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 agree with you. The modern Elites in the west are terrible awful individuals who want to play to their vanity by pretending otherwise. Vance grew up in a time that precedes ours (by my estimates) and thus still hasn't had every shred of hope beaten out of him. I think he believes it possible to reform some of our elites. I think things have gotten only more set in stone since he wrote the text and don't know if he now thinks it's possible... or what he might do if he's concluded, like we have, that they're simply evil.
He's _only_ five years older than me. What am I doing with my life?
I have a much more pessimistic take on him, but this is informed mostly through some mutuals who have apparently met him through Peter Thiel's circles. Of course, I default distrust _all_ politicians anyway, and I'm powerless to do anything about it, so this is all abstract
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 agree with you. The modern Elites in the west are terrible awful individuals who want to play to their vanity by pretending otherwise. Vance grew up in a time that precedes ours (by my estimates) and thus still hasn't had every shred of hope beaten out of him. I think he believes it possible to reform some of our elites. I think things have gotten only more set in stone since he wrote the text and don't know if he now thinks it's possible... or what he might do if he's concluded, like we have, that they're simply evil.
He's _only_ five years older than me. What am I doing with my life?
I have a much more pessimistic take on him, but this is informed mostly through some mutuals who have apparently met him through Peter Thiel's circles. Of course, I default distrust _all_ politicians anyway, and I'm powerless to do anything about it, so this is all abstract
I wouldn't trust any politicians. And it's been years since he wrote that book, a lot can change in a decade.