Reply #75: Paul Fussell

[Lexingtonian]

says in "Class" that American blue collar workers are on the whole at heart communists in Marx's sense of the word, but as a group they refuse to accept such labels or consider them.

One or another theorist I have looked at doesn't believe that American politics has one Left-Right axis. It has two axes, according to this scholar whose name eludes me at the moment, one Right-Left and the other Liberal-Intolerant, which are best mapped as orthogonals. I recall very clearly- because it seemed like a very logical and yet revealing observation- that he said the bulk of Americans cluster at Right and Liberal, and few at Intolerant or Left, when asked to selfidentify. It seemed to make more sense of the otherwise messy alliances and messy trends in the body politic than any other scheme I had seen until then.

No, I don't care all that much about the slavery-corporation comparison per se. I'm not sure there is real news there to be discovered. What got me and arendt started is what prognostication is possible from analogy.

As for throwing the label 'center right' at my stance, I admit I don't pass the tests of ideological correctness almost anywhere. I argue for pragmatic steps and acuity and expending effort where success is greatest. On the other hand, I do see an America forming in my lifetime that will have almost nothing left of the ethnic Anglo-Irish society I was raised in as a child, that will feel closer to Brazil than Britain culturally. I will consider it a desirable improvement in the long run and one that I helped bring about. As for its economic arrangements, the present system of pensions and health care is not sustainable and was never really designed to be sustained. But at present there are still too many people invested in the system's inefficiency and privileges.