An Ordinary Person
Deer Hunting with Jesus
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I recently read Joe Bageant’s book Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. I highly recommend this book. If you are at all interested in lyrical prose, politics, and social class this is a book not to be missed.
Bageant combines great writing with razor-sharp insights that only one descended from the white, rural, American working class can make. The book is preachy, angry, sad, outraged, poignant, funny as all hell in parts and a sophisticated analysis of the politics of the American class and caste system—all at the same time.
The book explains the phenomenon of working-class people who seem to—in droves—display political behavior against their economic interests by consistently voting Republican in elections and adopting conservative attitudes. Bageant dives deep into the subject by retelling the story of moving back to Winchester, Virginia, his hometown, and hanging out and socializing with his childhood friends and neighbors.
Rather than take the easy way out of condescending to his subject matter, Bageant shows compassion and understanding in explaining working class political beliefs and behavior in Winchester, Virginia. He cites the narrow worldview, lack of education and latent racism of his subjects as contributing to the state of affairs. But he reserves his roundest condemnation to middle class Democrats and liberals who seem to have abandoned small towns and rural folks like the ones in Winchester.
Bageant argues that Democrats and middle-class, progressive liberals do not really have any meaningful social contact with working class folks. They operate in totally different social spheres which often do not cross. Despite Democrat and liberal claims to represent the interests of the common man, most people who consider themselves progressive look down on the values and culture of Winchester folks and do not make a serious effort to engage rural, working class whites politically. And that is a mistake. According to Bageant:
The fact is that liberals and working people need each other to survive the growing economic calamity delivered to us by the regime that promised to “run this country like a business.” Sooner or later, despite the Democrats’ wins in the 2006 mid-term elections, the left must genuinely connect face-to-face with Americans who don’t necessarily share all of their priorities and especially with Americans who have not been voting, if the left is ever to be relevant again to working America. If the left is not about class equity, what is it about? (page 15)
All in all, Bageant’s book is an excellent primer for anyone who is interested in working class culture and its potential for progressive politics. To this Asian-American, middle-class liberal, much of what Bageant had to say were eye-opening and it would not be remiss to say that I have much to learn if I want to be part of an effort among progressives to reach out the white working class as political allies.
The Working Class Vote (Part 1)
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“What’s the Matter with Kansas” is an influential political book by Thomas Frank that was published in 2004. The book makes an argument of the emergence of a dominant political coalition in the Republican Party which unites business interests with conservative, blue-collar folks.
According to Frank economic conservatives won the heart and minds of working-class America by convincing people of modest means to vote against their own economic interests. This was done by appealing to their sense of traditional cultural values as beseiged by liberal cultural elites. The end result has been a populist uprising to vote Republican based on values issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and gun control . However, the end result has been to successfully push the Republican economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, free trade, and corporate welfare.
In his provocative paper, “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?” political scientist Frank Bartels challenges Frank’s theses and conclusions. Bartels summarizes his findings thus:
- Has the white working class abandoned the Democratic Party? No. White voters in the bottom third of the income distribution have actually become more reliably Democratic in presidential elections over the past half-century, while middle- and upper-income white voters have trended Republican. Low-income whites have become less Democratic in their partisan identifications, but at a slower rate than more affluent whites – and that trend is entirely confined to the South, where Democratic identification was artificially inflated by the one-party system of the Jim Crow era.
- Has the white working class become more conservative? No. The average views of low-income whites have remained virtually unchanged over the past 30 years. (A pro-choice shift on abortion in the 1970s and ‘80s has been partially reversed since the early 1990s.) Their positions relative to more affluent white voters – generally less liberal on social issues and less conservative on economic issues – have also remained virtually unchanged.
- Do working class “moral values” trump economics? No. Social issues (including abortion) are less strongly related to party identification and presidential votes than economic issues are, and that is even more true for whites in the bottom third of the income distribution than for more affluent whites. Moreover, while social issue preferences have become more strongly related to presidential votes among middle- and high-income whites, there is no evidence of a corresponding trend among low-income whites.
- Are religious voters distracted from economic issues? No. The partisan attachments and presidential votes of frequent church-goers and people who say religion provides “a great deal” of guidance in their lives are much more strongly related to their views about economic issues than to their views about social issues. For church-goers as for non-church-goers, partisanship and voting behavior are primarily shaped by economic issues, not cultural issues.
Economist Paul Krugman writes about Bartel’s findings here and here in his New York Times blog.
Talkin ’bout Their Generation
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Check out this amusing piece from Inside Higher Ed. The comments that follow the article are great as well:
Everyone knows that rock and roll is all about kicking out the jams: ditching uptight squares, taking long rides in the dark of night, and being a street fightin’ man — or woman. As The Who put it, it’s about hoping to die before you get old.
But what does rock mean to a new generation of uptight (if updated and wired) squares, afraid of the open road, who have little fight in them? What does rock mean for a generation that has never been allowed to be young — let alone hope to die before they get old?
For my students, the answer is simple. Rock and roll is about family happiness.
I discovered this disturbing undercurrent of rock-as-the-soundtrack-of-familial-bliss when I began teaching a college writing class this semester. The undergraduates’ first assignment was to assess the personal meaning of any song of any genre. I was willing to wade bravely through the melancholy emo, the raging gangsta rap, the whiny indie rock, or even contemporary pop schlock in order to achieve my real agenda: a glimpse into the soul of my students, the inner world of their desire locked in their shiny iPods.
What I read in those papers was as unsettling and unfamiliar as the day Elvis shook it on the Ed Sullivan show — but hardly as exciting. For my students, rock and roll is not the aural fuel of rebellion but soundtrack of familial love and safety. The essays were not about chillin’ with the crew but hangin’ with mom and dad; and they were not about cruising into the mystery of the night, but heading off to Cape Cod in the mini van. Rock is no longer about alienation but connection; not about escape but home; not about rebellion but reconciliation. Even bands like Led Zeppelin and The Stones emerged from my students papers in an un-purple haze of family nostalgia.
To read the rest of the article visit Inside Higher Ed
Jobs and Emerging Technologies in Japan
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Cool article from Joi Ito’s web site. What the future of part-time work may look like:
With Otetsudai Networks, if you are willing to work, you sign up for the service with your skills and focus, take a GPS reading on your phone and then just hang out. If you are looking for someone for say… 3 hours to man a cash register or help wash dishes, you just send the request to Otetsudai Networks and within minutes, you have a list of people available. The list shows what each person is qualified for, how others have rated their work and exactly how far away they are. Typically you will receive a list of half a dozen or more people within a few minutes.
The businesses are rated too on a per-manager basis so when you’re hanging out with your friends and you get a request to go help at the corner convenience shop, you know how your peers have rated that particular guy who’s asking you to come and help. You can also counter the request and say you’d go if they paid you 2000 yen / hour instead of 1500.
To read the rest of the article click here.
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The Working Class Vote (Part 2)
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In a previous post I presented a debate between the ideas of author Thomas
Frank and the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who cites economic data based on the work of economist Frank Bartels on the voting behavior of white, working class registered voters.
Basically, Thomas Frank paints a very different picture than what Krugman and Bartels present: whereas Frank sees the white working class voting behavior as largely leaning Republican and primarily driven by “values issues” such as gun ownership, abortion, and gay marriage, Bartels and Krugman argue that the white working class vote—except for the South—has largely remained Democratic in the past few election cycles. They argue that the narrative Thomas Frank presents in his book What’s the Matter with Kansas is largely a myth and not based on empirical data. Thomas Frank issues a rebuttal of Bartels paper here.
Liberal Arts Dude sez:
Although I have tremendous respect for Paul Krugman, I think his analysis completely ignores a larger point that Thomas Frank made in his book which I think is an important one and deserves to be debated and widely discussed. More than an observation of voting behavior of the working class, WMK is also a potent critique of the ideological and policy thrust of the Democratic Party in the 1990s under Bill Clinton. According to Frank, what made the Republican strategy of focusing on “values issues” possible and so successful is that the Democratic leadership has swung rightward in matters of economic policy to the point that they are virtually indistinguishable from the Republicans.
If the Republicans are for free trade, so are the Democrats. If the Republicans are for tax cuts, so are the Democrats. If the Republicans are for raising money from corporate sponsors and representing their interests primarily, so are the Democrats. If Republicans are for ending welfare for poor people, so are the Democrats.
According to Frank, what distinguished Democrats from Republicans—after economic and trade policy has been taken off the table—are social values issues such as gay marriage, abortion and gun ownership. And in these matters, the socially conservative American working class will always vote on the side of the Republicans. Without a countervailing dynamic where working class people recognize the Democrats as representing their economic interests, working class people have no real options in the voting booth that reflects their concerns and interests—except the Republicans and the focus on traditional social values issues.
I think in this election cycle of 2008, some Democratic candidates have recognized this dynamic and have adjusted their strategy of appealing to voters to be more Populist-sounding. The one that has really done this with the most commitment is John Edwards. Barack Obama is also widely recognized and bases his appeal to the voter through a reputation as an anti-establishment maverick. Even frontrunner Hillary Clinton is making a big deal about promoting some sort of universal healthcare plan.
But I think that more than just having an image problem, the Democratic Party has an actual problem of whether or not it truly does represent the interests of ordinary, working people. Frank’s argument—which I agree with—is that the types of economic policies Democrats have followed when they are in power are virtually indistinguishable from the types of economic policies Republicans follow. Where they differ is probably a matter of degree.
Where does that leave ordinary, working class folks? Do either of the mainstream political parties truly represent their economic interests? If not, on what basis should ordinary, working class folk make their vote when presented with a choice between the two major parties? What other options do ordinary, working class people have in making their voices heard in the political arena?
I ask these questions because the working class vote is potentially huge. If all working class people voted their economic interests either for or against either of the major parties, the consequences are potentially great. I argue in this post that the best advocates working class people are going to have are themselves exercising their political rights and empowering themselves by advocating for their own interests.