03-23-2017, 01:46 PM
(03-23-2017, 12:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(03-23-2017, 08:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(03-22-2017, 06:45 PM)Odin Wrote: Liberal shaming of Appalachia: Inside the media elite’s obsession with the “hillbilly problem”
The article talks about Appalachia in particular, but ever since the election I've been seeing a nauseating amount of offensive shit from my fellow progressives about rural and small town Americans, some of it bordering on outright Social Darwinism ("They voted against their own healthcare coverage, let them die and decrease the surplus population!" and similar BS). I'm sick of hearing about how everyone out here is stupid, backwards, and inbred.
I'd suggest, if you already haven't, that you read Hillbilly Eulogy. Their cultural differences are real. On the other hand, "stupid, backwards and inbred" counts as a vile stereotype to me. Any group with an agenda is apt to demonize opposing groups. It is easy to take a reasonable and understandable cultural difference and exaggerate it into pure ugliness. I don't approve.
There is a rural tendency to see the government as inefficient, corrupt and autocratic. This too can be taken to the point of a vile stereotype. Can I daydream about a world where neither the hillbillies nor the government are demonized? While it isn't in the Bill of Rights, I'll argue for a right to daydream. I'm not about to confuse the daydream with reality, though. There's an awful lot of pre judgement and hatred flowing around.
"Can be"? How about, IS, routinely, habitually and compulsively. And IS the reason we have the backward government that we have.
It didn't used to be so, to such a degree. Perhaps the hillbillies feel threatened as never before by changes in society, so they hold on to what is most-often fed to them these days?
Preservation of a culture can mean rejection of positive trends. White people in the Mountain South are finding that they can no longer compete with immigrant groups that respect formal learning. Anti-intellectualism that goes beyond criticism of wayward writers and college professors and rejects modern science and scholarship on principle is not good for self-improvement.
Quote:Calling them "stupid" may not be correct; after all, many of them can fix and run a tractor, shoot a rifle, plant crops, run a business, and are sometimes as self-reliant as they want everyone else to be. Maybe they know how to talk better than I do, and keep their relationships longer than I do; maybe not, but I don't know. The jobs did not leave the Rust Belt and the Farm Belt because these guys couldn't do the work. Maybe they are too set in their ways to become geeks and move to Tech Town. But that doesn't make them "stupid" per se.
They may not be so much 'stupid' as 'stubborn'.
Quote:However, can I call it stupid to think creationism should replace evolution in science courses, and take the Bible literally, thinking their religion and all its rules and prejudices should be imposed on people? Or to blame immigrants for their job losses? Or to knock hippies while they swallow the pills they themselves are addicted to? Or to be swept up in hatred for government, and forget the misbehavior of business that requires it? Or in some cases to hold on to racial prejudices and respond to the anti-welfare dog whistles, and thereby deprive themselves and others of the social support network they and their community needs? And support massive armaments and unnecessary wars, no matter how expensive, just so their country can be #1 and its commander in chief not questioned, as long as it's their guy?
The jobs are being created outside of the Mountain South. With few exceptions, people are not moving to the Mountain South and destroying the 'hillbilly' culture. But going where the opportunities are may be a necessity, even if that implies meeting people who have no connection to their culture. We all face that challenge, and we all need to contemplate how we deal with that challenge. I do not have to be Japanese to like Japanese woodblock prints; I do not need to be Italian to appreciate Italian opera.
Quote:Yes, I'd call those decisions made at the ballot box "stupid" ones. I wouldn't call the people "stupid" per se, since they are probably in some cases as smart as me, and can do some things I can't normally do. That does not leave them off the hook for what they DO do that is "stupid."
People not understanding what their interests are? Sure -- if they rely upon inadequate sources for their 'enlightenment'. Those inade4quate sources confirm what people already believe. Don;t we all need to question whether our sources are valid?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.