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All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

theatlantic.com

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Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#71

Post by tosseraccount »

digbyloftus wrote: post #52
tosseraccount wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Employers can't test for intelligence? Do you have a link that backs up your assertion that "employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co . >The effect of this decision has been to eliminate aptitude tests from the hiring process. During the intervening years, the college diploma has become the "de facto" tool by HR departments to winnow the flood of applications. Many jobs today require a college diploma, while before Griggs the same job did not.

How come employers still use aptitude tests then? It is apparently still legal.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#73

Post by unexistance »

JackFr wrote: post #53
Spooky23 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people yearn for purpose, family, and community. I think of my grandparents and how they lived their lives. My mom's dad was a NYC Sanitation worker, among other things. They lived frugally and eventually had a small summer cottage in the country. He had an 8th grade education, because his family in Ireland couldn't afford more. Yet he taught himself calculus up to the calc 2 level. That whole cohort of grandpar…

This is spot on. Sometimes I think the broader culture seems to be stripping the meaning out of life, convincing us that we are no more than hedonic production/consumption machines. The breakdown of the family (and not simply the household, but the larger extended family), the loss of non-state civic institutions and death of churches are either a cause or an effect, but its not clear which. And to me, there are not…

The first step in solving this is to actually aware this is happening, then try to make others aware of the same...

Then try to do things that are non-hedonistic and/or non-consumeristic (not sure if there's such a word)... Yeah, it's a LOT harder than it sounds, but that's the least we can do IMHO

and keep your family and/or friends together, and always try to leave a good image in their eye

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#74

Post by NhanH »

rl3 wrote: post #38
maxmax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food? You need to think much more basic than that: Success is having a savings account, a roof over your head in a safe stable location so the kids can stay in the same school, reliable transportation, and a job that provides enough income for all of the above.

Success is whatever provides an individual with a consistent feeling of happiness and fulfillment in their life.

Happiness and fulfillment can be argued to be just as vain/unattainable/not a good goal etc. as any other criteria.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#75

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #34
danieltillett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education alone does tend to make people better neighbours. There is true value in education, but unfortunately the only market demand is for people who are intelligent, conscientious and educated in certain fields. Hit all three and you are in demand otherwise a life of dead end jobs awaits you.

Education is a proxy for IQ and conscientiousness. People with these characteristics (and importantly the wealth this provides) tend to make better neighbours. Zuck dropped out of college, yet I very much doubt he'd be a terrible neighbour, nor would a neighbourhood full of Harvard dropouts be bad.

>nor would a neighbourhood full of Harvard dropouts be bad.

I think that surveying Alston or Cambridge might not lead to this conclusion.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#76

Post by Moshe_Silnorin »

ap22213 wrote: post #49
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #7

I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more eff…

"Education is a proxy for IQ and conscientiousness." Tell that to over 30% of my gifted class who weren't able to attend college (at least not until much later in life). Education is generally a proxy for wealth, a certain type of culture, and supportive parents, in my experience.

I didn't say it is a perfect proxy. It provides some evidence. Modern credentialism is so awful that even a terrible idea like tattooing people's IQs on their foreheads would probably work much better and be much cheaper.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#77

Post by vinceguidry »

I will never miss an opportunity to trot out my favorite quote:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - Ronald Wright

Americans are just going to have to get over themselves and figure out how to cooperate with their peers. We will take any opportunity to lash out at the ones we love. Dude's wife left him after he lost a job, he must not have been a very likable person.

Most everywhere else in the world, living conditions have approximately tripled. People with nothing hold on to what they have. The US is the richest nation in the world, lots of people born here never really wanted for anything. So they fritter away things they really should hold on to, like a rich idiot jonesing for "self-actualization".

Fuck the unions, we don't need 'em. Fuck that bitch wife of mine, I have Facebook and Tinder. I'll drink and smoke weed every day, that's what keeps me sane. These are people that need Sanders but will vote Trump.

These people are not middle class. They don't have middle class values or sensibilities. They're lower-class Americans that rode the success of the 70s-90s up to a degree of stability but never built a real life out of it, frittering away the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they had.

You can't tailor policy to them with a prayer of allowing them to maintain their lifestyle. That lifestyle was predicated on a boom time and the party is now over. Unless you want to directly subsidize it, it's gone. You can't bring unions back because they won't join them, it's why the unions left in the first place. All you can do is alleviate some of the symptoms.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#78

Post by nommm-nommm »

JackFr wrote: post #58
vacri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few of the things that were available to the middle class 25 years ago are available to the best and brightest today. This is such millenialist bullshit. Overall people are better off now than ever before. Yes, there are problems now, but there have always been problems. 25 years ago, the internet was unknown to the general public. Housing is more expensive, but food and clothing are cheaper, something these s…

> Remember when being visibly pregnant in public was a source of shame? Am I missing some context? When was that?

I ran into this(1) a few months ago and it stood out to me.

(1)https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-...

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Pregnant women nowadays appear to want everyone to know they are pregnant, and how far along they are, by wearing tight knit tops. Not only are their stomachs huge, but their belly buttons are pooched out.

I find this disgusting. I’m in my early 60s — am I too old-fashioned? I miss the days when women wore loose “maternity blouses.” One knew that the woman was pregnant, but we didn’t have to be reminded of what was going on under the maternity blouse.

GENTLE READER: What Miss Manners misses are the days when no one would have thought of staring a lady — pregnant or not — in the belly button. She does not miss the days when pregnant ladies were expected to dress as if they were wearing the nursery curtains.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#79

Post by meric »

NhanH wrote: post #74
rl3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is whatever provides an individual with a consistent feeling of happiness and fulfillment in their life.

Happiness and fulfillment can be argued to be just as vain/unattainable/not a good goal etc. as any other criteria.

For myself, personally, I identify "success" with "a feeling of having more than enough", and that's what I'm trying to cultivate.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#80

Post by colechristensen »

Spooky23 wrote: post #20
meric wrote: post #10

What is society's ideal for the average white working class? What is "success"? Is it better looking houses? More expensive cars? Fresher food? Is it getting to live in a very expensive nursing home when they retire? Is it equality where both husband and wife are responsible exactly 50% in finances, chores and taking care of the kids? Or have the time & money to spend a lot more time with the kids; Will welfare help…

Most people yearn for purpose, family, and community. I think of my grandparents and how they lived their lives. My mom's dad was a NYC Sanitation worker, among other things. They lived frugally and eventually had a small summer cottage in the country. He had an 8th grade education, because his family in Ireland couldn't afford more. Yet he taught himself calculus up to the calc 2 level. That whole cohort of grandpar…

We lost religion because the morals and beliefs it was pushing seemed ridiculous. In that we threw the baby out with the bathwater. The community and purpose went out and didn't get replaced.

Some people didn't lose religion, but replaced it with something with equal devotion. You can see many of the same behaviors (including the negative ones) with people and their zealous appreciation for political parties, sports teams, social justice, environmental causes, etc. The same things that were wrong about religion were just as wrong here, but people struggle to see the real problems and replace the void properly with positive things.

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