Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Hillbilly Elegy




Some excerpts:
  • There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.
  • Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.
  • That [school vouchers] debate is important, of course—for a long time, much of my failing school district qualified for vouchers—but it was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, “They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.”
  • What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.
  • If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.
  • Whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.
  • Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.
  • We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance—the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.
  • I don't know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.

goodreads


7 comments:

  1. I did not purchase this book but for what I could see, it was a great read. I felt like I was seeing the authors world (past) on paper(online). I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the struggles of other people. I feel like I focus more on my own struggle. How will I get though the next 16 hr shift? What will i eat today? This person is giving me a headache? Why doesn't my mom show me the same amount of attention as she gives my sisters?

    The introduction as well as the first chapter in this reading was very insightful. I want to keep reading. Midway through the first chapter I actually thought to myself, "I wonder what Mamaws house was really like?" I compared it to what my grandmothers house was like. It wasn't inviting nor was it a place I frolicked around with my siblings. When my single mother of three dropped me of because she worked, I cried and cried. I just wanted my mom.

    The authors story of a hillbilly life that he loves, learned from, and achieved new heights for himself is one I'd hoped to learn something from.

    I feel like I am always looking for the negative and his story he found the positive in the negative. I guess that's what I got out of the reading so far. I may just purchase this book. I'd like to read what happens next.

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  2. Anonymous3:59 PM CDT

    Just to reiterate what I put on the introduction page...
    Reading Hillbilly Elegy left me with this: You always have to make something of yourself. We all come from millions of different backgrounds, some of us become extremely successful while others continue down the path they came from, but we don't get to forget where we come from. If you have the means to help others from going down the path you did before you were able to get to where you are today, do it.
    Lauren D (10)

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  3. Did you purchase the book?

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  4. Matthew Weaver6:36 PM CDT

    #9


    I Haven’t Read Hillbilly Elegy, but ironically it is on my books to read list. From the attached videos and the included excerpts, I feel that I could get a sense of the main topic and theme of Hillbilly Elegy. I think that the issue of the responsibility of the state (government) for the declining academic performance and the lack of exposure and adoption of a moral fabric is spot on. This idea is seen in the statement by the teacher,” They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.” Regardless of your views on the role of the government in American’s lives, I think that the majority of Americans can agree that the education of the children of today and the children to come is a priority if not a necessity for the prosperity of the United States, but I think that the education system isn’t the root of the issue in totality, but a percentage of the problem. I believe the real issue, which J.D. Vance mentions many times is family problems. The family unit has been a staple in America since its inception and before. A group of people that are related by blood or marriage that contribute to the group through many types of means (jobs) to create a stable environment. In the year 1960 the single parent rate was nine percent that rate to twenty-six percent in the year 2014 (American). The rate of single parenthood rate exclusively for African Americans, is even higher at a rate of sixty-six percent in 2015. To get to the conclusion I think that the issue isn’t the most pressing issue that faces children today, but a lack of stable growing environment, due a variety of factors including: bad economic decisions, externalities, parental incarceration, and lack of adult educational programs to increase the class mobility of lower income families. I have attached the sources for the above statistics below.

    -Matt #9


    “1. The American family today.” Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research , 17 Dec. 2015, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/. Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.

    “Children in single-Parent families by race | KIDS COUNT Data Center.” KIDS COUNT data center: A project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by#detailed/1/any/false/573,869,36,868,867/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/432,431. Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.

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  5. #10

    I read Hillbilly Elegy at work, which probably sounds odd but it was a slow day. I think J.D Vance hit a lot of topics that people tend to shy away from, and I think more than just your "Appalachian Hillbillies" are rooted in this culture. A culture of not asking for help and acting like nothing is wrong, a culture that doesn't give you the tools you need to succeed and then wonders why you haven't done better. I think Hillbilly Elegy is also a book that asks you to look at yourself, and consider just how privileged you may or may not be and what you are or aren't going to do about it. It's a book that has one message that stands out from the others: that you can do whatever you want to do, regardless of what you have or where you're from. You just have to want to it and you have to help yourself out; you can't just expect things to happen to you, you have to make them happen.

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  6. #9
    I agree with him when he talks about the culture shock that he has when coming to college. I felt like him when I first transferred over to a university from high school my first year. I felt like an outcast having to start over didn't know anybody. Also, i had to adjust and act like an adult and be productive and it was tough at first but I got the hang of things after my first semester.

    "He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right." I agree and disagree with him on some of his thoughts. I feel President Barrack Obama is a great father. Now where I disagree is even though he wears suit to his job and we where overalls is a not true, I feel that that's a choice some people get complacent in what they love doing which is hard labor or working a 9 to 5 its nothing wrong with it but understand that's a choice. I also disagree with his comment "What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault." I feel like the government doesn't have any thing to do with how your life turns out you are the captain of your own ship for example I'm from Detroit the jobs are very slim in Detroit I could have join the crowed and not chose to better myself but I leaped out on faith to do something for my own life.

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  7. I found it interesting when he said "If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward."

    This combination of nihilism, the belief that nothing really matters (including life, both others' and one's own) and negativity/aggravation with life for the failures caused by one not caring can lead to a very dangerous philosophy. The Joker, for instance (the cool one from the Dark Knight trilogy), essentially shares this outlook on life (though he didn't do what he did because of normal reasons).

    So, essentially, people are migrating en masse to a philosophy that borders on dangerous, along with frustration at a political system and people to blame. All of this could prove very troubling in the coming years if it gets out of hand.

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