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As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful

As someone who grew up in a strongly red area and with beliefs in that vein, I know EXACTLY the kind of exclusion that the author is talking about to a painful degree. For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." And yes it's true I'm far from the most religious person there is, and I strongly believe in birth control, women's rights, on and on, I am constantly assumed to be some Bible-thumping redneck by anyone who doesn't know me. It also doesn't help that I regularly enjoy working with my hands, building things, fixing things, which mind you when it comes to many things to fix there's a great deal of intelligence required, but because it's not the fancy coastal intelligence that gets you six figure jobs I'm assumed to be an idiot. And then people wonder why Middle America has such a disdain for the cultures and intellectual achievement, after they've spent their entire learning lives being told how dumb they are by the snobs, most of whom can't even swap a tire for a donut without calling AAA. </rant>

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fweespeech 11y ago
No offense but if you are judging any large group by what a bunch of people say on an anonymous internet forum the problem is likely the fact you are taking the trolls to seriously.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, probably the single place in the country that most highly values traditional academic intellectualism. His characterization is entirely consistent with my observations growing up. In my high school, peoples' disdain for the rest of the country was open. Even the snobs in NYC or SF are more tolerable (NYC having a pragmatic undercurrent, and SF at least having a "builder" mentality).
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Yes but both you and the person I'm responding to casually ignore the fact you are basically engaging in broad generalizations while complaining about the fact other groups make broad generalizations and his primary justification was the fact it happens on Reddit. The sheer irony involved in that original comment and his choice of example should have been immediately obvious. The fact it wasn't makes me think, frankly, its OP who is the issue. The fact I have to put up with bullshit from people who live in the [insert location here] on a regular basis and make condescending comments doesn't mean I assume the entire [insert location here] behaves that way in general. Rather, I recognize that its the specific individuals I deal with in that instance that are the problem and not the general population. The fact both of you immediately jumped in to defend the generalization and expand on it, frankly, makes it even more ironic to the point of hypocrisy.
    - aaronem 11y ago
      This kind of argument is verboten when it's a white person talking to a black person, say, because it's not OK to tell someone their experience isn't valid. Strangely, that rule seems not to apply when it's a progressive talking to a traditionalist. And progressives wonder why they have such a hard time talking to traditionalists? You'd have to be willfully blind.
      - fweespeech 11y ago
        > This kind of argument is verboten when it's a white person talking to a black person, say, because it's not OK to tell someone their experience isn't valid. Is there some kind of large, documented body of evidence proving what the OP says is true? [ Hint: We have that for racism but we don't for what the OP is stating as far as I'm aware. ] > Strangely, that rule seems not to apply when it's a progressive talking to a traditionalist. And progressives wonder why they have such a hard time talking to traditionalists? You'd have to be willfully blind. I'm unaware requiring broad, systemic evidence of discrimination before applying the "this is a problem beyond a few individuals" is a strange standard. Please, explain why this is an unreasonable standard?
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  I'm basing it on working with many communities over the years (I actually avoid Reddit entirely for a number of reasons I won't go into here) as well as deal with people from all over the country in person, believe me it's a mainstream phenomenon isolated to no given website.
function_seven 11y ago
"fancy coastal intelligence" I'm going to use this phrase. Thanks.
FussyZeus 11y ago
Additionally, for the record, I was a strong minded conservative for the vast majority of my life who slowly converted to economic libertarian and social liberal, and absolutely NONE of what I would say are my gains in those areas in terms of intelligence were brought to bear by haughty pseudo intellectual assholes.
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CM30 11y ago
Yeah, pretty much this. It's also often the case with certain media outlets and politicians too, who make the assumption that anyone who's religious, not socially 'left wing' or anything else is a bigot who should be looked upon with disdain at every possible opportunity. It's great ammunition for certain politicians (like Trump or his UK and European counterparts).
- creshal 11y ago
  To an European it's always amusing when Americans pretend they have a left wing.
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    Do you not consider bernie sanders left wing?
    - creshal 11y ago
      He's the leftmost US politician to be noteworthy outside the US, and in good ol' Yurop he'd be at best centre-left. He's more right than most parties in the European Left bloc, and there's still fringe groups left of those.
  - aaronem 11y ago
    To an American it's always amusing when a European tells us our political system is unsatisfactory. Over and over and over again. Never gets old. No, really. Keep it up.
    - vacri 11y ago
      You have a choice of only two parties to represent a population of 310M people of diverse backgrounds. How can that possibly be anything but unsatisfactory, regardless of your origin?
      - Amezarak 11y ago
thieving_magpie 11y ago
>most of whom can't even swap a tire for a donut without calling AAA. There's a certain irony here I can't dismiss. You write three paragraphs about being victimized by stereotyping Middle America, then end your rant by.... stereotyping everyone on the east coast (or those who sought extended education).
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  It's less a generalization of everyone who has a degree being incapable of performing that task (I'd imagine a lot would be able to figure it out, it's not complicated) and more the idea that knowledge which is highly useful such as that is viewed as being "beneath" knowledge such as a thorough understanding of the writings of Socrates. The catch there is that knowing Socrates isn't getting you off the side of the road, and that's what I was getting at. I could've explained it better though.
  - thieving_magpie 11y ago
    I see what you're saying. I just disagree that isn't a two way street. I'm from the South and can't go home without being made fun of for "doing computers".
    - aaronem 11y ago
      So am I, and I can. It helps, I think, that I earn an excellent living at it, and also that part of "doing computers" for me is solving friends' and family members' IT-support-level problems, even when it's not especially fun to do so. On the other hand, I might just be lucky. Who knows?
    - eric_bullington 11y ago
      > I'm from the South and can't go home without being made fun of for "doing computers". I'm from the South and have never heard of an adult being made fun of for working with computers. And my family on both paternal and maternal sides is very Southern, having been in SC/NC since before the Revolutionary War. I have noticed that some family tease a lot about anything and everything, but this seems to cross regions and countries.
RightWingRabble 11y ago
Ditto. The left made the personal political, not the right. They're the ones who say we're not allowed to have jobs if we think the wrong thoughts or have the wrong opinions. Even the worst bible-thumping rednecks I know (many, many cousins of both sides of the family) will agree to disagree and behave in a civil manner in the presence of those with whom they disagree. When I was living in San Francisco, I've been literally run out of coffee shops, restaurants and parties after the wrong person finds out I'm pro-gun.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  This is clearly wrong unless you posthumously redefine all right-wing political violence as being leftist. Though, really, "left" and "right" are useless terms without defining your usage of them beforehand. Rest assured, there are many right-wingers who are all too willing to make the personal political and to stifle dissent. In fact, that's more-or-less a signature distinction of the New Right that emerged around the era of Buckley and National Review.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    ...Isn't one of the tropes of the left that you can't just reject the experiences of others offhand in such a manner? Maybe the parent has been run out of places when his views were known. Who are you to just reject that and say that's wrong?
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      I don't know, I'm not a leftist. Though what you seem to be describing are postmodernism and moral relativism, and I know plenty of left-wing people who reject both. Again, the term "left" is useless without defining it first. I have no idea what the hell you actually mean when you say "left".
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > ...Isn't one of the tropes of the left that you can't just reject the experiences of others offhand in such a manner? The first paragraph, which appeared to be what was rejected, was a generalization, not a recounting of personal experience. And, nothing in the post you responded to was any kind of rejection that violates any precept that is particularly common, AFAICT, on the left (it might, I suppose, violate a right-wing stereotype of the left, but, then, that's more a problem of the alignment of the stereotype with reality.)
vacri 11y ago
> For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian Nothing says "proselytisation" like walking into a different conversation and announcing your passion for religion.
- isolate 11y ago
  Based on my personal experience with being so, delusional people like to have as many conversations as possible about their delusion, because that's how they sustain it.
engi_nerd 11y ago
You are not alone. So I have the "fancy coastal intelligence" you talk about, or at least the degrees that signify that I do (although I got them in relatively remote places in Kentucky and Tennessee, so not exactly coastal). But I come from a family of school teachers, carpenters, and construction contractors. In other words, the kind of people who do not tolerate a lack of common sense in their children and try to teach it at every possible opportunity from birth on. I've personally seen this exclusion at work many times. Political correctness police, social justice warriors, whatever you want to call them, don't care for inclusion of anything that doesn't fit their narrative. They will seek out your differing point of view, scream about it, try to isolate you from help, gang up on you, force you to apologize, make you give up, then appeal to higher authorities to marginalize you/exclude you/fire you, then have something like a show trial about you, and then finally declare victory and celebrate. But their celebration will usually contain notes of "well I never intended things to turn out like this!" Obviously I've seen this whole process happen a time or three in various corporations. Those who were excluded/marginalized/fired often had no real idea what they did in the first place. That's the end of my rant, which is only tangentially related to yours, but yours resonated with me because a lot of what you said reminds me of myself.
BellsOnSunday 11y ago
I don't recognise the prejudice against practical skills in my neck of the woods (CS dept in a UK university) but religious colleagues are quietly looked down upon and sometimes mocked. (Not that there are many of them.) I try as hard as I can not to judge such people myself but will admit to finding it hard to take someone seriously who believes in such stuff. Being able or unable to change a tyre doesn't come close to the epistemological facepalm of trusting in the dove from above.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  Speaking as someone who does: Those of us who do are often raised in a very religious place among very religious people, it's a big part of our lives. Rationally, I have no reason to believe in any God. That's why it's called a belief. It's a lot more to do with the culture one grows up with than the belief itself, and anything you learn at such a young age is difficult to shake loose of completely. Personally, I used to be a strong Lutheran, I'd say I'm now 20% Lutheran and 80% agnostic, but even that has far less to do with me intellectually not recognizing my God and a lot more to do with frustrations over the behaviors of organized religions. In short: For a lot of people that I know and myself, religion is far less believing that God is going to help you in some way (frankly, if you know your Bible, you know God's help tends to come in rather rough and leaves a lot of things broken so you don't really want it anyway) and lot more in believing that it's just a nicer universe to live in if you assume that you simply cease to exist at the point of death and there is nothing but...well, nothing awaiting you over that line.
  - BellsOnSunday 11y ago
    I was brought up amongst and by religious people too, so I don't automatically assume people are stupid for having beliefs. But I'm aware that is really just a rhetorical position on my part, and when faced with someone who claims to be a scientist, living in the west in the 21st century, and who actually believes this stuff (e.g. the afterlife) then it is just difficult to take them seriously. That makes me vulnerable to accusations of having a closed mind, etc, I know...but I stopped believing in those things (if I ever did) around the same time I stopped believing in Father Christmas, so you'll have to cut me some slack :) And you actually make it worse when you justify your beliefs by saying that they make the Universe a "nicer" place to live in, which is just juvenile (I can imagine even nicer universes, would you like to believe in them instead?). I would stop at your previous statement about not needing to rationalise belief (in fact it's a category error to do so).
mrow84 11y ago
I'd be interested in hearing if anyone from the UK with a background like this has had a similar experience of prejudice (beyond what I would consider to be background level "you're different"-type feelings). I am always quite shocked to hear of how strong the divide appears to be in the US between, loosely, "religious conservatives" and "non-religious liberals". I've spent approximately zero time in the US, so I can't really tell if it is partly an exaggeration, but the feelings certainly seem to run quite strong across the media spectrum.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  I know Top Gear's (previously) Mr. Clarkson always had colorful things to say about what they call "midlanders" which sounds to me like the British version of Midwesterners. No facts there there though, I have no idea how widespread it is.
  - mrow84 11y ago
    It doesn't have the same religious dimension - they're basically just the butt of southerner's jokes. There is quite a bit of regionalism in the UK, but it's mostly pretty harmless, and doesn't carry that much bitterness with it. For example, there's definitely a north-south tension in England, which does have some cultural aspects to it, but it's in a completely different league from the US situation (as far as I understand that), and beyond the occasional mutual quips, you won't see any real discrimination - that's my experience, anyway.
- rdancer 11y ago
  The divisions here run along the class and cultural heritage lines. You live and work mostly with your peers, but interact with people from outside your groups a lot. The population density is much higher in UK (and Europe in general), and we have a lot of migration, so it is difficult to construct a boogeyman out of a whole cloth. I would think that people feel that the way outgroups go about their lives is bonkers, but that most of the ingroup people are crazy in their own right.
linkregister 11y ago
It's amazing to me that the top-rated comment in this thread broadly generalizes both "coastal intellectuals" and "Middle America" with insulting stereotypes. I'm embarrassed that the upvoters of this comment actually agreed with this comment. One trip to Houston or Minneapolis is enough to verify the presence of a thriving arts and culture scene. The anti-intellectual Middle America trope is not factual. One trip to Winchester, VA or Davidsonville, MD (Washington, DC suburbs) will reveal farming communities that exude pragmatism. Hell, there's a popular trap shooting range in Greenbelt, MD. If DC or some other bogeyman city is so hostile to "bible-thumping", how can you explain the large church attendance there? I think this comment is a reaction to a handful of personal experiences that you had. The rest of your comments aren't as hyperbolic as this one. I agree that it is frustrating when dealing with rude people, but to generalize about similar folks is exactly the thing that bugs you!
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  I agree, I'm from Iowa, there are lot's of smart people in Middle America. There are also a lot of condescending people on the Coasts.
  - pgpkkg 11y ago
    > There are also a lot of condescending people on the Coasts. Well that wasn't an unprovoked passive-aggressive attack against people on the coast at all. [sigh]. I don't care where you live, this shit is awful, and you are awful.
  - pkgekgp 11y ago
    On the off-chance that you're not the awful person you sound like: "There are lots of (negative adjective) people (in area)" always reads poorly. Especially if you're from another area that is known for being hostile to people in that area. It makes it seem like you're just another closed-minded jerk perpetuating the hate that your area is famous for. Which you almost certainly are.
    - seansmccullough 11y ago
e40 11y ago
walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." I think that's your problem. Walking into a discussing and announcing that is a fairly odd thing to do. I've never entered a discussion on reddit and announced I'm an devout atheist. I think people generally bristle at people staking out positions via broad categories.
- BellsOnSunday 11y ago
  It depends on the topic of the discussion, I'd have thought - it might be Hands up who believes in God.
  - isleyaardvark 11y ago
    If the discussion is actually about belief in God, it's ridiculous to label those who criticize that belief as not being "open". Otherwise it's not a discussion, it's "let's discuss belief in god and you atheists keep quiet".
cmurf 11y ago
Me -> 0-18 Kansas. 18-35 Colorado. 35-42 NYC and Aspen. There are friendly people everywhere. There are assholes everywhere. The notion middle America has disdain for culture and intellectual achievement is two parts in conflict: 1. quite a few people in middle America are poorly educated because of their religion and politics, and the political system, permit them to elect ideological morons to school councils, and those fuckwits are ruining facts. There are so many line item "vetos" editorializing history and science books that school book publishers have thousands of derivatives of a particular book title and edition to cater to every county in the country. So it's a circular problem that the American education system is itself political. 2. Middle Americans used to be relatively wealthier than they are now, because we used to believe, as a country, that is was a bad idea for a handful of people to end up with all the marbles. And that wealth meant that at one time, Americans as a whole were some of the most well traveled people in the world. Now, something like 80% of Americans don't even have a passport. And that means confusing the difference between "culture and achievement" with condescending assholes which you do in fact get on the coasts; just like there are ignorant assholes in middle America. If we were more well traveled, we'd know the difference, and we'd properly be condescending to the assholes, and we'd embrace more of the people who just want to get good things done, instead of being so adversarial all the time. You know, if one wants to thoroughly embrace stereotypes and all.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  > "Me -> 0-18 Kansas. 18-35 Colorado. 35-42 NYC and Aspen. There are friendly people everywhere. There are assholes everywhere. The notion middle America has disdain for culture and intellectual achievement is two parts in conflict:" Please point out to me where I said that middle America has no culture and we're all friendly, and that the coasts are nothing but cultured snobs. While you're doing that, look up the definition of "flyover states" and tell me what it says and why I probably brought it up.
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- someguydave 11y ago
it_learnses 11y ago
>For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." Strawman.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  Is it? How? EDIT: I was asking not because I disagreed, but because I was hoping the parent would elaborate on that point. The person who replied to my post did a very good job at that.
  - BellsOnSunday 11y ago
    Because being listened to in a reddit discussion isn't a right that anyone has and not having it doesn't hold anyone back in any way. My views wouldn't go down well on a religious forum. Am I bothered? Do I look bothered?
    - rdancer 11y ago
      I defer to your judgement as to whether your views would prevail, but at least the people who want to should be allowed to listen to them. And if it weren't too much to ask, I would hope for a free discussion of ideas to ensue. Why do I want to listen to you? Because I hope that you're not an idiot. And because I have time and again seen well-meaning intelligent people be very wrong about things they thought were indisputable. That's precisely what the article talks about, and reddit is a great way to experience the kind of bigoted dogmatism the article discusses.
0x5f3759df-i 11y ago
As a progressive liberal who grew up and spent many adult years in a a "deep red" religious state, I received similar treatment when people discovered I was a damn liberal atheist. I was called communist, lazy, and entitled for supporting social programs. This isn't a thing only liberals do to conservatives, it goes the the other way when conservatives are in the majority. I experienced it first hand. Most people treat politics like sports teams, you're born a republican/democrat the same way you're born a fan of the local football team. So they automatically divide the world into the "in-group" and "out-group" and just blindly rage against the other "team" like the home crowd boos the opposing team. There is a reason the founders were fearful of tyranny of the majority.

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fweespeech 11y ago

No offense but if you are judging any large group by what a bunch of people say on an anonymous internet forum the problem is likely the fact you are taking the trolls to seriously.

rayiner 11y ago
I grew up in the D.C. suburbs, probably the single place in the country that most highly values traditional academic intellectualism. His characterization is entirely consistent with my observations growing up. In my high school, peoples' disdain for the rest of the country was open. Even the snobs in NYC or SF are more tolerable (NYC having a pragmatic undercurrent, and SF at least having a "builder" mentality).
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Yes but both you and the person I'm responding to casually ignore the fact you are basically engaging in broad generalizations while complaining about the fact other groups make broad generalizations and his primary justification was the fact it happens on Reddit. The sheer irony involved in that original comment and his choice of example should have been immediately obvious. The fact it wasn't makes me think, frankly, its OP who is the issue. The fact I have to put up with bullshit from people who live in the [insert location here] on a regular basis and make condescending comments doesn't mean I assume the entire [insert location here] behaves that way in general. Rather, I recognize that its the specific individuals I deal with in that instance that are the problem and not the general population. The fact both of you immediately jumped in to defend the generalization and expand on it, frankly, makes it even more ironic to the point of hypocrisy.
  - aaronem 11y ago
    This kind of argument is verboten when it's a white person talking to a black person, say, because it's not OK to tell someone their experience isn't valid. Strangely, that rule seems not to apply when it's a progressive talking to a traditionalist. And progressives wonder why they have such a hard time talking to traditionalists? You'd have to be willfully blind.
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      > This kind of argument is verboten when it's a white person talking to a black person, say, because it's not OK to tell someone their experience isn't valid. Is there some kind of large, documented body of evidence proving what the OP says is true? [ Hint: We have that for racism but we don't for what the OP is stating as far as I'm aware. ] > Strangely, that rule seems not to apply when it's a progressive talking to a traditionalist. And progressives wonder why they have such a hard time talking to traditionalists? You'd have to be willfully blind. I'm unaware requiring broad, systemic evidence of discrimination before applying the "this is a problem beyond a few individuals" is a strange standard. Please, explain why this is an unreasonable standard?
FussyZeus 11y ago
I'm basing it on working with many communities over the years (I actually avoid Reddit entirely for a number of reasons I won't go into here) as well as deal with people from all over the country in person, believe me it's a mainstream phenomenon isolated to no given website.

function_seven 11y ago

"fancy coastal intelligence" I'm going to use this phrase. Thanks.

FussyZeus 11y ago

Additionally, for the record, I was a strong minded conservative for the vast majority of my life who slowly converted to economic libertarian and social liberal, and absolutely NONE of what I would say are my gains in those areas in terms of intelligence were brought to bear by haughty pseudo intellectual assholes.

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CM30 11y ago

Yeah, pretty much this. It's also often the case with certain media outlets and politicians too, who make the assumption that anyone who's religious, not socially 'left wing' or anything else is a bigot who should be looked upon with disdain at every possible opportunity. It's great ammunition for certain politicians (like Trump or his UK and European counterparts).

creshal 11y ago
To an European it's always amusing when Americans pretend they have a left wing.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Do you not consider bernie sanders left wing?
  - creshal 11y ago
    He's the leftmost US politician to be noteworthy outside the US, and in good ol' Yurop he'd be at best centre-left. He's more right than most parties in the European Left bloc, and there's still fringe groups left of those.
- aaronem 11y ago
  To an American it's always amusing when a European tells us our political system is unsatisfactory. Over and over and over again. Never gets old. No, really. Keep it up.
  - vacri 11y ago
    You have a choice of only two parties to represent a population of 310M people of diverse backgrounds. How can that possibly be anything but unsatisfactory, regardless of your origin?
    - Amezarak 11y ago

thieving_magpie 11y ago

>most of whom can't even swap a tire for a donut without calling AAA. There's a certain irony here I can't dismiss. You write three paragraphs about being victimized by stereotyping Middle America, then end your rant by.... stereotyping everyone on the east coast (or those who sought extended education).

FussyZeus 11y ago
It's less a generalization of everyone who has a degree being incapable of performing that task (I'd imagine a lot would be able to figure it out, it's not complicated) and more the idea that knowledge which is highly useful such as that is viewed as being "beneath" knowledge such as a thorough understanding of the writings of Socrates. The catch there is that knowing Socrates isn't getting you off the side of the road, and that's what I was getting at. I could've explained it better though.
- thieving_magpie 11y ago
  I see what you're saying. I just disagree that isn't a two way street. I'm from the South and can't go home without being made fun of for "doing computers".
  - aaronem 11y ago
    So am I, and I can. It helps, I think, that I earn an excellent living at it, and also that part of "doing computers" for me is solving friends' and family members' IT-support-level problems, even when it's not especially fun to do so. On the other hand, I might just be lucky. Who knows?
  - eric_bullington 11y ago
    > I'm from the South and can't go home without being made fun of for "doing computers". I'm from the South and have never heard of an adult being made fun of for working with computers. And my family on both paternal and maternal sides is very Southern, having been in SC/NC since before the Revolutionary War. I have noticed that some family tease a lot about anything and everything, but this seems to cross regions and countries.

RightWingRabble 11y ago

Ditto. The left made the personal political, not the right. They're the ones who say we're not allowed to have jobs if we think the wrong thoughts or have the wrong opinions. Even the worst bible-thumping rednecks I know (many, many cousins of both sides of the family) will agree to disagree and behave in a civil manner in the presence of those with whom they disagree. When I was living in San Francisco, I've been literally run out of coffee shops, restaurants and parties after the wrong person finds out I'm pro-gun.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
This is clearly wrong unless you posthumously redefine all right-wing political violence as being leftist. Though, really, "left" and "right" are useless terms without defining your usage of them beforehand. Rest assured, there are many right-wingers who are all too willing to make the personal political and to stifle dissent. In fact, that's more-or-less a signature distinction of the New Right that emerged around the era of Buckley and National Review.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  ...Isn't one of the tropes of the left that you can't just reject the experiences of others offhand in such a manner? Maybe the parent has been run out of places when his views were known. Who are you to just reject that and say that's wrong?
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    I don't know, I'm not a leftist. Though what you seem to be describing are postmodernism and moral relativism, and I know plenty of left-wing people who reject both. Again, the term "left" is useless without defining it first. I have no idea what the hell you actually mean when you say "left".
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > ...Isn't one of the tropes of the left that you can't just reject the experiences of others offhand in such a manner? The first paragraph, which appeared to be what was rejected, was a generalization, not a recounting of personal experience. And, nothing in the post you responded to was any kind of rejection that violates any precept that is particularly common, AFAICT, on the left (it might, I suppose, violate a right-wing stereotype of the left, but, then, that's more a problem of the alignment of the stereotype with reality.)

vacri 11y ago

> For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian Nothing says "proselytisation" like walking into a different conversation and announcing your passion for religion.

isolate 11y ago
Based on my personal experience with being so, delusional people like to have as many conversations as possible about their delusion, because that's how they sustain it.

engi_nerd 11y ago

You are not alone. So I have the "fancy coastal intelligence" you talk about, or at least the degrees that signify that I do (although I got them in relatively remote places in Kentucky and Tennessee, so not exactly coastal). But I come from a family of school teachers, carpenters, and construction contractors. In other words, the kind of people who do not tolerate a lack of common sense in their children and try to teach it at every possible opportunity from birth on. I've personally seen this exclusion at work many times. Political correctness police, social justice warriors, whatever you want to call them, don't care for inclusion of anything that doesn't fit their narrative. They will seek out your differing point of view, scream about it, try to isolate you from help, gang up on you, force you to apologize, make you give up, then appeal to higher authorities to marginalize you/exclude you/fire you, then have something like a show trial about you, and then finally declare victory and celebrate. But their celebration will usually contain notes of "well I never intended things to turn out like this!" Obviously I've seen this whole process happen a time or three in various corporations. Those who were excluded/marginalized/fired often had no real idea what they did in the first place. That's the end of my rant, which is only tangentially related to yours, but yours resonated with me because a lot of what you said reminds me of myself.

BellsOnSunday 11y ago

I don't recognise the prejudice against practical skills in my neck of the woods (CS dept in a UK university) but religious colleagues are quietly looked down upon and sometimes mocked. (Not that there are many of them.) I try as hard as I can not to judge such people myself but will admit to finding it hard to take someone seriously who believes in such stuff. Being able or unable to change a tyre doesn't come close to the epistemological facepalm of trusting in the dove from above.

FussyZeus 11y ago
Speaking as someone who does: Those of us who do are often raised in a very religious place among very religious people, it's a big part of our lives. Rationally, I have no reason to believe in any God. That's why it's called a belief. It's a lot more to do with the culture one grows up with than the belief itself, and anything you learn at such a young age is difficult to shake loose of completely. Personally, I used to be a strong Lutheran, I'd say I'm now 20% Lutheran and 80% agnostic, but even that has far less to do with me intellectually not recognizing my God and a lot more to do with frustrations over the behaviors of organized religions. In short: For a lot of people that I know and myself, religion is far less believing that God is going to help you in some way (frankly, if you know your Bible, you know God's help tends to come in rather rough and leaves a lot of things broken so you don't really want it anyway) and lot more in believing that it's just a nicer universe to live in if you assume that you simply cease to exist at the point of death and there is nothing but...well, nothing awaiting you over that line.
- BellsOnSunday 11y ago
  I was brought up amongst and by religious people too, so I don't automatically assume people are stupid for having beliefs. But I'm aware that is really just a rhetorical position on my part, and when faced with someone who claims to be a scientist, living in the west in the 21st century, and who actually believes this stuff (e.g. the afterlife) then it is just difficult to take them seriously. That makes me vulnerable to accusations of having a closed mind, etc, I know...but I stopped believing in those things (if I ever did) around the same time I stopped believing in Father Christmas, so you'll have to cut me some slack :) And you actually make it worse when you justify your beliefs by saying that they make the Universe a "nicer" place to live in, which is just juvenile (I can imagine even nicer universes, would you like to believe in them instead?). I would stop at your previous statement about not needing to rationalise belief (in fact it's a category error to do so).

mrow84 11y ago

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone from the UK with a background like this has had a similar experience of prejudice (beyond what I would consider to be background level "you're different"-type feelings). I am always quite shocked to hear of how strong the divide appears to be in the US between, loosely, "religious conservatives" and "non-religious liberals". I've spent approximately zero time in the US, so I can't really tell if it is partly an exaggeration, but the feelings certainly seem to run quite strong across the media spectrum.

FussyZeus 11y ago
I know Top Gear's (previously) Mr. Clarkson always had colorful things to say about what they call "midlanders" which sounds to me like the British version of Midwesterners. No facts there there though, I have no idea how widespread it is.
- mrow84 11y ago
  It doesn't have the same religious dimension - they're basically just the butt of southerner's jokes. There is quite a bit of regionalism in the UK, but it's mostly pretty harmless, and doesn't carry that much bitterness with it. For example, there's definitely a north-south tension in England, which does have some cultural aspects to it, but it's in a completely different league from the US situation (as far as I understand that), and beyond the occasional mutual quips, you won't see any real discrimination - that's my experience, anyway.
rdancer 11y ago
The divisions here run along the class and cultural heritage lines. You live and work mostly with your peers, but interact with people from outside your groups a lot. The population density is much higher in UK (and Europe in general), and we have a lot of migration, so it is difficult to construct a boogeyman out of a whole cloth. I would think that people feel that the way outgroups go about their lives is bonkers, but that most of the ingroup people are crazy in their own right.

linkregister 11y ago

It's amazing to me that the top-rated comment in this thread broadly generalizes both "coastal intellectuals" and "Middle America" with insulting stereotypes. I'm embarrassed that the upvoters of this comment actually agreed with this comment. One trip to Houston or Minneapolis is enough to verify the presence of a thriving arts and culture scene. The anti-intellectual Middle America trope is not factual. One trip to Winchester, VA or Davidsonville, MD (Washington, DC suburbs) will reveal farming communities that exude pragmatism. Hell, there's a popular trap shooting range in Greenbelt, MD. If DC or some other bogeyman city is so hostile to "bible-thumping", how can you explain the large church attendance there? I think this comment is a reaction to a handful of personal experiences that you had. The rest of your comments aren't as hyperbolic as this one. I agree that it is frustrating when dealing with rude people, but to generalize about similar folks is exactly the thing that bugs you!

seansmccullough 11y ago
I agree, I'm from Iowa, there are lot's of smart people in Middle America. There are also a lot of condescending people on the Coasts.
- pgpkkg 11y ago
  > There are also a lot of condescending people on the Coasts. Well that wasn't an unprovoked passive-aggressive attack against people on the coast at all. [sigh]. I don't care where you live, this shit is awful, and you are awful.
- pkgekgp 11y ago
  On the off-chance that you're not the awful person you sound like: "There are lots of (negative adjective) people (in area)" always reads poorly. Especially if you're from another area that is known for being hostile to people in that area. It makes it seem like you're just another closed-minded jerk perpetuating the hate that your area is famous for. Which you almost certainly are.
  - seansmccullough 11y ago

e40 11y ago

walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." I think that's your problem. Walking into a discussing and announcing that is a fairly odd thing to do. I've never entered a discussion on reddit and announced I'm an devout atheist. I think people generally bristle at people staking out positions via broad categories.

BellsOnSunday 11y ago
It depends on the topic of the discussion, I'd have thought - it might be Hands up who believes in God.
- isleyaardvark 11y ago
  If the discussion is actually about belief in God, it's ridiculous to label those who criticize that belief as not being "open". Otherwise it's not a discussion, it's "let's discuss belief in god and you atheists keep quiet".

cmurf 11y ago

Me -> 0-18 Kansas. 18-35 Colorado. 35-42 NYC and Aspen. There are friendly people everywhere. There are assholes everywhere. The notion middle America has disdain for culture and intellectual achievement is two parts in conflict: 1. quite a few people in middle America are poorly educated because of their religion and politics, and the political system, permit them to elect ideological morons to school councils, and those fuckwits are ruining facts. There are so many line item "vetos" editorializing history and science books that school book publishers have thousands of derivatives of a particular book title and edition to cater to every county in the country. So it's a circular problem that the American education system is itself political. 2. Middle Americans used to be relatively wealthier than they are now, because we used to believe, as a country, that is was a bad idea for a handful of people to end up with all the marbles. And that wealth meant that at one time, Americans as a whole were some of the most well traveled people in the world. Now, something like 80% of Americans don't even have a passport. And that means confusing the difference between "culture and achievement" with condescending assholes which you do in fact get on the coasts; just like there are ignorant assholes in middle America. If we were more well traveled, we'd know the difference, and we'd properly be condescending to the assholes, and we'd embrace more of the people who just want to get good things done, instead of being so adversarial all the time. You know, if one wants to thoroughly embrace stereotypes and all.

FussyZeus 11y ago
> "Me -> 0-18 Kansas. 18-35 Colorado. 35-42 NYC and Aspen. There are friendly people everywhere. There are assholes everywhere. The notion middle America has disdain for culture and intellectual achievement is two parts in conflict:" Please point out to me where I said that middle America has no culture and we're all friendly, and that the coasts are nothing but cultured snobs. While you're doing that, look up the definition of "flyover states" and tell me what it says and why I probably brought it up.
- deleted 11y ago
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someguydave 11y ago

it_learnses 11y ago

>For anyone who wants to experience it, walk into any Reddit discussion and tell everyone you're a devout Christian and watch the pseudo intellectuals exercise their "openness." Strawman.

engi_nerd 11y ago
Is it? How? EDIT: I was asking not because I disagreed, but because I was hoping the parent would elaborate on that point. The person who replied to my post did a very good job at that.
- BellsOnSunday 11y ago
  Because being listened to in a reddit discussion isn't a right that anyone has and not having it doesn't hold anyone back in any way. My views wouldn't go down well on a religious forum. Am I bothered? Do I look bothered?
  - rdancer 11y ago
    I defer to your judgement as to whether your views would prevail, but at least the people who want to should be allowed to listen to them. And if it weren't too much to ask, I would hope for a free discussion of ideas to ensue. Why do I want to listen to you? Because I hope that you're not an idiot. And because I have time and again seen well-meaning intelligent people be very wrong about things they thought were indisputable. That's precisely what the article talks about, and reddit is a great way to experience the kind of bigoted dogmatism the article discusses.

0x5f3759df-i 11y ago

As a progressive liberal who grew up and spent many adult years in a a "deep red" religious state, I received similar treatment when people discovered I was a damn liberal atheist. I was called communist, lazy, and entitled for supporting social programs. This isn't a thing only liberals do to conservatives, it goes the the other way when conservatives are in the majority. I experienced it first hand. Most people treat politics like sports teams, you're born a republican/democrat the same way you're born a fan of the local football team. So they automatically divide the world into the "in-group" and "out-group" and just blindly rage against the other "team" like the home crowd boos the opposing team. There is a reason the founders were fearful of tyranny of the majority.