Anger and Mourning on the American Right
paperback, 368 pages
Published Feb. 20, 2018 by The New Press.
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, …
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?
Having empathy for those on the other side, finding common ground around environmental destruction by corporate extraction and captured regulators, and listening deeply to the combinations of woes that somehow lead these fellow humans to the Tea Party and beyond. Hochschild lays out the seeming paradoxes and a how-it-feels story that resonates, but ultimately "Caste" makes a matching diagnosis much more directly... but this has more empathy.
The book is good in what it sets out to do. Provides deep stories on certain big issues and incidents through the lens of die hard Tea Party folk. It explains notions of honor and faith on that side of the political divide pretty well, and it's an illuminating read for that alone.
Her choice of Environmental protection as the keyhole issue to understand the Tea Party and the divide was an interesting choice, a clean way to highlight her fundamental question. But I felt as an issue, it felt like a safe choice; the biggest ramifications of the divide are on issues of race, welfare, and capitalism, which she shirked from.
I picked this up right after Coates' 'Between the World and Me' and his recent piece on Trump 'The First White President' for a reason, to try and understand the context of race in the Left-Right rift. The …
The book is good in what it sets out to do. Provides deep stories on certain big issues and incidents through the lens of die hard Tea Party folk. It explains notions of honor and faith on that side of the political divide pretty well, and it's an illuminating read for that alone.
Her choice of Environmental protection as the keyhole issue to understand the Tea Party and the divide was an interesting choice, a clean way to highlight her fundamental question. But I felt as an issue, it felt like a safe choice; the biggest ramifications of the divide are on issues of race, welfare, and capitalism, which she shirked from.
I picked this up right after Coates' 'Between the World and Me' and his recent piece on Trump 'The First White President' for a reason, to try and understand the context of race in the Left-Right rift. The book doesn't address that at all. Just a small section alludes to it, and you need to read a lot between the lines in that section; and I found myself using Coates' reasoning, because she didn't proffer any.
Her characterization of the lower and middle class White South is very good and illuminating, and is backed up by a lot of research and in-depth interviews. The sheer work gone into this book is evident, and makes it a very good read. Her exploration of the role of the Church, the important of local community and how that is contrasted with community built by public funds is one of the many excellent things about the book.
Given her keyhole issue of Environmental Protection, it's an excoriating take on the ravages of capitalism and the destruction it leaves in its wake. Their faith in the free markets, in spite of the damage it has wreaked, tells a story of its own, one that's explored with great care.
Read this to understand the construction of culture in the Deep South, their imagination of it, and how it determines the social terrain which defines their framing and take on the issues.
In some ways this captured the south I grew up in, and it's captured best in the actual words of Hochschild's subjects. But I think Hochschild sometimes took people's words at face value when people were saying things that had some real layers - the literal meaning and the actual meaning that would be too rude to say out loud in polite company. I don't know if she was giving people the benefit of the doubt or she just didn't understand.
Initially I didn't really want to read about or have any sympathy for the people who voted for Donald Trump. But I'm glad I gave this book a go. It is amazing.
I read this to try and, as the author mentions throughout the book, climb over my empathy wall. I want to understand Trump voters; I want to understand what motivates lower middle-class folks to vote against their interests. I want to understand what motivates nature lovers to support candidates that want to dismantle the EPA. To say "republicans vote that way for religious reasons" may contain a tidbit of truth, but it certainly reduces a highly complex web of causes into an overly-simplified catch phrase. This can diminish the humanity of the "other," and isn't that one of the root problems facing our country and world?
This book was fantastic for so many reasons: the author filled much of it with an environmental history of rural Louisiana, all of which was completely unknown to me. Most of the interviews were framed within this environmental context, most of the interviewees speaking …
I read this to try and, as the author mentions throughout the book, climb over my empathy wall. I want to understand Trump voters; I want to understand what motivates lower middle-class folks to vote against their interests. I want to understand what motivates nature lovers to support candidates that want to dismantle the EPA. To say "republicans vote that way for religious reasons" may contain a tidbit of truth, but it certainly reduces a highly complex web of causes into an overly-simplified catch phrase. This can diminish the humanity of the "other," and isn't that one of the root problems facing our country and world?
This book was fantastic for so many reasons: the author filled much of it with an environmental history of rural Louisiana, all of which was completely unknown to me. Most of the interviews were framed within this environmental context, most of the interviewees speaking against the EPA.
I can't say I understand these folks, but I am closer than I was before reading this.
I'd suggest that in addition to protesting, contacting legislators, and standing up against racism/bigotry/sexism/xenophobia, we need to employ judicious use of empathy. Simply reducing Trump voters to "dumb hillbillies" builds no bridges, expands no minds, and misses the "deep story" behind our current political climate.
To be clear, I'm not defending Trump voters– I simply want to better understand them, to try to comprehend how somebody could vote for the guy... because around half the country did, and they are humans that deserve some effort to be understood.
As a popular recent meme says, Trump voters have better coverage than Verizon. "Can you hear us now?"
Yes, we can, and I'd suggest we need to listen. As a humanist I'd suggest we must.
