The Dream & the Nightmare: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass

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..

Every person now and again suffers nostalgia for an idea that didn't work. "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they's never end..." Myron Magnet reveiews the hopes and dreams of the 1960's American ideas and how they worked out.After half a century of expanding economy in the United States, how could poverty become worse? After five decades of the War on Poverty how could homelessness increase exponentially? After 50 years of Civil Rights advances, how is it that racial tensions seem worse? After two generations of Feminism, why do women report less happiness and satisfaction than during the days of oppression? And why is it that educational achievement and opportunity appear to have lessened for the lower half of America's income strata despite all the "progress" made? These paradoxes are addressed and analyzed in Magnet's 1993 examination of the the cultural revolution aptly entitled, "The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass."Magnet discusses the power of (shared) ideas which constitutes culture and points out what should be obvious, that ideas have consequences, particularly in influencing behavior. The intellectual shift manifest in the 1960's among elites, particularly on college campuses, marked a change from an assumption of personal responsibility to social responsibility for others, and from an affirmation of traditional transcendent values to a desire for personal liberation. These shifts were detrimental to the elites, but disastrous for the underclass.His prescription is a return to the basic values of 1) Personal responsibility (we affect our own condition by our choices/we are free to shape our own fate); 2) Freedom under (limited by) the rule of law, applied equally in all communities; 3) that public/communal life is a boon, not an oppression; and 4) rights belong to individuals, not to groups. How Magnet understands these values is demonstrated in his exposition of various themes- the poor, homeless, race, youthful rebelliousness, law, and higher education. At a time of expanding opportunity and improving conditions for America's underclass, the elites embraced ideas of economics/social determinism; if not actual Marxism, then something similar which regarded individuals as helpless cogs in a materialistic system. If you believe this to be true, then the motive of working to change your condition is eviscerated. Perhaps this is why non-white immigrants to America, insulated from these ideas, achieve more and rise out of the underclass to a markedly greater extent than do those born into the American underclass.An aspect of this that Magnet barely acknowledges but this Reviewer thinks noteworthy is that this deterministic idea embraced by the elites is truly HALF-BAKED, in that it is assumed that actions and beliefs of the underclass are determined but those of the elites are not. In the legal realm, this is the argument made to the court that the accused could not help doing what he did and therefore should not be held responsible, when the assumptions behind the argument would seem to suggest that the court could not help punishing the criminal and therefore should not be held responsible either.The other idea embraced by the elites in the 1960's was that of personal liberation, the right/duty to develop one's own values rather than to accept those of the society that gave you life. As Sancho Panza says when he decided to follow Don Quixote, "Of course he is rich! When did a poor man ever find the time to go insane?" What the wealthy may do and suffer loss from, the underclass does and suffers disaster. The search for personal fulfillment through drug use and unrestrained sexuality moved from the campuses to the neighborhoods of the poor. The resultant self-destructive behavior damages not only those who practice them, but their children, leading to even greater difficulties for the succeeding generation.As Magnet astutely points out, the reaction in the 1980's with yuppies and greed exhibited on Wall Street, was a logical response to the personal nihilism of 1960's rejection of traditional (transcendent) values. Where there is no agreed upon social values, then the superficial reigns supreme. As the Billy Joel anthem puts it- "Everybody's talking 'bout the new style, honey; all you need are looks and a whole lot of money..."Magnet's thesis seems to be that we would be better off as a society if we rejected these dysfunctional Sixties' values. I agree. But we don't adopt values because of their utility (unless utility is our fundamental value- and perhaps Magnet IS appealing to America's cultural pragmatism). Values might be "caught" from culture- some sociological studies of institutions suggest that participants reflect the values that guide the institution they participate in, regardless of their beginning values/beliefs. This suggests a greater role for, and social benefit of, churches and other institutions for conserving and promoting transcendent values.Overall, this was a good analysis and thought-provoking review of the legacy of the Sixties, an antidote to some of the nostalgia for these failed ideas.

This book illustrates with specific and relevant empirical evidence of why our culture has become a dependent society. It reveals how government involvement in all aspects of American life has formed our culture and built in class wars into society. How these elements are harming the pillars of our institutions bu even worse invades individual liberty.

When I first read the book, I enjoyed it thoroughly and agreed totally with Manet's indictment of the liberals as largely responsible for the creation of the intractable "Underclass". But on a second reading, I came painfully to realize that Manet himself was one of the culprits, a member of the godless elite who have no solution to the "nightmare" they have created. For me, the first clue was the total absence of the word "God" in the index. The author goes to great lengths in his lament of the destruction of the traditional values which had sustained the American family for decades. But he seems unaware of another critic of the sceptics of our day, C.S. Lewis, who indicted the debunkers of "objective value" in his book of the 40's "The Abolition of Man". Lewis predicted then that if the nefarious adventures of Titius and Gaius were to spread abroad in the culture, MAN, human beings as we have known them for millenia, will be "abolished". Larry Kudlow and George Will believe that has already happened and recommend drastic measures, among them the education of our public school children in basic morality and traditional values.

This book definitely feels dated, but then again it is 20 years old. It's frustrating to see the problems foretold in the book so prevalent today and there doesn't seem to be anything that we can do about it.

Few books better explain the origins of today’s multi-headed crises of culture, economics, and society.

Chronicles the decline of morals and the rise of the underclass stemming from social reforms starting in the sixties. Government stepping in when bad moral judgements are made. Legitimizing and rewarding drug abuse, unwed pregnancies, non employment and shaping society's views against stigmatizing such unwanted behavior.

The Dream and the Nightmare is one of the rare books that willchange your perception of reality forever. Magnet uses all kinds of data and analysis to show what a tragedy welfare has been for the poor. Those who earnestly wanted to help the less fortunate instead sent them on a downward spiral towards despair and desperation. The welfare system created by the Federal Government was much worse than a $5 trillion waste of money--it undermined and set back the progress of Americas poor by a hundred years. Myron Magnet has done a service to the country, as he wrote, first thing to do when you're in a hole is to stop digging!

Magnet displays very clear explanations as to the causes of our poor and homeless. We need to admit our mistakes and seriously consider some of the "new" policy he suggests in order to prevent society from exasperating our current problems and encouraging unnecessary suffering for generations to come.