Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Three Answers to Pathology

There are three distinct manners in which an individual can interpret social pathology within the African-American community. For our example we will focus on the epidemic of single-motherhood that is plaguing the said community:

1. The racist makes the incorrect claim that African-Americans do X, Y & Z because of innate, inescapable bad qualities.

2. The progressive refuses to accept the behavior as being socially and economically destructive or even denies the prevalence of the pathology. With their general refusal to recognize reality, the chances of addressing a problem are particularly low.

3. The Enlightened Conservative recognizes that pathology, but does not view it as innate. Rather, they look for the historical factors and / or government policies that provided incentives for the growth of the phenomena. Accordingly their solutions usually focus on reducing subsidies of negative behavior and increasing incentives for positive behavior.

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