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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2553 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Rich Men North of Richmond

I don't think I've seen this discussed here yet? I have to admit, the song has grown on me. It really feels authentic in a way that say, Try That in a Small Town doesn't.

My family's background is roughly speaking confederate descendants who roamed around after the war with about three separate main branches settling between Appalachia and Texas.

As other comments have pointed out "whiny"-ness, let me double down that - this song continues a long tradition of folk/country/bluegrass fatalism that I have little tolerance for. "My daddy grew up here and lived as a poor man, and so did my grandaddy, and so did his daddy...but we all grew up right, and I'm gonna stay here and be just like them!" .... Why / how is inter-generational poverty a virtue? If it's the case that your in such an awful economic situation that you can't advance your lot in life more than several generations before you, you have all of my sympathy. And that same sympathy disappears the second you turn that situation into some sort of battle cry of authenticity or moral superiority.

There's something to be said here about crabs in a bucket, and how it seems like - for more than a few cultures inspired by Southern Clanish / Honor cultures - the only way to prove authenticity and adherence to "traditional" (and, therefore, right) cultural norms is through demonstrated poverty and dysfunction.

Why is that the goal? Sure, I have a deep appreciation for stories about the dust bowl I heard growing up, but I have more appreciation that my Dad and Uncles used the G.I. bill to get STEM degrees and were also willing to move the family around for job opportunities. Law obeying, studious, industrious, and economically astute seems like a good rubric for "Rasied 'Em Right!" when compared with impulsive, prone to violence, substance abuse, obsessed with vague notions of honor but .... geographically consistent?

The unfortunate fact is that your suffering alone yields no accolade or social currency. No one cares. The best you can do, as this song tries to, is whip up some strong emotionalism and try to trade-the-currency for moral deference. But that exchange rate is never strong and that commodity expiry is measured in hours.

my Dad and Uncles used the G.I. bill to get STEM degrees and were also willing to move the family around for job opportunities. Law obeying, studious, industrious, and economically astute seems like a good rubric for "Rasied 'Em Right!" when compared with impulsive, prone to violence, substance abuse, obsessed with vague notions of honor but .... geographically consistent?

Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come? It’s not the dirt that’s dumb in rural communities, and it’s not the water which makes addicts of the townsfolk.

As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory. It’s a far more precious price than a mortgage. (I can’t say I feel that same drive myself, as my parents’ families are from Ohio and Michigan, yet we live in a huge modern city in New Mexico. I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.)

Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come?

They don't 'have' to move, but if they stay, complaining about a lack of jobs is questionable. The Amish stay in their small towns, but they 'make their own luck' and configure their economies to work for them. There is no reason why Appalachians could not theoretically pursue localized, autarkic economies that maintain their communities, but they don't, instead complaining when the large company in their town shuts down the factory or the mine and then refusing to leave.

And it has to be said that their ancestors, whom they venerate (eg. in the very song OP links) often moved for economic reasons. The Kevin Williamson argument is essentially that these small, economically unproductive communities can only survive because of welfare. Often in deprived communities, the main employers are the state (healthcare, government, schools) - all subsidized by state and federal government - and welfare, and that these are the only things keeping the economy going. Dollars only flow in through government. They are not self-sufficient in any way, but they preach a gospel of self-reliance, and that's hollow and hypocritical.

They are not self-sufficient in any way, but they preach a gospel of self-reliance, and that's hollow and hypocritical.

I think it's that they see the giants astride the land (the corporations, the governments) and despair of how to make a living once they've trampled the earth and moved on.

Then too, the analogy of red and blue buttons which was the hot topic last week; these are the blue buttoners who depended on those who declared it would be forever safe to keep pushing the blue button, never realizing their fellows skipped town to China leaving them ever closer to the 50% mark of death.

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