Pruitt and Mchangama's Exploration of Major Societal Issues

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Compare and Contrast
In “The chattering classes got the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ book wrong – and they’re getting the movie wrong, too,” Lisa R. Pruitt explores the danger of harmful stereotypes regarding the Appalachian culture due to the misunderstanding of Vance’s memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and the adaptation of the book into a film. In “Banning Hate Speech Won’t End Extremist Violence,” Jacob Mchangama demonstrates that banning hate speech is not the most effective way of dealing with extremist violence. While the two articles focus on different topics, they display significant similarities and differences. Comparing and contrasting the articles will be critical in bringing out these similarities and differences.
Pruitt and Mchangama agree that society faces complex issues that need a compressive approach. The authors warn that simplistic approaches to complicated issues will not achieve the intended purpose, but will instead cause more harm. Pruitt has undertaken extensive research on the white working class and rural America and comes to different conclusions from Vance’s. She demonstrates that despite the depth of the challenges facing the white working class, Vance’s memoir offers a simplistic approach. Vance majors on “personal responsibility and use of his story” to advance an agenda that goes contrary to the social safety net (Pruitt). In the same way, Mchangama is concerned that approaches to dealing with hate speech have been oversimplified, despite the depth of the problem. The author criticizes the call for tougher laws against hate speech, saying that they rest on "shaky empirical ground” (Mchangama). Although tougher laws are a simplified way of addressing hate speech ignore the complexity of the problem, hence yielding little or no results. In essence, while the art...