[Books] Hillbilly Elegy

Vance once said the U.S. borrows from and buys from Chinese peasants. As someone who comes from the Rust Belt and got famous for writing a book about hillbillies and upward mobility, it’s ironic that he lacks empathy for the people he used to be like. Deep down, he probably still hates and denies where he comes from, which is pretty common in human nature

I still wanted to read his book because I was curious how a book could make someone vice president in the U.S. The result? I was kind of impressed

“My primary aim is to tell a true story about what that problem feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.”

One thing I learned from this book is that you don’t need to be famous or create something useful to start writing; you just need to have something you really want to say

“I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary. I haven’t started a billion-dollar company or a world-changing nonprofit.”

Vance写这本书的时候还是无名之辈，所以有了上面这段话。命运的齿轮因为这本书发生了变化，现在的他已经是Vice President了

In my opinion, heroes are not those who are considered successful by society, but those who have defeated the demiurge and changed their fate. There is a lot of overlap between these two groups, but they are not the same. From both perspectives, I think Vance is a hero

“Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family.”

这句话看的我泪目，Vance的文笔真不错。杀人凶手、卑鄙小人、种族主义者、社会底层，这些人也是别人的neighbors，friends，and family。好坏善恶，无外乎角度而已。

“Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level.”

“Mom had a lot of Mamaw’s fire, which meant that she never allowed herself to become a victim during domestic disputes. It also meant that she often escalated normal disagreements beyond where they should go.”

很多人容易overreact是因为创伤后遗症

There are several common assumptions that are generally not true:

Assumption: White people are rich.

Fact: No, many white people are poor.

Assumption: Poor people are not hardworking.

Fact: No, many poor people work very hard, but they lack the opportunities to escape poverty.

Assumption: People who live on government benefits have miserable lives.

Fact: Not necessarily. They don't need to work at all and can simply enjoy life.

“With two jobs and a full-time class load, my schedule intensified, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about my commitments until a professor emailed me about meeting after class to discuss a writing assignment. When I sent him my schedule, he was aghast. He sternly told me that I should focus on my education and not let work distractions stand in my way. I smiled, shook his hand, and said thanks, but I did not heed his advice.”

“Did I take it too far? Absolutely. I didn’t sleep enough. I drank too much and ate Taco Bell at nearly every meal. A week into what I thought was just a really awful cold, a doctor told me that I had mono. I ignored him and kept on living as though NyQuil and DayQuil were magical elixirs. After a week of this, my urine turned a disgusting brown shade, and my temperature registered 103. I realized I might need to take care of myself, so I downed some Tylenol, drank a couple of beers, and went to sleep.”

年轻的时候大家都虎

“When he found out that I had decided to go to Yale Law, he asked whether, on my applications, I had “pretended to be black or liberal.” This is how low the cultural expectations of working-class white Americans have fallen.”

“The New York Times recently reported that the most expensive schools are paradoxically cheaper for low-income students.”

On my first day at Yale Law School, there were posters in the hallways announcing an event with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. I couldn’t believe it: Tony Blair was speaking to a room of a few dozen students? If he came to Ohio State, he would have filled an auditorium of a thousand people. “Yeah, he speaks at Yale all the time,” a friend told me. “His son is an undergraduate.” A few days after that, I nearly bumped into a man as I turned a corner to walk into the law school’s main entrance. I said, “Excuse me,” looked up, and realized the man was New York governor George Pataki. These sorts of things happened at least once a week. Yale Law School was like nerd Hollywood, and I never stopped feeling like an awestruck tourist.

在顶尖名校念书就是这个体验

“I lived among newly christened members of what folks back home pejoratively call the “elites,” and by every outward appearance, I was one of them: I am a tall, white, straight male. I have never felt out of place in my entire life. But I did at Yale.”

Vance虽然看起来是精英白人，但是其实是底层白人出身。因为种族偏见，人们总是想当然的认为美国白人和elite划等号，但是其实美国有大量的底层白人。这些人遇到的问题和少数族裔遇到的困境非常的类似，所以阶级远比种族和肤色更加重要。

“One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.”

这种wish非常的反人性

“social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change.”

It’s more than just a lifestyle change; it’s a mindset shift

“I realized that I mistrusted apologies, as they were often used to convince you to lower your guard.”

“And I began to understand why I used words as weapons: That’s what everyone around me did; I did it to survive. Disagreements were war, and you played to win the game.”

Disagreement并不一定就是war，未必一定要分出输赢

“My self-image was bitterness masquerading as arrogance.”

自大的人内心痛苦，这个基本已经算是共识了，所以真的没必要跟这些人计较

“Unsurprisingly, they found that a poor kid’s chances of rising through the ranks of America’s meritocracy were lower than most of us wanted.”

As a child, I associated accomplishments in school with femininity. Manliness meant strength, courage, a willingness to fight, and, later, success with girls. Boys who got good grades were “sissies” or “faggots.”

女性特质从某种程度上意味着文明

“These problems were not created by governments or corporations or anyone else. We created them, and only we can fix them.”

所谓成长，就是意识到，人只能靠自己