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Home Front: Culture Wars
'Too stupid for sandwiches': NYT columnist mocked for writing about leaving gourmet sandwich shop with friend who has 'just a high school degree' because she felt overwhelmed by the fancy meats on the menu
2017-07-13
- David Brooks made the comment in a piece titled, How We Are Ruining America
I suspect more a "how-to" than a series of observations.
- The 55-year-old writer was trying to discuss informal social barriers in society

- 'Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop,' he wrote, kicking off the awkward story
- He recounted how his friend was seeming put-off by item names on the menu
- 'I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican,' he wrote, wrapping up the strange anecdote
Posted by:Elmotle Phaiger6604

#15  Not just that, what if she has cultural aversions to certain ingredients.

And what is this educated class deal? Perhaps he should come out here and take a visit to the implement yard with my uneducated friend and pick out every piece of machinery necessary for a wheat harvest, necessary for this striata baguette.

Did Mr. Brooks take a college level class on Italian Food? A person would just about have to for all the meats, cheeses, pasta shapes. Ohhh...that is a VoTech topic, tut tut.

What is telling to me is his writing accent. He goes on like he discovered a new element, and everyone else sees butt fumble.

The entertainment industry, which Brooks is a part of, is the worst perpetrator of oratory and behavioral stereotypes. This...newspeak, if you will, the oratory of the broadcaster in comparison to the real world, is about as exciting as I-70 across Kansas.

And I can only imagine the selections available at the type of gourmet Italian sandwich shop the like Mr. Brooks would show off to a friend. She is the one who got out of her comfort zone...Sure, Italian sounds fine...holy crap is this one page of just the meats?...Line is getting anxious...oh great, now friend is embarrassed he brought me.

What a pus spray.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2017-07-13 20:59  

#14  Maybe she doesn't like sandwiches. Sensitive teeth, sore jaw, any number of reasons...
Now a moron that ass-u-mes that it has to be class related -- that's bigotry.
Posted by: magpie   2017-07-13 15:06  

#13  But...did she have sharply creased pants?
Posted by: Frank G   2017-07-13 13:28  

#12  Is the sandwich shop confusion really about class so much as New York vs everyone else? Go into a trendy coffee shop and you'll be knocked back for a minute trying to decipher the menu that is basically a hundred flavors of coffee.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2017-07-13 09:57  

#11  Status rules are partly about collusion, about attracting educated people to your circle, tightening the bonds between you and erecting shields against everybody else. We in the educated class have created barriers to mobility that are more devastating for being invisible. The rest of America can’t name them, can’t understand them. They just know they’re there.

Tribes. Encouraged by the worst president ever and supported by the progressives.
Posted by: Bobby   2017-07-13 09:56  

#10  notice how with the Brits you can tell social status from accent?

Just not the Brits. Americans have some of that too. Give me equal candidates for a job, a black Nigerian or West Indies candidate who speaks the mother tongue (see - Charles, PoW) has a big edge. Its a bit of ingrained bias. Notice the hate 'fun' the media/entertainment/political complex have with the accents of Bush, Palin, and Trump.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2017-07-13 09:19  

#9  Google "collegiality", pater.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2017-07-13 08:41  

#8  the article - how new class defends itself from outsiders is (IMO) good

A version of the 'secret handshake'?
Posted by: Pappy   2017-07-13 08:35  

#7  P2K, notice how with the Brits you can tell social status from accent?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2017-07-13 08:33  

#6  Pretentious names to obscure and feed one's ego with a faux sense of cultural elevation.

The real codes to social elevation are found in behaviors. Self discipline, delayed gratification, responsibility et al. All those things the Progressives have spent decades debasing while promoting destructive ego centric perspectives.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2017-07-13 07:37  

#5  I think the bigger problem with the elite/upper class wanting the best for their children is the GIVERnment always taxing to ensure the top does not get to far ahead. See GIVERnment growth in pre-school- college education, medical benefits, diversity programs....
Posted by: Airandee    2017-07-13 06:24  

#4  I've read the article a few days ago. Maybe he payed too much attention to the sandwich shop incident, but the article - how new class defends itself from outsiders is (IMO) good.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2017-07-13 02:38  

#3  "Your culture is equally valid!"
"Sure, David. I'll have the wop salad,
A Barqs, brucciloni
(if that's not too tony!),
And Crystal (for clearin' da palate)."
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220   2017-07-13 02:29  

#2  Sighs Brooks, "How indecently pleasant
To pose for a while as a peasant
In the simple Southeast,
Underserved and unpoliced,
An illiterate, wild adolescent!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220   2017-07-13 01:43  

#1  I gotta ask: if you took a friend to some strange restaurant, why wouldn't you help them with the menu?
Posted by: SteveS   2017-07-13 00:30  

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