The "ignorant folks in flyover country" rhetoric is grating
It's interesting; in the hashtags, a bunch of people came from there and indicated the point the article was making. While at least one person said they came from there, and her family rejected her in a brutal and vicious fashion, and now she's supposed to think that their circumstances makes it okay?
To which my answer is "of course it's not okay; but enlightenment isn't a case of being born with the right attitude, like nationality - luck of the draw: you're going to be a forward-thinking person - it's a function of the world we're shown, the experiences we have, and the narratives we tell in the life we live."
I just met up with a friend of mine for coffee - American, from a white rural area, now married to an Australian and living in Sydney - and discussed this with her, and she said "Look, these people think they're the worst off in society. They look at their lives and think it's crappy and they deserve more. They don't see the privilege they have - they can't; because their parents didn't have to climb over the bodies of the non-whites and the women and the liberal bleeding hearts to get what they wanted, so why should they? And no, that's not right and I utterly reject that, but it's what they're taught, and if they're not willing to learn or grow or get out and see more of the world, then there's little that will change them. They'll keep think that the world owes them more than the immigrant and the homosexual, and being angry that they don't have it."
I looked at the link, and while it certainly looks interesting, I'm not sure I'm willing to order it in. :) But thanks for the rec.
Australia's social problems are both similar and different to the USian ones. For instance, we're much younger, our nationalism sings a different tune, and while we have the same issue of racism cropping up - Indigenous Australian treatment by the system still completely and utterly sucks - our society is also more urban, less rural, and our population is a fraction of America's.
And we don't have guns. It takes everything down a step.
no subject
It's interesting; in the hashtags, a bunch of people came from there and indicated the point the article was making. While at least one person said they came from there, and her family rejected her in a brutal and vicious fashion, and now she's supposed to think that their circumstances makes it okay?
To which my answer is "of course it's not okay; but enlightenment isn't a case of being born with the right attitude, like nationality - luck of the draw: you're going to be a forward-thinking person - it's a function of the world we're shown, the experiences we have, and the narratives we tell in the life we live."
I just met up with a friend of mine for coffee - American, from a white rural area, now married to an Australian and living in Sydney - and discussed this with her, and she said "Look, these people think they're the worst off in society. They look at their lives and think it's crappy and they deserve more. They don't see the privilege they have - they can't; because their parents didn't have to climb over the bodies of the non-whites and the women and the liberal bleeding hearts to get what they wanted, so why should they? And no, that's not right and I utterly reject that, but it's what they're taught, and if they're not willing to learn or grow or get out and see more of the world, then there's little that will change them. They'll keep think that the world owes them more than the immigrant and the homosexual, and being angry that they don't have it."
I looked at the link, and while it certainly looks interesting, I'm not sure I'm willing to order it in. :) But thanks for the rec.
Australia's social problems are both similar and different to the USian ones. For instance, we're much younger, our nationalism sings a different tune, and while we have the same issue of racism cropping up - Indigenous Australian treatment by the system still completely and utterly sucks - our society is also more urban, less rural, and our population is a fraction of America's.
And we don't have guns. It takes everything down a step.