The Burden of Bad Ideas - book review

In the first paragraph of the Introduction to The Burden of Bad Ideas, How Modern Intellectuals Misshape Our Society, author Heather MacDonald says it all:

I once asked a mother on food stamps what she would do without them. "I'd get a husband," she replied matter-of-facatly. Here was news, I thought -- a tantalizing bit of evidence of welfare's corrosive effect on the inner city family. But when I recounted this exchange in an article for one of the nation's most influential newspapers, the editor ordered me to leave it out. Quoting it, he said, would "stigmatize the poor."

I thought this was so telling as an introduction to the introduction. First of all, has anyone ever pulled Ms. MacDonald's leg? Does she take all statements from strangers at face value? Does she have any idea what it takes to "get a husband"? It certainly seems to me that MacDonald is predisposed to see "corrosive effect" where she wants to see it. There is a whole universe of follow-up questions that could be asked to clarify the situation but it is much easier to jump to the conclusion. And if a newspaper editor wouldn't let her stigmatize the poor, she would write a book to do it herself.

This attitude is perfectly representative of the rest of the book. She can't understand why we shouldn't just pull those food stamps and let women get husbands. That would solve two problems, wouldn't it? The very least we could do is to make the poor, especially the undeserving poor, feel the shame they so rightly deserve.

Another topic that she handles just as miserably is sex education. She worries that so much is spent toward teaching our youth about condom usage that no one gets around to teaching about abstinence. Yes, abstinence properly practiced would solve a lot of problems and "stigmatizing" the WOMEN who get pregnant out of wedlock would probably encourage abstinence (and reinforce the double standard) but no one yet has found a way to force abstinence in a free society, or even in fairly closed societies for that matter. Preaching abstinence and making boys and girls pledge chastity delays sex for approximately one year. That's good but then if they haven't learned about birth control, they still get pregnant before they're married. What MacDonald can't seem to understand is that it doesn't have to be either/or it can be both/and.

I'm certainly not saying that everything in the book is wrong. And the government has implemented good programs poorly and bad programs even worse but to advocate a return to the good old days when we stigmatize the poor or punish the woman for a man's lack of self control strikes me as a huge leap backwards in human social science.