The Road to Chappaqua
30th November 2016
The bourgeois Left not only has different cultural tastes than the working classes; it disapproves of blue-collar tastes as well: “It is summed up in four frightful words which people nowadays are chary of uttering, but which were bandied about quite freely in my childhood. The words were: The lower classes smell.”
We see such disdain for blue-collar taste in our own modern American culture. Indeed, to many on the left, Donald Trump symbolizes bad taste. Snobbishness about food, country music, clothing, NASCAR, or “guns and religion” is as casual as it is accepted in the better ZIP codes of New York and Los Angeles. Orwell, to say the least, had the Left’s number, in ways we still recognize today: “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist in England.”
The Crust remains the Crust even when it is championing the Underclass.
November 30th, 2016 at 19:23
The “underclass” will remain where it is so long as they stubbornly cling to their “underclass-ness” as if it were some badge of honor.
And I find it ironic you would post this, as I can’t think of an evening you would less like to spend than one listening to country music, drinking Budweiser, and talking about NASCAR. But then the alphabet soup after your name may be just a Clever Plastic Disguise, and you’re really just a proletarian masquerading as well-educated.
November 30th, 2016 at 20:03
I’ve certainly spent more time among such people than you have; I get along with them quite well, and I respect their strengths. How I spend my time is my own business, and how they spend their time is theirs — that’s what you yuppie hipsters can’t stand, that people might be allowed to spend their time (and money) in ways of which you disapprove.
November 30th, 2016 at 20:22
Since you haven’t seen me in years, you have no idea how I spend my time and in who’s company I spend it. So keep your unsubstantiated claims to yourself, thank you. What I, “yuppie hipster” that I am, can’t stand is someone who would enter into a “I love day-laborers more than you do” contest to begin with. But so be it: I concede. You win. You are the more unsophisticated between us, though that is hardly a state to aspire to.
December 1st, 2016 at 04:51
Since you don’t appear to let ‘haven’t seen me in years’ stop you from making all sorts of (false) statements about what I know and believe, why should I let it stop me doing the same thing to you? That’s the thing about Democrats, they always play the victim when some one does to them what they habitually do to others. ‘Mommy! Johnny hit me BACK!’ Whiners and hypocrites, every one.
December 1st, 2016 at 13:28
*shrug* Okay, go ahead–make as many fantasies about me (and “Democrats”, even though you haven’t bothered to find out if I am one)–go ahead and construct whatever fantasies you like that confirm your predetermined notions; it’s what conservatives do best, after all.
And as to the original topic, to quote the dean in Animal House: “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” I submit that fiercely clinging to one’s “lower-class” status as if it were some great achievement rather than the result of accident would rank up there, too.