Workers’ claims of equality express self-respect, not moral or spiritual beliefs

Evidence

But it seems probable that when men assert their own equality in this vague sense, typically phrased in something like O’Hara’s terms: “I think I’m just as good as anybody else. I don’t think there’s any of them that I would say are better,” something other than moral or spiritual equality is at issue. These moral qualities are what the educated commentator reads into the statement, but O’Hara means, if I may put words in his mouth [“Don’t put on airs around me,” “I’m trying to preserve my self-respect in a world that challenges it; I therefore assert my equality with all.” “I won’t be pushed around.” “I know my rights,” and, to the interviewer: “Just because you’re a professor and I’m an oiler, it doesn’t mean you can patronize me.”] And when Sokolsky, a machine operator and part-time janitor, says, in the interview, “The rich guy—because he’s got money he’s no better than I am. I mean that’s the way I feel,” he is not talking about moral or spiritual qualities. He is saying, in effect to his prosperous older brother and his snobbish wife, [“Don’t look down on me,”] and to the world at large: [“I may be small, but I will protect my self-esteem.”] These men are posting notices similar to the motto on the early American colonies’ flags: “Don’t tread on me.” — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2195

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the perennial tension between class-based deference and personal dignity seen in working-class ethnographies like Lillian Rubin’s ‘Worlds of Pain’ and the broader literature on status and self-esteem. — connects to: Working-class people desire welfare-state measures while fearing equality itself. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2139
• DEEPTHINKING: Sennett and Cobb’s reading of ‘equality talk’ as a defensive assertion of self-respect against patronization is a subtle, layered interpretation that resists summary — the worker means something the educated interviewer misreads.