One by One from the Inside Out (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

This volume collects Glenn Loury’s writings of the last eleven years. The most substantial pieces appeared first in such publications as FIRST THINGS, THE PUBLIC INTEREST, and MOMENT. Readers should begin with the newly composed Epilogue, in which Loury confesses that his extraordinary success as a Harvard economist and public intellectual left him spiritually wasted. He acknowledges “slavery to drugs and alcohol,” marital infidelity and severe depression. With a frankness rarely found in academic books, Loury recounts his conversion to Christianity. Since then, his wife has borne him two children, and he joyously dedicates the book to this trio.

Loury’s key positions are most fully presented in “Black Dignity and the Common Good,” “Two Paths to Black Progress” and “Economic Discrimination.” Interesting material appears in the book reviews, where he evaluates works by conservatives such as Charles Murray and Shelby Steele as well as those by such liberals as Andrew Hacker, Derrick Bell, and Cornel West. A notable feature of the collection is Loury’s attention to the strained relations between Jews and African Americans in the 1990’s.

What are Loury’s positions? First, he argues that a “post-Civil Rights” era has emerged but black America has failed to adjust. The Civil Rights movement focused rightly on gaining fundamental citizenship, but Loury believes that using the old approaches is misguided, for this deepens an already unhealthy reliance on government-initiated solutions. Second, true freedom of thought is lacking in African American intellectual circles, since Civil Rights stalwarts have imposed a distinct orthodoxy. Third, black Americans need to return to the legacy of Booker T. Washington, which stressed self-improvement and the virtues of “thrift, industry, cleanliness, chastity and orderliness.” Loury rejects Washington’s aversion to politics, but he is prepared to say that a “profound pathology” now exists in some quarters of contemporary black life. Such a pathology cannot be cured through the interventions of whites and is not best healed by political means.

Loury does recommend government intervention, but aimed less at desegregation and more on improving “the schools, neighborhoods, and families where poor black children are concentrated.” The disparity between “the social capital” (skills, opportunities, knowledge, property, “connections”) owned by whites and that owned by blacks is so great that a “color-blind” public policy will not suffice.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. XCI, April 15, 1995, p. 1458.

Essence. XXVI, November, 1995, p. 68.

Kirkus Reviews. LXIII, March 1, 1995, p. 301.

The Nation. CCLX, April 24, 1995, p. 567.

National Review. XLVII, June 26, 1995, p. 56.

The New York Times Book Review. C, May 21, 1995, p. 3.

Publishers Weekly. CCXLII, March 20, 1995, p. 49.

Reason. XXVII, May, 1995, p. 60.

The Wall Street Journal. May 19, 1995, p. A12.

The Wilson Quarterly. XIX, Summer, 1995, p. 77.