The deep story helps Hochschild unpack the great paradox: that is, why people living in a region with such poor economic, educational and health indicators — and Louisiana struggles in all of them — still support politicians who call for reducing federal help in those arenas. Hochschild peers at the paradox through a keyhole issue: environmental protection. … Turns out, many people Hochschild spoke to simply don’t trust environmental authorities, often with good reason. The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources had known of the risks involved in Bayou Corne but had given out drilling permits anyway, Hochschild writes. She also describes the guidelines state health authorities had provided on how to eat contaminated fish. “Trimming the fat and skin on finfish, and removing the hepatopancreas from crabs, will reduce the amount of contaminants in the fish and shellfish,” they advised, featuring handy drawings of how to cut away the yucky parts.
Friday, September 09, 2016
Walled out …
… A Berkeley sociologist made some tea party friends — and wrote a condescending book about them - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
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Shouldn't we be laughing hysterically at this as satire or delightfully funny fiction? Instead, it is horrifically too true. We've fallen through something far worse than Alice did through a looking glass, something frightening.
ReplyDeleteWell, in this case, you have someone who doesn't let experience get in the way of her categories. Categorism is the besetting sin of our age, spawning one ism after another. Life cannot be understood in terms of categories.
ReplyDeleteVery true. When we step back from her ca-ca-category, we don't want to step into another. It's not as if a corporation, a fish distributor say, would not come up with the same yucky resolution as the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Yucky-thinking people do not gravitate to working for the government only, nor are governmental organizations more apt to hire them. They are everywhere. In Massachusetts, we have a Republican governor who has maintained the Democratic attorney general because of how good she is, or how yucky she isn't.
ReplyDeleteWe also have a so-called educational system that turns out people who have credentials but little character.
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