larger thread -- It seems obvious to me that the group 'working-class white men' that's being discussed here do not have 'working-class-ness' as their sole primary identification -- most of the time being men and being white seems just as and very often far more present to them, so their 'interests' are not automatically seen as lying with the interests of some generalised 'working-class'. Moreover, the most urgent issues often lie in decreasing the pool of people vying for scarce resources -- and those that can be eliminated are most clearly identified by other than class means.
Thus so many 'working-class white men' in Australia find it all too easy to see as major issues (not taxes but) immigrants and women taking their jobs or, in the case of women, removing their prior economic support in the form of domestic labour; or things like the additional pittance given to indigenous people looking for work as evidence of some resented disenfranchisement. It seems to me so naive to rail that this is a false consciousness of some sort -- yes it is, fine, ok, we're all smarter than them, hooray for us, but it is true to their present reality as well, and treating it as false consciousness just doesn't seem enough.
I know I'm not actually suggesting anything more helpful but until they can afford to see racism/sexism as an issue for them they won't. Their interests *are not* wholly determined by being working class in this present socioeconomic situation. So why expect them to act as if they are? Can 'they' be brought to see the injustice of racism/sexism/etc? Yes, of course. Will that change the fact that in the present system 'their' interests are in some concrete ways served by racism and sexism? No. That, I would think, needs to be addressed at the same time, if not first.
on dead wood -- Now Jordan I do know what you mean. It can be very irritating to look around and see incompetence that makes your job harder, most particularly in people paid a great deal. It's easy to want to demand that X, Y and Z do more for the twice what I get that they are paid. But, in the end, it's not the fact that they do as little as they can that makes difficulties in the place where I work -- it's a set of much larger questions about how the money is spent and what is seen as a priority in current academic structures.
So in the end I can only see them as doing what they can to enjoy their jobs in a situation that's deteriorating in many respects and which certainly doesn't serve them either. (Although I'm not talking about upper management here, which might inspire me to different thoughts.) I'll confess that some days I feel very differently about them and am more consumed by outrage at their whining laziness when our position is so much better than that of so many other people. But today is Sunday, and I am feeling generous. In general though I know, and I'm sure you do too, that sacking all those instances would not change the structures that produce and sustain them. Mostly I feel like at present academics are almost trained to abandon investment in their work.
Catherine