Tuesday, November 14, 2017

"Hillbilly" Excerpt

"The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. Too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man with every reason to work - a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way - carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here - a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America."

- From Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance

2 comments:

David Kanigan said...

👍

Michael Wade said...

Thanks, David.

It's a fascinating book.

Michael