Ginni Thomas

Charles Murray describes the backlash from the left after his books on white America [VIDEO]

Ginni Thomas Contributor
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Charles Murray, an analytic social scientist and scholar, has been offering up uncomfortable facts and examining the cultural changes underway in America over the last 30 years through his blockbuster books, “Losing Ground” and “Bell Curve.”

His most recent book, “Coming Apart” discussed white America’s erosion of the four “founding virtues” — industriousness, religiosity, honesty and marriage.

“One of the dirty little secrets about what’s going on right now is, even though we have had a recession, even though we still have high unemployment, there are a whole lot of healthy working-age men who are not looking for work,” Murray said.

“About one out of eight — there’s a stunning number for you — white males ages 30-49 in the prime of life — not even in the labor force as of 2008, even before the recession hit,” he continued.

The reactions to his books have not been kind, responses he describes in this interview.

Dr. Murray finds that Americans are living isolated, insular lives and that we have a cultural elite who are oblivious to cultural trends. From his book, he offers a 25-question quiz to test your own insularity to those shifting trends.

In this wide-ranging interview, his message to social conservatives about gay marriage is: “I think the train has left the station. I am not sure how it happened.”

“I don’t think that there’s much to be done politically anymore,” he said.

“Do you want to have the politics of the country enmeshed in that, or as you think of your priorities, are you also really upset about a Constitution which is no longer being interpreted as the founders intended, a country that was so exceptional, in terms of its freedom, is now being destroyed?” he asked. “Maybe that priority should have first priority, I’m saying.”

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

In a previous segment of the interview, Murray admits his own cultural blindness impaired him from accurately assessing the extreme positions of President Barack Obama, when the president-elect’s rhetoric more resembled the language of academic elites.

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