andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1836 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I had no idea this sort of thing even existed: I’m reminded of our discussion of Charles Murray’s recent book on social divisions among Americans. Murray talked about differences between upper and lower class, but I thought he was really talking more about differences between liberals and conservatives among the elite. (More discussion here .) In this particular case, Murray’s story about irresponsible elites seems to fit pretty well. At the elite level, you have well-connected D.C. gun lobbyists opposing any restrictions on personal weapons. As Murray might put it, the elites (Phil Spector aside) may be able to handle their guns, but some lower-class Americans cannot—they do things like give real rifles to 5-year-olds (!). As Murray writes, it’s a combination of cultural ignorance and a permissive ideology: I assume the senators who voted against the recent gun control bill wouldn’t give live weapons to their kids (or live in neighborhoods in which kids have acces
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1 I had no idea this sort of thing even existed: I’m reminded of our discussion of Charles Murray’s recent book on social divisions among Americans. [sent-1, score-0.11]
2 Murray talked about differences between upper and lower class, but I thought he was really talking more about differences between liberals and conservatives among the elite. [sent-2, score-0.166]
3 ) In this particular case, Murray’s story about irresponsible elites seems to fit pretty well. [sent-4, score-0.439]
4 As Murray might put it, the elites (Phil Spector aside) may be able to handle their guns, but some lower-class Americans cannot—they do things like give real rifles to 5-year-olds (! [sent-8, score-0.38]
5 First, my main point here was, as is noted in the title of the post, this is a culture clash. [sent-14, score-0.142]
6 In some parts of the country, people are giving real live guns to their 5-year-olds and teaching them the four rules of gun safety. [sent-15, score-0.539]
7 Here where I live, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a company that sold children’s guns with cute little cartoon characters. [sent-16, score-0.343]
8 Second, I don’t mean to overrate Charles Murray’s ideas, which are more of a set of interesting speculations than an all-encompassing theory. [sent-17, score-0.176]
9 (This is fine, speculations are important, I’m not knocking Murray here. [sent-18, score-0.163]
10 ) For example, consider elites’ reactions to proposed laws restricting cigarette smoking. [sent-19, score-0.167]
11 If a group of elite Americans support such a law, Murray can argue that this represents their lack of understanding of ordinary American culture: elites mostly don’t smoke, and they can’t understand people who do. [sent-20, score-0.691]
12 Conversely, if a group of elites oppose an anti-smoking law, Murray can argue that these elites are supporting a permissive, dangerous ideology that they do not themselves believe for their own lives. [sent-21, score-1.013]
13 This is the tension that I noted in my review of Murray’s book, where elites are alternately urged to show understanding for the unfamiliar lifestyles of lower-class Americans, and to show moral leadership by criticizing the mistaken lifestyle choices of such people. [sent-22, score-1.089]
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same-blog 1 0.99999988 1836 andrew gelman stats-2013-05-02-Culture clash
Introduction: I had no idea this sort of thing even existed: I’m reminded of our discussion of Charles Murray’s recent book on social divisions among Americans. Murray talked about differences between upper and lower class, but I thought he was really talking more about differences between liberals and conservatives among the elite. (More discussion here .) In this particular case, Murray’s story about irresponsible elites seems to fit pretty well. At the elite level, you have well-connected D.C. gun lobbyists opposing any restrictions on personal weapons. As Murray might put it, the elites (Phil Spector aside) may be able to handle their guns, but some lower-class Americans cannot—they do things like give real rifles to 5-year-olds (!). As Murray writes, it’s a combination of cultural ignorance and a permissive ideology: I assume the senators who voted against the recent gun control bill wouldn’t give live weapons to their kids (or live in neighborhoods in which kids have acces
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Introduction: The other day I posted some comments on the voting patterns of rich and poor in the context of Charles Murray’s recent book, “Coming Apart.” My graphs on income and voting are just fine, but I mischaracterized Murray’s statements. So I want to fix that right away. After that I have some thoughts on the book itself. In brief: 1. I was unfair to call him a Tucker Carlson. 2. Murray talks a lot about upper-class liberals. That’s fine but I think his discussion would be improved by also considering upper-class conservatives, given that I see the big culture war occurring within the upper class. 3. Using the case of Joe Paterno as an example, I discuss why Murray’s “preach what you practice” advice could be difficult to carry out in practice. Murray on the top 5% David Frum quoted Murray as writing that the top 5% “tends to be liberal—right? There’s no getting around it. Every way of answering this question produces a yes.” In response, Frum and I both pointed out t
Introduction: Following up on our blog discussions a year ago, I published a review of Charles Murray’s recent book, “Coming Apart,” for the journal Statistics, Politics, and Policy. I invited Murray to publish a response, and he did so. Here’s the abstract to my review : This article examines some claims made in a recent popular book of political sociology, with the intent not being to debunk any claims but rather to connect some important social and policy positions to statistical data on income, social class, and political attitudes. The thesis of Charles Murray’s book is that America’s upper and lower classes have become increasingly separate, with elites living more disciplined, orderly lives (characterized by marriage, work, and stable families) while being largely unaware of the lifestyles of the majority of Americans. I argue that some of Murray’s conclusions are sensitive to particular choices of whom to label as elite or upper-class. From my analysis of survey data, I see the big
Introduction: Charles Murray wrote a much-discussed new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” David Frum quotes Murray as writing, in an echo of now-forgotten TV personality Tucker Carlson , that the top 5% of incomes “tends to be liberal—right? There’s no getting around it. Every way of answering this question produces a yes.” [I’ve interjected a “perhaps” into the title of this blog post to indicate that I don’t have the exact Murray quote here so I’m relying on David Frum’s interpretation.] Frum does me the favor of citing Red State Blue State as evidence, and I’d like to back this up with some graphs. Frum writes: Say “top 5%” to Murray, and his imagination conjures up everything he dislikes: coastal liberals listening to NPR in their Lexus hybrid SUVs. He sees that image so intensely that no mere number can force him to remember that the top 5% also includes the evangelical Christian assistant coach of a state university football team. . . . To put it i
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Introduction: Within any education category, richer people vote more Republican. In contrast, the pattern of education and voting is nonlinear. High school graduates are more Republican than non-HS grads, but after that, the groups with more education tend to vote more Democratic. At the very highest education level tabulated in the survey, voters with post-graduate degrees lean toward the Democrats. Except for the rich post-graduates; they are split 50-50 between the parties. What does this say about America’s elites? If you define elites as high-income non-Hispanic whites, the elites vote strongly Republican. If you define elites as college-educated high-income whites, they vote moderately Republican. There is no plausible way based on these data in which elites can be considered a Democratic voting bloc. To create a group of strongly Democratic-leaning elite whites using these graphs, you would need to consider only postgraduates (no simple college grads included, even if they have achieved s
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Introduction: I had no idea this sort of thing even existed: I’m reminded of our discussion of Charles Murray’s recent book on social divisions among Americans. Murray talked about differences between upper and lower class, but I thought he was really talking more about differences between liberals and conservatives among the elite. (More discussion here .) In this particular case, Murray’s story about irresponsible elites seems to fit pretty well. At the elite level, you have well-connected D.C. gun lobbyists opposing any restrictions on personal weapons. As Murray might put it, the elites (Phil Spector aside) may be able to handle their guns, but some lower-class Americans cannot—they do things like give real rifles to 5-year-olds (!). As Murray writes, it’s a combination of cultural ignorance and a permissive ideology: I assume the senators who voted against the recent gun control bill wouldn’t give live weapons to their kids (or live in neighborhoods in which kids have acces
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Introduction: Charles Murray wrote a much-discussed new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” David Frum quotes Murray as writing, in an echo of now-forgotten TV personality Tucker Carlson , that the top 5% of incomes “tends to be liberal—right? There’s no getting around it. Every way of answering this question produces a yes.” [I’ve interjected a “perhaps” into the title of this blog post to indicate that I don’t have the exact Murray quote here so I’m relying on David Frum’s interpretation.] Frum does me the favor of citing Red State Blue State as evidence, and I’d like to back this up with some graphs. Frum writes: Say “top 5%” to Murray, and his imagination conjures up everything he dislikes: coastal liberals listening to NPR in their Lexus hybrid SUVs. He sees that image so intensely that no mere number can force him to remember that the top 5% also includes the evangelical Christian assistant coach of a state university football team. . . . To put it i
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Introduction: A couple months ago, in discussing Charles Murray’s argument that America’s social leaders should “preach what they practice” (Murray argues that they—we!—tend to lead good lives of hard work and moderation but are all too tolerant of antisocial and unproductive behavior among the lower classes), I wrote : Murray does not consider the case of Joe Paterno, but in many ways the Penn State football coach fits his story well. Paterno was said to live an exemplary personal and professional life, combining traditional morality with football success—but, by his actions, he showed little concern about the morality of his players and coaches. At a professional level, Paterno rose higher and higher, and in his personal life he was a responsible adult. But he had an increasing disconnect with the real world, to the extent that horrible crimes were occurring nearby (in the physical and social senses) but he was completely insulated from the consequences for many years. Paterno’s story is s
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Introduction: Hank Aaron at the Brookings Institution, who knows a lot more about policy than I do, had some interesting comments on the recent New York Times article about problems with the Dartmouth health care atlas. which I discussed a few hours ago . Aaron writes that much of the criticism in that newspaper article was off-base, but that there are real difficulties in translating the Dartmouth results (finding little relation between spending and quality of care) to cost savings in the real world. Aaron writes: The Dartmouth research, showing huge variation in the use of various medical procedures and large variations in per patient spending under Medicare, has been a revelation and a useful one. There is no way to explain such variation on medical grounds and it is problematic. But readers, including my former colleague Orszag, have taken an oversimplistic view of what the numbers mean and what to do about them. There are three really big problems with the common interpreta
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