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Susan Love Brown Subscribe

Susan Love Brown is professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University and the author of "African Americans" (in Race and Ethnicity, 2nd edition, edited by Raymond Scupin) and the editor of Intentional Community: An Anthropological Perspective (SUNY Press).

March 17, 2015|

Owning the American Past

by Susan Love Brown|

In response to: Evaluating the Moynihan Report on the Negro Family 50 Years Later

One of the advantages of looking at The Negro Family: The Case for National Action after 50 years is perspective. Perspective is a form of knowledge that allows us to see from a different vantage point and to bring new information to bear on a problem. In responding to Greg Weiner’s essay, I bring the perspective of time to bear on my own assessment of the Moynihan Report along with my perspective as a cultural anthropologist with a special interest in American and African American culture. It is easy to read the Report as being more prescient than it actually was,…

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More Responses

Two Cheers for the Moynihan Report . . . Or One

by Scott Yenor

Knowing what we know today about family breakdown among Americans and across the modern industrialized world, it seems that Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s The Negro Family: The Case for National Action mistakes the particular for the general and might reflect a misunderstanding of the decline of the family. Moynihan’s 1965 Report emphasizes the ways in which…

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From Moynihan to Murphy Brown

by Robin Fretwell Wilson

If there is one thing Pat Moynihan taught us, it is that talking about the family can be fraught with peril. Published at a time when nearly one in four African American children was born outside of marriage—seven times the rate for whites (see Figure 1)—the Moynihan Report gave a “faithful contemporaneous portrait” as Greg…

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The Moynihan Report at 50: Greg Weiner Replies

by Greg Weiner

In assessing the Moynihan Report at 50, I have the privilege of far more thoughtful interlocutors than Daniel Patrick Moynihan—who was subjected to a digest of calumnies for the rest of his life—enjoyed on the original product. I am grateful to Scott Yenor, Robin Fretwell Wilson and Susan Love Brown for their thoughtful commentaries. Yenor…

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Fools Rush In?

by Scott Yenor

Don’t get into theological arguments with Masters of Divinity, and don’t argue Daniel Patrick Moynihan with his most astute intellectual biographer! That is a good rule of prudence, but fools rush in . . . sometimes. Moynihan is mostly known in conservative circles for his emphasis on the limits of social policy, and my question concerns…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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