books b class, culture, and resentment by richard lachmann

the Democratic Party to the Republicans to these kids. But no one wants to talk among the Appalachian voters. Nonethe- about the fact that many of them are less, his book is chock full of insight into raised by wolves” (p. 127). Residents why the Tea Party (and Trump) appeal, claim they go to church regularly, but even when those voters are harmed by most do not. Vance sees this as a pity the economic policies that the Republi- because churches often provide both a cans have worked to implement. sense of community and real social sup- Hillbilly Elegy is framed as a memoir, ports for the unemployed, broken fami- but its tone is similar to that of British lies, addicts, and teen mothers. anthropologists writing in the first half Appalachian men are lazy and of the twentieth century, as well as that resentful in Vance’s experience. His stories of the American urban ethnographers of mirror those told by conservatives about Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family the past hundred years. Both sought to ghetto residents: A young man with a and Culture in Crisis present native or ghetto life as inscrutable pregnant girlfriend found a job, with Vance, J.D. or irrational, but promised to interpret health insurance, at a tile warehouse. New York: Harper, 2016 these “exotic others” for their highly But he took numerous hour-long bath- educated readers. Vance, too, wants to room breaks and, when he was fired, explain his exotic people to outsiders. In he blamed his boss. Vance concludes, Even before Donald Trump won the Elec- writing a memoir, he has produced some- “There is a lack of agency here—a feel- toral College vote to become President of thing that is more direct and immediate, ing you have little control over your life the United States, J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly but also more idiosyncratic than most and a willingness to blame everyone but Elegy was receiving widespread critical academic attempts. yourself” (p. 8). These men with a poor attention and vaulted onto bestseller In telling his story, Vance shows work ethic “talk about the value of hard lists. This is not altogether surprising; the harm that growing up in a Hillbilly work but tell [themselves] that the reason the story Vance tells is both timely and family can do to children. He recounts [they’re] not working is some perceived significant. Hillbilly Elegy is presented the violence that is directed at them, the unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chi- nese” (p. 147). Bounded cultures do not offer blueprints for Vance sees the of his viable leftist politics. If anything, we learn that childhood as “a world of truly irrational behavior” (p. 146), of people who buy those cultures are designed to repel outside unneeded consumer goods with high interest loans instead of saving for their influences. children’s college or their own retirement. He believes he owes his own escape to as an account of why Scots-Irish men alcoholism and the drug abuse, the lack his grandmother, who valued education in Appalachia “suffer from a particular of nutritious food, and (perhaps most and encouraged his success in school. But crisis of masculinity in which some of disturbingly) the absolute lack of concern even that wasn’t enough to get him on the very traits that our culture inculcates for children’s success in school. a path to college. Vance enlisted in the makes it difficult to succeed in a changing Vance’s Appalachia is anomic. He Marines, where he learned discipline and world” (pp. 4-5). Vance says little about quotes a teacher at his old high school received valuable advice on how to save the shift in the political support from saying, “They want us to be shepherds much of his salary. His veterans’ benefits

56 contexts.org allowed him to go to Ohio State Univer- enabled workers to survive in that world time the lads were in school, factory sity and then Yale Law School. remains. Only now it is counterproduc- jobs had disappeared and the attitudes Why do Hillbillies act in such tive in building the skills and attitudes they learned from their fathers no longer self-destructive ways? Vance argues needed for success in the post-industrial served any purpose. Lacking both jobs that Appalachian Scots-Irish culture is and neoliberal society in which Vance has and bosses, the lads turned their anger unchanged, still combining “many good learned to excel and prosper. on non-White Britons, as well as women. traits—an intense sense of loyalty, a fierce Vance’s story, of a culture that repro- Willis was prophetic, writing before dedication to family and country [with] duces itself even as the world in which it Margaret Thatcher took office and pio- many bad ones. We do not like outsid- arose and thrived has disappeared, has neered the neoliberalism that deindus- ers or people who are different from been told before—namely, by Paul Wil- trialized and de-unionized Britain, the us… We’re more socially isolated than lis in Learning to Labor (1977). Willis did U.S., and much of the developed world. ever, and we pass that isolation down fieldwork in a working-class British high By contrast, Vance is writing well after to our children” (pp. 3, 4). This isolation fosters distrust of national institutions. Distrust leads Appalachians to embrace Despite demographic decline, the British conspiracy theories, including the one about President Obama being a Muslim. working-class and White rural Americans can Hillbillies’ downward mobility also breeds still swing elections, voting Britain out of the resentment: Michelle Obama “tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our chil- European Union and Trump into the White dren certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong House. but because we know she is right” (p. 191). For Vance, this is not racism but school. He found two sorts of students: that process completes. Yet the different resentment toward those who prosper as the ”ear’oles,“ diligent students who cultures both authors describe endure well as toward welfare recipients whom passively absorbed what teachers told and continue to spawn attitudes and Hillbillies believe game the system and them, and the “lads,” male students behaviors that are destructive of civil soci- mock the struggles they face despite their who continually challenged teachers and ety and progressive politics, as well as of hard work. Of course, as Vance readily were determined not to learn and instead their holders’ individual possibilities for acknowledges, the Hillbillies’ self-image sought to “have a laff,” cutup in class, stable careers and family lives. as hard workers is often false, and, as he and display contempt for academic suc- The social worlds that reproduce fails to recognize, the betters who draw cess and preparing for employment. Not racist and misogynist cultures among Hillbilly hatred are the Black Obamas, not surprisingly, the ear’oles did well enough the sons of the White, British working- the White Romneys or Trumps, just as in school to quality for university or for class and Appalachian coal miners have the lazy poor they resent are Black and training programs that led to stable, a resilience and salience that are not not White. white collar jobs. erased by the helpful advice of teachers, Vance suggests that Appalachian The lads, like Vance’s Hillbillies of the political leaders, or cultural tastemakers. culture once was functional, but he twenty-first century, engaged in behavior Despite demographic decline, the British doesn’t explain how group solidarity and that sabotaged their futures. Willis has an working-class and White rural Americans a propensity to violence helped Scots-Irish explanation for the lads’ self-destructive can still swing elections, voting Britain out farmers and miners. We read nothing attitudes toward school: He finds that the of the European Union and Trump into about Hillbillies’ violent struggles with lads learned their contempt for school the White House. mine owners and the state and local authority from their thoroughly blue col- Neither Willis nor Vance offers any governments the owners commanded. lar fathers who held factory jobs. In the suggestions on how outsiders can affect Of course, those coal jobs, which we fathers’ case, contempt for teachers had these insular cultures. If anything, we are likely to hear about again now that translated into a sustained opposition learn that those cultures are designed Donald Trump is in office, have disap- to bosses that allowed them to win a to repel outside influences. As a result, peared forever. Yet the culture that measure of autonomy at work. By the books that explain bounded cultures

Contexts, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 56-58. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-60521. © 2017 American WINTER 2017 contexts 57 Sociological Association. http://contexts.sagepub.com. DOI 10.1177/1536504217696068. books

do not offer blueprints for viable left- or for combating racism and misogyny in “for” specific social groups. ist politics. Yet we must remember that the U.S. or Britain are more likely to suc- the communities Willis and Vance write ceed if they are built upon political pro- Richard Lachmann is in the department of sociol- about are stalwart in their support for grams that identify the structural sources ogy at the University of Albany, State University of existing universal programs like British of misery in industrial or rural communi- New York. His current research includes a study of the National Health and U.S. Social Security. ties and offer new universal programs decline of dominant powers tentatively titled First Class Hopes for building progressive majorities that cannot be identified as designed Passengers on a Sinking Ship.

scorn wars: rural white people and us by nina eliasoph

The Politics of Resentment Strangers in their Own Land Hillbilly Elegy Katherine J. Cramer Arlie Russell Hochschild J. D. Vance University of Chicago Press, 2016 New Press, 2016 Harper, 2016 256 pages 368 pages 272 pages

Sociologists! We forgot to do half of our the game. If you haven’t won, you must blow by mentioning “intersectionality,” job! We forgot to offer a vision of a good just be lazy or stupid. So, stop whining.” a theory that describes the ways that society. Without that, fierce competition Into the vacuum where our hopeful different forms of oppression—based on looks like the only game in town. And, in social vision should be, suck Fox News, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or this game, there will inevitably be losers. Trump, and the Tea Party. In Fox’s vision, religion, for example—interact with one Sociology was born trying to change winners deserve big rewards and los- another. But, as soon as we breathe the the game altogether. Lately, though, our ers deserve big punishments. We soci- word “class,” we usually forget it, and mission has turned almost entirely into ologists rarely offer an alternative… immediately go back to scorning White documenting discrimination based on except to add that when smart, ambi- people who, we imply, have no one but race, sexuality, gender, religion, sexual tious people do not win, it’s because themselves to blame for their poverty. orientation, and other identities. Our of discrimination. In Fox’s vision, you This review essay is about the rela- main idea is that everyone should get should be ashamed if you have not won. tionship between “us” and “them.” a chance to win the fierce competition. Sociologists implicitly add that White Three recent books show what we look To people who cannot blame their pov- people who have not won should be like to them. By “us,” I mean scholars erty and deprivation on their identity, our doubly ashamed, because they started and activists whose job is to help people usual message might sound like this: “If out with White privilege. In this way, think about alternatives to the fiercely you are White, Christian, straight, and Fox’s judgment of them can seem less competitive game. Neglecting this basic male, and you have not won, it’s all your harsh than ours. mission, we inadvertently scorn, ignore, own fault, since you entered ahead of Sometimes we try to soften the shame, and insult “them.”

58 contexts.org have job security, send our kids to decent religious Southerner in Hochschild’s book can rural whites be racist and schools, have jobs that are not very dan- says, “Oh, liberals think that Bible-believ- oppressed at the same time? gerous or dirty, take vacations, and get ing Southerners are ignorant, backward, Having lived in coastal cities my pensions that allow us to avoid worrying rednecks, losers. They think we’re racist, whole life, I met rural White people for about dying in poverty. To them, these all sexist, homophobic, and maybe fat” (p. the first time in 1995. They were my seem like unfair privileges. As one of the 23). Face it: there is some truth in her undergraduate students in Wisconsin, many droll interviewees in Cramer’s book image of our scorn. and I had assigned them the usual socio- says, “They (professors) shower before To someone like her, it sounds like logical fare, heavy on the causes and con- work, not afterwards” (p. 34). we’re saying that people like her not only sequences of urban poverty and racism. Yes, compared to impoverished rural have no reason to complain, but that These students bristled, saying that their people, we are lucky. But compared to they are a big cause of our problems. problems were just as bad. I knew they someone in, say, Denmark, we are not. Are they? It’s true that some are “rac- were wrong, of course; even if they were There, everyone has these “privileges” ist, sexist, homophobic,” as the insulted poor, they had “White skin privilege.” and more. One of sociology’s founding interviewee said. However, a third of the But they persisted. They described empty villages with hardly any jobs, from which everyone tried to leave as soon as Resentment like this billows with explosive they could, so there were mostly only old people left, so schools closed, so young psychological and moral power. Now it has families left, so more schools closed, in a terrible cycle of abandonment. They become a kind of identity politics for White described small farmers who had to work people, packed tight with rage and brittle with so hard competing against giant agro- businesses, they got sick from lack of superiority. sleep; small towns with big drug prob- lems; people and lives unlike any I had ideas—going back to Marx—is that in a counties that voted for Obama in 2008 ever known. society as wealthy as ours, everyone could and 2012 voted for Trump in 2016, and By the middle of my first semes- enjoy these “privileges!” In this vision, most of these counties are rural places full ter, hearing their tales and smelling their once technology developed enough, of White people. Trump’s racism and sex- resentment, my emotional, moral, politi- ­scarcity would end. When sociologists ism were not deal breakers for them. This cal alarm finally went off: “Something talk almost entirely about discrimination is horrifying. But so is their poverty and big is missing from the story that urban and forget that maybe everyone could deprivation. When we ignore and deny elites, academics, journalists, politicians, enjoy a decent job, school, retirement, and the real problems that rural White people media producers, and other people like health care, this vision vanishes. What’s left face, it doesn’t make them any less racist. me are telling!” is competition. These three books—The Politics They also resent us because they ressentiment of Resentment, Strangers in Their Own think we know nothing about them. They When we only scorn them, they Land, and Hillbilly Elegy—show how infu- are invisible to us. We use the products want to turn the tables: to revalue their riatingly self-pitying it sounds to them from the Louisiana chemical plants and position, to convince each other that when we talk about ourselves, and every- we eat the cheese from the Wisconsin theirs is higher, that the first shall be one but them, as victims. These books farms, but we don’t think about the last, that they are the real folk, full of show that rural White people do not lives of the people who produced them. gratitude, shouldering their burdens with want to feel like victims, but they don’t Instead, they hear us saying that they are humility and grace. To them, we look want someone else to own all the com- more privileged than other Americans. like we lack humility and gratitude. We plaining rights, either. They suspect that we don’t know, don’t complain, while they desperately try to Rural folks resent us because they care, and don’t even consider asking. feel gratitude. If they can manage to feel hear us only talking about everyone else’s They also resent us because they gratitude, they feel that they are better plight. They assume that we academics think that we scorn them. Is it true? As a than us.

Contexts, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 58-61. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-60521. © 2017 American WINTER 2017 contexts 59 Sociological Association. http://contexts.sagepub.com. DOI 10.1177/1536504217696078. books

In a world that lacks the social it when we invoke intersectionality’s list gets randomly seized, imprisoned, and visions that sociology used to propagate, of race, class, gender, sexual orienta- tortured for just walking down the street, their resentful conversion of powerless- tion, religion, and culture. If the theory a society can still be awful. ness into piety makes sense: if you have of intersectionality has a positive vision, It’s true that the playing field is not no vision, no hope of changing the social it is that individuals should be able to level. But when we stop talking about the order, at least you can re-value your posi- choose their own identities and freely game itself, our message ends up being tion in it, so you come out on top. It’s move between them without having to “discrimination is bad, and if it would Nietzchean ressentiment—the hidden, fear losing the cutthroat game due to stop, everything would be fine.” Ideally, jealous anger of the downtrodden who discrimination. When we invoke inter- in this cutthroat game, clever, creative, cannot win the game and have no hope sectionality, we almost always ignore the adventurous, competitive people rise, of changing the game, so instead, con- “class” part. while people who are less clever and vince themselves that they value lowliness But we want “class” to work differ- competitive lose. Do we want to say that over power. They convert their powerless ently from others on the list! Sociology’s White, rural losers have no one to blame rage into a holier-than-thou moralistic mostly forgotten critique of class was not but themselves? It seems that this is often pride, inside of which is hidden a desire just about leveling the playing field, but our message. to annihilate the powerful, so that they about changing the whole game. In that can take the top position, become the vision, we want to abolish class, not just political gratitude powerful ones. let people freely choose to move between Without hearing about a vision of a good society, rural White people assume that when we complain, it hurts them, It’s true that the playing field is not level. But because only the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But they don’t want to be when we stop talking about the game itself, our complainers. message ends up being “discrimination is bad, To them, this means shrugging their shoulders and saying that pollution is an and if it would stop, everything would be fine.” inevitable price of progress. This is most striking in the Louisiana bayous Hochs- child studied. A few decades ago, huge Resentment like this billows with classes. We want to keep and cherish all green trees held moss hanging “from explosive psychological and moral power. the varied races, religions, and genders, outstretched lower branches, tree after Now it has become a kind of identity poli- but we do not want to keep all the varied tree, like lace shawls in a dance hall,” tics for White people, packed tight with classes. That is, we do not want a society and, as one interviewee puts it, “‘the rage and brittle with superiority. in which people can freely choose to be frogs would carry on and sing all night. Meanwhile, right-wing pundits merciless exploiters, at the top of the You could drink the water then.’” After accuse the left of ressentiment. In a class hierarchy, extracting wealth from years of chemical companies dumping way, the right-wing critics are correct; the people at the bottom. That is not toxic waste into the water, the frogs are if “the left” is made mainly of “groups how we want class to work. But when dead, and where once was dense green- that oppose discrimination,” then the left people have no vision of changing the ery and cool shade are now shadeless shares an important part of the right’s whole game, then competition is all that’s acres full of “lifeless gray trunks, some vision. In this shared vision, there are only left and there’s ressentiment all around. bent over like defeated soldiers, as far winners and losers. Your win means my In the vision that we should be as the eye can see. It’s a tree graveyard” loss. If I lose, I search for some alchemy propagating, there would be no random (p. 40). Now, if you swam in the bayou, that can turn loss into pride. arrest and murder of African Americans. you would likely die, like the interview- That is a vision of a better society than ee’s pony that fell into a ditch and came intersectionality to the rescue? what we have now. People should not be out coated in sticky rubbery stuff “like a A vision that was about more than randomly murdered. This vision brings us glued-on wet suit.” In some interviewees’ discrimination would fix this problem. up to the floorboards, but it is still not a families, nearly everyone had had cancer. We scholars and activists think we have vision of a good society. Even if nobody But the interviewees did not want

60 contexts.org to be complainers. They did not think parents to figure out how to pick a good, even if he had not had any loving kin, his complaining would help, because they clean orderly charter school for him— mother’s mental illness would not have had no vision of any change that could and chances are, the parents would fail. mattered as much as it did. fix the problem. Instead, they wanted to Another big part of what saved him was And then, there are Vance’s two find brave, fun, clever ways of dealing roaming in fields, climbing glorious trees, encounters with the police, which also with it; to bear their crosses with humility, and wading in streams that were clean show how the state helped him, or at remembering that suffering is part of the enough to play in and that his irrespon- least, did not kill him. In one, he is driving human condition; or to find some other sible mother did not have to search for over 100mph to his grandma’s funeral, way to adapt to what seemed inevitable. or pay for. What if he had to depend on and he gets off free—not only alive, but J. D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy an attentive parent to pick or pay for a with no ticket. Vance feels gratitude for shows how the lack of political vision school, drive him to a private park, and the kindly cop. He does not notice that if feels, from the inside. While precisely pay for entry? he had been Black, he might have spent detailing one abysmal childhood disaster Vance hasn’t connected the dots. the rest of his life in prison—if he hadn’t after another, Vance tries not to blame He feels grateful, but does not notice been killed on the spot, that is. Yes, this society, not feel like a victim, not ask for that some of his gratitude should go to is a textbook case of the obliviousness of help. He dearly wants to feel gratitude. the welfare state. A decent welfare state White skin privilege. Yes, we should make He grew up with a crazy, drug-addicted provided public schools that lessened the sure he understands this. But ignoring mother, but is grateful for the caring problems that his family’s chaos caused and denying the hardship in his child- grandma who took him into her home. Vance implies that his extended family is the main reason he came out okay. His Everyone has a pattern of fitting feeling to fact, message is a standard one: even coming from poverty, your kids can be okay if seeing what we expect to see, forgetting what you are a loving role model and caregiver. does not fit with our feelings and expectations, What’s the message to a kid who lacks those sorts of adults? Find a bet- and allowing ourselves to feel what makes ter mother, grandma, extended family, neighborhood, or school? And what is sense given what we think is real. the message for policy-makers and vot- ers—make us all into better parents? How? for him. For most kids, playing in trees hood won’t help, if the goal is mutual Here is it again: no social vision. and woods and streams is possible only recognition. Vance sees that he was blessed by a if someone has preserved them—more Maybe instead of calling it privilege, wonderful grandma, but does not see and more, just appreciating the glory we could say we all need a good state, how much he was blessed by some pretty of nature itself must include appreciat- so that we can have safe drinking water, wonderful laws. He mentions many ing the political decision-making that free public schools, green places to roam, things for which he feels grateful, but preserves it. Part of Vance’s salvation and police who do not randomly murder he does not notice their source: the state. came from wise taxpayers who funded us, even when we are caught speeding. He is grateful for the green hills and fresh a welfare state’s public goods, including Vance is right that we should all feel grati- streams where he roamed, for running , the superb public tude for running tap water, woods and water, for not growing up in a war zone, university he attended. streams, public schools, and kindly cops. and for decent public schools. With even more of a welfare state, And he is right that we should accept What saved Vance was not just kin, maybe his life would have been even bet- what we can’t fix. But Vance misses the but also wise taxpayers who paid for a ter. What if there had been afterschool step we might call “political gratitude.” good, clean, orderly public school that programs, free music lessons and easy his irresponsible mother did not have public transportation to get to them, not avoiding politics to select for him. Today, a kid like him and easier access to mental health care, What could end this cycle of mutual would likely have to rely on irresponsible the way there is in, say, Belgium? Then, scorn, ignorance, resentment, and anger?

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First, as Cramer says, just listening a powerful social vision across rural that all the tax money is going to universi- would help. This could mean forming America, while right-wing funders are ties and ghettos, the White rural people organizations with White rural people. quietly establishing local church groups dearly want to believe it. Fox gives them It’s a great idea. Some academics and and political campaigns that propagate a good way to forget their private shame, activists might be warmly welcomed, but their vision. Together, Fox, the Right, and together. I am not sure “they” would want all of their funders offer something alluring Everyone has a pattern of fitting feeling to fact, seeing what we expect Rural people aren’t stupid. They see the tree to see, forgetting what does not fit with our feelings and expectations, and allow- graveyard, the rubberized horse, the kin with ing ourselves to feel what makes sense, given what we think is real. This self- cancer, the poverty, the lack of schools and perpetuating cycle is what sociologist clean water, and more. But they do not let Raymond Williams called the “structures of feelings.” Right now, Fox is giving themselves complain about what they do not people all over the country a real, secure structure of feeling. believe they can fix. Rural people aren’t stupid. They see the tree graveyard, the rubberized horse, “us,” because, well, frankly, the fear and that resembles Antonio Gramsci’s image the kin with cancer, the poverty, the lack scorn does go both ways. Some of them of a church or a political party: it provides of schools and clean water, and more. are homophobic, racist, and intolerant of both a vision and a place where people But they do not let themselves complain religious minorities. For those of us who can repeat the vision to one another, about what they do not believe they can might not be welcome, perhaps if we just so they can they feel like they’re in the fix. If we don’t start offering a vision of recognized, from afar, the rural White same boat. a good society, we will all be living in the people’s poverty, dignity, and intelligence, The way that Fox and wealthy tree graveyard. If we do start offering they might eventually overcome their fear donors are structuring rural White peo- a vision of a good society and a place and hatred of us. ples’ feeling about welfare is a good to talk about it, we can all develop a Second, sociologists could propagate example of how Gramsci’s church-like structure of feeling: for feeling indignant a social vision that made it clear that if we political organization works. In Fox’s about the tree graveyard and rubberized win pensions, they don’t lose money; that vision, and the vision of the local organi- horse, for thinking about what is wrong our job security and decent schools do not zations that right-wing donors fund, get- instead of just heroically adjusting, and come at their expense; that environmental ting government aid is shameful, because for fixing it instead of blaming, fearing regulation will not give us fancy jobs while no one should need it. So, rural White and scorning each other. Isn’t our job, as taking jobs from them. people participate in many organizations sociologists in the world, to make a new Hochschild suggests that we feel in which they cannot learn about each structure of feeling possible by propagat- empathy for rural White people, but they other’s lavish use of welfare. And so, ing a hopeful vision? may well turn the tables, to empathize while they get more government money with us, and even pity us, for competing per capita than urban people (South Nina Eliasoph is in the sociology department at the too much, complaining too much, and not Carolina, for example, gets eight times University of Southern California. She is the author, appreciating our blessings enough; for not what it puts into federal coffers, while most recently, of The Politics of Volunteering. knowing how to fish or hunt or fix things; states with big cities, like New York, Illi- for chasing careers all over the map; for nois, and California, are donor states lacking roots in one place with all our kin. whose citizens receive less than a dollar We sociologists and activists have for every dollar we pay in taxes), each not been offering a vision in which rural recipient privately feels ashamed complaints could feel and rea- of it, and keeps it secret, as Hochschild sonable. In contrast, as all three books notes, describing nearly all of her inter- mention, Fox News is relentlessly blaring viewees. And so, when Fox tells them

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