This article gives me the willies and I can’t exactly articulate why. I think this “luxury beliefs” theory is based on his interactions with Yale students. Yes they are privileged, but more than that, they are 18-22 years old. I’m not surprised that any group of 18 year olds dont understand the importance of stability, let alone ones who have probably not experienced instability.
But the tone of the rest of the article smells of a certain kind of conservative smugness that it is your individual responsibility for improving your own situation. This is absolutely correct but he discredits “community leaders” and students who “had little in common with others other than how they looked” and specifically calls out defunding the police. So it is somehow also about race, and policy decisions.
Just say “I don’t like poor people.” I’m one of the good ones. I made it, so can you. If you didn’t make it, it’s your own fault. Well your parents’ fault but it’s your fault now. Race has nothing to do with it, other than the fact that I’m bringing it up a lot. Don’t organize. Don’t make policy. Stop complaining about the police.
trenchgun 7 days ago [-]
He does not hate poor people.
> Instead of looking to self proclaimed leaders of various marginalized and dispossessed groups, we need to actually ask those groups themselves.
It’s worth collecting data, looking at surveys, speaking with people — not just community leaders and activists who have their own agendas.
> I saw this at Yale where someone who shares the characteristics of a historically mistreated group would claim to speak on behalf of them, but they had very little in common with them other than the way that they looked.
> I want people to be a bit more skeptical of the self-proclaimed activist leaders who could be trying to push an agenda, trying to elicit sympathy, and trying to exploit people’s concerns
llamaimperative 7 days ago [-]
Survived via the state-funded and activist-created foster system, but conveniently now it’s time to be more skeptical of all that.
fatjokes 7 days ago [-]
I think "survived" is the key word here. I don't think anybody claims it's the bare minimum and there are better solutions out there.
llamaimperative 7 days ago [-]
See that’s the thing, these culture gripes are never (that I’ve seen) accompanied by a cogent proposal for an alternative. It’s just: tear it down and let the market figure it out. But we already did that, and it was fucking awful, which is why there are systems borne of activist sympathies, imperfect as they are.
Yeah, two-parent households are really fantastic, and so is high-quality education. Which of those is more addressable via policy? Imploring people to have more durable relationships through child-rearing doesn’t seem like it’ll move the needle as much as broadening access to education which is almost totally controllable by policy.
hattmall 7 days ago [-]
Not having policies which penalize marriage would be a good start. For most people if they are "poor" being married means less access to benefits. The ACA / Obamacare is well known for it's marriage penalty but many other benefit programs have similar guidelines.
llamaimperative 7 days ago [-]
What percentage of failed or avoided marriages are due to such policies, do you reckon? Not opposed to your suggestion, but a path to national prosperity it is not.
rcxdude 7 days ago [-]
The official government recognition of marriage is pretty divorced from having that relationship. If a couple is disadvantaged more than advantaged by official marriage, why would they not get a paper divorce but continue to live as a couple?
drekipus 7 days ago [-]
> If you didn’t make it, it’s your own fault. Well your parents’ fault but it’s your fault now.
It's not someone's fault but it is always their responsibility
morbicer 7 days ago [-]
I really hate how much the word privilege is brought everywhere by modern US left but I have to say: "Your comment reeks of privilege"
chefkd 7 days ago [-]
[dead]
silverquiet 7 days ago [-]
I'd say any time I hear these conservative laments, my main response it always, "so what?". It's an ideology that doesn't believe in government intervention, and what other lever do they have to influence collective behavior? That is to say, what do they want to do about it? If you only have complaints, but are unwilling to even try and take any action to change what you see as a problem, then you have only created your own victimhood narrative.
joenot443 7 days ago [-]
Throughout the vast majority of human history the levers to influence collective behavior have been not been through government intervention, they’ve been through familial, religious, and small community based norms and pressures. One of the common conservative perspectives which follows this is that in the past most groups of people have found success not by direct government intervention, but by unity and collective action within that community. I’m surprised you’d disagree, but I think it’s very possible for human behavior to adapt and evolve without the government being the one pulling all the levers.
silverquiet 7 days ago [-]
Then is there a problem here? I'm not sure I understand then - is there some change in the prevalence of two-parent families that is deleterious to the nation as a whole? Or is it merely a current trend in familial, religious, and small community based norms and pressures? Or is this just some sort of modern moral panic?
kwere 7 days ago [-]
People who makes it tend to have some survivorship bias, overvalue their personal impact, undervalue external factors, merely luck.
listless 7 days ago [-]
Nobody likes poor people. It’s just that some people also dislike the rich.
blagie 7 days ago [-]
> But the tone of the rest of the article smells of a certain kind of conservative smugness that it is your individual responsibility for improving your own situation. This is absolutely correct but he discredits “community leaders” and students who “had little in common with others other than how they looked” and specifically calls out defunding the police.
Most liberals discount conservative beliefs because of how they "smell," and vice-versa. That's toxic and discriminatory. It's helpful to look at arguments on a case-by-case basis, than rather with which cultural pattern it lines up. Listen to what the dude is saying, rather than whether he identifies with blue team or red team.
FWIW, in this case, I think both sides are right:
1) If people don't believe it's their own individual responsibility to improve their situation, they will never do so. One of the best ways to keep people oppressed is to give a sense of inevitability and hopelessness, exactly as the liberals do here.
2) The system is racist (in ways and degrees most conservatives, and indeed, even few liberals, will acknowledge), and we ought to fix that. That involves organizing and discussion.
I'll give an example of a problem is those discussion, in my (liberal) school start in kindergarten, well before kids can organize, but well after they can feel hopeless and victimized. We have resources like these being used there:
By the time they're done with it, you see kids splitting up into privileged and disadvantaged groups, exactly as you see in the Robbers Cave Experiment. It was fascinating to watch, as my child had friends all over the spectrum:
* Going in, my child didn't remember the skin color of other kids.
* Coming out, he had a clear racial construct, but kids who were Indian, Chinese, etc. were lumped together as "white."
The issues with liberals aren't specific to 18-22 year old students, as it's happening with perfectly adult teachers and administrators. And yes, there is a complete disconnect between wealthy liberals trying to virtue-signal, and the communities they pretend to want to help.
aaplok 7 days ago [-]
> there is a complete disconnect between wealthy liberals trying to virtue-signal, and the communities they pretend to want to help.
There is a disconnect between wealthy people and poor people regardless of political views. It's convenient to call out the hypocrisy of the rich liberals, but that doesn't make the conservatives a better alternative for the disadvantaged.
That's all the more deplorable that the guy from TFA denounces community activists. These people may have an agenda as he says (though not more than any other people publicly involved in politics), but most of them are presumably from the community they defend. Who else would represent the poor communities otherwise?
blagie 7 days ago [-]
I believe I made almost all of my claims completely symmetric.
> but most of them are presumably from the community they defend
This is not the case. Most woke activism comes from rich, white, progressives (mostly young), who have close to zero actual experience here. Those voices drown out the voices of people from communities they claim to serve. I've seen many organizations devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion without a single person from the communities they claim to serve in any leadership position, or in some cases, in the entire organization.
Most of those organizations are actively harmful.
The one thing I can say is that if you're donating money, see where the people running the place are from, and check 990s for income. If it's e.g. a group of people from a low-income African American community earning $20k-$100k, you can donate, knowing you'll do good. If it's a bunch of Ivy Leaguers who group up in rich communities earning $100k-$1M -- regardless of skin color -- you're probably doing harm.
It's also important to keep in mind international representation, and to be mindful of where people come from. A Nigerian who grew up on Victoria Island, or an Indian whose only interaction with poor people is as servants, is likely to be worse than no representation at all.
You actually want people from low-income communities representing the diversity of the world.
apantel 7 days ago [-]
Smell is usually a great heuristic. If something has a bad smell, it’s probably problematic even if you can’t logically identify the problem.
blagie 6 days ago [-]
"Smell" is the heuristic which, in practice, led to hiring discrimination against African Americans in the eighties -- in the period where overt discrimination was no longer kosher, but before implicit bias was widely recognized and people tried to compensate for it.
There are hundreds of minute differences in behavior, communication style, dress, body language, etc. between middle-upper class white communities and low-income African communities which had no impact on job performance, but massive impact on "smell."
That's a major part of the reason there was such a disconnect between African Americans and white Americans about the level of racism in America.
It continues to impact many smaller minority groups, which don't quite fit liberal / census DEI slots, to an extreme level.
It also almost entirely cuts across the red/blue line in many communities, leading to increased political segregation and polarization.
If you read many texts, they will tell you everyone is racist. Congrats! You've just learned one of the ways how you're a racist.
ZeroGravitas 7 days ago [-]
It takes a real galaxy brain to look at the parents of Yale students and focus in on two-parent stable families as the key element, not wealth or inequality.
For reference, Yale has the least poor students in the Ivy league.
mensetmanusman 7 days ago [-]
Interesting stats to keep in mind: nearly 75% of prisoners had absent fathers (including live-in absenteeism), this number is nearly 90% for homeless communities members.
kylebenzle 7 days ago [-]
The US civil court (family court) system is not just broken but corrupt to the core.
I'm in the middle of a five year divorce on which the judge is known to take kickbacks (donations) from the very attorneys he is supposed to work with.
So it ends up the judges really work for the lawyers, the system is beyond evil and completely broken.
The idea is, they take children from their fathers then make them pay for access, many can't afford it. The state then takes 3% off the top, incentivising the court to take as many kids away as possible, it's sick beyond belief.
I'm my case, making $2,100 a month my "support" is $1,700 a month. When I can't pay, they charge more fees and my ex has the choice to send me to jail if she wants anytime.
miunau 7 days ago [-]
Who is this guy anyway? Why should I care that he went to Yale and has opinions?
j7ake 7 days ago [-]
Yeah it’s really ridiculous. The fraction of people whose opinions are worth listening to are extremely small even from people who “went to Yale”. So going to Yale is uninformative in whether his opinions matter.
Arete314159 7 days ago [-]
I'm pretty liberal. I also had an experience somewhat similar to the person in this article, although not as extreme. I grew up in a very dysfunctional and unstable home, which was very unhealthy, and even so I got into a top prep school and then Harvard...
...but I dropped out of Harvard, in part because of health problems that were delayed consequences of extreme neglect and an unhealthy home life.
My take on things is this. When you are the "exception," people talk a lot about how you should Just Get a Good Education, and then you can escape all this. You may get a scholarship to a good school, but that's it. Abuse in the home? That's your problem to deal with. Parents poor and overwhelmed? Screw those parents, we're abandoning those parents, we only care about their kids, and only if they're such prodigies that they can succeed in spite of the other numerous obstacles.
Here's the thing. I've known several prodigies from challenging backgrounds who got into great schools. Many of them had a lot of problems because of physical and mental health issues caused by their upbringing and environments. Some of these problems interrupted or curtailed their educations.
By contrast, I've also known people who had safe, stable homes, and long-term affordable housing. These folks were always able to further their education. But smart, educated folks with chaotic and abusive home lives were not always able to make it to happiness and stability.
Saying education will fix all woes is a cop-out. It's a way of uplifting a few show ponies and leaving everyone else in misery. Speaking as a former show pony. If you replace "two parent household" with "safe, stable, healthy home" I agree with what he's saying. I would also add healthcare. My knowledge of calculus did not help me as a young person when I was injured and had no money for physical therapy. Only socialized medicine would have helped me. Education is great, but it's not a substitute for a functioning society with a safety net.
em-bee 7 days ago [-]
replace "two parent household" with "safe, stable, healthy home" I would also add healthcare.
this is a key point. in fact my own experience was that i didn't get a safe and stable home until my parents divorced, so it is not automatic that a two parent household would be better, but we grew up in a country where the social security provided adequate support for us to get that stable home.
myself living in a country now without that support, i would not be able to provide a stable home without a partner. if i were to loose my partner i would have to leave this place (but at least i would have the option to do that).
the locals here don't have that option. and since social security in the USA is lacking, the focus on a two parent families is easy to understand, because it is more likely to lead to more stability. but in the end, stability is what matters, not the number of parents,
RecycledEle 7 days ago [-]
As a teacher, I agree that 2-parent families are more important than college.
7 days ago [-]
josiepal7654 5 days ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 20:30:27 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
But the tone of the rest of the article smells of a certain kind of conservative smugness that it is your individual responsibility for improving your own situation. This is absolutely correct but he discredits “community leaders” and students who “had little in common with others other than how they looked” and specifically calls out defunding the police. So it is somehow also about race, and policy decisions.
Just say “I don’t like poor people.” I’m one of the good ones. I made it, so can you. If you didn’t make it, it’s your own fault. Well your parents’ fault but it’s your fault now. Race has nothing to do with it, other than the fact that I’m bringing it up a lot. Don’t organize. Don’t make policy. Stop complaining about the police.
> Instead of looking to self proclaimed leaders of various marginalized and dispossessed groups, we need to actually ask those groups themselves. It’s worth collecting data, looking at surveys, speaking with people — not just community leaders and activists who have their own agendas.
> I saw this at Yale where someone who shares the characteristics of a historically mistreated group would claim to speak on behalf of them, but they had very little in common with them other than the way that they looked.
> I want people to be a bit more skeptical of the self-proclaimed activist leaders who could be trying to push an agenda, trying to elicit sympathy, and trying to exploit people’s concerns
Yeah, two-parent households are really fantastic, and so is high-quality education. Which of those is more addressable via policy? Imploring people to have more durable relationships through child-rearing doesn’t seem like it’ll move the needle as much as broadening access to education which is almost totally controllable by policy.
It's not someone's fault but it is always their responsibility
Most liberals discount conservative beliefs because of how they "smell," and vice-versa. That's toxic and discriminatory. It's helpful to look at arguments on a case-by-case basis, than rather with which cultural pattern it lines up. Listen to what the dude is saying, rather than whether he identifies with blue team or red team.
FWIW, in this case, I think both sides are right:
1) If people don't believe it's their own individual responsibility to improve their situation, they will never do so. One of the best ways to keep people oppressed is to give a sense of inevitability and hopelessness, exactly as the liberals do here.
2) The system is racist (in ways and degrees most conservatives, and indeed, even few liberals, will acknowledge), and we ought to fix that. That involves organizing and discussion.
I'll give an example of a problem is those discussion, in my (liberal) school start in kindergarten, well before kids can organize, but well after they can feel hopeless and victimized. We have resources like these being used there:
https://www.wokekindergarten.org/
By the time they're done with it, you see kids splitting up into privileged and disadvantaged groups, exactly as you see in the Robbers Cave Experiment. It was fascinating to watch, as my child had friends all over the spectrum:
* Going in, my child didn't remember the skin color of other kids.
* Coming out, he had a clear racial construct, but kids who were Indian, Chinese, etc. were lumped together as "white."
The issues with liberals aren't specific to 18-22 year old students, as it's happening with perfectly adult teachers and administrators. And yes, there is a complete disconnect between wealthy liberals trying to virtue-signal, and the communities they pretend to want to help.
There is a disconnect between wealthy people and poor people regardless of political views. It's convenient to call out the hypocrisy of the rich liberals, but that doesn't make the conservatives a better alternative for the disadvantaged.
That's all the more deplorable that the guy from TFA denounces community activists. These people may have an agenda as he says (though not more than any other people publicly involved in politics), but most of them are presumably from the community they defend. Who else would represent the poor communities otherwise?
> but most of them are presumably from the community they defend
This is not the case. Most woke activism comes from rich, white, progressives (mostly young), who have close to zero actual experience here. Those voices drown out the voices of people from communities they claim to serve. I've seen many organizations devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion without a single person from the communities they claim to serve in any leadership position, or in some cases, in the entire organization.
Most of those organizations are actively harmful.
The one thing I can say is that if you're donating money, see where the people running the place are from, and check 990s for income. If it's e.g. a group of people from a low-income African American community earning $20k-$100k, you can donate, knowing you'll do good. If it's a bunch of Ivy Leaguers who group up in rich communities earning $100k-$1M -- regardless of skin color -- you're probably doing harm.
It's also important to keep in mind international representation, and to be mindful of where people come from. A Nigerian who grew up on Victoria Island, or an Indian whose only interaction with poor people is as servants, is likely to be worse than no representation at all.
You actually want people from low-income communities representing the diversity of the world.
There are hundreds of minute differences in behavior, communication style, dress, body language, etc. between middle-upper class white communities and low-income African communities which had no impact on job performance, but massive impact on "smell."
That's a major part of the reason there was such a disconnect between African Americans and white Americans about the level of racism in America.
It continues to impact many smaller minority groups, which don't quite fit liberal / census DEI slots, to an extreme level.
It also almost entirely cuts across the red/blue line in many communities, leading to increased political segregation and polarization.
If you read many texts, they will tell you everyone is racist. Congrats! You've just learned one of the ways how you're a racist.
For reference, Yale has the least poor students in the Ivy league.
I'm in the middle of a five year divorce on which the judge is known to take kickbacks (donations) from the very attorneys he is supposed to work with.
So it ends up the judges really work for the lawyers, the system is beyond evil and completely broken.
The idea is, they take children from their fathers then make them pay for access, many can't afford it. The state then takes 3% off the top, incentivising the court to take as many kids away as possible, it's sick beyond belief.
I'm my case, making $2,100 a month my "support" is $1,700 a month. When I can't pay, they charge more fees and my ex has the choice to send me to jail if she wants anytime.
...but I dropped out of Harvard, in part because of health problems that were delayed consequences of extreme neglect and an unhealthy home life.
My take on things is this. When you are the "exception," people talk a lot about how you should Just Get a Good Education, and then you can escape all this. You may get a scholarship to a good school, but that's it. Abuse in the home? That's your problem to deal with. Parents poor and overwhelmed? Screw those parents, we're abandoning those parents, we only care about their kids, and only if they're such prodigies that they can succeed in spite of the other numerous obstacles.
Here's the thing. I've known several prodigies from challenging backgrounds who got into great schools. Many of them had a lot of problems because of physical and mental health issues caused by their upbringing and environments. Some of these problems interrupted or curtailed their educations.
By contrast, I've also known people who had safe, stable homes, and long-term affordable housing. These folks were always able to further their education. But smart, educated folks with chaotic and abusive home lives were not always able to make it to happiness and stability.
Saying education will fix all woes is a cop-out. It's a way of uplifting a few show ponies and leaving everyone else in misery. Speaking as a former show pony. If you replace "two parent household" with "safe, stable, healthy home" I agree with what he's saying. I would also add healthcare. My knowledge of calculus did not help me as a young person when I was injured and had no money for physical therapy. Only socialized medicine would have helped me. Education is great, but it's not a substitute for a functioning society with a safety net.
this is a key point. in fact my own experience was that i didn't get a safe and stable home until my parents divorced, so it is not automatic that a two parent household would be better, but we grew up in a country where the social security provided adequate support for us to get that stable home.
myself living in a country now without that support, i would not be able to provide a stable home without a partner. if i were to loose my partner i would have to leave this place (but at least i would have the option to do that).
the locals here don't have that option. and since social security in the USA is lacking, the focus on a two parent families is easy to understand, because it is more likely to lead to more stability. but in the end, stability is what matters, not the number of parents,