This is the first of two essays I am writing about a new book that I love (yes, love!): We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. This one derives a lesson strongly related to the upcoming election from Musa al-Gharbi’s sweeping analysis of “symbolic capitalists.” My dream is that some people who have decided not to vote or to vote for unelectable candidates will read it and change their minds. My hope is that they will see that whether in full awareness or not, the people who are encouraging them to actions that will actually support the candidacy of Donald Trump are using them to boost their own influence and esteem in a self-serving subgroup of this society.
Part Two will look at the book as a whole.
If you read this and agree that it might encourage anyone you know to rethink such a decision, please share it.
The concept of “symbolic capitalists” central to al-Gharbi’s book is defined by him from several angles, but here’s the definition I found most accessible:
[S]ymbolic capitalists are defined first and foremost by how they make a living: nonmanual work associated with the production and manipulation of data, rhetoric, social perceptions and relations, organizational structures and operations, art and entertainment, traditions and innovations, and so forth. Think academics, consultants, journalists, administrators, lawyers, people who work in finance and tech, and so on.
Think of people for whom saying something or making symbolic gestures about injustice and oppression is just as good as doing something—maybe better. Symbolic capitalists aren’t the only ones who cancel people for saying or doing something they oppose, but in general, they are more likely to police language, to demand certain utterances as the ticket to righteousness, to overstate the efficacy and actual importance of their words to society as a whole.
Musa al-Gharbi is a big data guy. Generally not my favorite flavor: I worry about how easily concluding from research that something that characterizes a large proportion of people in a specific category can elide into an all-encompassing generalization. But this writer is careful not to inflate his conclusions and scrupulous in his documentation. He’s a sociologist who teaches in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University, and rather than pointing a finger at symbolic capitalists from a distance, he always speaks of them as “we,” a nice choice.
I’m not an academic, nor do I have a professional position in the industries he mentions, so I haven’t acquired some of the social capital that accumulates with tenure and honors, association with prestigious institutions, and the common public assumption of intelligence and integrity they represent. But I am an independent writer, artist, and speaker, so I occupy a lower rung in that category, and I welcome al-Gharbi’s brisk puncturing of the assumptions and orthodoxies that have made it a less than comfortable fit. Maybe the whole definition doesn’t describe your or my behavior. But don’t yield to defensiveness. There are definitely parts of it that fit like a custom shoe.
What does this have to do with voting? A few examples:
Al-Gharbi points out that “Symbolic capitalists portray ourselves as advocates for (or representatives of) the marginalized and disadvantaged. In practice, however, we often show blatant disregard for the perspectives of those we claim to champion.” One pointed example is his exploration of the the use of the term “Latinx” to describe people of Latino or Hispanic origin. Symbolic capitalists consider the neologism superior because it encompasses all genders. Al-Gharbi cites a Pew Research study finding that only three percent of those this term is supposed to describe actually use it, while roughly two-thirds of those surveyed oppose it. Many were offended by it or would be less likely to support those who use it.
This is but one (linguistic) example of insistence that symbolic actions rejected by most of those they claim to help are nevertheless laudable and correct because symbolic capitalists deem them so. As the author puts it:
Although superficially oriented toward social justice, symbolic innovations like these are often mobilized as a means for elites—white elites aided and abetted by minority-group peers—to signal their superiority, devalue the perspectives and priorities of nonelites, and disregard objections from the people they are ostensibly advocating for with respect to justice claims made in their name.
Many of the people who declare their refusal to vote imagine they are punishing the system. But many ignore how their action, if it succeeds, punishes the millions who must live with the policies their refusal authorizes as negligible collateral damage. They may see themselves as brave avatars of social justice necessarily expounding the most radical positions that have taken root in their milieu. But as with Latinx, many of these positions are rejected by large majorities of the social groups they ostensibly have been devised to serve. Consider how many words have been generated by symbolic capitalists attempting to explain, soften, and make palatable the slogan “Defund the Police. As al-Gharbi explains:
Symbolic capitalists…often strike ‘radical’ positions on sociocultural topics, or make idiosyncratic demands, often in the name of some historically marginalized or disadvantaged group they claim affiliation with, even though most in the populations they are purporting to represent expressly reject the positions they are advocating for…. In general, the less connected people are to most others in the groups they claim affiliation with, the more likely they become to endorse radical action in the name of said groups. If their radicalism fosters blowback against others in their group, or if the policies they advocate for would be deleterious to most others in their group, these elite “spokespeople” aren’t the ones paying the price. And they do not regularly encounter, nor are they typically accountable to, those who do have to live with the consequences.
Before I read this book, I blamed the right first and foremost for the extreme polarization of the U.S. electorate. Right-wingers do indeed deserve blame for a politics of hatred and chaos. But I now see that progressives—a category I’ve seen myself as belonging to all my life and which I am now rethinking in favor of center left, universalist left, humanist left, and so on—share the blame. Al-Gharbi describes the rightward shift of working-class voters as significantly a result of being abandoned by the people whose jobs are to craft and promote platforms, and who are disconnected from what is responsive and persuasive to large swathes of the electorate. Potential voters aren’t hearing that their well-being is foremost in most candidates’ and legislators’ hearts and minds. Often what they are hearing is that policies are abstract, arcane, and written by and for elites.
This is what is essential to understand about the election: the people who are urging us to withhold our votes as a symbolic rejection of “the system,” or who are choosing to vote for unelectable candidates to punish the Democratic Party, are not going to bear the brunt of their actions if the price of their gestures turn out to be Trump’s election. They’ll be able to insulate themselves in ivory towers, choose private education and medical care so their own well-being is not directly affected by the right’s plans to ensure that wealth and political power accrue only to those who already have them.
They are cosplaying as advocates for those most marginalized in the existing social order. If you’ve read any of my work, you’ll know that I have often advocated for a one-line public policy that could have a huge impact on society. Those who make policy, I have said, should be required to live by it, so that the millionaires who make up a majority of members of Congress send their kids to public schools, get medical treatment from public health, live in public housing, and so on. I’m adding something to that recommendation now. Those who use their social capital to spread ideas and actions opposed by a majority of the people they are purportedly intended to help also ought to be made to live inside the damage their create. Do not unto others that which is hateful to yourself was said a couple of thousand years ago, but it still applies.
I have no illusions about either major political party. But this much I know: an election is a contest between two people, not a moral or aesthetic gesture. Vote for Kamala Harris so that we have a chance of working for humane policies, for love and justice, so we have a chance of struggling as so many of our ancestors have for what is right. To do anything else serves those whose self-regard has blinded them to this simple truth.
Lucinda Williams, “You Can’t Rule Me.”
Order my book: In The Camp of Angels of Freedom: What Does It Mean to Be Educated?