Charles Murray on Coming Apart 

If there were ever an author who needed to narrate his own book it is Mr. Murray. His voice is silk.

"the host" is Peter Robinson, who wrote Reagan's 1987 Tear down this wall address.

There is an eerie spiritual malaise in society today that I'm seeing, especially in young men. They lack spirit, will and resurgence and demonstrate a kind of inwardness that almost exhibits itself like some paralysis of the soul. They dont really know what they are about, they drop out of courses, start and quit everything they start, move back home over and over and dont seem to have any version of a future they'd deem worth striving for in mind. Something has gotten lost, a strain of vigor and tenaciousness, a joy for life and society, a sense of comradery and a communal goal. It's all very sleepy hollow and boomers only response is anger and scorn.

2018 and this interview is as relevant as ever. Six years late but here I am. Thank you Middlebury protesters for illuminating the path to reason, all I had to do was walk the opposite way.

For an abundance of wisdom brings an abundance of frustration, so whoever increases knowledge increases pain . Eccl 1:18

Functioning of a free society. The American Constitution will not work without these four foundational virtues: 1. Integrity of marriage. 2. Industriousness. 3. Religiosity. 4. Honesty. Plain American honesty. Min. 24:47

The Cold Reality Spoken here, brings me to tears... We are in Trouble folks, the future is not bright..

I have two boys. 20 and 17. I educate them at home patiently and honestly. CRT does not hold any ground here. Parents must stand up to indoctrination from the left.

Who are we to be "judgmental?" We are the ones that have to live with the consequences of other people's "inappropriate" choices.

This discussion was very informative and challenging, totally appreciate these types of conversations. I can't believe this is 10 years old.

What a fascinating and enlightening lecture by Charles Murray. Well worth watching.

Possibly the greatest social scientist alive today. Hands down.

Apparently the teachers unions & Dept of Ed (1979) have taken the P & T out of the PTA. Parents who go to complain are escorted out like they're the nutty ones. I think the teachers' unions are financing the lgbt, Planned Parenthood, socialist-friendly school board members. Some in the Florida State Legislature are trying to pass a law for term limits to school boards, which might be a start. But the teacher unions are rich and powerful. And the federal supreme court took prayer out of school, normalized homosexual so-called marriage, and many parents are overruled by gov't agencies when it comes to their children's health, and who in the world can trust a medical system that tolerates chopping off healthy breasts, emasculating boys, administering puberty blockers to kids, even against parental protests?

Wonderful talk and a breath of fresh air to listen to an intelligent fact/evidence based talk. A rare thing today.

Next we need to discuss why it is impossible to support a family on the wages from a menial job and how to change that.

This is education

This is great! Charles Murray is a brilliant man - you should have him on again as he just wrote another book

6 years ago...good times. I was a young 24 years old and had the hardcover copy. Love it.

"Belmont had the resources to rebound from the chaos of the sixties, Fishtown did not." Yep.

46:06 - the problem is that women of today divorce and sue for alimony and child support and most of the estate. The legal system, the education, the mass-media culture encourages it. She exercises "divorce by net-worth", leaving the man legally and financially enslaved, unable to create another family.

Thank you. A stunning and thought provoking interview. I'm so glad that I found your channel.

Peter is just loving the point at 28:18

I got 27 in Murray’s quiz - I must have a upper-middle class mentality, although I was raised by a single mother on welfare (a good lesson on what not to do)

I've read the book. It's quite insightful and terrifying at the same time. It is enjoyable, quite heavy on statistics though expert knowledge in this field helps but is not necessary

Charles Murray predicted this over fours years ago. He also predicted that next president will be a king maker and will come from the people.

I live in a van down by the river

I love how this book completely ignores how the exportation of living-wage manufacturing jobs completely dismantled the "American Way of Life" .

Great book. It’s very worrisome where the USA is headed.

it feels as though a similar process is occurring in australia, purely anecdotally of course, but Aussies seem to generally follow the trends of americans just slightly lagged behind. some towns are holding on to the friendly neighbour atmosphere but the cities feel like its all but lost save for a few suburbs

One of the greatest men ever! Thank you Mr. Murray!

It's typical that those here that make negative comments about Charles Murray, his books and studies have never read any of his efforts, nor will they ever. Your minds are not only closed but they're nailed shut. What does Evolution say about organisms that can not adapt?

9 years on and ...well, you know the rest

Fascinating interview. Always love to see you Peter, and thank you for having Dr. Murray on the show. I have lived his experience and am sorry that some have missed the point in that Murray is talking about "civil economy" and not monetary economy. // Now may I please say something totally irrelevant? I appreciate this interview being done with a warm and comfortable background and you both sitting at a nice table instead of the usual irritating black background with a tacky Formica tabletop.

I wonder what subversive movements could have caused the breakdown in male industriousness?

Being good is not being nice. Happiness is family, faith, and a vocation that encourages you to help others having provided your own success.

Tribes are bloodlines, the bloodline looks after the bloodline, because the closest cellular links to a human in the biological Sphere, are their children, their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins,and on the wider level their tribe through inter generational intermarriage. Simple law of biology:- The old cells who must die, produces and guards and ensures the abundant survival of their closest cellular lineage. Bring in other tribes! there is no imperative for one tribe to be loyal to, or ensure the survival of individuals in the other tribe. This stops the elites who have power feeling any need to share and help the lower classes because by default millions of the working class are no longer the same kin ( cellular link). So because they can’t separate their own tribe in the masses they Govern when they legislate benefits, they concentrate more on their own elite families and children and they start to shut out the working classes and middle classes. The cellular links are blurred in mass cultures and so the need of the wealthy of the tribe to do what tribe members do, help individuals of the tribe, is not there.

The Hoover Institute is an obviously biased Right wing think tank, but I do see the importance in hearing multiple views and Charles Murray is one of the best the Right has to offer.

"Social Capital has collapsed". Right. Is this related to an Age of Loneliness? The disappearance of neighborliness? The loss of social cohesion and the end of patriotism (the measure of which is a willingness to right for your country, not just wave the flag on the 4th of July.) what to make of dating and courting changes? The mating of the brightest? What about the rise of sloppy attire and poor personal grooming?

While Murray makes good points, he nearly always ignores years of legal and illegal mass immigration from mostly third world countries, and the massive outsourcing of jobs to the Orient.

Just fix family court and give men actual equal rights. So females don't just bail on them at the first sign of adversity for child support and alimony/

What a dude. Charles Murray 2016!

The whole culture is dysfuctional now rich and poor and we've really progressed in our dysfunctionality. I think a big part of the problem is rampant materialism and greed at the expense of character and community. Science his been a true faustian bargain and America picked the short stick. I see little to love about a country I was once proud to be a part of. The right and the left are sick unto death and there is no one in the center anymore. We be done for as when I talk to people they have very little insight into themselves or that we really have a problem that can or should be addressed. I see no cultural shift coming.

Hello everyone, I am here today because I am recruiting Legionnaires. I believe that in the next twenty years the United States and the World economy will collapse all entirely due to accelerated technological advancements. I strongly believe that the education system is the third bubble that will burst similarly to housing and tech bubble. My views are similar to Dr. Milton Friedman, Dr. Gary Becker, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams, Dr. Amity Shlaes, Dr. Charles Murray, Dr. Robert Putnam, Dr. Christina Sommers, Dr. Karl Poppers, Dr. Donald Davidson, Dr. Ernst Gombrich, Peter Thiel, and Ray Kurzweil. If any of you share my beliefs, please reply back to this message and let me what you think. Thank you.

Charles Murray is a courageous, reliable truth-teller, and a great hero. "The problem with the welfare state is that it drains the life from life. By trying to smooth over the bumps, by trying to lend a helping hand, it ineluctably, inevitably takes away the stuff of life from these institutions." By which he means the institutions in which Americans used to help each other to live the American way of life. "Taking the trouble out of life strips people of major ways in which people look back on their lives and say I made a difference."

He is still talking of the society today! Remarkable, "and a shared culture that is developed". I wonder, is there anything that has changed regarding how the rich gets their money in 2022 as to how it most likely was in the area described in this conversation? No longer has it's confidence in it's own rightness..

I love you Pete Robinson.

The real question is who controls the agenda of this society. I would state for the most part it is not the people or even the government. Then whom?

I love the beer can on the cover lol.

Intense

It's 2018 for god sakes how did I get on here Wayback 2012 things are worse LOL

25:24 where can i read more about this?????????

I know what you mean, but the problem is that all his guests have so much to talk about the show could go on forever. And If he didn't direct the discussion all the show time would be spent unpacking the first point.

“Abolish the democrat party” must be made a common refrain around the world.

24:20 ... profound

2:46 American way of life phrase

@ZaklogtheWiz no in fact people are forced to those things. You cannot buy a house unless you have credit, so yes you are "forced". If you wanna.have a job you need a car, hence forth you need that card as well to get a great rate, and forget public transportation, because most cities tire them down. The car manufacturers made sure it happens.

I'm always wary of people who try to build a better yesterday. But a society of nuclear families does seem superior to the society of pregnant 15 year olds that so many demographic strata are sliding towards nowadays.

Let's assume it's true. The Chinese are in the process of doing what Americans did long after Rome. They are picking up the torch of Rome, England, America etc etc so you just doing a lot of hand-wringing here, though Murray is a very smart man. File under Charles Murray (not Conservatives) because he's an individual thinker, not a total partisan, though he is on the right side.

June 29, 1963: the Enthronement of the Fallen Archangel Lucifer in St. Paul's Chapel in Vatican City alongside a concurrent ceremony in Charleston, S.C., barely one week following the election of Paul VI...who later stated "The smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary". 145 days later, the JFK assassination.

I was in Dallas and standing in Dealey Plaza one day. I remember looking up Main Street and then at the railroad bridge and thinking that we were living in one world when JFK's limousine was coming down Main Street and then we were living in a completely different world after the limousine went speeding under the underpass.

The symbolic day of end of the culture, as he's suggest, was August 8, 1974.

Alarming!

Financial stress is keeping people from getting married. Women also have unrealistic expectations. They won't marry men who don't make in excess of 100K annual, which is unrealistic, so they keep potential spouses at arm's length in hopes something better may come along.

I wonder if Charles Murray knows that right now Fishtown is the worst heroin neighborhood in Philly... lwow.

Approximately 9:20 Murray talks about how the era of good neighbors, in the 50s and 60s, kept the wolves from the doors -- people helped through churches, as well as from merely being good _neighbors_ . Sam Harris poo-poos religion -- we can substitute big government programs, welfare state, and for a year or so Harris's prescriptions sounded good to me. Not anymore. Now this stuff scares me. It brings us Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, and Obama-esque breakdowns of America. Bleh!

"number of parents with children who are members of the PTA- down 68%" well multi generationally the time of first child has been getting later while the life expectancy has stayed 80 since before industrialism.... so i suspect the decline is a combination of older grandparents, and lower literacy allowing for accurate question response. afterall most children underage aren't members of the PTA.

in fact Charles Murray also wrote a book called "In Our Hands" which suggests that we should KEEP the welfare state but make it simpler, making sure everyone gets a minimum income and that it always pays more to work than not. (basically the negative income tax idea)

In one sentence: America is becoming Victorian England.

Wow

Why can't it be both? As in, other forces cause the destruction of family culture, welfare state comes along in a bad attempt to fix it, in turn makes it WORSE.

much better than the Agenda with Steve Paikin interview, and normally the Agenda is pretty solid.

I agree. We need a lot of guys just like him to fight Obamaism.

The cause is the government funding poor substitutes for personal accountability.

one thing that is not mentioned is the increase in population (US and global) and globalization. the things Murray says have changed for Americans since the 60s are pretty much the same things that changed for other countries and cultures all over the world. You just can't have the same style of neighborliness, civic culture when the population more than doubles in 35 years...

Wisdom...

The children born to welfare recipients need to work for free in US army, till the money is paid up, from the age 16 years onwards.

Well I hope you watched the whole thing. There is hope. The libertarian Movement is growing and you are in charge of your own good times.

"Coming Apart" is better than "The Unwinding".

That moment, America realizes that it aint a class neutral society afterall, as it prides itself.

29:00. And then DeBlasio arrived and blew it up.

Question for Peter Robinson. What does.. "Non-latino Whites as the base of your number concentrates the mind wonderfully..." mean?

The pursuit of happiness is the reason for not honestly addressing income inequality? I don't think he realizes how much people are suffering in this country. Happiness is secondary in peoples lives because they can't survive and be happy at the same time. At least he knows that he is so out of touch.

"The problem with the welfare state is that it drains the life from life. By trying to smooth over the bumps, by trying to lend a helping hand, it ineluctably, inevitably takes away the stuff of life from these institutions." QUESTION RE ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK 'COMING APART': Why did the welfare state come about and what problems was it designed to solve? It hadn't existed before, and surely there had been people in past generations who would have loved to have a welfare state but were not able to put it in place, so what changed? Did the problems it was put in place to solve get solved? Murray focuses on the problems generated after the establishment of the welfare state. Before the welfare state and after the welfare state is the kind of comparison and contrast that would be useful to know; statistical analysis and synthesis of what was done and what was lost is by themselves not enough to reflect on the issue of "smoothing over bumps and taking away the stuff of life." QUESTION RE ANCIENT ROMAN REPUBLIC: So why did the civic culture of the republic go away to be replaced by the empire? The republic lasted almost 500 years and then Octavian (Caesar 'Augustus') just comes along and establishes the empire? What changed? Did the problems it was put in place to solve get solved? Murray only focuses on the loss of the republic and what that loss meant "for Romans who treasured their republic." Rome before Caesar Augustus and Rome after Caesar Augustus is the kind of comparison and contrast that would be useful to know to appreciate what was lost, what was gained, and what new problems got created for Roman society. I would recommend simply reading about the republic in its last 100 years, starting with the situation of the working class and the military veterans that Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus wanted to address, down to how Caesar Augustus' famous uncle, Julius Caesar, wanted to resolve the entire situation, and how the senatorial elite responded throughout-- as long as one wants to get something from familiarity with the ancient Roman past. QUESTION RE CHARLES MURRAY: Is he really a small-L 'libertarian', as he claims? Wouldn't a small-L "libertarian" not have cultural preferences? Nothing wrong with being libertarian or not being libertarian, and if he did a better job of presenting his sociological research as simply sociological research it would be taken simply as interesting and important sociological research, but he hints strongly at cultural preferences without saying what they are. Peter Robinson indicated as much when he says to him, "One reason you feel this so deeply is you've experienced it...(small-town Iowa)." It all reminds me of another famous Iowan whom Murray reminds me of a bit (because of his palpable disappointment, his interest in looking at and diagnosing the problem, and his background): Pres. Herbert Hoover.

There is something of the air of unreality to this interview. Too polished and bloodless perhaps.

He is an excellent scholar and author. I wish Peter Robinson didn't cut off his guests.

Whites help whites, blacks help blacks, women help women, immigrants help immigrants, people self segregate. This is human nature. If I favor my parents, spouse, self, children I am a "racist". We are all racists, egotistical, and self segregating. Changing human nature is not an option. We can practice loving kindness as racists as Jews have done for centuries. Judaism made a religion from racism. Why fight it?

"This is the hard data - this is what it shows. By the way, I am going to make up two completely fictional towns and fudge the numbers to prove my point..."

He's right but I hate it. Fishtown 4 LYFE.

Murray and his coauthor and collabotors are not mistaken about the average IQ of nations but somehow everyone is missing the very obvious conclusions 1. All humans are born with a physiological brain capability/capacity for developing IQ 2. IQ is induced or instilled into individuals in the first 5 years of life The obvious explanation for IQ spread in siblings; for high IQ’s occurring in populations with low IQ average; for decreasing average IQ’s in some western races IF ONE DOESN’T TRIGGER A CHILD’s THINKING AND REASONING MECHANISMS CONTINUALLY AND DILIGENTLY IN THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF LIFE THESE ABILITIES WILL NEVER DEVELOP TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND SPEND TIME WITH THEM STIMULATING THEIR MINDS!!!!!

This was fantastic, though I would remove "white" from the book sub-title, as it did not seem to be that relevant in the end. Probably get pulled over by the intersection police.

*People who live in proximity acting cooperatively* is NOT unique to US (well US prior to 1963)... In Eastern Europe, Russia, and many Asian countries this is still very much the norm... its called *Collectivist Society* or sometimes referred to as *Collectivism*... US is an Individualistic Society... basically everyone for themselves... thats why there is so much inequality and poverty in US... --- Also, most Western Societies (mostly Western European, excluding UK) are kind of a mix of Individualistic and Collectivist societies... since there are many countries that are part of Western Europe, these ratios vary... Also the reason Western Europe is a kind of hybrid between collectivist and individualist societies is because of WW2... Prior to WW2 Western Europe was very much like the US is today...hence there was a lot of poverty and inequality and that was one of the major reasons WHY Europe always had wars and military conflicts...it was because individual countries were trying to solve their internal economic and societal issues at the expense of their neighboring countries by either military occupation and plundering of resources and wealth OR defeating a giving country/territory and incorporating it into itself and treating citizens of that NEWLY acquired territory as 2nd class citizens and sometimes just slaves... --- The reason most of Western Europe today is a hybrid between individualist and collectivist societies is because of history and specifically WW2... And the reason most of Western Europe is a socialist democracy is another mechanism to try and even out the playing field on the socioeconomic level and to maintain LOW levels of poverty and inequality... thus avoiding any major threats of another European military conflict or major wars... IF you ever visit Eastern Europe or Russia or many of the ex-Soviet countries including countries which were *Soviet satellites* you will notice right away that the cities and neighborhoods are designed in such a way that its easy to live very closely with each other and difficult to NOT be an integral part of the neighborhood... where as in US, especially, you can live in the same building and not know any of your neighbors, unless they live right next to you on your floor...and then people dont always greet each other when they meet in the hallways or other common areas... this kind of thing is TOTALLY BIZARRE elsewhere in the world... people would consider you super WEIRD and EXTREMELY IMPOLITE if you see your neighbor and dont say *Hi* or wave at the person... you dont have to start a conversation or any bullshit small talk that is common in US... which is a FAKE way of being polite... talking about absolutely NOTHING...rather NOT talk at all...

Peter never lets anyone finish his point, he tries to prove how smart he is, a most ungracious trait in a host...

You know, you're not going to get much of any positive feedback from here.

Charles needs to grab a compass and head north. A lot of what he professes to be uniquely American, yet dead, has always existed and STILL exists here in Canada to this day. Your neighbourhood's welfare IS your own, always.

Diverse views are important but I note that he never acknowledges social engineering, the major shaper of society good or bad today.

Can't have American values without JudeoChristian values...

the welfare state is a result of the destruction of family culture, not the cause. globalization outsourcing and feminism may the the culprit, not welfare. it's like blaming the cough for causing the cold.

Ambition is not a virtue. This is just a fact. The Church has never seen it as a virtue, and never even considered it, because it is so obviously not.

Interesting way to bring religion into this................

The good ol' days... weren't.