Charles Simic: "The South: Down There on a Visit" (nyrb)

Dead on. If people cast their votes based on economic self interest, it
would go something like 10% bush, 15% kerry, 75% nader. A related aspect
of American culture is that we are even reluctant even to discuss our
wages with neighbors or colleagues - at least, it is frowned upon as an
'impolite' topic of conversation in the USA.

When I was 16, washing dishes, I had a manager take me into to her
office for a discussion about how I was "violating a state law" by
telling my co-workers what my hourly wage was. My 30 cents "greater
than" per hour was creating waves of discontent among the dish washing
staff - some of whom had been there longer. (The dividing factor was
gender, btw.) I knew better regarding the state law lie, and called her
on it. Eventually I moved on to another dish washing job for 30 cents
more, (I thought it was quite a coup at the time - this makes me laugh
now), along with a few of my disgruntled colleagues. I think that for
most of the people involved, the politics of the entire episode was
absorbed and experienced as a web of personal relations (and related
class identity constructions), and not in any way as political relations.

Amerricans are generally quick to accept their percieved station in
life. I think this article I ran across today is somehow related:
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2400126

Thanks Jim.

Jim Andrews wrote:

> Don't know if anybody read the piece by poet Charles Simic called "The
> South: Down There on a Visit" in the Aug 12/2004 issue of The New York
> Review of Books. I would be interested to hear what people thought of it. An
> excerpt:
>
> "The lack of compassion for the less fortunate is also to be found in New
> Hampshire, where I live. Our politicians are as heartless as the ones in
> Mississippi and see themselves, despite their assurances otherwise, as being
> elected primarily to serve the well-to-do. Let the fittest survive is their
> attitude. However, they don't invoke God as they go about ensuring that the
> poor stay poor. As for the losers, both in the South and in the North, their
> outrage is not directed against the politicians. This is one of the great
> puzzles of recent American politics: voters who enthusuastically cast their
> vote against their self-interests, who care more about "family values,"
> school prayer, guns, abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution
> than about having decent health care insurance and being paid a living wage.
> They squabble, as they did in Alabama recently, over whether the Ten
> Commandments ought to be posted in a courthouse while the education of their
> children continues to be underfunded and their overcrowded public schools
> are violent and dangerous places."
>
> ja
>
>
>
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–
Brett Stalbaum
Lecturer, psoe
Coordinator, ICAM
Department of Visual Arts, mail code 0084
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gillman
La Jolla CA 92093

An interesting point about what would happen if people were to vote in their
economic self-interest. As I understand it, the problems people have with
voting for Nader are mainly two, aren't they: they would rather get rid of
Bush and this seems best accomplished by voting for Kerry; and although
people know Nader has a good record and is conscientious, they wonder if his
organization is large and capable enough to assume the responsibilities of
federal government. Is this right?

However, even when it wasn't so clear that Bush was such an appallingly bad
leader, Nader got relatively few votes. Is it the latter reason, above, that
made it so? A complex question, I realize.

By the way, concerning health care, I live in Canada where there is
'universal' health care. I have a cold in my chest and have a history of it
developing into pneumonia, so i went to the doctor today. i am dissatisfied
with my current doctor, so looked into getting another one. but in the area
where i live, there are no doctors taking new patients. i asked the doctor
at the walk-in-clinic why this is so. "Too many people out here," he said.
"Isn't it better said that there are too few doctors?" I think he may have
been seeking to avoid the adjective 'poor'; there are too many poor people
out here. He went on to say that the universities cut the enrollment some
years ago into medical training. That has changed since, but it takes ten
years to grow a doctor. Coupled with government cutbacks in health care, we
have a medical system that is creaking and groaning. But, even still, people
do have access to health care, although the standard is growing worse and
worse. When I lived in the USA for a few years, my employer covered it, and
dental too. I have never had such good medical care available to me. But I
was working and was making a good living. Many of my friends in the USA
weren't so lucky and I heard more than a few absolute horror stories that
resulted out of their lack of medical coverage. The horror stories you hear
in Canada tend to centre around waiting time for some important types of
procedures.

Concerning education, although it is 'expensive', states need to commit to
high public education standards. In the absence of high public education
standards, the population is prey to lying politicians like Bush and
cronies. We end up with "voters who enthusuastically cast their vote against
their self-interests, who care more about "family values," school prayer,
guns, abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution than about having
decent health care insurance and being paid a living wage," as Simic says.
They vote to support what they *have* been taught is important. We end up
with that very odd thing called 'totalitarian democracy'.

A friend from Beijing and I used to have arguments about China. He
maintained that the standard of education in China was so poor that people
understood nothing but the logic of harshly punitive justice, maintained
that in the absence of higher education standards, it was necessary to reign
in the population under the threat of brutality.

It isn't so much that education teaches people the difference between right
and wrong that they did not know before; though there are sociopaths, most
people know what justice is, know the difference between right and wrong;
instead, education provides more opportunity to make a better living; high
standards of education make for a populace that is better able to function
within society without recourse to thieving etc, though of course there are
also educated thieves. Also, higher standards of education imply wide
general awareness of standards of justice, wealth distribution,
cross-cultural moral and spiritual practices. The more we know about how
people around the world live and have lived, the less likely we are to
adhere to moral absolutes and think that we are the sole keepers of the true
and right way to live; also, the more we know about how other people around
the world live and have lived, the less likely we are to settle for
situations where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

So good education is something of a threat to bad governments. An educated
populace is not so easily fooled by propaganda.

ja

> i'd also challenge the originally quoted article's
> reference to religion and the US South… while there are certainly
> fundamentalist protestant ideologies there, religion is merely a
> superstructure for more complex practices - religion is just too easy a
> scapegoat to me. from living in the south most of my life, and having
> lived many other places in the US (including the west coast and mid
> west), i feel i can say that the South is no more "religious" than any
> other part of the country (many would say metropolitan/rural
> distinctions are more telling indicators). i would doubt that there are
> more church goers, or people who can quote from the bible. Southern
> California is extremely conservative, and highly conservative Christian
> (you should see the Trinity Broadcasting HQ!). i know, it is called
> "the Southland"… There are differences from the conservative
> catholicism more prevalent in the NE and the informal dogma of southern
> protestantism, but i'm not sure that they represent any kind of
> geographic dominance.

hi ryan,

your response is very different from the defensiveness of
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opinions/concerning_my_neighbors_the_
hicks.php , which is a response to simic's piece.

yours is more balanced, actually. the defensive reaction of the above url
leads him into untruths, such as saying that simic "gives short shrift to
mississippi's long and continuing literary tradition."

i am interested to read you say that "the South is no more "religious" than
any other part of the country." I heard on pbs a while ago that 2/5 of the
adults in the USA consider themselves "evangelicals" and that, of those, 2/3
are Bush/Republican supporters. that's 2/5*2/3=4/15 > 25% of the voting
population.

i myself remain rather curious about how bush and cronies might get enough
votes to even be in the race. tis a puzzlement to me. where are all these
people? as you say, southern california is extremely conservative. they may
well be highly conservative christian, as you say; i gather the area is also
deeply involved in military industry (which is another strong republican
area, is it not?).

> the historical opposition to union organizing is
> a more important/oppressive distinction for me in the South - just find
> a strong union in North Carolina - and one i don't think is based on
> religious foundations.

What is the basis of that opposition to union organizing?

> anyway, just some not very thought out comments on an important topic :)
> best,
> ryan
>

thanks, Ryan. it's great to hear from someone from the South on this.

ja

Hi Jim, et al,
>
> i am interested to read you say that "the South is no more "religious"
> than
> any other part of the country." I heard on pbs a while ago that 2/5 of
> the
> adults in the USA consider themselves "evangelicals" and that, of
> those, 2/3
> are Bush/Republican supporters. that's 2/5*2/3=4/15 > 25% of the voting
> population.

evangelicals… republican supporters… that may explain some things.
faith-based politics - don't believe your eyes and ears, follow your
heart!
that couldn't do anything but help Bush.
>
> i myself remain rather curious about how bush and cronies might get
> enough
> votes to even be in the race. tis a puzzlement to me. where are all
> these
> people? as you say, southern california is extremely conservative.
> they may
> well be highly conservative christian, as you say; i gather the area
> is also
> deeply involved in military industry (which is another strong
> republican
> area, is it not?).

yeah, the military is a big influence in both So Cal and the South East
US.
>
>> the historical opposition to union organizing is
>> a more important/oppressive distinction for me in the South - just
>> find
>> a strong union in North Carolina - and one i don't think is based on
>> religious foundations.
>
> What is the basis of that opposition to union organizing?

i have never really looked into it… i'm sure there are some good
writings on this somewhere. Missouri actually has a long history with
union activity with mining and manufacturing. maybe that has something
to do with it - the SE lacked real industrial centers that were
conducive to organizing. But why it's continued…
ryan