Hillbillies Need No Elegy • Hacker News Board

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#61

Post by throw0101a » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:01 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #54

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEFR is intended to measure the proficiency of foreign language learners and not measure the sophistication of native language speakers. Everyone that speaks English as a first language would pass a C2 level examination very easily. The standard ways to measure text complexity in English for native speakers are the Flesch-Kincaid readability and grade level tests. These depend on the length of words and on the nu…

> Everyone that speaks English as a first language would pass a C2 level examination very easily. This is almost exactly equivalent to saying that an average ten year old can read the New Yorker. A ten year old already has their native language down, the rules of grammar and syntax, the accent, the vocabulary, the capacity to discriminate between words with the same denotation but different connotations. There are te…

> exegesis

That's a ten dolla word if I ever saw one.

:)

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#62

Post by sudosteph » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #39

sudosteph wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the Appalacian contingent is not a majority in any of those states. They just are historically less anti-union than other rural areas (while still socially conservative) so they can swing a bit. Overall the big cities and suburbs are usually the deciding factor there. If anything, Appalachian are uniquely under-represented nationally. While the region as a whole contains nearly 25 million people, WV is the o…

>If anything, Appalachian are uniquely under-represented nationally. While the region as a whole contains nearly 25 million people, WV is the only state to have two Appalacian senators. I think TN has one as well, but, overall the political power of Appalachia does not at all seem sufficient to warrant extra attention. Technically that is 50% more senators than California with twice the population.

Senators were just to make a comparison point against other rural areas (considering that the Senate is the place most rural places are over-represented). The same division though also ensures that, unlike Californians, Appalachians have relatively little voice in the electoral vote or for governor-level positions as well because WV is their only majority state.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#63

Post by ixtli » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

“The perception that mountain folk like to be poor serves someone — but it’s not the poor mountain folk. The representation of Appalachia as all white is not only inaccurate, but it preserves a false and destructive ideal of imaginary “pure white stock.” Images of decay and absence allow those in power to turn away from a place that has been forgotten, but has not disappeared. The narrow ideas that circulate about this broad place do active harm.”

Brilliant.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#64

Post by humanrebar » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #59

bitexploder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the Deep South, a related cousin to Appalachia. I spent more than 30 years in the south. I have spent a lot of time in Appalachia, hiking, meeting locals. It isn’t a stretch to say “I get it”. I read Hillbily Elegy. This piece does little to change my mind about my own view point. There are parts of the culture that are worthwhile and valuable (to me) and parts I can leave quite easily. For me it is the…

> Poverty is what it is and it does what it does to people. You either get out of it or it eats you. Perhaps the people with the compulsion to leave have already done so? Kind of what is being call "The Big Sort", where (politically) like-minded people seem to be congregating to the same neighborhoods: * https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/10/the-big-sort-revisite... * https://www.economist.com/united-states/2008/06/…

This is my take. For all the talk of international brain drain, we don't have a narrative for the more local equivalent.

Similarly, we worry about disrupting natural biomes through deforestation or overfishing, but we don't think about sustainability applied to human communities, with a few exceptions (reservations get some attention, though not sufficient attention).

What do we do? For one, I don't think it's hard to make an ethical case for remote first workplaces.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#65

Post by RegBarclay » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

gffyfnhdv wrote: post #51

“Morgantown, West Virginia [...] We were in the heart of Appalachia“ BS! Morgantown is definitely not the heart of Appalachia: - It’s only 9 mi into WV! - has population that doubles during the school semester - has three or four federal agencies (FBI, NETL, NIOSH) - showered with federal and state largess (thank you senator Byrd) - has traffic jams worthy of a city with 10x it’s population - has one of my favorite r…

I agree. I'm originally from Charleston and have always said that it's not like the rest of WV.

I'd say the real heart of Appalachia is Pikeville KY.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#66

Post by humanrebar » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

moorhosj wrote: post #52

mieseratte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong in what regard? I found nothing wrong with Vance’s book. Having a similar family background to Vance, I think he has a great outlook on the matter.

I think his biggest miss was failing to connect the region to the rest of the country. He could have easily compared Appalachia to Rust Belt cities facing urban decay but never made the connection. It could have made the story of the region more approachable to more people. It seemed so obvious to me how the areas are linked by economic circumstances, environmental degradation, poor education levels, distinct culture…

So you wanted him to write a different book? Maybe he had different goals and that's fine.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#67

Post by sudosteph » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #53

The best way to understand what makes Appalachia what it is culturally, is to read _Albion's Seed_. The people who ended up there came from parts of Britain that required extreme self-sufficiency and had no real functional government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-se...

I'd argue the best way would be to travel there and read actual histories from local sources. While it's nice to imagine a simple root cause to everything - it's not enough. When my great-grandparents settled in Appalachia about 100 years ago, they did it to find opportunity and escape the terrible working conditions of cotton mills. That side of the family are religious democrats who support unions and new-deal style economic reform and public education. They and their kids integrated culturally, most of them never left and never plan to. Their story is not an uncommon one, their desire for better government support is not out of the norm, and it does nobody any good to propagate a myth saying their culture of self-sufficency was decided 300 years ago when it was actually developed as a necessity after continuously being ignored. Cultures grow and Appalachian culture is no exception - we need to get past this shallow type of categorization based on original settlers.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#68

Post by camelite » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

It's really bizarre the lengths to which the author goes to weave the "criticism by outsiders" motif into a critique which ostensibly targets a born-and-bred Appalacian. Three full introductory paragraphs about the guy who says “The thing I like about Appalachians is that they don’t need much to be happy. They’re content with making $24,000 year. They’re not showing off...” A massive full-screen width "When outsiders tell the story" Two long paragraphs introducing Vance without mentioning where he's from. A criticism of the Netflix adaption as "filmmakers from elsewhere will put[ting] their visual stamp on the region." 2 long paragraphs complaining about outsiders defining its territorial extent. 2 paragraphs explaining how politicians and outside media represent it. It goes on to promote it's own take on the region, unsurprisingly dominated by artists, activists and academics. But the force and worth of Vance's take would be ZERO if he was an outsider. They don't, of course, lie at any point about Vance's background, but it's a flagrantly dishonest critique nonetheless.

If the other commenter here is correct about Morganstown being only kind of half-Appalacian, as opposed to their claim of hailing from the heart of Appalacia, that really just puts the cherry on top.

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#69

Post by moate » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

csa wrote: post #29

javajosh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>C2 I wonder if there is a similar scale for cartoons, and if (inscrutable) New Yorker cartoons are at D1 or higher.

1. I don’t think that there is a D1 on the scale. 2. A scale for cartoons would be interesting. The top level would probably require something like awareness of current events, knowledge of one or more complex/academic theoretical concepts, and deep cultural embeddedness and awareness of cultural trends.

"On a scale of Marmaduke to the New Yorker, how complex is this comic strip"

Re: Hillbillies Need No Elegy

#70

Post by btrautsc » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

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…

I like this comment.