I make a decent living and am both well educated and interested in a variety of what many in this country would call “intellectual” subjects. My neighbors mostly also make a decent living and the people I choose to spend time with (both in real life and even here on the internet) are generally also both well educated and interested in a variety of what many in this country would call “intellectual” subjects. A very distinct class distinction somewhat independent of income level. Does that mean that I hold those who are not as well educated or who do not share my interests in contempt? Do I hold those who do not make as decent a living in contempt because I do not choose to live where they would be my neighbors?
I especially enjoy your sweeping generalizations stated as fact - “we can’t fully understand the former without noting and understaning the latter”. I assume you actually believe what you write as if your stating it somehow makes it true. An appropriate response would be, “yes we can.” I mean, it’s equally silly. And then you double down of course, stating that the “the latter is undeniably a problem”. No it’s not. See, we can all play that game. Maybe try making an argument?
You are somehow trying to make excuses for those that call people racists with no other basis than at some point in time, some other people, were racists. Therefore people in this thread are racists. Are you defending that line of reasoning?
And it’s amusing how you continue quoting from authors who share your viewpoint as if that means anything. You’re still essentially quoting an op-ed. Does anyone take your 'quote a book I like and pretend it adds authority shtick seriously? I mean really, now you’ve just linked to am Amazon book page as if it in any way supports what you are trying to say. It’s laughable really.
Oh and:
I really hope there is a second thing, because if not, fuck that shit.
Certainly she takes something away. Research shows that having a mix of students of different socioeconomic and intellectual levels is most important for lower SEC students to succeed (and that the higher-SEC students pull up the lower-SEC classmates but do not themselves get dragged down). Teachers can’t do it on their own, not even with more funding. Which you are unlikely to get when the people who hold the purse strings do not send their children there and neither do the policymakers.
And there’s nothing wrong with firebombing your neighbours as long as they are fireproof.
I don’t agree with those either. But I find what you are doing particularly distasteful. It keeps your daughter socially isolated from the less fortunate and vice versa. It might as well be a caste system.
So by standards expressed by some here, any choice to spend time with preferentially with someone (which means that they do not spend it with someone else) equals contempt of others. Interesting thought process. Odd but interesting. What camille’s quote has to do with her post I have no idea. Contempt is on a continuum with anger and resentment and involves a judgement of someone having a personal or moral failing. Therefore any choice to socialize with or live near some of any set of characteristics involves contempt of all others? Huh?
I am now educated: every liberal (or even just left of center like me) person who avoids living in a neighborhood that is primarily populated by “NoBama” signs, preferring to live where more people hold more liberal views, holds those who hold those other views in contempt. My choosing to live in “nice” town (which self segregates with others who can afford to do so) equals contempt of those who do not live there. Someone whose social life revolves around his/her church holds those of other faiths in contempt. The Pope, living in the Vatican, surrounded by Catholics, holds Jews and Muslims, and Aglicans, and others, in contempt. Someone whose life is mainly focused around their profession holds those who are not in that profession in contempt. My choosing to spend time on this forum means that I hold those who spend time on a sports focused site, or a pet one, in contempt.
I asked a question: What are the observable differences between self segregation (as originally described) and contempt? I then provided a cite for an expanded definition of contempt.
What is confusing about any of that, and how did you get a “therefore” from my post?
I don’t have a strong position on this topic, but your description of self segregation criteria struck me as problematic. Maybe it’s because you seem to have more choices than most, or maybe your experience is very different from my own (my friends and neighbors don’t fit into such neat categories), so I was curious about whether or not you have examined your choices.
DO try to read the threads you post in. BG had used the word that I responded to.
And if your question was not rhetorical (and a means of claiming there is no difference) then the answer is that one is a particular motivation and emotional reaction and one is a particular behavior which can be the result of many motivations.
I really do believe you have begun overstating your case to the point of bizarre exaggeration. You make some good points, but you go so far off the deep end with them that your ideas begin to sound ridiculous to others who lack your fervor. Do not go off half-cocked. Think about what you are going to say and consider how people will disagree with you and why. Then when you post listen to them when they disagree with you. You do not have all the answers and most people here are fairly smart and non-malevolent and may make good points. Accept their replies in that spirit, though acceptance does not mean agreement.
I did read the thread. My question was not rhetorical.
Did you think about the meaning of the word contempt before you responded to it? I did, and that’s why I questioned you, and included the cite. It is a question I am asking myself as well, in as much as I have any choices about where to live, and who to associate with.
FTR, I do not agree with much of what BG is asserting in this thread, but I was struck by the dilemma posed by your question about contempt, and your description of your choices.
I have no idea where you live, but in my current neighborhood (Brooklyn, NY), the real estate values are fairly high (you can’t find a house for less than 800k, and that would be a fixer upper), and yet my neighbors aren’t all “making a decent living” or intellectually inclined. I have an advanced degree, but I couldn’t be described as making a decent living either (my income took a major dive when I made a career change to teaching a few years ago). My ex is a surgeon, but other than his medical education, he has no intellectual interests.
My more recent friends do have similar interests to my own, but most of my older friends do not, and some are doing well financially, while others are barely scraping by.
My neighbor the plumber probably earns more than my ex, yet he never finished high school. But he bought the house for a song before the real estate boom, so his income is not relevant to the current property values. My other neighbor inherited the house from his mother and is on disability. He is educated and a voracious reader and debater but is always broke. The newer neighbors are recent immigrants who run a small local business; not sure how they could have afforded to buy at the current high prices, or what their interests are.
How would you fit any of us into the standard you described? Maybe you’re just lucky in that your friends and neighbors all just happen to fit your standards so neatly and you don’t need to think about it.
In my current economic situation, I can’t afford to buy and maintain another house here, so I’m looking to relocate. Where should I live? That’s why I’m interested in why we make these choices, and what they might say about us.
Now that is a bullshit rationalization. “She needs to attend for the good of the other, poorer kids”? What is this - the return of the White Man’s Burden?
WTF? Seriously, dude, hyperbole much?
I suspect your view of the background of the kids attending the public school she would have attended vs those in her current school is not very accurate at all; in fact I think you’d be very surprised. And of course she also has a lot of other interaction with children from a variety of classes, from working class on up. We live in quite a diverse neighborhood in an extremely diverse city and she has a lot of friends.
camille I apologize for mispercieving your post. Although again the word was not mine; it was BG’s.
Yes, contempt is an cognitive-emotional state, not a behavior. A particular set of outcomes can be motivated by a wide variety of cognitive-emotional states.
I did not mean to imply that my neighbors are the same group as my friends. They overlap only very slightly.
My neighbors are all families who can afford to buy houses that before the downturn were selling for 600 to 900K plus. I am therefore segragated in where I live by wealth and I do not believe that such means that I hold those who cannot afford those homes in contempt, as BG claims.
My friends are mostly (not exclusively) those with similar educational attainment and/or similar interests. Some of them I suspect make much more than me, quite a few less. My academic friends are much smarter and better educated than me but their gigs are not as well compensated. They also outshine me on our trivia contest nights. (I’m allowed on the team for my specialty role in answering the science questions; they have much more broad ranging knowledge.) Per BG my choosing to socialize with such a group mostly to the exclusion of others would mean that I hold those without those features in contempt. “Of course” it does.
Per BG I am contemptuous of others by living in a manner that results in housing segregation by wealth level and by socializing in a manner that results in segregation by interests. Any behavior that results in self-segregation equals contempt. Period.
That is a goofy claim. And the claim that a great many Whites care more about race than class, would prefer a “trash” White neighbor to a solid Middle Class or professional Black one, is unsupported.
No problem. I should have worded my reply more carefully considering the heat level of the topic.
I think contempt is both a state of mind and a behavior, as per my cite definition. I don’t think your criteria for self segregation is unreasonable, if you are fortunate enough to have those choices and opportunities, but it is still difficult to distinguish it from the low end of the continuum for contempt (“cool disregard” or viewing someone as having “less status” even if it is through no fault of their own). A common complaint from people who lose status due to a job loss, illness or other personal hardship, or even divorce, is being avoided or even shunned by former friends and associates. I’ve been on both ends of that situation myself. Certainly, it is preferable to have friends and neighbors with fewer or no limitations, but it is tricky to put these choices on paper (or in action) without giving the wrong impression about how we feel about the less fortunate.
Also, I think you might be underestimating the amount of people who would still choose race over class, but again, I have no idea where you live, and it’s a big country. The NYC area could be an anomaly because of its extremes of wealth and cultural diversity, but in some neighborhoods here, there are definitely people who would choose a “trashy” white neighbor over a middle class minority.
Actually, it’s kind of insulting to middle class minorities to offer up that comparison as a choice to begin with. Do they have to be pitted against “trash” to win out? What if the choice was between whites or minorities of the same class? We can say it’s not about race, until there is no difference but race, and then it gets trickier. How prevalent is it for middle class whites to move into existing middle class minority neighborhoods?
I don’t know about every liberal, but I certainly hold the “NoBama”* crowd in contempt. I’m surprised that’s controversial.
Are you sure those signs aren’t from Auburn fans?
So why not send her to public school, then?
Look, perhaps you are one of the tiny minority who is not using private school as a way to keep your children segregated from the undesirables, the riffraff; I cannot really know. But probabilistically speaking, that is highly unlikely. And even in the unlikely event that your motivations are more “pure” than most, you are still damaging society as a whole.
That cited defintion does seem to be creating a much broader meaning of contempt than I have ever heard before and how dictionaries define it. Generally it means a feeling or state associated with disgust or of actively despising, scorning. Cool disregard or even viewing as lower status does not rise to that. Not every snob or elitist holds those who are not up to what they consider snuff in contempt, even if they feel higher staus than them.
Maybe I do underestimate. Certainly “some” are that racist. I do not think so many. But BG stated something as FACT and he needs to support that or admit he pulled it out of his ass. And I would not argue that some critical mass of people like yourself, if nothing else, is a desirable feature for many. (What counts as critical mass may vary per person and group membership.)
I have to agree that it is absurd to tell someone to move into a neighborhood to “set a good example for them”. Who would even want someone who thinks like that as a neighbor? What example are you setting? How to be patronizing to others?
But there are other reasons to move into a currently lower income or “undesirable” neighborhood. It might offer convenient access to the city center at a lower price. It might offer cheap vacant land to build a dream house. The existing housing stock might have aesthetic features you can’t afford in a different neighborhood (e.g., brownstones or Victorians). It might be a short term plan, to save money and cash in on a later housing boom. Or maybe you’re the type of person who gets satisfaction from being a pioneer, and having a role in revitalizing a community.
It’s called gentrification, and it is also a controversial subject.
Yes, that cite definition is what got me thinking, and indulging in some guilt for my own allegedly contemptuous feelings for others.
But what is a more precise term for that, if it doesn’t rise to the definition of contempt? It’s certainly not a positive regard. I can’t think anyone would be happy to know you don’t think they are “up to snuff” in some way, or disregard them.
Another reason people of “status” may want to live in a poor neighborhood is because they feel more comfortable around poor people than they are with middle-class people.
My parents are examples of this. They were raised by poor and working-class parents and grew up around poor and working-class people. Despite having middle-class accomplishments, they felt more poor/working-class than they did middle class. They wanted their kids to straddle both worlds too. They wanted us to have middle-class sensibilities, but with street smarts. I would do it the same way if I had kids.
I attribute this experience to why I am reluctant to label neighborhoods “good” and “bad” based on someone’s else uninformed opinions. I try to base my judgment from my own eyes and ears. Not from the potentially twisted perceptions of others.
( I don’t want to live in a slum. I want the streets to be clean. I don’t want to hear people fighting and partying all night. But personally, I don’t think I would like living in a “middle-class” neighborhood…where everyone is concerned about keeping up with appearances and maintaining property values, no matter how ridiculous. I like knowing that no one’s going to call a secret meeting to talk about me if I decide to let my hydrangea bush get out of hand or the dandelions go to seed. I also like that there’s a bus stop on the corner, and that none of the neighbors will look at me askance if they see me waiting there for it. So those are my reasons why I live where I do, even though I could afford to live somewhere else.)
