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- [00:01]
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- [00:34]
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- [00:59]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Foreign.
- [01:04]
Mike Pesca
It's Thursday, June 19, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Hey, do you want to know why Donald Trump doesn't take full aim at Juneteenth? I mean, he dismantles all the D's, the e's, and don't like the eyes. But why not Juneteenth? Why not try to undo it as a federal holiday? Why not even just criticize it and mock it and mock the syntax of calling a day Juneteenth that seems in his wheelhouse. Have a theory? It's more than a theory. It's got to be true. So it means it's a really strong theory. It's because people get a day off and people want a day off. And Donald Trump knows that he can engage in the symbolism or sometimes the actuality of critiquing and dismantling dei and then he's on steady ground. But if you take away a day off from the work, working man, they're going to hate you. Trump knows that. Give him the day off. That's not something Trump would do or did. It took Joe Biden making Juneteenth a federal holiday. But these like, tips for waiters and overtime, it's part of his instinctive populism. So he might not be doing whatever the equivalent of an egg rolling ceremony is at the White House for Juneteenth, or he might not even be commemorating it at all, but he sure as hell ain't going to take it away from you. Because no matter what it symbolizes or what it's meant to commemorate, he knows that Americans like a day off on the show today. I didn't really take a day off.
- [02:40]
Here's what I did. I went back to our archives and.
- [02:43]
I got an interview with an excellent really an esteemed and anthropologist Arlie Huck Shield. And you might be saying to yourself, oh, I know an Arlie Hux child. Yeah, that's how I always thought it was pronounced because I only read it. I never heard it. But then Arlie Russell Huckshield was on the show to talk about her book Stolen Pride, Lost Shame and the Rise of the Right. It was really good. And she lives with these communities and she does some deep anthropology. But then what I did the first time around is I gave bonus content to the Peska plus subscribers today. I hope I'm not breaking faith with you Peska plus subscribers, but maybe you have a day off and are commemorating Juneteenth. However, you are commemorating it with your loved ones. But anyway, I hope I am not breaking faith by unleashing the full content of my early Hux Huck Shield interview. And this was originally done a few months ago, but you'll get a taste of some of the bonus content that we give to subscribers at subscribe mike pesca.com the Pesca plus subscribers Of course, this is maybe arguably the worst time to give out the URL address to sign up since it's all for free. It's all for free. In the spirit of freedom, I guess you could say I to some extent emancipated my conversation with Arley Hawkshield. Please do enjoy gear that's built to work Looks like it. Attractive clothing sometimes looks like it. I think definitionally, if it's attractive, it looks attractive. But clothing or gear that looks like it's one rugged and can deal with hot rooftops or hard jobs. I guess most of this kind of clothing isn't made to look good on you. Except TrueWerk is. TrueWerk was built to meet the bar of gear that works harder, moves better, and proves itself every time. Today I was wearing a pair of my beloved TrueWerk pants. Many a zipper, certainly rugged, quite attractive. I feel very good in them. They have two buttons at the top. I don't know why, but it's all kind of cool. It's designed and engineered, really truly engineered for maximum comfort, protection and efficiency with minimum bulk or extra weight. You know, cotton denim. It hasn't changed much in 200 years. Then TrueWerk comes along and blows the entire field of gear and clothing that also works hard out of the water while wicking away the water in many cases. I love wearing my true work stuff. I think you will too. Check out the full lineup and get 15% off your first order@truewerk.com the gist that's 15% off@t r u e w e erk.com the gist this message is sponsored by Greenlight As a kid Summertime well, it could mean a lot of things and these days many a kid are left to rot. It's called rotting when you don't program them incessantly. But you know, even if they're gonna rot, they might want to chase the ice cream man and buy an ice pop. I speakin like I'm Beaver Cleaver. Anyway, yeah, kids have expenses and you gotta give them money, but you should also teach them about money. I was taught pretty well by my father who's financially responsible but also was good at imparting a lesson. And money was easier then. It was green, sometimes silvery and could be exchanged for goods and services. Now you really need help. And Greenlight is that help. Greenlight is a debit card and a money app made for families that helps kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. And you could know as a parent that that your kids are able to access money but also able to learn about money and to build lessons and confidence in how they interact with money. They also have a chores feature, sort of hey, you want the money? Clean the room. I did the allowance thing for the kids for a little bit. It wasn't enough. Tied to in a direct way, here's what money is, here's what it does, and here's why I'm giving it to you. This is why Greenlight is just a much better choice. Choice. Easy, convenient, parents can raise financially smart kids. Millions of parents trust Green Light to orient their kids and help them learn about money. Don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@Greenlight.com the Gist. That's Greenlight.com the Gist to get started Greenlight.com the Gist Foreign.
- [07:50]
Elections turn on many factors I talked recently about an academic who listed 13 factors. Is the person an incumbent? Is there a scandal in the air? What's the state of the economy? And that's all true as far as it goes. But you really want to know why people vote? Why people vote, especially for a presidential candidate. They vote for feelings. They vote for the feelings that he or she invokes. But that also means the feelings that he or she can tap into can trigger the feelings that are already there. And the feeling we're going to talk about today is pride. Arlie Russell Hochschild, professor emerita at UC Berkeley, is a chronicler of the hopes, dreams, aspirations and feelings of Trump America. Her new book is called Stolen Pride, Lost Shame and the Rise of the Right. Welcome to the gist.
- [08:43]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Thank you. Delighted to be here.
- [08:46]
Mike Pesca
I'm delighted to have you. You went to Louisiana to figure out what the Tea Party held for many of these people who are left behind by the economy. And then in your most recent book, a similar but slightly different excursion to Appalachia and the 5th congressional district in Kentucky, tell me what new findings you were seeking to find that the Louisianans didn't have for you.
- [09:11]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
First of all, it was later in time and the issue had changed to the very importance of voting and democracy. Do you want an autocracy or do you want democracy? So the issue was different, the region was different. And while the circumstances were similar, I wanted to develop a new perspective, this perspective on pride and shame. It's kind of underdeveloped in my last book, and I was trying to really etch it out and get clear on how we could become kind of bilingual, how we could hear political rhetoric with an eye to the emotions being appealed to, in this case, shame.
- [10:06]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Bilingual is an important point that you get to. But I want to hone in on the fact that you chronicled Louisianans. And I have to tell you, during the Trump presidency, your interviewing of them were so often cited, I think is a very useful explanation to get into the mind of the kind of person who would like Trump. Even though your interviews then weren't about Trump and now you did these new interviews, did you say to yourself, ah, the occasions told me something. And so I expect to find a lot of that with the Kentuckians.
- [10:43]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
I was open to that, but I felt that I could hear differently because I was trying to tune myself in emotionally differently. And indeed, I did find some differences in Strangers in Their Own Land. I came up with this approach of the deep story, where people are kind of what is a deep story politically? The right wing deep story isn't about precepts. It isn't. It's about what the world feels like to you and you're waiting in line patiently. You don't feel you have any animist or anyone else as you feel it. You're patient, you're looking to The American dream. But you can't get there. The line isn't moving. And then there are these line cutters who are the line cutters? They are women, they are minorities, they are immigrants. So well paid public servants, even animals that are endangered. People say, oh, the liberals value the animals more than us. And then a president, a Democratic president, is privileging these groups over you. That is the right wing and deep story. And when I ran that by the people I came to know in Kentucky Congressional District 5, the whitest and second poorest congressional district in the country, they said, well, yeah, that's true for us. But there's one thing else. There's in line. There's a bad bully that seems to be allowing these line cutters and then there's a good bully. We know the good bully is a flawed person. We know he lies, we know this about him, but he's our bully. So that's a change in the deep story that I discovered this in this.
- [12:55]
Mike Pesca
New book is the sign that this isn't some post hoc rationalization. What is the sign that they're actually cottoning on to what Trump is selling because he is the bully as opposed to, well, we like all these kind of nasty things. We like, we like the fact that he hurts our enemy and will therefore in our minds. Or to a researcher who shows up from Berkeley, we'll tell him he's the good bully.
- [13:21]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Well, you know, I, what I did was try out my ideas on the very people that they were about. There was a MAGA guy, small businessman, pro Trump, who told me that God had, was sending Donald Trump to save the situation. God's behind everything that happens. He said, okay. And I said, look, I'm from Berkeley. I, I'm an outsider here, but I'm really looking at how politicians kind of tune into feelings people are feeling. And in this region, coal jobs are out opiate crisis in white nationalists, march at the door. It's kind of beleaguered. I feel that I ran by this idea and the idea is this, that you've got a kind of a structurally shamed group. They're downwardly mobile. The story is loss, loss of jobs, loss of devaluation of what they know, sense that others are doing better, which others are doing, and that there's shame, kind of a structural shame, and that Donald Trump is kind of tapping into it. That's the ore, that's the coal that he's mining. And I ran by him. The idea that there is a kind of Donald Trump offers a four Moment, anti shame ritual. That when it looks like he's meandering and not keeping to his point, he actually is running through this ritual. The moments are moment one, he says something transgressive, like all immigrants are poisoning the blood of America or immigrants are eating pet cats. Something transgressive. Second moment, the punditry shames him. Oh, you can't say that. We're an immigrant society. Punditry shames him. That's moment two. Moment three, Donald Trump becomes the victim of the punditry's shaming. Oh, look how bad I feel. Look what they're doing to me. They're ganging up on me just the way they gang up on you. I am experiencing what they want to do to you. Donald Trump, victim number four. Moment four, Donald Trump rails against the shamers. Now, I think that the Democrats are listening to 1 and 2, transgression and shaming, and the conservatives are listening to 3 and 4, Donald Trump's victim and the roar back. I ran that against, you know, to this guy. Does this make sense to you? And he laughed. Yes, of course it makes sense. And I said, do you think that Donald Trump ever pokes the bear, you know, to kind of get this four part ritual started? He said, yes, he pokes the bear. He feels no shame. He laughed at that. So I tried out this idea on the people that I think are at the other end of it.
- [17:04]
Mike Pesca
And I said, yeah, so does that.
- [17:07]
Mean he can't ever screw that up except by maybe saying something sensible that people applaud, which actually sometimes does happen, like when he endorses the First Step act or does some prison reform. But that is my question. Like, there are versions of this where you could see that it plays really well for him. Like, he didn't say all immigrants are rapists, but he did say they're sending rapists.
- [17:30]
And people shamed him.
- [17:32]
And then other people heard the shaming and identified with. But then the cats thing. I don't know if the cats and dog thing is really working as well as some of the other shame spirals.
- [17:43]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
You know, it's interesting. Some work better than others. And I'm not sure he's getting away with the cat thing, especially now that Taylor Swift is holding cats in her videos. It. It does feel, on the face of it, more like a lie, which of course it is.
- [18:03]
Mike Pesca
Right. It seems to me that when truthful or not, the, the content, the target of what he's talking about feels emotionally resonant to people. And then he's shamed for it. It doesn't matter if he gets the details wrong. And this is where to use. They're sending immigrants and these immigrants are criminals and rapists, that seems so real and also stood apart from other Republicans. It works perfectly. But when it's on irrelevancies like drawing the hurricanes, I don't know that that changes people's mind. And there's probably some part of just the media castigating Trump that appeals to a prideful people who are downtrodden. But I don't think he gets as much out of it as some of the other shameful things that he's been chastised for.
- [18:54]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
You're right. I think there's a more and a and a less to it. But it's so it's become chronic, it's been continual. And the fact that kind of the Democratic side doesn't hear it just say, look, the guy's crazy and they've been hoodwinked and that's all we need to understand. We'll just kind of judge it and leave it at that. The reason I've written this book is I think that's not enough. It's not enough to judge and dismiss. This is nearly half the American population. If you look at white non ba, that's 42% of the American population who are now Republican. They're less tuning into this anti shaming ritual and the more and the less of it doesn't matter to them. It's they feel they found a vehicle.
- [19:46]
Mike Pesca
Now there's another really interesting part to the pride and shame is that the pride paradox is. Well, you're the one who introduced me to the concept. Tell me what it is.
- [19:56]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yeah, well in, you got two things in the red states and in a lot of rural, semi rural areas, what you've got is a downward drifting economy. Okay? So people are losing wages and they're losing opportunities. You have to go somewhere else for an opportunity. And all that comes with downward mobility, including drug addiction and susceptibility to these diseases of despair, more people living alone, worse health, a lot of measures. So that's happening to you, okay, and economically. But you have also a different culture of pride, a more individual centered culture of pride, according to which if you succeed, do well at work, come home with a good paycheck, you're proud. You say I did that, my pride. But if you get laid off or demoted, have to take another low paid job, they also say that's my shame, I didn't work hard enough. It's on me. Okay? So that's the. It's a double whammy, both that you have bad economic luck and you blame yourself for it. In the blue states, by contrast, there's better economic news and you have a more circumstantial culture of pride. You're less likely to say, gosh, I caused my job to be lost. The sector went down. So it's the people who are in the middle of this pride paradox that are most susceptible to someone who comes along and says that pride's been stolen from you.
- [22:02]
Mike Pesca
Right. But wouldn't this, or what this led me to believe, is that the kind of thinking, the pride paradox, where you tell yourself that you alone are responsible for your loss? The idea, the narrative that we've been told is that what Trump is doing is he's picking scapegoats and he's finding other people to blame for the loss. But you're saying that's not what's going on. You're saying there.
- [22:27]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
No, it is what's going on. Yes, it's, it's. What he's doing with his narrative is shifting shame to blame. That's the relief of it. Oh, someone else did this. I can get mad at that other person. It's not me. Myself. He gets them out of the bench.
- [22:49]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And this isn't a blue state phenomenon. People who lose their jobs, who are more left leaning, don't blame big corporations or greedflation or whatever systemic factors that are that I hear frequently blamed in blue places.
- [23:09]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Not as much. If you're suffering bad economic news in a blue state, more likely to not blame yourself. I mean, you have blame to lay, but it's less likely to be on yourself. Less likely. It's interesting, there are these Pew interviews, surveys that compare Republicans and Democrats. And if you're a Republican, well, if you're not doing well, that's because you didn't work hard enough. More Republicans. Yeah, that's right. You didn't work hard enough, like 2/3. Whereas it was quite the opposite among Democrats. So different culture of pride.
- [24:03]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, it. So is it the case that having this pride culture and believing that your success or failures are on you, it's good for a workforce when there's lots of work and when we're. And when coal is fueling America, but when that all stops, this becomes a specifically vulnerable workforce and population to the kind of messages that Donald Trump is trading in?
- [24:29]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Exactly. Mike and I feel that in this Kentucky 5 congressional district, what we see, what we discover there is an exaggerated version of a red state story. Of the turn from Democratic Party to the Republican Party. And that's what got me into this. Why the shift? If the problems are social class problems and if you have a lot of poor whites, why aren't they turning to the Democratic Party? And the answer I got was in addition to what we talking about, that the Democrats weren't speaking to social class. Neither the Republicans either, but they felt like they didn't. They weren't being heard by the Democrats.
- [25:30]
Mike Pesca
So how does Andy Beshear do well in Kentucky 5? Not as well as he does in other parts of Kentucky. But how is this Democrat elected governor statewide?
- [25:40]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yes, I've kept my eye on him, actually. I think he's terrific. And he first of all has the urban Kentucky vote. His father was very popular and I understand why he's been popular despite being a Democrat. He was very effective both in handling Covid daily 5:00 clock check ins with people. We're up against a new situation. We've never been here before. I'm with you, you know, holding our hands every day. And he's brought a lot of new business in. So he's been the can deliver Democrat.
- [26:28]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Is Mitch McConnell popular in this part of Kentucky for the same reasons that Donald Trump is?
- [26:37]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
No. He's thought of as one man, a car salesman, said, oh, there's populist Republicans and not country club Republicans. And I'm a populist Republicans with Donald Trump. Of course, Donald Trump owns country clubs and stuff. Yeah, he's the one with golf course. But that's not how it's seen. That's not how it's felt. And Mitch McConnell is seen as representing business interests as if Trump did not.
- [27:11]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And we should mention that Beshear did lose the Kentucky 5th congressional district worse than he lost any other congressional district, 42 to 58. But Donald Trump won it by some astounding number. So 80. 80. Yeah. So there, there you go.
- [27:29]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
The last two elections.
- [27:30]
Mike Pesca
80, 84 to 16 or something.
- [27:33]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
So, yeah.
- [27:34]
Mike Pesca
So the fault we hinted at what Democrats can do not to shame a prideful people. Part of it is, I think when MSNBC does a segment, they're not thinking about the viewers, these kind of viewers, and also they're being honest and they do think it's abysmal that Donald Trump would tell five congressional female representatives to go back to the countries from which they came when all but one were from this country. They can't not say it. They have to say it. They say it at the highest of dudgeon and it Leads to, in the manner, however this gets filtered to Kentucky 5th, it leads to the cycle. So I would think that if they cared about and media's job is not to elect politicians, so their job is not to assuage the electorate, just to tell the story and give their opinions when it's an opinion segment. But if they were to do things differently, I think it would have an effect. But what about leaders? What about just average citizens? Things that we could all do a little bit differently so as to not push these prideful people in a corner from which they come out fighting?
- [28:47]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yes. Well, the media, I think we have an opportunity, I think in front of us, a big one. And the media could play it differently and so could we as, as individuals and voters. I mean, I think between now and the election, a lot of us should get to the crossover states and go door to door in getting people to vote. But in the meantime also to just understand that we haven't been tuning in to a sinking large sector of society that's been sinking. We haven't been tuning in for decades now. And there's to our detriment. And it's not too late to start hearing how they're feeling now. And there's a lot of which we're not so good at doing. On the liberal side, we're less open than on the conservative side, believe it or not. Even though we believe in being open.
- [29:54]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Democrats. Studies show Democrats are more likely to cut off contact with someone who disagrees with them politically. Democrats understand the right less than the right understands the left. And there are huge gaps in ignorance or gaps in understanding both ways. But that is just the fact.
- [30:10]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yeah. And you know, it's, it's interesting. There are a lot of crossover issues. I met. One of the most conservative people I met was helping a undocumented worker that happened to be a waiter in a Mexican restaurant. And he loved the food. And turns out he really befriended this guy. He said, oh, he's so hard working. We should work as hard as this guy does. He's mowing his lawn on Sunday, he's living with his brother and life is hard. And then Covid came and the undocumented worker got Covid. And this MAGA guy said, well, I called him up and said, if your temperature gets over 100, you call me, I'll get you help. And he's trying to help the guy get his documents. He's also something of an environmentalist. I'm a coal guy. He advocated for mountaintop removal. Doesn't matter how you get that coal out. But now he's for putting windmills and solar panels on top of these sawed off mountains. He would count in a way as, as someone who could really cash in on Biden's build back better bills and is looking it over. So you could have a conversation on certain issues with this guy.
- [31:51]
Mike Pesca
Right, right. And you don't say that just to redeem him or to establish him as an interesting character. Although you do. The point is that all of these people, so many Americans, no matter how in of one stereotype you think they are, everyone has these cross pressures and cross currents. And there are reachable elements to almost everyone that if a Democrat were just writing off Kentucky's fifth or those like them don't, because there are people who would listen to their, the Democratic agenda if there were people speaking their language. Being bilingual is how you call it now.
- [32:28]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
What about exactly.
- [32:30]
Mike Pesca
Many.
- [32:30]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
You got it.
- [32:31]
Mike Pesca
Many left, Many left leaning people do think about, and maybe they don't think that deeply, but they know many of the white nationalists come from places like this or if they come from anywhere, it's a place like this. What about were someone to say, fine, the people in Kentucky's fifth, they have whatever reasons they have or whatever story they tell themselves, but you know, they are racist. And that is, that is something I don't want to deal with. You did trace white nationalism, some of it back to Kentucky. What did you find? How should we think about that?
- [33:04]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Trace white. You know, it's interesting. I wrote this book at this time. There was a white nationalist march coming to this beleaguered town and county and congressional district. His name was Matthew Heimbach. And he turned out spoilers for the book here to be doing a trial run for the bigger and more deadly march in Charlottesville a few months later. And so he came with a dozen far right groups. The group was armed, all dressed in black, looked fierce, and he was a neo Nazi. And I interviewed him, you know, why are you a neo Nazi? Can we talk about this? Turns out he was on the spectrum. He said, well, I'm high functioning and I, you know, tend to have a riveted kind of worldview. And he, as things came out, you know, I noticed he had a certain relationship to shame. He said, my father is of German heritage. I'm boxing a German name. I will not be shamed, you know, by that. My mother comes from the south, you know, kind of a Confederate heritage, but I will not be shamed. He kind of got stuck on, on that thing and so I've interviewed him a bunch of times and actually he's changed. A lot of people have changed. And one of the paradoxes, the center of this book is that the neo Nazi leader of this white nationalist march that was offering a racist solution to very real economic and cultural problems changed his mind. He was looking now into a job in nursing and he didn't change all the way, but he did change. Meanwhile, Donald Trump through the new period, through the same period of time had started more moderate, was getting more and more extreme, and he's now invited a neo Nazi to Mar a Lago and he's hanging out with proud boys and defending them, wanting if he's elected, to free them from jail. So there was a strange crossing of lines which suggest that these positions are more fluid than we usually think of them as.
- [35:46]
Mike Pesca
And we'll be back with more of Arli Russell Hochschild in a moment. The gist is brought to you by.
- [35:57]
Progressive Insurance, fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [36:20]
We're back with Arlie Hochschild.
- [36:22]
She the author of Stolen Pride, Lost.
- [36:25]
Shame and the Rise of the Right.
- [36:27]
If people were to say Donald Trump tells the proud boys to stand down and stand by and invited or at least hosted Nick Fuentes, who by the way, doesn't endorse Donald Trump anymore. And Trump says he was kind of tricked into it. But Nick Fuentes shows up at Mar a Lago and therefore we should denounce Donald Trump for their association with white nationalists, even the people who aren't white nationalists, even this guy Matthew, who this high spectrum, the high spectrum, functioning former white nationalist, they'll still trigger that pride cycle that you talked about. So you can't just foursquare demand Donald Trump disavow this part of his personality or his agenda without getting into the same problem we're talking about.
- [37:18]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
That's right. And if we're looking at a pragmatic shifts, I think we need to look at the middle part of the political spectrum. We need to look at people who have voted for both Republican Democratic candidates in the last 10 years and people who were independents and undeclared. And if you put all of those categories together, it's about a third of the non voters, that's about a third of Americans. So those are the people to talk to.
- [37:53]
Mike Pesca
I want to ask you just a couple of questions about your techniques. First of all, are you. The corner of the phrase emotional labor, does that come from you?
- [38:01]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yes, it does.
- [38:02]
Mike Pesca
That's pretty good. Now, were you trying to. I know new. I know columnists, and they. They want to sometimes get a phrasing, a coinage in the ether. Were you trying with that one?
- [38:14]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Coinage in the ether? I was just trying to give language. And I, you know, been at this for a while to what. To what I saw that emerged in a totally different context. A book called the Managed Heart, which was about flight attendants and bill collectors and the emotional labor. I think capitalism kind of needs to get its work done.
- [38:38]
Mike Pesca
So when you go in, does the phrase occur to you, or does someone pop to some. Does it pop out of someone's mouth, or do you think about it and work it over and say, what is the pithiest either headline or encapsulation of what I'm trying to capture?
- [38:56]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
I'm a slow worker. I love to hear stories. I love to hear stories of people's experience. I love doing field work. That's why I'm still doing it. And then I think about what people have told me, you know, take it to heart myself to try. And then I'll wake up in the morning, you know, at this end with. With. With the phrase or something, and over breakfast, talking over. With my husband goes like that. But I come in there, you know, not as, you know, the detached scholar. I. I come in there, you know, trying to look for common ground. And during the summers, I, you know, would visit my grandma in Maine on her, you know, this. This small dairy farm. And she put me to work, you know, weeding the broccoli. And she had a regional accent. My name was Ali. Oh, Ali. Could you, you know, look at the weeds in that broccoli? What you think you know, better get at it, you know, teaching the artwork. So I come in with those stories. You know, we're not that far apart somehow.
- [40:17]
Mike Pesca
I was in Maine, and they told me something about the lobsters. I forgot what it was. And they said, well, some on, some on with this book. Did you have pride as an idea going in? Did you say, there's something with pride that I have to get to?
- [40:34]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yeah, I. And that came from kind of the stories I heard in Louisiana. I mean, one of the first things they would say is, well, why are you coming? And I'd say, well, I'm worried about the divide in this country. It's getting worse. And they would immediately say, oh, that's because your people, Democrats, you look down on us, you think we're backward, non educated, prejudice, and you know, we don't like it here and you have a stereotype about us. And then I could say, well, you know, I long taught sociology at Berkeley. There's a stereotype about people like me too. And we would have that stereotype in common. And you kind of start with looking for common grounding. That doesn't mean that you don't disagree and feel strongly about the issues you disagree on. The empathy bridge, as I've come to call it, isn't about agreement. It's about coming to respect each other equally so that you get an avenue through which both people can hear what the other one is saying.
- [41:52]
Mike Pesca
How is sociological fieldwork different from a well resourced reporter?
- [41:58]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Just this way. I think it is crossover. I mean, there's some journalism that I've really put down in the book and thought, awesome, this person is doing just what I do.
- [42:12]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, Catherine. Boo, right?
- [42:14]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yes, yes.
- [42:16]
Home Depot Advertiser
Right.
- [42:17]
Mike Pesca
I read her, I read you.
- [42:18]
I say to myself, how are these two people in different?
- [42:20]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
They aren't. No, no, not at all. And I think it has to do with listening, not being afraid of listening. I guess when I go into field, I think Catherine must do this too. You just take off your alarm system and so that the whole stance of being responsible for your mouth and kind of that you want to announce yourself and defend your status is removed for a period. And with that, that guard down, you know, there's a lot more color and noise in the world.
- [43:08]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Put aside a bit of your hubris, a bit of your ego, a bit of your, dare I say, pride.
- [43:14]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Yes. Bingo. That's wonderful. Yeah, Yeah. I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's exactly right.
- [43:22]
Mike Pesca
Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of Stolen Pride, Lost Shame and the Rise of the Right. Thank you so much.
- [43:29]
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Thank you so much, Mike. Pleasure.
- [43:37]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show.
- [43:39]
Cory Wara produces the Gist.
- [43:40]
Astrid Green does our socials. Kathleen Sykes, she's the editor of the Gist list. Ashley Kahn is the production coordinator for the Gist. Michelle Pesca does all that she sees. She sits over that and calls the shots and moves the chess pieces. Leo Baums, our intern, he's very good with coming up with databases, data's base improve. Thanks for listening.