It begins with an image of a long line of people marching across a vast landscape. The Tea Partiers -- white, older, Christian, predominantly male, many lacking college degrees -- are somewhere in the middle of the line. They trudge wearily, but with resolve, up a hill. Ahead, beyond the ridge, lies wealth, success, dignity. Far behind them, the line is composed of people of color, women, immigrants, refugees. As pensions are reduced and layoffs absorbed, the line slows, then stalls. An even greater indignity follows: people begin cutting them in line. Many are those who had long stood behind them ... all now aided by the federal government....
As even endangered animals appear to have a higher priority in government eyes, "the Tea Partiers are made to feel less than human." They are "reviled for the Christian morality and the 'traditional' values they have been taught to honor from birth," and obviously we can add their presumed attitudes toward racial religious and sexual minorities. Rich doesn't fully agree with Hochschild's reading of the story, bringing us back to the debate described yesterday between those, apparently like Hochschild, who believe that "economic despair is the central motivation behind the Tea Partiers' rage," and those, obviously like Rich, who find it "difficult not to consider racial fear the formative aspect of the story." Rich is no doubt encouraged in his view by one of Hochschild's subjects who laments that "People think we're not good people if we don't feel sorry for blacks and immigrants and Syrian refugees. But I am a good person and I don't feel sorry for them." Rich, at least, is not going to take this person's word for his or her goodness. Both he and Hochschild may question why these people imagine themselves at the front of that line of march, or why they think it unfair that others, thought by many to have been held back unfairly, are moved ahead. Hochschild may be more inclined to think of them as good people at some level, or at least praiseworthy for "their capacity for loyalty, sacrifice, and endurance." Yet their tendency to vote in what she describes as their "emotional self-interest," in defense of their self-image as good people in spite of the scolding of liberals, remains a problem author and reviewer alike find it imperative to solve. Rich, at least, feels that "we never get the sense that they know themselves," which seems to mean that they can't see themselves as he sees them, as people with a prejudice problem.
The solution remains obvious: if they feel insulted, don't insult them. If liberals and progressives would not spend so much time and bandwidth trying to reeducate these people, perhaps their resentment and emotional self-interest might not obscure their rational self-interest so completely. After all, does anyone believe that white people are the only bigots or haters in the United States? Go ahead and tell me that only those with power can be racists, but what power do these people have? Have they any more power than the many black Americans who believe in the white-devil mythology of the Nation of Islam or related phenomena, but are not, to my knowledge, exhorted to renounce it? If the idea in such cases is that their bigotry is harmless if they don't act on it -- which may not be as consistently the case as it was a generation or two ago -- then why not let white bigots think what they like as long as they have no power to violate other people's civil rights? To repeat, that doesn't stop anyone from advancing policies to minimize discrimination or mitigate its long-term consequences, but don't you suppose that if you keep at that necessary work without constantly harping on white people's heritage of wickedness, they might reconcile with change sooner and more peaceably? With that in mind, one of the few reasonable arguments for a Hillary Clinton presidency is that with one more great "glass ceiling" broken, perhaps progressives won't need to rail against prejudice so much in the future, and will concentrate instead on real progress for everybody.
10 comments:
"People think we're not good people if we don't feel sorry for blacks and immigrants and Syrian refugees. But I am a good person and I don't feel sorry for them."
That's what happens when people are allowed to define words on their own terms, rather than being forced to accept the given definition of a word. It is also an expected result in a society where lies are accepted as an equal alternative to truth.
"the Tea Partiers are made to feel less than human." They are "reviled for the Christian morality and the 'traditional' values they have been taught to honor from birth,"
No, actually they are reviled for continuing to attempt to force that morality on everyone around them. They are reviled for their insistence on judging everyone else by that morality, even when judging others is in direct violation to what their bible claims. Finally, they are reviled for their hypocrisy. They are a minority, like it or not, and they are being treated exactly as they treat other minorities.
The ironic thing is that tea-baggers, the black community and the gblt community have a few things in common. They are all minority groups who seek to define themselves by their minority status, while complaining when anyone else defines them by their minority status. They make a big deal of their difference, but are butthurt when others make any kind of deal of their differences. They demand special privileges they are NOT willing to extend to others.
In short, not one of these groups is willing to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". They exclude themselves from the mainstream, then whine that the mainstream won't embrace them. In doing so, they weaken society.
9:20 -- the Tea Partiers still believe themselves to be the majority, or else they believe they represent the hidden majority of "traditional" Americans that they assume must exist if the nation is to endure as they know it. This is why the Trumpists insist that all current polls are lies, or else badly mistaken; they take it on faith that there's an electoral majority for Trump and/or their values out there, if only the right candidate will get out the vote. Probably the real reason they still see themselves as the majority is that they refuse to see those who oppose them as "real" Americans.
Just curious on another point: how exactly do you think the LGBT community in particular -- you can arrange the letters as you please -- should behave so as not to "weaken society?"
And who is the "mainstream" right now, anyway, if it's not the Tea Party (and thus not Trump voters) and not the Democratic party or its major constituencies?
"how exactly do you think the LGBT community in particular -- you can arrange the letters as you please -- should behave so as not to "weaken society?"
By not being exclusionary. The same with the "black" community, and the "teabagger" community and every other minority who is only a member of a minority because they insist on being a member of a minority.
The minute EVERY group like that sees themselves AND the rest of us as American citizens and fellow countrymen first and foremost, they will have ceased weakening society. Not a single one of them is the "special snowflake" they insist they are.
" the Tea Partiers still believe themselves to be the majority, or else they believe they represent the hidden majority of "traditional"
Yeah, well they also believed some obscure jew died on a cross for their sins and he's going to come dancing back from heaven any day now to wreak god's holy vengeance on the rest of us. All you're saying there is that they should probably be all considered of questionable sanity and locked away for the safety and security of society. Belief does NOT determine reality.
The mainstream is, as always, WHAT THE MAJORITY SAYS IT IS. Quite frankly, I'm sick of the "diversity is strength" bullshit. It is a lie. Diversity is divisive. There are countries on this planet where islam is the mainstream. Let muslims move there. There are countries on this planet where Spanish and latino culture is the mainstream. Let people who prefer those cultures move there. Right wingers are too exclusionary. Liberals are too inclusionary. There is a culture established here that has been the mainstream, more-or-less, since the founding of this country and THAT culture has been molded by working class (not corporate, not welfare), tax-paying Americans of European descent. Like it or not. Look at the rest of the countries where those other cultures are mainstream and tell me honestly that you'd want to live in any one of them. Do you really want to live in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, any country in Africa at this point, China, Philipines? Perhaps you'd find the climate of Puerto Rico more to your liking (if not the disease, crime and poverty)? I think not. But the more of those people allowed to flood into this country, the more the basis of our culture gets eroded, the less welcome we find ourselves in our own country and THAT is intolerable.
I guess that means that the American mainstream, for now until numbers confirm otherwise, believes that "some obscure jew died on a cross for their sins and he's going to come dancing back from heaven any day now to wreak god's holy vengeance on the rest of us." Do you exclude yourself from the mainstream by disagreeing?
You can bandy semantics all you want, but you know what I am saying. This culture is primarily of Western European origin and THAT is what it should fucking remain. Every piece of shit muslim should be thrown out, their citizenship revoked. And every other immigrant who comes here for a better life should be FORCED to renounce their own cultural heritage as the price they pay.
I suppose you'll find some flippant way to get around that statement to. So feel free to sell yourself off to whichever scum-bag third world shitbags are buying.
"9:20 -- the Tea Partiers still believe themselves to be the majority,"
Once again, belief does NOT define reality. So I don't give a good damn what some ignorant asshole "believes". It is what he/she can PROVE that interests me. It can be PROVEN that the koran advocates violence and islamic world domination. It can be PROVEN that illegal "immigrants" cause more problems than they solve, since the ONLY problem they solve is migratory labor that other people can't afford to hold. The solution is to put the welfare community to work on the farms in return for their continued payout. No more need for migrant workers, no need to allow any more cultural contamination from such people.
As for all those minorities, the day I am allowed to hold my head up in public and proclaim that I am proud to be a white, hetero-sexual, working-class man without being shouted down is the day I will feel they earn equality and respect. Until then, they can expect no better treatment from me than they are willing to give.
By the way, I notice you keep refusing to answer my questions. So I'll repeat:
Do you really want to live in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, any country in Africa at this point; in China or the Philipines? Would you feel comfortable living in any of the central or south American states?
I exclude myself from any group that DEMANDS I accept, as fact, complete and utter nonsense.
So you're not of the mainstream after all, and apparently feel no obligation to conform for society's sake, but reserve your right to do just the opposite -- or are you going to tell me that the majority of the American population, who you said gets to say what the mainstream is, does not believe in God, Jesus and some selection of the other trappings? Why don't you just say the mainstream is whatever you say it is? I wouldn't feel comfortable in any country where I didn't know the language, but I don't think I'd feel much more comfortable in a country with someone like you in charge. Or is your utopia not the inquisitorial, bigoted tyranny it sounds like?
BTW, are you really proud of your sexual preference, like it's some sort of accomplishment, or was that just a thought exercise?
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