the most stereotypical bastions of coastal liberal elitism, [to] ask the people... whether they still support Hillary Clinton. An innocent abroad, I would leave Hamilton County, Indiana, a deep-red suburb north of Indianapolis that Trump won by nearly 20 points... Once on the decadent East Coast, I would luxuriate in its undiluted upscale liberal consensus at bookstores, wine bars, cafes and other Blue State institutions peopled by NPR tote-bagging sophisticates...in counties Hillary won by at least 60 percent or more of the vote.The author interviewed people who voted for Hillary and discovered that almost all of them still support her (and still really hate Trump). The author also observed that “Clinton Country” had almost nothing in common with “Trump Country”, and does not really care to change that. There are many possible interesting topics Professor Pruitt had in mind when she suggested I use this article for my final blog post. The thing that stood out to me in the article, though, was the privilege of the people the author talks about. The author makes sure you cannot miss it. He portrayed people in Hillary Country as being obsessed with SoulCycle, Kombucha, farm-to-table restaurants, and curating healthy energy and spirituality. Arguably, the article is about the privilege of self-care.
Acknowledging that I may be stepping into over-generalizations of both groups, I started to think about what seems to be a current cultural obsession with self-care. People on social media love to brag about what they are doing (and buying) to care for themselves (going to SoulCycle classes, downing glasses of Kombucha, eating only organic farm-to table food, and doing whatever it takes to maintain a positive energy??). Apparently there are at least 1.4 million photos hashtagged #selfcare on Instagram.
A study by the Pew Research Center found that “millennials”
spend twice as much as boomers on self-care essentials such as workout regimens, diet plans, life coaching, therapy, and apps to improve their personal well-being.
Self-care is now a $10 billion industry. The notion of self care has a long history in our nation - which may be tied to our ideas of individuality - but today,
the irony of the grand online #selfcare-as-politics movement of 2016 is that it was powered by straight, affluent white women, who, although apparently feeling a new vulnerability in the wake of the election, are not traditionally the segment of American society in the greatest need of affirmation.
Perhaps those in greatest need of self-care are those for whom it seems the most unattainable and those who feel the most alienated by its commercialization.
In reading the article about liberal coastal elites in Hillary Country, I noticed how differently they are portrayed than the white working class Trump Country we have spent so much time discussing. I thought about the story of the young man in Virginia who had to beg on the street because,
five days earlier, his mother had spent the last of her disability check on bologna, cheese, bread, and Pepsi.
I thought about how so many of the white working class struggle just to afford health and dental care, and about the growing numbers of deaths of despair. Unlike people in the regions hardest hit by the deaths of despair – deaths from suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol related deaths – coastal liberal elites have the privilege to take (and afford) a mental health day to sit in a bubble bath and sip on a glass of wine. On his the 72-hour journey through Hillary Country, the author observed that everyone he
met seemed to be financially well off, a sign of just how much money is still sloshing into the pockets of Blue America.
All if this is not to say that self-care is unimportant and, there are many ways to care for oneself that cost little to nothing:
drink water, eat something, work out, go outside, take a shower.
Yet, at a minimum, any type of self care requires resources that are hard to come by due to the demands of the working class lifestyle: spare time and human capital.
Perhaps self-care just looks different for those in the white working class, and they are criticized for it. The mother of the young man in Virginia, mentioned above, does not work and receives disability for anxiety and depression. She imagines what people must say about her:
Why couldn’t she work? Why did she buy soda and cigarettes when they needed food? How could she afford the Internet and cable TV bills on a $500 monthly disability check? She would sometimes consider how she would answer. She would say that cigarettes and soda make hard days a little easier. That television is just about her only connection to a world that hasn’t seemed to want her anymore.
Whatever happened to, "Treat Yo' Self"? Maybe what criticizers really mean is, "Treat Yo' Self and practice self-care, as long as its not on the government's dime! And don't expect us to feel sorry for you in the meantime."
There is no doubt that the liberal elite's infatuation with self-care reeks with privilege, but I would argue that the privilege descends from the imputed cultural value of exclusivity rather than the act of self-care itself. For liberal elites, self-care takes on the form of whatever prohibitively expensive activity is currently enjoying its moment in the sun (e.g. soul cycle, cooking classes, etc.). For the white working class, self-care is more likely to take on the forms of more traditional activities such as hunting, fishing, church, or small family get togethers. We draw the lines of privilege around those activities that are exclusive, but we should not forget the value of traditional self-care activities because they have been devalued by our society. Self-care, though not always phrased in that way or in the same forms, has always been important for all people.
ReplyDeleteIt may also be that the differences here are more related to culture than to class. I would be interested to see a comparison of the self-care activities of working-class coastal liberals with those of elites. For example: I have a friend who drinks more kombucha than anyone I know. He gets it for free from the grocery store that he works at, which happens to be a liberal health-food-y grocery store. He's not a member of the elite, but he still likes kombucha. On the other side, I know that rich people in Trump country have the money to spend on expensive hobbies just as liberal elites do. They may buy pickups and four-wheelers and fancy guided hunting trips instead of soul cycle classes, but the class difference is still there.
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