Comments on: Ross Douthat: “A Liberal Take on Family and Opportunity”

By: Graham Combs

Graham Combs — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 05:05:54 +0000

What a horrid and pitiless and I’ll say it — un-Christian thing to write. If Ross Douthat actually knew any of these boys — and I was one of them and know their world — he might rediscover some compassion. It’s just as I’ve suspected for a long time, the educated and comfortable elites in the this country– liberal, conservative, but especially hard left — are more than content to walk over the bodies on their way to a climate change seminar. America has simply given up on the disintegrating working class and working poor — especially the boys.

But perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh on Mr. Douthat — he’s merely saying in public what so many social justice campaigners and liberal activists in the Church believe and think in their hearts and minds. So on their way to the crusades these kids only see the back of their hands.

By: Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons

Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:33:16 +0000

“We just need to live with the marital landscape as it is, accept that fatherless households and male shiftlessness (decadence …?) will be the norm in working class America for the foreseeable future, and try to mitigate the negative consequences for the kids born into unstable homes by hoping that fewer of them are born at all.”

Ross is too pessimistic. We need to try to improve the marital landscape primarily by trying to uncover and address the cultural narcissism and its origins (1.) that fixates men in an irresponsible adolescent stage of development which is fueled by their consumption of pornography and marijuana and by the lack of a moral code in their lives. Similar conflicts are present in growing numbers of women also.

1. Twenge, J & Whittaker, C. (2009) The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in an Age of Entitlement.