Do you mean to contend that any given out-of-work MFA at OWS, according to your model of reality, would turn down an outdoor job exclusively or primarily because it would be associated in their mind with the label “redneck”?
Entirely the other way around. The job is not low status because associated with “redneck”. Redneck is low status because associated with the job.
The MFA would turn down a job that required him to do physical work out of doors because such a job is lower status than a low pay, zero security, academic job,
The fact that the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers shows that manual work is low status, regardless of income, and working outdoors is especially low status, regardless of how successful the worker is economically.
The word “redneck” has nothing to do with MFA’s employment choices, or the Ivy League’s selection criteria
Rather: redneck is low status in your mind, because it is associated with such low status jobs, associated with the work done by your inferiors, associated with jobs that an MFA will not do, no matter how hungry, jobs that damage your application to elite universities. Rednecks are supposedly racist because such jobs are low status, and “racist” in dialect of your group is merely another word for low status, having no relationship to a person’s mode of reasoning from racial characteristics. Examples: “The tea party is racist” “Herman Cain is an uncle Tom”.
Rednecks are supposedly racist for exactly the same reason as Herman Cain is supposedly an Uncle Tom—it has absolutely nothing to do with the political views of Cain or the redneck. Rather, Cain lacks the requisite ruling elite credentials.
I think applying the label to a farmer who is feminist, left wing, and wealthy, and who dislikes NASCAR and country music, would strike people as far more jarring than the inverse who worked in a garage.
True: But notice your inverse is man who works for his hands. How about an inverse who is a slush pile reader? Could he be a redneck? I don’t think so, even though slush pile readers are apt to be low paid.
You are probably correct that people would feel comfortable calling a guy who works in a garage a redneck if he had the demonized redneck attitudes, but they would consider it joking or ironic to call a bookkeeper a redneck no matter what his attitudes, and there is no way they are going to call an MFA a redneck, except ironically, regardless of what that MFA’s tastes and political attitudes are, and regardless of how infrequent and small the MFA’s grants are.
Indeed, I use MFA as an example, because MFAs are notoriously starving, while looking down their noses at those who succeed in doing grubby inferior jobs at decent pay.
Rather: redneck is low status in your mind, because it is associated with such low status jobs, associated with the work done by your inferiors, associated with jobs that an MFA will not do, no matter how hungry, jobs that damage your application to elite universities. Rednecks are supposedly racist because such jobs are low status, and “racist” in dialect of your group is merely another word for low status, having no relationship to a person’s mode of reasoning from racial characteristics. Examples: “The tea party is racist” “Herman Cain is an uncle Tom”.
Neither Herman Cain (to say the very least) nor the modal tea party member are uneducated or work in low-status jobs.
Entirely the other way around. The job is not low status because associated with “redneck”. Redneck is low status because associated with the job.
An interesting claim. I don’t know enough of the socio-linguistic history to really comment. I still don’t really think it was a reasonable response to my original comment. You had seemed to be using “redneck” to mean farmers, generally; I still maintain that this is an unrealistic representation of what people typically use the phrase to mean, and will likely lead to misunderstanding in both directions.
The MFA would turn down a job that required him to do physical work out of doors because such a job is lower status than a low pay, zero security, academic job,
There are unquestionably social groups wherein academia is accorded the highest status, yes. People value status, yes. Undoubtedly, some people with an MFA belong to some of those social groups, and this factored in to their decision. I have no data either way to support typicality or atypicality of MFA’s in particular. I have basically no experience with Occupy Wall Street. From my limited direct observation of Occupy Oakland, however, this does not seem terribly representative of the protesters there.
The fact that the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers shows that manual work is low status, regardless of income, and working outdoors is especially low status, regardless of how successful the worker is economically.
I have not seen it demonstrated that that is a fact. Nonetheless, it is certainly the case that knowledge work is accorded higher status in many circles.
Rather: redneck is low status in your mind, because it is associated with such low status jobs, associated with the work done by your inferiors, associated with jobs that an MFA will not do, no matter how hungry, jobs that damage your application to elite universities.
“Redneck” is low status in my mind because it is associated with the puerile humor of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy. Jobs involving a lot of manual labor are not inherently low status in my mind—that stuff needs doing too, and plumbers have saved more lives than doctors. I wouldn’t do it because I have a job that pays well that I find interesting.
Rednecks are supposedly racist because such jobs are low status, and “racist” in dialect of your group is merely another word for low status, having no relationship to a person’s mode of reasoning from racial characteristics. Examples: “The tea party is racist” “Herman Cain is an uncle Tom”.
Rednecks are supposedly racist because the term is associated predominately with the American south which has, in recent history, harbored a higher level of racism (particularly that directed toward blacks) than other regions. Yes, this is a stereotype—it doesn’t even necessarily represent the typical individual from the region—but it’s stereotypes we are discussing.
True: But notice your inverse is man who works for his hands.
Yes. As I said, blue collar work is a feature of the stereotype, and so an examples with that attribute are going to seem to fit better than examples without.
I don’t see any reason a slush pile reader wouldn’t be labeled a redneck, if he spent his off hours drinking cheap beer and making racist jokes while listening to country music and working on his truck. Unless he instead got the label “hipster”—which seems to also be low status, but I expect would be precluded by the country music.
It is conceivable that a part of this is just a regional difference in how liberally the term is applied—around here, there aren’t very many white farm workers.
The fact that the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers shows that manual work is low status, regardless of income, and working outdoors is especially low status, regardless of how successful the worker is economically.
I have not seen it demonstrated that that is a fact.
Interesting. It would seem to be literally true, then, that “the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers.” I am not sure, however, whether the normative weight you give it is appropriate.
“The Ivy League discriminates” is trivially true—that’s what their admission’s board is for. The question is whether particular discrimination is justified. Discriminating against farmers and the sons of farmers because they will be getting less out of the institution and the institution will be getting less out of them seems perfectly appropriate, if that is what is going on. Discriminating against farmers and the sons of farmers on the grounds that they are associated with farming and we don’t like that is obviously inappropriate. If the examination of the ROTC, 4-H, etc, officership and awards controlled well for other factors, then this would be evidence of the latter, and should be fixed.
I could see it simply being a correlation, however—people who take officership in these organizations or earn awards there probably have some interest and time invested there, and thus correspondingly less time invested in things more related to what the admission board is looking for; being that they are not an agricultural school, it makes sense that they prioritize other things. And if the student has a genuine interest in farming and wishes to pursue it further, they will probably benefit much more from attending UC Davis, Michigan State, or Texas A&M than they would from attending Harvard, Yale, or Brown.
Discriminating against farmers and the sons of farmers because they will be getting less out of the institution and the institution will be getting less out of them seems perfectly appropriate,
Care to produce a rationale why the institution will get less out of farmers and the sons of farmers, academic qualifications otherwise being equal?
That this is simple snobbery seems obvious, and if you doubted it, the numerous anecdotes of snobbery emanating from thoroughly dysfunctional members of “Occupy Wall Street” should have confirmed it.
and thus correspondingly less time invested in things more related to what the admission board
The comparison was on an all things considered basis—the qualifications were otherwiseequal, except that they also had interests in low status activities.
Care to produce a rationale why the institution will get less out of farmers and the sons of farmers, academic qualifications otherwise being equal?
I was ambiguous—i don’t know whether it confused you. If there are farmers that would get less out of it and vice-versa, then they should be discriminated against exactly like anyone else who would get less out of it and vice-versa. I did not intend to assert that this is true of farmers universally, and whether it is true statistically more often than reference populations is an open question as far as I can tell.
If you want a potential reason this could be the case, I gave one previously—someone interested in pursuing farming would find more of use at a school with more focus on agriculture.
That this is simple snobbery seems obvious, and if you doubted it, the numerous anecdotes of snobbery emanating from thoroughly dysfunctional members of “Occupy Wall Street” should have confirmed it.
“Seems obvious” leaves much room for bias. As I said—if it is “simple snobbery”, it should be addressed. It is obvious that this is possible—it is not obvious that some other explanation is impossible, or even unlikely. I have no direct experience of Ivy League admissions, and limited second- or third-hand knowledge.
The comparison was on an all things considered basis—the qualifications were otherwise equal, except that they also had interests in low status activities.
On my reading, this was not stated in the article.
someone interested in pursuing farming would find more of use at a school with more focus on agriculture.
Which presupposes that high status institutions don’t bother themselves with such vulgar low status occupations as agriculture.
What then is your explanation for discrimination against ROTC members.
The comparison was on an all things considered basis—the qualifications were otherwise equal, except that they also had interests in low status activities.
On my reading, this was not stated in the article.
Your reading is very strange:
The article states:
Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. “Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.”
Which presupposes that high status institutions don’t bother themselves with such vulgar low status occupations as agriculture.
UC Berkeley was originally an agriculture school and still maintains an ag department (now under the name of Agricultural and Resource Economics, but that’s common to several schools better known for their ag programs). Stanford’s got one, too. I’m on the wrong coast to know much about the Ivy League, unfortunately.
Entirely the other way around. The job is not low status because associated with “redneck”. Redneck is low status because associated with the job.
The MFA would turn down a job that required him to do physical work out of doors because such a job is lower status than a low pay, zero security, academic job,
The fact that the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers shows that manual work is low status, regardless of income, and working outdoors is especially low status, regardless of how successful the worker is economically.
The word “redneck” has nothing to do with MFA’s employment choices, or the Ivy League’s selection criteria
Rather: redneck is low status in your mind, because it is associated with such low status jobs, associated with the work done by your inferiors, associated with jobs that an MFA will not do, no matter how hungry, jobs that damage your application to elite universities. Rednecks are supposedly racist because such jobs are low status, and “racist” in dialect of your group is merely another word for low status, having no relationship to a person’s mode of reasoning from racial characteristics. Examples: “The tea party is racist” “Herman Cain is an uncle Tom”.
Rednecks are supposedly racist for exactly the same reason as Herman Cain is supposedly an Uncle Tom—it has absolutely nothing to do with the political views of Cain or the redneck. Rather, Cain lacks the requisite ruling elite credentials.
True: But notice your inverse is man who works for his hands. How about an inverse who is a slush pile reader? Could he be a redneck? I don’t think so, even though slush pile readers are apt to be low paid.
You are probably correct that people would feel comfortable calling a guy who works in a garage a redneck if he had the demonized redneck attitudes, but they would consider it joking or ironic to call a bookkeeper a redneck no matter what his attitudes, and there is no way they are going to call an MFA a redneck, except ironically, regardless of what that MFA’s tastes and political attitudes are, and regardless of how infrequent and small the MFA’s grants are.
Indeed, I use MFA as an example, because MFAs are notoriously starving, while looking down their noses at those who succeed in doing grubby inferior jobs at decent pay.
Neither Herman Cain (to say the very least) nor the modal tea party member are uneducated or work in low-status jobs.
An interesting claim. I don’t know enough of the socio-linguistic history to really comment. I still don’t really think it was a reasonable response to my original comment. You had seemed to be using “redneck” to mean farmers, generally; I still maintain that this is an unrealistic representation of what people typically use the phrase to mean, and will likely lead to misunderstanding in both directions.
There are unquestionably social groups wherein academia is accorded the highest status, yes. People value status, yes. Undoubtedly, some people with an MFA belong to some of those social groups, and this factored in to their decision. I have no data either way to support typicality or atypicality of MFA’s in particular. I have basically no experience with Occupy Wall Street. From my limited direct observation of Occupy Oakland, however, this does not seem terribly representative of the protesters there.
I have not seen it demonstrated that that is a fact. Nonetheless, it is certainly the case that knowledge work is accorded higher status in many circles.
“Redneck” is low status in my mind because it is associated with the puerile humor of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy. Jobs involving a lot of manual labor are not inherently low status in my mind—that stuff needs doing too, and plumbers have saved more lives than doctors. I wouldn’t do it because I have a job that pays well that I find interesting.
Rednecks are supposedly racist because the term is associated predominately with the American south which has, in recent history, harbored a higher level of racism (particularly that directed toward blacks) than other regions. Yes, this is a stereotype—it doesn’t even necessarily represent the typical individual from the region—but it’s stereotypes we are discussing.
Yes. As I said, blue collar work is a feature of the stereotype, and so an examples with that attribute are going to seem to fit better than examples without.
I don’t see any reason a slush pile reader wouldn’t be labeled a redneck, if he spent his off hours drinking cheap beer and making racist jokes while listening to country music and working on his truck. Unless he instead got the label “hipster”—which seems to also be low status, but I expect would be precluded by the country music.
It is conceivable that a part of this is just a regional difference in how liberally the term is applied—around here, there aren’t very many white farm workers.
Once again, my favorite and much repeated citation, favorite because it reveals the same pathology as “Occupy Wall Street” and “Joe the puppeteer” reveals, but provides statistics rather than mere anecdote:‘”Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.”’
Interesting. It would seem to be literally true, then, that “the Ivy League discriminates against farmers and the sons of farmers.” I am not sure, however, whether the normative weight you give it is appropriate.
“The Ivy League discriminates” is trivially true—that’s what their admission’s board is for. The question is whether particular discrimination is justified. Discriminating against farmers and the sons of farmers because they will be getting less out of the institution and the institution will be getting less out of them seems perfectly appropriate, if that is what is going on. Discriminating against farmers and the sons of farmers on the grounds that they are associated with farming and we don’t like that is obviously inappropriate. If the examination of the ROTC, 4-H, etc, officership and awards controlled well for other factors, then this would be evidence of the latter, and should be fixed.
I could see it simply being a correlation, however—people who take officership in these organizations or earn awards there probably have some interest and time invested there, and thus correspondingly less time invested in things more related to what the admission board is looking for; being that they are not an agricultural school, it makes sense that they prioritize other things. And if the student has a genuine interest in farming and wishes to pursue it further, they will probably benefit much more from attending UC Davis, Michigan State, or Texas A&M than they would from attending Harvard, Yale, or Brown.
Care to produce a rationale why the institution will get less out of farmers and the sons of farmers, academic qualifications otherwise being equal?
That this is simple snobbery seems obvious, and if you doubted it, the numerous anecdotes of snobbery emanating from thoroughly dysfunctional members of “Occupy Wall Street” should have confirmed it.
The comparison was on an all things considered basis—the qualifications were otherwise equal, except that they also had interests in low status activities.
I was ambiguous—i don’t know whether it confused you. If there are farmers that would get less out of it and vice-versa, then they should be discriminated against exactly like anyone else who would get less out of it and vice-versa. I did not intend to assert that this is true of farmers universally, and whether it is true statistically more often than reference populations is an open question as far as I can tell.
If you want a potential reason this could be the case, I gave one previously—someone interested in pursuing farming would find more of use at a school with more focus on agriculture.
“Seems obvious” leaves much room for bias. As I said—if it is “simple snobbery”, it should be addressed. It is obvious that this is possible—it is not obvious that some other explanation is impossible, or even unlikely. I have no direct experience of Ivy League admissions, and limited second- or third-hand knowledge.
On my reading, this was not stated in the article.
Which presupposes that high status institutions don’t bother themselves with such vulgar low status occupations as agriculture.
What then is your explanation for discrimination against ROTC members.
Your reading is very strange:
The article states: Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. “Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.”
Emphasis added
UC Berkeley was originally an agriculture school and still maintains an ag department (now under the name of Agricultural and Resource Economics, but that’s common to several schools better known for their ag programs). Stanford’s got one, too. I’m on the wrong coast to know much about the Ivy League, unfortunately.