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Originally Posted by mdovell
I'd hate to break it to you but the same exists within liberal blue states. I'm in one and frankly it can be odd to see how things are.
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Oh definitely. I left the rural state in 2002 and spent 7 years in DC and live in Atlanta now. You see the kind of stuff everywhere. But it was muc worse in WV, is much worse on WVU sports forums than on boards for other universities in more liberal states (especially urban universities) etc.
It's an attitude that just results from ignorance. But it's especially hard coming from lower class conservatives who view intellectuals as out of touch elitists, latte sippers etc.--especially with people like Sarah Palin going around and saying that type of stuff as many in that group look up to people like here, Limbaugh etc. Now of course, the majority of people even in places like WV aren't these tea bagger types etc., there's just more of them there than say, in major cities etc. in my experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBoblo
Books are snobbish in some very big subcultures (like academia). Ebooks just tag technological exclusivity right on top of the pre-existing subculture.
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Scholars are frequently condescending when it comes to reading, and ebooks will not really make any difference to the degree of douchebaggery or pride associated with being well-read.
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I don't know that I can agree with that. I'm an academic, and I'll freely admit I'm a bit snobby/elitist in some regards. Hell, a big draw of doing this job vs. taking more money in the private sector was to be in the ivory tower sub-culture away from the ignorance of the unwashed masses I railed against above!
But in all seriousness, I'm not at all snobby about my reading. As I said in the "reading junk" thread, I'm usually mentally fatigued by the time I get around to any leisure reading, so most of the time I'm reading some fantasy series or other light and easy to read fiction. Certainly nothing to be snobby about.
Maybe you'd get that from certain disciplines more--some literature profs are probably snobby about what they read, some history profs probably snobby about fiction and feel people should be reading history etc.
But I don't think all or most academics are snobby about reading. In fact, most of my colleagues aren't doing much reading at all. They have to read so much for work (reading for the research, peer reviewing articles, serving as editors for journals and having to read all submissions ,reading student papers etc.) they have no desire to read in their free time.