[Book Review] Hillbilly Elegy
The book written by JD Vance, the new vice-presidential frontrunner of 2024
I have recently completed reading the book, Hillbilly Elegy written by JD Vance. What was likely a highly overlooked literary work has achieved the forefront of public attention. Partially because JD Vance is now the vice president for the presidential frontrunner… and partially because the book was written years ago and thus provides a far more honest interpretation of this senators background and opinions than would a book written while subject to [the current political climate].
Until recently I’d never heard of the book. Apparently several years ago there was also a netflix adaptation and a TED talk. Both of which far more sanitized than the original text. While its difficult to speak to the substantial social network that Vance has obviously developed which resulted in the broad adaptation of his work, it provides meaningful insight into the character of the individual now running for the seat of Vice President.
The book itself is particularly striking to those who have a personal familiarity with Appalachian culture. When it was written, that type of downtrodden and frustrated poor working-class white culture was the exception rather than the rule. Now, roughly a decade later, we’ve seen broad adoption of addiction, frustration and pessimism across the body politic. Particularly among young white men. Indeed, pessimism was already at a 25 year high among the white working class 10 years ago in 2013.
Hardly a surprise given that the cultural climate is to shit all over white men for any reason or no reason at all.
Vance grew up in a poor family in Appalachia with deep roots. If you know what that means, then you don’t need to read the whole of the book, merely the last couple of chapters. If you don’t know what that means, then this book is clearly for you. There are many reasons an individual takes up the pen to write. Based on the content of the text and the author the reason for this books existence seems relatively self explanatory. After growing up dirt poor in Appalachia, Vance went on to join the marines and graduate law school. Surrounded by the type of trust fund kid who gets offered flights around the world, JD Vance felt particularly out of place. Like many people who have grown up with an Appalachian culture, he has more in common with the working poor of the world than the self-righteous yuppies of New York or New Haven.
Vance wrote the book Hillbilly elegy as a memoire to explain to those around him who he was and where he came from. To them, he was culturally alien in a way that didn’t neatly fit into their diversity boxes. They were anti-racists and wanted to support the poor, no, not those poor people, they’re white. Also not those other poor people, they don’t live in the city. Do small towns in America really exist? I thought it was all just LA and New York City.
Vance wrote the book to try and paint a picture in the minds of his collegiate peers in a format consumable enough for them to understand. A picture of what the people of the United States are actually like. He did this because it was the only way to try and get through to them how different they were from the norm. Thus, he does his best to paint a highly accurate and non-abstract portrait of the reality for many (most) white Americans. This is why it struck a cord among the elite and why he was invited to give TED talks and why his book was converted to a Netflix series… not because the book itself says anything particularly awe inspiring, but because the elites who experience Vance’s story were inspired to gawk at it. They are entirely ignorant of the real world, and having it provided to them in an easily digestible fashion was irresistible.
Unfortunately it hasn’t changed the behavior of our elites, but I give credit to Vance for trying his hand at it.
Vance had the privilege of growing to adulthood prior to the catastrophic economic collapse that took place in 2008. He maintains a more hopeful outlook on life and on his people in Appalachia than an individual only a bit younger would have. Those who grew up and graduated into the work force after 2008 had an even more pessimistic experience and are even less likely to be optimistic about the future.
The books purpose is an attempt to provide an understanding of the place Vance came from. Those from such a culture may see his accurate and personal representation to contain malice. It does not. This book wasn’t written for his own people because they have lived in Appalachia and grown up under similar conditions. Hillbilly Elegy is fundamentally a book seeking understanding from those around him in the ivory tower of power.
An understanding he appears not to have received. The strength of these rugged roots, however, has had a lasting impression on Vance. He understands that the way the Elites treat poor communities; as statistics in need of a panacea solution. Vance is also aware that the outlook of the Elites will help no one and only act to further entrench the issues in those communities. Vance wants to improve the lives of the working class of the United States, or at least did when his book was published several years ago. He also understands that one of the best things that federal and state governments can do to help those people is stop trying to help. A robust culture needs to be rebuilt, not foisted on an angry population. It’s the same lesson the American Government learned in Iraq and Afghanistan: it turns out that the way our elites want to do thing doesn’t actually improve hardly anything for the effected people.
Vance is a grounded character, and as a VP, he’d probably do better than most of the alternatives. He’s not perfect, but he is far more aware of the problems in the United States than 99% of Ivy League graduates.
The elites will hate him. They’ll do everything in their power to tear this man apart as they do any one who makes them uncomfortably aware that [their] world is not the only world.
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I haven't read the book yet but, since his presumable upcoming ascension to power, it's been on my reading list. Your review has just bumped it's priority.
It is difficult to comment on a book I haven't read, but your writeup of it has prompted a thought. It's one I tried to write about, in a past life, with a past online identity, long ago on my then-blog. I didn't do a great job of communicating it, because I mostly wrote when I was upset about something. But it aligned closely with what your review says the book is about and what I assume your blog is about, based on our brief previous interactions. And that is "The extent to which The Elites are disconnected from normal people and the extent to which that disconnection is disrespectful and damaging".
I did not grow up in Appalachia. I did not grow up poor. My childhood had its own challenges but overall, I had a pretty good one. I never had to fear violence in my home. I never went hungry. My family's socioeconomic position was not that well off, but we were solidly middle class. My stepdad was in fact an opioid addict (to cope with the pain from a terrible car crash in his past), but on the one hand, he was the most functional addict I've ever met, and on the other hand, he's the only person on this planet who just up and decided one day to quit cold turkey, _and did_.
My "challenge", as it were, is that I grew up non-elite in the midwest, but I outperform the elites. I am one of the smartest people I've ever met. I've never taken a formal IQ test, but I've compared my results on several proxies and come up with an estimate of 150-155. I don't say this brag; in fact, I wish I was stupider, crayon-in-brain style. My point is, I am exactly the kind of person that the elites try to brain drain from Middle America, but they never did, and my attempts to do it myself, didn't work.
I used to work in Silicon Valley. Every single one of my coworkers had prestigious university degrees, wide professional social networks. They knew how to talk the talk. They knew how to manipulate their position within corporate America to get ahead and excel. But me? I'm just a guy who got here on my own merit, and then was resented and rejected by everyone around me. I got to spend years listening to people whose parents paid their quarter-million-dollar university degree for them, call _me_ "privileged" and make demands on me, just because of my skin colour. And I had to just sit there and smile and nod and say "yes", because otherwise I'd get fired, lose my visa, and get deported.
The elites in this country are horrible human beings, if they even qualify as human. And I don't just mean like Hillary Clinton level elites. I mean, essentially, "everyone who listens to NPR". You know the type. They claim to want to solve all these problems with society but then they just make the problems worse. By accident to their ingroup. But on purpose to the outgroup. To people like me. They don't actually care about improving the world. They just want the social status of being recognized as that kind of very caring person, without the effort of doing so.
A vigniete. in the mid 2010s I worked at a company, and got involved in their conspicuous philanthropy arm (basically, what they did for plaudits before everyone just phoned it in with wokeness). We were going to do a community trash pickup on the beach. We were on the beach for two hours. I had four full trash bags by the end. The rest of them took selfies for instagram all day and then five minutes before we left, picked up like one can so they could say we did it. Then we went for lunch, where it was revealed that we had a lunch budget for this event of $200 a person. No story better captures why I hate these people than that. They get to go around bragging about how they care so much about their community, but really they just threw a $4000 lunch party and took some selfies.
These people are a cancer on our society, and they're rapidly killing it. But they're also in power. There's not much we can do, I'm afraid.
I read this when it first came out. The stories made a modest impression on me, although I recall that some argued his family was more middle class than presented. I also don’t like the Rod Dreher type complaints that his hick relatives don’t appreciate his brilliance.
He seems to have come into his own in this campaign. He is right on pretty much every issue except for the usual Israel obsession. The sight of a brilliant young white male edgelord running rings around diversity hires is in retrospect an inspired choice. It seems to have inspired a lot of young white males and he is surely a better leader than Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate.