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Sympathizing: Must Loving Fishtown Equal Hating Belmont?
We have plenty of folks on Ricochet who inhabit Belmont, more or less, but identify with Fishtown. It seems the easiest way to signal this sympathy is to be a self-hating Belmontonian. But what if you don’t hate everything about Belmont? Is it possible to sympathize with Fishtown even then? I would say yes. Though I would not, at this point, expect to be believed.
I recently reviewed Dreamland, a reporter’s magnum opus on the opiate addiction epidemic. My interest in its devastation isn’t academic. After all, I, too, have known chronic pain, death-wish despair, and repeated exposure to opioids through injury and surgery. Nor am I the only one in my family to have had these problems. Yet we’ve been spared from narcotics addiction, and the buffer of Belmont customs is at least partly to thank for this. Growing up, I hadn’t thought of myself as “Belmont.” My parents’ one sacrifice to dwarf all others was buying us a precarious perch in a Belmont neighborhood so we could attend its famed Belmont schools. It meant money was always tight. We dressed in the kind of secondhand clothes that made other kids point and laugh. In Belmont, we were at the bottom of the food chain, and that, plus my family’s right-leaning distaste for Belmont smugness, left us thinking of ourselves as outsiders, crypto-Fishtowners. It took leaving Belmont to find out how Belmont we’d become.
Being Belmont isn’t such a bad thing. There’s much more to Belmont than smugly looking down on the rubes. We rely on Belmont to support much of the finest flower of Western civilization – the arts, the sciences. As Charles Murray noted, Belmont neglects to preach the morals it still practices, while Fishtown struggles to practice what it preaches. But practice is not nothing, especially for youngsters who get to grow up surrounded by the practice. In my teens, I began attending about the Belmontiest church you could imagine – folks way richer than us, socialites on the “in” when I was “out,” with everybody reluctant to preach what they practiced. But among the things they practiced was traditional worship music (it’s why I went) and, as Lutherans like to say, music is its own sermon. You can get a pretty good Christian formation in one of those churches by ignoring what’s spoken and taking to heart what’s sung. And oh, the music!
Whenever I’m around other classical-music lovers, I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be in the political minority. Loving classical music seems very Belmont, and my family never did adopt Belmont’s progressive politics. It can grate to hear other musicians and music-lovers toss off progressive opinions like they’re sure everyone agrees. It can grate that the arts aren’t “owned” by the faction whose stated political project, after all, is preserving the best of Western tradition from whatever threatens it. It can grate, but what does not grate is listening to and making music – participating in the perpetuation of that tradition – with these progressives. We decry progressive attacks on aesthetics when Belmontonians support modern works that don’t deserve to be included among works of historic greatness – but that only happens because works of historic greatness are still being performed, largely thanks to Belmont’s support. Music, at least, is something traditional conservatives do with Belmont. Not without it.
From music, and the tacit-but-powerful pressure to stay on the straight and narrow, to all the other social resources and little customs which can fortify a family in the face of pain and despair, my family owes Belmont too much gratitude to really hate it. If proof of loving Fishtown is denouncing Belmont, I’m in trouble. Should it be?
According to some, perhaps:
If the poor have vicious habits, whose fault is it — theirs or the people who made fortunes encouraging and refining these habits with the help of international consulting firms?
Supposing the indictment against international consulting firms were true, not every Belmontonian makes money with the direct help of such a firm. But just being part of the Belmont class – or even getting along ok with the Belmont class – might seem like tacit approval of those who do. As @jon just observed,
Elitism is Belmont hating Fishtown. Populism is Fishtown hating Belmont. Either is just Americans wanting to hurt their fellow Americans, which is where our politics has been for at least a decade.
Is it still possible to be neither an elitist nor a populist? To have sympathy for those who are hurting without hating the better-off?
Published in Culture
Huh. Our little snake likes to bite.
I was alluding to the rather obvious fact that, for people living paycheck to paycheck, entertainment is often dictated far more by money than personal desire. Knowing that people of limited means have fewer choices doesn’t make me an out of touch snob.
A bit off-topic, but I’m amused that Fishtown will not be Fishtown for long. I live in NJ and heard some young professionals on the train talking about how hot the real estate market is in Fishtown.
At least Murray’s white working class is going to cash out nicely:
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/real_estate/town-by-town/20150503_Town_By_Town__Fishtown__Hot__hip__affordable_alternative_to_Center_City.html
(Italics mine.) I agree it shouldn’t. Just like “Belmont” shouldn’t be a pejorative. And yet I don’t think I’m crazy for noticing there’s less consensus on these “shouldn’ts” than there used to be.
Libertarian/conservative is apparently the wrong kind of conservative to be these days in order to champion Real America. Whole Foods is not a company for America’s “natural conservatives”, but for the elites. You and I might not see shopping at one as allying with the elites against Real Americans (or, at the very least, being too out of touch to understand Real Americans), but it seems to me there are voices on the right increasing in volume who do.
Whole Foods is updated white wine and quiche: nothing wrong with either – and nothing terribly pricey about either (buying two-buck Chuck and baking savory egg pies at home qualifies) – nonetheless, the preference made a handy metonym for out-of-touch leftists when I was growing up. These metonyms could just be teasing, but teasing is play, not war, and the warlike seem to be losing patience with the playful.
The issue is smugness.
Yes, but I think Midge’s point was that a lot of Fishtowners seem to assume smugness where there is none.
Really? I live in Belmont and I serve Fishtown. It is real.
I never said it wasn’t.
But I think what Midge was getting at is that there seems to be a guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude among some Fishtowners. So much that some among the Belmont Right feel the need to prove their Fishtown bona fides in order to be taken seriously, and those who don’t (like pretty much everyone at National Review) often end up having their conservatism questioned.
Perhaps their journey is questioned.
If I can be specific for a moment, one impasse that can arise is when experience that should lead to sympathy across class lines is called into doubt because it’s coming from someone of the “wrong class” – especially if it’s a “privileged class”.
For example, if someone in Belmont has had chronic pain treated with opioids, that hopefully is an occasion for sympathetic understanding with those in Fishtown who have chronic pain, a chance to sympathetically understand which differences in culture may leave Fishtowner more vulnerable to the risks of opioid treatment (especially low-functioning addiction), while also understanding what it is about our common humanity that creates shared risks.
Unfortunately, there are two problems with someone in a privileged class trying to use common experience to sympathize with someone in a less-privileged class. One is that it can be hard, when you’re privileged in some way, to realize just how privileged you are, and so your attempts at sympathy may be genuinely smug. Another is that good-faith efforts to sympathize, in full knowledge that common experience isn’t identical experience, can be construed as smugness even when it isn’t.
Even common experience risks being an occasion to deepen the divide between classes rather than bridge it. And that’s worrisome.
I do not understand this at all.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that they don’t come from Fishtown; I can think of at least a couple of people-Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson- who also grew up in Belmont, but they don’t seem to leave Fishtowners with the bad feeling that NR does. And I have been told many times that at least one writer on the staff of NR did in fact grow up in Fishtown, and he is remarkably hostile towards Fishtowners.
Some people have charm and some people don’t: as far as I can tell, I don’t :) My own social skills are far from great, so I sympathize with those from Belmont and those from Fishtown who have alienated some people in Fishtown. But the problem isn’t where they came from.
People who leave meager starts are often the most hostile.
I grew up in Fishtown, with two parents who never attended college; my Dad never graduated high school. Despite this, I have been plagued all my adult life by being perceived as cold, arrogant, snobbish and unfriendly: all kinds of different people from all kinds of places perceive me this way. People from Fishtown perceive me this way; people from Belmont perceive me this way too. It isn’t them. It’s me. I like to think that this perception has little or nothing to do with who I really am; in real life, I just usually find myself at a loss for words, and I find it extremely difficult to take part in real life conversations. But, regardless, it’s me.
If I came from Belmont, and people from Fishtown were rejecting me, I would probably think class had something to do with it, but being that I come from Fishtown, I can’t tell myself that.
My husband grew up in Belmont, and now lives in Fishtown. He is far more successful socially in Fishtown than I am. Some people have charm, and some people don’t. It’s not fair, but that’s life.
I think you do, and I just put it badly.
People naturally want to feel sympathized with and understood in their suffering. Those who seem unwilling to do this can come across as smug or self-absorbed.
If two housewives, Gal A and Gal B, have each just lost their husbands, the breadwinner of their family, but Gal A’s background means she has the education to re-enter the workforce more easily, and also other insulation against financial calamity for herself and her children, and Gal B doesn’t have these things for her family, depending on how Gal A tries to commiserate with Gal B over what sounds like a common loss, Gal B might perceive Gal A’s attempt as smug. Perhaps smug if Gal A “rubs in” the difference between them, or perhaps smug if Gal A seems “too oblivious” to the fact Gal B’s prospects for her family really are bleaker.
People can give sympathy badly. Sometimes badly enough to not be sympathy at all. People can also receive sympathy badly, especially from those they suspect – even pre-judge – as being incapable of genuine sympathy (for example, those assumed to be smug).
I think this is more of a female thing. Men don’t usually one up each other on sob stories.
Men may not be into sob-story one-upmanship, but men also want to be understood and sympathized with – it’s human to want that. Specifically, men want to be understood and sympathized with in a way that doesn’t affront their masculine pride, and that’s even more complicated. I think you’re right that two widowers commiserating about their loss would expect proper commiseration between them to be rather different from two widows’ commiseration. I’m not a man so can only guess at what proper commiseration between two men might be, but the risk that improper commiseration would come across as smug – or worse, insulting and demeaning – must still be present.
It involves shoulder punches, and Life Savers®.
I don’t think it as high as you think. If too men are close enough to actually do this with each other, accidental smugness is unlikely.
I see real smugness in Belmont.
I think that’s right.
I think this is absolutely true, but it’s a bit like racism. There is real racism in Georgia. I’ve seen it. But sometimes there is perceived racism in Georgia from quarters where absolutely none exists because people who want to see racism, see racism. I’ve seen that, too.
I’m sure you’re very charming in person, Judithann. After all, that husband who is successful in every town cares most about you.
That’s hilarious.
I think Belmont smugness is far more widespead. I think it is a significant factor in being Anti-Trump. The man talks and acts Fishtown.
I think you’re right that he won in part because he is totally Fishtown, and some people dislike his Fishtown mannerisms, but that’s not why I dislike him, (and I do dislike him very much).
I would also contend the feelings about people who like Trump because of his “Fishtowniness” work in much the same way that feelings about race worked to help Obama win office in 2008.
You see, Obama understood the race dynamic–as Trump understands the class dynamic–and won office again because he pressed the race divide hard and stoked those grievances, whether or not that was fair or good for the country. (It often wasn’t either.)
I mean, it seems a hard fact to ignore when you look at the 2012 returns.
The Obama coalition in 2012 was built in great part on people aggrieved about race who felt Obama by virtue of his pigment was their champion. The impact of his policies on their actual lives did not matter all that much either. It was all about his identity… their identity. He looked the part though it is very hard for someone like me to accept that he experienced any of the indignities of a poor black kid in Chicago while growing up an upper middle class kid in private school in Hawaii. (Trump is like this, too. The dude has the “common touch” that looks Fishtown, but his toilet has always been gold-plated.)
Anyway, I have been Fishtown (if that means poor waitress serving hash browns to truck drivers) and Belmont (if that means comfortable person who went to college and has a white collar job now). I understand and love people from both places, but I don’t like it when Fishtowners keep chips on their shoulder OR when Belmonters talk about banjo music.
I would rather go back to stressing those things we have in common as we help kids from either side of the tracks realize their own American dreams.
Instead I feel both Obama and Trump were/are in some ways grievance mongers for the sake of identity politics, and that stinks.
(IF you disliked Obama, the only reason was because you were a racist. IF you dislike Trump, the only reason is because you are a classist.)
I’d say to Midge the best we can do is treat others as we’d like to be treated, and that’s enough.
Belmont clearly wants the little people in Fishtown to shut up and not make waves. This last election made it clear that the people at National Review really would rather not be ruled by the first 200 names in the phone book.
Does Fishtown have a chip on its shoulder? Yes, and it should. All of media and culture look down on them, and as we have seen, the GOP mostly does as well.
Replace “Fishtown” with any other group – blacks, immigrants, Muslims, women, gays – and you have the premise of every SJW screed ever written.
I agree that two people being personally close reduces the risk of accidental smugness. I also agree that men – and many women, too – consider it a good and dignified thing to refrain from personal commiseration with those they aren’t close with.
Politics, though, requires strangers to commiserate with one another when the strangers are fellow citizens. Isn’t one of Fishtown’s indictments against Belmont that Belmont does not commiserate politically with Fishtown? That’s not commiseration on a personal level, it’s commiseration on a political level, where individuals aren’t close and accidental smugness is likely.
And so attempts at political commiseration do risk being interpreted as just more self-involved smugness and virtue signalling, both because the attempts may be made indelicately and because those miffed at Belmont’s previous lackluster commiseration may set themselves up to interpret any attempt at commiseration as self-involved smugness and virtue signalling, so long as the attempt comes from Belmontonians unwilling to profess hatred for everything Belmont.
So, Fishtown has a chip on its shoulder. Fishtown bristles. Remembering what Mansfield said about bristling and politics,
There is overlap between how Fishtown bristles and how SJWs bristle. The overlap could be used to discredit Fishtown’s anger. The overlap could also be used to recognize that SJWs’ anger is a sign of SJWs’ humanity, even though their anger is also atrociously misguided and destructive.
The comments section of the blog SlateStarCodex attracts an interesting mix of characters – libertarians (like David Friedman), neoreactionaries and others who place themselves on the alt-right, and also, yes, SJWs. The civility of the comments, considering the mix, is noteworthy, and partly due to active moderation, partly due to the oddity commenters tend to have in common: ties to the rationalist community. Contrary to “SJWs Always Lie”, which anonymous reviewed, the SJWs at SSC, at least, don’t always lie. At SSC, they’re less likely to be sinister Machiavelbots and more likely to just be people making earnest if unfortunate attempts to be human. SJW bristling isn’t always fiendish deception and conspiracy. Some of it’s just ordinary human bristling, not too different from how conservatives bristle at them, or how Fishtown bristles at Belmont.
Because of SJWs’ success, there are calls on the right to embrace the “battle tactics” of the SJWs in order to “fight back”, as if SJW anger could only be evidence of a nefarious “distributed conspiracy” threatening to conquer “real humans” through “asymmetric warfare” rather than evidence of a human trait non-SJWs already share with SJWs: bristling.
Some, no doubt, will conclude the “logical outcome” of sympathizing with Fishtown’s bristling is even more contempt for SJWs. Others will conclude the “logical outcome” is to have a little more sympathy for SJWs than they had before. Experiencing both “logical” outcomes at once is also a possibility.
(Tagging @mikeh since he reads SSC and @titustechera for my temerity to quote Mansfield!)
Fishtown is not telling me how to live and think. SJW tells me how to live and think. Belmont tells me how proper people behave.
In today’s society, no sane person would refer to African Americans or any other minority in a derogatory way, but Hillary didn’t hesitate to call a large percentage of Trump voters “deplorable”. Even though she lost, many of her supporters agree that Trump supporters are deplorable, and they aren’t afraid to say so. This is actually ok with me: I find it amusing, because I suspect that they are committing political suicide, and Trump’s victory indicates that I may be right. Winning is the best revenge :)
Have you read “I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup“? How many here on Ricochet aren’t afraid to revile their outgroup? I would say a great many here at Ricochet are becoming increasingly unafraid of reviling their outgroup.
The difference between Hillary’s supporters reviling Red America and Red America reviling them back isn’t that one side reviles while the other side doesn’t (revulsion has always been present on both sides, though never total), but that one side seems to have gotten away with it more up till now; and now the other side hopes to, as you say, get revenge through winning.
It used to be OK for folks on the right to not revile their outgroup. Pressure seems to be building to make it less OK on the right to not dehumanize whoever’s supposed to be in the right’s political outgroup. As Jon Gabriel observed in the OP, there seems to have been about a decade’s worth of pressure for Americans to hate their fellow Americans.
Why did @jon use that decade figure? I’m not sure. Populist pressure’s been increasing for a while now, though. A nerdy Belmont type like Cruz wouldn’t have thought to cater his campaign to it if the pressure hadn’t been building up. And of course Trump’s president now, more evidence it’s been building for a while.
We are losing. Every year we lose more and more of what we seek to conserve. Sitting around and asking excuses for the left seems counterproductive.
There is a big difference between certain members of a group reviling their opposition and the leader of a group making her revulsion public. In any group, there will always be people who take things too far, but Hillary wasn’t just a member: she was the leader. When I look at the left, I see people who want to abolish free speech, who look the other way when rioters start setting things on fire, who look the other way when people advocate violence against Nazis-Nazis being anyone they disagree with about anything. It seems as though you are equating the right and the left and saying that both sides are dehumanizing the other side, and that may be true, but one side basically just mocks the other side, and the other side routinely threatens violence: one of these things is not like the other. And some-certainly not all or even most, but some of the supposedly civilized and well cultured residents of Belmont look the other way when it comes to riots and violence, and claim to be appalled by Trump supporters. Because morality and decorum are so important to them.
You are very focused on what the people of Belmont are doing right, and there is no question that they do a great deal right, but a disturbing percentage of them-not necessarily a majority, but a disturbing percentage-apparently have no problem with rioting, burning buildings down, threatening violence against political opponents. This should be alarming to all of us: the trappings of civilization do not in themselves guarantee a civilized society. Germany was possibly the most civilized society that ever existed, but the Holocaust happened anyway.
There is no question that pretty much everybody in Belmont is disciplined and hard working, but that isn’t enough, and it isn’t even the most important thing. When smart, disciplined, hard working people start advocating for violence or looking the other way when it happens, we should be alarmed. We should be alarmed when anybody does that, but when super successful people start doing it, we should be especially alarmed.