--- Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> wrote:
>
> I was thinking about this in regard to the
> Floridians who
> voted for Bush because he wouldn't take their guns
> away and
> wouldn't allow homosexuals to get married. These
> seem like
> very silly things to say, unless, as fetishes
> (symbols) they
> represent something else which may be more
> reasonable, such
> as resistance to intrusions into private life and
> personal
> autonomy. I don't know what these things are, but I
> suspect
> they're there, and that neither the Left nor the
> fans of Soft
> Cop are going to make very much progress among such
> people
> until they figure out what the things are and why
> people are
> so concerned about them -- as a procedure of
> science, not an
> exercise in self-serving literary and culture
> criticism,
> which even I could provide you with right now.
>
Boy do I think Gordon is on to something. I suspect these are manifestations of a sense of alienation from society.
Oversimplification follows: Jim is a white male. He works hard at a white collar job that frequently requires him to work 50 to 60 hour weeks. His wife also works. He is not compensated for overtime, but has threat of layoffs ensuring he complies. The lack of free time leaves complicates his ability to help run a household and care for his 2 kids. This leaves him stressed and feeling like his life is out of control. His lack of home time hampers communication with his wife or kids and he feels alienated from their lives. The modern culture seems to imply that everyone else is getting rich in dot coms, driving expensive cars and taking elaborate vacations. (After all, in TVland even coffee house waitresses have spacious Manhattan apartments) Jim sees his workplace instituting new procedures to protect people who are not like him, and even though he thinks racial and sexual harassment is wrong, he can't help but notice the company instituting any policies to help him in his life. He doesn't have time to get to know his neighbors, and so he distrusts them. He doesn't have time to be involved in his kids schooling, so he doesn't trust the school. He reads about heroin deaths among kids at the local high school, and shootings perpetrated by children. Movies like "Little Nicky" get a PG-13 rating despite crude sexuality and drug use while films like "Billy Elliot" get an R rating (okay, that last one is my own pet peeve). How do you think Jim will react within the current political context?
My point is this: This kind of alienation breeds a siege mentality. This kind of person will latch on to fetishes as issues - because fetishes are simplistic by nature. This kind of alienation lends itself to grasping for easy solutions, which the right wing GOPhers are only too happy to provide.
Sadly, this kind of alienation should provide fertile ground for an anti-corporate pro-human ideology. However, the left has been unable or unwilling to present this kind of message. Doug's proposal that these people are simply unwilling to give up gender and race privileges is a good example of the left missing the point.
Adam
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