re: NYT's David Brooks reaches unprecedented levels of woke in his Op-Ed

"Those zoning requirements (especially in the specific areas he listed) are a creation of his bubble."

I prefer to argue about policy instead of pointing hypocrisy but this rankles me. It does seem that a lot of coastal elites want plenty of low-income, government subsidized but they have such strict zoning that no such housing can ever exist around them.

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upper-middle-class Americans have embraced behavior codes that put cultivating successful children at the center of life

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Umm, the codes of behavior are pretty simple:

1. Get at least a college education in a marketable degree.
2. Stay out of trouble.
3. Don't do drugs.
4. Don't have children out of wedlock.
5. Don't get into unsustainable debt.
6. Be polite and friendly to people...don't be an a-hole.
7. Don't drink excessively, don't smoke, and wear your seat belt.
8. And you might want to go to church at least every once in a while.

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So, so many layers to peel through. Insensitively invited her to an upscale delicatessen. Structural bigotry has kept this woman from learning Italian and knowing about the intricacies of salted, cured meats. And the cherry on top is, despite all of the foregoing, he tosses out "Mexican" as some cheap, easily understandable food that everyone can relate to.

Bravo.

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Yeah that a-hole definitely played the race card here.

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Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status.

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What a load of horseshite. No one actually goes forth with such a mindset. He's seeing people trying to teach their kids how to be successful in life (study, make good grades, try to stay out of trouble, getting them involved in activities to help keep them from getting in trouble, get an education in a field that pays worth a damn, etc) and trying to turn it into purposeful classism.

I wonder... does he live in a ghetto? Did he send his kids to an under-performing school? I highly doubt it.

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Then they work hard to create opportunities for their loved ones.

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When will people finally figure out that working hard versus hanging out on the street corner drinking a 40 and smoking Newports will get you into a higher social class.

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It does seem that a lot of coastal elites want plenty of low-income, government subsidized but they have such strict zoning that no such housing can ever exist around them.

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That would be the point.

It's also why refugees never seem to get settled anywhere near the coastal elites either.

They want to virtue signal that they care so much, just as long as the poors are kept far, far away from their communities.

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American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, “You are not welcome here.”

In her thorough book “The Sum of Small Things,” Elizabeth Currid-Halkett argues that the educated class establishes class barriers not through material consumption and wealth display but by establishing practices that can be accessed only by those who possess rarefied information.

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ok this is hilarious for 2 reasons

first, he's basically calling out the culture of the upper-middle class. this whole piece is one big "culture" assassination and it's hilarious and just downright stupid. this is like "nuclear family privilege" where they flip reality in order to create marginalized classes and demonize the more optimal behavior. oh upper-middle class people invest in their children more? THE HORROR. instead of trying to get people lower than them to do the same, we should criticize this behavior! the huge assumption is that those lower than the upper-middle class are incapable of adopting this culture, which is utter hogwash.

second, this little "rarefied information" angle is even more bullshite. why? we hold near super computers (historically speaking) in our pockets. when i'm at a restaurant and i don't know what a dish or ingredient is, i do this advanced behavior known as "Googling it". my phone even has a bar on its home screen where i can type in the item and it immediately brings me to pages explaining what it is, its history, and i can click another link and get pictures of it. in about 10 seconds.

this argument is utter insanity compared to reality

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To feel at home in opportunity-rich areas, you’ve got to understand the right barre techniques, sport the right baby carrier, have the right podcast, food truck, tea, wine and Pilates tastes, not to mention possess the right attitudes about David Foster Wallace, child-rearing, gender norms and intersectionality.

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a progressive-liberal criticizing this behavior is the height of irony

just like the zoning, this sort of behavior is square within his own socio-political group, however he keeps the actual group he's criticizing nameless and faceless. he's creating an "other" out of his own people and at most calling it the "educated class" without any real discussion into the demos or people involved.

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Status rules are partly about collusion, about attracting educated people to your circle, tightening the bonds between you and erecting shields against everybody else. We in the educated class have created barriers to mobility that are more devastating for being invisible. The rest of America can’t name them, can’t understand them. They just know they’re there.

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again, this ignores the fact that information is more available and cheaper than ever before. you cannot "collude" using information when information is available to everyone in this country with hardly any effort. if the barrier to entry is simply knowledge of certain information, then there is no barrier whatsoever. they are not "invisible" or beyond understanding, as he writes. the literal exact opposite is true. at no point in human history have such meaningless "barriers" been accessible to the lowest classes

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Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chances to join their ranks.

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The first sentence is true.

The second sentence is not.

Muh Sandwiches

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I prefer to argue about policy instead of pointing hypocrisy but this rankles me. It does seem that a lot of coastal elites want plenty of low-income, government subsidized but they have such strict zoning that no such housing can ever exist around them.

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yeah it's almost impossible to build affordable housing in these areas due to government regs (and lack of land, in NYC/SF)

this is like the criticisms of gentrification. they want (1) cheap housing that (2) is accessible to the poor and (3) overall desirable for the non-poor. this picture is their argument in tactile terms