Lunch with Charles Murray

Edward Luce:

At the same time, the elites in America have become so tolerant - afflicted with such "ecumenical niceness", as Murray calls it - that they cannot bring themselves to "preach what they practise". Partly because of their moral squeamishness, they tend to shield their children against even the tiniest risks in life, Murray says, including mixing with Americans from less fortunate backgrounds.

"There's a big difference between being good and being nice," Murray says as he works on his gin martini. "Being good involves tough choices - tough love. Ecumenical niceness is just pabulum. It's as if, in all our interactions, parents are trying to stop our kids eating food off the floor, when that is what would inoculate them against far costlier things later on in life."

Because of all this risk-aversion, he continues, the elites are more cut-off from mainstream American culture than ever before. In the 1960s, America's wealthy brought Buicks rather than Cadillacs, which were then the flashiest cars on the market. They may have been rich but their tastes were still middle-class. Today, they have abandoned such "seemliness". There is no pretence of sharing a culture with fellow Americans.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 12, 2012 4:37 AM
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