Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in the Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide

Excerpt

I asked to review Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in the Land, a few weeks before the 2016 presidential election. I asked to review the book for several reasons. First, I greatly admire Hochschild’s work. Her Managed Heart, an extended argument that emotions are not only produced socially but can and have been produced for commercial purposes, is, in my view, an extraordinary accomplishment, a book that expands the borders of the social sciences while suggesting new ways of thinking about alienation and authenticity. Her Second Shift and The Time Bind have done the nearly impossible, breathing new life into long standing debates about gender and the “balance” between work and family. Second, like a whole lot of other people, I was puzzled—maybe bewildered is more accurate--by the rise of Trump and Trumpism. Who better than Hochschild, a sociologist I admire and a card carrying left liberal (like myself) to help me understand? Third, I knew, or thought I knew how I would begin the review. “The barbarians, the deplorables,” I would write, “are no longer at the gates. Democracy,” I would continue, “is safe for another four years.” And then I would argue, magnanimous in victory, that we should nonetheless make every effort to understand what drove an insurgency against elites in both major parties, even in its failure. …