Chapter 7: How Did We Get Here?

(This is Chapter 7 of "Up and Out," a book condensing my long experience about how to best help poor people.  I pledged earlier to get it up online as soon as possible, so it would be available for free to everyone trying to cope with helping the Katrina evacuees.)

(These are not the things that need to be done during the first part of this emergency.  Rather, this is for the time after that, when Katrina evacuees will be moving from getting immediate emergency assistance to trying to normalize their lives.  That is when good programs to help them "up and out" of their situation need to kick in.  The following is for that time.)

(For other chapters, look under "Categories" at the left, and click on the chapter you want.)

"UP AND OUT: A GUIDE TO TRUE COMPASSION FOR THE POOR"

PART I: THE AMERICAN POVERTY TRAP

Chapter 7: How Did We Get Here?

The poor have so many problems that it is hard to know where to start to help them.  It can seem like a huge ball of string, with the end of the string nowhere to be found.  But we have the big clues already.  The last chapter identified the major cause of poverty in America. Fatherlessness is the major precondition of both poverty and violent crime. 

Fatherlessness arises from having sex outside marriage.  That is nothing new, of course.  Neither is having children outside marriage.  Both have always been with us.  It is a good bet that they always will be. 

When these happen on a fairly small scale, in a very small percentage of the population, they do not have a large effect on society.  But when these happen on a large scale, the effect is very powerful.  The society starts to unravel.

Now that a third of all our children are born outside wedlock, we clearly have skidded into the danger zone.  Our poor are the ones most at risk.  But they are not the only ones.  The foundation of our entire society is damaged as well. 

How did  we get here, from where we were before?  Sex outside of marriage is the motor driving fatherlessness.  And the mainstream culture is now the source driving sex outside of marriage.  How did that move from a much smaller, discreditable sub-culture to being so accepted and promoted by the dominant, majority culture?  How did it get to be mainstream?

In less than a half-century, how was it that we moved from a society in which there was very little unmarried sex into a society where there is so much?  How did that become widely promoted and incited?  What happened?

It has become customary to look no further back than the 50s.  But that limits us to only what the Boomers can remember.  (And there actually was a history before then.)  Although there was an explosive increase in unmarried sex during the 60s, the foundation for that was laid in earlier decades.

It started much earlier, with subtle attacks on marriage, on postponing sex until marriage, on faithfulness in marriage, and on staying married even when it got tough.  These attacks came mostly from elites who typically felt superior to ordinary people and the traditions by which they lived. 

The attacks were indirect at first.  These ideas entered the minds of ordinary people almost unnoticed.  In each decade the super-rich (who could make their own moral rules, more than others,) and the bohemians among the artists, theatre people, movie people, writers, novelists and intellectuals, led the underground charge against traditional morality.  Many among the non-bohemian elites - scientists, academics, philosophers and psychologists - also had a share in undermining the old morality.

Decade by decade, these attacks on traditional morality had more and more effect.  They were limited mostly to novels, the stage and academia at first, which did not involve much of the population.  After all, in the early 1900s, most people did not read that many novels or go to the theatre or to college.  (Even so, they were not poorly educated, because grades 1-12 were so much better then.)               

Movies accelerated the process.  They began to be available everywhere, even in small towns.  Then bohemian ideas began to filter widely and deeply into the popular psyche.  Films were more powerful than books and even theatre, because they aroused a stronger emotional response.  That was because they seemed amazingly real.  It was hard to believe that what was on the screen was not really happening.  People would blink coming out of a movie, re-adjusting to a world that suddenly seemed dull and shabbier.  The new movie stars, who rarely lived according to mainstreet values, were widely idolized and imitated.  The lives of these new role models strongly suggested that there were more exciting, enjoyable ways to live than our drab, every-day lives.

Also, as more and more people went to college, they were exposed to more intellectual challenges to the ideas and values underlying the traditional culture. 

So the traditional culture was weakened on two fronts: by the greater access of bohemians to the minds of the population through movies (and later, TV).  Also, through greater exposure to  academics who, though not always intentionally, often undermined its most basic values.

Back in the early 1900s, divorce began to be at least somewhat more tolerated, at least among the very wealthy.  Then after WWI,  there was a sudden explosion of unmarried sex.  That was the "Roaring Twenties."  It was a lot like the explosion of the hippies and their sexual revolution in the 1960s, but with one big difference.  The hippies continued their sexual revulotion into the present.  But the Roaring Twenties, and its sexual revolution, were stopped cold in less than a decade, by the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

The Great Depression took the wind out of everyone's sails.  Suddenly, in the great troubles of that time, the 'Twenties' generation rediscovered the bedrock values.  Family and home gained a new respect and new meaning.  A whole nation celebrated the joys of home and family.  The huge change can easily be seen by comparing movies from the 20s with those of the 30s.

To most people, the 1930s was a period of severe poverty.  That is true: it was.  But it did not seem so to the children growing up then.  Their parents may have missed what had been lost, but that did not affect the children much.  Since almost everyone was poor, they were poor together, so it seemed normal. 

The 1930s was a time that was good for children.  Those who grew up then remember the close-knit families, the time families spent together.  They read a lot, had company in the house often, sang together in the evenings, listened to the radio together and went to church together.

They remember how it was when children obeyed their parents and teachers (without telling them "No" or sassing them.)  When any adult would automatically correct anyone's misbehaving child (and call the parents and tell them) and be gratefully thanked by the parents.  When tantrums were all but non-existent.

They remember the excellent education, at every grade level.  And they remember the fun it was when two or more families got together, without much money, for domino parties or picnicing or camping-out vacations.  And they remember fishing and hunting for meat,  and having chickens, milk cows (in small towns) and vegetable gardens.

They remember that crime almost did not exist in comparison to now.  House doors and car doors were not locked.  Rape and murder happened only once every few years, in the small towns in which 70% of the population lived before WWII.

It was the 1930s, not the 1950s, that were probably the last "normal" period in our history, insofar as family strength is concerned. 

This normalcy did not extend to race relations, sadly, either in the 1930s or the 1950s.  That did not really even begin before around 1963. 

Neither did it extend to the segregated education of that time.  Education for whites resulted in much higher literacy than now, and at much younger ages.  But black education was appallingly bad, despite the valiant struggles of black educators against a severe lack of funding and the terrible effects of legal segregation and discrimination.

Nevertheless, it is helpful to realize the "normalcy" of the 1930s, in regard to crime, family strength and traditional morality.  Both black and white families were much stronger then, with many more two-parent families and stable marriages.  Both black and white illegitimacy rates were much lower then, with much higher marriage rates and much less divorce and crime.

In the 1930s, divorce was rare and scandalous.  There was relatively little sex outside marriage.  Surveys show that 75%, including male and female, were virgins at the time of marriage.  The few who had sex outside of marriage usually married each other.

Marriage happened early in life.  (That made it easier to wait until marriage for sex!)  Most were married by 21 or 22 at latest, females by 18-20.  And the marriages almost always lasted.  Dads worked and moms stayed home with the kids.  Both were too busy to have time to be bored. 

Huge changes came with WWII in the 1940s.  Most men went off to war, except for those too young or too old or too unfit.  Many moms went to work, out of both need and patriotism.  There was a vast migration of people into the cities, especially those near defense factories.  Most young couples were separated a few years by the war.  But most did not break up.  This generation, born in the good times of the 1920s, had some memory of what it was to both have prosperity and lose it.  Tempered by the Great Depression, they matured to become the "Greatest Generation" (as Tom Brokaw wrote.)  They stuck to each other, and they stuck to their country.

Despite the tragedies and uncertaintes of WWII that affected everyone, the 1940s were also a good time for children.  Families remained strong and crime rates were incredibly low by today's standards.  Divorce and illegitimacy rates were still also very low.  This continued after the war into the second half of the 1940s, as the veterans came home and the country focused on rebuilding Europe.  Everyone wanted, more than anything, to get back to being normal again.

As during the Great Depression, there was a powerful resurgence of the desire to marry and have a strong family life.  Experiencing the horrors of war had caused the young veterans to re-think everything.  When they returned, they had already decided that what was most important was the bed-rock values.  More than anything, they wanted marriage and children, right then.  Many used their GI benefits to go to college.  They often married first.  They also quickly produced the biggest generation of children ever in American history.

In the 1950s, the Silent Generation reached maturity in time to fight the Korean War.  Born in the Great Depression, they were the last generation with a living memory of a time that was "normal" for family life and crime. 

They were also the last generation with a living memory of good child rearing.  Why is that important?  Because most of us raise our children as we remember being raised ourselves.  And because child rearing shapes the future adults and the entire society.  Part of the reason we got into the present mess was the bad child rearing practiced by many of the Greatest Generation, as they raised their children, the hippies who became the Boomers.

Why did the Greatest Generation change child-rearing practices?  Until then, most people automatically raised their children as they themselves had been raised.  There were two reasons. 

One had to do with the appalling behavior of the Germans who supported the Nazis.  Psychologists thought that happened because "good Germans" were too submissive to authority.  They began to try to teach the practice of "questioning authority" and even "opposing authority."  They wanted to make it impossible for the next generation to do what the Germans had done.  They thought that would greatly help. 

So many of the Greatest Generation were persuaded to teach their own children to question and even oppose all authority, even that of their parents.  Until then, children were not allowed to say "no" to their parents, to disobey them or even "talk back" to them.

The other reason was looking to "experts" for childrearing methods rather than following what one's parents had done.  The main expert guiding the Greatest Generation was Dr. Benjamin Spock.  While his many books advised on everything from baby bottles to illnesses, his main impact on the culture came from the childrearing practices he recommended.  It was summarized as "permissive."  He recommended saying 'yes' to children at every possible opportunity, rarely saying "no", not spanking, distracting them rather than punishing, letting them "express themselves" freely, and as much as possible, letting them do whatever they wanted to do.  In short, they were not very disciplined, especially in comparison to previous generations.  They also tended to be very focused on themselves and used to getting what they wanted.  Many also thought of "authority" as something sinister and threatening. 

All generations love their children.  But millions of the Greatest Generation had wondered if they would ever live to have children.  So their children were unusually precious to them.  Having lost prosperity to the Great Depression, they never wanted their children to do without anything.  So they worked very hard to give them everything - sometimes so hard that they hardly had time to see their families. 

Many had to work as children during the Great Depression, not getting to "be children" very long.  It helped make them formidable, "can-do" fighters.  But they wanted their own children to have "a real childhood," without responsibilities or worries, enjoying the time of childhood. 

Many wanted to just enjoy their children, not upsetting everyone with discipline.  Dr. Spock said that was good, so they were comfortable with that.  So many of their children grew up with little or no discipline, much indulged, and the center of their world.  Many of these children, when grown, would still show an attachment to childhood and a reluctance to "be a grown-up."  They could not take "no", ran from discipline, rejected authority, and most of all, wanted to enjoy themselves.

This was the first time in American history that a drastic change in childrearing practices happened.  That change contributed in basic ways to bringing us the sexual revolution and widespread use of drugs, among other things.

During the 1950s families were weakening.  Divorce was up, rapidly becoming respectable.  Traditional sexual values were also weakening.  Attacks on traditional morality were more open, and more respected.

Kinsey had published "The Kinsey Report."  It became a part of the popular culture as well as of academic thought.  Kinsey claimed that unmarried sex, as well as many kinds of sex thought of as deviant, was really quite common.  He gave the impression that "everybody was doing it."  Many ordinary people believed that if "everybody was doing it," there must be nothing wrong with it.  For decades it powerfully shaped much popular and academic thinking about sex.  That scholarly acceptance is still having an effect on current thinking about sex, despite Kinsey's original studies having since been discredited.

Hugh Heffner came along about then, advocating new sexual values.  In sophomoric magazine articles, he argued that so long as "nobody got hurt," casual sex without commitment was a good thing.  Nobody would get hurt, he argued, so long as no children were concieved from such casual sexual encounters.  Birth control would take care of that, he said.  He started the Playboy Club and magazine, and became the envy of millions of men.

Both Kinsey and Heffner did a lot of damage to the acceptance of traditional sexual morality.  Despite the portrayal of happy families on TV in the 1950s, families were rapidly losing ground.

The "Greatest Generation" did not seem much affected.  Their post-war choice had been strongly for marriage and children.  They were seldom interested in changing that.

They did over-do a few things in the 1950s, however.  Mostly it was working so hard that they were home less than they wanted to be.  And it was raising their children "permissively."

When the first of that generation of children started attending college in the 1960s, the sheer size of their generation swamped everything.  And an unusually large number of them did go to college, using funds provided by the government in an attempt to catch up to the Russians educationally.

They arrived on campus during the Viet Nam War and the Civil Rights movement.  President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, which shook everything.  The Viet Nam War got bigger and bigger after that, and got more and more controversial.  Opposition began to grow on college campuses.

Racial issues became huge.  Many students realized that their parents disagreed with them on View Nam.  Still worse, many realized for the first time that their parents were racially prejudiced.  It was probably the watershed issue of that time.  For many, their parents lost all moral authority in their eyes because of their racial beliefs.

Much of the Greatest Generation "lost" their children as a result.  Their children came to reject, not only their parents' views on race and the war, but also on everything else.  They felt justified in forming entirely new values.  They were very sure their new values were far superior to those of their parents.  They also came to believe that they were more moral than their parents.

They became "the hippies."  They designed their own values.  Because they were such a large part of the population, and so supremely confident they were right, they eventually prevailed.  They did whatever they wanted.  Mostly, society let them, and even copied them.  They set the styles and the tone.

Drugs were OK.  Dropping out of school and out of work was OK.  And having sex whenever and with whomever was OK.  The bumper sticker was "make love, not war."  The pop psychology of the time told them that most aggression, violence, and therefore, most war, was caused by sexual repression.   If only people could get rid of their sexual "hang-ups", these things would begin to disappear.  Then, they believed, "free sex" would be the way to a better, saner, less violent society, with less war.  From there, the sexual revolution was on its way, growing bigger every year. 

As the years went by, some of the hippies stayed hippies.  Most, however, got back into school and into jobs later.  They became the "Yuppies" (Young Upwardly-mobile Professionals) and then the "Boomers" (from the size of their huge generation.)  But like the generations before them, the values they kept were the ones they formed during college years.  These values substituted other religions, other views on capitalism and socialism, war and peace, big business and big government, race, respect for authority and tradition, the environment, poverty, and on sex, for the values held by their parents.  The change was often to take the polar opposite views.

It was arguably the biggest generational shift in values in our history.  It became known as "the Culture War," a struggle between the cultures of the Greatest Generation and their children, the Boomers. 

As the Boomers grew older, their values changed very little.  Like others before them, Boomers were not notable for changing their minds.  As they moved up into positions of power and influence, they carried with them, largely unchanged, the values they acquired in the 1960s and 1970s.  They were able to promote and proselytize for them on a national scale.  Largely, they were able to make them into the values of the mainstream culture.

Those values included the values of the Sexual Revolution.  And it was the Sexual Revolution that brought about the huge increase in unmarried sex, which resulted in widespread fatherlessness, which is the precursor to most of the poverty and violent crime in our society. 

Free sex was supposed to free us from violence.  Instead, it became, not only the major cause of poverty, but also the greatest cause of most violent crime.   

More than any attack America ever experienced, more than the greatest of our natural disasters, more than any war we ever fought, the Sexual Revolution has arguably ruined more lives than any of these.  When the results of the 40 years of increasing fatherlessness it brought are finally assessed, it may well be judged to have been the most destructive, greatest disaster that ever hit our country.  We have a long way to go to get over it, and to substitute something better for our poor, our children and ourselves.