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An overwhelming number of people of differing viewpoints get along just fine on a daily basis. Politicians and stupid message boards are where the divide is largely happening.
Although the OP completely "misrepresented" the book, I want to thank him or her for the recommendation, which I have now ordered from the library. For those of you who would like a review:
From the Wikipedia summary (excerpted) --
QUOTE: "Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions such as the responsibility of his family and people for their own misfortune. Vance blames hillbilly culture and its supposed encouragement of social rot. Comparatively, he feels that economic insecurity plays a much lesser role. To lend credence to his argument, Vance regularly relies on personal experience. As a grocery store checkout cashier, he watched welfare recipients talk on cell phones while Vance himself could not afford one. This resentment towards those who apparently profited from misdeeds while he struggled, especially combined with his values of personal responsibility and tough love, is presented as a microcosm of Appalachia's overall political swing from strong Democratic Party to strong Republican affiliations. Likewise, he recounts stories intended to showcase a lack of work ethic including, the story of a man who quit after expressing dislike over his job’s hours and posted to social media about the "Obama economy", as well as a co-worker, with a pregnant girlfriend, who would skip work.[1]" ENDQUOTE
[My italics]
Yup.
But Vance does not spare his own family from his criticism, nor himself.
The only person in his family he doesn't criticize is his Grandmother, whose love and fierce devotion to him gave him his way out of his family's mental traps.
Vance was always self-aware enough to see the differences between his hillbilly family and other families. His family disagreed by screaming at each other. Other families never screamed. When other families shouted at each other, his family turned to blows and beat each other up.
When an other family lost track of a child, they all kept their heads and went looking for the kid. His family went hunting for their guns first, immediately expecting the most extreme outcomes, and prepared first for personal vengeance and retribution always.
When someone else's mother was overcome, she fell into weeping in the kitchen. When his mother was overcome, she tried to kill herself and all her kids in the car. Drunk on her butt.
That's what Vance criticizes. The emotional extremes that ruled all their lives constantly.
But even then, he bemoans the fact that his beloved Grandmother could never see the same things she wanted the most for him would have saved herself and her children from their own self-destructive, overwrought ways.
His Grandmother provided anything Vance needed so much he had to ask for it. Even if she had to starve herself to provide it, or pull out one of the dozens of guns she had stashed around her house. Whatever it took to get J.D. what he needed.
And Vance never needed very much except some stability. His life was always make-do, and he credits his upbringing for the determination he needed to make a success of himself.
He learned how to seize small opportunities and enlarge them, mostly from observing his Grandmother's failures. She knew all the right steps, but never learned how to walk in those steps she saw.
He learned he had to walk in them. Just knowing them wasn't good enough. And even though he knew how to walk, he stumbled once before learning how to stay on his feet.
And Vance blames no one. The only blame he lays is on the culture they were all part of and came from. Vance believes that the hillbilly excesses may have once been good qualities for prosperous survival in a time when subsistence living was the universal way of life.
But once society moved on to mutual interdependence, that old hillbilly society, that didn't change and didn't respond to the changing times, began to fail and the failure led to dissolution and decay.
People talk about how everyone should travel to foreign countries to educate themselves about different cultures. How about everyone should live in different parts of their own country to educate themselves about different American cultures.
So many of our leaders are clueless, yes including Trump, but it seems like it is getting worse, as it is now acceptable to view different US areas as "the other". Booker comes right out and says it, as if he is surprised Americans could have something in common with other Americans.
This is just wrong thinking. Somehow I managed to live in both urban and rural areas, and get along fine, people are people.
All rural areas are different as are cities, West Virginia is quite different than Vermont and Newark is not the same as Boston. The entrenched generational poverty and lack of education are common to both. Drug addiction is a new problem to rural areas that was previously limited to cities and the suburbs.
The author fittingly is a Republican, it's amazing what self-reliance, determination, and hard work can do for the poor in this country.
It's ironic that a Democrat, who opposes such concepts, would praise the book.
Booker isn't against hard work, that is just right wing nonsense, you can support social programs for those at the bottom and still promote making yourself a better person. Both Ben Carson and JD Vance hit the lottery with a strong figure that made sure they didn't fail, that is not a recipe for success. Children from poor single parent and no parent families have the deck stacked against them. Hard work isn't limited to either party nor is the use of social programs.
I read the book and though it was an interesting story of Appalachia culture, it certainly did not make me any more respectful of the folks in that culture. For me, the message was similar to an earlier book, “What’s The Matter With Kansas” and, a more recent book, “Educated” about a woman from Idaho who rejected her family’s contempt for government and education and managed to escape a life of ignorance. All of these books share a common theme of rural independence. Of folks who scorn education, government and pretty much anyone outside of their insulated communities. All three books are interesting reads but the message of all was of folks stuck in a culture that cannot and will not prosper in today’s world. Yes, some of these people are fiercely strong and independent but their stubborn and steadfast refusal to interact with cultures outside their own ensures generation after generation of bitterness and despair.
And this is just what I was referring to in my previous post in this thread: taking one book, an account of ONE family, their personalities and their choices and their experiences - to be representative of the vast majority of people from a culture and/or area.
Please, please, please, learn more about Appalachia and her history and people, both those who remained in the region and those who migrated for economic reasons. Vance's family is typical in that they left - but they would not be viewed well or a typical people of Appalachian background by many others who share their background, for the reasons I cited previously.
The Dems have been bashing on rural America for a while. At least as far back as Kerry "Can I get me a hunting license here?" His attempt to speak rural American. I wonder what movie he watched to come up with that.
Then you had Obama small town Americans cling to their guns and religion.
Hillary took her disrespect for rural America to new levels and it showed in the polls.
Yup.
But Vance does not spare his own family from his criticism, nor himself.
The only person in his family he doesn't criticize is his Grandmother, whose love and fierce devotion to him gave him his way out of his family's mental traps.
Vance was always self-aware enough to see the differences between his hillbilly family and other families. His family disagreed by screaming at each other. Other families never screamed. When other families shouted at each other, his family turned to blows and beat each other up.
When an other family lost track of a child, they all kept their heads and went looking for the kid. His family went hunting for their guns first, immediately expecting the most extreme outcomes, and prepared first for personal vengeance and retribution always.
When someone else's mother was overcome, she fell into weeping in the kitchen. When his mother was overcome, she tried to kill herself and all her kids in the car. Drunk on her butt.
That's what Vance criticizes. The emotional extremes that ruled all their lives constantly.
But even then, he bemoans the fact that his beloved Grandmother could never see the same things she wanted the most for him would have saved herself and her children from their own self-destructive, overwrought ways.
His Grandmother provided anything Vance needed so much he had to ask for it. Even if she had to starve herself to provide it, or pull out one of the dozens of guns she had stashed around her house. Whatever it took to get J.D. what he needed.
And Vance never needed very much except some stability. His life was always make-do, and he credits his upbringing for the determination he needed to make a success of himself.
He learned how to seize small opportunities and enlarge them, mostly from observing his Grandmother's failures. She knew all the right steps, but never learned how to walk in those steps she saw.
He learned he had to walk in them. Just knowing them wasn't good enough. And even though he knew how to walk, he stumbled once before learning how to stay on his feet.
And Vance blames no one. The only blame he lays is on the culture they were all part of and came from. Vance believes that the hillbilly excesses may have once been good qualities for prosperous survival in a time when subsistence living was the universal way of life.
But once society moved on to mutual interdependence, that old hillbilly society, that didn't change and didn't respond to the changing times, began to fail and the failure led to dissolution and decay.
Again, you have fallen into the trap. While Vance's success and dogged determination to succeed are admirable, his experience is NOT that of most people from Appalachia, nor is his family's extreme behavior and volatility typical.
Vance's family does share the common trait of great loyalty to their original home and family closeness, even through times of familial conflict. They are clannish, something often seen in Appalachian immigrants north - but much of this is due to being mocked and viewed as lesser by natives of their new place of residence.
Shoot, I'm from the manicured rolling meadows of central Kentucky, the legendary Bluegrass with million-dollar thoroughbreds, and have a graduate degree and I do speak grammatically and I have never aimed a shotgun at anyone and I've worn shoes since before I could walk - yet I ran into to some of these same stereotypes when I lived in Cincinnati when I first began my career. I was from Kentucky and I didn't speak with a Germanic Cincinnati accent - and that was enough for the tired old - even then, old - stereotypes and prejudices to be hauled out (ironically, I have some German ancestry myself).
So, while I admire Vance for his good qualities, I deplore that he used his family as he did - to indict everyone from a multi-state region for their supposed dysfunction, based solely on his own dysfunctional experience with his own family. It's too bad that his readers who are not very familiar with Appalachian culture and people and history are buying this very incorrect and very damaging theory - though it's certainly helping Vance's pocketbook.
Who was it in the Bible who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage? Story's kinda familiar...
I'm sorry but how much time, money and sympathy are we supposed to dedicate to rural voters who already are overrepresented electorally? I'm am so tired of these people "demanding to be heard" as if they don't already hold the country hostage. They elected Trump who is now alienating our allies, removing the U.S. as a global leader, taking away environmental protections, creating tariff wars, and profiting financially through his properties that suddenly need to host government, corporate and foreign dignitary meetings on his properties while he charges our government. It all stinks so badly and it's all because rural voters just don't get enough attention? Give it a rest.
Trump is making a mess of this country and hopefully some of it will land on his supporters, as it should. They do not care about the rest of the country, they would cheer if there was an earthquake that tore away the entire perimeter of the country. That is a fact. These people hate education and regard it as elitist. They love religion when it's convenient and don't care about it if "their guy" is elected. They only care about themselves and say so constantly. If Cory Booker is reading a book about them, he's showing a lot more empathy than I have left. What a bunch of whiny, selfish babies they are.
History should reflect what rural voters tried to do to this country and they should never be let off the hook for it.
I'm sorry but how much time, money and sympathy are we supposed to dedicate to rural voters who already are overrepresented electorally? I'm am so tired of these people "demanding to be heard" as if they don't already hold the country hostage. They elected Trump...............
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin voted for Trump.
Again, you have fallen into the trap. While Vance's success and dogged determination to succeed are admirable, his experience is NOT that of most people from Appalachia, nor is his family's extreme behavior and volatility typical.
Vance's family does share the common trait of great loyalty to their original home and family closeness, even through times of familial conflict. They are clannish, something often seen in Appalachian immigrants north - but much of this is due to being mocked and viewed as lesser by natives of their new place of residence.
Shoot, I'm from the manicured rolling meadows of central Kentucky, the legendary Bluegrass with million-dollar thoroughbreds, and have a graduate degree and I do speak grammatically and I have never aimed a shotgun at anyone and I've worn shoes since before I could walk - yet I ran into to some of these same stereotypes when I lived in Cincinnati when I first began my career. I was from Kentucky and I didn't speak with a Germanic Cincinnati accent - and that was enough for the tired old - even then, old - stereotypes and prejudices to be hauled out (ironically, I have some German ancestry myself).
So, while I admire Vance for his good qualities, I deplore that he used his family as he did - to indict everyone from a multi-state region for their supposed dysfunction, based solely on his own dysfunctional experience with his own family. It's too bad that his readers who are not very familiar with Appalachian culture and people and history are buying this very incorrect and very damaging theory - though it's certainly helping Vance's pocketbook.
Who was it in the Bible who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage? Story's kinda familiar...
Oh, his story is actually quite typical for the region (and many other regions) and poor whites in general. There’s a lot of anger, resentment, aggrieved entitlement and entrenched poor cultural values...just the same as you’d find among the poor of every other race. There’s nothing atypical about his experience.
In fact, there was little difference in his story and the story of Michael Patrick MacDonald who wrote “All Souls,” which is a book about the poor whites who lived in the Southie neighborhood of Boston. Poverty, drug abuse, domestic abuse, lack of education, serial myopia, and in the Boston story, crime that would make your hair stand up.
Nah...the book is pretty spot on. Boston and Kentucky are too far apart for those accounts to be eerily similar without being factual.
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