Grab The Left Behind Generated By Robert Wuthnow Viewable As Hardcover

sociologist Robert Wuthnow is an expert on the sociology of religion the study of communities and rural sociology In The Left Behind he is trying to find the sources that prompt the anger that is brewing in rural America and why rural communities have overwhelmingly voted for Trump What makes his approach so appealing is that Wuthnow who was himself born in a small community is always empathic but never apologetic His research defies the stereotypical notion that small town people are simpletons but he is also very critical of the strategies rural communities are currently employing to protect their lifestyleWuthnow and his research team conducted over a thousand in depth ualitative interviews in rural areas One of their main findings was that rural people are particularly community oriented and that they are trying to preserve their communities that have come under pressure due to factors like job loss a shrinking population and the brain drain It is highly interesting to learn what these rural communities attribute their decline to what conclusions people are drawing and how they ultimately rationalise voting against their own interest Wuthnow tackles reactionary tendencies regarding topics like race and homosexuality he talks about factors like religion anti government impulses the highly valued common sense independence and abortion While he clearly did not conduct his research to serve some ultimate purpose it appears that this book could be a tool for people who are not familiar with rural America to better understand the concerns of rural communities and for rural Americans themselves to critically reflect whether their current strategies to fight the rural decline are really effective because in the end the vitality of rural communities lies in the interest of every American no matter where they liveAn excellent book highly recommended Because the author a sociology professor at Princeton grew up in a tiny town in Kansas this book displays a careful sympathetic ear for life in small town America He acknowledges that he is now part of the East Coast liberal elite but his study is consciously nonpartisan In the introduction he notes that the standard theory about the cause of rural unrest is economic decline resulting in white male anger He thinks that is too simplistic He says that small towns have a culture a moral community which to them feels threatened Here is his definition of a moral community I do not mean this in the vernacular sense of moral as good right virtuous or principled I mean it rather in the specialized sense of a place to which and in which people feel an obligation to one another and to uphold the local ways of being that govern their expectations about ordinary life and support their feelings of being at home and doing the right thingsA moral community draws our attention to the fact that people interact with one another and form loyalties to one another and to the places in which their interaction takes place These enduring interactions and obligations and identities they entail constitute the community as a home Understanding communities this way differs from the notion that people are independent individuals who form their opinions based strictly on their economic interest and their psychological needs They may be rugged individualists But they are not fundamentally that Spend some time in rural America and you realize one thing people there are community oriented pageHe continues his explanation on pagesaying The moral outrage of rural America is a mixture of fear and anger The fear is that small town ways of life are disappearing The anger is that they are under siege The outrage cannot be understood apart from the loyalties that rural Americans feel toward their communitiesThe book then explores aspects of the moral community which seem to be threatened He says people living in small towns have a philosophy of not being a burden but that if someone falls on hard times neighbors rush in to help The organization through which help is given is usually the church Washington is viewed with suspicion On one hand rural Americans feel ignored and that Washington doesn't offer help when it is needed On the other hand Washington

is viewed as intrusive making problems worse He says there is a feeling in a small community that everyone living there is the same They aren't really of course but they make an effort to fit in If they are wealthy they live below their means and interact with others in the community in an eual way There is also not a strong distinction between white collar and blue collar jobs People living in small towns are aware of the downsides such as being far from health care but think the positives of living there outweigh any negativesThe author lists some of the threats to rural towns as being population decline leading to an older population teen pregnancy drugs lack of jobs and a conseuent brain drain and a growing cultural divide He sums this up by saying It is the almost inexpressible concern that their way of life is eroding shifting imperceptibly under the feet and being discredited and attacked from the outside that poses the greatest threat pageHaving moved to a small town less than a year ago I found this slim book justpages of text excluding the notes reading list and index interesting and thought provoking It has made me look around myself with insight which is never a bad thing rural white people are upset that society is changing and it's hard to find a good job locally thanks to automation and outsourcing They sometimes vote for people who appear to get their frustrations rather than people who propose ostensibly helpful gov't programs to alleviate their economic problemsif the above comes as news to you get this book by a Princeton sociologist and dig in Nice mix of high level survey stuff and on the ground anecdotes generally describes people and social phenomena neutrally but without trying to hide his own biasesperspectives as a liberal from the Northeastbutif like me you read the Wx Post and have heard this same riff approximately two thousand times since thepresidential election then don't go get this book Instead conduct a detailed case study of why I continue to have my attention drawn by books in this vein when my public library puts them on the new nonfiction shelf Must learn to just say no thanks I already read something similar off to memorize that as my new mantra A solid even handed report on a years long project in which Americans living in rural communities were interviewed about their views of politics race morality immigration government and a host of other topics Wuthnow seems to have been very discreet about his own opinions I had the feeling that the respondents felt safe about expressing their thoughts Doubtless certain things were held back or toned down but a picture nevertheless appears of what factors are most important in shaping the world view of this diminishing and overwhelmingly white and aging cohort The Left Behind is not Hillbilly Elegy or Strangers in Their Own Land or White Rage or any of the other worthy entries into trying to understand what America is in these strange times Nor does it try to be of their ilk Rather it is a uiet sober and respectful report on rural communities in short a valuable addition to their number A good book presenting the results of an in depth social study of Americas rural communities The author a Princeton Social Scientist conducted eight years of interviews and data collection throughout various rural counties towns and villages across a wide spectrum of regions He presents the findings through a variety of subjects seeking to explain the motivations and attitudes of the citizens in these rural communities His biggest finding not surprisingly is that the wide variety of places he studied resulted in a wide variety of perspectives with very little commonality of thought across similar communities let along across the country as a whole However he did see a common baseline that of the “moral community” where relationships built on common moral understanding seemed to outweigh other factors in decisions effecting the community He pointed out that some of the same demographic conditions exist in rural communities as in urban communities just with a wider geographic spread But with the moral centric attitude used by rural communities to deal with these conditions differing greatly from the methods used in urban areas The author also points out that the last decade has seen massive changes in rural areas many of which were caused by the inhabitants themselves both knowingly and unknowingly It is the confrontation of these changes with the foundations of the moral community concept which both creates many of the dynamics we see today and provides the single most unifying trait across Americas rural landscape Do not look for easy or clear answers from this book it really is about presenting bundled research results rather than the drawing of specific conclusions But it does help provide greater insight into how the rural urban divide which has always been a factor in America has evolved over the last three decades A great book for those wanting to know about the challenges facing rural communities and how they are being overcome Worthless book If you are an adult human being who hasn't been in a coma for the lastyears you will learn nothing from this book If you read this book and felt you 'learned something' you probably have bigger problems to deal with than 'why rural America feels left behind in thest century'My biggest issue was that the author who admits in the epilogue to being part of the liberal elite basically spends the entire book acting as an apologist for rural America for being bigoted xenophobic homophobic misogynist and every other trait favored by conservatives Do we really not understand that rural white America dislikes Hispanics coming into their town because their town has always beenwhite Who doesn't know this But importantlyit's not an excuse The book states over and over again how rural America feels comfortable in their small towns in their communitieshow hard is it for them to understand that the entire WORLD is a community and if everyone treated everyone else with the same amount of respect we would be halfway to solving all of the world's problems Finished reading The Left Behind Decline and Rage in Rural America by Robert Wuthnow And now Im angrier and convinced than ever that rural America is filled with idiots Just plain idiots mourning for a way of life they cant even define a childhood that diedyears ago and theyre pining for as the storefronts close the factories leave the companies fold and children move far away not wanting to return or run a farm They live in a bubble of disbelief cant understand why no one wants to livemiles from a hospital ormiles from a shopping center or have a one hour commute to a paying job because thats how everybody lives They know this but they cant admit it cant adjust Theyve cut off their hand watched it bleed and dont understand why they feel sick They have this dream that the companies will come back the town will revive and their lives will go on again because their way is the only way the right way and they have absolutely no idea how things work anywhere but in their town ofBecause my town ofis SO monstrously large that there's no way I'd understand Because I went to school in a village ofmiles to a gas station andmiles from the nearest town No I'd have no ideaWuthnow tries He tries to be neutral and present their information without comment which can be downright dull after a while this is not a book you will hate to put down But I dont think its the clearest book on the subject and there were many times I wish hed asked his uestions another layer deeper and he doesnt even list the types of uestions he asked Its like he wrote the book but is still trying to be politically correct never says what he concludes and it falls short For instance when individuals rant about Washington or hating Obama he never provokes them to name something specific that is wrong its all generic bland open answers because not one person can name something that is actually wrong Its all the open ended hate theyve been fed from TV Its the fact most of their “beliefs” come from who ever is in the pulpit and the fact it doesn't matter what they ACTUALLY think and believe is right it's how the rest of their community will judge them if they differ because they're all a bunch of super judgemental jerks They want the swap drained but vote for the worst swamp monsters they can Theres still no definition of what theyre looking for when they want Washington to respect them to make things right for them but they can never say what that is beyond getting back that comforting memory of growing up safe They blame television for destroying morality but they never turn the channel to see what else is there Because they never leave their bubble of home theyre confused by cities and larger towns and they get scared of them and thus hate them but if they actually stopped and looked around theyd find that larger towns and its not hard to get larger thanorpeople cluster down into smaller neighborhoods even if its just your high rise The same morals are there the same social clubs the same potluck dinners and fundraisers and the deli owner knowing your name and the people helping people they just never stop long enough to realize it And because they never run into a Hindu or a Muslim or a gay person they are terrified because of what theyve been told by the TV or the preacher Every gay man is an automatic child molester Every brown person is a terrorist because they cant tell a Sikh from a Muslim from a Hindu from a Buddhist You might have no problem with a Mexican hired man but the community who knows every burp your household makes will look at you badly so you have to let him go before people talk Spineless people who care about what other people think of them than what they know know from all those Bibles is the right thing to doIt comes down to people in rural areas and tiny towns and villages being narrow minded twofaced idiots You lament your schools are terrible and closing but resent larger communities with good schools who know how to get Gubbmint help You lament that all the jobs are leaving but refuse to modernize to attract new people You lament your town is dying and everyone is leaving but anyone who moves in is an opportunist and an outsider and cant be trusted A baby out of wedlock in your family happens but if its someone else its a terrible sin but an abortion is worse You want gubbmint out of your lives but you love those agricultural breaks They arent republican theyre church thumping Libertarians We should be able to do whatever we want as long as the Pastor tells us They make no sense at all cut their own throats through sheer ignorance of how the rest of the country and the government actually works They dont even care about guns as much as the two holy of holy worries gay marriage and abortion even though not one of them may ever know either of it personally Wuthnow does draw a line of difference between your average villager and Evangelical Christians to be honest Where many things won't bother the average small town person who rub elbows with the real world often since their jobs are in larger towns it's the Evangelical Christians who wall off their minds and truly cannot function in the real world He does make that distinctionAnd it all boils down to ignorance ignorance ignorance And after reading this book which I thought would give me a better picture like Deer Hunting with Jesus or Whats Wrong with Kansas or Hillbilly Elegy it has made me angry and incensed at people living in isolated fantasy bubbles who want to control everyone outside their bubble without even knowing whats out there Its like growing up inside a prison and then sadly reminiscing how comforting and secure those four walls were and how everyone should have that securityIdiots one and all and they get no sympathy from me.