The same expressed belief carries different meanings in different groups and moments.
Evidence
Common-sense tells us that to understand citizens’ abilities to form political opinions we should examine beliefs, the ideas people carry around inside their heads but maybe never express. Di¡ering uses of the ideal of the democratic republic o¡er a striking illustration of the interactional, cultural work that beliefs do. Many scholars of American political culture have noted a widespread allegiance to the ideal of a democratic republic, a belief in the principle of responsible, participatory citizenship. The problem is, volunteers, activists, and even cynics all wanted to believe in the possibility of the responsible, informed, concerned citizen, active in his or her community ^ Tocqueville’s good citizen of a democratic republic. But that belief ^ or more exactly, the desire to believe the belief ^ meant very di¡erent things in these di¡erent groups; it even meant di¡erent things in any one group or for any individual from one moment to the next. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 136
Categorization
- DEFINE: Reorients ‘belief’ from inner mental content to interactional, cultural work — a conceptual reframing core to the author’s method.
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that even within one person a belief’s meaning shifts from moment to moment dismantles the standard opinion-survey picture of stable inner convictions.
- corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 136
- XREF: connects to: Identical terms can mask different concepts, so concepts must be traced to their sources.
Related
- The same democratic ideal does different interactional work in different groups (similarity 0.87)
- Political types differ less in beliefs than in relations to those beliefs. (similarity 0.83)
- Structural psychological and cultural explanations of belief are mutually implicated and inseparable (similarity 0.80)
- Identical terms can mask different concepts, so concepts must be traced to their sources. (similarity 0.79)
- Civic beliefs are equivocal cultural productions, not fixed inner states (similarity 0.78)