Finished reading/listening to the Hillbilly Elegy; I must admit, I was skeptical if I'll have the attention span to finish the whole book - but the newly minted long drive to work (total of 70-80min in a day) afforded to listen to the audio book.
Impressions: Riveting read - and gave a great insight into the Rust
belt; for someone like me, who has recently moved to America and trying to understand the Trump phenomenon, it resonated with me; I could connect a lot of this to what happens in India, particularly in the rural areas...
I did sense a gap though; while I understand some of the cultural
ethos that the author has talked about that pervades the Hillbillies lives, I'm not
sure I heard the root-cause behind those? So, what is the source of, for
example, alcoholism and womanizing for the hill people, even when the job and economic opportunities (like Armco) were still abundantly available ? I dont think I read the real
root cause of that behaviour ? Is that the hill folks were still rooted in the
Hunter-gatherer mentality that they weren't open to social progress (of
equality with Women etc) ? Or was a moral code of family and monogamy
not part of those - if not, why ?
I still cannot put a finger on, if you peel the onion to the
core, what was the essential difference (in mindset, that led to the behaviour)
between those Scottish-Irish Whites versus the whites from the North-east or
big urban areas ? I believe, the lack of opportunities or dire economic situations came in much
later in 90s; but it seemed anger, conflict, self-destruction were part of the DNA of
hillbillies - not sure what is the anthropological reason to that.
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