I really think this author is underestimating ingrained racism and sexism in his attempt to make it All About Class. As he himself points out, it is the WHITE Working Class he's talking about. And their contempt for women and non-whites drips from every word he writes. Their so-called dignity depends on the oppression of other groups.
I mean, yes, we have to understand why people feel as they do in order to reach them, but understanding does not mean we have to accept that their feelings are A-OK and we should just roll over and accommodate them in everything. Because what they want is NOT simply good jobs -- it's a return to a social order where they were on top of the heap, and everyone else had to defer to them. The world is not going to return to the 1950s. Good-paying factory jobs are not going to magically return -- automation is doing them in as fast or faster than globalization. And I am damned if LBGT+ folks are going back in the closet, and non-whites are going back to the back of the bus, so that middle class white people can feel comfortable in their social superiority to everyone else.
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Date: 2016-11-14 08:28 pm (UTC)I mean, yes, we have to understand why people feel as they do in order to reach them, but understanding does not mean we have to accept that their feelings are A-OK and we should just roll over and accommodate them in everything. Because what they want is NOT simply good jobs -- it's a return to a social order where they were on top of the heap, and everyone else had to defer to them. The world is not going to return to the 1950s. Good-paying factory jobs are not going to magically return -- automation is doing them in as fast or faster than globalization. And I am damned if LBGT+ folks are going back in the closet, and non-whites are going back to the back of the bus, so that middle class white people can feel comfortable in their social superiority to everyone else.