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The thing about Matt's categorizations is that it's just objectively, demonstrably wrong.
Like, it would be very clear if college educated people were so stridently different. But they're not. We have a ton of data on this.
I get what he's trying to say, there is a kind of distinct cultural difference between people who see the hypocrisy of liberals and/or just want to enjoy the cruelty and be "left alone" (enjoy Imperialism and private hierarchies without interference), and the self obsessed virtue politics of people who want to feel better about injustice, but don't want to fix it (or secretly think it's necessary and good).
But that dividing line doesn't fall on just one variable. Not race, not religion, not income. If you want to pick the biggest one, it's urban vs rural vs suburb, where the data does show gigantic divides. But even then, it's like 70/30 at best.
It's probably best described as people with petite bourgeois morality, vs people that have to fit into corporate culture that dominates economic centers.
In either case, what it represents is an inability for the electorate to believe in change. Despite the crises surrounding it, Neoliberalism has not loosed its grip on most people yet.
I wouldn't either except he had that take the other day where he was mad about fucking student debt relief.
He's taking an incoherent category and letting it actually impact his political opinions.
Grew up ridiculously poor but in a So Cal ghetto so I guess I was never overly exposed to cultural conservatism. Been in the PMC for the last 15 years and living on the other side of the country. Long story short: I have no friends. The working poor who I identify with more (I suppose) are usually too culturally regressive and rednecky for my taste. And, I can't stand being around the middle crust manager types I work around. In many ways, I see no help for anyone.
Yeah, native son of dilapidated coal towns. Of course there are sexist, racist pricks in Hills, but we don't have any sort of monopoly on it, ya know. I'm not sure if the party realignment means much to the people I know. Almost none of them vote, least that I know of, and that's reflected in voting stats.
I went to college later in my life, after I was married and whatnot, and I don't think it did much for me expose me to a bunch of weird libs. But poor people are out of place at college, in my experience. We talk about different shit, experience different shit. I'm not poor anymore, but I understand some of the disdain towards college.
I don't think it's doomerism to point out the inadequacy of our electoral system. A lot of these libs think we're just dumb, opiate addled yokels who would be better off if only we voted right, or that we're all uninformed or something. I've heard people vocalize that they've been poor for every administration in their life, and that's not changing.
Yeah, that shit came up multiple times when I was trying to convince people to vote for Bernie. I had no argument against it. It sucks, but I understand the view.
I honestly cannot blame this.
You should commend them for it. They understand the bourgeois state better than most.
No one will ever be the party of working people.
The entire point of Neoliberalism was to crush that concept. And it's economic consensus among both parties.
The reason the right-soc/left-fisc isn't a big contingent is because it's rare for someone to care about material conditions while also totally buying into the culture war. There are a few but they're rare, and even then they generally have to solve the contradiction at some point and drift towards being left/left or right/right.
I grew up in the country about 20 minutes from a college town. I would categorize libs and chuds as narcissists, all the sexism, racism, ableism of the chuds is just their reactionary tendency to their own insecurities. They need these reactions to bolster their own self worth just like a grade school bully would.
This is why the liberal idea of "they deserve to be treated as less than" is so accepted, it fits into theories of reciprocity very well. Who in their right mind is going to be kind to someone who is a jerk? This gives liberals their moral high ground by which they flaggelate their own self worth as liberalism is the only rational route.
I'm currently going to what most could consider a "cheap" in-state university and am in my third year. I've also been working full-time since March to help support my family. The liberal means-tested mindset absolutely saturates most of my peers who can't understand why I'm working 50+ hours a week, or "Why don't you just apply for scholarships?". Even as someone who does well in my classes/extracurriculars/etc, the condescending attitudes I get from my mentors and peers about my financial situation and the way they make it seem like it's my fault or choice to be working while in school is mind-boggling.
Yeah I'm working 50+ hours a week for the "privilege" of paying to do 30-40 hours of academic work, and it still feels like I'm looked down on by my peers/advisors for not just having my parents pay for it.
I grew up poor and am the only college graduate in my immediate family. I don't despise college the same way Matt does. I had a great experience and I got away from my toxic family situation. I didn't get radicalized until later in my life, but I was able to integrate it into my understanding of the world because I studied history, so I already had a contextual advantage.
Everyone should have the ability to leave their living situation after high school and pursue an education; whether it's college, or trade school, or working for a Civilian Conservation Corps-type program. Yes, there's a lot of problems with colleges teaching young people to adopt neoliberal politics, but let's not pretend that trade school environments don't encourage some backwards thinking as well. I could kiss you OP for posting this. I was struggling to get some of my own thoughts down in a separate thread about this week's episode where Matt briefly touched on this topic. I'm glad I'm not alone in interrogating these ideas.
"... unable to reconcile." Very well said. How do we address these blind spots? I guess we could start with letting more ML economists/historians back into higher ed. I would have loved a Richard Wolff at my midwestern state school.
That's fair. I remember a particularly awful philosophy professor who put me off on the entire subject.
Me, but I worked a union job the entire time I was in college and ended up staying when I graduated. I make more there than I would in my chosen field lol
Both of my parents are PMC, and I’m being raised in a petit bourgeois household. I would say that the PMC types are irredeemably capitalist and should just be gulaged after a revolution
Me, it was abundantly clear to me how much a difference money made when it came to my field.
I will never forget how differently I was treated and how misunderstood I felt going to college and interacting with my peers and professors.
They could never understand what it's like.
Idk if I count, but my grandparents were all rural farmers in China and I spent my early childhood there. I didn't really live in poverty but life was much simpler in my grandparent's village: limited electricity, no hot water source, coal fired stoves, no plumbing etc (although now they do have most of these things and internet) and you didn't really stress out about stuff.
We moved to Canada because my dad had bigger ambitions than living on a farm and I'm now in university. I think that even though I lived in Canada (and in a city) for the vast majority of my life, I still don't connect with liberals that well. I guess most libs are just stuck in their own bubbles and really can't fathom how "lower class" people live and/or look down on them as if lib culture is somehow superior.
