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Hillbillies Need No Elegy

bittersoutherner.com

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Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#11

Post by scarejunba »

I've got to tell you: every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation. We're reduced to using blind men's descriptions of elephants. Nothing can be adequately explained in any book, not Appalachia and not the subculture of people in a semi-urban locality outside of Kandy.

This is natural, so we use shortcuts as heuristic predictive tools: so the Russians throw numbers at war, the Chinese steal your secrets, the Appalachians are poor, the New Yorkers rude, the Japanese clean and neat. And the San Frannigans bristle at that demonym while they shit themselves in the street.

So, no, the fact that there is complexity and uniqueness in culture is normal. It is not interesting. The only value is what you extract as the weak trendline. Imagine a scatterplot with loads of overlapping red and blue dots, but there are more blue dots above some line than red dots, by a considerable number. Most of them will interact, some red dot may even be higher than any blue dots, but you will be reduced to the fact that blue is higher than red on the graph. It is a weak decisioning tool because the complexity is both incompressible and useless for prediction.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#12

Post by bshoemaker »

thebooktocome wrote: post #5
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #2

These sorts of elaborate rebuttals, like the article or the art project it references, aren't that different from the works of outsiders that they seek to prove wrong. It seemingly is the case that Appalachia attracts a kind of journalist-meets-artist who finds plenty of material for a culture-tinged exposé of somewhat-thoughtful poverty and hardship porn, but a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Kno…

> a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Know is aimed at the level of The New Yorker, and not something relatable to everyday folk in the suburbs or the Midwest. Midwesterner here. You don't speak for me. JD Vance doesn't speak for me. Try listening for once.

Lol stfu

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#13

Post by dang »

thebooktocome wrote: post #5
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #2

These sorts of elaborate rebuttals, like the article or the art project it references, aren't that different from the works of outsiders that they seek to prove wrong. It seemingly is the case that Appalachia attracts a kind of journalist-meets-artist who finds plenty of material for a culture-tinged exposé of somewhat-thoughtful poverty and hardship porn, but a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Kno…

> a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Know is aimed at the level of The New Yorker, and not something relatable to everyday folk in the suburbs or the Midwest. Midwesterner here. You don't speak for me. JD Vance doesn't speak for me. Try listening for once.

Please don't take personal swipes or lash back at another comment, even if it is wrong or seems so. Doing that only makes things worse. It doesn't help.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#14

Post by smt88 »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #2

These sorts of elaborate rebuttals, like the article or the art project it references, aren't that different from the works of outsiders that they seek to prove wrong. It seemingly is the case that Appalachia attracts a kind of journalist-meets-artist who finds plenty of material for a culture-tinged exposé of somewhat-thoughtful poverty and hardship porn, but a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Kno…

> life there is pretty normal for rural America

I've lived in Appalachia my entire life (West Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New York).

Although I can't generalize about the people of either the Midwest or Appalachia, there are some big differences between rural Appalachia and some other rural places.

1) Landscape. Due to the difficulty of building roads, some Appalachian places (closer to WV and KY) were extremely isolated until the 20th century. This affected culture, education, wealth, and industry. It's a huge factor in the region even today.

2) Agriculture. In most of Appalachia, you can't have a massive corn plantation. You rarely see a large field of anything at all. Most of the exports are capital-intensive and extractive (mining or timber), and the result is that there's a pattern of wealthy outsiders plundering the resources and leaving locals with little of the gain.

3) Stereotypes. A strong Midwestern accent (from, let's say, rural MI or PA) does not have the same connotation as a strong Appalachian accent (from KY or WV). The stereotypes of the regions just aren't the same, and they do affect people applying for jobs.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#15

Post by csa »

whatshisface wrote: post #6
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #2

These sorts of elaborate rebuttals, like the article or the art project it references, aren't that different from the works of outsiders that they seek to prove wrong. It seemingly is the case that Appalachia attracts a kind of journalist-meets-artist who finds plenty of material for a culture-tinged exposé of somewhat-thoughtful poverty and hardship porn, but a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Kno…

There is seriously not that big a difference between the reading level of random comments on the internet and the reading level of the New Yorker, or of the average thinkpiece. Self-styled intellectuals love to pretend that they are writing in a sophisticated secret code language, but that hasn't been true since they quit Latin.

The New Yorker is a classic example of higher level English that is far above the level of “random comments on the internet”.

The typical New Yorker article is CEFRL C2 [1] or ILR 3/3+ [2]. Most internet comments are at CEFRL A2 or so, with some (often faulty) more thoughtful responses at B1 or B2.

Said another way, your median high schooler can read and understand a typical internet comment, but the median high school student cannot read and comprehend a typical New Yorker article.

There are three aspects of writing in the New Yorker that elevates the level:

1. Vocabulary level. Often this is used to add color, and it typically does so well.

2. Complex structure at passage level with appropriate cohesive devices. This loses a lot of people, but makes the article linguistically rich.

3. There can be a great deal of inference and/or tone in New Yorker articles that some folks just don’t get. It will sometimes cause less proficient readers to take away substantial misunderstandings about the contents of the article.

If you try to talk about a New Yorker article in detail with most people, it is not that tough to reach linguistic breakdown.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILR_scale

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#16

Post by 50208 »

Seriously, if "Appalachia" is doing so great let's stop taking from wealthier states and redirecting to these poor ones. Let them clean up their broken down coal mines and polluted water resources. They can handle all the opium addicts and disability deadbeats. They should be able to prop up their own economies without handouts and programs from wealthier parts of the country. Let them continue their war against the "War on Coal". Maybe they can eat their coal. And don't get me started on the litter pretty much everywhere and trash dumped in every river of my home state (KY). I'm sure they will eventually handle that too.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#17

Post by SKILNER »

scarejunba wrote: post #11

I've got to tell you: every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation. We're reduced to using blind men's descriptions of elephants. Nothing can be adequately explained in any book, not Appalachia and not the subculture of people in a semi-urban locality outside of Kandy. This is natural, so we use shortcuts as heuristic predictive tools: so the Russians throw numbers at w…

> every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation

Yes, and the facile reduction of that complexity is the source for much of the political stupidity making us miserable. Also, thank you, Internet, for spreading it around so prolifically.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#18

Post by dang »

50208 wrote: post #16

Seriously, if "Appalachia" is doing so great let's stop taking from wealthier states and redirecting to these poor ones. Let them clean up their broken down coal mines and polluted water resources. They can handle all the opium addicts and disability deadbeats. They should be able to prop up their own economies without handouts and programs from wealthier parts of the country. Let them continue their war against the…

Regional flamewar isn't ok here, just like nationalistic flamewar or race flamewar or other flamewars. Could you please not post like this to HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#19

Post by 50208 »

jessaustin wrote: post #3
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #2

These sorts of elaborate rebuttals, like the article or the art project it references, aren't that different from the works of outsiders that they seek to prove wrong. It seemingly is the case that Appalachia attracts a kind of journalist-meets-artist who finds plenty of material for a culture-tinged exposé of somewhat-thoughtful poverty and hardship porn, but a curated photoset of Sides of Appalachia You May Not Kno…

Sure, but Vance is more "wrong" than his detractors are. He's the one who sees all poor people, and all poor people alike.

Hard to say Vance is "more wrong" than his detractors ... when it seems all they say is "Nuh uh!". Let's do some quick math: many of the poorest areas of the country? Check. Some of the highest levels if drug addiction and overdose deaths over the last decades? Check. Rampant pollution? Check. Stagnant and or non-existent economies? Check. Extremely poorly educated populace? Check. Why are his detractors less wrong again? Or are they just embarrassed and see a way to make a quick buck with the current "grift it while you can" mentality gripping a large segment of our society?

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#20

Post by 50208 »

dang wrote: post #18
50208 wrote: post #16

Seriously, if "Appalachia" is doing so great let's stop taking from wealthier states and redirecting to these poor ones. Let them clean up their broken down coal mines and polluted water resources. They can handle all the opium addicts and disability deadbeats. They should be able to prop up their own economies without handouts and programs from wealthier parts of the country. Let them continue their war against the…

Regional flamewar isn't ok here, just like nationalistic flamewar or race flamewar or other flamewars. Could you please not post like this to HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Isn't this what the article "Hillbillies Need No Elegy" is about? Isn't this about their response to a book about the region? I grew up in the region and this is my experience.
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