Though American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us was written ten years ago, it’s still very topical. Its observations about the secularization and polarization of American society are relevant and insightful. Arguably more so than in 2010, when someone like Barack Obama was still making overtures to religious conservatives in symbolic terms from the secular Left.
I was thinking about this when trying to figure out Josh Hawley, the Senator from Missouri attempting to fashion a more high-toned populism. One of his projects is a defense of Middle America against cosmopolitan elites. Some found this rather strange, as Hawley himself is a graduate of Stanford and Yale. In simple assessments of socioeconomic status, Hawley clearly is an elite. And, he may not identify as cosmopolitan, but before returning to Middle America he received prestigious degrees in California and New England. He is a man of the world, even if he chooses to retire from it.
A simple explanation appealing to rationality is that Hawley is a politician who represents Missouri, so a stance of populism is what is most effective in getting him reelected. In other words, Hawley is fulfilling consumer demand.
But I have a different explanation: despite his education and professional accomplishments, Hawley is an evangelical Protestant. Raised Methodist, he now attends a Presbyterian church. His church is a member of the small Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which seems to be moderately conservative. Senator Hawley clearly has many passions, from his profession to physical fitness, but everything I’ve read indicates he has a deep and sincere commitment to his religious identity. He’s not pandering. He is one of the people whom he thinks secular elite America looks down upon.
Now consider an alternative universe where Hawley loses his faith in religion or becomes a nominal liberal Christian of some sort during his schooling. I strongly suspect that in his social and cultural values Hawley would be no different than most graduates of Yale Law School at this point. Not only that, but I also believe Hawley would interact far less with people who did not have a similar elite background than he does today. My point is that those people who are criticizing Hawley for being a hypocrite are projecting their plausible life choices and path if they had gone to Yale Law School. As it is, Hawley is part of a religious community where there are likely many members who are much more humble in background and station in life.
Hawley’s evangelical Protestantism binds him to Middle America in a visceral and palpable manner that is hard for secular people to grasp. Though I am irreligious, I do have friends who are religious, but they are invariably well educated and well off. My connection with them is around various affinities common to college-educated middle-class people. I don’t have a connection to religious working-class people. In contrast, professionals who go to churches with a demographic profile that is more downscale will always have some concrete social interactions with people across the class divide. And that, to me, explains why they can play the Tribune of the Plebs, even if they retire to their country villas in the evening…
I was a little shocked to see the name of my tiny church denomination mentioned. What I know about Josh Hawley comes from Wikipedia but, I know a great deal more about the EPC. The denomination was formed as essentially a rejection of the cosmopolitan elite in the PCUSA. Therefore, it makes sense to me that it would fit nicely into the worldview of a middle class conservative ersatz populist.
I had a theory for a while that the draft had the same effect on American society. Reading war memoirs, I was struck by the affection, by no means universal, which many of the educated class felt for their less educated fellow soldiers.
That had pretty much disappeared by 1900 or so, and so did any sense of noblesse oblige in the managerial class from what I observed.
Razib,
I’ve been reading you off and on for probably ten years now (I’m a big fan of Sailer.) Every time I drop in on you, even for a quick blog post like this, you manage to write something interesting and insightful. I don’t have anything special to say about this post except keep up the great work. I love what you do!
I wonder if all this talk of “secular elite” is not much a distraction, being the relevant point the “secular”, not the “elite” – not only in the sense of the “religious elite” being more in touch with the “religious masses” than with the “secular elite”, but also in the sense of exisiting “secular masses” more in touch with the “secular elite” than with the “religious masses”.
Perhaps with the GSS can be made a study comparing a) people from small towns with college degrees; b) people from big cities with college degrees; c) people from small towns without college degrees; and d) people from big cities without college degrees, and see if in many social issues the alignment is more (a + b) versus (c + d) or it is (a + c) versus (b + d)?
I think I read somewhere that, electorally, the big division in the USA is in the middle classes – the poor vote almost all Democratic, the rich almost all Republican, and the middle class is divided between a social conservative, red-state wing who votes Republican and a social liberal, blue-state wing who votes Democrat (perhaps this means that the supposed cultural war between the “elite” and the “Middle America” is really a war between the “elite of the Middle America” and the “middle class of the elite cities”?).
[Note that I am a Portuguese without direct experience of the life in the USA; I am talking only about some things tat I have read]
Another thing, about the “professionals who go to churches with a demographic profile that is more downscale will always have some concrete social interactions with people across the class divide. And that, to me, explains why they can play the Tribune of the Plebs, even if they retire to their country villas in the evening”.
I wonder if, in the secular side, going to the meetings of the British Labour Party or the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (or, in the days, of the Parti Communiste Français or the Partito Comunista Italiano) is/was as a similar mechanism of integration between middle class intellectuals and blue-collar workers; afaik, the main US political parties don’t have almost any real organization between elections (I have read somewhere that they are more lines in the voting paper than real parties), and perhaps because that the Democratic Party don’t work as a similar way, joining professionals and blue-collar people at common events?