The Radical Center

Donald Warren

Description

Drawing on extensive research and national survey data, sociologist Donald I. Warren here presents an in-depth analysis of the Middle American Radicals, who they are, what they believe, the major targets of their grievances, and the likelihood of their political mobilization. The evidence indicates that as many as one in five Americans shares the Radical Center perspective, including people who outwardly seem to have very little in common by way of economic, occupational, or education status. Of particular significance are the findings concerning potential support for the various presidential candidates and for a third national political party.

Sujets

• Cultural Policy
• Public Policy
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Homelessness
• Poverty
• Anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268193089
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

THE RADICAL CENTER
THE RADICAL CENTER
MIDDLE AMERICANS AND THE POLITICS OF ALIENATION
DONALD I. WARREN
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 undpress.nd.edu
Copyright 1976 by University of Notre Dame
All Right Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Warren, Donald I
The radical center.
Includes bibliographical references.
I. Middle classes-United States. 2. Radicalism-United States. 3. Social problems. 4. Political participation-United States. I. Title.
HT690.U6W37 301.44 1 75-19880
ISBN 978-0-268-01594-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-268-01595-4 (paperback)
ISBN 9780268193089
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
To Max B. Jaslow -
a Dedicated Teacher
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. WHAT IS A MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICAL?
2. WHO ARE THE MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICALS?
3. THE CONCERNS OF THE MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICAL
4. THE WORLD OF WORK AND THE MAR
5. ORGANIZATIONAL CRITICISMS: Major Targets and Grievances
6. SOCIAL PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION
7. ACTIVISM OF MARs: Some Principles to Bear in Mind
8. THE MULTI-GROUP BASE OF MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICALISM: Some Policy Speculations
9. MARs ON THE NATIONAL SCENE
10. REDUCING MAR ALIENATION
11. MARs AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES
12. PROGRAMMATIC DIRECTIONS: Some Guide Lines from MARs Themselves
13. MIDDLE AMERICAN RADICALS ASSESS THEIR FUTURE
14. MARs REVISITED: A Follow-up Analysis
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
PREFACE
The following memorandum was written by a research staff member during the early stages of the study of Middle Americans:
There are some obstacles which make the study of Middle America troublesome for the social scientist. One is the liberal philosophy of change based on seemingly obvious evidence which sets up a conflict with the accepted picture of the values of the lower middle class. The conflict is that this lower middle class, working class, blue collar population, which makes up a large chunk of America, is seen as holding values which are antithetical to the liberal, academic community. These values are: pro-militarism; pro-Protestant work ethic (for many the highest value is their pride in the honest work they do); pro-consumerism (this includes big cars, campers and snowmobiles); and anti-black [sentiment]) especially as blacks are seen as the threatening enemy whose presence causes their schools to become battlegrounds, and their neighborhoods to deteriorate; the enemy who takes their tax dollars by devious means and the jobs they deserve by preferential treatment .
Given this commonly accepted view of the Middle American, how can a liberal, social scientist objectively study them? It is easy to study, feel sympathy for and believe in the virtue of minority peoples who have suffered unequal treatment and hatred for so many years. It is harder to come to the study of Middle America without ambiguity and moral dilemma .
Another problem with the analysis of social problems of lower middle class people by social scientists is the scientists immense social and real space distance from the problems and the people who embody them. Just comparing the numbers of people in the country with various levels of education the Ph.D. social scientists form a minute minority which tends to isolate them from the rest of us. The intellectual also tends to live in various centers around the country away from the working man. He lives in non-industrial university towns or in big cities, but hardly ever among the working class .
There is another problem that further confounds understanding. As long as morality and achievement are thought of as related, an American who sees himself at a specific achievement level in relation to others also assigns lesser moral value to those below him and higher to those above him. This relative view of self combined with the need to accept, explain and assign value to one s self, work together to diminish understanding between people. The dynamic of interaction becomes a contest where the interactants have defined themselves and must either hide their deficiency or assert their superiority as they have defined it. All of us have a basic human need-to justify our existence to ourselves and to any significant others. Those with the highest educational resources are best able to define themselves and their achievements in the most moral terms. In a country where freedom and mobility are assumed, it is easy for the best-educated to appear as the most perfect human beings, the epitome of achievement .
And indeed, how many analyses by social scientists present a view of a low-educated, low-income sub-population as a kind of moral ideal? Some articles or photographic essays do portray the common man in all his simplicity and strength and basic goodness. This seems value-free, but a condescending, patronizing tone is barely hidden .
It is against this background of potential misunderstanding that one comes to the study of another social group. It is across this chasm that the social scientist tries to classify, codify and communicate the vital concerns of Middle America.
Loraine A. Reish Research Assistant Middle America Project April, 1972
I received the following letter after an appearance on the national TV program, AM America, February 7, 1975:
Dear Professor Warren:
Your interview on television this morning was interesting and I was impressed with your assessment of the problems many people must cope with. Some of your remarks pointed up a line of thinking that has been of concern to me for some time. Please permit me to share with you some of my thoughts .
Now obviously, people do have problems from time to time, some quite serious. These fall generally into two categories: personal and social. The nuclear family, living cheek by jowl with too little privacy, is hardly isolated: their lives are so invaded now that they do not have time to contemplate and arrive at common-sense value judgments. Generally speaking, the families that are able to solve their problems themselves are families grounded in traditional Judeo-Christian moral values. (Of course, there are exceptions, but I am not speaking of the extremes.) However, you probably do not come in contact with these families since they do not consult you with their problems; they are, in fact, the stable backbone of our whole society. And, strangely, they are the most deprecated by the behavioral scientists-strange until one examines the motives of the social planners .
In the area of social problems, one of our greatest problems is defining true grass-roots movements and movements that are masked to appear as grass-roots movements. Whether the problem is city planning, clearing clogged drainage creeks, solving teenage sex- and drug-related problems, or promoting genuine accountability in the public schools-we see this recurring problem of government and union agencies rushing in to help us, and often creating the problem in the first place, so they can perpetuate their bureaucracies, hire more experts, confiscate more tax money and solve their own mental problem, which seems to be a lusting after personal power .
Well, that s quite an indictment, but my work in many genuine grass-roots movements convinces me that the government is almost afraid we will be self-reliant enough to solve our own problems without federal guidelines. All the sweet, soft, caring words do not cloak the monumental contempt for the people on the part of the government helpers. Whereas, the people who in their own efforts help each other, within families, within neighborhoods, WITHOUT the outside invasion of various agencies, do not have contempt for each other .
This idea of contempt is an important element. Our national news media and various agencies and institutions bom bard our senses with the pervasive atmosphere of doom, the terrible problems, the insurmountable crises throughout the world. And they really want us to believe every bit of it, aside from the fact that crises make more sensational news reporting. There is the perpetuation of the theory that the present time is almost impossible in which to live, and that we must change, change, change our whole life-styles and attitudes in order to survive into the future. Ahhh but change from what into what social order? And if change is to be necessary, just who will make the decisions? The people-planners or the people themselves? Since too many people-planners have this thinly veiled contempt for the people, I am comforted in knowing they will get nowhere, though they do have our tax money to exploit for their own nefarious purposes .
It is the grass-roots people themselves in whom I have a growing faith, once they are truthfully informed on the major issues. Americans are the greatest people in the world, with a marvelous sense of humor and genuine sense of joy in the here and now, and a faith in the future. From one individual to another individual the great silent majority is coming awake, and they will not be deliberately divided and collectivized into little warring groups. They are not isolated; quite the contrary, they need more privacy, more calm, peace, quiet and time to think. And most of all they need a sense of individual self-assurance that they can define and solve their own problems with the help of God. But not with the help of the government. Already, they ha