In what context did you think there might be a wide variety of in groups and out groups related to political conservatism? I’m just not seeing what you think might come up that we all don’t already know.
I’m American politics, the in group that
conservatism protects is affluent white men. Everyone else is out. To the extent that someone has proximity to the privilege of that in group, that person might be extended some of that privilege.
What else did you think might come up?
This.
But it can be expanded a bit. What the OP seems to be expecting, and will not find, is that there are various orthogonal sets of in- and out-groups.
What we can say is there are concentric circles of in-most to out-most. Though there will of course be some fuzziness & overlap around the borders of each circle.
At the inmost center are the political dynastic families and the richest of the long term rich. Who are almost exclusively white & the members who matter are male. Outside them are the affluent whites, mostly male but with a tinge of women. etc. The list is almost self-writing.
What the OP might think he sees, or be expecting us to see, or be hoping to foment, is a bicker about who’s more out, the Native Americans or the Latino illegal immigrants. Who’s more out, gays or black folks. etc. That’s pretty small beer and ultimately a distracting sideshow.
The OP’s Wilhoit quote is essentially reductionist philosophy. He (Wilhoit) argues that that’s the fundamental organizing principal of political economy and everything else is just details. As he says, that throws out a vast amount of scholarship & political writing accumulated over centuries. That’s a nice thing for a revolutionary thinker to suggest (witness e.g. Marx or Engels), but it’s mostly overblown.
Unrestrained human nature is greedy and cruel. The greediest and the cruelest rise to the top. And therefore protect greed and cruelty by ensuring they have a monopoly on doing it.
IMO conservative philosophy is more like “Embrace the suck! Be the worst human you can be; it’s only natural!” That’s the deep guiding philosophy. Best of all, it can be embraced not only by Kings, but by guys with dirty boots down at the bar.
Wilhoit’s silly idea that the in- & out-groups are foundational is wrong. It’s highly, highly derivative of what I just said. It’s a 3rd or 4th order consequence. He says it pithily which is why it’s captured some traction on social media. But it’s not much more than that.
It can serve as a rallying cry for all forms of social disenfranchisement, with BLM being a very apt exemplar du jour.
If you are interested in in group vs outgroup dynamics, the definitive essay is Scott Alexander’s I can tolerate anything except the outgroup.
I just wanted to say thanks for linking this; it was excellent.
And it led me to his 18-years-later follow-up:
Oh yeah, he’s got several articles detailing Jacksonian America and Trump, etc…
The really interesting thing is that the article I wrote doesn’t demonize them, and does a fantastic job of explaining their motivations, which aren’t necessarily racist, ignorant or anything bad.
That’s basically the lens I’ve been trying to explain Trump supporters through for four years now; not bad people per-se, but people who have a very distinct way of looking at the world and other people.
I think you should ask a member of an out-group. They understand to their bones which group they are consigned to and are reminded of that fact 24 hours of every day.
If they live that long.
In-group: White, cisgender men.
Out-groups: Black people, women, latinx people, LGBTQ+, basically anybody who is different from the in-group.
Especially if they are uppity and don’t know their place.
Good point, if you don’t recognize that there are in-groups and out-groups, then you are part of the in-group.
And conservatives IMHO are more likely to fit this description. But does that contradict or conform to the proposition quoted in the OP?
In group:me and people like me,
out group; people not like me.
An alternative, (less pithy but probably more fundamental) way of expressing the statement is that conservatism is in favor or maintaining the existing power structure. IN the United States since the founding of the country and before, white christian heterosexual cis males, are in a privileged position, and it is the job of government to see that this status quo is maintained.
Since (to quote another pithy saying) to those used to a position of privilege equality feels like discrimination, those who attempt to change the status quo are dangerous radicals who would destroy a society that is working well (for the conservatives).
It’s really interesting shifting from passing as the in-group to living with out-groups. I’m a white guy, pass as Christian (actually used to be atheist, then because a sort of disinterested deist), considered myself straight, and used to mostly hang around in straight-male-dominated hobbies. While I’m still white and pass as straight and Christian, I’ve realized I’m actually queer, and spend a lot more time hanging around mixed-gender groups, LGBT spaces, and mixed-race groups. It’s pretty amazing how different the experience is - in the ‘in-group’ social circles, you never had people drop into a discussion about the times they were physically threatened for things like stopping at a grocery store or walking into a bathroom, because it wasn’t something that happened.
It’s interesting seeing some of the ‘head in the sand’ attitudes from conservatives on here too - in a thread talking about whether it’s more risky to be liberal in a conservative area or vice-versa, I talked about friends of mine who have been threatened with death, beaten, and sexually harassed while going about ordinary business (like shopping or going to a grocery store) for looking too queer. The conservative contingent simple refused to believe that this ever even happens, and denied the stuff that my friends have experienced and that are well-documented statistically. When I pointed out that just showing up to a bar as a gay couple, interracial couple, or in gender-nonconforming clothes (guy in a dress or butch-looking woman), they talked about how absurd it was for me to believe that anyone was in any danger from such a thing. It’s easy for someone to pretend that they’re not in an in-group if they just outright deny all anecdotes and data of what being in an out-group means in real life.
That’s really the challenge here; how to include the out-group people without alienating the people who think that everything is working well (or was, prior to previous equality initiatives).
The country breaks down like this- 62% white, 15% black, 18% hispanic, 5% Asian (rounded up or down). Hispanics are heavily concentrated in border states like Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico, and blacks tend to live in urban areas, or in the rural South. And that breakdown is a new thing, historically speaking. As recent as 1990, the country was 80% white, and as recently as 1960, 90% white. So within living memory, it’s been overwhelmingly white for the entire country, and still is in large areas of it.
With that in mind, it’s kind of a hard sell to someone in say… rural Nebraska, that we need millions of dollars thrown at equality initiatives instead of say… stuff that farmers could use. To them, that equality stuff may as well be in another country.
So the challenge is how to sell it to both sides, I think.
You could try basic humanity.
Agree w @k9bfriender just above.
But if the only language those sorts of folks understand is “What’s in it for me?”, try this:
By 2100 or at latest 2150 your lillywhite great-grandkids will be the disliked minority and payback’s gonna be a bitch. You’d better do something to make this place fair to all before it’s your/their turn to be on the bottom.
I don’t know if everyone would agree with this philosophy, but if everyone did, the world would be a better place.
IIRC, the quote in the OP came from the comment section of the blog Crooked Timber. Here’s the 2018 citation: Frank Wilhoit appears to be a screenname: the political scientist died in 2010. Since this is a pseudoanonymous comment in a blog, I’ll quote it in full:
Scroll down to comment 26:
Now to answer the OP. In-group and out-group definitions vary by time and context: this is an attitude which drives things. In the 1800s, Italians were in the Black racial category for example. During the mid 20th century they joined Team White. Among whites, WASPs were the ultimate in-group, ceding status by the end of the 20th century.
Much of latter day American conservatism aka Republicanism can be conceived as bad-faith efforts at minority rule. So in that context, Republicans are the in-group. You can read all sorts of apologetics for executive branch criminality (torture in Bush admin, obstruction of justice in Trump admin), in the conservative media during Republican administrations.
More narrowly: the rich avoid taxes while the poor evade taxes. Laws protect the rich, while tax laws don’t bind the rich to a great extent. Stop and frisk was the ultimate binding of the NYC poor; low murder rate convictions shows that the cops don’t protect downtrodden groups.
I’m not saying they don’t care, I’m saying they don’t understand. they assume, probably due to limited experience with the wider world, that everywhere else works more or less like where they’re from. So they literally don’t understand things like institutional racism are- there isn’t really any of it in their very white community, and they don’t have a frame of reference, nor any examples to talk to/listen to. All they get is outsiders coming in on the TV telling them that something exists, and that in effect, they should feel guilty for it, and put their own interests second to people they don’t know, who don’t live near them.
That goes over about as well as you’d expect, I bet.