The Ethics of Neighborliness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
New South ◽  
Culture Of Poverty ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Downward Spiral ◽  
Ethical Vision ◽  
Crucial Part

Beginning with a close analysis of the life and musical oeuvre of “Blind” Willie Johnson, this chapter explores the ethical vision of folk Christianity. It argues that folk Christians confronted the potential downward spiral they faced (a “culture of poverty”) with an ethic of non-retaliatory, self-giving “neighborliness.” This ethic was expressed in indirect ways, in song and proverb, and a crucial part of the ethic was to name tangible destructive forces as personified evil. Middle-class observers either did not see this ethic, or looked with condescension at what they regarded as primitive superstition. Regardless, the folk ethic not only transformed the lives of the poor, but also articulated its own critique of the dominant Mammonism of the New South.

The Making of the Poor South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
New South ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
The World

This chapter establishes the economic and cultural context in which folk Christianity was forged. Despite the optimism of its proponents, the New South emerged as a society with severe and widespread poverty, and the dominant religious culture fortified an emergent middle class but gave little consolation to those trapped beneath it. In this circumscribed world, in spaces of their own that often did not look like churches, with impoverished preachers who had no formal training, through oral and imitative networks of wide scope, the poor crafted a distinct Christianity of their own. In this “hard, hard religion” they developed an alternative vision of the world that infused their everyday lives with transcendent meaning—vital cultural space in which they became more than mere victims of their socioeconomic circumstances.

scholarly journals Just Mothering: Amy Coney Barrett and the Racial Politics of American Motherhood

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
H. Howell Williams
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
White Family ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republican Motherhood ◽  
A Site ◽  
Confirmation Hearings

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation featured frequent references to her role as a mother. This article situates these references within the trajectory of American political development to demonstrate how motherhood operates as a mechanism for enforcing a white-centered racial order. Through a close analysis of both the history of politicized motherhood as well as Barrett’s nomination and confirmation hearings, I make a series of claims about motherhood and contemporary conservatism. First, conservatives stress the virtuousness of motherhood through a division between public and private spheres that valorizes the middle-class white mother. Second, conservatives emphasize certain mothering practices associated with the middle-class white family. Third, conservatives leverage an epistemological claim about the universality of mothering experiences to universalize white motherhood. Finally, this universalism obscures how motherhood operates as a site in which power distinguishes between good and bad mothers and allocates resources accordingly. By attending to what I call the “republican motherhood script” operating in contemporary conservatism, I argue that motherhood is an ideological apparatus for enforcing a racial order premised on white protectionism.

The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Understanding the Culture of Poverty

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fauzia Erfan Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Bottom Of The Pyramid ◽  
Grameen Bank ◽  
Culture Of Poverty ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Segmentation Approach

Abstract As never before, the private sector can make a difference at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). But little is known about who the poor really are, the environment in which they live, and how to create value for them. This also means that little is known about how to establish a business at the BOP that meets both development and profit goals. This article presents a segmentation approach embedded in a larger theory of the culture of poverty to help businesses focus on serving the BOP. I focus on examples from my research on the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Patrimonio Hoy in Mexico to show examples of applications of segmentation theory to businesses at the BOP.

scholarly journals PERTUMBUHAN INKLUSIF : FENOMENA PERTUMBUHAN INKLUSIF DI KAWASAN INDONESIA BAGIAN BARAT DAN INDONESIA BAGIAN TIMUR

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-112
Author(s):  
Sholihah Amalina Dyah Hapsari ◽  
Manuntun Parulian Hutagaol ◽  
Alla Asmara
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Growth Rate ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Eastern Indonesia ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Spss Software

The growth of the middle class in Indonesia that occurred during the last ten years allegedly raised by the economic growth that is likely to increase in the same period. An economic theory which states that inclusive growth is growth that is able to bring the middle class makes economists focus on inclusive growth and the middle class itself. But in fact, the middle class in Indonesia is dominated by the lower middle class whose features are similar to the poor. These issues indicate a gap in the economy. In addition, to talk about the gap, there is no doubt that this issue has long been a discussion in Indonesia, especially the gap between western Indonesia and eastern Indonesia. Therefore this study was conducted to analyze whether it is true that inclusive growth has occurred in Indonesia and how the phenomena that occur in the western part of Indonesia and eastern Indonesia. Based on the data from 33 provinces in Indonesia over a period of 5 years, ie from 2008 to 2012, this study of the Measured inclusive growth by adopting the concept formulated by Klasen (2010) on-Poverty Equivalent Growth Rate (PEGR). This study of the processing of data performed using Excel and SPSS software. The results found that economic growth in Indonesia in 20082012 has not been inclusive in reducing poverty, lowering inequality and increase employment. The results also show that inclusive growth is not a consistent phenomenon in Indonesia. The phenomenon of inclusive growth in reducing poverty, lowering inequality, and increasing employment are more prevalent in Western Indonesia (IBB).  Key words : inclusive, growth, middle class, panel data, excel   

Class, Crime, and Cannibalism in The String of Pearls; or, The Demon Barber as Bourgeois Bogeyman

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-131
Author(s):  
Leah Richards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Cultural Resonance ◽  
String Of Pearls

Although the tale of Sweeney Todd is one with significant cultural resonance, little has been written about the text itself, The String of Pearls. This article argues that the text engages with anxieties about class conflict through a narrative that enacts exaggerated versions of various interactions. In the nineteenth century, critics objected to the cheap fiction pejoratively known as penny dreadfuls, asserting that the genre’s exciting tales of bloodshed, villainy, and mayhem would seduce readers to lives of debauchery and crime, but I argue that this concern about cheap fiction was not for the preservation of the souls of the poor and working classes but rather for the preservation of the middle classes' own corporeal bodies and the system that privileged and protected them. While there is no question that the narrative enacts extreme manifestations of problems facing the urban poor—among them, contaminated or even poisonous foodstuffs and the perils of urban anonymity—it also features an intractable and rapacious lower class and a subversion of the master-servant dynamic on which the comforts of the middle class were constructed, and so, in addition to adventure, detection, and young love, The String of Pearls offers a dark revenge fantasy of class-based violence that the middle-class critics of the penny dreadful were perhaps justified in fearing. tl;dr: Eat the Rich!

The Tax Revolt

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-101
Author(s):  
Samuel Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Fortune 500 ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Short Answer ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Benefits

This chapter looks at state shrinking and tax cutting, describing how political change in capitalism would come to be dominated by a conservative middle class rather than a leftist working class. Why was there going to be a middle-class tax rebellion? The short answer is that most of the taxes under capitalism are paid by two groups: small businesses and rich individuals. Fortune 500 corporations and large banks pay very few taxes; this group can be called monopoly capital because they are entitled, fully legally, to a wide variety of exemptions that they make full use of. Meanwhile, the poor pay very few taxes because they simply do not have the money. Ultimately, small businesses, wealthy individuals, and the middle class are paying a disproportionately large amount of the expenses of the government while receiving a disproportionately small amount of government benefits. This makes those taxpayers resentful of government bureaucrats, welfare programs, and government waste.

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