Structural psychological and cultural explanations of belief are mutually implicated and inseparable

Evidence

Taking volunteers’ professions of small-mindedness'' at face value would be a mistake. Expressions of political disconnection worked hard; people exerted themselves to keep the wider world at bay. Treating these expressions of apathy ^ and treating beliefs in general ^ this way helps specify just what it is about beliefs that makes them matter for public life. All along the way, I have entertained possible alternate interpretations of volunteers' use of the close to home” language: interpretations that highlight power (that they were rational actors; or that a cross-contextual hegemonic process prevented volunteers from noticing problems); emotions or other inner psychic processes (that volunteers were avoiding cognitive dissonance or numbing their feelings); and culturally patterned interactional styles (that volunteers feared voicing anxiety, ambivalence, getting angry, or asking questions in public because of their low valuation of public talk itself). These structural,'' psychological,” and cultural'' levels of analysis do not correspond to their separate objects of study (the structure,” the individual,'' and the cultural institutions”) but rather, are mutually implicated and inextricable. All of these explanations call forth something that the others o¡er; each ¢lls in what others leave uncharted, each layer is contingent on the others. … Understanding the tortured, twisted use of close to home'' helps show how these explanations are connected; the interconnections could help us interpret other public languages, as well. What if the things we call beliefs” are always so equivocal? Then hope and hopelessness, apathy and engagement would not seem so far apart; they would always be intertwined, actively making sense of a world that doesn’t. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 169

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the three analytic levels (power/structural, psychic/emotional, cultural-interactional) and the claim that they cannot be separated into separate objects of study.
• DEEPTHINKING: The closing move — that apathy and engagement are ‘intertwined, actively making sense of a world that doesn’t’ — reframes belief as fundamentally equivocal rather than fixed, a claim one could sit with for days.
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 169
• XREF: connects to: Religious belief stems from both intuitive cognition and cultural transmission mechanisms.; Researchers should study how belief style correlates with belief content — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2576; Structural, psychological, and cultural explanations of apathy are mutually constitutive — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 169

Related

• Structural, psychological, and cultural explanations of apathy are mutually constitutive (similarity 0.86)
• The same expressed belief carries different meanings in different groups and moments. (similarity 0.80)
• Apparent civic apathy is effortful cultural labor, not genuine indifference (similarity 0.80)
• Civic beliefs are equivocal cultural productions, not fixed inner states (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Religious belief stems from both intuitive cognition and cultural transmission mechanisms. #expands (0.85)
• Researchers should study how belief style correlates with belief content #expands (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2576