Adam Garfinkle: Thanks for sitting down with me, Dr. Murray. Let me say to start that while there are aspects of Coming Apart to which I take exception, I appreciate the main point—that class is not synonymous with race, and that culture more than class is what is increasingly dividing American society. Let me also say that I appreciate your honesty as a researcher, exemplified by the fact that you draw from diverse sources, whereas many of the people who criticize you don’t. In the section on social capital, for instance, you quote from Robert Putnam, Francis Fukuyama and Theda Scopkol, and you note favorably Richard Florida and Robert Reich, none of whom are libertarians.
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