Published on the eve of Trump’s election, this book represents Hochschild’s attempt to “scale the empathy wall” and understand the “deep story” of those in the Tea Party — pretty much the antithesis of her own Berkeley, California cohort. She uses the environment as what she calls a “keyhole issue” — Louisiana has one of the most polluted environments in the country, and yet the very people suffering the ill effects of the pollution are those favoring the deregulation strategies of the Republican party. Pointing out that partyism now beats race as source of divisive prejudice, her goal is to encourage democracy with the book: “A healthy democracy depends on a collective capacity to hash things out.”
Her research is mostly anecdotal — she talks in depth to individuals and draws out the “deep story” of what matters to them, how they make decisions, and what “the emotion that underlies politics” is for them. Her thesis is that people act to serve their best emotional interest, rather than their best economic interest. The deep story that emerged from her Tea Party enthusiasts was one I could understand and even identify with: a strong work ethic, adaptability to circumstances without complaint, the importance of community, and wanting to able to be proud of what they were without someone telling them they were wrong to feel that way (see quotes below). There was a deep distrust of government and a hatred for the taxes which they felt was their money “running through a liberal sympathy sieve you don’t control or agree with.” She did a brilliant job at contrasting the deep stories of the right and the left making it clear (to me) how the same set of “facts” could be interpreted so very differently.
Hochschild is clearly a liberal herself, and this leaks through in the way she interprets data and maintains certain liberal assumptions (my favorite is her assertion that tax breaks are equivalent to welfare-style handouts — I just had a long argument with a close friend on this one, but IMHO the government taking less of your money in taxes is not equivalent to taking your money and distributing it in a way over which you have no control) but she did an excellent job of beating through the stereotypes to really understand how people on the other side of that empathy wall work.
I learned a lot from this book and find myself still mulling it over weeks later. I’m including a lot of quotes that I feel show the different perspectives, many of which (from my firm, California, mostly liberal perch) were new to me. In particular, I don’t think I realized how strong (and nasty) the left’s stereotype of the right is. And — like most stereotypes — how incorrect as a description of the entire group.
Quotes:
“To many on the left, the Republican Party and Fox News seemed intent on dismantling much of the federal government, cutting help to the poor, and increasing the power and money of an already powerful and rich top 1 percent. To many on the right, that government itself was a power-amassing elite, creating bogus causes to increase its control and handing out easy money in return for loyal Democratic votes”
“We, on both sides, wrongly imagine that empathy with the “other” side brings an end to clearheaded analysis when, in truth, it’s on the other side of that bridge that the most important analysis can begin.”
“At play are “feeling rules,” left ones and right ones. The right seeks release from liberal notions of what they should feel — happy for the gay newlywed, sad at the plight of Syrian refugee, unresentful about paying taxes. The left sees prejudice. Such rules challenge the emotional core of right-wing belief.”
“Oh, liberals think that Bible-believing Southerners are ignorant, backward, rednecks, losers. They think we’re racist, sexist, homophobic, and maybe fat.”
“What image of the government was at play? Was it a nosy big brother (the Coast Guard had checked for safely vests)? Was it a mind-controlling big brother (a federal instead of state Department of Education)? A bad parent playing favorites (affirmative action)? An insistent beggar at the door (taxes)?”
“A lot of liberal commentators look down on people like me. We can’t say the ’N’ word. We wouldn’t want to — it’s demeaning. So why do liberal commentators feel so free to use the ‘R’ word [redneck]?”
“A deep story is a feels-as-if story — it’s the story feelings tell, in the language of symbols. It removes judgement. It removes fact. It tells us how things feel. Such a story permits those on both sides of the political spectrum to stand back and explore the subjective prism through which the party on the other side sees the world.”
“You turn to your workplace for respect — but wages are flat and jobs insecure. So you look to other sources of honor. You get no extra points for your race. You look to gender, but if you’re a man, you get no extra points for that either. If you are straight you are proud to be a married, heterosexual male, but that pride is now seen as a potential sign of homophobia — a source of dishonor. Regional honor? Not that either. You are often disparaged for the place you call home.”
“If unfairness in Occupy is expressed in the moral vocabulary of a “fair share” of resources and a properly proportioned society, unfairness in the right’s deep story is found in the language of “makers” and “takers.” For the left, the flashpoint is up the class ladder (between the very top and the rest); for the right, it is down between the middle class and the poor.” For the left, the flashpoint is centered in the private sector; for the right, in the public sector. Ironically, both call for an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.”
“In that story, strangers step ahead of you in line, making you anxious, resentful and afraid. A president allies with the line cutters, making you feel distrustful, betrayed. A person ahead of you in line insults you as an ignorant redneck, making you feel humiliated and mad. Economically, culturally, demographically, politically, you are suddenly a stranger in your own land.”
“Whatever their family’s view of their own, however much sympathy they may have personally felt for blacks at the time, the public narrative was that the North had come to the South, as it had with soldiers in the 1860s and during Reconstruction in the 1870s, to tell Southern whites to change their way of life. History was on the side of the civil rights movement. the nation honored its leaders. Southern whites bore the mark of shame, again, even though, as one man told me, “We didn’t do those bad things.“
“Over time, new groups were added to older ones, and political and therapeutic cultures merged. Identity politics was born. Identities based on surviving cancer, rape, childhood sexual abuse, addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex work — these and more came to the media’s attention. It became a race “for the crown of thorns”…
“If a person said he or she was white, as a way of describing themselves in the manner of the Native American or black, they risked being seen as racist soldiers of the Aryan Nation. If they stood up to declare themselves proud to be male — unless they were part of a men’s group trying to unlearn traditional ways — they risked being seen as male chauvinists. If they called for recognition for their lifetime of experience, their age, they risked seeming like old fools in a culture focused on youth.”
Books to look forward to ... 