The ‘Slave Morality’ of the Working Class Promise and the ‘Domination’ of the American Dream

1. The ‘Slave Morality’ of the Working Class Promise and the ‘Domination’ of the American Dream Betty Stoneman, Utah Valley University Instruct. Shannon Atkinson, SLCC/UVU Prof. David R. Keller, Ph.D., UVU Prof. Alexander Izrailevsky, Ph.D., SLCC

2. STEREOTYPING – process of assigning values and/or distinctions to a group. PHILOSOPHER ANDREW ALTMAN – • DISCRIMINATION – assigning values and/or distinctions to one group which places the group members at a disadvantage through exclusions. POLITICAL THEORIST IRIS MARION YOUNG – • IDEOLOGY – a set of overarching, unified assertions about the way something is or ought to be which serves to reproduce or justify social relations. • DOMINATION – treating people as if they are inferior to others and in such a way that serves to manipulate or influence their actions. Key Terms

3. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN JAMES T. ADAMS – • “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man [sic], with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” • It is “a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstance of birth or position.” • COMMUNICATION PROFESSOR KRISTEN LUCAS – • “four core values: (a) work ethic, (b) provider orientation, (c) the dignity of all work and workers, and (d) humility.” • “[t]he social construction of [the] working class is accomplished through communicating” these values, and these values give the working class “much pride and [are] around which they rally their identities.” American Ideologies

4. THE AMERICAN DREAM ‘WORKING CLASS PROMISE’ Lucas’ Four Core Values: Work Ethic Provider Orientation Dignity of All Work and Workers Humility Adams’ Definition: • Equality of Opportunity • Ability to Achieve Potential • No Class Discrimination • No Class Domination American Ideologies

5. ‘HERD MAN’- “gives himself the appearance of being the only permissible kind of man, and glorifies his attributes, which makes him tame, easy to get along with, and useful to the herd, as if [his attributes] were the truly human virtues.” • A MORALITY OF UTILITY - “qualities […] which serve to ease existence for those who suffer” and “pity, the complaisant and obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, humility, and friendliness are honored-for here these are the most useful qualities and almost the only means for enduring the pressures of existence.” • CONTRARY TO ‘MASTER MORALITY’ - “feels contempt for […] those intent on narrow utility” “those who humble themselves, the doglike people who allow themselves to be maltreated.” Nietzsche’s ‘Slave Morality’

6. SELF-STEREOTYPING • Rating self higher in factors such as “warmth,” lower in factors such as “competence” • SELF DISCRIMINATION • “more likely to justify women’s disadvantage by minimizing sexism, by endorsing stereotypes that justify women’s subordinate status relative to men and by self-stereotyping” • POSITIVE STEREOTYPING • “allows low status group members to feel good about their group identity while simultaneously keeping them from attempting to advance in the status hierarchy” McCoy and Major’s Study

7. A STRUCTURED AND STRUCTURING FORCE • “The habitus is not only a structuring structure, which organizes practices and the perception of practices, but also a structured structure, the principle of division into logical classes which organizes the perception of the social world is itself the product of internalization of the division into social classes” • “This means that inevitably inscribed within the dispositions of the habitus is the whole structure of the system of conditions, as it presents itself in the experience of a life-condition occupying a particular position within that structure.” Bourdieu’s ‘Habitus’

8. SOCIAL DIVISIONS ACTING AS ‘OBJECTIVE’ LIMITS • “through the differentiated and differentiating conditionings associated with the different conditions of existence, through the exclusions and inclusions […] which govern the social structure and the structuring force” of society, “Social divisions become principles of division, organizing the image of the social world.” These social divisions act as “objective limits” on individuals and give individuals a “‘sense of one’s place’ which leads one to exclude oneself from the goods, persons, places and so forth from which one is excluded.” • The dominated “tend to attribute to themselves what the distribution attributes to them, refusing what they are refused […], adjusting their expectations to their chances, defining themselves as the established order defines them, reproducing in their verdict on themselves the verdict the economy pronounces on them, in a word, condemning themselves to what is in any case their lot.” Bourdieu’s ‘Habitus’

9. A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT • AN IMAGINARY DISTORTION OF REALITY • “What is represented in ideology is […] not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live.” • BELIEF IN IDEOLOGY WILL REPRODUCE ACTIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE IDEOLOGY Althusser’s Work on Ideology

10. IDEOLOGIES AS SUBTLE CUES: • Reinforce Belief in Ideologies • Justify Social Positions Based on Ideology • Promote Actions In Accordance with Ideology • Promote Acting in System Justifying Ways • Promotes Complacently Accepting Social Position Putting These Scholars’ Insights Together

11. ‘WORKING CLASS PROMISE’ THE AMERICAN DREAM Implies Society Has Given Opportunities, but Failed to Work Hard Enough Implies Success Based Solely on Hard Work Promotes Complacently Accepting Failings or Successes Transforms Inequalities Into Natural Consequences • Positively Justifies Subordinate Place in Society • Values Act as a Filter Causing Self-Exclusion or Exclusion • Reproduces Working Class Roles Putting These Scholars’ Insights Together

12. ECONOMIST JOSEPH STIGLITZ – Social immobility and income inequality are facts of American life. Most accurate predictor for a child’s future socio-economic status is the class the child is born into. • Social institutions flooding society with the American Dream ideology as how America is when income inequality and social immobility are facts of American life. • Social constructs emphasizing the ‘Working Class Promise’ ideology as how the working class ought to be when such values keep the working class from advancing in society. • Together, all these previous scholars show how social inequality is legitimized via ideology. The Problem

13. “From this idea of the equality of men as subjects in a commonwealth, there emerges this further formula: every member of the commonwealth must be entitled to reach any degree of rank which a subject can earn through his talent, his industry and his good fortune. And his fellow-subjects may not stand in his way by hereditary prerogatives or privileges of rank and thereby hold him and his descendants back indefinitely” • Kant is speaking of titles of nobility, however, if the previous scholars are correct, ideology essentially functions the same way as titles of nobility. Kant’s Solution

14. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE - “Act so that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as [an] end and never merely as [a] means.” • “every rational being, exists as [an] end in itself, not merely as means to the discretionary use of this or that will, but in all its actions, those directed toward itself as well as those directed toward other rational beings, it must always at the same time be considered an end.” • Recognizes individual autonomy and how each individual autonomy exists in relation to others that have the ability to strip away that autonomy. Kant’s Solution

15. Inequality is a fact of American life and leads to social distinctions. • The American Dream and the ‘Working Class Promise’ are socially constructed ideologies based on distinctions. • Discrimination arises when distinctions lead to exclusions and treats people as inferior. • Social constructs are dominating when they treat people as inferior, and in such a way that serves to manipulate or influence their actions. Summary and Conclusion

16. The American Dream and the ‘Working Class Promise’ are social constructs that create exclusions and treat people as inferior in such a way that serves to manipulate and influence their actions – they are discriminatory and dominating. • Discrimination and domination is not respecting autonomous, rational beings. • Therefore, Americans should reject the American Dream and the ‘Working Class Promise’ ideologies. Summary and Conclusion

17. Americans should reject the AD as being representative of how America is and reject the WCP as being representative of how the working class ought to be as a way to actualize the intrinsic value of individuals. • By delegitimizing social inequality, society can move toward creating an America closer to what America ought to be. Summary and Conclusion

18. WORKS CITED Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an Investigation.“ Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays Translated by Ben Brewster. (1971): n.pag. Marxists Internet Archive. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/ archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm>. Altman, Andrew. "Discrimination." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta: Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/cgibin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry= discrimination>. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. 9th Ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. 41-56; 170-72; 471. Kant, Immanuel. “Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals.” In Rethinking the Western Tradition. Edited and Translated by Allen W. Wood. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2002. 45; 47.

19. WORKS CITED, CONT. Kant, Immanuel. “On the Common Saying: ‘This May Be True in Theory but it Does Not Apply in Practice.’” In Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts. Edited and Translated by Steven M. Cahn. 2nd Ed. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 515-516.   Lucas, Kristen. "The Working Class Promise: A Communicative Account of Mobility-Based Ambivalences." Communication Monographs 78.3 (2011): 347-369. Digital Commons @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=commstudiespapers>. McCoy, Shannon K., and Brenda Major. "Priming Meritocracy and the Psychological Justification of Inequality." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43. (2007): 341-351. Science Direct. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article /pii/S0022103106000904>. Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Beyond Good and Evil.” In Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Edited and Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. 300-01; 395; 397.

20. WORKS CITED, CONT. Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Genealogy of Morals.” In Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Edited and Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. 472-73. Stiglitz, Joseph. Interview by Aaron Task. The "American Dream" is Now a Myth.10 June 2012. Business Insider, New York. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.businessinsider.com/the-american-dream-is-now-a-myth-2012-6>. Young, Iris Marion. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1990. 31; 112. I would like to thank also Prof. Jane Drexler at SLCC for introducing me in her class to the work of John Rawls and Iris Marion Young. Cf. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Rawls combines liberalism and socialism under Kantian deontology to preserve both liberty and equality. However, as far as I understand, Rawls does not approach the issue of ideology, which is the focus of this paper. Cf. also Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference. Young discusses ideology, discrimination and domination at a much more in depth level than is the scope of this paper, but as far as I know, does not discuss the specifics of the particular ideologies of the “American Dream” nor the “Working Class Promise.”