12 September, 2008

Sarah Palin's critics

I enjoyed this article (by a non-Palin supporter) on how the critics of Sarah Palin currently say more about themselves than they do about her...
"The virulence of the language used by the anti-Palin crusaders reflects the contempt with which the American cosmopolitan elite regards common people. Such explicit denunciations of ordinary people’s morality and lifestyles by self-confessed progressive or liberal commentators are rare today, at a time when American culture professes to be non-judgmental and tolerant – certainly such vicious stereotyping would be condemned if it was directed at minorities or any other section of society apart from ‘rednecks’. That is why, normally, such top-down contempt is expressed through euphemisms and nods and winks.

In the US, terms such as ‘Nascar Dads’, ‘Valley Girls’, ‘Joe six-pack’ or ‘redneck’ have become codewords for the white working classes or the ‘underclass’. In Britain, commentators use different phrases for undesirable sections of society: ‘chavs’, ‘white van man’, ‘Worcester Woman’, ‘tabloid readers’. These are the kind of people who do not write for The Huffington Post and whose lifestyles are looked upon as alien by the very high-minded cultural elites. The very fact that ‘these people’ breed, are unashamedly carnivorous, are not on a diet, sometimes drink beer, sometimes
smoke and sometimes partake in even cruder pleasures of life means they cannot
be treated as the moral equals of their cosmopolitan superiors. "
I do recommend reading the whole thing.

2 comments:

nought.point.zero said...

I'm sure about the right's excessive defending of Palin, just as I'm not sure about the left's excessive criticsm (I saw a certain debater on facebook trying to use her bear hunting as a valid criticsm).

But I don't think it's excessively snobbish to point out that Palin is unknowledgable and parochial, considering that she's a potential VP.

nought.point.zero said...

^ that's I'm NOT sure about the right's...