Glenn Loury is one of those public intellectuals who isn’t afraid to question “progressive” notions about what ails America.

In this interview, Bucknell professor Alexander Riley asks Loury about the problems in America, and not just those of the black community.

Here’s a sample:

So the racial disparity here becomes a glaring thing, but it’s nested within a larger question. You could make the point that the real driving forces here are far larger than “black culture.” Racial disparity is really only a derivative result of the larger social abandonment of a set of norms which manifests itself most immediately and most severely in the African American population, but which really is a larger atmospheric that’s developing for all of us.

Yes — the abandonment of norms. The norms that made America work and were responsible for economic and social progress. The leftists have been undermining those norms ever since the New Deal.

I recommend reading the whole thing.