In J.D. Vance's wildly popular 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance recounts his childhood experience of poverty in Appalachia and makes a sociological argument against government subsidies. Speaking of personal exposure to Appalachian poverty, drug abuse, and crime, Vance expresses his frustration with what he sees as a culture of indolence among Appalachia's non-working poor. Vance's argument that unemployment benefits disincentivize hard work and hinder upward social mobility is clearly conservative. But it is not based on the common conservative “bad seed” narrative, which demonizes the unemployed individual and presents his or her flaws as innate. Instead, he paints a compassionate and nuanced picture of hillbilly culture, carefully analyzing the community's collective tendency toward social decay and powerlessness. Although Vance appeals to the free will of his fellow hillbillies and tactfully presents himself as a story of ambition and success, he also recognizes - through both analysis and anecdote - the certain inevitability of hardship that comes from a cultural tradition of poverty . Using pathos-driven tones of compassion, often associated with liberal rhetoric, to make a conservative argument against handouts for the unemployed, Vance speaks in language that is understandable to both Republicans and Democrats: a triumph for a hillbilly whose outsider - status always came from the way he spoke. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Vance uses personal anecdotes about the self-sabotaging unemployed as evidence against the liberal argument that lack of opportunity causes poverty, but builds these stories into broader cultural analysis stories, combating the conservative view that poverty is an issue of an individual nature. Vance first introduces the theme of self-induced unemployment with a character, universally referred to as "Bob." Lazy, disrespectful, and chronically late at his well-paying job, only to react with indignation when he is fired, "Bob" is a shining example of what Vance sees as the problem with hillbilly culture: working-class white men desperately trying to “blame society or government problems on their children” (194). Vance combines this original anecdote with many similar ones throughout, using these narratives to develop the reader's frustration with these men, allowing him to effectively assert that their "status in life is directly attributable to the choices [they have] made" , not the result of a lack of opportunity (194). However, the novel never presents itself as a personal vendetta against these individual men, because every time Vance presents the story of a lazy neighbor “content to live off dolls,” he quickly harks back to the problems of the community at large. ). Growing up, Vance argues, in a culture of “almost spiritual cynicism” it is easy to feel as if “you were born with trouble hanging around your neck” (8). This cynicism gives hillbillies the feeling that they have no chance of upward mobility, and their “cultural move” to blame others prevents them from “asking tough questions about themselves” that might allow them to move up the ladder. In Vance's logic, this cynicism creates unemployment and unemployment creates poverty (194). The main fallacy in this argument, of course, is the idea that having a job necessarily means overcoming poverty. This certainly isn't universally true, but Vance isn't,.