Its interesting that poor and working class is defined as the "American Culture" and deviation from that is interpreted as being "in a bubble". Having grown up in the working class, dependent of career military dad and both my parents from rural Texas, I'd posit the opposite - it's the rural and working class that live in a bubble. They have very narrow and close minded views, compared to the people I met in college and later in my upper middle class working career.
Ironic, right?
The term used in the book is not 'bubble'. It's 'silo-ing,' and the point under discussion was not that one group is 'better' so much as to point out that the vast majority of Americans throughout our history (and even today despite rising rates of educational attainment) did not attend college or work in white collar professions where only very particular types of intellectual capacity are valued. Therefore, the the author used that type of person is more numerically representative of 'traditional' American culture. Statistically speaking, it IS more representative. As you point out (though Murray did not), 'traditional, populist' American culture was, and remains, somewhat parochial and anti-intellectual. Murray's point is that because of increased silo-ing caused by assortatative mating (usually occurring at elite colleges or in the early stages of these high-powered careers) and by the modern intellectual and skill sets demanded by the global economy, this results in a relatively small subset of Americans (the highly educated professionals who work in the creative class or in careers with heavy intellectual demands) having lifestyles not only COMPLETELY different than the 'average' American's life, but remaining ignorant of just how different the two experiences are. Yet, nearly all the power brokers in our society come from this small subset of Americans (and I'd submit, this is part of why this current political explosion of populism and anti-establishment energy seems to have taken all the power brokers and the media by surprise).
If those reading this thread are interested in another granular breakdown of this topic, a GREAT book is Bill Bishop's "The Big Sort". There are some really neat survey data in there looking at political siloing, which indicate that conservatives and liberals drive different makes of cars, watch different tv and movies, do different types of exercise, raise their kids differently, look for different traits in their pets, landscape differently, etc. Essentially, the two political groups are living side by side in very different versions of America.
Anyway, back to Murray, who points out that many of the upper/intellectual minority of Americans have more in common with, and feel more comfortable socializing with, u/i individuals from OTHER countries than their fellow working-class, less educated Americans. But often, they don't even realize how separated they are from their fellow citizens.
My score (38) pegs me to a tee. My mom came from the working class, my father from 'old-school' upper middle professional with a few bachelor's degrees in business/engineering, etc., who built business in different sales (realty, insurance, etc) but were actively scornful of careers in the liberal arts, though ok with the sciences. I scored as high as I did mainly because I grew up in a very small town and did hard physical work. My husband scored around a 85 I think, when did this exercise a few years ago. The scores pegged him also. He was from a working poor, or occasionally working class, family. who broke out via the military. Then he went to college and a career in scientific research and academia, and now considers himself to have almost nothing in common with anyone in his family, and as a result, rarely has contact with them.
Essentially, we represent an older 'mating model' discussed in Murray's book, where we crossed a bit of class boundary to marry. However, had we had children, that crossover knowledge likely wouldn't have lasted through the next generation. Because we actively self-sorted ourselves into the minority of the educated, upper income American culture...any kids would have likely ended up effectively silo-ed from 'regular America' from birth.
Very interesting stuff.
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