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> And choosing to use your privileges to patronise people whose lives are entirely beyond your experience and comprehension, is a choice Not sure how that way

> And choosing to use your privileges to patronise people whose lives are entirely beyond your experience and comprehension, is a choice Not sure how that way of thinking is productive. Patronising people is bad in itself. Thinking that people you perceive as "privileged" can't comprehend you is a choice too and a form of ignorance.

BobaFloutist 3y ago
She didn't say they "can't", she said that they "don't." "Beyond your experience and comprehension" doesn't preclude the acquiring of more experience, it just suggests they don't currently have it. She's pointing specifically at the people that are patronizing, and explaining why specifically their words are patronizing, not saying that nobody with any wealth could ever understand her - if they couldn't, what on earth would be the point of her blog?
eropple 3y ago
The author did not say can't. In the entire piece, the only person the author used the word can't in reference to was herself, when she was poor. Choice implies a don't and a won't. But, y'know? When those self-same people go on about how You Can Just Cook when--and this is a keyhole view, a single strand of a very nasty knot, don't you dare well-actually on the vertex and not the shape--poverty is directly tied to mental health problems and the attendant executive dysfunctions that frequently come with? It's reasonable to assume either ignorance or malice (or even, though the author does not, the incapability of can't). And adjusting one's pince-nez to hmm-hmm-hmm about perhaps it's actually the poors who are ignorant is, to put a point on it, gross.
- sterlind 3y ago
  Especially considering what the author's been through with vindictive council busybodies making her live even that much more difficult out of sheer spite - like when they cut off her bennies before her first check even came in because they'd read about her deal in the paper - I think she held back rather more than I could in such a situation.
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roflyear 3y ago
> Thinking that people you perceive as "privileged" can't comprehend you is a choice too and a form of ignorance. You've kinda proven their point with this statement, no?
- VBprogrammer 3y ago
  She's obliquely referencing Jacob Reese Mogg's sister who grew up in a Grade II listed home in Somerset, overlooking the medip hills. Her life experience is only slightly more relevant to the poverty crisis than the Salman of Saudi Arabia. There is no fucking perceived.
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
> Thinking that people you perceive as "privileged" can't comprehend you is a choice too and a form of ignorance. In my experience they can't, and I do have experience in this. In one example, a few years ago I worked with some extremely rich people. I mean, exceedingly rich. Once kept negotiating on everything, even if it was to only save a few pounds. I asked for a little cash advance (£180) to allow me to do some work for them (I was very skint then). The guy said he would give it to me - provided I committed to working for them for six months. Well, nice try but I had my pride so it was a No anyway. It was not done in any way nastily, to him it was a game and he didn't mean to hurt me, but he literally had no idea of how things could be to other people. He had never in his life had to live off loss-leader baked beans and bread. I've a fair number of rich people and they can't understand the struggle it can be for others. This is first hand experience and multiple data points. Edit: the ££ involved corrected
- chefandy 3y ago
  Adjacent point based on your comment: I want to emphasize that this is not a difference in understanding between the rich in the traditional sense and the poor in the traditional sense, at least in the US. I know people with significant multi-generational family assets that don't call themselves rich. This crowd is largely (obviously not exclusively) white, US-born, and from the upper end of the middle class going up. Based on my interactions, very few seem to have experienced significant portions of their life without basic food, housing and medicinal security. A whole lot of people within all striations of the middle class assume that they kind of "get it" through osmosis because they're not rich and they were probably friends with poorer people growing up. But barring stereotypes, we always assume other people's lives, problems, decisions, challenges, and affordances are more similar to our own that others. People from the upper end of the middle class are often blind to the difficult realities of growing up lower-middle-class in meaningful ways that create similar cultural discrepancies.
- jc2jc 3y ago
  Do the wealthy not read books or newspapers? Watch film? Listen to music? It's unfathomable to me how anyone can grow up without gaining some understanding of poverty. I know it can happen, but I personally think it's more likely they pretend to not understand because it is inconvenient.
UncleMeat 3y ago
Well, a world where wealthy political leaders understand the state that the poor are in and still make statements about how they should just buy raw potatoes is an even clearer example of heartlessness.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Man, so many comments here playing the word dissection game, it's tiresome. The author is responding to a singular person here, a person who basically did say "Let them eat spuds", and based on that statement really does seem to be unable to empathize with people who aren't the children of Barons. Whether or not all people in such privileged positions are capable is irrelevant. Ms. Rees-Mogg has shown she is incapable, by her own words.

BobaFloutist 3y ago

She didn't say they "can't", she said that they "don't." "Beyond your experience and comprehension" doesn't preclude the acquiring of more experience, it just suggests they don't currently have it. She's pointing specifically at the people that are patronizing, and explaining why specifically their words are patronizing, not saying that nobody with any wealth could ever understand her - if they couldn't, what on earth would be the point of her blog?

eropple 3y ago

The author did not say can't. In the entire piece, the only person the author used the word can't in reference to was herself, when she was poor. Choice implies a don't and a won't. But, y'know? When those self-same people go on about how You Can Just Cook when--and this is a keyhole view, a single strand of a very nasty knot, don't you dare well-actually on the vertex and not the shape--poverty is directly tied to mental health problems and the attendant executive dysfunctions that frequently come with? It's reasonable to assume either ignorance or malice (or even, though the author does not, the incapability of can't). And adjusting one's pince-nez to hmm-hmm-hmm about perhaps it's actually the poors who are ignorant is, to put a point on it, gross.

sterlind 3y ago
Especially considering what the author's been through with vindictive council busybodies making her live even that much more difficult out of sheer spite - like when they cut off her bennies before her first check even came in because they'd read about her deal in the paper - I think she held back rather more than I could in such a situation.

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roflyear 3y ago

> Thinking that people you perceive as "privileged" can't comprehend you is a choice too and a form of ignorance. You've kinda proven their point with this statement, no?

VBprogrammer 3y ago
She's obliquely referencing Jacob Reese Mogg's sister who grew up in a Grade II listed home in Somerset, overlooking the medip hills. Her life experience is only slightly more relevant to the poverty crisis than the Salman of Saudi Arabia. There is no fucking perceived.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

> Thinking that people you perceive as "privileged" can't comprehend you is a choice too and a form of ignorance. In my experience they can't, and I do have experience in this. In one example, a few years ago I worked with some extremely rich people. I mean, exceedingly rich. Once kept negotiating on everything, even if it was to only save a few pounds. I asked for a little cash advance (£180) to allow me to do some work for them (I was very skint then). The guy said he would give it to me - provided I committed to working for them for six months. Well, nice try but I had my pride so it was a No anyway. It was not done in any way nastily, to him it was a game and he didn't mean to hurt me, but he literally had no idea of how things could be to other people. He had never in his life had to live off loss-leader baked beans and bread. I've a fair number of rich people and they can't understand the struggle it can be for others. This is first hand experience and multiple data points. Edit: the ££ involved corrected

chefandy 3y ago
Adjacent point based on your comment: I want to emphasize that this is not a difference in understanding between the rich in the traditional sense and the poor in the traditional sense, at least in the US. I know people with significant multi-generational family assets that don't call themselves rich. This crowd is largely (obviously not exclusively) white, US-born, and from the upper end of the middle class going up. Based on my interactions, very few seem to have experienced significant portions of their life without basic food, housing and medicinal security. A whole lot of people within all striations of the middle class assume that they kind of "get it" through osmosis because they're not rich and they were probably friends with poorer people growing up. But barring stereotypes, we always assume other people's lives, problems, decisions, challenges, and affordances are more similar to our own that others. People from the upper end of the middle class are often blind to the difficult realities of growing up lower-middle-class in meaningful ways that create similar cultural discrepancies.
jc2jc 3y ago
Do the wealthy not read books or newspapers? Watch film? Listen to music? It's unfathomable to me how anyone can grow up without gaining some understanding of poverty. I know it can happen, but I personally think it's more likely they pretend to not understand because it is inconvenient.

UncleMeat 3y ago

Well, a world where wealthy political leaders understand the state that the poor are in and still make statements about how they should just buy raw potatoes is an even clearer example of heartlessness.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Man, so many comments here playing the word dissection game, it's tiresome. The author is responding to a singular person here, a person who basically did say "Let them eat spuds", and based on that statement really does seem to be unable to empathize with people who aren't the children of Barons. Whether or not all people in such privileged positions are capable is irrelevant. Ms. Rees-Mogg has shown she is incapable, by her own words.