The Dream & the Nightmare

Argues that the radical transformation of American culture which took place in the 1960s brought underclass - overwhelmingly urban, dismayingly minority - into existence.

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Myron Magnet's "The Dream and the Nightmare" argues that the radical transformation of American culture that took place in the 1960s brought today's underclass - overwhelmingly urban, dismayingly minority - into existence. Lifestyle experimentation among the white middle class often produced catastrophic changes in attitudes toward marriage and parenting, the work ethic and dependency in those at the bottom of the social ladder, and closed down their exits to the middle class.