{"id":7190,"date":"2017-08-18T09:43:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T15:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=7190"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:43:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T15:43:01","slug":"library-white-working-class-joan-c-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/08\/library-white-working-class-joan-c-williams.html","title":{"rendered":"From the library: White Working Class by Joan C. Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"By<\/p>\n

Subtitled, Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America<\/em>, this little book (125 pages) is directed at upper middle-class white Democrats asking themselves, \u201cwhy were white working class voters so stupid and so bigoted as to have voted for Trump, and how can we get them to vote for our preferred candidates instead?\u201d<\/p>\n

And, indeed, the end of the book was seriously disappointing, since there\u2019s no consideration at all of whether the Democratic platform needs any reconsideration; instead, Williams proposals new slogans to try on skeptical white working voters. \u00a0Tell them, with respect to abortion, that child-rearing is so difficult that the WWC should support abortion so that \u201ceveryone who values families should help ensure that adults who don\u2019t want kids don\u2019t have them.\u201d \u00a0With respect to immigration, remind them that \u201cimmigrants typically do jobs whites don\u2019t want, from backbreaking farm work to bussing tables.\u201d \u00a0With respect to government benefits,\u00a0point out all of the invisible government benefits they use everyday to get them to be more appreciative. \u00a0And with respect to the Democrats\u2019 platform on LGBTQ+ issues, well, \u201cwe\u201d won but maybe let\u2019s not rub their noses in it.<\/p>\n

Which kind of left me wishing I\u2019d stopped half-way through, because the first half was really interesting, chock full of information on cultural differences between the working class (which defines as \u201cworking respectable jobs without a college degree\u201d) and what she calls the PME \u2013 professional\/managerial elite \u2014 in other words, \u201cher people.\u201d \u00a0 (And it was a bit strange reading her making these distinctions between WWC and PME as if a college degree immediately moved one up to the PME.)<\/p>\n

She also differentiates between the \u201csettled-living\u201d and \u201chard-living\u201d WWC, using the example of J.D. Vance\u2019s family in Hillbilly Elegy<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 his mom \u201cfalls into addiction and has serious impulse-control issues and a series of unsavory boyfriends\u201d; his father is \u201csettled-living\u201d with a stable marriage and a church community.<\/p>\n

The fact that \u201csettled-living\u201d takes a lot of hard work, to hold down a job, to suck it up when the boss pisses you off, to juggle split schedules as a way to manage child care, means that the WWC values, in other people, the traits of responsibility, honesty, being hardworking.<\/p>\n

Williams says (p. 20)<\/p>\n

The professional elite also values, hard work, of course \u2014 but it\u2019s different. \u00a0To working-class members of all races, valuing hard work means having the rigid self-discipline to do a menial job you hate for 40 years, and reining yourself in so you don\u2019t \u201chave an attitude\u201d (i.e., so that you can submit to authority). \u00a0Hard work for elites is associated with self-actualization. . ..<\/p>\n

Free spirits born working class can\u2019t count on the second chances available to elites. \u00a0That\u2019s why blue-collar families are so big on stability and self-discipline, and they embrace institutions that support these traits. \u00a0Chief amont these is religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The WWC also tends to resent the professional class \u2014 or, rather, distrust them as shysters and phonies, in part because they feel looked-down-upon by them, and they\u2019re not wrong, as professionals increasingly choose activities, foods, etc., that set them apart from the commoners, from upscale coffee to Whole Foods. \u00a0Williams says \u201cMy circle of friends would no more send a Hallmakr card than eat at TGI Friday\u2019s.\u201d \u00a0(Whoa! \u00a0I didn\u2019t know that these were downscale activities to be sneered at!)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, even conventional religion is \u201cdown market\u201d as it is the elite that announces that they are \u201cspiritual but not religious\u201d because adopting the actual tenets of a religion is beneath them.<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, \u201celites seek out novelty while the working class seeks out stability\u201d in part because \u201cthe elite gains social honor by displaying their sophistication\u201d but also because, for the elite, socializing is about impressing people, building one\u2019s social network, to create people to be able to call on in the future. \u00a0For the working class, it\u2019s about comfort, and the stability of friends and family. \u00a0The fact that elites network, and build their career success through schmoozing is quite alien:<\/p>\n

Working-class entertaining is designed to denote a space apart<\/em> from jobs, not to be an extension of them. \u00a0The goal is not to impress people you don\u2019t know well, but to comfort those you do with abundant portions of familiar dishes (p. 30)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In general, blue-collar workers find professionals to be phony and two-faced for their schmoozing and efforts to move up the corporate ladder by impressing people. \u00a0Even the \u201cstandard professional-class ice-breaker\u201d of \u201cwhat do you do?\u201d isn\u2019t a part of their world, since work isn\u2019t their defining identity but the way that they support their families. \u00a0What does matter, then, is character, traditional values, stability, rootedness. \u00a0\u201cFor people whose jobs deny them prestige, \u2018family comes first\u2019 is a common refrain\u201d (p. 32) \u2014 which, again, contrasts with elites for whom supporting \u201cavant-garde sexuality, self-presentation, and family dynamics\u201d is a way to signal sophistication and gain approval.<\/p>\n

Another key element of WWC-ness is rootedness in place, and a strong connection to community, both as a matter of personal values, and for the practical reasons of a support system, with family to help care for you or your children. \u00a0This is something that is not a part of the experience for the elite, for whom work shapes their identity to such a degree that, as long as they keep their identity (e.g., \u201cattorney\u201d) leaving one community for another doesn\u2019t matter, and especially if their shallow but very broad social network allows them to feel like they can easily settle in anywhere they choose. \u00a0Communities, and family, are generally far more important for the WWC (I read this and could easily visualize all those single professionals who say, \u201cmy friends are my family\u201d or, worse, \u201cmy dog is family to me\u201d).<\/p>\n

A couple more items: \u00a0college is taken as a given for children of the elites, but much less so for the working class, and they\u2019re not unjustified in their skepticism, taking into account both the cost of college and the fact that many young people end up graduating and working at jobs which do not in any reasonable manner require a college degree. \u00a0What\u2019s more, employers still judge them as being of the wrong class, because they don\u2019t have the social capital taught to elite children by their families and budding networks, and they\u2019re even sneered at, in their colleges, by professors who consider them to be \u201cwhite trash.\u201d \u00a0And, besides, we have made a major mistake in the United States in believing that everyone should go to college in the first place, rather than creating those sorts of structures that allow kids to develop skills and find employment without that costly credential in the first place.<\/p>\n

And there is a clear gap between parenting by the WWC and the elites, as the former tend to assume that if you provide for your family and make sure they are raised to be responsible, moral people, you\u2019ve done your job, and the latter engage in what\u2019s called \u201cconcerted cultivation\u201d \u2014 that is, the moms who sign their kids up for every activity known to man (except Cub Scouts, because travel sports are more important \u2014 fine, Williams doesn\u2019t say that, but this is what I see), constantly scheduling their days, coach them through SAT-taking, and dads who use their connections to get them summer jobs that will help move them along that predestined track of being professionals themselves.<\/p>\n

(It\u2019s interesting to read Williams\u2019 descriptions\u00a0and contemplate that I don\u2019t really fit into her classifications. \u00a0I do not hyper-parent my kids. \u00a0I do not find my own self-worth in work or value my husband for the time he spends at the office. \u00a0But I don\u2019t have these deeply built networks of family and friends, either.)<\/p>\n

Which all makes her final points, of Advice to Fellow Democrats, just strange. \u00a0She just spent time telling us that the WWC doesn\u2019t see work as undignified but rather a means to the end of supporting your kids \u2014 and now she wants to tell them to support amnesty because illegals just did undignified work anyway? \u00a0She says that WWC view family as important and doesn\u2019t buy into the idea that you have to obsess about your kids every waking hour, and at the same time, deeply values responsibility, but now wants to get them to support abortion because \u201chaving children is [whiny voice here] haaard\u201d? \u00a0(Note that professional-class women are far more likely to get an abortion<\/a> if their contraception fails.)<\/p>\n

But that does, interestingly, put the debate on Confederate monuments in a different context. \u00a0Yes, intellectually, logically, it doesn\u2019t make sense to keep them, from the point of view of the political elites who are making these discussions, and from everyone who doesn\u2019t have any personal connection. \u00a0But it\u2019s easy to see that for someone from a social class where stability matters so much in keeping their life going, that destroying these statues is a very symbolic gesture that communicates something more threatening than what is intended.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler \/ Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Subtitled, Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America, this little book (125 pages) is directed at upper middle-class white Democrats asking themselves, \u201cwhy were white working class voters so stupid and so bigoted as to have voted for Trump, and how can we get them to vote for our preferred candidates instead?\u201d And, indeed, the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,721],"class_list":["post-7190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-from-the-library","tag-working-class"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the library: White Working Class by Joan C. 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