Class, Culture, and Resentment by Richard Lachmann

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 Appalachia 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.

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