Gotham Diary:
Breadwinner Conservatism
16 October 2012
Michelle Goldberg, writing in The Nation, does not think very highly of Robert O Self’s All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s, but she gives him credit for coming up with a very handy label, “breadwinner conservatism,” that explains the alignment of patriarchal family values with starve-the-beast fiscal views. The term explains it so well, in fact, that I’m encouraged to hope that Democrats and progressive people generally will finally understand their opponents and the depth of that opposition. Goldberg wraps up,
The contemporary conservative movement has succeeded in part by painting the government as the ultimate cause of emasculation. As Ryan said in his speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, “None of us — none of us should have to settle for the best this administration offers — a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.” Seen in this light, any man who longs for a life with more authority, vitality and dignity, who wants to control his own destiny and that of his family, must battle against the suffocating power of the state. Further, in this view, the more privileges government accords to women or minorities or the poor, the more its supremacy grows. Self understands this. As he writes in the epilogue, “breadwinner conservatism legitimated the transition to a neoliberal ethos in American life; heterosexual male breadwinners, as conservatives saw them, were not dependent on the state for either welfare or rights.*
This is nothing new to me, but I don’t think that I’ve ever put it more succinctly. Here we have the issue that divides the country. It has wrinkles — the role of the black heterosexual breadwinner, for example, rests on an ambiguous revival of the “separate but equal” thinking that manifests itself in gated community and Christian academies throughout the South — but it remains the issue. There are no other issues, because no other issue can be debated and decided until this one is settled. I myself don’t see how it can be settled within the framework of one sovereignty. Patriarchy is as repugnant to me as slavery would have been two hundred years ago. I would not go to war over it, not because I lack courage but because I have no faith in the ability of war to settle cultural issues. Rather I would argue for a partition of the nation, at least into two autonomous provinces. I have no time for men who want “more authority, vitality and dignity” in their lives — I know that that’s code for — and I don’t want them setting bad examples for boys in my community. I believe that they are wrong precisely to the extent that they believe in their righteousness — their righteousness is the very seal of their error. They fail to acknowledge that their preferred way of life diminishes the lives of others. They entertain a perfectly adolescent idea of their inherent superiority as human beings: the formula “all men are equal” bears an occult limitation to “normal” or heterosexual men, but otherwise it means only what it says. The corollary is clear: Men and women are not equal. This is as reactionary as the medieval thugocracy’s belief in its inherent superiority — and just as doomed. Eventually, we shall leave such thinking behind. But I often fear that Americans will be among the last to do so.
*Goldberg finishes with a sour sentence (“While All in the Family names and defines this way of thinking, it ultimately doesn’t do much to illuminate it.”) that dampens the thrust of these powerfully-phrased observations.
***
Kathleen took forever to get home from North Carolina last night, thanks to spotty weather over LaGuardia; I passed the time reading Adam Zamoyski’s Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, under the mistaken impression that I hadn’t read it already. I thought that I’d read the other fat book on the same subject that stood next to it on the shelf: David King’s Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna. But, no. Zamoyski’s book came out in 2007, and King’s in 2008, which is why I didn’t read it; I’d just read Zamoyski. Not surprisingly, Zamoyski’s account was familiar, but it never occurred to me that it ought to be. Now I shall set it aside and read King, which promises to be a somewhat frothier tome.
I have long nursed the notion, which I haven’t mentioned recently, that modern manners were set at Vienna. I’m thinking of table manners in particular, but also, more generally, of the way to behave at receptions. Mind, I don’t claim that they were invented in 1814. But at this gathering of the great and good, representing almost every corner of Europe, the endless round of dinners and balls encouraged the evolution of a standard way of doing things. What also encouraged consensus was the severely diminished role of the French. French was very much the language of diplomacy and well-bred courtliness, and stylish Parisians were the arbiters of elegance. But the restored kingdom of France did not have its customary place at the head of the table. It had only just ceased to be a defeated empire. This took some of the sting (I surmise) out of adopting and adapting French manners. France would grapple and grope for greatness after 1815, but it was to remain what it is today, a nation of Candides, cultivating their gardens in smart turn-outs. All the more estimable!
In any case, I am always on the lookout for glints of supporting evidence. Even in books that I’ve already read.