Liberal - The Deep Story

Liberals – The Deep Story

Arlie Russell Hochschild (2016, Strangers in Their Own Land, The New Press, New York) undertook an extensive sociological study of right-wing supporters in the US, the ordinary people who voted for Trump in 2016. Her analysis threw up what she called the 'deep story' of the right, a narrative that seemed to resonate with those voters, that seemed to express and explain reality as they experienced it. Any 'facts' were filtered through and interpreted within this deep story. Below is a first attempt at a Liberal deep story that counters the deep story of the right.     

I am in a line, a long and narrow line, standing next to a long fence that divides me and everyone else in the line from the economy on the other side of the fence. Those in charge tell us that we can’t go over the fence to look at the economy; that we wouldn’t understand it, only they can understand the economy. Apparently, only they can make the economy work for us so that we can all move along the line towards the riches they promise await our hard work. The economy on the other side of the fence produces opportunities that grow like delicate flowers along the side of the fence I am on. I grasp these opportunities and use them as best I can so that my family can move up the line. There seems to be fewer of these opportunities than there used to be, but at least there are more where I am in the line than there are further back in the line, but those in front of me always seem to have more opportunities. It really isn’t fair.

Looking back I can’t see the back of the line, looking forwards the front of the line snakes out of sight as well. I can’t even see the place we are meant to be heading towards. We seem to spend most of our time complaining about where we are in the line and about how unfair it is that others seem to skip ahead or that others seem to be able to move more quickly up the line than we do.  But the line isn’t moving. Some tell me it is because people are pushing in in front of us, but that isn’t the reason. Some tell me that the line isn’t moving because we aren’t working hard enough, but that isn’t the reason. The line isn’t moving because, despite what those in charge keep telling us, there seems to be no fair rewards for hard work in our society. In truth, the line is going nowhere, we are just arguing about where we stand to whilst we wait around. Our children are in the same predicament and so are our grandchildren. We all seem destined to wait in a line that doesn’t move.

Still I work hard for myself and my family. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to live as they want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. I may be in a line but that doesn’t mean I have to play by the rules of those who try to that keep me in the line. I know that my success is built on by my own capabilities, by taking and making the best of the opportunities I have had, but I am not arrogant or stupid enough to believe I could have achieved this all on my own. Some people, oblivious to their luck of their birth or their profession, brightly wear their success as a badge of purely personal achievement. They think that don’t need to stand in line, they are above that sort of thing. To them others exist only as things to use to further their own interests, keeping us in line ensures they stay out of the line. They believe they are entitled to the inequalities they fight to perpetuate, the inequalities that they maintain to keep the line, and everyone in it, in their proper place.

My success depends on those around me in the line, on my family, on my community, on people like me I suppose. I know that my success depends on the support I have had. The support I can see is easy for me to recognise and value but it is the support I can’t see, the schools, that gave me my education, the infrastructure that mean I live as well as I do, the health service and public services that I know I can rely on; I forget about how important these have been to me sometimes. I have seen others struggle alongside me, then falter and fall as their support withered and their isolation destroyed their hope. Any success I have had is because of my own determination and capabilities and because of the support I have had to develop, to expand and explore my life and to follow my dreams. They are so woven together I honestly couldn’t tell you if I could have achieved anything without both my capabilities and the support of others. 

Oddly, very few of us ask why we are standing in line in the first place? I want a good life for myself and my family, I want to live my life as I choose, but I want the opportunities to expand and explore what life has to offer. Will I get those opportunities standing in line, knowing my place and sticking to it? Sod it, I am going over the fence, I want to look at this economy that seems to dictate how I have to live my life. Despite the protests of my family I manage to climb the fence and tumble over onto the other side. In front of me is a vast field and far, far across the other side I can see a huge mansion with a forest of opportunities growing around it. The mansion isn’t even in the direction the line is heading. There is a huge wave of wealth flowing from the line I was in towards the mansion, the flow is so strong it almost pulls me off my feet as it spills out and fills the economy in the field in front of me. There are some trickles of wealth back towards the line that turn into opportunities and services as they get closer to the line, but the trickles aren’t very big compared to the tidal wave flowing towards the mansion and the trickles don’t seem to flow evenly to all parts of the line, some the trickles are even swept back up by the wave of wealth and redirected back to the mansion.

I walk further out into the wealth flowing to the mansion. I am so far away from the line now that I can’t really make out where my position was. I look around me, there are others who have jumped the fence as well to my left and to my right. They seem to have lost sight of where their place in the line was as well, none of us know where we were. We stand and chat. We are all appalled by the huge wave of wealth leaving the line and the little trickles flowing back. They seem like nice people, they seem to be people just like me. 

We all decide we have to do something about the wave of wealth. We spot a trickle that seems to turn into schools and teacher’s salaries as it approaches the line so we decide to build a dam to divert some of the wealth back down this trickle. None of us could build the dam on our own; we all need to help each other to plan the dam, to shift the stones, to pile the stones up so at least some the wave of wealth is redirected and to dig new ditches to direct the increased flow to the fence. Suddenly the person to my left asks which part of the line do we direct the flow towards once we have diverted the wave of wealth? We all stop. We have no idea where we were in the line and we are too far away from the line to be able to even guess. We discuss it and decide the best thing would be to try to distribute the flow back as fairly as possible although we have a long discussion about is it fairer to divert more towards the back of the line or to divert the same amount along the whole line, but at last we reach an agreement. With the final stone in place, some of the wave of wealth starts to flow along the trickle, enlarging it and, as we can see across the field, new schools pop up all the way along the line as the extra wealth reaches the fence.  

   

‘Oi, you get lot off my field’, shouts a voice from the mansion. Those in charge are not happy. They berate us for not knowing our place and don’t we know how dangerous it is to meddle in the free flow of the economy. We begin the trudge back to the line, but we notice they forget to destroy our dam. We reach the fence and can now clearly see where our places in the line were. We all shake hands and clamber back over the fence. I am a little surprised to see a lot of my new friends scramble over the fence so far towards the back of the line – they are people just like me, I would never have known. My family are relieved to see me, I seem to have been gone a lot longer than I thought I had. There seem to be a lot more opportunities popping up along the fence now, both where I am and all the way back down and up the line. I look back and am surprised that I think I can actually see the back of the line and, when I look forward, I can just about make out the front of the line. We still don’t seem to be heading towards the mansion though. Looking around at my place in the line there seems to be a lot of people in the same spot as me than there were. There seems to be a lot more equality between people in the line.

I climb over the fence again, others follow. Some want to plough up the field and to destroy the mansion. Several of us dissuade them as that would destroy the flow of wealth completely. Instead we all set to work diverting some more of the wave of wealth back into the trickles that snake towards the fence. Some of us even dig new ditches so that the wealth flows back in different ways. We make so many dams and ditches that those in charge can’t destroy them all when they chase us off the field. We all get back to the fence and clamber over. The back and front of the line seem a lot closer now from where I am in the line. There are a lot more opportunities all around for everyone where I am in the line. There are also a lot more people in the same spot as me and the whole line seems to be moving forward, but oddly, still not in the direction of the mansion. People don’t seem to be too concerned about that now as they are beginning to live the lives they have always wanted to. Some people are clustering together to set up new businesses, creating opportunities themselves from the wealth that is now flowing back to the line. People are joining together to form new organisations to help their friends further back in the line. Some people just wander off to live and be alone. But at least people have more choices to make because of the increase in the opportunities available to them.

A whisper goes back though the line - the new opportunities had been noticed and most people think our trips over the fence were the reason why. People huddled together, discussed and then decided that some people should be delegated to go over the fence all together and make sure that the right sort of changes were made to divert the flow of wealth, changes that created more opportunities for everyone waiting in the line.

I climb the fence once more, this time with emboldened by the belief people have shown in me. The fence starts to break apart. I look across the field and see the mansion crumbling and the forest of opportunities around it rotting. People start to wander from the narrow confines of the line and spread out across the field. They join together and begin to divert bits of the wave of wealth themselves. No-one from the mansion bothers to come out and tell us to get off the field anymore. The line is now a crowd, all moving forward together, but not towards the mansion; that goal seems to have disappeared. The economy still works, there is still a wave of wealth from people in the line flowing out into the field, but less, a lot less of it flows across the field to the mansion. I don’t know if I will live long enough to see where the crowd finally reach, if we ever reach anywhere, but I am happy that my family have opportunities I never had and that they are moving forward with everyone else, with the friends I had before I went over the fence and with the friends I made on those trips. They are all people just like me.