LogFAQs > #959015717

Mead posted...

if people in the south want the place to be better then that has to start with them stopping the whole cultural blame game about whose fault it is that they lost a war and now they just kinda suck, and they need to have a better attitude about America and start voting in a way that actually helps people

It's rarely that simple, though. Institutionalized poverty is a thing. It's kind of hard to pull yourself up by sheer force of determination when every socializing force you're subjected to from a young age is prepping you for failure.

That's not just a Southern thing. It's the same issue that makes discussion of poverty and crime in inner cities or "the black community" a hard thing, and solutions even harder. And it's the reverse of what Twitter is talking about when they go "WOMGPrivilege" every 5 minutes. Like it or not, people are pre-programmed by their upbringing long before they have any real capacity to make their own life choices. Yes, some people can overcome those handicaps through determination (or throw away all the advantages they start with if they come from a much better place), but those are the outliers, not the average person.

It's also not really about cultural blame, it's about the realities of the educational system, funding, economic opportunities, and a thousand other variables that have been in place for decades, shaping each successive generation to fall into the same traps the previous one did. Eventually, patterns of behavior are normalized, then fetishized, and ultimately become nearly impossible for any individual to really overcome or shift.

Sociology is a complex subject for a reason. Anyone who offers easy answers is generally wrong.
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