Word: booked
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ideas in this book set Moynihan off from the "mainstream" of American liberal thought on racial matters. The first idea is that the situation of American blacks is largely similar to that of other ethnic groups which have assimilated successfully into the majority culture. One senses in this book a tone of moral disapproval towards blacks who haven't acquired the civility of the rising Irish: if the poor of today could only become as self-respecting and self-reliant as the Irish were in their day, the "racial" problem would solve itself...
...belief, since he tells his readers that he argued against community action at the outset, and goes on to credit the programs with helping to create the atmosphere for riots on one side and the rise of George Wallace on the other. But he emphasizes throughout the book that what he is primarily concerned with is the broader problem of the application of social science to public policy. What disturbs Moynihan about the Community Action Program is that its beneftis were never convincingly demonstrated in a quantitative, scientific manner. That the Program has certain harmful effects is something which...
...EMERGES in this book, Moynihan's basic outlook is one of contentment. Of course he is aware, as everyone is, that America still has a lot of problems. But like most contemporary American social theorists, Moynihan views America's troubles as residual, as the unfinished business of a society which has on the whole found satisfactory answers for its problems. He deplores the Vietnam war as a tragic waste of resources, but sees no particular link between wasteful military expenditures and Keynesian economic planning, which he praises as the basis of "the singularly successful political economy...
...possibility of such a reaction haunts this book. As I read it, I had the feeling that should this reaction materialize fully, Moynihan may well find himself in the role of its chief intellectual apologist...
...Politics of Experience is the attempt of Ronald Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist, "to document some forms of our contemporary violation of ourselves." The widespread interest the book has generated since it reached the American market in September suggest that Laing succeeds in his endeavor, that many have found in it clues to their alienation...