This is my third post about J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, after which I hope never to discuss it again. Unless he does something that forces my hand, which I admit is not unlikely.
The first two posts discussed how the book’s good points are
diminished by Vance’s subsequent actions and how his conflation of terms casts
misleading impressions of demographic groups. Both impugn Vance’s honesty, but
what could we have expected? Even the title is cynically misleading.
Merriam-Webster defines elegy as “a song or poem
expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead.” (Leave aside
the “song or poem” part. It’s not germane.) The book’s subtitle is A Memoir
of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Yet by the end of the book Vance is
talking about how hillbillies leaving the hollers for better opportunities are
spreading the hillbilly outlook of distrust for outsiders, holding grudges, and
citing the Bible more than observing it across the country. (If you take issue
with that description of hillbillies, read the book. Vance makes it clear.)
I understand leaving decaying areas in search of opportunity.
I left Western Pennsylvania in 1980 to join the Army and have lived in or near
Atlanta, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, then back to the DC metro area. I’ve
done all right for myself. I own my home and was able to retire at 65. I also
picked up knowledge and customs from each place I lived and incorporated them
into my own life. I’m a better person for it.
That does not seem to be the case with the Great Hillbilly
Migration, as Vance himself implies. Based on changing voting patterns as
regional demographics evolve, it appears folks from the hills bring their virtues
and vices with them as an inseparable package and it’s up to everyone else to
either adjust or ignore them. No effort is made to assimilate.
Well, hell, people. Isn’t that something MAGites can be
heard bitching about every day? Pissing and moaning about Spanish signs in
stores and how immigrants don’t observe our customs?
The Orange Menace rants endlessly about how immigrants are
taking over this country and dragging it down to their level when the sad truth
is we can’t have nice things because too many native-born voters are mired in
an attitude distrustful of outsiders, hold grudges, actively resist change, and
spend more time reading the Bible than they do observing it.
I wonder where that came from?
Hillbilly culture isn’t dying. It’s spreading. And we’d
better get a handle on its worst elements before it takes us all down with it.
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