>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
I think you may be right - if I'm understanding you. There's something archaic about the way social relations are described when he gestures at them. They are not the focus on his book, just the background. but he has to invoke them on occasion and, when he does, he writes about factory workers/bosses and secretaries/managers in ways that don't seem to reflect contemporary work life:
""Despite the very real differences between them, workers in a factory are like secretaries in an office, peasants on a manor, slaves on a plantation even wives in a marriage in that they live and labor in conditions of unequal power. They submit and obey, heeding the demands of their managers and masters, husbands and lords. They are disciplined and punished. They do much and receive little."