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.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
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.