|
|
Post by david on Aug 17, 2023 19:50:27 GMT -5
Does it seem odd to anyone here that the cause of the blue collar workers and farmers are here being championed by Trump, who has never come close to having a blue collar job?
To those Trump proponents, tell me about your own small and medium farming experiences and how well you know about how hard farmers work, along with your experiences in farming and the challenges that farmers face.
Perhaps you have little or no farming experience. My view of Trump, from a person whose parents were blue collar farmers, might be as valid as yours. Plus I, unlike Trump, and maybe you, grew up planting, cutting and harvesting. In short, I think that the "working class" opposition to "elite democrats" is a pretense to pull votes, and not to help the working classes.
Trump is interested in Trump, not the welfare of USA. If you have not seen that pattern in his life, you are intentionally blind.
|
|
|
|
Post by Marshall on Aug 17, 2023 23:27:21 GMT -5
Which simply means you're an urban Democrat who hasn't ever paid attention. Which is pretty much what the article is about. You’re confusing me Peter. Don’t just leave a silver bullet on the table. Tell me what I missed. I can handle the truth. |
|
|
|
Post by Marshall on Aug 17, 2023 23:40:02 GMT -5
Ok. I get the article and the overly/progressive/modern agenda that turns off rural America. My amazement is that Trump, who is a NY urban elite is the poster boy rural animosity of the progressive culture.
I’d really like to see a Niki Haley type figure, or some other small population representative carry that banner. That, I could listen to.
|
|
|
|
Post by epaul on Aug 18, 2023 2:14:04 GMT -5
Here's my gripe. I don't see anywhere in that indictment of the leftist elite, where Trump is a viable answer. He's a big business huckster that wants to make a regulation free world for his plundering. Marshall, Wendell Berry's letter has nothing to do with Trump or the Red State/Blue State thing. Wendell Barry is speaking only for Wendell Berry and his Walden Pond yearnings. Re-read the quote you selected. Wendell Berry may be worried about the human and ecological evils of mining, but Rural America as a voting entity supports mining and is concerned that Wendell Berry types would ban it. Mining is jobs. And rural America isn't yearning for more ecological remedies inserted into their lives, they view ecological remedies as impositions from without that are undermining their lives and economy. And rural America supports logging, not the ecological integrity of our forests or whatever owl or squirrel that represents. And rural America doesn't want small scale holistic lettuce farming with organic mules, rural America as a voting entity doesn't want Wendell Berry types anywhere near the farm bill. Wendell Berry might be absolutely right about everything, but this letter, its language, its implied reimagining of a new and reinvigorated rural America, could have been written, and has been written, by the very urban elites he is supposedly lambasting as being out of touch with the needs of rural America. Which makes it confusing. There is no advantage to be grabbed triumphantly by either party offered in this letter. The only part of it that was clear is that he is mad at the NY Times book review people who didn't publish the last thing he sent to them. |
|
|
|
Post by james on Aug 18, 2023 5:05:18 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Aug 18, 2023 8:02:23 GMT -5
There are many things being discussed here but I'm not particularly surprised by rural people accepting Trump as a champion. During the Depression, rural people including my relatives accepted FDR as their champion. He was a wealthy blue-blood. My grandmother once commented that people were hurting and Hoover didn't do anything. At least Roosevelt was trying to help them. Some of his actions were missteps but at least he was trying. I don't think most people are very interested in pedigrees if a candidate embraces their positions.
One of the last conversations I had with my late brother concerned Trump's election. My brother was a McCain Republican who had no use for Trump and didn't vote for anybody in 2016. We agreed that we shared some of Trump's positions, e.g., on immigration and how ordinary Americans were getting shafted by the global economy. The problem we both had was that the guy saying these things was Donald Trump. Character and integrity matter. We didn't foresee that the guy would attempt a clumsy fascist coup but we didn't think he could be trusted.
|
|
|
|
Post by millring on Aug 18, 2023 8:19:41 GMT -5
I suspect that Berry is mostly wrong about farming and the effectiveness and efficiency (and even the environmental impact) of modern farming compared to romantic notions of what was before. His is an overly well written complaint (given credibility simply because of his winsome presentation), the equivalent of the social media ranting against self-service grocery store checkout lanes.  Being a romantic myself, I am easily swayed by his portrayal of a world that can never again be -- of vinyl records and listenable top 40 radio, of fashion in the pursuit of beauty rather than shock and awe, of home cooked meals being normal and fast food being either the occasional treat or untried, of one income families creating un-hollow havens worth going home to. But his complaint is that modern efficiency leaves a portion of the population with nothing to do, rather than wondering at the optimistic possibility that labor not spent at the tedious might alternatively be spent at something that can redound to a greater personal and social benefit. Maybe it can't. I'm a big believer in honoring common labor. “and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,” -Apostle Paul What Brooks and Berry have in common (relative to this thread) is the shared perception -- a perception also apparently shared by much of middle America -- that there is some driving force that is changing our way of thinking and living ... and that change is happening at a lightning-fast pace ... and it has millions of people almost overnight changing their minds on beliefs that they personally shared with the culture in which they were raised, and nobody seems to know what, who, or where this driving force is. So in frustration it gets referred to as the "cultural elite". And they are both right about one thing: That driving force -- whatever it is -- is espoused and forced on the masses ... while it is at the same time ignored by the very ones espousing and forcing it. And so the damage is done more to the masses, while the elite rise above it. All the while, both parties ignoring the fact that it is the behaviors themselves that are damaging. I suspect that much of this driving force is simply a backlash -- a pendulum swing -- away from what is now seen (and caricatured in our cultural mind) as an odious legalism forced on us by religion. Sadly, though, there were and are many reasons -- non-religious ones -- for the moral restrictions that religion placed on culture (what consenting adults do does have lasting and damaging social and psychological implications. And just because animals engage in behaviors doesn't mean that it is "natural" for us to do so too. Animals also eat their own feces but we're not quick to adopt that behavior.). But once we dismissed religion, we jumped to the wrong conclusion that culture could be unmoored from those restrictions it now perceived as merely "religious". And we've further confused the issue by our cultural adoption of what we refer to as "science" as the only arbiter of what is right and wrong. So, there is no scientific reason for sexual taboos. And if medicine can mitigate the damage, there is no real taboo against gluttony. As long as science can mitigate the damage, there is no reason to attach a moral element to any belief or behavior. But mankind is by nature religious. Superstitious, even. And every time man congregates into his natural state of social being, he introduces the religion of public behavior. So we are now adopting a new public religion that is as mercurial and vague as it is pervasive ... but we all know it's there. It's not just the Berrys and the Brookses who notice it. |
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Aug 18, 2023 9:09:36 GMT -5
Interesting, John, although I'm not sure I agree with all of that.
When we were young, a lot of us learned to live in the world that was. It's easy to feel lost in the one that has replaced it. At least it is for me. Brooks is not the first to note that the good old days only look good if you're a white male. He's right and I get that. I still feel like much has been lost. I knew how to function in that world and I'm somewhat at sea in this one. I don't think this story necessarily has any villains.
|
|
|
|
Post by Marshall on Aug 18, 2023 9:20:21 GMT -5
I like your observations, John. I love your prose. I don't totally agree with your conclusions.
But nicely stated.
|
|
|
|
Post by millring on Aug 18, 2023 9:22:07 GMT -5
I suspect there is an unflattering aspect to human nature -- exhibited in our politics, religions, and philosophies -- that we judge our enemies by their effectiveness and results (or lack thereof), all the while judging ourselves and our friends by our intentions.
|
|
|
|
Post by epaul on Aug 18, 2023 11:04:29 GMT -5
... And just because animals engage in behaviors doesn't mean that it is "natural" for us to do so too. Animals also eat their own feces but we're not quick to adopt that behavior.)... Just a minor quibble that is in no way is meant to distract from the overall import of your thoughtful post, but apparently there may be a good, and natural, reason for a human to, on occasion, eat feces (sometimes with certain worms included). Not our own, necessarily, but then animals know this and sample widely with an instinctive judiciousness. www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/fecal-transplant#:~:text=Fecal%20transplantation%20is%20a%20procedure,bacteria%20into%20the%20recipient's%20intestines.  |
|
|
|
Post by epaul on Aug 18, 2023 11:21:17 GMT -5
Oh, but on re-reading your sentence during an edit check, you did modify your argument in a way that removes my quibble. Yes, I certainly wouldn't be quick about any decision to take a bite. It would be a very slow, deliberative, do I have to do this, sort of bite. Certainly not a quick "All right! Let's do this!)
|
|
|
|
Post by RickW on Aug 18, 2023 11:41:56 GMT -5
I’ve been reading a history book, The Edge of the World, and he talked at length about how societies evolved. One of the things he discussed was how people were tried. In the early middle ages, trial by ordeal was the norm. You had to carry a hot chunk of metal for so many steps, and the state of healing a few days later indicated whether you were right or wrong, or you were bound and tossed in pond, and whether you floated or not indicated your guilt. It was a religious ceremony — god would show your guilt or innocence by what happened. (No, I’m not religion bashing here.) This was slowly replaced by lawyers, written law, judges. What was the appeal of the original system, which was painful and dangerous? It was simple. No one had to make a decision. No one had to take the blame for judging someone else; it was an impartial deity, and whether you believed in god or not, it was tidy, simple, and done. And that’s what people want, really, they want simplicity, they want it all in black and white. And the more complex society becomes, the more sophisticated the arguments in support of X or Y, we want somewhere, somehow, that one sentence that clarifies the world for us. It seems to me that much of battles going on now in society are about that — which simple narrative are we going to believe? Which is pretty tough, in this world we’ve made with our brains, our thought processes and opinions.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Aug 18, 2023 11:57:58 GMT -5
Rick, I think that's one reason why our narratives tend to be tales of good guys and bad guys, when the reality isn't like that. Things are simpler when you have a villain. Things are much more difficult when you realize there isn't one.
|
|
|
|
Post by millring on Aug 18, 2023 12:10:46 GMT -5
I’ve been reading a history book, The Edge of the World, and he talked at length about how societies evolved. One of the things he discussed was how people were tried. In the early middle ages, trial by ordeal was the norm. You had to carry a hot chunk of metal for so many steps, and the state of healing a few days later indicated whether you were right or wrong, or you were bound and tossed in pond, and whether you floated or not indicated your guilt. It was a religious ceremony — god would show your guilt or innocence by what happened. (No, I’m not religion bashing here.) This was slowly replaced by lawyers, written law, judges. What was the appeal of the original system, which was painful and dangerous? It was simple. No one had to make a decision. No one had to take the blame for judging someone else; it was an impartial deity, and whether you believed in god or not, it was tidy, simple, and done. And that’s what people want, really, they want simplicity, they want it all in black and white. And the more complex society becomes, the more sophisticated the arguments in support of X or Y, we want somewhere, somehow, that one sentence that clarifies the world for us. It seems to me that much of battles going on now in society are about that — which simple narrative are we going to believe? Which is pretty tough, in this world we’ve made with our brains, our thought processes and opinions. For kicks sometime (if you haven't already -- and I shouldn't assume you haven't) google up "urim and thummim". I remember the elementary school aged Sunday school me wondering what urim and thummim were and getting pretty thin answers from teachers. Back then, in that 1960s intersection of Reformed Theology, Evangelical compassion, and Fundamentalist gravity, I was mostly given the answer that it -- like the ubiquitous occurrence of "casting lots" -- was a calling on the supernatural -- divine intervention -- to settle disputes, and that urim and thummim were something like a Godly Ouija board that the priests could employ to judge disputes. I've since come to the conclusion (in my mind, anyway) that urim and thummim were nothing of the (supernatural) sort, but rather, a manifestation of an acceptance of a necessary social contract that reflected the widely held paradoxical theology that God intervenes by not intervening. It was merely a social agreement among the people of God that in disputes that could not be settled by the facts or the evidence, the parties would agree to accept the result of a coin toss in order to go on with their lives. So, in a way they weren't so much asking God to guide the coin toss as much as they were accepting that he did. Also, your comment (the latter half of it) brings to mind the curious irony that rational and rationalize are soundalike opposites (that are also the snare of the intellectual). |
|
|
|
Post by RickW on Aug 18, 2023 13:45:09 GMT -5
I’ve been reading a history book, The Edge of the World, and he talked at length about how societies evolved. One of the things he discussed was how people were tried. In the early middle ages, trial by ordeal was the norm. You had to carry a hot chunk of metal for so many steps, and the state of healing a few days later indicated whether you were right or wrong, or you were bound and tossed in pond, and whether you floated or not indicated your guilt. It was a religious ceremony — god would show your guilt or innocence by what happened. (No, I’m not religion bashing here.) This was slowly replaced by lawyers, written law, judges. What was the appeal of the original system, which was painful and dangerous? It was simple. No one had to make a decision. No one had to take the blame for judging someone else; it was an impartial deity, and whether you believed in god or not, it was tidy, simple, and done. And that’s what people want, really, they want simplicity, they want it all in black and white. And the more complex society becomes, the more sophisticated the arguments in support of X or Y, we want somewhere, somehow, that one sentence that clarifies the world for us. It seems to me that much of battles going on now in society are about that — which simple narrative are we going to believe? Which is pretty tough, in this world we’ve made with our brains, our thought processes and opinions. For kicks sometime (if you haven't already -- and I shouldn't assume you haven't) google up "urim and thummim". I remember the elementary school aged Sunday school me wondering what urim and thummim were and getting pretty thin answers from teachers. Back then, in that 1960s intersection of Reformed Theology, Evangelical compassion, and Fundamentalist gravity, I was mostly given the answer that it -- like the ubiquitous occurrence of "casting lots" -- was a calling on the supernatural -- divine intervention -- to settle disputes, and that urim and thummim were something like a Godly Ouija board that the priests could employ to judge disputes. I've since come to the conclusion (in my mind, anyway) that urim and thummim were nothing of the (supernatural) sort, but rather, a manifestation of an acceptance of a necessary social contract that reflected the widely held paradoxical theology that God intervenes by not intervening. It was merely a social agreement among the people of God that in disputes that could not be settled by the facts or the evidence, the parties would agree to accept the result of a coin toss in order to go on with their lives. So, in a way they weren't so much asking God to guide the coin toss as much as they were accepting that he did. Also, your comment (the latter half of it) brings to mind the curious irony that rational and rationalize are soundalike opposites (that are also the snare of the intellectual). I’d never heard of that before, an interesting little tidbit for the writerly mind. |
|
