On Feb 3, 2012, at 7:14 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> So then we're talking the possibility that it is just *some* folks
> who find this approach appealing. If so, then it should probably be
> explained. This wasn't Robin's aim in the book, of course. His aim
> was to explore the reactionary mind - and the conservative one as
> well. He just uses these claims about the lower orders b/c he knows
> it appeals to his audience: liberals who want to know what's the
> matter with Kansas. It doesn't have to be explained if that's your
> audience. it just has to be invoked b/c the audience finds it
> satisfying *already* to believe that they are the smart ones in the
> room writing the books about what's the matter with kansas. Most
> people reading aren't going to question this thesis IOW.
I think the "audience" he has in mind are those with a modicum of historical remembrance of such (still undead) phenomena as the Vendee, as slavery (and the Confederate army made up largely of subaltern whites), as the KKK, as antisemitism "the socialism of idiots," as hatred of Muslims and immigrants; ie., those "empirical realities" underlying the "sublime" rhetoric of the Burkes and Strausses.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64