Actually, he was saying exactly that in his original quotation AND his explanation. And now he's getting pilloried for suggesting that we aren't "choosing" our values like the enlightened individuals we believe ourselves to be but are instead very much linked to our social and economic context.

In addition to being a snob, he's also being called a marxist and a nihilist.

Americans aren't prepared to have anyone tell them that they are products of their society.

I think many American's are caught in a sort of double blind. We like to take on and carry with us the traditions of our families, churches, and town.

But we desperately want people to recognize our individuality, we don't want to be lumped into groups like "inner-city youth" "farm workers" "Baptists" "middle America" "the elderly" "youth voters" "PTA moms" "computer geeks" "hunters" "the American Idol crowd" "us" and "them".

We find it demeaning and obnoxious when someone seems to be judging us based on some larger group to which we belong. But we ourselves use that group as a part of our self identity.

The problem for everyone comes when a reference is made to ANY group of people from a specific area or part of society. WE tend as humans to speak in shorthand, to pigeonhole people for easier reference.

And, yes, it's wrong and can be hurtful.

But what's a useful alternative? If I need to get person A to understand what I'm talking about I have to use some designator. I can't just keep saying "them" or "they", those words are so vague (deliberately so) that they could be refering to absolutely any group.

Is "hurtful" the worst charge you can make? If we're talking about matters that are this complex, crossing lines of personal identity, economics, and social stratification bringing together different people experiencing different strands of history -- it's going to hurt to tell and hear the truth.

1) My parents are white collar workers who came to this country from a conservative Catholic country. Does their alienation from American norms and customs and the difficulty they've had in securing our lives often make them feel bitter? Yes. And often that bitterness translates to their clinging to the traditions of their old country -- beliefs that have sustained them and have provided them with community, but also come with homophobia and a view that is decidedly anti-choice.

Having grown up in this country without experiencing their difficulties, when I was younger I really did have a condescending attitude, but after understanding what the dynamic was between their level of comfort with "risk" in terms of "ideas" and how closely it was tied to their lack of security in many parts of their lives, I can't blame them for wanting to "conserve" what they experienced to be good and real things. That's not a value judgment in and of itself -- just a natural reaction.

2) If you have the interpretation that Obama was actually "faulting" people for having certain ideas, then I can't change your mind. My interpretation was that Obama was not only trying to understand but justify (unlike Thomas Frank, who thinks it's wrong) the bitterness/outrage that people felt, and how his campaign had to fight against that sense of outrage in order to get people to trust him on other issues WITHOUT FALLING INTO THE USUAL POLITICIAN CLAPTRAP OF PRETENDING THAT HIS OWN LIFE WAS EXACTLY LIKE THEIRS OR THAT HE THINK THE EXACT SAME THINGS THAT THEY DO.

As for the controversial issues that he mentioned:

3) The conflict, as always, are where lines between public and private realms are drawn on issues with import from what I personally would term "private beliefs" about sex and faith that actually affect public policy. The right to bear arms to hunt and the right preach what one believes are rights that, in principle, I wouldn't object to if they were conducted safely and didn't involve impinging on the rights of other systems.

The problem, esp. since 2004, is that that;s not what's happening. Ever since the revelation that many people voted on "values", people have really wanted to judge politicians on how well their ideas would play to "values" voters. Inasmuch as those "values" have become a part of national discourse, they are fair game for debate. What ARE those values? Whether some values are worth keeping/changing and for whom. Nationally debated gun laws aren't just for recreational hunters in the woods of Penn., but also for the thousands of gun shops that litter urban neighborhoods. Laws banning equal rights for same sex couples have a similar nationwide effect.

4) I'm not suggesting that I know specifically what Obama actually thinks about the working class or whether he's right about them. All I know is that he is repeating points that have been mentioned ad infinitum since the 2004 elections. Gay marriage amendments were struck down in eleven states that year, following that we've had people try and pass laws drastically limiting abortion rights like in South Dakota, we had the whole Terry Schaivo fiasco, and most recently the conflict over the latest attempt at immigration reform. We have 24 hour news asking "will conservative voters like this? will the religious right support this?" AND NOT "does this [new policy] address the concerns of the working class?" "What are the concerns of the working class?" Obama's statement is recalling a set of very recent phenomenon wherein all the media and politicians and were talking about voters in a certain way and substituting "values" for economics. (Its risible, but its reality in politics right now the speak this way.)

5) I DO believe that people's ideas about themselves and their place in the world are very much influenced (but not necessarily determined) by their material conditions. And that's a really important thing to realize, on some level, because if we don't we're vulnerable to allowing our ideas of ourselves to be manipulated by powerful people to the point where we can't discern ourselves from what "superior" people tell us to believe in. Even if we can't "choose" our world, we can make intelligent choices about our influences -- their pros and cons, make our ideas subtle rather than dogmatic.

6) On "usefulness": Even the language in which Obama is being criticized -- "elitist" -- is a social/moral judgment based on assumptions about behavior that comes from attaining a certain economic bracket. Why does one of the XX Factor writers believe that Rush Limbaugh somehow has a right to speak in generalizations about the working class? It's because of the "identity" that he presents in contrast to the liberal, Harvard-educated Obama -- despite the fact that Rush probably has more money than both Barack and Michelle combined. It's the perpetration of a deeply unexamined assumption that somehow being a "salt of the earth" type involves a set of "conservative" behaviors and beliefs. contrary to "latte liberalism". As if farmers didn't care about the environment, as if city dwellers didn't care about religion.

The "useful" questions should not be "is he elitist?" but rather, what DOES working class want? Is there evidence that holding certain beliefs leads to better living in terms of health care and housing? Have religion and gun laws been unfairly targeted? What do ideas about these issues affect in terms of national policy?

OR

Why is it that people like Obama and Rush feel themselves allowed to speak on behalf of the working class despite not members of it themselves? Why is it that their money and their position gets them so much power over "regular people". Why aren't working class people allowed to speak for themselves?

I wasn't arguing with you, I was trying to amplify or approach from a different perspective what you were saying.

And yes, hurtful is the most damning charge I would make..but then I have a 3 foot by 4 foot Obama sign in front of my house!