
Twenty-first century Victorians - gpvos
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/victorian-values-fitness-organic-wealth-parenthood
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captainbland
This seems pretty evident in the UK where we have these attitudes proudly
parading themselves around, particularly in the guise of a particular Jacob
Rees-Mogg.

I think the article would be more interesting if they dove more into the
history of this idea - for instance I've always been under the impression that
the UK and USA suffer from this particular ailment because of the 'protestant
work ethic', otherwise called 'calvinism' handed down by many generations of
wealthy property owners and aristocrats attempting to motivate their
workforce. While at one point those land owners would simply have cited the
fact that their ancestors fought for the property that they owned, or that
they had it through divine intervention at some point that got questioned.

In the secular age, the assumption that the rich worked for the property that
they own is pre-supposed (and hence own it morally, and claim the rights to
that moral superiority) even if it's not true - and certainly isn't true when
you consider the effort that they expend vs. the efforts of others and their
relative outcomes. This is then reinforced through, primarily, economic power
- the ability to advertise their status, the fact that your boss will tell you
about how they've been creating jobs, etc. reinforces this narrative. By this
point, whether they worked for it or not is irrelevant, because their
perceived ownership of the moral high-ground is so deeply ingrained until
something actually goes wrong.

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CommieBobDole
I'm conflicted about this article. On one hand, its central premise, that
people who are successful (in societal terms) tend to ascribe that success to
an inherent moral superiority, is obviously true.

On the other hand, there's nothing particularly Victorian about this attitude;
people have been doing this ever since society has existed and will be doing
it long after we're all dead.

On yet another hand (I have three), who is the target audience for this
article? Seems like this is something that anyone who would be interested in
or capable of understanding this article would already know.

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good_gnu
Did aristocrats in the middle ages ascribe their position in society to their
individual actions or to their being born into aristocracy?

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CommieBobDole
My understanding is that European royalty generally thought of their positions
as being granted by divine providence. I guess it's slightly different because
they didn't attain their position (they were born into it) but I think there's
little question they generally considered themselves inherently morally
superior to the poor.

Really, it seems like the mechanism may have changed; "I am successful because
God has chosen me in my inherent superiority to be successful" vs "I am
successful because of the inherent superiority of the moral code I follow",
but they're really just different applications of the just-world fallacy.
Which, in turn, is a natural product of the way our brains are wired.

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1053r
While the central observation of the article is vaguely interesting, what is
more interesting perhaps is the slow and gradual pivots from Victorian moral
signaling to modern moral signaling, and whether modern moral signaling is
more or less adaptive towards actually making one's life better than Victorian
moral signaling was.

For example, life satisfaction is strongly correlated with exercise. This was
true even before the general population used exercise to signal virtue. (See
the Harvard longitudinal study as an example of this.)

Additionally, the modern practice of allowing (some) women to have highly
successful careers seems to lead to better outcomes than the Victorian
practice of locking women out of everything except teaching and nursing, and
encouraging them to get out of those as soon as they could lock down a man.

Perhaps virtue signaling slowly converges on actual virtue? (This isn't to
imply that all modern virtue signaling practices are virtuous. For example,
I'd argue that modern virtue signaling around sleep, or lack thereof, and
work, namely filling one's life entirely full of it with no breaks, at least
in the USA, are terrible for health and life satisfaction.)

Edit: added clarification that modern values around female careers are better
than Victorian ones, but are not yet a fully solved problem.

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ChuckMcM
Feels like a lot of projection. At some point in there lives people realize
that there are “groups” who seem similar. Often by dress, and attitude. Not
all of these groups are conscious of the conformity.

Once you can see a group the question will come up “Am I part of that group?”
Or “Do I want to be?” And sometimes the group will reject your attempts to
join. How you deal with those situations seems to have an outsized effect on
your life.

The author clearly sees the groups and recognizes that they have existed for a
long time, and then attacks them for their shallowness. Why? For lulz? Because
they want to belong but can’t? They seem to reject the idea that groups serve
a purpose other than snobbery. At the end of the article I was left with a
sense the author was offended but not entirely sure what they were offended
by.

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blackbagboys
The underlying point is that these professional-class distinctions are cast in
moralistic tones and serve as an ideological justification for denigrating and
ignoring the material needs of the bourgeois's class enemies. This is most
clearly seen in the case of college admissions.

Of course, most bourgeois aggressively refuse to accept the idea that there is
anything political about their consumption choices at all, or that they even
have 'class enemies', because they refuse to acknowledge that they occupy and
actively maintain a privileged position in a fundamentally unjust and
exploitative system.

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jeffreyrogers
College admissions is overwhelmingly biased towards the "class enemies" you're
describing. The problem is there are not enough underrepresented minorities
who are qualified for universities in proportion to their presence in the
general population. Consequently, Asian and Jewish students are discriminated
against in college admissions, partly because their cultures buy into the
upper class ideals that are denigrated in this article.

~~~
blackbagboys
This post is a perfect example of this mechanism in action. It takes as a
given that the criteria for university acceptance are fair, objective,
attainable - 'meritocratic'. The only explanation for underrepresentation is
that the under-represented are simply inferior.

Note especially the conflation of 'minorities' with 'poor people'; this lets
those members of the bourgeois who miss out on their exact institution of
choice (and might have to attend UC Santa Cruz instead of Stanford, the
horror) reconcile their own sense of self-worth with the class myth that
failure to get admission to college denotes inferiority: they _did_ meet all
the fair, objective, meritocratic criteria, but the university gave their
rightful slot to an undeserving black / hispanic person instead.

~~~
ChuckMcM
For the college question I think the bill and Melinda gates scholars
(gmsp.org) is pretty compelling. They funded African American students who are
now going into colleges. When you compare their scores / qualifications with
their unfounded peers it suggests that kids who “know” they are going to
college do better, and are more qualified for college than kids who did not
think they would go. This appears to be true regardless of race or social
class.

~~~
blackbagboys
Yes, I take that as strong evidence in favor of demanding that society make
higher education free and available for anyone who wants it.

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philipkglass
From the closing paragraph: _We should care about health, food, and education.
But instead of seeing them as ways to prop up class dominance, we should
improve them for everyone._

Sure, that's agreeable enough. But I can't tell for sure if the author
understands the difference between 1) upper middle class parents having
resources to confer material advantages to their own families and 2) faddish
tribal markers that confer no material advantage. The two are mixed
indiscriminately throughout the article. There's no benefit to enabling the
lower 4 income quintiles to participate in the same fads embraced by the top
quintile.

Being an overweight smoker really _is_ bad for your health. It's not just an
arbitrary tribal marker.

Breast-feeding infants _is_ good for them.

Limiting screen time _is_ good for young children.

Exclusively eating organic-certified food, or gluten-free food (without a
supporting diagnostic test), is just a tribal marker.

Wearing exercise outfits to the grocery store is just a marker. Actually
exercising isn't.

One upper-middle-class fad that is actually _worse_ for children, omitted from
the article: refusing to vaccinate.

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ryanobjc
While the central point about using things inherent to your structural
position in life as a personal morality skewer is spot on, I find some of the
buttressing arguments annoying.

For example, the gluten-free shaming. While yes, not everyone is celiac, I am
confused by people are insistent that some kind of gluten allergy is
impossible. If you are that kind of person, I have some hsCRP results that
maybe you could explain?

~~~
cmiles74
In my opinion, the author dies try to indicate that they are meaning people
who avoid gluten yet do not suffer from celiac disease.

"Consider the gluten-free movement — those who choose to eliminate gluten from
their diet, not those who have celiac disease and must eschew wheat entirely."

I do agree that a non-celiac person who chooses to avoid gluten simply to
avoid gluten, without any other health concerns, is bizarre. And it's
certainly on the rise: where I live restaurants actually alter behavior based
on whether or not you suffer from celiac disease or simply "prefer no gluten".
My partner has celiac disease and when they ask if something contains gluten
(or requests a gluten-free menu, some places offer this) the server always
asks: "Do you have an allergy?"

While my partner always replies "yes", this indicates to me that some people
are saying "no". In those cases, apparently, the restaurant is doing something
differently.

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castlegloom
As the article states, East Grand Rapids is the worst.

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abecedarius
From the title I expected a piece about censoriousness. How did England go
from the libertine Regency period to the social-policing Victorians? Is there
a similar dynamic today, of course around different norms? That's something
I've been wondering but haven't got to read about so far.

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quxbar
The author of this article should read 'Vanity Fair' by Thackeray. It
crystallizes the argument they're trying to make.

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dsfyu404ed
If everyone could hit nails that accurately we wouldn't have nail guns.

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zengid
Reminds me of Neal Stephenson's _The_Diamond_Age_. Great book!

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switchbak
Sometimes it's painful to read someone's oversimplified judgement of socitey
through their rigid ideological prism(s).

To be sure, there are some interesting dynamics at play with regards to self
denial, class/hierarchical dynamics, and such, but I don't believe this
article has done a particularly good job of illustrating them.

Some times the world is rather more complicated than Victorian vs
Socialism/Feminism/Marxism, etc.

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jeffreyrogers
I don't like the idea that because the upper class does something we should be
skeptical of it. Maybe part of the reason the upper class is the upper class
is because of its commitment to good ideals: two-parent stable households,
having a healthy lifestyle, preparing your kids for success.

~~~
blackbagboys
Yes, this is exactly what the upper class wants to think about itself, and
sort of the point of the article.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
As far as I can tell, they're right. I don't see how adopting these habits is
harmful and I can see plenty of benefits.

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ryandrake
Is it possible that cause and effect are reversed?

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mark212
so eating high-fat foods and being sedentary won't increase my cholesterol --
so long as I'm well-educated and a high-earning professional? I think there's
some actual science that backs up many of the diet and exercise claims,
broadly stated.

Why those adherents feel morally superior is a separate question.

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Jldevictoria
I think the observations that the author makes are quite interesting, but his
conclusions are quite a stretch.

Human society and natural law always reward meritocracy. I think he makes a
mistake when he tries to suggest that all activities and lifestyles of any
"class" of people are equally valuable.

Eating unhealthily is objectively bad. Smoking cigarettes is objectively bad.
Its not a sign or "oppression" if you teach your kids not to get pregnant in
high school or advise them against alcoholism and drug use...

