The Geography of the Class Culture Wars
The Geography of the Class Culture Wars
复制标题
阶级文化战争的地理
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Lisa R. Pruitt
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lisa R. Pruitt
这篇文章是对琼·c·威廉姆斯（Joan C. Williams）的书《重塑工作-家庭辩论：为什么男人和阶级很重要》（哈佛大学出版社2010）的一篇对话的贡献。威廉姆斯认为阶级很重要，因为有社会意识的进步主义者需要工人阶级的盟友来实现工作家庭改革，造福所有人。威廉姆斯呼吁我们不仅要思考阶级，并将其视为分层和（dis）优势的重要轴心，而且要尊重和尊严地对待工人阶级。威廉姆斯写到了社会进步人士（主要在“专业/管理阶层”）和白人工人阶级之间的“阶级文化战争”。她断言，改善这些群体之间的关系需要进步人士更好地理解白人工人阶级，包括为什么他们似乎把文化问题提升到经济利益之上。为此，威廉姆斯调查了最近主要的白人工人阶级民族志，以呈现一幅该环境的综合肖像。我的文章试图从四个方面加强威廉姆斯对白人工人阶级的有力和开创性的讨论。第一部分通过论证文化战争——我相信威廉姆斯沿着工人阶级和专业/管理阶级之间的广泛而模糊的界限正确地排列——同样沿着城乡轴线排列，明确地考虑了地理因素。正如自由派精英倾向于避开白人工人阶级一样，他们也对农村和小镇居民表示蔑视。事实上，在城市居民和“沿海精英”中，美国农村人已经成为工人阶级的代表——粗鲁、没有文化、不开明的人。我特别在2008年总统大选中记录了这种日益加剧的地理两极分化。基于阶级文化战争的对立双方现在（至少在修辞上）由农村和城市代表这一论点，我提出了另外三个问题。文章的第二部分通过介绍与农村环境特别相关的其他阶级和亚阶级，为威廉姆斯笼统的阶级二分法增添了细微差别。具体来说，我展示了威廉姆斯隐含的都市阶级分类法是如何与非都市社区的类似分化相对应的，我还讨论了道德作为农村环境中白人工人阶级各派分化的基础所起的作用。然后，在第三部分中，我认为文化和政治上对农村人的蔑视阻碍了法律和政策制定者看到和解决农村公民面临的独特挑战，包括与工作-生活安全相关的问题。我在第四部分中总结了工作本身作为专业/管理阶层和白人工人阶级之间的共同点。我呼吁以工作为身份的专业/管理阶层放弃对白人工人阶级懒惰和无知的刻板印象，并承认工人阶级实际上是多么努力地工作。我还认为，自由派精英应该认识到工人阶级白人在教育和晋升方面面临的结构性和文化障碍，就像他们认识到来自种族、民族、性别、性取向和宗教的类似障碍一样。认识到各阶层对工作的共同承诺可以促进政治缓和，并最终形成一个支持工作家庭改革的更强大的政治联盟。我对威廉姆斯的书和阶级文化战争的看法来自于我自己在农村的成长经历，以及我作为“阶级移民”的身份，威廉姆斯将其定义为“出生和成长于工人阶级，通过接受精英教育进入中上层阶级”的人。此外，我的评论和分析在很大程度上依赖于两个来源——一个是传统的，另一个不是——它们补充了威廉姆斯的出色工作。首先，我引用了詹妮弗·谢尔曼2009年出版的书《工作的人和不工作的人：美国农村的贫困、道德和家庭》。这本书提供了一个农村特定的对应，威廉姆斯更广泛地解释了为什么道德和家庭——以及更广泛的文化问题——对白人工人阶级如此重要。第二个，相当非正统的来源是记者乔·巴甘特2007年出版的《与耶稣一起猎鹿：美国阶级战争快讯》。巴甘特作为一个文化评论家的见解——尽管以更尖锐的语气表达，反映出更多的轶事方法——与威廉姆斯和谢尔曼在学术时尚方面的记录惊人地相似。最后，我将说明奥巴马总统是如何支持这三位作者的核心观点的。
This Essay is a contribution to a colloquy about Joan C. Williams’s book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter (Harvard University Press 2010). Williams argues that class matters because socially conscious progressives need working class allies to achieve work-family reform for the benefit of all. Williams calls us not only to think about class and recognize it as a significant axis of stratification and (dis)advantage, but also to treat the working class with respect and dignity. Williams writes of the “class culture wars” between social progressives (mostly within the “professional/managerial class”) and the white working class. She asserts that improved relations between these groups will require progressives to better understand the white working class, including why they seem to elevate cultural issues over their economic self-interest. To that end, Williams surveys the major recent ethnographies of the white working class to present a composite portrait of that milieu. My Essay seeks to enhance Williams’s powerful and path-breaking discussion of the white working class in four ways. Part I brings geography explicitly into consideration by arguing that the culture wars – which I believe Williams aligns correctly along a broad and fuzzy line between the working class and the professional/managerial class – similarly align along the rural-urban axis. Just as liberal elites tend to shun the white working class, they also express disdain for rural and small-town residents. Indeed, among urbanites and “coastal elites,” rural Americans have become a proxy for the working class – the uncouth, the uncultured, and the illiberal. I document this increasing geographic polarization specifically in relation to the 2008 Presidential election. Based on this argument that the opposing sides in the class culture wars are now represented (at least rhetorically) by the rural and the urban, I take up three other issues. Part II of the Essay adds nuance to Williams’s broad-brush class dichotomy by introducing other classes and sub-classes that are particularly relevant to the rural context. Specifically, I show how Williams’s implicitly metropolitan class taxonomy parallels a similar divide in nonmetropolitan communities, and I discuss the role of morality as a basis for differentiation among factions of working class whites in rural settings. Then, in Part III, I argue that cultural and political disdain for rural folks prevents law- and policy-makers from seeing and addressing the distinct challenges facing the rural citizenry, including issues associated with work-life security. I conclude in Part IV with thoughts on work itself as common ground between the professional/managerial class and the white working class. I call for the work-identified professional/managerial class to let go of stereotypes of the white working class as lazy and ignorant and to acknowledge how hard the working class actually do work. I also argue that liberal elites should recognize the structural and cultural obstacles to education and advancement facing working class whites, just as they have recognized similar obstacles stemming from race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion. Recognizing a shared commitment to work across the classes could foster political detente and, ultimately, a more robust political coalition in support of work-family reform. My thoughts about Williams’s book and the class culture wars are informed by my own rural upbringing, as well as by my status as a “class migrant,” which Williams defines as those “born and raised working class, who join the upper-middle class through access to elite education.” In addition, my comments and analysis rely heavily on two sources – one conventional, the other not – which complement Williams’s fine work. First, I draw on Jennifer Sherman’s 2009 book, Those Who Work, Those Who Don’t: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America. This book provides a rural-specific counterpart to Williams’s more generalized explanation of why morality and family – and therefore cultural issues more broadly – are so important to the white working class. The second, rather unorthodox source is journalist Joe Bageant’s 2007 book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. Bageant’s insights as a cultural critic – though articulated in a sharper tone and reflecting a more anecdotal method – are uncannily similar to those which Williams and Sherman document in academic fashion. Finally, I illustrate how President Obama has endorsed the core ideas of all three authors.