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socraticgadfly 's review for:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
by Arlie Russell Hochschild
This is one of those books where I'd like to have a two-part, split review.
I'd give Hochschild 5 stars for the listening side and 3 stars for the analytical side.
Since I can't, it's 4 stars, and let's discuss what she misses, or takes a pass on.
First, although she hints at the cognitive dissonance of the people she interviewed, she never spells it out. In fact, she never even uses the phrase. The closest she comes to that is using Gen. Russell Honore as a kind of a foil on environmental issues.
And, no, this is not a political science book. Nonetheless, sociology, like other social/soft sciences, can indeed engage in analysis and interpretation.
Second is the hypocrisy issue. Not so much toward the government when it's big biz doing the polluting, and the feds at least are trying to address it, even when Jindal's totally cutting state-level enforcement in Louisiana.
But, the hypocrisy of the highly religious voting to re-elect David Vitter to the Senate, when his sexual promiscuity was splashed all over non-Faux type news and surely got at least a few mentions there.
I mean, Hochschild just whiffs here. Unlike environmental issues, she doesn't even try to raise this issue in a roundabout way. And, Vitter's just a sample; just as she knows the pollution issue and red states, she knows the higher divorce rates, and related sexuality issues, along with high out-of-marriage birth rates for southern whites as well as blacks.
For those living in coastal enclaves, and wanting a sympathetic insight, perhaps the book is worth more.
But, for we liberals, let alone outright lefties, in these red states? The book tells me as much about Hochschild, in a sense, as it does her subjects. That's the only reason I didn't 3-star it overall. Basically, she seems of the mindset that liberals should do these listening tours whether conservatives do or not and that will somehow change their minds. I don't know exactly how the political breakthrough hurdles need to be cleared, but just a listening tour isn't one.
Beyond that, to tout this beyond sociology and as having a light for political science is wrong. That's mainly because there's an asymmetry at work.
Basically, no conservative sociologist would do what she did. We know, because Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve instead.
I'd give Hochschild 5 stars for the listening side and 3 stars for the analytical side.
Since I can't, it's 4 stars, and let's discuss what she misses, or takes a pass on.
First, although she hints at the cognitive dissonance of the people she interviewed, she never spells it out. In fact, she never even uses the phrase. The closest she comes to that is using Gen. Russell Honore as a kind of a foil on environmental issues.
And, no, this is not a political science book. Nonetheless, sociology, like other social/soft sciences, can indeed engage in analysis and interpretation.
Second is the hypocrisy issue. Not so much toward the government when it's big biz doing the polluting, and the feds at least are trying to address it, even when Jindal's totally cutting state-level enforcement in Louisiana.
But, the hypocrisy of the highly religious voting to re-elect David Vitter to the Senate, when his sexual promiscuity was splashed all over non-Faux type news and surely got at least a few mentions there.
I mean, Hochschild just whiffs here. Unlike environmental issues, she doesn't even try to raise this issue in a roundabout way. And, Vitter's just a sample; just as she knows the pollution issue and red states, she knows the higher divorce rates, and related sexuality issues, along with high out-of-marriage birth rates for southern whites as well as blacks.
For those living in coastal enclaves, and wanting a sympathetic insight, perhaps the book is worth more.
But, for we liberals, let alone outright lefties, in these red states? The book tells me as much about Hochschild, in a sense, as it does her subjects. That's the only reason I didn't 3-star it overall. Basically, she seems of the mindset that liberals should do these listening tours whether conservatives do or not and that will somehow change their minds. I don't know exactly how the political breakthrough hurdles need to be cleared, but just a listening tour isn't one.
Beyond that, to tout this beyond sociology and as having a light for political science is wrong. That's mainly because there's an asymmetry at work.
Basically, no conservative sociologist would do what she did. We know, because Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve instead.