The Logic of Stupid Poor People (2013)
tressiemc.com
tressiemc.com
I'm reminded of the "chav" subculture in Britain and their love of Burberry. (Extreme example: http://i.imgur.com/8QxFSh5.jpg) I don't get the feeling that they're trying to open doors to the British upper-class, but rather using it as a status-symbol within their own community.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with that; everyone wants to look good for their peers. But I feel like the author is trying to make it more noble than it is.
Excessive manicure, hair extensions etc. are expensive but seem like a stupid investment. They (in my mind, subjectively) lower your social status, because they are uniforms of the lower class.
Moving one class up, a big car is expensive, but you still will not be accepted in the (upper) middle class if you do not have a proper job or you wear a uniform of the lower class. The question arises whether your house is paid of or not and why you bought that car if it is not
The farther up you rise in the Bildungsbürgertum [0], the more subtle the indicators get: Do you use foreign words, that indicate your French/Latin language education? Which instruments do your children play? Do your children play football (soccer) or tennis?
The point of these status indicators is, that you can not fake them easily. You can not pay of your house if you do not have a proper paying job. You have to get a certain education to show of certain skills. If you have these things you already belong to the respective class.
Edit: Wanted to add one more thing: My most favourite social status indicator is the number of children. It seems to me, that having more than 3 children is an indicator of either the lower class, because the marginal costs of an additional child are mostly paid by the state, or the upper class, because you they can handle the marginal costs on their own again. The middle class often does not want to pay these costs.
I don't get this. How good of an indicator can it be if >3 is both upper and lower? And is the middle class really pinned at 3?
The same as any other indicator that has the same boundaries meaning different things on different "modes".
100% cpu is bad if it's from stalled program, but great if it's from a number-crunching app you created to utilize all cores.
You can see the social status as a vector of social indicators that together define which class you belong to. The "> 3 kids" indicator assigns or strengthens your assignment to a class, depending on which other indicators you have.
At least where I grew up, how much money you had, and what clothes you wore meant absolutely nothing. In fact, it often worked against you if you happened to have rich parents--the whole spolied rich kid thing.
As adults, I guess Americans start to stereotype, but we don't have hard and fast demarcations between low class and upper class.
I'm not saying Americans aren't racists, but the whole class thing was never a big deal where I grew up, or I didn't notice it?
I have noticed a bit of a change lately, but it's still not a ridid system.
I have never heard a guy talk about the economic class a women fits into--Never! They find that special person and will do anything to win them over. In other words, they find that person they find Perfect, and want a relationship--period. (The're usually rejected, but that's another topic.) I have seen women judge people on how much money they come from, but it's not as strong as in other countries, and it usually/always comes from jealousy. Yes, looks do matter. It's a commodity, especially when you are younger. How much money you have doesn't come into the picture until later in life, but that's for men. A pretty, caring female is not judged on how much money she makes. In a lot of circles, it might even work against her? Some of you will call me a sexist over that statement, but it's just something I have noticed. A rich guy who looks/acts like Donald Trump will get his pick. A rich women does not get the same perks. Yes--it's wrong, but I can care less over the happiness of the wealthy. (There I go, I am using wealthy as a demarcation of class? Yes, in American we do talk about the wealthy, and 1 percenter's, but we don't associated it with class, morals, manners, or intelligence. (Donald Trump is a perfect example of a "upper class" person in America. It just doesn't work?)
Over the years, I have sat watched movies/series about the upper classes(usually in Great Britain), and always found them hilarious. I know it's because we don't have a monarchy--thank goodness--personally I couldn't stomach all that pomposity, and family lineage b.s..
(This is coming from a 40 someting, who's always lived in liberal communities.) I don't want to argue--I never even come back to posts. I hope I didn't offend anyone concerning their perceived class?)
I can not think of a western country that is as extremely divided as America. No limit at the top, no limit at the bottom.
People do not talk about the class of people they meet, because the mostly meet people of their own class in the first place. You go to similar schools, attend similar colleges and live in similar neighbourhoods.
Europe has its nouveau rich, that do not really belong to the 1%, too, the same way, that America has its aristocrats, too. I mean, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Bush vs. Clinton again?!?
Otherwise, spot on, and fantabulous analogy about the limitless top and bottom!
You didn't notice.
Being German I think differently about this topic. For finding prospective partners you also don't talk about money (that is hardly ever done in Germany - kind of a social taboo), but you talk a lot about education (indirectly you get from which class the other person is and/or how much money they will probably make in the future). You increase your chances very much if you have some kind of academic education that the other one respects (what kind of this is, is a really complicated game, but tendencies are: medicine - great, mathematics - good (at least if you are still sociable; great if you have a PhD), humanities - it's complicated ;-( , female engineer or computer scientist - great). Nearly all of the male PhD students in mathematics at the same floor as me that are married, are married to a female medicine student. I don't consider this as a coincidence. The same holds for other "educational" topics, say preferred taste of music (if you want to move up, it's surely not bad to like classical music) or whether you play(ed) a musical instrument (good sign if both did) (which is also considered as a kind of education in Germany).
So, yes, in Germany you don't talk about class, but by talking about education you get lots of cues.
HN commenters may "feel" like "the author is trying to make it more noble than it is." But in reality, the obvious point of the article is to educate the reader on the "logic" behind decent survival.
I prefer the author's focus on logic to commenters' "feels". Perhaps these vague feels exist because mainstream media tries to make Dickensian stories out of African-American struggles; mawkish sentiment to make the audience "feel" like they care. Inculcating kneejerk expectations.
However, the way you signal that you are respectable is not through conspicuous consumption, but through things like accent, education, knowledge of social norms, shared friendship networks, etc. Poor minorities are definitely underprivileged when it comes to those things - and this is a very serious issue, but spending on things like expensive Nikes or a Gucci bag won't suddenly ingratiate you to authorities or the upper social classes. If anything, the 'ghetto fab' aesthetic specifically rejects the restrained and minimalistic taste displayed by members of the elite.
So - I think the author makes a very good point that minorities face lots of difficulties and stereotyping, but she tries to make conspicuous consumption seem far more noble than it is... people buy expensive jewelry as a status marker within their own tribe, not as a way to better themselves.
There are of course many different measures of social mobility so this may not be a generally accepted fact.
I feel that language dominates all other signals in Europe, which may be the reason why it doesn't make much sense to buy luxury goods to signal status.
Take HN for example. Many well-known startup-y devs joke about those who visit here, like most do with Youtube commenters. After sheepishly mentioning "I sometimes find a useful article there..." the disdain for me becomes palpable and I no longer bring it up out of embarrassment.
Nevertheless, wearing the HN shirt is likely effective in some cultures (like a secret handshake). Even if in others it's a Mark of a Fool. And even if it brands you as a wannabee, bosses and investors may see you as a useful wannabee.
The piece was about signals. Using the language and mimicking the dress of those acting as gatekeepers to send in-group signals that open doors/ease engagements. "Hey, I'm one of you, treat me better."
Your sentence made me think of a saying that we have in France :
Knowledge is like jam, the less you have, the more you spread it. (La culture c'est comme la confiture, au moins on en a, au plus on l'etale)
But this phenomenon is certainly not only American or essentially white. You can go to Japan and you can go to urban coastal china and contrast that with rural china. Or you can go to Nigeria and contrast Lagos with people not from Lagos.
The signaling and the the appearances are not either uniquely american nor are they borne from mainstream american culture. It's pretty much semi-universal.
On the other hand, poor people in China and Japan will try to look as presentable as possible while being quite frugal.
This whole thing brings up a pet peeve of mine and that's the "cultural fit" meme one finds so pervasive in the valley. It's as if someone who has a Motorola 'culture' is a bad 'fit' for working at Cloudera, to make something up.
None the less, you see people slurping up the corporate culture du jour as if a 'jobdesiac'. You could imagine how if essentially mainstream engineers can be categorized as bad cultural fits just from one company to the next, how slightly different cultures would have even more pronounced experiences due to discrepancy.
Why do so many native english speakers insist _insist_ upon using French phraseology, even when the French phrase is quite cumbersome, if you understand French and there are native english counterparts? The same could be said about abusing buzzwords.
Basically, the goal is to mimic the received and expected behavior of where you are. If I were in india, it would behoove me to adopt more local norms in conducting business. Acting white and american, would do white americans a disservice.
Actually not so much. In late-19th early 20th century, Italian, Greek, Bulgarian, etc immigrants were decidely labeled as "non white" -- to the point of lynching when one of those "non whites" were e.g. found dating a "white girl" (white being mostly WASP).
Whiteness is associated with power and dominant status, but not all categorizations of "characteristics signifying traits associated with power and dominant status" are Whiteness. Whiteness is a subset of CSTAWPADS.
Case in point: there is no conceivable narrative by which one's sofa gets one welfare benefits or a new job as a shift lead. Poor people apparently are quite aware of this. When asked (in the article referenced by a sibling thread), the young lady's answer to "Why did you buy a sofa?" answer was "Because I wanted a sofa."
you don't even have to be "poor" to be coerced into buying something too expensive for your household, Apple is the best example but many companies strive to build the got to have it mentality and personal electronics is has one of the lowest entry points for immediate recognition. Clothing isn't far behind, nor shoes, but the recognition factor outside a few brands isn't there. Cars are where its at in the middle to upper middle income brackets.
People will willingly spend themselves poor for a feeling of at least equality or success
This points my thinking back toward impulse control and delayed gratification ability being deciding factors when looking at why the sofa seems compatible with a poor young person and a sports car and a rich older person.
But with near negative interest rates, I wonder whether if the excessive sofa isn't the investment vehicle of the future. Telling your network about that indiscretion (and reminding them in your selfies) may have them thinking of you when new sources of income come up.
Was it a particularly expensive sofa? Or by 'sofa', do you mean something other than 'couch', which is what I take it to mean?
As an example, I purchased my first sofa costing more than zero at age 43. But I've always had sofas everywhere I lived before that. Sofas that meet the definition of "something to sit on" can be had for roughly zero dollars and are plentiful at that price point.
You would notice the difference if you put one side by side with a new one costing $1500, indicating that perhaps that difference in appearance is the real reason that somebody without $1500 to spare would choose to buy the latter in favor of the former.
These reasons are unavoidable unless you have a lot more money, but they'll also just be added to the pile of debts you can't avoid anyway. So why not spend that liquid cash now, while you have it, rather then waiting for life to decide to screw you over again and take it away for no appreciable gain?
The VP had constructed her job as senior management. She drove a brand new BMW because she, “should treat herself” and liked to tell us that ours was an image business. A girl wearing a cotton tank top as a shell was incompatible with BMW-driving VPs in the image business. Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols — silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags — become keys to unlock these gates. If I need a job that will save my lower back and move my baby from medicaid to an HMO, how much should I spend signaling to people like my former VP that I will not compromise her status by opening the door to me? That candidate maybe could not afford a proper shell. I will never know. But I do know that had she gone hungry for two days to pay for it or missed wages for a trip to the store to buy it, she may have been rewarded a job that could have lifted her above minimum wage. Shells aren’t designer handbags, perhaps. But a cosmetology school in a strip mall isn’t a job at Bank of America, either.
Pierre Bourdieu's "La Distinction" is a great text that investigates this topic in depth. It's (among other things) about taste. How it's inherited through generations, how it's a gatekeeping tool for jobs and status.
What you wear isn't the whole story btw. It's also how you wear it (as exemplified above ("Chavs" wearing Burberry)). One of Bourdieu's examples is art and how one speaks about it (using certain words, knowing the "right" works of art etc. Another example might be wine).
I don't know if Bourdieu is widely read in the US, but he certainly influenced my thinking about class, class boundaries, and taste. Highly recommended.
I thought he was particularly interesting on music. You might expect the upper classes to be opera buffs and experts on classical music. But in fact he found that the middle classes used a knowledge of classical music as evidence of aspiration.
The upper classes sometimes used opera as a status marker, but were more likely to enjoy undemanding music, like easy listening and musicals - presumably because they felt they had nothing to prove.
Interestingly, median prices for a stadium show by a mainstream act are higher than tickets for most seats at the Royal Opera House.
I'd love to see real data that points to this being the exception.
I'd love to believe that alternative hypothesis, but that would be naive and irresponsible without data.
"Among African-Americans who have grown up during the era of mass incarceration, one in four has had a parent locked up at some point during childhood." [1]
"America’s prisons and jails have produced a new social group, a group of social outcasts who are joined by the shared experience of incarceration, crime, poverty, racial minority, and low education. As an outcast group, the men and women in our penal insti- tutions have little access to the social mobility available to the mainstream." [2]
"By and large, this research supports the conclusion that family income has selective but, in some instances, quite substantial effects on child and adolescent well-being. Family income appears to be more strongly related to children’s ability and achievement than to their emotional outcomes. Children who live in extreme poverty or who live below the poverty line for multiple years appear, all other things being equal, to suffer the worst outcomes." [3]
How exactly do people make their way out of poverty? Unless they win the lotto, employment is how it's done. Do rates of employment fluctuate along with rates of laziness and poor planning? Or does the Keynesian theory in which decreased demand for goods and services make more sense? Does the Monetarist approach that unemployment is caused by high inflation and decreased investment sound more likely? Either way, it would appear that for many, finding full time employment with which to escape poverty isn't always manageable.
A lot of it comes down to business cycles and the mobility of one's skills as the economy evolves. Think of the regional structure of the economy. Sometimes an industry experiences a heavy downturn in an area in which it is highly saturated. Believe it or not, the personal losses that accompany it are not due to people getting lazier.
Do you know how big of a problem poverty is? Did you know that in the last 20 years we in Canada finally dipped our poverty rate among single parent families below the 50% mark? That is a lot of kids growing up in a situation in which no matter how hard they work, there is a lot to overcome compared to the middle class. Can you see how some of the situational issues might prevent them from escaping poverty no matter how hard they try? What about other at-risk groups like people with work-related disability, recent immigrants and aboriginals? Do you think these people are just not trying hard enough?
Your stance that poverty is the failure of the individual is a dangerous stereotype. It's a type of blame-oriented belief with a dark history. It actually dates back to religious attitudes in the 16th century, when the paupers in the workhouse were dismissed as sinners. Social Darwinism eventually took it's place, applying biological theories to social life and stating that the poor are simply biologically and/or socially inferior. That's your angle, correct? The great depression was nothing more than a mass bout of laziness?
People are let go from jobs for reasons outside their control and many are unable to recover. People deal with issues outside of their control that are powerful enough to prevent them from escaping poverty. People below the poverty line tend to find themselves spending all their money and time attending to basic needs and are incapable of budgeting the time and money for learning new skills. Kids raised in poor families are not given a decent start in life.
You say you would love to see the data but I wonder if you would love to see it enough to search it out yourself? Have you already reviewed these points and decided they are false? I’m just spitballin’ here a bit, there is plenty more proof that poverty creates poverty and that social darwinist theories applied to labour markets is absurd and dehumanizing.
[1] Prison and the Poverty Trap http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/long-prison-terms-...
[2] Incarceration & social inequality http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00019
[3] The Effects of Poverty on Children https://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs...
TLDR: The opportunities people are given to build skills and an economy to support them dictates poverty.
BTW, if you are really interested, here is an article (with links to actual scientific studies) on why being poor is hard: http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-rese...
Also, note that having the quality of being "feel-good" does not invalidate an argument.
When discussing this subject, I find that people mostly tend to really be arguing from how they make sense of the world (anecdotes, philosophy, political ideology, etc.) rather than saying anything useful about the world itself.
For some reason, it also seems that this sort of thinking is especially prevalent (or at least visible) in the U.S., even though it compares poorly to other developed countries.
Yes, I'd love to know these are all exceptions to the rule-- it would make me feel much better about the politics I'd like to believe, but the other camp is going to have to provide the data to back up their alternative hypothesis.
What the null hypothesis is or isn't does not change in your case, nor does multiple anecdotes equal data.
While making irrational decisions with regard to one's economic situation and laying blame elsewhere is hypocritical, it is not behavior exclusive to poor people, and neither is "investing" in gambling. There is also the fact that poor people are not proven to consistently make these sorts of irrational choices.
Any camp making any sort of claim is going to have to provide data.
All the while, we have merrily ignored any other potential contributing factors, which will change depending on how we define poverty (absolute/relative, local/global, etc.) [0], including (off the top of my head):
- History (e.g. colonialism, exploitation);
- Government policy (discrimination, segregation, ethnic policies, etc.) [1, 2];
- Social attitudes/culture (stigma, prejudice, etc.) [3]
- Nation status (underdeveloped nations ravaged by war, for instance);
- Social mobility (auto-bootstrap-pulling, singular data points aside) [4];
- Risk factors in early development (lack of nutrition, stimuli and resources) [5, 6];
- Dumb luck (born into wealth, stumbling over winning lottery ticket).
[0]: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme...
[1]: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality...
[2]: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/world/un-says-bad-governme...
[3]: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16324
[4]: http://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/issue_social_mobility.ht...
[5]: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-poverty-does-to-...
The basic idea of course is right: You need to fake status if you don't have it, if you want some of the benefits.
But what is missing is some data. Because if we think that further, you can certainly overspend on that hope that one day someone let's you in on something because you have status. And probably many people do overspend on that (I'm thinking about the golden $10k Apple watch here as an example). There must be a way to evaluate how much is good and when it starts to hurt you. And I guess there should be a lot of science on that.
Also what's the point? I don't really agree with "knowing <X> = privilege" but let's say it's true. Then what? Does that change what should be the best decision? Does it change how we react on incomplete information?
Knowing that there is a threshold at which returns start to diminish is a good point, because it tells you to look for clues of when to stop spending on status symbols. Having an expensive watch might help you, but the $60k watch might not improve your situations 10x of what a $6k watch would do.
Now if we add that the knowledge of the threshold is privilege, what does it change? Of course the person who has that knowledge makes better decisions. But knowing that it is a privilege to know that threshold doesn't give any more change to the decision making process. Or at least I don't see it.
[1] http://forums.watchuseek.com/f220/review-casio-mdv102-duro-2...
> Becca Mills > November 11, 2013
> I was thinking this, too, but then it occurred to me that being able to determine exactly where that line is (the line between looking comfortably professional and looking like a poor person trying to fake their status by flaunting an exorbitantly expensive bauble) is itself a matter of privilege. You might have to be “in the club” to be able to perceive the subtle messages various clothing/accessory choices, combined with the rest of your presentation, can send. Or at least you’d have to have studied “the club” from the outside with an unusually perceptive eye.
> tressiemc22 > November 13, 2013
> Yes, Becca. If everyone knows where the line is the status symbol loses most of its utility.
I think most of it is to feel better.
If you like your job and most of the other parts of your life, you spent less money to feel better.
But if nobody gives you a good job and you don't have much time left for the rest of your life, you get the impression that you have to buy happiness.
Can't blame those people. Did it myself for years.
This guy who only earned $500 spent $400 on a loan and insurance for a Golf GTi (one of the status symbol cars in South Africa). My friend who earned 5 times as much drove around in a derelict '92 VW Fox.
So I've seen it first-hand, "stupid poor people spending stupid amounts of money on stupid things." In the same way me and my friend spent stupid amounts of money on our own type of stupid things. We bought smartphones (back in 2005, this was the WinMo days) so that we could tinker with them. Instead of getting a prestige symbols we got toys that we could play with.
Whether or not something is stupid depends on who you ask. If you ask a poor person whether someone buying a nice car is stupid they will probably say "no." If you ask them whether buying a smartphone (pre-iPhone, remember) is a stupid idea they would definitely say "yes." I would guess it speaks about the underlying psychology of wealth: those with no monetary wealth seek approval from others (prestige symbols: cars, handbags, etc.) and those with much seek approval from themselves (toys: fast internet, flashy computers, etc.).
That's why law was invented, to put some order into the zoo and transform it into civilization. The real political issue is to make people have faith in society and leave their culture at home.
The hardest difficulty for minorities is to not feel rejected, and to have faith in the law and the democratic system. There has been real historical progress towards legal statuses, but it's true that you can't really prevent people from behaving like social animals and make sure they behave like citizens first, social animal second.
The real intellectual fight, is to systemically crush the idea that some cultures and ways of life are to be thanked for because they brought our society's greatness. I guess the US is a large country with very diverse cultures, and it can be very hard for the federal government to make the union hold into something thriving and prosperous.
The saddest thing is when you hear people defending the founding fathers like they are the sole ideal of america: white catholic conquerors founded america and thus america should be at its image.
Sometimes the distinction is made by a lower case leading "c" for the church universal, and an upper case leading "C" for shorthand of "Roman Catholic".
Here's a Lutheran church using the term in this way: http://web.archive.org/web/20081203192002/http://www.elca.or...
I am not talking about the cutesy ankle tattoos, I am taking tattoos that require long sleeves to cover up or worse cannot be hidden. Unless your trying for a job where creativity is king I cannot find many instances where they are acceptable.
That’s how generational wealth happens where I’m from: lose a leg, a part of your spine, die right and maybe you can lease-to-own a modular home.
That was a very powerful sentence.
...but I'm sure the logic of this article explains that...
Actually they're not stupid. They're ruthless in some areas and its hard for me to sit there a a relative and not explode violently at them.
This post is somewhat an experiment however as reddit's UK population seems to think that this class of person doesn't exist and would happily downvote people off the internet for even suggesting it, labelling you as a tory supporter and general inhuman.
Forgot to change website after copypasting ?
Anyway, your sister-in-law (who's such a bad person, you let your brother marry her -- maybe your bro is not a saint either, is he? But women make for better targets) is actually quite savvy. Thing is, really, that western society is built by people of privilege tricking us schmucks into breaking our backs for them. She's saying no to all that hypocrisy from first principles. I honestly envy her courage.
She is my wife's sister for reference.
You're probably right about being savvy. Interesting perspective.
You know what, fuck 'em. You're not alone, and the vast majority of people are not vocal. The vocal people are always a small minority on either side of the spectrum. Fuck 'em.
They both may well be genuinely more evil than Hitler, but you've hardly presented an airtight case on this and in fact are likely to have inspired sympathy for the targets of your rage. Maybe that's why random strangers on the internet label you as a "tory supporter and general inhuman".
That causes a lot of resentment among many people. It's basically an abuse of the welfare system.
You are obliged to give taxes for welfare so that the poor have incentive to sign into the social contract and don't confiscate your private property. Consider it payment for your lifestyle. What incentive would this person not to kill you and take your wealth were she not getting welfare?
A twelve-gauge with #4 buckshot would do the trick nicely.
I am obliged to give taxes for welfare because if I don't men with guns from the government will come and confiscate my private property.
One of the things that is explicitly allocated from my taxation is policing. In some states/counties in some countries, that doesn't necessarily prevent those who are receiving welfare from taking your property either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
Dishonest as she has built her life on a web of lies at the extreme cost of others. Everything she owns is on credit and has no intention of paying for it for example. If she's short of cash, her solution is to find someone to fuck and get another kid to pay the bills.
She has three children. The oldest is disabled but not and has two criminal records already. The middle one has been kicked out of two schools. And she has a social worker for the third one.
Making a career out of dishonesty isn't acceptable morally. Neither is leaving this legacy.
For ref, I'm not for work entirely and as someone who automates people out of it, I understand that there isn't likely to be enough work to go around one day.
Also I have three children and actually look after them.
The earth is bountiful enough for a person to live off it without working (hunter-gatherer). Is it her fault that she was born at a time when all land and productive capacity has been appropriated by those who came before? Is it somehow noble for her to sell her body into labor to work in a society that can feed all without making her into a wage slave?
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence becomes an act of rebellion." - Albert Camus
If that's the issue, there is a simple solution. We can provide hunter/gatherer levels of subsistence for anyone who wants it in some roped off, undeveloped land. Anyone who wants latrines, heating, clean water, textiles or metal still needs a job in the modern world.
This will cost essentially nothing and will allow people to live as hunter gatherers. Somehow I suspect this isn't quite what you had in mind.
Mind you, very few people would take you up on the offer, as you know, so we could probably manage this for anyone who wanted it...but doing so would take a lot of work without providing a lot of benefit for the whole population. So there's no good reason to. :)
My real point is that liltimmy's appeal to some hunter/gatherer era is silly.
I mean we can all have that attitude, live off the land and be rebellious but the price we pay for that is a collapse in all the benefits participating in society brings.
I doubt you've ever actually tried living like this. I spend a good amount of my spare time tending an allotment and a large garden (as a context switch) and it's hard work just to get some vegetables for leisurely eating, not just to feed yourself with all the other concerns of life as well. My potatoes got rot a couple of years ago; that would have been famine historically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
I'm not sure she could or would even consider digging trenches for your squashes and I'm not sure you would even though you're spurting idealism.
What I am talking about is rejecting the modes of power prevalent, not civilization entirely.
That's good to hear, so you dislike our current society, especially the modern work environment? Good for you, I hope more people wise up. I would love to hear your suggestions for an alternative work enivronment and a better society.
(Hint: Sarcasm)
(Hint: Facetious :)
Simple things will betray you, much like accent and non idiomatic English. You might not ever speak to this person, but they will have formed an opinion about you in 5 seconds and poof! an opportunity slips by.
I know this seems "unfair" or maybe people will even say "yeah well if someone is so superficial maybe it's a good thing" these are all just ways of trying to rationalize an irrational world. Rather learn to play the game.
I know many people who refused to conform to clothing signaling norms, and it has never worked for any of them.
Obviously, I'm stereotyping a bit, but that's kind of the point! Sometimes there are barriers to overcome and middlemen that need to be appeased, and working to overcome these problems is a demonstration of good problem solving skills, even if it looks "stupid" to an outside observer.
Note that buying $2500 clothes does not necessarily mean that one has $2500 in the bank: they can be bought using credit or as part of a set of large expenditures thanks to a paycheck. The system of credit in the US does allow people to live above their means -- for a while.
In communities where status symbols like this are really important, people often put themselves in significant financial jeopardy to buy such items, even when they cannot really afford them.
edit: downvote away, but I doubt I'm alone in feeling turned off by this kind of clickbaity behavior
[premise] society loves to hate on poor people and considers them stupid for buying luxury
[tweet that states nothing of the sort, not even remotely]
[thesis]
so, given that I've never heard of this trope myself (perhaps it's a bit of a US thing?) I felt turned off and commented on that, nothing less, nothing more.
The author talks about how it __appears__ wasteful to buy expensive clothes when you're poor, but it's all about __signalling__ to others that you're someone that should not be ignored. It profoundly changed the way I thought about the "people buying expensive things they can't afford" idea when I read it.
At the risk of quoting too much, this is the part that really was memorable for me, and is worth reading more than once in the original article:
I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the
social service agency. The elderly woman had been denied benefits ....
The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way — lots
of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate.
I watched my mother put on her best ... outfit.
It took half a day but ... my mother’s performance ... got done
what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done
in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that ...
we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging.
It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work.
It likely wouldn't work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try.
One such hipster once told me that he is from a different tribe of humanity, and commented two minutes later, that "the eachquake was nice, I learned a lot". And he isn't even acting - he is just that.
Status symbols must be not vearable. It must be healthy looks and open-mindedness - the effects of possession of at least some intelligence (evolution do favour looks of healthy youth, not purchased status items marketed as such. Not being able to grasp this simple fact means one isn't qualified even for a hipster).
BTW, real intelligence and real spirituality does not require any special attributes to make it self-evident. On the contrary, it is inversly correlated with appearance - the dreaded-and-tattooed hippues in rags marketed for tourists are the most primitive. Then come yogis, sages and babas. Breaded hipsters comes next.
As for status symbols to impress waiters and clerks, well, they could be much subtle and cheaper that a ₹1 lakh bag. Usually, the matching set of clothing which reflects your personal taste - texture and quality of a fabric, matching colors, simplicity of being good-enough is enough.
When I was a kid I was all "oh, I can separate the artist from their art", but as an old man... fuck that.
The Logic of "Stupid Poor People"
As an old man, I learned something by clicking on that.