Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010 by Charles Murray. 

4/5 rating. 

Book #119 of 2019. Read October 14, 2019.

This book was a fascinating discussion about the stratification of American society by class. While the two extremes of the class spectrum are looked at, Murray shows the many causes that have led to this split. Along with this (he would argue because of this) there has been a deterioration in many aspects of our lives that are important, i.e. happiness levels; civic and social engagement; and trust. Murray proposes that the drop in finding fulfillment through their family, vocation, community involvement, and faith especially apparent in the lower-class has caused Americans to become less happy in their day-to-day lives. 

I agree with most of his beliefs on these fronts and his data for supporting all of this is very interesting and quite telling. Murray draws different conclusions on how to fix this in the last chapter, but I found it very interesting to see a well-reasoned argument about his beliefs even if they were quite far from mine. 

Overall, I thought this was a great book and would definitely recommend it to read: maybe it will help our communities if we can understand how our stratification and disengagement are affecting not only us, but everyone in negative, and sometimes hidden ways.

Quotes:

“If we ask what are the domains through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life – achieve happiness – the answer is that there are just four: family, vocation, community, and faith, with these provisos: Community can embrace people who are scattered geographically. Vocation can include avocation or causes.”

IG Link.