On his book Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country
Cover Interview of March 25, 2018
The wide angle
Broke and Patriotic is an effort to better understand
and give voice to an important segment of the population that most of the
country so often neglects. It also speaks to a body of research on the nature
of patriotism. As it turns out, while scholars know quite a lot about American
patriotism in general, and the patriotism of certain minorities or segments of
society (African Americans, for instance, or immigrants, or women), no
attention has been given to the country’s poor. Yet, as I noted earlier, so
much depends on their attachment to and celebration of America.
The book also speaks to the rise in populism that we have
witnessed recently in the Western world. While we may be living in the age of
globalization, the nation-state is far from dead, contrary to the predictions
of many social scientists. National identities are deeply rooted in the
collective psyche, and this book tries to uncover some of the mechanisms and
logics involved.
I was also interested in dispelling the notion, somewhat
prevalent among some elitist segments of our population, that America’s poor
are somehow stupid or have been duped into a sense of ‘false consciousness’, so
as to pacify them and prevent them from seeking change. As I expected, many of
the people I met were articulate, thoughtful, and able to justify with sophistication
and a good sense of history their attachment to the country.
I came to write this book after completing two prior books
on American culture. One, Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession (2011),
examines the country’s unusually intense competitive spirit. The other, Life
Transitions in America (2013), considers how mainstream American culture
makes sense of major life transitions. As a young immigrant to this country,
and as a sociologist for two decades now, I have been fascinated for some time
by the ‘glue’ that holds this country together: its shared narratives,
belief-systems, and values. I have also written quite a bit about globalization
and national identity in Europe. The time seemed right to tackle this question.
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
The wide angle
Broke and Patriotic is an effort to better understand and give voice to an important segment of the population that most of the country so often neglects. It also speaks to a body of research on the nature of patriotism. As it turns out, while scholars know quite a lot about American patriotism in general, and the patriotism of certain minorities or segments of society (African Americans, for instance, or immigrants, or women), no attention has been given to the country’s poor. Yet, as I noted earlier, so much depends on their attachment to and celebration of America.
The book also speaks to the rise in populism that we have witnessed recently in the Western world. While we may be living in the age of globalization, the nation-state is far from dead, contrary to the predictions of many social scientists. National identities are deeply rooted in the collective psyche, and this book tries to uncover some of the mechanisms and logics involved.
I was also interested in dispelling the notion, somewhat prevalent among some elitist segments of our population, that America’s poor are somehow stupid or have been duped into a sense of ‘false consciousness’, so as to pacify them and prevent them from seeking change. As I expected, many of the people I met were articulate, thoughtful, and able to justify with sophistication and a good sense of history their attachment to the country.
I came to write this book after completing two prior books on American culture. One, Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession (2011), examines the country’s unusually intense competitive spirit. The other, Life Transitions in America (2013), considers how mainstream American culture makes sense of major life transitions. As a young immigrant to this country, and as a sociologist for two decades now, I have been fascinated for some time by the ‘glue’ that holds this country together: its shared narratives, belief-systems, and values. I have also written quite a bit about globalization and national identity in Europe. The time seemed right to tackle this question.