the country would be the home of most of America's brainpower.
Once such a center is established there is another factor causing the center to have elevated IQ: the inflow of extremely bright women. an extremely bright woman in the countryside with an IQ of 160 is going to be 1:10,000 to 1:30,000 and will have a hard time finding a mate in a rural community of 2,000. Even if such a woman does find an equal in when she is in her mid-30's or earlier the man who should have been her companion may have already married down to an attractive but dumber woman.
In the aftermath of the Jewish expulsion of 1290, King Edward I made extensive use of the services of the Ricciardi merchant society from the Italian city state of Lucca. This encompassed major banking activities. There was no significant native English banking activity for another few centuries.
By the time of the expulsion, most of the Jews involved in moneylending were small-time operators anyway. Confiscatory taxation had plundered most of their capital stock to the point that they weren't able to provide useful services to the monarch.
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