Last year we were discussing the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” by J.D. Vance. The book is a kind of indictment of the culture he grew up with in white Appalachia. I doubt that the book was intended as a “fair-minded, balanced” view of these Americans. Vance stresses that he loves them, they’re patriotic, etc. But his account reads more like an “expose” than an “elegy.”
His characterization of his extended family and neighbors is pretty depressing. Tales of drunken dysfunction, hypocrisy, poor ethics, threats of violence, regularly blaming outsiders for personal failures: basically the Trump White House set in Kentucky.
Part of Vance’s agenda is assigning personal responsibility and blame to these white Appalachians: for accepting, maintaining, and even honoring a culture that produces so much unhappiness and failure over generations.
So in light of Vance’s view and the anecdotes in the book, our discussion soon turned to the question of whether it was fair to dismiss the particular people Vance writes about as “a bunch of gorillas.”
I said “No; that’s not kind or fair or helpful.” For one thing, identifying any subculture that way is dehumanizing. The word that Vance uses to describe them—“hillbilly”—is also dehumanizing; derogatory. (I cringe when I read comment threads to news stories and see people accusing others of being “rednecks” and “hillbillies.” I like to think the people who do that are just Russian trolls seeking to encourage division over here. But I know better.)
“Hillbilly Elegy” is deceptive because (as Vance knows) the self-centeredness and behaviors that disgust him aren’t peculiar to white Appalachian people. It’s easy to find people all over the cultural, political, and class spectrums practicing the same narcissism and deplorable behaviors Vance singles out in his book. We got some of ‘em here in Minnesota, I knew them back in Jersey and New York, you can see some of them in the bars at country clubs.
Finally, referring to people who practice those,behaviors as “gorillas” is unfair to real gorillas. Gorillas are comparatively altruistic. (continued)
The problem isn’t that “too many white people are hillbillies and rednecks.” The problem is that too many people of all different classes and ethnicities choose to be “baboons.” In fact: every day more people are being encouraged to remain or to become baboons. Some individuals carve out lucrative careers and fame for themselves in the burgeoning “encourage people to become baboons” field.
By “baboons,” I mean human narcissists who want to put themselves up on some kind of pedestal, even though they don’t deserve to be on a pedestal. These “baboon” people shouldn’t be encouraged to think they belong on a pedestal. Because historical experience tells us that all a baboon can really do up there is shit on the pedestal. Who among us wants to waste our time and precious lives regularly cleaning baboon shit off our pedestals?
Of course it’s also dehumanizing to go around identifying some of my fellow Americans as “baboons.” But I can’t think of a better word to describe the voters and non-voters I’m referring to. I saw a lot of real baboons in Africa and I think the epithet is apposite. It seems appropriate in describing about thirty per cent of adult Americans because these people’s core beliefs and behaviors are so like those of the baboons in the wild. For example:
The baboon’s world revolves around its own troop. Creatures who don’t belong to its troop are competitors, enemies, even potential targets. The baboon believes that he and his troop matter more than anything else. The baboon thinks that he and his troop are “cool” and “righteous,” and that everyone else and everything else are secondary at best; suspect and threatening at worst.
Very often the baboons eat human garbage, and thus come to depend human beings. Even so: the baboons remain hostile to the human beings they’ve come to depend upon. They are fearful. If baboons could own and operate firearms, they would probably join the NRA and carry AR-15s when collecting the garbage provided by humans. Because baboons in this situation are paranoid; they view themselves as potential victims. They act as if the humans providing them garbage are persecuting them.
But baboons also consider themselves the “heroes” in this dependency narrative. Baboons think it’s really all about the baboons; them and the particular troops they belong to. So they behave as if they believe they are both the heroes and the victims in this existence we all share. You see where I’m going with this?
The baboons are narcissists and insular. This explains why they will sometimes wage war against other baboon troops even when doing so disadvantages all of them. It doesn’t matter to baboon that in the final analysis, they’re all baboons and their common interests would be better served by cooperating rather than waging war on each other. The baboon’s point of view is driven by his identification with his particular tribe: if the baboon feels that his self-interest or his troops’ self-interest is served by attacking other baboons—or any other creature—he does it.
The baboon doesn’t take “the long view” of things. Even if doing so would be in his own interest; it’s not in his nature. Self-gratification of the moment, acting out on the feelings of the moment: that’s in the baboon’s nature. And of course fairness doesn’t enter into it. The baboon “thinks it’s always the baboon’s turn—in fact, that the baboon’s turn is already long overdue.”
The baboon is incurious about creatures outside the troop and their ways. It flings shit at them, threatens them, identifies them as “enemy” to other baboons. It doesn’t matter to a baboon if the target of its rage is not in fact its enemy or the troop’s enemy. For example: baboon may attack a human being who is actually trying to help the troop survive. This is not viewed as objectionable by other baboons.
One way that the human baboons differ from the baboons I saw in Africa: the baboons I saw in Africa don’t seem to be operating under the delusion that the continued existence of Africa and the African nations somehow depends on them. (I may be wrong here; maybe some evolutionary biologist will come along and affirm that African baboons do in fact harbor this delusion. Regardless:)
Human baboons, on the other hand, often have the delusion that they are vital to the freedom and continued existence of the polity. This is clearly untrue: nations become great nations despite their baboons, not because of them. Nevertheless, the human baboons continue to believe they are essential guarantors of the justice, liberty, freedom, and prosperity of their nation despite all evidence to the contrary. Here, actual baboons seem to come off better.
I don’t object to people’s right to choose to be baboons. In fact, I wish them well so long as they do the rest of us no harm. But I do object to baboons gaining control of the government and operating it according to core baboon principles. That has produced serious harm in the past, and it will continue to do so in the future. Government of the people, by the baboons and for the baboons, is a real threat to our republic.
In exchange for a handful of old garbage, a government composed of real baboons would not hesitate sell out America and its future to Putin or any other murderous power. A real baboon government would even sell out other baboons for a handful of garbage. It would be incapable of seeing any “issues,” there.
And a government of human baboons would not hesitate to sell out this democracy and its people to Putin (or any enemy state) if they believed it to the best interests of their own “troop”—for sake of money, career, or a new boat next year, or unfounded feelings of higher self-esteem, or any other such garbage.
So I am pro-democracy but anti-“baboonacy.” And I’m especially anti-“baboonacy in action.”