Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s attempts to blame poverty on culture show how out of touch he is with reality.
Paul Ryan recently went on a conservative talk radio show to explain that the reason some inner city neighborhoods have high levels of poverty and other social pathologies is because something is wrong with their culture. As he put it, “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work…there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”
This is a very old thread in American conservative political thought, and unfortunately for Ryan sociologists and other American thinkers has been showing how wrong it is for an equally long time.
First of all Ryan commits a cardinal sin of argument when he assigns causality of social pathologies like high unemployment to something called “culture” but doesn’t define what exactly that’s supposed to mean. Does “culture of work” mean working summer jobs in high school? Having parents that work? Or other cultural phenomena like the vital question of teenagers with pants that are too low? It’s easy to go to a poor community, find some cultural trait you find displeasing and assign it blame for things like poverty. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right, association and causation are different things.
But even more importantly Ryan is ignoring the possibility that the cultures of poor communities are different because of structural and historic realities in those communities. A classic case of this argument would be sociologist William Julius Wilson’s 1996 book When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. Julius makes the case that the disappearance of work, especially low skills jobs in manufacturing, in inner city neighborhoods is fundamentally what has caused the various problems of inner city communities. And that this disappearance was caused by very real social policies embraced by America in the Post-War era such as deindustrialization, suburbanization, white flight from major cities, changes in foreign markets, and structural racism.
In other word it’s a lot harder to be a kid in the West Side of Chicago than it is in Winnetka because things like historic trends in housing policy, not because of some amorphous thing called culture.
The end result of these realities may be a culture that looks quite different from the small town, upper-class, and white culture Paul Ryan is used to, but that doesn’t make this culture the root cause of problems like unemployment. Indeed problems like crime , dependence on social services, and poverty can be found in places that are largely white, rural, and religious as well. But we don’t hear a lot of explanations for those places’ problems because of problems with white culture.
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Bill Cosby was a poor kneejerk example on my part, as I can see now. Please allow me to rephrase. Ryan’s comments seem to ignore the economic problems in the inner cities, and instead he blames some vague thing called “culture” or “laziness.” It sounds an awful lot like good old-fashioned anti-black racism. In reality, there’s a combination of economic and cultural factors that reinforce each other. One causes the other, which then affects the first one, which then affects the second one. The “structural” side and the “subculture” side can’t be entirely separated from each other. It’s not so… Read more »
@ What Ryan thinks is a culture of laziness is a reflection of despair and depression. I think most white people never think about the psychological costs of generational oppression .
And Ryan is not alone on this. But what’s worse, someone who believes as he does which is a sign of ignorance on his part or the person who knows as you do and simply gives lip service? One may appear better then the other but in any event, neither have a quality of good.
BTW, Ogwriter, I didn’t mean “you” but others who believe as you.
Also if anyone is interested in the whole Cosby controversy, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a great article about it back in 2008: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/05/-this-is-how-we-lost-to-the-white-man/306774/
Quick note about Cosby … “In 1997, his son was shot dead in cold blood, and the family established the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation to provide funds for education of disadvantaged youths.
@Tom Good point Tom …but obviously he was motivated by what happened to his son. I wonder what took him so long to give back to his community. I preach the same message he does. However I don’t have the credibility or ego problem he does. I live next to the kids I preach to …he doesn’t. I don’t come down from the mountaintop to issue criticism of people I do not know.
@ Ogwriter … As with many high profile celebrities or celebrities in general. It amazes me how some people tend to glom onto what these people have to say. You’d think that with so many of them, their power and influence, they would be able to do more but I think many of them speak with fork tongue.
Damn it ! I did not intend for both posts to appear!??
Did you want me to delete one, and if so which one?
Actually,for a variety of reasons,Mr. Cosby received quite a bit of blow back from many in the black community.To John’s point,it is common for outsiders of a community to have limited appeal as critical observers.Most white people I know bristle at any criticism of white culture leveled by a black person.It occured to me that Mr.Ryan’s target audience probably wasn’t the liberal progressives.This was calculated to do exactly what it did,speak to Reagan democrats and moderates AND liberals who feel left out and blame Civil Rights and Affirmative ction.They are convinced that CR legislation,not 30 years of out sourcing,not the… Read more »
Bill Cosby’s similar cricisms of poor Blacks were very much debated and he was called out by a number of academics from all Races/Ethnicities. It’s called “Blaming the Victim.” As a Sociologist, I can tell you that history provides solid evidence that culture is MOSTLY shaped by structural, technical and economic cirumstances. Cutlure isn’t just some floating set of ways or values that exist in a bubble and culture is not at all biological or essential in some way. Yes, we have a sense of history, a good example is the belief in God. Through all of the changes in… Read more »
As a Sociologist, you clearly have given a lot of thought to your theories. As a public servant who administers the types of programs you talk about, I can say that there is no magic bullet. I share your belief that man needs a reason to get out of bed, but that reason needn’t be the same for all people. There certainly exists a demographic who, despite being given a wealth of opportunities, simply prefers to remain idle and on the dole. You can’t argue with evidence, sociological theories aside.
Small towns are typically full of poor people. They just happen to be white.
And if an African American or Democrat said something similar about inner city poverty, would it provoke as strong a reaction? I’ve heard Bill Cosby say some very similar things about young men in the inner city. I’m not saying he’s right, just that I doubt he’d get the same scrutiny.
Politicians should be scrutinised. Their words shape the nation. I can think of no other career that *should* be scrutinised as much as elected office.
You’re right that there is a very old tradition of the ideas of self-reliance and self-improvement in the black community, but what I think you are missing is that there is a difference between internal criticism inside a given community and outsiders announcing that something is wrong with that community. That just true with any given community. There’s a big difference between a liberal in New York City saying “Well of course Appalachia is poor, they are all a bunch of ignorant red necks with a broken culture.” And people from that community trying to grapple with problems like poverty… Read more »
@Steve First, let me say that I am black. I mention that so my sarcasm will not be misunderstood and my post deleted..Mr. Cosby received quite a bit of blow back from the black community over his comments,myself included. I suspect that the reasons for the blow back aimed at both men is similar. For many in the hood, Bill Cosby, even though he is black ,is a stranger to them. :As much as Paul Ryan is a stranger to them. When was the last time, if ever, was either man was in the hood spending some of their cash… Read more »