Liberals are a lot more likely than conservatives to feel sympathy towards the people who are thrown off by economic fluidity. Conservatives are a lot more likely than liberals to feel sympathy towards the people who are thrown off by ideological fluidity.
As if these phenomena bore no relationship to each other and fluid genders, sexualities and family structures were not linked to capital’s need for a liquid workforce that is not kept in place by family ties or a stable vision of self.
Conservatives seem not to care at all if someone is thrown off by ideological fluidity and they happen not to agree with this person’s ideology. I have never heard a conservative defend freedom of religion except for Christians, for example.
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Interesting observation.
Who exactly is sympathetic to people thrown by both economic and ideological fluidity?
It’s a standard liberal trope that people stay in ideological rigidity precisely because economic fluidity bothers them. I’m not so sure that conservatives are so understanding that ideological fluidity is a reaction to economic fluidity. Do conservatives have an idea that if there was more economic rigidity, people wouldn’t care so much about being ideologically fluid? I don’t know. I know a lot of liberals think that if people weren’t thrown by economic fluidity people wouldn’t care so much about economic rigidity.
“I may not be able to hold down a job with good benefits, but I know men wear pants and women wear skirts. This comforts me.”
“I may not be able to hold down a job with good benefits, but I know men can wear skirts and women wear pants. This comforts me.”
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Zygmunt Bauman is sympathetic to both. 🙂 Because he was the first to figure out that the two are connected. And yes, you are absolutely right, people who are traumatized by one form of fluidity will grasp for a semblance of stability in another part of their lives.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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