Impersonal factual and personal self-interest talk are two sides of the same anti-political coin

Evidence

Officials’ exclusive focus on technical information came from a general cultural assumption that citizens get involved only out of personal fear. To appear respectful, officials had to act as if honest, raw fear, not politics, was activists’ motivation. So when CESE began to try forcing public-spirited discussion, the two parties started talking past each other; at least if CESE had stuck to the volunteer-style Mom discourse, they would have been operating within the same cultural universe as the officials. Both would have assumed that there is no room for debate, no common ground for political discussion, no room for questioning and analyzing moral and political issues, only the bickering voices of purely self-interested actors, minimally restrained by inert, indisputable facts and rules. Thus, the impersonal language of facts and the personal language of self-interest turn out to be two sides of a coin. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1502

Categorization

• XREF: Recalls Zerubavel’s analysis of how taken-for-granted cognitive frames silently organize perception and communication. — connects to: Privatism and fact-fetishism both deny politics’ dialogic nature. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 944; Framing talk as fact-exchange makes political conversation feel intimidating and pointless. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1013; Expressions of narrow self-interest are rhetorical performances rather than literal self-reports — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 3 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Expressions of narrow self-interest are rhetorical performances rather than literal self-reports #expands (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 3
• The discourse of self-interest forces even altruistic citizens to describe themselves as selfish #expands (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1361