Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
Kelley Walker wrote:
> At 06:35 PM 4/15/01 -0400, Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:
> >Can't seem to find my copy of Wolfe's ONE NATION AFTER ALL, but I
> >remember it fairly well. In it he celebrated the essentially privatistic
> >outlook of the accidental sample of people he surveyed, and portrayed
> >them as strongly supportive of personal responsibility, the work ethic,
> >and a paternalistic attitude towards the poor.
>
> finding something is not the same thing as approving of it. eli anderson
> finds that blacks accuse other blacks of some horrendous things. does that
> mean eli anderson agrees? please! it isn't that he celebrates them. there
> is a place where he celebrates the enlightenment liberalism that undergirds
> their tendency to, for example, believe strongly that abortion is wrong,
> that it is murder but concede that this is _their_ belief. even the most
> activist among them, save a few, refrain from agreeing that they should
> foist their beliefs on everyone else.
>
> bellah et al. critique their respondents strongly for the above. wolfe
> doesn't. to call it celebrating goes a bit overboard.
>
> >This is pretty much what
> >I find when I look at the chapter on the family in the chief
> >communitarian, Amitai Etzioni's THE SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY: RIGHTS,
> >RESPONSIBILITIES AND THE COMMUNITARIAN AGENDA.
>
> first, it wasn't an accidental sample. what he set out to do was criticize
> Habits of the Heart for their criticisms of intense individualism among the
> profesional managerial strata (happy carrol?) therefore, he went to the
> same four cities and plucked a sample of, iirc, 50 ppl. he then interviewed
> them. it's called a case study and there is nothing per se wrong with
> doing a case study. methods are tools and they work best if you choose
> those tools that work in conjunction with your theoretical framework AND
> your methodological framework.
>
> both authors had a theoretical reason for analyzing the white middle
> STRATA. it is similar to what ehrenreich did in _The Hearts of Men_: to
> examine US ideology where it is likely to be most trenchant, where is
> flourishes, where is broadcast and takes root most firmly. i.e, it's not
> accidental, but purposeful
>
> case studies, as michael burawoy has argued, can be used to make
> generalizations, however.
>
> of cours, as socialists, we need to do better. but they are not.
> furthermore, as a sociologist it's not really my job to run about writing
> books that conform to my ideological desires. it is rather, to look and
> see and be open to the possibility that i might have it wrong!
>
> sorry if i jumped on you chris. i spend a lot of time bitching at people
> on conlib lists for spouting off about how, for example recently, keynes is
> a fabian socialist. this they heard somewhere. it is then argued that
> keynes was like a democratic socialist who was after slow
> change. whatever. but the point is to discredit whatever i say as commie
> pinko red, to make anyone who even slightly seems that way out to be one as
> well. when i see people here do that by saying, well alan wolfe hangs out
> with the communitarians or he says things that seem communitarian therefore
> he's antifeminst and homophobic????
>
> when i see "us" do the same thing, i get more pissed than i do elsewhere.
> the views there are excusable. the tactics are possibly
> understandable. but they are neither in our case.
>
> lots to critique in wolfe, etzioni, bellah et al., but what i saw early on
> wasn't exactly critique.
>
> >Of course, neither of these writers is Dr. Dobson, or a real religious
> >right type. Etzioni makes a few perfunctory feints in a liberal
> >direction, but his is essentially an apology for a neoliberal family
> >policy. Several of the more admiring quotes are from people overtly to
> >the right of the position he lets you think he takes. People like
> >Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Mary Anne Glenton, Judith Wallerstein. He
> >denies that he wants to abolish divorce, but then says he thinks it
> >needs to be more difficult, that social policy should place obstacles in
> >its way.
> >
> >In effect Etzioni describes many of the negative effects of the
> >instability of the family and its generally counterdevelopmental effect
> >on many of the children who grow up in the complex and frequently
> >reconstituted families that are now more or less the norm. But does he
> >propose a strong program of universal social welfare measures that would
> >extend support to all children? Even more important, does he recognize
> >that marriage is an institution whose instability is inevitable given
> >fundamental political-economic changes that are integral to contemporary
> >capitalism?
> >
> >Of course not. He does say fleetingly that it would be nice for
> >corporations to provide paid child-care leave, and that family
> >allowances would be a good thing. These are his feints to the left.
> >However, he goes on for pages on the moral duty of individuals, as
> >individuals, to be personally responsible, exercise care in family life,
> >etc. (Rhetorical hint of the Clinton welfare reform here.). He takes an
> >effectively pro-corporate stance without owning up to it, because the
> >only way not to do this would be to propose real social welfare
> >alternatives.
> >
> >Wolfe, in a different way, takes a similarly tired liberal privatistic
> >approach to what are really social issues. He, and Etzioni in a more
> >upbeat, pseudo-inspirational way, really seem to be the Tony Blairs of
> >American social policy.
> >
> >As socialists, we need to do better. For example, both Etzioni and Wolfe
> >strongly oppose day-care, saying that existing day-care is of dubious
> >quality. Often enough they are right, of course, but they go on to
> >insist that children always belong at home. This is a gross example of
> >political defects they share. And their stance has consequences that
> >contradict their supposedly tender concern for children. For example,
> >their kind of thinking gives aid and comfort to the anti-poor right,
> >who, under forced-work programs, must leave their children in really
> >questionable day care.
> >
> >Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
> >
> >
> >LeoCasey at aol.com wrote:
> >
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