Last week, I participated in an online symposium convened by the American Enterprise Institute marking the thirtieth anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s seminal essay “Defining Deviancy Down.” Though it’s less well-known than Moynihan’s 1965 study,
This comment was emailed in by Pastor C. Stanley Morton. I'm posting it here with his permission.
Dear Prof Loury,
Wow! That was a fantastic summary of the situation facing our people. I got your Substack email version, but I hunted down the YouTube and played it for my wife. In our subsequent discussion, we came to see four processes that have transformed our capacity to identify and deal with deviance.
1- Defining Deviancy Down - you described it well
2 - Reimaging Deviance - Kay Hymowitz's point - looting becomes the cry of the poor and a legitimate expression of frustration with oppression, for instance.
3 - Medicalization of Deviance - restlessness which used to call for discipline is now defined as ADHD or whatever and medicine is administered.
4 - Politicization of Deviance - the criminal has become a freedom fighter for justice against the strictures of society that prevent them from becoming their unique selves. I wonder if a recent book on Mr Floyd seems to be heading in that direction?
Together, these processes have made it almost impossible to figure out what is the framework or script for building a functional life in reality. This is where biblical wisdom comes in, I believe.
Great insights shared by Prof Loury and the other participants in the discussion! Indeed events vindicated Moynihan and others who saw the proverbial writing on the wall and like prophets spoke out but were ignored by the populace which in the post civil rights dispensation preferred lies to the truth.
That sounds about white. Most of his followers are white conservatives. Conservatism is unequivocally anti-black. The Southern Strategy? The Willie Horton propaganda? I live in the Deep South. What would most blacks say? The meritorious manumission negro malaise? Lol!
We moved to Nashville, TN, eight years ago to be close to our daughters. We have found far less racism here than in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere we have lived. Did you actually read what Dr. Loury said? Please dispute the author's points rather than display your own biases so proudly.
I have traveled extensively around the world and have read many books. I’m not a black apologist. And, Tennessee bans books on black history and censors young-intelligent-outspoken-black-politicians on humanitarian issues. I'm not your comfort African American. I'm blunt and to the point.
Since you are firmly ensconced on the side of the angels and know only that I reside in Tennessee, which you use to come to a series of conclusions about me, and denigrate one of the current century's greatest minds without disputing what he says, rather relying on ad hominem attacks, it is obvious that further dialog is fruitless.
While I hope a good portion or summary of this sees the light of day beyond this site and group, this will most likely not happen. The msm and progressive elites simply cannot fathom any factual reasoning for what is going in the lower echelons of the black communities other than it being oppression, systemic racism or lack of “ social Justice”. Everyone should read Thomas Sowell’s latest book, Social Justice Fallacies. As he is so great at doing, he rips apart todays fallacies with superb empirical data. As he notes, “ consequences matter, and should matter, more than some fashionable theory”. He notes in another passage “that equal opportunity has been changed to equal outcomes…all based on the social justice perspective of myths presented as history, and assertions presented as facts. “ i do not see this changing, yet the fight must continue.
Besides having made millions of dollars off of anti-black racism, what do Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, and Larry Elder own and control that could have a real impact on improving the lives of black people? Do they own factories, water systems, transportation... farms? Wealth & power? Lol!
Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of limited resources for wealth and power. Whites got the head start with genocide, force and violence, free indigenous land, abundant black chattel slavery, codification, colonialism, and apartheid.
Blacks have only been full American citizens since the passing of the 1960s civil rights laws. I experienced Jim Crow discrimination. My dad, a WWII veteran, didn't get his GI benefits at the same time white vets got theirs because the southern states had control over who got the benefits.
FDR didn't do anything to correct this because he depended on Southern votes. Plus, my parents were systematically prevented from purchasing homes in white areas due to redlining. Just think if they were allowed to purchase that 1,200-square-foot home in Santa Monica, California in the 1950s for $10,000. That same house today is worth between one million and two million dollars (wealth accumulation). FHA mortgage loans?
Whites have tremendously benefitted from government programs and policies since the inception of this country to which whites were exclusively privy, building the white middle class---the great white head start program!
Studies indicate it would take blacks 235 years to catch up with white wealth due to the past white fuckery of whites enriching themselves on free and cheap black labor.
The social warrior bullshit? In your private thoughts, I'm just an inferior nigger who has foolishly crawled across extensive chard pieces of glass for an allusion.
Thomas Sowell, a black conservative, is a meritorious manumission negro guarding his massa's silver and property. "Yessssa massa, weeeez sick!"
The Meritorious Manumission Act was created by white slave plantation owners in 1710 Virginia to better control/manage black slaves. Slaves were rewarded with freedom or material goods if they saved massa's life, created something that increased massa's wealth, and informed other slaves who planned rebellion or escapes. Today, there are small memorials in the South honoring meritorious manumission slaves. There's talk of a memorial in Georgia for Clarence Thomas, the guy who is in favor of gutting the Voting Rights Act per his scathing dissent on a ruling.
Sambo was massa's black overseer who murdered Uncle Tom because Uncle Tom refused to kill a young slave girl on massa Legree's orders.
I got Becky here laughing uncontrollably on the floor at my second home on the beach. She's wondering about how broke you are and about your small manhood. Why did Great Grandpa castrate innocent black men and rape their women? Hell, Thomas Jefferson related that blacks smelled and were inferior. Yet, he fathered 6 to 7 kids with a young mulatto woman.
Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman who worked for the racist John Birch Society. She also supported a coup for Trump. The late conservative William F. Buckley distanced himself from the John Birch Society. WFT!
It must be nice living in your white ivory tower, with white entitlement.
Half of what you say nobody is denying. The other half we have heard our whole lives and just sounds like BS. It's been about sixty years since the civil rights acts. Most of us are not rich. I worked construction. Most of us were raised by parents and taught in school not to be racist. And we were taught to be afraid of being called a racist—but you know what? The privilege has been so abused by politicians and the media, that we are mostly over it now. It is the air we breathe. So if you want more help from your fellow man, you better come up with a better argument.
A range of opinion is voiced by these four speakers, as well as a range in terms of their clarity of expression such that their points of contention are difficult to locate. That, I guess, is the air they breathe in academia. My simple observation is that just because a society defines deviancy down to make behaviors once unacceptable now acceptable does not necessarily contribute to making people happier with their lives and choices. This assumption that human beings are infinitely flexible in nature ought to have been ditched a long time ago.
I worked for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for 34 years. As I recall, there were plenty of white criminals too. White male child molesters dominated my prison caseload, among the other races (two parent households?). I had a white inmate convicted for murder and mayhem who bit the nipples off his ex-wife's tits. He then threw his infant son against a wall, resulting in death. All of this because his ex-wife refused to have sex with him.
It's omitted that Moynihan wished that Mexicans and Filipinos eventually replace the blacks as a buffer class to diminish the attention on dealing with black issues. The hordes of Asian and Hispanic immigrants today into America? Both the left and right have the same mission. Lol!
This comment was emailed in by Pastor C. Stanley Morton. I'm posting it here with his permission.
Dear Prof Loury,
Wow! That was a fantastic summary of the situation facing our people. I got your Substack email version, but I hunted down the YouTube and played it for my wife. In our subsequent discussion, we came to see four processes that have transformed our capacity to identify and deal with deviance.
1- Defining Deviancy Down - you described it well
2 - Reimaging Deviance - Kay Hymowitz's point - looting becomes the cry of the poor and a legitimate expression of frustration with oppression, for instance.
3 - Medicalization of Deviance - restlessness which used to call for discipline is now defined as ADHD or whatever and medicine is administered.
4 - Politicization of Deviance - the criminal has become a freedom fighter for justice against the strictures of society that prevent them from becoming their unique selves. I wonder if a recent book on Mr Floyd seems to be heading in that direction?
Together, these processes have made it almost impossible to figure out what is the framework or script for building a functional life in reality. This is where biblical wisdom comes in, I believe.
Keep up the good work!
Great insights shared by Prof Loury and the other participants in the discussion! Indeed events vindicated Moynihan and others who saw the proverbial writing on the wall and like prophets spoke out but were ignored by the populace which in the post civil rights dispensation preferred lies to the truth.
Glenn Loury is a national treasure
That sounds about white. Most of his followers are white conservatives. Conservatism is unequivocally anti-black. The Southern Strategy? The Willie Horton propaganda? I live in the Deep South. What would most blacks say? The meritorious manumission negro malaise? Lol!
We moved to Nashville, TN, eight years ago to be close to our daughters. We have found far less racism here than in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere we have lived. Did you actually read what Dr. Loury said? Please dispute the author's points rather than display your own biases so proudly.
I have traveled extensively around the world and have read many books. I’m not a black apologist. And, Tennessee bans books on black history and censors young-intelligent-outspoken-black-politicians on humanitarian issues. I'm not your comfort African American. I'm blunt and to the point.
Since you are firmly ensconced on the side of the angels and know only that I reside in Tennessee, which you use to come to a series of conclusions about me, and denigrate one of the current century's greatest minds without disputing what he says, rather relying on ad hominem attacks, it is obvious that further dialog is fruitless.
Self-hate isn't a good state of mind, and common sense isn't always common.
While I hope a good portion or summary of this sees the light of day beyond this site and group, this will most likely not happen. The msm and progressive elites simply cannot fathom any factual reasoning for what is going in the lower echelons of the black communities other than it being oppression, systemic racism or lack of “ social Justice”. Everyone should read Thomas Sowell’s latest book, Social Justice Fallacies. As he is so great at doing, he rips apart todays fallacies with superb empirical data. As he notes, “ consequences matter, and should matter, more than some fashionable theory”. He notes in another passage “that equal opportunity has been changed to equal outcomes…all based on the social justice perspective of myths presented as history, and assertions presented as facts. “ i do not see this changing, yet the fight must continue.
Besides having made millions of dollars off of anti-black racism, what do Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, and Larry Elder own and control that could have a real impact on improving the lives of black people? Do they own factories, water systems, transportation... farms? Wealth & power? Lol!
Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of limited resources for wealth and power. Whites got the head start with genocide, force and violence, free indigenous land, abundant black chattel slavery, codification, colonialism, and apartheid.
Blacks have only been full American citizens since the passing of the 1960s civil rights laws. I experienced Jim Crow discrimination. My dad, a WWII veteran, didn't get his GI benefits at the same time white vets got theirs because the southern states had control over who got the benefits.
FDR didn't do anything to correct this because he depended on Southern votes. Plus, my parents were systematically prevented from purchasing homes in white areas due to redlining. Just think if they were allowed to purchase that 1,200-square-foot home in Santa Monica, California in the 1950s for $10,000. That same house today is worth between one million and two million dollars (wealth accumulation). FHA mortgage loans?
Whites have tremendously benefitted from government programs and policies since the inception of this country to which whites were exclusively privy, building the white middle class---the great white head start program!
Studies indicate it would take blacks 235 years to catch up with white wealth due to the past white fuckery of whites enriching themselves on free and cheap black labor.
The social warrior bullshit? In your private thoughts, I'm just an inferior nigger who has foolishly crawled across extensive chard pieces of glass for an allusion.
Thomas Sowell, a black conservative, is a meritorious manumission negro guarding his massa's silver and property. "Yessssa massa, weeeez sick!"
The Meritorious Manumission Act was created by white slave plantation owners in 1710 Virginia to better control/manage black slaves. Slaves were rewarded with freedom or material goods if they saved massa's life, created something that increased massa's wealth, and informed other slaves who planned rebellion or escapes. Today, there are small memorials in the South honoring meritorious manumission slaves. There's talk of a memorial in Georgia for Clarence Thomas, the guy who is in favor of gutting the Voting Rights Act per his scathing dissent on a ruling.
Sambo was massa's black overseer who murdered Uncle Tom because Uncle Tom refused to kill a young slave girl on massa Legree's orders.
I got Becky here laughing uncontrollably on the floor at my second home on the beach. She's wondering about how broke you are and about your small manhood. Why did Great Grandpa castrate innocent black men and rape their women? Hell, Thomas Jefferson related that blacks smelled and were inferior. Yet, he fathered 6 to 7 kids with a young mulatto woman.
Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman who worked for the racist John Birch Society. She also supported a coup for Trump. The late conservative William F. Buckley distanced himself from the John Birch Society. WFT!
It must be nice living in your white ivory tower, with white entitlement.
Half of what you say nobody is denying. The other half we have heard our whole lives and just sounds like BS. It's been about sixty years since the civil rights acts. Most of us are not rich. I worked construction. Most of us were raised by parents and taught in school not to be racist. And we were taught to be afraid of being called a racist—but you know what? The privilege has been so abused by politicians and the media, that we are mostly over it now. It is the air we breathe. So if you want more help from your fellow man, you better come up with a better argument.
Irrational poppycock.
Prove it with substance. Compensatory whiteness is worthless. I bet you got very wet with Becky's response. Lol!!!!
There's a fascinating article in Unherd tangential to this discussion: California's criminals need an audience
https://unherd.com/2023/10/californias-criminals-need-an-audience/
A range of opinion is voiced by these four speakers, as well as a range in terms of their clarity of expression such that their points of contention are difficult to locate. That, I guess, is the air they breathe in academia. My simple observation is that just because a society defines deviancy down to make behaviors once unacceptable now acceptable does not necessarily contribute to making people happier with their lives and choices. This assumption that human beings are infinitely flexible in nature ought to have been ditched a long time ago.
I worked for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for 34 years. As I recall, there were plenty of white criminals too. White male child molesters dominated my prison caseload, among the other races (two parent households?). I had a white inmate convicted for murder and mayhem who bit the nipples off his ex-wife's tits. He then threw his infant son against a wall, resulting in death. All of this because his ex-wife refused to have sex with him.
Striking and poignant that Moynihan remains so relevant today. Very powerful, Glenn.
It's omitted that Moynihan wished that Mexicans and Filipinos eventually replace the blacks as a buffer class to diminish the attention on dealing with black issues. The hordes of Asian and Hispanic immigrants today into America? Both the left and right have the same mission. Lol!
Glenn, thank you for this.