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gilda_elise
In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country – a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Russell Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets – among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident – people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children.
Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests. Instead, Russell Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream – and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Russell Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in "red" America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?
What will people give up, clean air, clean water, a livable environment, in order to have a job? A job with an employer who isn’t held accountable for the damage its done? But what if it turned out that oil or chemical companies don’t bring an exceptional number of jobs? What then is the reason that these people vote against their own self interest?
And why would people rail against the government while living in a state that gets a disproportionate amount of government largess? Those are the questions Hochschild is trying to finds the answers to.
It takes about half the book before some answers are forthcoming. A big reason for their discontent seems to be the idea that people of color are “cutting in line,” in front of white workers, keeping them from reaching the “American dream.” No thought is ever given to the fact that for generations people of color weren’t even allowed in line. And now for most, white, black or brown, the line doesn’t even exist anymore.
What it seemed to all come down to was what the author calls “emotional self-interest.” Many of the people she interviewed believe the story of their being pushed aside, of the other “taking over their country,” and they’ll do anything to hold onto that story, even if it means overlooking facts that don’t fit into their narrative.
I suppose that’s the closest will get to an answer. I’m not 100% satisfied with it, but I think it’s definitely a start.
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. The Outsider
2. War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
3. Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts
4. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
5. Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
6. From Baghdad to America: Life after War for a Marine and His Rescued Dog (Lava #2)
7. The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge (Gap #2)
8. The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery
9. First King of Shannara (Original Shannara Trilogy 0)
10. Legends of the Fall
11. Moon of the Crusted Snow
12. Mio, My Son
13. Circe
14. Al Franken: Giant of the Senate
15. Memoirs of a Polar Bear
16. Of Mice and Men
17. A Dog's Purpose
18. A Quiet Victory for Latino Rights: FDR and the Controversy Over "Whiteness"
19. The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises (Gap #3)
20. The Face of Apollo (Book of the Gods #1)
21. The Talisman
22. The Sword of Shannara
23. The Scarlet Lion
24. 999
25. The Sugar Solution
26. The Court of the Midnight King
27. Children Of the Sun
28. Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era
29. The God Gene (The ICE Sequence #2)
30. The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Complete Annotated Edition by Ulysses S. Grant
31. Duel: Terror Stories
32. The Roanoke Girls
33. Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation
34. Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl
35. Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization
36. The Ice
37. Nature's New Deal:The Civilian Conservation Corps & the Roots of the American Environmental Movement
38. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
39. The Eden Legacy
40. Charnel House
41. In Search of Dark Matter
42. General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier
43. Carrion Comfort
44. I Travel by Night (I Travel by Night #1)
45. Midnight Sun
46. Wolf Willow: A History, a Story & a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier
47. Doom City (Greystone Bay #2)
48. Through Blood & Fire
49. A Blaze of Glory (Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater #1)
50. Recursion
51. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
52. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America
53. The Gap Into Madness: Chaos and Order (Gap #4)
54. Inspection
55. The Editor
56. The Void Protocol (The ICE Sequence #3)
57. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
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no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 03:08 am (UTC)Yes. I'm intolerant of willful ignorance and bigotry. I'm intolerant of racism and sexism. I'm not going to start tolerating it in order to meet horrible people on some imaginary "middle ground." I won't physically attack, or even attack with words, a Trump supporter. That is the extent of the respect I show to anyone - I'd extend a avowed Nazi the same basic courtesy (you may rest assured many Trump supporters wouldn't show me that respect - I'm one of those commie weirdo liberals who hate America). But if such a person starts spouting off, I will exercise my right to disagree.
As for my viewpoint, it is indeed a generalization. I would never claim otherwise. But I've more than once heard certain Brits proclaim that they have some special comprehension of America based on British culture that places them in a position of understanding, and in each case I can only say there isn't room or time on LJ to explain all the ways in which such Brits are quite mistaken. We are quite different nations in countless ways, and you can't generalize from one to the other, or suppose because you understand the one you grew up in, you fathom the other.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 05:55 pm (UTC)I feel the same is true here. A friend and I were just discussing this, in fact. Newspapers tend to cover what's happening in big cities - L.A., New York City, Washington D.C. - as if the opinions expressed there and the desires and beliefs of the residents there are somehow nationwide.
That’s interesting. In terms of power I thought we were pretty top heavy in this country and that power was more devolved in the States (aided by the presence of more major cities?) and then with this devolution in power would come a kind of devolution or filtering of attitudes? Maybe it doesn’t work like that. Also, I’ve heard Americans themselves saying America is really a combination of several different countries and I thought that might have helped promote a multiplicity of opinions etc.
the news business in the U.S. sometimes gets lazy - the big city papers don't get out of the big city often enough because they think if they know what the urbanites think and want, they know all that matters.
That’s definitely happened here and is manifested in things like one form of media copying what other forms have said but not actually getting out there to verify things. Or one day something will appear on the web and then a couple of days later it appears on TV with TV claiming it’s news.
If you're asking me to meet on middle ground with people who believe only white male Christian Americans should have any rights, I have to ask you ... what is the middle ground between my position (all American citizens should be treated with equal respect) and that position? Women get their rights taken away every other day? How do you compromise with, or respect, such a hate-filled, fact-free, extreme position?
No, I’m not asking you to do that, I’m just concerned and fed up with liberal hypocrisy which, apart from being irritating, camouflages many important issues and places a lid on discussion which leads to more problems at a later stage such as voting in a Trump figure. Something’s gone badly wrong, hasn’t it? (Apart from the fact that it’s the much loved secular religion of 'democracy' which has brought about this situation.) But if I was forced to answer your question on what is the middle ground I’d probably start by saying God, I don’t know, if I knew that then I’d be earning lots of money elsewhere! Seriously, things like both sides being less tribal, less dogmatic, more open-minded, more tentative? Less convinced of their own ‘rightness’? (And let’s not forget we’re talking about society here - social science - as opposed to physical science, where there are few absolutes or hard and fast theories), More respectful of the views of others. e.g. instead of the left claiming that the poor are so stupid they don’t recognise what their own interests are, give them the benefit of the doubt and salute their cynicism which the gullible liberal left needs a good dose of! Better informed perhaps? e.g. you made the statement:
Part 2
Date: 2019-12-30 05:56 pm (UTC)Sorry, you’ve lost me now (and by the way, while I remember, what’s wrong with being a Christian?) but I suspect that’s an unhelpful, over-simplified take on reality. Again, I can’t comment on the US but if people took this on board they’d have images of women being dragged away in chains! Isn’t that slightly inaccurate and misleading? In the UK there have been injustices for both sexes e.g. men historically having to work until they’re 65 and women retiring at 60 and yet statistics show that women live longer. Where’s the fairness in that? Five years is a helluva long time especially if you’re working in a factory or driving a London bus. Men, historically, being the ones with the responsibility of providing a home and putting food on the table and yet hardly ever seeing, let alone, enjoying their families. Until recently I would hate to have been born a man.
As for my viewpoint, it is indeed a generalization. I would never claim otherwise. But I've more than once heard certain Brits proclaim that they have some special comprehension of America
Not from me! I hardly understand the UK let alone the US. As that Greek bloke once said ‘ all I know is that I know nothing’ and it would help if more people realised that about themselves.
I hope people who don't get it read her book or books like it so that at least they understand where these people are coming from. For me and my friends (newspeople and liberals all) we get what Trumpers are looking for. Yes, they're looking for peace and security and all that - but whereas we look for it through treating EVERYONE with respect,
Well it sounds as though your left wing are better behaved than ours! But are you certain that there’s no dissension/violence between the two sides when they meet? That’s not what certain news programmes over here reflect. The reason I ask is because that’s certainly not the case here in the UK with the extreme left behaving every bit as badly as the right, if not worse. They meet in the middle with their fascist, intolerance and their contempt for anyone who doesn’t agree with them. And for the Left, the sceptical working class is a big, big disappointment.
Phew! I think I'm just about done here...
Re: Part 2
Date: 2019-12-31 01:36 pm (UTC)Is it the law or only preference that men work longer? Our retirement age is sort of set at 65 (about the time one goes on Social Security and starts Medicare,) but it's not set in stone for either sex. If a man wants to work longer, that's his problem. I don't see how fairness, or unfairness, comes into it. And, at least over here, about a quarter of households have women as their major breadwinners, and that's with women making historically less. Plus, there's the recent gutting of women's reproductive rights. If women are doing better over there, just one more reason I want to move over there! *g*
Re: Part 2
Date: 2019-12-31 05:13 pm (UTC)Is it the law or only preference that men work longer?
It was the law that men only received the state pension at 65, that's where the unfairness lay, but yes, in the unlikely event they were well enough off they could retire earlier but not receive any pension.
I'm sure today many women in the UK are the main breadwinners in the household, and many times the only breadwinner.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 07:20 pm (UTC)