Returning to "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Thomas Frank's book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" is famous for its framing of the problem as to how it is possible for working and middle class people to vote against their class background in an apparent show of support for the Republican party and its obvious interest in conserving the wealth of the wealthy. This is a fascinating issue and no one explanation is likely to prevail. I'd like to explore one aspect of that problem which, I think, deserves consideration. It has to do with the status of what political theorists call "reasonableness" and the moral psychology of working class and middle class people.

I once read of a study of the children of working class parents in which the question was asked, "why don't they tend to rise up out of their class?" The answer that was offered by the sociologists was that the children of working class parents are not accustomed to being reasoned with, that is, they are not offered 'reasons' as the basis of their parents decisions. They are simply told what to do, end of story. And I imagine that this is true even of the parents themselves in their respective working lives as well. They are given orders which emanate from a chain of command disappearing somewhere above or even concretely in the person of the boss and they are to execute those orders without asking "why?" The sociologist argued that the children of middle class parents were accustomed to being given reasons for their orders and, in turn, the children were allowed to question the decisions that were given to them on the overall coherence and intelligibility of those reasons. The children of the middle class, in other words, were (in the words of MacDowell) drawn into "the space of reasons" in a way that the working class children were not. Now, this is all a matter of degree of course. There are levels of critical reflection allowable and not and it is not by any means a black and white affair. At some point or another deliberation ends and the belt comes out (figuratively or literally) in all cases, only with the working class child the process of deliberation is either given short schrift or eliminated altogether and its just all belt all the time. Its no wonder these children have a difficult time questioning the reasoning of others in group settings, especially when employers or teachers are the ones setting the agenda. And its no wonder they end up at the end of the line in their careers and jobs, following orders.

I would like to say that the moral psychology of obedience to authority for its own sole sake and not for the sake of the reasons offered by that authority go a long way to explaining why somebody from a certain class background can vote against their interests. If they are accustomed to, by deeply entrenched habits, obey the directives of authority--whether those come from a suit stepping out of a limousine or a preacher in the pulpit or a boss on the shop floor, then it is going to be hard to imagine questioning the reasons of those authority figures. And, if the entire social apparatus appears to support the authority of those figures, such as when a child grows up seeing the physical infrastructure of his society and its implicit pattern of ownership--the church, the factory, the country clubs, etc.--then there may be an immediate cowering, as it were, before the numinous quality of this authority.

And, it should be noted, that this point is not lost on the Republicans. For as Cheney has said, "...its not about 'reasons'. Its about 'responses'." Indeed. Its less about reasoning and offering of good reasons and more about responses, of giving directives and making displays of authority as through an act of public dramaturgy. In this way, the appearance of propriety is maintained. The working class and middle class voter feels that his superiors have worked things out and that he can feel confident voting for them, even when he neither understands, nor would agree with their reasoning if he were to truly understand it in regards to his basic needs and interests. When it comes to assessing candidates for office, therefore, the issue is less about whether there are good reasons given by each candidate and more about which candidate made a bolder display, acted more like a boss, and otherwise made clear their seat of power in the social order. The lesson of the belt is a hard thing to unlearn.

In addition to an explanation of this phenomenon, a solution may also be offered. Political parties that find themselves at a disadvantage as a result of this dynamic could, of course, seek to imitate the successful party's ability to convey the impression of authority and power. This may be a short term political solution, but it doesn't address the fundamental issue. The culture of bosses and bossism, absentee landlord capitalist rulers, and the dogmatic, authoritative character of public education all contribute to the disempowerment of the human soul. In addition, an overly masculine culture of toughness and imperviousness to vulnerability is also to blame. In each case, what should be fostered is the ability of the human soul to imagine a better world, to take baby steps towards understanding its true condition through dialogue and research, to be treated with respect, and to be shown how a great faith in science and the humanities can cultivate genuine human progress, and, as a means and an end to all of this, to be shown through example a great respect for human reason and the need to always consider the reasons for actions. It is no suprise, though, that these good things are witheld from workers generally through the culture of work itself. A culture that honors these things is a threat to the ownership of the productive processes by the few. Far more important to that need is a "disciplined" and "disciplin-able" work force, one which is unwilling to question deeply the nature of its subservience and unwilling to articulate and mobilize against the injustice of its ownership and rule. By privatizing public goods such as education, the corporate elite are able to further control the thought of the workers and it is in their interest to do so. A robust liberal public sphere is therefore indispensable to bringing about the promise of democracy, a world of equality and ever-exanding human possibility.