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550 reviews for:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Arlie Russell Hochschild
4.09 AVERAGE
550 reviews for:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Arlie Russell Hochschild
4.09 AVERAGE
Although I grew up in the Midwest around mostly Conservatives, this book opened my eyes. My heart broke for these hard-working people in Louisiana, who seemed to get taken advantage of at every turn. They would of course hate for me to see them that way, and I understand the level of pride and honor that they maintain.
I must admit, though, that when Hochschild presented the facts in the book that proved many of their assumptions incorrect, I felt despair. How will we bridge the space between us if we ignore the facts? I still have not heard or even thought of an answer to this. Our truths are important, absolutely, but facts must also factor into them somewhere, somehow.
I must admit, though, that when Hochschild presented the facts in the book that proved many of their assumptions incorrect, I felt despair. How will we bridge the space between us if we ignore the facts? I still have not heard or even thought of an answer to this. Our truths are important, absolutely, but facts must also factor into them somewhere, somehow.
My bookclub switched our choice for this month from [b:Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|27161156|Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|J.D. Vance|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463569814s/27161156.jpg|47200486] to this one. I think everyone who read it was glad we had made this choice. Two of our members, a couple, read [b:Stranger in a Strange Land|350|Stranger in a Strange Land|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1156897088s/350.jpg|908211] by mistake :)
This book is written by a professor and sociologist from UC Berkeley. She wanted to study white working class members of the Tea Party in order to understand what drove them to this position. She decided that study issues of environmental pollution would be a window into their world view, and chose Louisiana as one of the most environmentally endangered state. Not only Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, but numerous other disasters along the Gulf Coast and in Louisiana's bayous.
The New York Times review reveals the question at the heart of this book : "Why Do People Who Need Help From the Government Hate It So Much?". Hochschild spent five years in the homes of bayou and coastal residents who were Republicans, and Tea Party members. She portrays the residents as decent people who love their part of the world. Some are in mourning because they have lost the land and homes they love. One of the horror stories was that of the Bayou Corne sinkhole. Caused by oil company drilling, the sinkhole swallowed 37 acres in 2012. The destruction of their beautiful area, death of wildlife, and the prevalence of cancer in friends and family hasn't been enough for many residents to call for more environmental regulation. Most are opposed to the EPA and "government interference".
The biggest bad guy in this book is Governor Bobby Jindal. He gave away $1.7 billion to oil and other big multinationals to come to Louisiana. He came up with the funds through draconian cuts to education, health care, and just about any function identified with the well being of the state's citizens.
I finished this book with a better understanding of the people portrayed. I mourn the loss of so much of our nation's natural resources and have a deeper understanding of the wanton destruction done by the multinationals that have flocked to the Gulf Coast to exploit it. I highly recommend this book to readers who want to understand white working class Republicans, and who are concerned with our environmental future.
This book is written by a professor and sociologist from UC Berkeley. She wanted to study white working class members of the Tea Party in order to understand what drove them to this position. She decided that study issues of environmental pollution would be a window into their world view, and chose Louisiana as one of the most environmentally endangered state. Not only Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, but numerous other disasters along the Gulf Coast and in Louisiana's bayous.
The New York Times review reveals the question at the heart of this book : "Why Do People Who Need Help From the Government Hate It So Much?". Hochschild spent five years in the homes of bayou and coastal residents who were Republicans, and Tea Party members. She portrays the residents as decent people who love their part of the world. Some are in mourning because they have lost the land and homes they love. One of the horror stories was that of the Bayou Corne sinkhole. Caused by oil company drilling, the sinkhole swallowed 37 acres in 2012. The destruction of their beautiful area, death of wildlife, and the prevalence of cancer in friends and family hasn't been enough for many residents to call for more environmental regulation. Most are opposed to the EPA and "government interference".
The biggest bad guy in this book is Governor Bobby Jindal. He gave away $1.7 billion to oil and other big multinationals to come to Louisiana. He came up with the funds through draconian cuts to education, health care, and just about any function identified with the well being of the state's citizens.
I finished this book with a better understanding of the people portrayed. I mourn the loss of so much of our nation's natural resources and have a deeper understanding of the wanton destruction done by the multinationals that have flocked to the Gulf Coast to exploit it. I highly recommend this book to readers who want to understand white working class Republicans, and who are concerned with our environmental future.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Much of it written Prior to the political rise of Trump, in this book, a liberal sociologist is trying to understand the apparent disconnect between Tea Party markers and the apparently ignored self-interest of its adherents in supporting said Republican faction.
Her analysis of the people she met and studied opens some thinking on similar phenomena elsewhere I think. - characterised most prominently here in Australia by One Nation.
There is that strange convergence on some issues of One Nation and left politics (especially around jobs and in some ways environment) while strongly diverging in how to respond to those challenges. On the other hand, the great chasm between those groups on identity politics and the role of government.
Interesting read.
Her analysis of the people she met and studied opens some thinking on similar phenomena elsewhere I think. - characterised most prominently here in Australia by One Nation.
There is that strange convergence on some issues of One Nation and left politics (especially around jobs and in some ways environment) while strongly diverging in how to respond to those challenges. On the other hand, the great chasm between those groups on identity politics and the role of government.
Interesting read.
I thought it was really interesting & valuable to see things from the other side. I totally disagree with basically everything her subjects said, but that's the beauty of pluralism, right? I also understand focusing on one community/issue as a microcosm for the movement, but it was too much Louisiana environmentalism for me.
This was an amazing but challenging read for me. The depth of perspectives that Hochschild portrays via her research on Louisiana Tea Party supporters was enlightening and challenging (as someone who falls on the liberal side of the empathy wall). More so than any other book I've read on the political divide, this one shows how dialogue, and perhaps an earnest approach to understanding those that are different from ourselves, can help us find common ground in a time of uncertainty.
Honestly, I only read this book for class, but I'm conflicted about my impression of it. More of a 3.5, but I don't want to round up. Overall, it's maybe worth reading if you're a liberal person who is also surrounded by other liberals, and are curious as to how an increasingly vocal part of the right got to the point that it has. Just remember while you're reading that you signed up for this.
PROS: The writing is very engaging, even narrative-like at times, and as someone who is typically super annoyed by the repetitiveness of many nonfiction books, this one was great; it didn't feel like the author was just trying to reach a word count. Also for many of us on the left, it could offer a presentation of the reasoning and feelings of those on the right (coming from a left-leaning person who brings up many of the counterpoints you may be thinking), which could be helpful for those who are constantly surrounded with like-minded people.
CONS: At some points, especially in the conclusion, the author is practically basking in her own privilege. She's a white, relatively wealthy, professor from Berkeley, and she doesn't really acknowledge the fact that other identities on the left's experiences and view would ever be any different from her own. She talks like every liberal is only surrounded like-minded people, and in my opinion, doesn't pay enough attention to the working-class people left, despite the fact that those people would practically be foils for her subjects, especially when she brings up Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Instead, her go-to comparison is Berkeley, which is understandable since that's what she knows, but also has a population that is so different from her subjects' on more that just political viewpoints that it's hard to treat that as a valid comparison. Additionally, despite the wonderful writing, this book is EXTREMELY frustrating to read at times. Most of that is just because of what her subjects are saying, and their sometimes blatant disregard for logic and empathy. That's not really the fault of the author, but it does affect the experience of reading the book, so I have to keep that in mind when giving it a star rating.
PROS: The writing is very engaging, even narrative-like at times, and as someone who is typically super annoyed by the repetitiveness of many nonfiction books, this one was great; it didn't feel like the author was just trying to reach a word count. Also for many of us on the left, it could offer a presentation of the reasoning and feelings of those on the right (coming from a left-leaning person who brings up many of the counterpoints you may be thinking), which could be helpful for those who are constantly surrounded with like-minded people.
CONS: At some points, especially in the conclusion, the author is practically basking in her own privilege. She's a white, relatively wealthy, professor from Berkeley, and she doesn't really acknowledge the fact that other identities on the left's experiences and view would ever be any different from her own. She talks like every liberal is only surrounded like-minded people, and in my opinion, doesn't pay enough attention to the working-class people left, despite the fact that those people would practically be foils for her subjects, especially when she brings up Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Instead, her go-to comparison is Berkeley, which is understandable since that's what she knows, but also has a population that is so different from her subjects' on more that just political viewpoints that it's hard to treat that as a valid comparison. Additionally, despite the wonderful writing, this book is EXTREMELY frustrating to read at times. Most of that is just because of what her subjects are saying, and their sometimes blatant disregard for logic and empathy. That's not really the fault of the author, but it does affect the experience of reading the book, so I have to keep that in mind when giving it a star rating.
Unfortunately I think my review of this book is influenced by the fact that I listened to it on Audible. The narrator put on a Southern accent every time there was dialogue from the people interviewed - I found this distracting and a bit offensive. Overall, I thought the points made by the people interviewed were very interesting. I am glad I read this.
If you (presumably a liberal "you") are looking to understand the far right mentality, this book is for you.
I didn't expect to like this book. The focus is on white, conservative, heterosexual, southern, males-- not the most popular demographic of the past few years. For the first few chapters I was unconvinced that the author would succeed in breaking down the "empathy wall" between parties as she would continually present a viewpoint and then immediately fall back on her liberal perspective. However, from chapter 9 onward she utilizes analogies, personas, and in-depth interviews to effectively guide the reader over the wall. She also touches on the rise of Trump at the end, which, although brief, I found to be spot on.
All in all, this book was compelling and engaging despite the seemingly difficult subject matter. On a personal note, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my knowledge of market research translated to sociology, so I highly recommend to those with a research background.
I didn't expect to like this book. The focus is on white, conservative, heterosexual, southern, males-- not the most popular demographic of the past few years. For the first few chapters I was unconvinced that the author would succeed in breaking down the "empathy wall" between parties as she would continually present a viewpoint and then immediately fall back on her liberal perspective. However, from chapter 9 onward she utilizes analogies, personas, and in-depth interviews to effectively guide the reader over the wall. She also touches on the rise of Trump at the end, which, although brief, I found to be spot on.
All in all, this book was compelling and engaging despite the seemingly difficult subject matter. On a personal note, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my knowledge of market research translated to sociology, so I highly recommend to those with a research background.
I liked Hillbilly Elegy but this is the book we should all be reading if we want to understand the extreme polarization in this country from the point of view of the white working class. I think Arlie could have gone even deeper than she did, because she mostly wanted to focus on environmental issues and only barely brushes up against many of the moral issues and other ideas that are important, but the fact that these ideas would be novel to anyone confuses me and frustrates me, because these ideas are the things that I've been saying to anyone who might listen to me since Donald Trump was elected.
There’s been a lot of talk in the weeks since the 2016 election about bubbles. A lot of liberals in large urban areas were angered by the suggestion that they, too, live in a bubble. They peacefully live next door to black people and immigrants and gay couples, so they can’t possibly live in a bubble. But the thing is, they have no idea what life is really like in places like Coolville, Ohio or Lake Charles, Louisiana. And most of them don’t care to. Places liked that are full of racist evangelicals who think Mexicans and Muslims are the devil and are too dumb to know they’re being poisoned by the factories they work in, so why should they care?
Sure, I knew people who more or less fit that stereotype, but I knew way more people who didn’t. The reality is way more nuanced than that. People back home might be living in a bubble if they aren’t willing to be open to the diversity of our nation, sure. They don’t meet a lot of people who are different from them and so they’re never really forced to accept those differences. But that doesn’t mean they are the only ones in a bubble.
When I first moved to the wealthy suburbs outside of Philadelphia for grad school, one of the first things that hit me was how little the people I was meeting knew about life outside of their environment. I was experiencing some culture shock at how different the suburbs were from my hometown in poor rural Ohio, but I am absolutely convinced that if the tables were turned their culture shock would have been about a thousand times more head-spinny. That’s because their world was similar to the one that’s reflected in the vast majority of pop culture that I’d grown up consuming. TV shows take place in the city and the suburbs. The actual world that I grew up in was not really reflected back to me at all unless it was through a stereotypical hayseed or yokel meant to be the butt of a joke. But so many of my peers seemed completely oblivious to the fact that other parts of the country could be different unless they were making fun of "Pennsyltucky" rednecks.
This book came about because Arlie Russell Hochschild, a bluer-than-blue liberal from Berkeley wanted to understand why rural Americans are drawn to the Tea Party message of smaller government when it seems counterintuitive. So she went to Louisiana, a state that consistently ranks near the bottom of every index in the country, to ask them. She wanted to construct what, as a sociologist, she calls their “deep story.” Essentially, that’s how things feel to someone. Not necessarily the facts, but the emotion that they feel that drives their understanding of the world around them.
The “deep story” that she draws from a group of conservative, white, largely working class people in Louisiana rings so true to me and what I heard from the people I grew up around in southern Ohio and West Virginia. I’m a liberal who believes in things like civil rights and government regulation and assistance for the less fortunate, but I grew up with a lot of people whose “deep story” is more or less the same. And it boggles my mind that so many people are so incapable of seeing that story. Or, really, that they don’t seem to get that listening to that story and understanding it doesn’t necessarily have to mean that they have to agree with it or endorse it. You just have to stop applying your point of view and your life experiences to their lives.
There’s been a lot of talk in the weeks since the 2016 election about bubbles. A lot of liberals in large urban areas were angered by the suggestion that they, too, live in a bubble. They peacefully live next door to black people and immigrants and gay couples, so they can’t possibly live in a bubble. But the thing is, they have no idea what life is really like in places like Coolville, Ohio or Lake Charles, Louisiana. And most of them don’t care to. Places liked that are full of racist evangelicals who think Mexicans and Muslims are the devil and are too dumb to know they’re being poisoned by the factories they work in, so why should they care?
Sure, I knew people who more or less fit that stereotype, but I knew way more people who didn’t. The reality is way more nuanced than that. People back home might be living in a bubble if they aren’t willing to be open to the diversity of our nation, sure. They don’t meet a lot of people who are different from them and so they’re never really forced to accept those differences. But that doesn’t mean they are the only ones in a bubble.
When I first moved to the wealthy suburbs outside of Philadelphia for grad school, one of the first things that hit me was how little the people I was meeting knew about life outside of their environment. I was experiencing some culture shock at how different the suburbs were from my hometown in poor rural Ohio, but I am absolutely convinced that if the tables were turned their culture shock would have been about a thousand times more head-spinny. That’s because their world was similar to the one that’s reflected in the vast majority of pop culture that I’d grown up consuming. TV shows take place in the city and the suburbs. The actual world that I grew up in was not really reflected back to me at all unless it was through a stereotypical hayseed or yokel meant to be the butt of a joke. But so many of my peers seemed completely oblivious to the fact that other parts of the country could be different unless they were making fun of "Pennsyltucky" rednecks.
This book came about because Arlie Russell Hochschild, a bluer-than-blue liberal from Berkeley wanted to understand why rural Americans are drawn to the Tea Party message of smaller government when it seems counterintuitive. So she went to Louisiana, a state that consistently ranks near the bottom of every index in the country, to ask them. She wanted to construct what, as a sociologist, she calls their “deep story.” Essentially, that’s how things feel to someone. Not necessarily the facts, but the emotion that they feel that drives their understanding of the world around them.
The “deep story” that she draws from a group of conservative, white, largely working class people in Louisiana rings so true to me and what I heard from the people I grew up around in southern Ohio and West Virginia. I’m a liberal who believes in things like civil rights and government regulation and assistance for the less fortunate, but I grew up with a lot of people whose “deep story” is more or less the same. And it boggles my mind that so many people are so incapable of seeing that story. Or, really, that they don’t seem to get that listening to that story and understanding it doesn’t necessarily have to mean that they have to agree with it or endorse it. You just have to stop applying your point of view and your life experiences to their lives.
Extremely well researched. Narrows the gap, but doesn't close it.