A really disturbing extract from Arlie Hochschild’s new book, Strangers In Their Own Land. On loc 1445 she shares the profile of the “least resistant personality” offered by a consultancy firm in 1984, hired to advise on locating waste-to-energy plants in areas likely to provoke little resistance from the local community:
– Longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest
– High school educated only
– Catholic
– Uninvolved in social issues, and without a culture of activism
– Involved in mining, farming, ranching (what Cerrell called “nature exploitative occupations”)
– Conservative
– Republican
– Advocates of the free market
Are there other examples of political passivity, a lack of inclination or capacity for collective action, being so nakedly modelled as a desirable goal?
Mark Carrigan 