Date: Fri, 03 Jan 1997 20:23:13 -0600
Subject: Re: M-G: Dr Sendepause & Klasberries posting again! 


Subject: Re: M-G: Dr Sendepause & Klasberries posting again!

>On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> Thanks to Justin Schwartz for taking out after Rolf Martens' hateful
>> idiocies. Somebody had to do it, and he did it well!
>>
>>> Nuke-lover and homophobe - you're quite a piece of work, Martens.
>>>
>>> Doug
>>
>>Well, I was mad. But I wonder whether I wasted my time. On Martens, for
>>sure. --Justin

>Martens is usually worth ignoring, like when he carries on about the
>beauties of plutonium, but you just can't let comparisons of homosex with
>bestiality and necrophilia go unanswered.

>Doug

Maybe people are familiar with this study, but as a sidebar to this whole
issue, I'll paraphrase parts of sociologist Wojtek Sokolowski's work that
analyzed data exploring the question "Are US Workers Puritanical?". It
asked questions on homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, fighting with the
police, threatening workers who refused to join a strike and a few others.

Briefly on homosexuality, the US was much less tolerant of this behavior
than Western Europe (Rolf being an exception) or Canada but more tolerant
than Latin American and Other, and about the same as Eastern European
countries. American manual workers (skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled)
was less tolerant of homosexuality than office workers, professionals and
managers. But in Western Europe, for example, levels of acceptance were
very similar between manual workers and managers. In Latin America, manual
workers were more tolerant than some classes of managers.

When it came to approval of the behaviors of threatening those who refuse
to join a strike or fighting with police, manual laborers in the US were
more tolerant than managers. Professionals are the most likely to
disapprove of it. In Western Europe the farmers were the most likely to
approve of these behaviors.

In his discussion, Sokolowski points out that though there are significant
differences depending on where you are, generally manual workers tended to
be less tolerant of unconventional forms of behavior than non-manual
occupations. Likewise, generally skilled workers are more tolerant of
unconventional behavior than unskilled.

So, though US manual workers sometimes easily get labeled "reactionary",
"backward", "narrow-minded", etc., he offers an alternative
explanation--one that centers around the concept of solidarity. Manual
laborers, for historical and class reasons have had to depend on community
and other social ties in dealing with each other. Therefore these  groups
are more threatened by individuality and non-conventional behavior. On the
other hand, behavior that enhances this solidarity, i.e. threatening those
that refuse to join a strike, reinforce these collective norms.

The whole point is not, of course, that bigotry against homosexuality is
ever acceptable. All workers need to realize, for example, that the
hard-fought struggles won by the lesbian and gay communities have benefited
them as well. But to label and dismiss those that hold those views is not
helpful if there is a goal to build bridges in order to overcome
differences in attitudes. Sokolowski suggests left-wing intellectuals
(often in the academy where individualism is valued) are so out of touch
with working-class values they completely misinterpret them, putting up
barriers to cooperation.

Sally




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