Preferred Citation: Jackman, Mary R. The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1994 1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft958009k3/

The Velvet Glove Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations Mary R. Jackman UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford © 1994 The Regents of the University of California

Preferred Citation: Jackman, Mary R. The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1994 1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft958009k3/

To my parents,
Ed and Lil Peretz

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During its long gestation, this book has benefited from the support, proddings, arguments, and diversions of a large number of people.

First, I am grateful to several sources for the funding that made this book possible. Grants from the National Institute for Mental Health (MH–16433) and the National Science Foundation (SOC 75–00405 and SOC 78–16857) provided for the data collection and the analysis of the data. A Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute for Mental Health (MH–00252) provided me with fellowship support, enabling me to devote more time to the development of the central ideas that drive this manuscript. A year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1986–1987 was absolutely invaluable in rescuing me from all my normal professional responsibilities and granting me the solitude I needed to read and to begin writing this book. Finally, since coming to the University of California at Davis in 1989, I have received generous support from the University's Research Committee, the dean's office, and the Institute for Governmental Affairs.

The data for this book come from a sample survey of the United States, conducted by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan. I thank the staff of the Survey Research Center for their excellent fieldwork and coding of the data. In particular, Jeanne Castro expertly managed the fieldwork and made sure that deadlines were met as the data were collected. Jeanne and other members of the field office (including people from the interviewing staff) and the coding section also provided invaluable advice and resourcefulness during the pretesting of a questionnaire that contained more than its fair share of novel items and sensitive material.

A number of wonderful research assistants have contributed to this project over the years since its inception—with their dedicated work, enthusiasm, and perceptive criticisms and commentary. Their cumulative contributions are countless, and their intellectual vitality and sense of fun have added immeasurably to this project. Mary Scheuer Senter threw herself into the project with her boundless energy, intellectual sensitivity, and exacting standards. It is hard to find someone quite as compulsive as me, but Mary kept me on my toes with long hours and endless iterations until items were made right, the data could be declared fit for analysis, and analyses were sufficiently thorough. Several other research assistants have built on Mary Senter's initial contributions over the years: Marie Crane, Michael Muha, Anne Adams, Emily Kane, Paula Rust, Arlene Sanderson, Maria Kousis, Suzanne Purcell, and Margalit Tal at the University of Michigan, and Myrna Goodman, Ellen Scott, Ron Ruggiero, Eric Cain, and Ross Miller at the University of California, Davis. Their contributions have been both tangible and intangible. They and other students in my seminars on Ideology at the University of Michigan and UC-Davis have continued to prod me to refine my ideas about the nature of coercion and compliance and the use of ideology in lieu of violence as a primary mechanism of social control in longstanding relations of inequality.

I have also been fortunate in receiving support and encouragement from a number of other people. Joyce Lazar (at the National Institute for Mental Health), Donald Ploch (at the National Science Foundation), Sheldon Stryker, and William J. Wilson gave the project a vote of confidence when it was at a fledgling stage, and they offered indispensable advice. Gerald Gurin and Patricia Gurin welcomed me to the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan when I was a very junior scholar and offered me intellectual companionship and moral support: their support and encouragement were critical in the early days of this project. During my year at the Center for Advanced Study in Stanford, Bob Scott and the other members of the staff provided all kinds of superb services and good friendship that still take on a golden hue as I look back on that wonderful year. In particular, Frances Duignan found us housing in a very difficult housing market and provided innumerable other kind services during the year. Margaret Amara and Roseanne Torre promptly retrieved many books for me from the libraries of the Bay Area. In addition, Margaret brightened the days with her warm companionship and luscious advice about the scenic delights of the area. Stanley Holwitz at the University of California Press has shown extraordinary patience and offered unfailing support as I have tried to prepare and finish this book. And the production staff at the Press have also been most helpful and collegial. I am especially grateful to Rebecca

Frazier for her thoughtful attention to the book's production and to Diana Feinberg for suggesting the title.

I have drawn copiously on the social resources of friends and family as I faced the marathon of finishing this book. Ken and Sandy Waltzer have generously given their caring friendship and steadfast support. Larry Cohen has upheld my sense of the absurd with his trenchant wit, and he has offered endless debates and unflagging support. Bruce and Arlene Bueno de Mesquita have sustained me with their warmth and comradeship; they also have given us the use of their house as a second home, and much of this manuscript was typed up on the computer in their kitchen. Marie Crane and Bill Kelly have maintained a sensitive interest in the progress of the manuscript, and they have kept me going with their kind thoughts and sweet company. Our neighbors Jim and Kathy West have given us many wonderful meals on days when I was too busy or too exhausted to cook, as well as their continual friendship, encouragement, and support. Aram Yengoyan has kept up a steady flow of entertainment, warm concern, and critical intellectual commentary. Randy Siverson has enhanced our table with the bountiful produce of his garden, and he has offered constant support for my scholarly endeavors.

I would like to thank my family for doing their best to keep me human during this project. I have tried to learn from the wise counsel of my parents, which comes from their varied encounters with life, and I am deeply appreciative of their love and support. Paul Peretz, my brother, never fails to advise me that I am working too hard, as I advise him—and I am pleased to say that we have mutally ignored the other's advice but much enjoyed the giving and receiving of it. Robert Jackman has been my steadfast colleague and friend, helping in countless ways with the completion of this project, and he has bravely endeavored to distract the kids from their mother long enough to let me finish this book. Finally, Saul and Rachael have shown great patience in the past few months, helping and showing consideration for their often preoccupied mother in ways that seem beyond their years. I thank them for letting me get in some quality time with my manuscript and for enhancing my life with a continual feast of enchantments and distractions.

It is perhaps a truism that this project would not have been possible without the accumulated knowledge that others have generously shared with me. Over the years, several people have read various portions of this manuscript and given me incisive and thoughtful comments. I especially thank Sheldon Stryker, Barbara Reskin, Lowell Hargens, Jim Cramer, Larry Cohen, and Robert Jackman. Nancy Denton and an anonymous reviewer for the University of California Press gave an earlier version of this manuscript a most thorough and thoughtful reading: their comments were uncommonly helpful in tightening up my argument and

clarifying the presentation. The book has also been enriched by discussions and debates with colleagues from Michigan and California. I have benefited especially from the commentary and advice of Barbara Reskin, Ken Waltzer, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Larry Bobo, Don Kinder, James Jackson, Aram Yengoyan, Clarence Walker, Larry Cohen, and Robert Jackman. They have directed my reading and stimulated my thinking about the nature of ideology and coercion. Beyond those personal discussions, I have also profited immeasurably from the written work of others, most of whom I have never met. Paradoxically, the works that are the subject of closest critique in my book are often the ones from which I learned the most. Whether this reflects a perversity in my character or the intrinsic nature of scholarly learning I know not. In any event, I thank all those scholars whose work has provided intellectual guidance and provocation. The errors and lapses that remain in the book must regrettably be attributed to me alone.

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER, 1993

PROLOGUE

The Wind and the Sun

A dispute once arose between the wind and the sun over which was the stronger of the two. There seemed to be no way of settling the issue. But suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road.

"This is our chance," said the sun, "to prove who is right. Whichever of us can make that man take off his coat shall be the stronger. And just to show you how sure I am, I'll let you have the first chance."

So the sun hid behind a cloud, and the wind blew an icy blast. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his coat around him. At last the wind had to give up in disgust. The sun came out from behind the cloud and began to shine down upon the traveller with all his power. The traveller felt the sun's genial warmth, and as he grew warmer and warmer he began to loosen his coat. Finally, he was forced to take it off altogether and to sit down in the shade of a tree and fan himself. So the sun was right, after all!

Application: Persuasion is better than force. AESOP'S FABLES , 1947

This book is an analysis of the coercive gleam of persuasion in relations of inequality. Through a comparative analysis of three different intergroup relationships in the United States—race, gender, and social class—I hope to define the varying forms of ideological persuasion that dominant groups espouse as they seek to maintain control of different kinds of relationships as well as the ideological responses that find expression among their potential protagonists. I explore the attitudes that are exchanged between unequal groups as they respond to the structural exigencies of their mutual relationship and to the pressures and symbols created by their contenders in the delicate game of dominance and subordination.

My approach departs from the primary thrust of research on the ideology of inequality. Our intellectual agenda has been shaped by the enduring debate over "conflict versus consensus." Those who endorse the moral view that social inequality is contrary to human freedom have been drawn to the conflict perspective that anticipates friction, discontent, and concerted rebellion. Those who regard inequality as necessary for human productivity and fulfillment have argued that inequality is

a constant feature of social life which enjoys spontaneous consensual endorsement. This forced-choice paradigm has implicitly treated conflict as the exclusive symptom of exploitative relations and consensus as the indelible sign of functional integration. What has been overlooked by both sides is that the exploitation of one group by another may be buttressed more effectively by sweet persuasion than by hostile force. Once this is recognized, we can abandon the overriding significance that we have attached to conflict in intergroup relations. It becomes clear, instead, that consensus is only as spontaneous as the removal of one's coat in hot weather.

My purpose is to make the case that neither dominants nor subordinates actively seek open conflict and that hostility is rarely the active ingredient of exploitative relations. The ideological pressures created by dominant groups are more likely to be subtle and insidious than blatant or hostile. Thus, we need to abandon our preoccupation with conflict. We should redirect our attention to the many ways that dominant groups subvert conflict by befriending or at least emotionally disarming those whom they subordinate.

The Expropriative Basis of Social Inequality

I begin with the premise that inequality between social groups in the distribution of finite resources intrinsically entails a relationship in which one group expropriates resources from another.^[1] I mean this in the most rudimentary sense: the advantage that one group enjoys depends inextricably on the disadvantage that another suffers. Although some have argued that social inequality can be portrayed in benign or neutral terms, my premise is that if one group enjoys a larger portion of a finite resource, the only place from which it can have come is the other group or groups who reside in the same social system. This holds whether the distributive asset be material, social, or political.

The material wealth of one group depends on the availability of relatively cheap labor from others. If the gap between rich and poor is to be narrowed, the price must be paid by the wealthier members of society, who will no longer be able to afford all the services and accouterments of the standard of living to which they have become accustomed. Similarly, it is logically impossible for one group to possess more status, pres-

[1] I use the term "expropriation" in preference to the commonly used term "exploitation." The latter term has carried various meanings and as a result it is burdened with ambiguities. The term "expropriation" is adapted from Cohen and Machalek (1988), who divide people into "producers" and "expropriators" to identify those who illegally steal the goods produced by others. I am generalizing the concept of expropriation: my point is that most forms of expropriation take place within the bounds of the law.

tige, or social privileges without assigning less to other members of society. If there are to be gains for a subordinated group, these can only be accomplished by cutting into, and thus diminishing, the prestige and privileges enjoyed by a dominant group. Indeed, terms such as "prestige" and "privilege" intrinsically connote a relational inequality: their value is measured in terms of the exclusiveness of their attribution to some members of society. Finally, in the case of political inequality, it is perhaps intuitively clearest that the advantage of one group can stem only from the disadvantage of another. Moves toward political equality can only be achieved by subtracting from the advantaged group's control over decision making. In relationships between social groups, the gains of one group and the losses of another are thus inextricably bound together.^[2]

The Pursuit of Resources

My approach is also premised on the assumption that groups are comprised of individuals who strive to maximize their control over resources. Thus, I assume humans are self-interested.^[3] In the endeavor to preserve and possibly to enhance their control over material, social, and political resources, people are driven into social relations with others. As Weber points out, the self-interested person can ill afford to disregard other actors:

. . . the stability of action in terms of self-interest rests on the fact that the person who does not orient his action to the interests of others, does not "take account" of them, arouses their antagonism or may end up in a situation different from that which he had foreseen or wished to bring about. He thus runs the risk of damaging his own interests. (Weber [1947] 1964, 123)

[2] For purposes of simplicity, this discussion has been restricted to a dichotomous allocation system. If there are more than two groups, the same principle holds, although inequalities may involve more complex interactions among the participating groups. Within the general condition of inequality, any one group may experience relative gains or losses without necessarily affecting the outcomes of all other groups. However, the achievement of complete equality in distribution among all groups would require each group to forfeit or gain in proportion to the relative size of its current holdings.

[3] The term "self-interested" has been one of the most confused, misused, and misunderstood terms in recent social science (see, for example, the multiple uses of the term in the articles assembled in Mansbridge's volume, Beyond Self-Interest , 1990; see also R. Jackman, 1993, for a discussion of the various ways in which the concept has been misunderstood by social scientists). My truncated discussion here cannot do justice to the topic, and I request the reader's patience in my use of this term. My approach has been most influenced by Downs's conception of the motivational basis of political behavior in his classic book, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957). I ask that my conception of self-interest be taken on its own merits, as a working assumption.

For this reason, "self-interested" should not be confused with "selfish." As individuals negotiate their social world in the endeavor to make out as well as they can, they enter into both collaborative and expropriative relations with others. In either case, the self-interested actor is bound to communicate and interact with other parties.

In that process, self-interest has motivational primacy, although it need not be the only factor working on people's responses. For example, self-interest does not preclude a capacity to feel compassion or sympathy for others or even to act on behalf of others. However, I do not expect people to manifest such behaviors when they believe it puts their own interests at risk. Thus, instead of asking, "If people are self-interested, why do they give to charity?", it is more appropriate to ask, "If people are not self-interested, why do they give such a miniscule portion of their incomes to charity, and why do charitable contributions go up when they are tax-deductible and go down during recessions?" It is taken for granted that people donate to charity after they have met their own financial needs. No one is expected to demonstrate his sympathy for the starving people of Somalia by selling his home and giving his earnings over to the relief effort. Similarly, the fact that many religious organizations resort to the practice of tithing suggests that they recognize the importance of self-interest, even among the pious. Thus, I am assuming that self-interest has primacy, but not a monopoly, in determining human behavior.

People generally utilize whatever assets they initially possess to enhance their control over material, status, and political resources. They are also sensitive to whatever deficits they initially possess that make their control over resources vulnerable to incursions by others. Thus, as people attempt to make the most of their lives, they are inclined both to take advantage of opportunities and to be sensitive to risks.

When individuals share similar attributes that position them in the same way in the pursuit of resources, the evolving patterns of social life are molded by those similarities, and social groups are formed. Those with an initial advantage in their possession of vital assets collaborate with one another to establish expropriative relations with weaker members of the community. In this way, advantaged groups consolidate and promote their control over resources. Those with an initial disadvantage in their possession of vital assets must yield to the stronger contenders. For weaker parties, the struggle becomes one of preventing further incursions on their resources and trying, as best they can, to better their conditions.

Because humans are efficient problem solvers, they do not expend a great deal of conscious thought on every issue that is a part of their lives. People are not inclined to give careful deliberation to each and every

aspect of their lives, and they develop habitual responses to those aspects that appear to be stable fixtures (Downs 1957). For the same reason, people do not have to test each potential behavioral strategy firsthand. Instead, they tend to gravitate to solutions and strategies that do not seem to put them at risk, and they rely on information from others as well as their own past and present experience to make such assessments. Sometimes they make mistakes, either because of poor information, misinterpreting information, or miscalculating outcomes, but people generally learn from their mistakes as well as from the mistakes made by others.

In the process of information gathering, people also develop habits according to a source's accessibility and its time-proven credibility as either a positive or negative reference (Downs 1957). On these principles, people draw information with differential confidence from their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, schoolmates, teachers, co-workers, employers, sons, daughters, extended family members, neighbors, newspapers, television, radio, books, and any other sources that come their way.

People grope through the welter of experiences and information with which they are daily bombarded, as they contend with the day-to-day exigencies of their lives and shrink from the sea of uncertainties that lies beyond. Mistakes can be costly. In this ongoing struggle, their surest strategy is to succumb to the pressures that bear down on them—in other words, to follow the path of least resistance.

Long-Term Relations of Social Inequality

When resources are expropriated from one group to another iteratively over a period of time, a long-term relationship of inequality is delineated between the participating groups. Even if there are alterations in the specifics of the resource allocation, we may consider a relationship between groups to be one of long-term inequality when the overall imbalance in the distribution of resources between the groups remains in place. It is such long-term, unequal intergroup relations that are the focus of this book. The relations that exist today in American society between men and women, whites and blacks, and among social classes have evidenced considerable change in the specific allocation of resources and in the manner in which the inequalities are practiced. But all three cases involve long-term relations of social inequality: all three have been a significant part of organized social life in this country throughout its history.

I presume that the ideological dynamics of long-term relations of inequality are distinct from other kinds of intergroup relations. First, they should be distinguished from relations involving either greater instability in the share of resources going to each group or only a narrow advantage

allocated to one group. Many relations between ethnic or religious groups (for example, between Indians and ethnic Fijians in Fiji, or between Christians and Moslems in Lebanon) involve closer contests between groups and significant uncertainty about which group is to dominate the distribution of assets. As it becomes less clear which group is dominant, the ideological dynamics shift progressively away from the model that I explore in this book and travel instead toward more explicit assertions of group interests and more open hostility and conflict.

Long-term relations of social inequality are also distinct from those relations involving geographic proximity between culturally incompatible groups with little or no functional interconnection. Many states incorporate groups that are mutually distinctive in terms of culture, religion, or language. The primary, and sometimes the only, connection between the affected groups is that they happen, by historical accident, to be residing in the same political unit. In such instances, there is not an expropriative relationship between the groups—neither group offers the other group the prospect of enhancing its control over resources through an expropriative arrangement. The members of each group would like to have complete control over their state's resources, and the continued presence of the other group or groups only presents an obstacle to that end. Examples of such cases are the French and English Canadians in Canada, the contact between Europeans and Native Americans in America, Moslems and Hindus in colonial India, Europeans and Aborigines in colonial Australia, and relations between many ethnic groups in the African states (such as between Christians and Moslems in Sudan, and among Ibos, Hausa, and Yoruba in Nigeria).^[4] Under these circumstances too, open hostilities are likely to develop between the groups. When the groups are evenly balanced in the distribution of assets, a struggle ensues. When one group clearly has the advantage in its control over resources, it may initiate hostile actions toward the other group or groups—it may dictate restrictive terms by which the other group or groups can continue to reside in the state, or it may resort to expulsion or genocide in order to eliminate the threat posed by the target group(s) to its own dominance.^[5]

[4] Competitive interethnic relations have been a hallmark of politics in many African states—a legacy of the carving up of African territory by the European colonial powers with no regard for the geographic distribution of the preexisting ethnic nations of Africa (see van den Berghe 1983 for an interesting discussion of ethnic divisions in Africa).

[5] The treatment of middleman minorities comprises a special case of this general type, since their functional relationship to other groups in society is circumscribed by restrictive conditions that are subject to rescission. Middleman minorities have the following attributes: (1) they are immigrant groups who are culturally distinct from the "host" population, (2) they have been granted residence in a nation on specific terms that restrict their eco-nomic role to specialized occupations that are unattractive to the indigenous population for economic or cultural reasons, and (3) they thereby occupy a buffer role between the main contending groups in that society. Middleman minorities have historically occupied a very vulnerable position. They retain an "outsider" status, and their continued presence is tolerated only insofar as they perform tasks that are distasteful to the indigenous population and they function to deflect the hostilities of indigenous subordinate groups away from the dominant group. Whereas the members of the dominant group maintain a long-term interest in expropriating resources from indigenous subordinates, their interest in the middleman group is only conditional and is thus highly volatile. Depending on the state of the economy and their success in expropriating resources from subordinates, the dominant group's main intentions toward the middleman group may be, variously, to encourage its specialized economic activity, to incite open hostilities against its members by subordinates, to expel them, or to exterminate them. The Jews have historically experienced all those fates. (For more detailed treatments of the special case of middleman minorities, see Blalock 1967; Bonacich 1973; van den Berghe 1981.)

Past research has tended to treat all intergroup relations as subject to the same competitive pressures, as is manifested, for example, in the frequent citation of Sherif's famous boys' camp experiment (1965) in which competing (or warring) social groups were created and their hostile interactions analyzed. Although many researchers have regarded Sherif's study as holding fundamental, universal truths for the dynamics of intergroup relations, I treat the situation of outright competition between groups as the limiting case rather than the prototype. The political pressures generated in such cases are much different from those that exist in long-standing relations of inequality. The puzzles that have intrigued scholars about relations between social classes, men and women, and whites and blacks in American society cannot be solved without considering the distinctive pressures that are generated in longstanding, expropriative relations of inequality.

Long-term relations of social inequality are marked fatefully by one pivotal factor: one group has a vested interest in maintaining the existing relationship, with the distribution of resources that it brings. The members of the dominant group have vested their interest in the ongoing institutional arrangements that deliver their benefits. This has important consequences for the strategies pursued by the members of the dominant group and for the responses of subordinates to their predicament.

The Ideological Pressures of Long-Term Inequalities

Most fundamentally, the existence of ongoing institutional arrangements that bear the primary burden of distributing resources means that the individual members of the participating groups need not be explicitly cognizant of the relationship that exists between them. Lack of awareness

among subordinate groups has been the frequent subject of commentary and analysis, but what is often overlooked is that the collective and institutionalized character of the expropriation renders it particularly invisible to its beneficiaries. When a relationship is regularized and institutionalized, it is simply a case of "c'est la vie." Personal acts of aggression are not required to claim one's due as a member of the advantaged group: benefits simply fall into one's lap. There is thus no need for deep, personal insight into how things work, nor is there any feeling of personal accountability or guilt for the expropriated benefits one enjoys. Indeed, it is remarkably easy to view one's benefits as the natural outcome of individual endeavor and to overlook the dreary fact that those benefits have been delivered at someone else's expense.

Yet the dominant group does strive for a subjectively plausible understanding of its collective experience, and there is an abiding need to protect current arrangements from the omnipresent possibility of challenge. From these pressures there develops an ideology that gains popular acceptance within its ranks. Far from identifying the bleak reality of the expropriation, this ideology provides an interpretation of social life that is less offensive to the sensibilities of its beneficiaries and more diversionary from the incipient complaints of subordinates.

Because individuals in the dominant group do not feel personally accountable for the expropriated benefits of their existence, there is no impetus for them to contrive knowingly to manufacture such an ideology. Instead, out of the pressures created by their collective relationship with subordinates, there evolves naturally an interpretation of social reality that is consistent with the dominant group's experience. That ideology is a collective property. It permeates the main institutions and communications networks of organized social life and is propagated with an easy vehemence that can come only from uncontrived sincerity. The individuals who comprise the dominant group are caught in the prevailing current; without any exercise of personal guile, they learn to defend their interests with aplomb. Lasswell has given an animated description of the process:

A well-established ideology perpetuates itself with little planned propaganda by those whom it benefits most. When thought is taken about ways and means of sowing conviction, conviction has already languished, the basic outlook of society has decayed, or a new, triumphant outlook has not yet gripped the automatic loyalties of old and young. Happy indeed is that nation that has no thought of itself; or happy at least are the few who procure the principal benefits of universal acquiescence. Systems of life which confer special benefits on the other fellow need no plots or conspiracies when the masses are moved by faith and the elites are inspired by self-confidence. (Lasswell 1936, 29-30)

This implies, of course, that the effectiveness of a particular ideology cannot be gauged simply by assessing the sincerity and easy following that it engenders within the ranks of the dominant group. Minimally, the dominant ideology provides an interpretation of current social arrangements that seems coherent and reasonable to its beneficiaries. Beyond this, the vital question is the extent to which the dominant group can induce subordinates to fall in with its way of thinking. A perspective that develops effortlessly from one side of experience might by the same token seem quite inappropriate from the other side. The degree to which the dominant group can persuade subordinates to accept its proffered interpretation of the meaning of their social relationship is a measure of the dominant group's success in controlling that relationship.

Thus, the beneficiaries of a relationship of inequality must not only make sense out of their experience in a way that is personally reasonable and satisfying. They need also to engage subordinates in the same way of thinking. Both of these needs form a constant source of pressure on the ideology that dominant groups espouse.

The shape of dominant ideology varies according to the structure of the relationship with subordinates and the exigencies created by that structure. But whatever the specific circumstances that the dominant group faces, the overriding propellant of its ideology is the unmeditated pursuit of a persuasive message that obscures the bare bones of expropriation and thus prevents or at least mitigates resistance. The costs of overt conflict are painfully high for dominant groups, and thus the enduring proclivity of such groups is to try to prevent conflict by obscuring the basis on which it might coalesce. As with the sun in Aesop's fable, the dominant group seeks to obviate the possibility of defeat by structuring the terms of the encounter to its advantage. And as in the fable, the dominant group understands implicitly that the use of force only structures the game in combative terms, making resistance the readiest response, whereas persuasion radiates with disarming warmth at the same time as it is relentless and pervasive in its effects.

The Sweetest Persuasion: Paternalism

Dominant groups resort to alternative modes of persuasion as circumstances change, but the enduring beacon to which they are drawn and from which they depart only reluctantly and by degrees is an ideology of paternalism. Webster's definition of paternalism is "the principle or system of governing or controlling a country, group of employees, etc. in a manner suggesting a father's relationship with his children" (Webster 1975). An earlier edition of Webster's (1965) defined paternalism in more detail:

Paternalism: the care or control of subordinates (as by a government or employer) in a fatherly manner; esp. : the principles or practices of a government that undertakes to supply needs or regulate conduct of the governed in matters affecting them as individuals as well as in their relations to the state and to each other. (Webster's 1965)

The traditional father-child relationship on which the term is based was one in which the father authoritatively dictated all the behaviors and significant life-decisions of his children within a moral framework that credited the father with an unassailable understanding of the needs and best interests of his children. They, in turn, accepted implicitly and absolutely the authority of their father—occasional bouts of independence were not unexpected, but never tolerated. Good children learned to comply with and defer to the wishes of their fathers.

No arrangement could be more desirable for a group that dominates another. Yet fathers love their children, and thus the traditional father-child relationship might seem an inappropriate analogy for the ideology that accompanies and bolsters a relationship of inequality between social groups. Because of our ensnarement in the "conflict versus consensus" debate, we have implicitly regarded discrimination as the inalienable expression of hostility: within that framework, affection and exploitation are incompatible. In this book, however, I separate hostility from discrimination. I argue that it is only in the limiting case that they become linked. Affection, far from being alien to exploitative relations, is precisely the emotion that dominant groups wish to feel toward those whom they exploit. The everyday practice of discrimination does not require feelings of hostility, and, indeed, it is not at all difficult to have fond regard for those whom we subordinate, especially when the subject of our domination accedes to the relationship compliantly. To denote this phenomenon of discrimination without the expression of hostility, I use the term paternalism.

Paternalism is a time-worn term that has had indefinite meaning in common usage. Among analysts of intergroup relations, it has occupied an uncertain and marginal role because of the overriding concern with conflict and hostility. In one of the few explicit analyses of paternalistic relations, van den Berghe (1967) relegated it to preindustrial societies in which a numerically small minority dominates over more numerous subordinates. Myrdal (1944), in his classic treatment of black-white relations in the United States, regarded paternalism as a cultural anachronism, out of place in an industrial, democratic society. Paternalism found its most penetrating exposition in Genovese's work on master-slave relations in the antebellum American South (1974), and more recently, some scholars have applied the concept to an analysis of management-labor relations in anachronistic pockets of the developing industrial enterprise

(Lockwood 1966; Newby 1977a , 1977b ; Burawoy 1984; Staples 1987). More commonly, paternalism indefinitely connotes the colonial days and the "white man's burden" of the nineteenth century. The prevailing effect has been to associate paternalism with a bygone era. Most research on contemporary intergroup relations has brushed the phenomenon aside, like a relic, to be regarded occasionally with quiet dismay.

My argument, however, is that paternalism has a significance that is both general and contemporary. It is a powerful ideological mold that offers the most efficient and gratifying means for the social control of relationships between unequal groups. The attitude structure that it comprises—the combination of positive feelings for a group with discriminatory intentions toward the group—has been underestimated by students of intergroup relations and unheeded in research on intergroup attitudes. And yet the ideology of dominant groups departs from the comforting mold of paternalism only reluctantly and under duress. The abiding quest is to preserve an amicable relationship with subordinates and thus to preempt or subvert conflict. The expression of hostility invites the exercise of force, and that remains the option of last resort.

Paternalism Versus Benevolence

An awkward ambiguity has pervaded both popular and scholarly uses of the term "paternalism" over the extent to which paternalism connotes benevolence. Fathers, after all, were presumed to have benevolent intentions toward their children, even as they exercised absolute authority over them. And in the analysis of intergroup relations, the tendency to link malevolence with hostility has been so habitual that analysts have inferred that the development of bonds of affection between the members of dominant groups and their subordinates must erode the ability of dominant-group members to control their relations with subordinates.

Thus, the observation of affection toward subordinates in paternalistic systems has promoted the inference that paternalism involves at least some degree of benevolence. For example, in a discussion of "Paternalism in Industry," Blumer wrote:

[A] sense of responsibility and of obligation for the welfare of the worker is the most outstanding mark of paternalism. It is a tempering influence on the mere proprietary and control relationship and imparts to that relationship a personal and benevolent character. (Blumer 1951, 26)

A similar confounding of affection and benevolence is found in a more recent treatment of paternalism by Weiner (1985/1986). In assessing the effect of slave-owners' wives on the institution of slavery, Weiner comments:

Allston was not the only plantation mistress who found pleasure in plantation life or developed strong bonds of affection for slaves. The teachings of the ideology of domesticity and southern paternalism together defined caring for slaves as central to southern womanhood. . . . While men created paternalism as a mechanism of social control, women inadvertently assumed a significant portion of the responsibility for putting it into practice on a daily basis. . . . In their efforts to ameliorate the physical and emotional hardships experienced by slaves, women quite unwittingly became the agents of paternalism. . . . Ironically then, one result . . . was to enable slavery to continue to exist by making life more tolerable for slaves and thus helping to defuse discontent. (Weiner 1985/1986, 382).

Even the most critical exponents of paternalism have seen it as an ideological system fraught with contradictions, stemming from a tensive intermixture of domination with benevolence (see, for example, Genovese 1974; Newby 1977b ). Dominant-group members are seen as being trapped by their affectionate inclinations and by paternalism's moral shroud of mutual obligation into giving more than they might otherwise to subordinates.

The appearance of benevolence in paternalistic intergroup relations is indeed pervasive, but it is important to recognize that it is nothing more than an appearance. It is helpful here to consider a neutral definition of paternalism that portrays the phenomenon as benevolently motivated. In VanDeVeer's exhaustive and probing book, Paternalistic Intervention: The Moral Bounds of Benevolence , paternalistic acts are defined as those "in which one person, A, interferes with another person, S, in order to promote S's own good" (1986, 12). VanDeVeer specifically rules out callousness or maliciousness as a motive for paternalistic acts. He cites many diverse examples of paternalistic acts: his long list includes legal requirements that motorcyclists wear helmets, compulsory education of the young, legal prohibitions on voluntary euthanasia, required courses at universities, required waiting periods for divorce, distribution of welfare in kind (e.g., food stamps) rather than in cash, involuntary sterilization, and compulsory participation in systems providing for adequate income on retirement (e.g., Social Security) (VanDeVeer 1986, 13–15). What all these acts have in common is the intervening party's presumptive claim to a superior understanding of the subject's best interests than the subject may possess him- or herself. In essence, then, VanDeVeer's paternalistic actor is distinguished by the coupling of two characteristics: an un-self-interested, benevolent intent, and a presumption of greater moral competence than the subject of his or her intervention (VanDeVeer 1986).

We now return to the inferred benevolence of the father's authority over his children. The father's benevolent exercise of authority is, of

course, based on the notion that children are not the maturational or moral equals of their parents. An argument can be made that the exercise of authority over those who lack the maturity or moral competence to make the "wisest" decisions for themselves may be construed as being in the best interests of those who are thus treated, as "taking care" of them. Individuals who are encompassed by this criterion might (arguably) include children, students, the seriously retarded, the mentally ill, and people who are physically unconscious.

However, even here, legitimate disputes can arise about both the definition of the morally incompetent population (at what point does someone cease to be a child or a student? is someone who is depressed and wishes to commit suicide to be considered mentally ill?), and about the extent of intervention that is justified (should parental consent be required for teenagers to have abortions? should involuntary hospitalization be required for the mentally ill?). These moral ambiguities hover over even the most neutral examples of paternalism (VanDeVeer 1986), and they are compounded by yet another tier of difficulties.

When an actor presumes to have superior moral competence, he or she becomes the final arbiter of what is considered to be the best interests of the subject of the intervention. What protection does such a system offer for a truly disinterested assessment of the subject's best interests? Indeed, is the paternalist capable of assessing the best interests of others, separate from his or her own interests and free from the limitations of his or her own moral perspective? Bear in mind that when fathers exercised paternalistic authority over their children, they did not selflessly evaluate the best interests of their children. Children owed an allegiance to their families: their personal interests were defined, at best, as inseparable from those of their families, and in the event of a conflict, personal interests were subjugated to the financial, status, or political interests of the family. To what extent do similar constraints operate when faculty decide what is "in the best interests" of students, or when civil authorities decide what is "in the best interests" of the mentally ill or the seriously retarded? Do faculty consider what knowledge students should learn without consideration to what would be easiest for the faculty to teach and uninfluenced by their own prior investment in a particular body of knowledge? Do social institutions consider what is best for social dependents without concern for the costs to the rest of society of alternative options?

And, finally, how is the observer to distinguish acts that are altruistically or benevolently motivated from malevolent acts that merely purport to be benevolent? VanDeVeer acknowledges the existence of "illegitimate constraints placed on persons 'for their own good'—with the invitation to comfortable self-righteousness implicit in such an expression." He

adds: "Given our strong desire to believe that we are 'reasonable persons of good will' we . . . are less likely to avoid the self-deceptions associated with acts which are seemingly innocent instances of 'doing good'" (VanDeVeer 1986, 426).

These layers of doubts and ambiguities plague even a generous interpretation of paternalism, as when an agent intervenes with good will on behalf of a subject who is maturationally younger or morally incompetent. But these issues are heightened dramatically when an agent presumes superior moral competence over a subject who is the equal of the agent either maturationally or in the physical ability to think and reason. Indeed, VanDeVeer argues that even acts of benevolently motivated paternalism are unjustified in such cases: when we "view and treat other competents as our moral inferiors," we indulge our own moral sensibilities at the expense of others' liberties (VanDeVeer 1986, 423–424).

These issues are heightened still further when a social group presumes moral superiority over another group from whom it is expropriating valued societal resources. To begin, the lack of reciprocity implicit in such a presumption of moral superiority (that is, the dominant group does not grant that subordinates may at times have a superior understanding of the interests of dominant-group members) carries with it a tacit status-ranking of the two groups. Insidiously, that status-ranking coincides with the expropriative pattern in the intergroup relationship. The preexisting relationship between the two groups hardly positions dominant group members for disinterested, benevolent intervention on behalf of subordinates. In such circumstances, it is implausible that the members of the dominant group might dissociate their own best interests from those of the group that is providing their privileges. The presumption of moral superiority over a group with whom one has an expropriative relationship is thus flatly incompatible with the spirit of altruistic benevolence, no matter how much affection and breast-beating accompanies it. In the analysis of unequal relations between social groups, paternalism must be distinguished from benevolence.

Mastering the Illusion of Benevolence

But the agenda for dominant groups is to create an ideological cocoon whereby they can define their discriminatory actions as benevolent. In this way, the beneficiaries of the inequality assuage their own sensibilities at the same time as they avoid the awkwardness of having to withhold something from the demanding grasp of subordinates. Subordinates do not demand something unless they define it as a need. Dominant groups thus mimic the traditional father-child relationship by claiming superior moral competence and attempting to define the needs of subordinates.

They can then provide—with pleasant sentimentality and with a satisfying feeling of benevolence—for the fulfillment of those needs.

To that end, their unequal relationship is swathed in a morality that identifies subordinates' worth and value within the terms of that relationship. Such an orientation must rest on persuasion rather than on force and can only be really effective in the circumstance of mutual affection between the groups. With affection comes the ability of those in command to shape the needs and aspirations of subordinates and to portray discriminatory arrangements as being in the best interests of all concerned. Conflict is obviated because those who must initiate it—the havenot's—are bound emotionally and cognitively in a framework that is of the dominant group's definition. Far from undermining their domination over subordinates, the expression of affection for subordinates thus strengthens the dominant group's control.

The Wages of Love

A great deal has been written, spoken, and, above all, sung, about the virtues of love. Love in all its forms is extolled. Whether it is in reference to the relations between parents and children, sexual partners, siblings, friends, social groups, or nations, we are daily exhorted to strive for love. Before its radiant power, problems melt. We all know that "love is blind," that to love is to give of oneself, to embrace the other to oneself, to lay oneself open, and to dissolve barriers. We revere love as the highest human emotion.

But something is missing. Many husbands who profess to love their wives beat them, and after humble contrition and apologies, they beat them again. Many fathers who profess love for their children beat them or sexually abuse them. Slave-owners in the Old South who professed affection for their slaves subjected their slaves to harsh physical punishments. I submit that love is overrated. It seems to offer little protection in human relations.

Is love given freely, or is it offered on terms? Does love instill feelings of protectiveness, or feelings of possession? Is love blind, or carefully circumscribed? Does love make people do anything for someone, or does it give them a license to do anything to someone? Do we give more to those whom we love, or do we demand more from our loved ones? Is love a feeling of dependence ("I can't live without her"), or a feeling of being indispensible ("He needs me")? The problem is that almost anything can be done, and has been done, in the name of love. Idealized love and the practice of love appear to have little connection.

The single achievement of love is to entangle the affected parties with an intricate and complex emotional bond. That bond does not dissolve

other elements present in the relationship. It neither alters the personalities of the participants nor changes the way resources are distributed between them. If one participant has more resources, love does not move him to give those advantages up. The distinction between the pleasures afforded by love and by privilege is brought out sharply in the words of an upper-middle-class white Virginian, interviewed in the 1940s:

As a boy I played with colored children. I loved my Negro mammy and kissed her as I would my white mother. The social side has nothing to do with the human side. I wouldn't have gone to school with the colored boys, but I was in sports with them, camped out with them, ate and slept with them. I remember one old friend, Jim, who had been a body guard to an old general. I saw him in back of the house when I was home last—he almost opened his arms to me. I shook his hand, just as familiarly. That's the human side of your old type Negro. If he came to my house he'd go around to the back door; he wouldn't think of going to the front. (Quoted in Johnson 1943, 210; for similar reports showing the acute distinction between affection and status differentiation in whites' relations with African Americans in the South in the early twentieth century, see Powdermaker [1939] 1968, 31–32)

What love does accomplish is to infuse the inequalities in a relationship with an intricate bond that lubricates the contact points between the participants. By these sweet means, the actor with more resources is granted an ease of access to the other party of which he might otherwise only dream.

Longstanding relationships of social inequality are not driven by feelings of hostility; nor do such feelings provide a sound bolster for the inequality. In such relations, the intent to discriminate springs directly from the privileged interests of the dominant group, and the emotional accompaniment of choice is not hostility, but affection. Groups who dominate social relationships strive to keep hostility out of those relationships, not in order to foster equality, but rather to deepen and secure the inequality. They have learned that persuasion is better than force.

Outline of the Book

These ideas about conflict and its avoidance in intergroup relations are elaborated in part I. I begin, in chapter 1, by discussing the prevailing concerns and assumptions of the literature on class relations, racial prejudice, political tolerance, and gender attitudes, and I identify the ways in which each of these disparate bodies of research has been shaped by the pivotal significance attached to conflict and hostility. In chapter 2, I elaborate an alternative view of the relational process of dominance and subordination. My argument is that the preoccupation with conflict and

hostility has seriously misdirected our efforts to understand and interpret the dynamics of social inequality. I assess the limits of explicit power relations and force as a means of social control and the role of ideology in channeling social control into more implicit and less combative avenues. This leads to a consideration of the different forms of ideological persuasion that are nurtured by varying structural conditions. I appraise the coercive properties of love as an instrument of social control and the congeniality of conditional love in the control of relations that are structured with high physical intimacy between the groups. I then suggest an alternative form of ideological persuasion into which dominant groups drift when their relations with subordinates are structured more distally and the threat of conflict is heightened. When love is impractical, dominant groups turn to reason as they grope to restrain hostility and maintain control without the exercise of force.

In part II, I address issues that bear on the comparative, empirical analysis of the ideologies that accompany different cases of intergroup relations. In chapter 3, the factors that define the distinctive physical profiles of my three empirical cases—race, gender, and social class in the contemporary United States—are assessed, followed by a discussion of the rationale that underlies my comparative case-study analysis. In chapter 4, I consider the ways in which intergroup contact is structured in race, gender, and class relations in the United States. The distinguishing elements of role segregation and spatial segregation as modes of differentiation are assessed, as well as the implications of each mode for the character of communication channels between groups. I then examine empirical data from my 1975 survey of the American public to evaluate the degree to which these two forms of segregation have shaped the pattern of contact between groups in race, gender, and class relations in the United States.

In part III, I dissect and compare empirically the intergroup attitudes that are exchanged between groups in the three cases. The attitudes of a representative sample of the adult population of the United States in the mid-1970s give us a revealing camera shot of the intergroup attitudes that pervade alternative forms of inequality. Those data allow us to explore the ideological intricacies of dominance and subordination as each group responds to the structural exigencies of the relationship and to the messages received from its unequal cohabitants. I focus piece by piece on evidence for different kinds of ideological tendencies and the presence of conflict or the quieter ideologies of paternalism or reasoned persuasion from one intergroup relationship to another.

This begins, in chapter 5, with an assessment of the emotional and cognitive wellsprings of intergroup attitudes. To what extent do the members of contending groups manifest hostility or warmth in their

basic affective dispositions toward one another and a sense of mutual disparity or universally shared interests in their cognitive understandings of the relationship between them? Those questions have lain at the foundation of theories on prejudice, tolerance, and group consciousness. I suggest that the data do not lie in patterns that conform to the expectations of past theories. The emotional and perceptual framing of intergroup attitudes is frequently softened by warm or neutral emotional expressions and by perceptions of shared group interests. The introduction of hostility and disparity varies across different groups and intergroup relations, but it appears to be tentative rather than strident.

In chapter 6, the focus shifts to the policy goals of contending groups, to assess their construction and substance and the degree to which they suggest competing or merged political agendas. To address the shape of grassroots political alignments, I consider the distinctions between abstract and specific policy goals, egalitarianism and individualism, and existential and prescriptive beliefs. The differing existential views that frame people's policy prescriptions help us to distinguish those who advocate affirmative policy change from the conservatives who want no change and, at the other extreme, those who urge reactionary change. The varying shape of political discourse between dominant and subordinate groups can then be traced for race, gender, and class relations.

In chapter 7, I turn to the key issue of how people's intergroup emotional dispositions are linked with their policy goals on behalf of groups: to what extent are negative emotional dispositions the catalyst for competitive policy goals? Despite the scholarly preoccupation with consistent attitudes, what are the alternative ways that intergroup feelings and policy goals are compounded by people in dominant and subordinate groups? And how do the attitudinal configurations on each side of an intergroup relationship dovetail with one another as the participating groups respond to the constraints presented by their mutual relations?

In chapter 8, the cognitive embroidery of intergroup relations is examined. What kinds of beliefs prevail in each intergroup relationship about the salient characteristics of the contending groups, and what is the folk wisdom about the causes of group differences? I argue that the scholarly emphasis on stereotypical beliefs that are categorical, sharply differentiating, irrational, rigid, and derogatory has been misplaced. I examine intergroup attributions as political, elastic stories introduced by the dominant group to address the various stress-points that exist in their relations with subordinates. I assess the varying substance and style of intergroup attributions in unequal relations that are marked by different constraints and the varying success of dominant groups in persuading subordinates to see things their way.

Finally, in part IV, the broad issues that have motivated this book are

assessed. In chapter 9, I begin by outlining the central precepts of my theoretical and methodological approach to the ideology of inequality, identifying the key ways in which my approach diverges from other models. The data from race, gender, and class relations are then reviewed. What features distinguish the structure of each intergroup relationship and the accompanying exchange of ideologies between groups? I appraise the extent to which the attitudes of individual participants are bound by aggregate pressures stemming from the general structure of contact between groups and the messages received from contending groups in the ongoing affair of dominance and subordination. What does the evidence from gender, class, and race relations in the United States suggest for the roles of hostility and persuasion in the ideological pursuit of group interests?

PART I—
THE WIND AND THE SUN

Chapter One—
The Search for Conflict

In his well-known essay on "The Subjection of Women," John Stuart Mill (1869) made the following argument about what he regarded as the special character of the unequal relationship between men and women:

They [women] are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the women most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favority. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear—either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. ([1869] 1970, 141)

Mill's argument is important, both for what it says and for what it does not say. First, Mill identified the clear advantages to a dominant group of obtaining the unthinking compliance of subordinates and the significance of ideology ("the whole force of education") as a weapon to achieve that effect. But, second, Mill assumes that relationships of inequality in general are not governed by such considerations. He argues that male-female relations are an exception (and, as I shall show later, only a partial exception at that) to the general rule of overt hostility between unequal groups and the forced compliance of subordinates. The first point is an important insight into the ideological dynamics of dominance and subordination. The second point is an equally important oversight that undermines the potentially broad significance of Mill's analysis.

Mill's oversight has been endemic to the disparate literature on the

ideology of inequality. The attitudes that are espoused by groups who are engaged in a relationship of inequality have been analyzed and dissected by students of class relations, racial prejudice, political tolerance, and gender relations. Each of these bodies of literature has operated independently, each caught up in its own specialized language and research agenda. But what each corpus of research does share is the pivotal, implicit assumption that conflict and hostility are the exclusive hallmark of problematic social relations. I turn now to an overview of the motivating concerns of each of these bodies of literature on the ideology of inequality. Such an overview reveals both the discrete concerns of each corpus of research and the common thread—expressed in various ways—of the assumption that there is an indefatigable link between problematic social relations and conflict.

Class and Class Conflict

Karl Marx's analysis of class relations put conflict squarely at the center stage of debate about the existence and meaning of social class. The abiding role that Marx assigned to conflict in the expression and resolution of exploitative social relations is made clear in Engels' succinct summary of Marx's approach in his introduction to "The Manifesto of the Communist Party":

The fundamental proposition . . . is that in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily following from it form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions, and class struggles. (Marx and Engels [1888] 1959, 4)

Capitalism would bring to a climax the evolutionary history of exploitation and conflict, and it would therefore intensify the strains that had been the catalyst for change throughout history. The language of conflict and struggle abound in Marx's analysis of capitalism:

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat. (Marx and Engels [1888] 1959, 8)

The Debate about Marx

Marx's thesis drew the first powerful lines of the framework that was to lock in the debate about social class. Those who wished to promote the view of class as exploitative felt compelled to show evidence of its injurious effects on social harmony. Those who sought to portray inequality as benign pointed to the lack of strife along class lines as vital evidence. Indeed, in the ensuing "conflict versus consensus" debate, the concept of class itself became tied-to the inseparable pair, exploitation and conflict. To claim no evidence of class conflict was tantamount to denying the existence of class at all as an organizing factor in social life.

The powerful impact of Marx's analysis on the concept of social class reflects not only the radical nature of the theory itself, but the particular quality of the criticisms it engendered. Although some analysts disputed the exact basis of class organization (for example, authority relations at work or type of work rather than relationship to the means of production), the most threatening criticisms that defined the other extremities of the framework for debate did not challenge the internal logic of Marx's theory or the logic of its empirical deductions. Attempts to discount Marx's analysis primarily took the form of working backwards from the ultimate empirical prediction, class conflict: using the absence of class conflict as their logical starting point, critics sought to establish that the notion of class exploitation on which conflict was predicated was therefore wrong.

Criticisms of Marx came in a series of waves. Indeed, until the relatively recent advent of neo-Marxist thought, Marx's influence on the literature on class inequality seemed to be primarily indirect, through the counterarguments that it spawned. The first enduring criticisms came from Max Weber. A second line of dispute came from Emile Durkheim and the subsequent development of the functionalist school of thought. Further criticisms were developed by scholars from the pluralist and postindustrial/postmaterialist schools of thought. Without giving a full account of each of these waves of criticism, I would like to draw attention to those aspects that reinforced the equation of exploitation with conflict and hostility.

Weber

Max Weber took issue with Marx on both methodological and theoretical grounds. In his advocacy of the "ideal type" methodology, he held that theory construction was a misleading tool for the analysis

of social life. He did not want to argue that Marx's theory was wrong in the sense that an alternative theory would be better. He argued that any theory of social life would be limited both by the elusively changeable nature of social phenomena themselves and by the baggage of personal values that the social scientist brings to the world in which he is both a participant and an observer (Weber 1949). The analytic goal of Weber's "ideal type" methodology was to construct an abstraction of some social phenomenon and then to use that abstraction, not as a lens through which to observe and interpret social reality, but as a reference against which reality could be compared. In this way, he hoped to identify the regularities of social life as well as to highlight the idiosyncracies. Weber's purpose, therefore, in criticizing Marx was not to advocate an alternative theory but to treat Marx's theory as though it were an "ideal type" and to elucidate those aspects of social life that did not square with Marx's model of it. Because of this methodological slant, Weber's legacy was more a series of questions about various pieces of Marx's theory than the development of an alternative conception of the dynamics of social inequality.

Weber raised numerous questions about Marx's theory, but the statement that had the most profound effect on the shape of the literature on social inequality was his fragmentary essay, "Class, Status, Party" (Weber 1946a ). In that paper, he argued that classes may be nothing more than bare, economic categories devoid of the sense of community or shared purpose that come out of status distinctions. Pointing to social distinctions that have no direct basis in economic inequality (and especially racial and ethnic distinctions), Weber argued that they "interfered with the sheer market principle" by providing alternative, more socially salient magnets for social exclusiveness and intergroup antagonism.

In the subsequent desire to move away from a class analysis of society, social scientists seized upon this idea of Weber's. Specifically, they attempted to demote the analytic importance of class by arguing that other culturally based distinctions (especially race and ethnicity) evidenced more conflict and hostility than did class. In this way, Weber's legacy was to heighten even further the significance attached to social conflict in the analysis of social inequality.

Durkheim

Durkheim's ideas about social inequality reinforced the linkage of conflict with problematic social relations more directly. Durkheim viewed social differentiation, not as the product of exploitative relationships, but as a benign and functionally integrative feature of organized social life (Durkheim [1897] 1951, [1893] 1965). At the same time, he denied the normality of conflict—he acknowledged its contemporaneous existence but portrayed it as an aberration from normal social intercourse brought about only by minor maladjustments in a complex

but overwhelmingly balanced, integrative social system. Social inequality was functionally integrative, and under "normal" circumstances this would be tacitly demonstrated in its consensual endorsement (Durkheim [1895] 1964). Thus, whereas Marx depicted conflict as intrinsic to the course of human history, Durkheim regarded conflict as abnormal. For Durkheim, consensus and harmony typically govern social intercourse, and this was taken as a manifestation of the functional integration of the underlying structure of society. Outbreaks of conflict were taken as a signal that things had slipped temporarily out of kilter, indicating that the system required repair to nudge it back to its normal state of integrated balance. Thus, Durkheim preserved the logic of a link between pervasive social struggle and exploitative social inequality. Even sporadic outbreaks of conflict were taken as evidence of a social problem, albeit a lapse capable of repair rather than an endemic structural flaw. In Durkheim's view, absence of conflict was the normal condition of human society and it demonstrated the absence of exploitation and even the absence of any divisive social problem.

Davis and Moore

In their functional theory of stratification (1945), Davis and Moore promoted Durkheim's line of reasoning, and, in so doing, they sealed the course of the debate about the meaning of social inequality into a choice between conflict (symptomatic of exploitative relations) and consensus (indicative of functional differentiation). Davis and Moore argued that socioeconomic inequality, far from being a weapon that frustrates human creativity and freedom, is the necessary instrument by which the potential of both society and its individual constituent members is realized. An unequal distribution of rewards does not indicate that one group is taking something from another but rather an implicit social contract in which all participants mutually understand their respective contributions to the common good. Tasks that contribute more are awarded higher benefits, especially if their fulfillment requires a greater personal investment.

Such an argument rests implicitly on the idea of consensual social relations: if one argues that social inequalities are freely and spontaneously entered into, it is inconvenient to find those with fewer rewards restive and complaining that something has been taken from them. The conception of society as a collective whole further encouraged an emphasis on consensual social behavior, rather than on discord with its implication of disparate social groups. Indeed, the holistic view of the functionalists made the very concept of discrete classes inappropriate and encouraged instead the perception of an unbroken continuum of inequality: the constituent functions and rewards of society provided no basis for the coalescence of distinct socioeconomic groups. The debate

over the meaning of social inequality was now shaped into well-demarcated positions that hinged critically on the constancy or infrequency of group conflict.

Pluralism

The inevitability of the connection between entrenched relations of exploitation and sustained group conflict was also taken as a given by scholars in the pluralist school of thought. Asserting that American society was characterized by an absence of repeated conflict along class lines, pluralists argued that the critical ingredient of sustained class exploitation was missing (for example, Coser 1956; Polsby 1980). Rather than seeing the political system as reflecting a reiterative bias in favor of one segment of society at the expense of another, pluralists conceived of the political system as fragmented and fluid (for example, Dahl 1961; Rose 1967). Issues on the political agenda were seen as constantly shifting and as relatively specialized in their import. Allegiances that might coalesce around one issue would disband for the next and possibly be transformed on opposing sides of a later issue. No group was seen as the systematic loser. Instead, the system would deal with each issue, one at a time, responding to the investment of effort of contending parties without any accumulation of bias from the resolution of previous issues. Such a system prevented the buildup of a sustained social cleavage along class (or other) lines. Individuals belonged to multiple groups with shifting and sometimes conflicting interests (for example, Coser 1956; Hodge and Treiman 1968; Polsby 1980). The allegiances of individuals were too transitory and fragmented to provide any basis for the development of sustained conflict between groups.

Embourgeoisement, Postindustrialism, Postmaterialism

In a variant on the pluralist theme, some analysts have argued that the idea of riveting class conflict has been rendered obsolete by the increased level of affluence and altered occupational structure in advanced industrial societies. In an era of postindustrialism, the embourgeoisement of the working class, the expansion of the middle class, and the growth of the service sector of the economy were held to move society away from traditional class distinctions into more individualistic orientations toward personal betterment and into increasing concern with "postmaterialist" issues bearing on noneconomic aspects of the quality of life (see, for example, Dahrendorf 1964; Wilensky 1970; Bell 1973; Inglehart 1977, 1990; Lipset 1981). This line of thought, too, has assumed that if an exploitative relationship between the economic have's and have-not's were the principal organizing factor of social life, that relationship must find expression in passionate, conflict-laden ideologies. If the latter have wilted, the cause must lie

in changed economic relationships that have muted exploitation and thrown open multiple, competing foci for political energy.

Attempts to Salvage the Class Concept

On the other side of the debate about class are scholars in the "neo-Marxist" and "interest-group" schools of thought who wish to promote the concept of socioeconomic exploitation, either in the form of Marx's class categories or in some other class framework. These scholars have not strayed from the original conception of class as a source of conflict. This has confronted them with some awkward choices as they go about interpreting empirical data on class ideology which have repeatedly shown an embarrassing lack of outright conflict. Indeed, the lack of blatant conflict in contemporary class relations has been the most pressing theoretical challenge facing analysts of class ideology. Various resolutions of the problem have been pursued.

Accentuating Class Conflict

The simplest strategy has been to interpret data in a way that highlights the disparity of ideological positions between socioeconomic groups rather than dwelling on the extent to which the views of the groups converge (for example, Centers 1949; Huber and Form 1973). Meanwhile, analysts who are less sympathetic to the concept of class have interpreted similarly modest differences between groups as clear evidence of the nonexistence or demise of exploitative class relations (for example, Dahrendorf 1964; Nisbet 1970; Wilensky 1970; Polsby 1980; Lipset 1981). These disagreements tend to lock empirical debate into a dispute over "half-empty versus half-full," as one side bravely emphasizes the evidence of dissension between classes while the other side draws attention to the evidence of consensus.

Hidden Resistance

A second attempt to salvage conflict from the jaws of consensus has been to claim that oppositional orientations lie simmering beneath the surface among subordinate classes (for example, Scott 1985, 1990). Known usually as "hidden resistance," this argument has been very appealing to students of class. It postulates that the governed, although they appear to have acceded to their position, nevertheless are cognizant of their exploitation; and that although they refrain from engaging the dominant class in major, organized confrontations, subordinates routinely engage in small, personal acts of resistance that are hidden in the everyday practice of life. This argument rightfully calls attention to more subtle forms of behavior and reminds us that, as with all things social, we should not rely on outward appearances alone to decipher the levels and nuances of human interaction.

Unfortunately, however, the search for hidden, private forms of

resistance involves the application of an awkwardly weighted accounting procedure. Any action that might be interpreted as less than fully compliant, no matter how small, private, or inconsequential, is given disproportionate weight in making inferences about the state of consciousness of subordinates—meanwhile, unambiguous and socially significant acts of compliance are discounted as instrumentally contrived. This weighting procedure involves an awkward presumption about which actions are true reflections of someone's state of mind and which are either "false" or instrumentally contrived.

The hidden resistance argument also uses ambiguous rules of evidence, making it impossible to draw a clear empirical line between resistant and accommodative acts. Indeed, in Genovese's sensitive interpretation of day-to-day resistance among African-American slaves in the antebellum South (1974, 597-621), he discusses the ambiguity inherent in such behaviors as lying, stealing, dissembling, and shirking, and he refers to them as "simultaneous accommodation and resistance" (1974, 597). Although such behaviors may buffer subordinates from the worst exactitudes of their status, they also pander to the prejudices and foibles of the dominant class, thereby helping to perpetuate the inequality between the classes by feeding the dominant class's preexisting conceptions of the limitations of their subordinates. For these reasons, Genovese argues that hidden resistance qualifies "at best as prepolitical and at worst as apolitical" (1974, 598).

"False Consciousness" and Cultural Hegemony

There has been a third general attempt to grapple with the lack of class conflict within a conflict model, and that has been to attribute the passivity and conservatism of the working class to an artificially induced state of "false consciousness." There are slightly different variants of the false-consciousness argument, but their common feature is to credit the dominant ideology with a pervasive power that pummels the thinking of subordinates. The idea originates with Marx and Engels' famous dictum, laid out in The German Ideology in 1846:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. (Marx and Engels [1846] 1970, 64)

As Abercrombie and Turner (1982) point out, this postulate flatly contradicts Marx's primary prediction that people's consciousness will be

shaped directly by their experiences, that is, that people rationally perceive and interpret their experiences and that from this ability stems the inevitability of eventual class conflict. According to the dictum of false consciousness, the working class, which is designated by Marxist theory as the key agent of change in the capitalist dialectic, fails to perceive its true interests and hence lapses into a deceived acceptance of its own oppression.

Analysts have explored this idea in slightly different ways. Mann (1970) argued that, because subordinate classes display stronger support for the tenets of dominant-class ideology when they are asked about relatively abstract principles than when they are asked about specific applications of those principles, this constitutes evidence that the conservatism of subordinate classes is "false." Mann's logic is that specifics are more likely to be perceived in their context and are thus perceived with the clearer vision that comes from direct experience, whereas abstractions are imposed by dominant ideology and represent an incomplete socialization attempt. Similar arguments about the disjuncture between the abstract and the applied perspectives of the working class have been made by Parkin (1971) and Huber and Form (1973), but without the terminology of "false consciousness."

Perhaps the most sophisticated treatment of false consciousness is to be found in the concept of "cultural hegemony" developed by the Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci (Gramsci 1971). Because it offers an interpretation of the absence of class conflict within a conflict perspective, the concept of cultural hegemony has proved alluring to an increasing number of scholars. And the complexity of Gramsci's ideas and the lack of precision with which he expressed them has left room for a variety of interpretations of the concept (see, for example, G. Williams 1960; Marcuse 1964; Femia 1975; Anderson 1976–1977; R. Williams 1980; Lears 1985; Bocock 1986). The essential argument is that all the major institutions of society are infiltrated by the dominant ideology, blunting the working class's perceptions and molding its values so that the class is rendered impotent as an agent of change. The cultural hegemony of the dominant class prevents the working class from realizing its true interests or, indeed, from developing a value system that would provide the ideological infrastrcture for revolutionary change. From Gramsci's point of view, as a political activist, this meant that changing working-class values was to be an important priority in the political agenda; without a concerted effort to alienate working-class values from those of the cultural hegemony, a true revolution (that would abandon capitalist values) could not be realized.

The concept of cultural hegemony, like that of hidden resistance, offers important insights into the dynamics of ideological control. But,

like the concept of hidden resistance, cultural hegemony is hamstrung by its confinement within a conflict model of class relations. Although various interpretations of cultural hegemony have tackled the concept slightly differently, none of them has been able to resolve the intrinsic difficulties. First, the depiction of working-class consciousness as "false" involves an a priori decision about what the true interests of the working class are (is this a form of analytic paternalism for scholars to pronounce what the working class's interests are, irrespective of what people in the working class themselves believe?), and it leads to inconclusive debates about how to assess the "true" interests of a group (see, for example, Connolly 1972). A related problem (Mann's efforts notwithstanding, 1970), is that the concept of false consciousness is not empirically falsifiable—the falseness of a particular ideological postion can only be determined on a priori grounds. A second and more fundamental problem is the intrinsic contradiction noted above between the ideas of material determinism and cultural ascendancy. If the dominant class prevents subordinates from perceiving their true interests by the imposition of a cultural hegemony, this implies a persistent lack of rationality among subordinates—but the primary prediction of class conflict rests pivotally on the assumption that humans process and act on their experiences rationally. Thus, in an attempt to salvage the prediction of class conflict, some analysts have undermined the rationality assumption on which the prediction of conflict rests.

Exploitation and Conflict

Serious interpretive ambiguities or conceptual contradictions plague all three attempts to preserve the concept of class conflict in the face of class quiescence. It is more than a little awkward to deal with the empirical absence of open conflict within a theoretical approach that is driven by the expectation of conflict as the rational expression of exploitative social relations.

Within the confines of the established debate about class, the cleanest interpretation for an observed lack of conflict remains a lack of exploitation. And, indeed, an analyst's interpretation of the extent of class conflict in a society is generally an accurate barometer of his claims about the significance of class organizationally. Thus, for Nisbet, class conflict is absent and therefore class does not exist (Nisbet 1970). For Lipset, class exists in muted form as one of many weak divisions in the industrial democracies, and thus the "democratic class struggle" presents a picture of muted class conflict crosscut by a variety of other political issues (Lipset 1981). For Centers, classes are enduring, socioeconomic interest groups, and this is manifested in significant ideological conflict between socioeconomic groups (Centers 1949). For Wright, classes are carved out by the

relations between different positions in the means of production, and herein lies the fuel that energizes class conflict (Wright 1979, 1985).

Empirical Questions and Measures

The lines of debate about class and class conflict have molded the kinds of questions that have been central to empirical analyses. A large literature developed around the assessment of subjective class identification (for example, Centers 1949; Hodge and Treiman 1968; Jackman and Jackman 1973, 1983; Kleugel, Singleton, and Starnes 1977), as analysts sought to determine whether and in what form class exists in the public consciousness. Note that there has been no comparable empirical effort to measure baseline identification with race or gender groups. For class, however, the underlying issue has been that if people do not identify subjectively with social classes, then classes do not exist. Considerable empirical effort has also been devoted to the assessment of people's perceptions of the economic system and their economic policy dispositions, to determine whether people seem to define and pursue conflicting class interests (for example, Centers 1949; Landecker 1963; Wilensky 1970; Mann 1970; Huber and Form 1973; Jackman and Jackman 1983).

In short, the very existence and definition of class has come to be linked critically to the notion of class conflict. Marx's conception of politics and culture as epiphenomena reflecting underlying economic relationships has been commonly accepted in its most literal, direct sense. If classes have conflicting economic interests, it is assumed that they must eventually find expression in ideological conflict.

Racial Prejudice As Irrational Antagonism

The analysis of racial prejudice in the United States drew strength from two main sources, one pragmatic and the other theoretical. On the pragmatic side, the analysis of racial prejudice was propelled by the clear, in fact pressing, existence of a racial cleavage in American society between whites and blacks. As Pettigrew brings out in his excellent history of American scholarship on race relations (Pettigrew 1980), from the early years of this century the starkness of the racial problem has spurred a social-reformist approach among analysts of prejudice. The overriding concern of these scholars has been to find an answer to the policy question: how can whites' hostility to blacks be reduced, possibly even eliminated?

The analysis of racial prejudice gathered theoretical legitimacy primarily from Max Weber's argument that status differentiation should be separated from the issue of economic differentiation and that the

former is a highly salient independent factor in the formation of social cleavages (Weber 1946a ). The way was thus opened for the analysis of racial prejudice as an important field of inquiry in its own right, not merely as a subsidiary of the structural problem of class relations. As I argued above, Weber's legacy was even to encourage the conception of racial prejudice as an alternative problem to class relations, rather than something that interfaced with it.

The result was that the analysis of racial prejudice generally became divorced from the analysis of class—each corpus of research has operated under its own assumptions about the primacy of its subject matter and the critical dynamics of intergroup ideology. There have, of course, been some important studies in race relations that have examined the intersection of class and race stratification (for example, Dollard's classic book, Caste and Class in a Southern Town , 1937; Bonacich's work on split labor markets in the United States, 1972, 1975, 1976; more recently, William J. Wilson's influential books, The Declining Significance of Race , 1980, and The Truly Disadvantaged , 1987; and the subsequent flourishing line of research on the dual effects of economic pressures and racial discrimination on the quality of life for urban, poor blacks, such as Jencks and Peterson 1991; Massey 1990; Massey and Eggers 1990; and Massey and Denton 1993). Scholars have also occasionally argued that much of race prejudice may be due to class prejudice (for example, Bayton, McAlister, and Hamer 1956; Blalock 1967; Smedley and Bayton 1978). However, these studies have had little impact on the main thrust of theory and research about racial prejudice. The conception of racial prejudice as a product of independent cultural forces has been preserved.

If racial and ethnic cleavages did not have their origins in the class structure of society but in exogenous cultural factors, the human mind could be credited with an inventive capacity that Marx had not acknowledged. While the debate about class relations pertained to the structure of society, students of racial prejudice departed on their own path and came to define their problem in social psychological terms.

The Concept of Prejudice

The two propellants, pragmatic and theoretical, determined the definition of the problem and the approach to its analysis. Racial prejudice reflected an error of the human mind, a cultural anachronism that was out of keeping with democratic and scientific thinking. Gunnar Myrdal encapsulated this thinking when he posed the problem as "An American Dilemma"—the parochial anachronism of racial prejudice and discrimination embedded within a society that was governed by democratic, egalitarian ideals (Myrdal 1944). Analysts assumed that all racial and ethnic groups share the same, universal human values and that racial and ethnic

hostility must be driven by misperceptions and misunderstandings that grew out of ignorance and parochialism. Allport, in his seminal work The Nature of Prejudice ([1954] 1979, 265), emphasized this reasoning with a parable:

See that man over there?
Yes.
Well, I hate him.
But you don't know him.
That's why I hate him.

From ignorance came misunderstanding, and from misunderstanding came hatred. This framework led Allport to conclude optimistically that "knowledge and acquaintance are likely to engender sounder beliefs concerning minority groups, and for this reason contribute to the reduction of prejudice" (Allport [1954] 1979, 268).

The task of progressive social reform was to eradicate parochialism and thereby to break down the walls of hostility that are a barrier to human understanding and social harmony. These themes were forcefully expressed by Marshall Field in his foreword to Deutsch and Collins' landmark study, Interracial Housing: A Psychological Evaluation of a Social Experiment :

There are barricades in the United States restricting and confining Negroes, Mexicans, Orientals, and other segments of our population to ghettos which are as real as the walls that surrounded the Jews in Warsaw. They are intangible; they exist in the customs of society and in the minds of men . . . . The walls of custom and belief which keep Negroes segregated from whites are not only a blot on our own national, democratic ideals but they are also a serious blow to our reputation among the nations. . . . This study . . . may be of great value to those who would replace superstition with science in making up their minds about interracial housing. (Deutsch and Collins 1951, v, vi, emphasis added)

The issues that motivated the literature on racial prejudice are captured in Allport's classic definition of prejudice:

Ethnic prejudice is an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he is a member of that group. ([1954] 1979, 9)

Allport emphasized two ingredients that identify prejudice: first, definite hostility and rejection, and second, rejection based on categorical (and therefore erroneous) criteria (Allport [1954] 1979, 5). Many other definitions of prejudice have been offered in the literature, but almost all share Allport's emphasis on irrationally founded antipathy as the core of the problem (see, for example, Newcomb, Turner, and Converse 1965,

430–431; Harding et al. 1969, 3–6; Ashmore 1970; Simpson and Yinger 1972, 24; Berry and Tischler 1978, 235; Kinder and Sears 1981; Pettigrew 1982, 1–5; Dovidio and Gaertner 1986, 2–3; Marger 1994, 74–75).

Prejudice As Hostility

The concept of prejudice puts racial hostility in center stage. Whereas the significance of conflict for analysts of class relations was as a reflexive indicator of underlying structural disunity, students of racial prejudice focused on hostility as the definitional core of the problem itself. This was the form in which race relations manifested itself as an ugly social problem, and the social problem was what motivated the analysis of race relations. If there were no intergroup hostility, there would be no problem that required analysis. That spirit is illustrated in an early bulletin published by the Social Science Research Council on The Reduction of Intergroup Tensions (Williams, Jr. 1947), which was "Prepared under the direction of the Committee on Techniques for Reducing Group Hostility." The mandate of that prestigious committee has continued to dominate the agenda of research on racial attitudes (see, for example, Stephan's chapter on "Intergroup Relations" in the third edition of The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1985).

Prejudice As Blatant and Unitary

By the same token, prejudice was assumed to have a unitary character. Because prejudice was a purely expressive phenomenon (rather than a politically motivated articulation), the irrationally founded hatred on which it was based might manifest itself in a variety of modes—beliefs, feelings, social avoidance, discrimination. In the prejudiced individual, hostility would dominate all his dispositions toward the group in question or toward individuals from that group. Measurement might rely on any of these indicators, and assessment of the general extent of the problem in society could draw on any measure that reflected intergroup negativism. And because they were a product of parochialism, the personal feelings of antipathy that drove prejudice were also expected to find blatant and unsubtle expression. Prejudice was conceived as an uncontained expression of parochial negativism.

Prejudice As an Individual Phenomenon

Finally, because prejudice was divorced from the question of the economic structure of society, it was conceived as a phenomenon that resided in people's heads and therefore as a property of individuals. The way to understand the problem was to analyze the variance across individuals in expressed racial hostility and to match this with individual differences in personality (for example, the theory of the "authoritarian personality") or cultural experience (for example, the theory of "working class authoritarianism" and the "contact

theory"). As others have observed, this conception of the problem in individually based psychological terms also carried over into the analysis of ethnic relations more generally because of the prominent position occupied by the concept of prejudice in the literature on race and ethnic relations (Schermerhorn 1970, 6–8; Wilson 1973, 3–5; Wellman 1977, 20–22; Pettigrew 1980, xxxi-xxxii; Giles and Evans 1986).

Dominant Hostility and Subordinate Passivity

The hostility manifested in prejudiced attitudes has been regarded as an undesirable outcome by those who study it. This is, of course, implicit in what I have said in the preceding pages, but it deserves explicit note, because it contrasts sharply with the literature on class consciousness. Students of socioeconomic inequality have been divided as to whether they regard that phenomenon as functionally integrative or exploitative. Only the latter group have seen conflict as an integral part of the phenomenon, and they have viewed class hostility as a desirable outcome, the fuse that would tear apart the current structure of society and forge positive social change. Students of prejudice, however, have been unified in their perception of the existence of racial hostility. And because they have viewed the hostility as lodged in people's heads (rather than being driven by structurally induced differences in interests), it is viewed as an undesirable property that has damaging effects on everything that it touches, from the moral certitude of society as a whole to the reduced opportunities and self-esteem of the unfortunate target group.

Those who regarded socioeconomic inequality as the product of exploitative relations assumed hostile attitudes on the part of those above toward those below, and they eagerly sought evidence of a reciprocated hostility from those below. Marx's description of capitalist society as divided into "two great hostile camps" exudes an excitement that has never been shed in the search for hostility among the victims of exploitation in the class relationship. The development of the prejudice literature, however, reflects an overwhelming concern about the degree of hostility in the racial attitudes of the dominant group, whites. The victims, blacks, were generally regarded in passive terms. Whites constituted the most probable agents of change, in part because the locus of the problem was in the minds of whites and in part because blacks had been rendered relatively powerless by the discriminatory practices that white prejudice had installed.

Students of socioeconomic inequality viewed the lower echelons in more active terms and focused primarily on their attitudes, as indicative of either spontaneous approval of inequality or assertive decrying of the system. By contrast, students of prejudice viewed the essential energy as coming from the dominant group, whites. To the extent that blacks'

attitudes were investigated, it was primarily in passive terms, to assess the damage wrought by whites on the black psyche (see, for example, Clark and Clark's classic study of ethnic self-devaluation among black schoolchildren, [1947] 1958; and Brand, Ruiz, and Padilla 1974). Studies by Johnson (1943) and Williams, Jr. (1964) were important early exceptions that examined the racial attitudes of both whites and blacks. For most scholars, it was not until the black urban riots of the late 1960s that there was a shift in emphasis, and that shift has been only partial and gradual. Interest in blacks' racial attitudes was initially propelled by questions about the new social problem of mass black violence (for example, G. Marx 1967; Campbell and Schuman 1968), but increasingly black identity and black consciousness emerged as a legitimate field of inquiry in its own right (see, for example, Schuman and Hatchett 1974; Gurin and Epps 1975). The realization has crept into the field that a full investigation of racial attitudes requires the inclusion of blacks' as well as whites' perceptions and attitudes (Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; Sigelman and Welch 1991). At the same time, however, inclusion of blacks in analyses has not led to any fundamental recasting of the dynamics of racial attitudes in more politically interactive terms. The concept of prejudice has not been dislodged and the powerful core of the problem is still seen as residing with whites. Assessments of racial prejudice among whites have continued to flourish as a discrete line of inquiry (for example, Selznick and Steinberg 1969; Campbell 1971; Katz 1976; Fairchild and Gurin 1978; Pettigrew 1979; Sears, Hensler, and Speer 1979; Kinder and Sears 1981; Apostle et al. 1983; Dovidio and Gaertner 1986; Sniderman et al. 1991).

Realistic Group Conflict Theory

A divergent strand in the prejudice literature, usually identified as realistic group conflict theory, has been attracting growing interest in recent years. This loose school of thought warrants separate discussion because it represents a different attack on the problem of racial attitudes which abandons many of the central tenets of the prejudice literature; at the same time, it does not abandon the primary concern with conflict as the core factor in intergroup attitudes. The exact arguments made by scholars using the realistic group conflict perspective vary somewhat, but the perspective may be described as roughly analogous to the interest-group approach in the class literature: racial groups are seen at least in part as having distinctive interests that engender conflict. LeVine and Campbell (1972, 29) provide a clear summary of this approach:

This theory assumes that group conflicts are rational in the sense that groups do have incompatible goals and are in competition for scarce re-

sources. Such "realistic" sources of group conflict are contrasted with the psychological theories that consider intergroup conflicts as displacements or projective expressions of problems that are essentially intragroup or intraindividual in origin. . . . Not all of them eschew psychological explanations. . . . But for all, realistic sources of group conflict are a primary emphasis.

Blumer's essay on "Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position" (1958) provides the roots (albeit rather tenuously) for this school of thought. Blumer made the case that prejudice should not be seen as a property of individuals, but of groups seeking to protect their position against possible incursions by subordinates. He introduced the idea of prejudice as motivated by feelings of threat, but he held back from locating those feelings in tangible advantages enjoyed by the dominant group. Blumer's "sense of group position" was a subjectively shared, group-level "sense" rather than a response to tangible, group-level interests (see also his discussion of the impact of industrialization on race relations, 1965). The small school of thought that has grown from Blumer's argument has generally assigned a clearer role to tangible group interests (see, for example, Wellman 1977; Giles and Evans 1986), although an irresolution about the extent to which prejudice derives from irreconcilable, mutually opposed group interests or merely subjectively felt feelings of threat characterizes some of the work in this approach (see, for example, Bobo 1983). The prevailing social-reformist goals of the prejudice literature have pervaded even this school of thought to some degree, constraining espousal of an interest-group approach with its attendant enthusiasm for conflict as a positive rather than as a negative outcome. Doubtless an influential factor here has been that, although realistic group conflict theory implicitly views subordinates in more active terms as part of a power relationship, empirical analysts in this framework have shared with most other analysts of prejudice a primary concern with the attitudes of the dominant racial group, whites (see, for example, Wellman 1977; Smith 1981; Bobo 1983; Giles and Evans 1986). When viewing the attitudes of the more powerful group, expressions of hostility have connotations that analysts find harder to endorse.

Thus, this small but growing school of thought has moved away from the traditional conception of prejudice as an entirely irrational phenomenon lodged in individuals' heads and has instead stressed the need to be attentive to group-level pressures and interests. However, scholars in this school have continued to be attentive primarily to the attitudes of the dominant racial group, whites. Perhaps for this reason, their view that conflict follows inevitably from opposed group interests is accompanied by less enthusiasm than it is among interest-group theorists of class, who focus more on the attitudes of subordinates.

Reassertions and Modifications of the Prejudice Concept

The traditional concept of prejudice has remained essentially intact over the years, and some of its elements have even been reaffirmed. However, there has been a growing sense among students of prejudice that the concept needs some modification and refinement to address the complexities of contemporary racial prejudice.

The Cognitive School

The conceptual proclivities of the traditional prejudice literature have been reasserted in the recent explosion of research on intergroup attitudes conducted within what is broadly termed the cognitive school. Experimental research on the "minimal group paradigm" has promoted the idea that the creation of even a "minimal group" (on the basis of an arbitrary criterion or even random assignment, with no personal interaction among fellow "group" members) generates own-group bias and out-group discrimination, in terms of both evaluations and allocation of rewards (see, for example, Tajfel 1969, 1978; Billig 1976; Brewer 1979).

A related, rapidly growing body of research has focused on stereotyping and discrimination as an outgrowth of normal social categorization and social comparison processes (see, for example, Tajfel 1969; Hamilton 1979, 1981; Pettigrew 1979; Stephan 1985). The assumptions and predelictions of that literature are captured in an empirical question posed by Taylor (1981, 98): "Given that stereotyping appears to be rooted in basic categorical processes, what are the individual differences that would influence the propensity to categorize or the ability to make within-category discriminations?"

Although some of this research has been attentive to the influence of power or status differentials on the shaping of individuals' perceptions (see, for example, Tajfel and Turner 1979; Tajfel 1982), the governing premise has been psychologically reductionist: that intergroup hostility is rooted in cognitive and motivational mechanisms that are intrinsic to individual behavior. Like Allport before them, these scholars have conceived of the problem in terms of affectively constrained cognitions, and they have directed their energies toward specifying the mechanisms that convert basic cognitive processes into prejudice and discrimination.

"Modern Prejudice"

At the same time, there has been an increasing appreciation over the years that the traditional conception of prejudice is inadequate to reflect the complexities of contemporary racism. Particularly troubling to investigators has been the repeated observation of a sharp discrepancy between, on the one hand, whites' apparent progress toward racial liberalism on traditional measures of prejudice, and, on the other, their continued resistance to specific policies of affirmative

racial change (see, for example, Jackman 1978, 1981a ; McConahay, Hardee, and Batts 1981; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; Schuman and Bobo 1988). The ensuing debate about whether white racial prejudice has "really" declined quickly devolved into disagreements about what the critical elements of interracial attitudes are.

I have suggested elsewhere that the concept of prejudice be abandoned in favor of a conception of interracial attitudes that views them as politically motivated communications to defend group interests rather than as expressions of parochial negativism. In the context of political challenge from blacks, many of the symbolic messages in whites' racial attitudes have become more moderate and subtle, but whites continue to defend their privileged position by opposing specific policies for affirmative racial change (Jackman and Muha 1984). This approach puts primary emphasis on whites' support for specific affirmative racial policies as a gauge of their dispositions toward blacks (Jackman 1978, 1981a , 1981b ; Jackman and Muha 1984). As whites seek to maintain their privileged position in the face of challenge, they have moved away from inflammatory racial epithets and learned to rely instead on the seemingly more neutral principle of individualism.

Some other scholars have shared my position that whites' racial attitudes have become more subtle and nuanced, rather than clearly more positive, but they retained the basic conception of prejudice as an irrationally founded antipathy. The theories of "symbolic racism" (McConahay and Hough 1976; Kinder and Sears 1981; Kinder 1986) and "modern racism" (McConahay, Hardee, and Batts 1981; McConahay 1986) have maintained that prejudice lives on in the white American psyche but that it has found a more subtle expression that is more in keeping with contemporary cultural norms. The expression of prejudice becomes manifest in specific policies that bear on race relations: these policies are thought to symbolize whites' longstanding repugnance for people who are seen as violating the old-fashioned American values of individualism and self-reliance.

Both these arguments place considerable emphasis on the norm of individualism in the shaping of whites' racial attitudes, although the precise way that individualism and racial attitudes are thought to intersect is different. Individualism is represented either as a politically driven rationale for opposition to affirmative policy interventions (Jackman and Muha 1984) or as an intrinsic part of the prejudice syndrome (e.g., Kinder and Sears 1981). Still other scholars have rejected both these interpretations and have maintained that individualism is an independently held American value that unfortunately confounds policy interventions on behalf of blacks even as whites have become genuinely less prejudiced (for example, Sniderman and Hagen 1985).

Indeed, several scholars have voiced considerable irritation with the new conceptions of racial attitudes. For example, Sniderman and Tetlock conclude their critique of "symbolic racism" with an ardent allusion to "genuine prejudice—a deep-seated, irrational insistence on the inferiority of blacks, and contempt and hostility toward them" (1986, 186). Nonetheless, whatever their predilections, scholars have begun to distinguish in their terminology between "traditional prejudice" and "modern prejudice" (or "new racism"), the former being more blatant and unitary and the latter more subtle and nuanced (see, for example, Firebaugh and Davis 1988; Bobo and Kluegel 1991; Sniderman et al. 1991). And the role of individualism in the formation of racial attitudes remains prominent but uncertain in its meaning.

Empirical Questions and Measures

The questions and measures that have occupied a central position in empirical research on prejudice reflect the themes I have discussed. Analysts have probed into what aspects of individuals' backgrounds and experiences might account for variance in their racial prejudice. The emphasis on prejudice as an expression of parochialism has led to a continuing interest in the effects of formal education in reducing prejudice (see, for example, Lipset 1960; Selznick and Steinberg 1969; Jackman and Muha 1984; Bobo and Licari 1989). The individual, psychological cast of the prejudice concept led some researchers to investigate prejudice as an aspect of personality (most notably, Adorno et al.'s theory of the authoritarian personality, 1950). The casting of prejudice as a symptom of authoritarianism has continued to hold an allure for empirical scholars, especially among those who have seen education as a positive influence (for example, Lipset 1960; Selznick and Steinberg 1969; Bobo and Licari 1989). The question continues to hang over research on prejudice about the extent to which it is a product of individual personality or individual experience (for example, Pettigrew 1958; Allport 1962; Selznick and Steinberg 1969; Kinder and Sears 1981; Yinger 1983). The social-reformist spirit of prejudice research has flowered in the longstanding prominence of the contact theory of prejudice, which postulates that increased intergroup contact, under the right conditions, reduces prejudice (for example, Deutsch and Collins 1951; Wilner, Walkley, and Cook 1955; Miller and Brewer 1984; Jackman and Crane 1986; Kinder and Mendelberg 1991). Social-reformist concerns have also produced a long tradition of studies devoted to monitoring the trends in whites' racial attitudes over time (for example, Hyman and Sheatsley 1956, 1964; Greeley and Sheatsley 1971, 1974; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; Firebaugh and Davis 1988).

The most common measures that have been used in analyses of preju-

dice are those reflecting stereotypical beliefs, feelings of social distance, and support for racial integration and other affirmative racial policies. Stereotypes were conceived as irrational, negative, categorical beliefs about a group. Because of their propinquity to the essence of prejudice itself, stereotypes assumed a preeminent importance, and a vast literature developed that was devoted to their conceptual and empirical analysis (see, for example, Lippmann 1922; Katz and Braly 1947; Vinacke 1957; Karlins, Coffman, and Walters 1969; Brigham 1971; Mackie 1973). Interest in stereotypes has continued to thrive, promoted by social psychologists in the cognitive school (for example, Tajfel 1969; Hamilton 1979, 1981; Hamilton and Trolier 1986) and pursued by other students of prejudice as well (for example, Selznick and Steinberg 1969; Dovidio and Gaertner 1986: Bobo and Kluegel 1991). There has also been a growing interest in assessing people's explanations of the causes of racial differences: do people think racial differences are physically inherent, cultural, or caused by societal discrimination and bias? (See, for example, Pettigrew 1979; Apostle et al. 1983; Kluegel and Smith 1986.)

The concept of social distance was devised by Bogardus (1925). In a historical era when racial inequality was marked by physical segregation, the notion of personal acceptance was readily adopted as a vital signal of the breakdown of negative attitudes (see, for example, Deutsch and Collins 1951; Greeley and Sheatsley 1974).

For the same reason, rejection of racial segregration became widely interpreted as laden with significance for the breakdown of negative racial attitudes (see, for example, Hyman and Sheatsley 1956, 1964; Campbell 1971; Greeley and Sheatsley 1971; Taylor, Sheatsley, and Greeley 1978). And in recent years, analysts have become increasingly interested in probing whites' support for various affirmative racial policies, as they have tried to grapple with the discrepancy between the linear decline in whites' subscription to traditionally racist ideas and their continued resistance to affirmative policies of racial change (for example, Jackman 1978; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985). That discrepancy has engendered an increasing debate about how best to measure prejudice in order to capture the nuances of its contemporary expression (for example, Jackman 1977, 1978, 1981b ; Crosby, Bromley, and Saxe 1980; McConahay, Hardee, and Batts 1981; Pettigrew 1985; Kinder 1986; McConahay 1986; Schuman and Bobo 1988).

Political Tolerance As Hostility Defused

The literature on political tolerance developed independently of the two currents of research that we have just considered on class conflict and racial prejudice. Some familiar strands reappear in research on

tolerance, but they are fused uniquely to produce an alternative approach to the issue of intergroup conflict.

Like some analysts of class, students of tolerance accepted as a given that society was comprised of groups with contending interests. However, students of tolerance did not concern themselves with the root causes of those competing interests, whether they reflected deep rifts in the organizational structure of society or mere differences in beliefs, lifestyle, or skin color. Like analysts of prejudice, they did not view the unbridled expression of intergroup hostility as a progressive outcome, and they were especially concerned about the attitudes of more powerful groups toward political, religious, and ethnic minorities. But unlike students of prejudice, those who studied tolerance were not concerned with how to eliminate hostility—they concentrated, instead, on how to defuse it. Tolerance does not imply positive feelings toward a group—it means the equal treatment of those whom we dislike. In the words commonly attributed to Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (Bartlett 1968).

Tolerance and Democracy

The analysis of tolerance evolved within the literature on empirical democratic theory. In that setting, democratic society was viewed as an unwieldy amalgam of contending groups: the stability of democratic institutions depended on a delicate balance between the dual principles of majority rule and minority rights. The first principle provided for the peaceful rule of the declared winner in political competition; the second principle provided for the preservation of political competition by granting full civil liberties to the losing side (Dahl 1956). Within this context, tolerance of those with whom we disagree (whatever the basis of the disagreement) is vital to democratic stability.

The initial concern was with the issue of maintaining freedom of speech so that majority rule would not deteriorate into the tyranny of the majority. The empirical literature on tolerance was launched in the aftermath of the McCarthy era with Stouffer's book, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (1955). The title to the book reflects the concern that many liberals felt at that time over the threat that McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunt posed for the democratic principle of freedom of speech. Stouffer focused on the extent to which political leaders and members of the mass public were inclined to restrict the civil liberties of political and religious nonconformists—communists, socialists, and atheists. Most of his questions centered on freedom of expression directly, but he also addressed the broader civil libertarian issues implied in hiring and firing decisions. In a historical era when the extension of full civil rights to blacks became a prominent public issue, the broader

significance of tolerance was highlighted, and some analysts applied the concept to the arena of black civil rights (for example, Prothro and Grigg 1960; Jackman 1977, 1978). The primary concern of the literature has remained with attitudes that bear specifically on the openness of political life (see, for example, Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982; McClosky and Brill 1983), but tolerance has assumed a more general application to the broad democratic principle of "equality of opportunity, regardless of race, color, or creed."

The ability to disconnect one's behavioral dispositions from one's personal feelings toward a group was regarded as a uniquely democratic quality. Thus, students of tolerance, like their counterparts who studied prejudice, implicitly regarded the primary institutions in democratic society as a progressive force that offered the promise of a more enlightened existence. The more people were exposed to democratic institutions, either through formal education (for example, Stouffer 1955; Lispet 1960; Prothro and Grigg 1960) or through active political participation (for example, Stouffer 1955; McClosky 1964; McClosky and Brill 1983), the more eroded would become the raw tendency to take action against groups who are the object of dislike. Democratic institutions were seen as mechanisms that socialize people into the benefits of diversity and teach them the reciprocal advantages of removing positive personal feelings as a requirement for positive treatment.

The Resolution of Conflict through Consensual Rules of the Game

Although analysts of tolerance have not explicitly concerned themselves with the issue of what underlies the divisions between social groups or the nature of the relationship between unequal groups, implicit assumptions about these questions do provide the contextual logic for the concept of tolerance. It is important to remember that the issue of tolerance was raised within the framework of empirical democratic theory. That body of theory specifies that democratic stability requires a fundamental working consensus among the populace on rules of the game; such a consensus is not considered viable in a society marked by deep cleavages (e.g, Dahl 1956; Almond and Verba 1963). Thus, although analysts of tolerance deviate from those who study prejudice in their acceptance of group conflict as a normal part of life, this deviation is not as great as it might seem, because the basis for the conflict must be sufficiently shallow to prevent intense feelings from being aroused.

But if the inequality between groups is in fact expropriative, where one group's gain is the other's loss, there might be too much at stake for tolerance to be practiced with ease. Add to this the awkward point that the most salient rifts in society do not involve relationships among equals who are buffeted about in a political game of give and take, trading places

from time to time as winners and losers. In the most serious cleavages that American society faces—those based on race, class, and gender—it is not too difficult to identify which groups are repeatedly winners and losers.

The concept of tolerance implicitly neutralizes the issue of social inequality. By directing attention to the defusing of conflict without regard to its underlying causes, it places more weight on societal stability than on the substantive resolution of group differences. What takes precedence is the procedural issue of how the game will be played, rather than the substantive issue of what the game is about. The libertarian concern with freedom of speech and equality of opportunity more generally does not address the problem of the unequal positions from which different groups may avail themselves of those opportunities (Schaar 1967; Parkin 1971; Jackman and Muha 1984). Instead, the concept of tolerance lends itself more easily to the pluralist view of a society unmarked by deep rifts between have's and have-not's. And, indeed, some of the most prominent contributors to our empirical understanding of tolerance have promoted such a view (for example, Stouffer 1955; Lipset 1960; McClosky 1964).

Rising above Hostility

Like students of prejudice, those who study tolerance are interested in getting society beyond conflict. Students of prejudice implicitly assume that there are no hard substantive grounds for racial conflict, but that intense interracial dislike can be generated by malleable cultural forces. Thus, the critical problem for them is to undermine the negative intergroup feelings that drive discrimination. Students of tolerance implicitly assume that intergroup hostility is not intense, because the gap in interests between contending groups is neither profound nor irreconcilable. If there are no grounds for intense emotional rift, one need not worry about feelings per se. Instead, one should concentrate on the issue of dislodging behavioral predispositions from their affective base. The task is not to eliminate intergroup hostility (as would students of prejudice) or to debate the substantive grounds for its existence (as would students of class relations). The normality of some intergroup disparity is accepted without question—the problem is how to defuse it so that it does not escalate and disturb the peaceful practice of democratic life.

Empirical Questions and Measures

The central empirical questions driving analyses of tolerance have been the assessment of its prevalence among the democratic citizens of the United States (for example, Stouffer 1955; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1979; Abramson 1980), the measurement of change in levels of tolerance over time (for example, Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1979;

Abramson 1980), and examination of what factors (personality, democratic socialization, education, or demographic characteristics) produce political tolerance (for example, Stouffer 1955; McClosky 1964; R. Jackman 1972; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982; McClosky and Brill 1983). Empirical analyses of tolerance have thus been governed by very similar kinds of questions to those found in research on racial prejudice. And, to the extent that analyses of prejudice have been pervaded by Myrdal's portrayal of prejudice as an anachronism that jars against the American commitment to democratic values and ideals (Myrdal 1944), much of the tone of analyses of tolerance also resembles prejudice research.

Empirical measures of tolerance, however, have developed along very different lines than measures of prejudice. Analysts of tolerance have usually relied exclusively on indicators of people's policy or behavioral dispositions, with positive responses being interpreted as evidence of tolerance (for example, Stouffer 1955; McClosky and Brill 1983). Students of prejudice, with their more holistic approach to attitudes, might interpret the same response as reflecting an overall favorable attitude toward the group—the elimination of prejudice. This disjuncture between the concept of tolerance and its empirical measurement has been noted by Jackman (1977, 1978) and Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1979, 1982). Sullivan and his colleagues found that when one takes explicit account of people's feelings toward specific groups, the granting of full civil rights to groups that are disliked is a rare phenomenon—considerably less common than what is ostensibly required for the democratic functioning of society.

Gender Relations As Hostility Revealed

Relations between men and women were largely neglected by scholars until relatively recently, perhaps because the manifest docility of gender relations did little to excite observers' attention (and the fact that scholarly observers tended to be male doubtless exacerbated the invisibility of anything problematic in relations between men and women). Gender relations were the subject of passing commentary from time to time, but a sustained literature on gender relations is a comparatively recent development, emerging in the shadow of already well-established bodies of research on class and race relations. If the relationship between men and women had failed to draw attention to itself by offering any blatant prospects of societal disruption, the task of those who sought to establish its significance as a field of inquiry was to reveal its dynamics in terms that analysts of class and race would clearly recognize—friction, violence, emotional disparity.

At the beginning of this chapter I quoted a passage from John Stuart Mill in which he astutely noted that gender relations are distinguished by a lack of reliance on force. Despite that insight, even Mill sought to engage the skeptic by highlighting elements of hostility and conflict in those relations. Indeed, the latter theme is the prevalent one in his essay on "The Subjection of Women":

In struggles for political emancipation, everybody knows how often its champions are bought off by bribes, or daunted by terrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject-class is in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined. . . . If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the neck of those who are kept down by it, this has. . . . But, it will be said, the rule of men over women . . . is accepted voluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. In the first place, a great number of women do not accept it. Ever since there have been women able to make their sentiments known by their writings (the only mode of publicity which society permits to them), an increasing number of them have recorded protests against their present social condition: and recently many thousands of them have petitioned Parliament. . . . The claim of women . . . is urged with growing intensity, while the demand for their admission into professions and occupations hitherto closed against them, becomes every year more urgent. . . . How many more women there are who silently cherish similar aspirations, no one can possibly know. . . . There is never any want of women who complain of ill usage by their husbands. There would be infinitely more, if complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the ill usage. (J. S. Mill [1869] 1970, 136-137, 139-140)

I have quoted from Mill at length because the language of his essay demonstrates so clearly the implicit assumption that if there were no conflict between the groups, there would be no problem worthy of analysis. In his effort to draw attention to the relationship between men and women, Mill portrayed it as ridden with violence and intimidation on the part of the oppressors and protest and simmering resentment on the part of the oppressed. He conceded, by implication, that if women were found to be "consenting parties," his case would be weaker, and he set about revealing the intensity and urgency of women's discontent. Later in the essay, Mill acknowledged the affection that many men feel for their wives, and he regarded this as something that mitigates the tyranny of men over women (Mill 1970, 161-162). The affection that women may feel for their husbands, he dismissed, however, as lodged in fear: "It is part of the irony of life, that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude . . . are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntar-

ily refrain from using that power" (Mill 1970, 162–163). Mill went on to appeal to the reader that it is unreasonable to judge any system of oppression by "its best instances":

Who doubts that there may be great goodness, and great happiness, and great affection, under the absolute government of a good man? Meanwhile, laws and institutions need to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad. . . . The tie of affection and obligation to a wife and children is very strong with those whose general social feelings are strong, and with many who are little sensible to any other social ties; but there are all degrees of sensibility and insensibility to it, as there are all grades of goodness and wickedness in men. . . . The vilest malefactor has some wretched women tied to him, against whom he can commit any atrocity except killing her. . . . When we consider how vast is the number of men, in any great country, who are little higher than brutes, and that this never prevents them from being able, through the law of marriage, to obtain a victim, the breadth and depth of human misery caused in this shape alone . . . swells to something appalling. (Mill 1970, 163–164)

The hapless reader might have drawn comfort from the apparent lack of friction in gender relations. Mill's strategy was not to question the logic of that derivation, but to undermine the validity of the empirical observation on which it is based. He endeavored to reveal in gender relations the same hallmark symptoms as those emphasized in more commonly recognized systems of oppression—violence and fear, hostility and resentment.

The Racial Analogy

In his essay, Mill drew several explicit analogies between gender relations and racial oppression. The same device was used, much later, by such varied advocates of the analysis of gender relations as Gunnar Myrdal (1944), Helen Hacker (1951), and Simone de Beauvoir (1953). In appendix 5 to his epic analysis of race relations in the United States, An American Dilemma (1944), Myrdal presented "A Parallel to the Negro Problem," in which he argued that women and blacks alike are oppressed by the lagged presence of a paternalism that was once nourished by a preindustrial economy but which is now but an atavistic element destined to be discarded in the contemporary, industrial world. Hacker, in her classic article, "Women as a Minority Group" (1951), rested her case on an enumeration of the parallels between the condition of women and blacks (highlighted by a chart entitled "Castelike Status of Women and Negroes" with parallel columns for the two groups). Where Hacker found an exact parallel between the condition of the two groups, she drew evidence for the case that women constitute a "minority group"; where she found the condition of women to deviate from that of blacks, Hacker

inferred that the minority status of women is mitigated somewhat. And de Beauvoir, too, drew on parallelism to establish her case:

Whether it is a race, a caste, a class, or a sex that is reduced to a position of inferiority, the methods of justification are the same. "The eternal feminine" corresponds to "the black soul." . . . There are deep similarities between the situation of the woman and that of the Negro. (de Beauvoir [1953] 1973, 683)

The analysis of the ideology of gender relations was thus established in a framework based on parallelism with race. The same concepts that dominated the analysis of racial attitudes were applied to gender attitudes: hostility, stereotyping, prejudice, and low self-esteem among subordinates. Simone de Beauvoir stated the case boldly:

It is easy to see that the duality of the sexes, like any duality, gives rise to conflict. . . . All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. (de Beauvoir [1953] 1973, 681, 690)

She portrayed the relationship between the sexes as one of chronic animosity, punctuated by stereotyping of women and aggressive assertions of feminine inferiority on the one side and festering resentment and frustration on the other.

A similar argument is made by Rubin in her analysis of working-class family life, Worlds of Pain (1976). She portrays that life as infested with pain, not only in its economic constraints, but also in its cultural dictate of disparate worlds for husbands and wives. Those two worlds are intersected only by the uncaring negligence of men and the angry resentment of their wives. She concludes thus:

Are there good times? Yes, a birthday remembered with joy, a happy Christmas, a loving and tender moment between wife and husband. But they stand out in memory as unique and treasured events, monumentally important because they happen so seldom, because they are so little a part of daily experience. . . . As people talk about their lives, such small events become insubstantial, slipping away before a more compelling reality. (1976, 215)

Gender Violence

The theme of dreariness and disparity in gender relations has been carried a step further by some radical feminist scholars, who portray gender relations as ridden with blatant hostility and violence. The criminal act of rape is identified as epitomizing the general quality of the relationship between men and women—a relationship in which men are depicted as subjugating women to their will through sexual terrorism, backed up by physical and institutional force (see, for example, Millett 1970; Griffin 1980; Cronan 1984). Millett states:

Patriarchal force also relies on a form of violence particularly sexual in character and realized most completely in the act of rape. . . . In rape, the emotions of aggression, hatred, contempt, and the desire to break or violate personality, take a form consummately appropriate to sexual politics. . . . Patriarchal societies typically link feelings of cruelty with sexuality, the latter often equated both with evil and with power. (1970, 44)

Heterosexuality is depicted as intrinsically misogynist, an instrument purely to subjugate women (see also Rich 1980). In another gender-race comparison, Millett compares the crimes of rape and lynching, and she argues that "unconsciously, both crimes may serve the larger group [whites or men] as a ritual act, cathartic in effect" (Millett 1970, 45). Prostitution and marriage are described in like terms as sexual and political slavery for women (see also Goldman [1910] 1969; Barry 1979; Cronan 1984). Millett sums up the relationship between men and women thus:

The history of patriarchy presents a variety of cruelties and barbarities. . . . The rationale which accompanies that imposition of male authority euphemistically referred to as "the battle of the sexes" bears a certain resemblance to the formulas of nations at war, where any heinousness is justified on the grounds that the enemy is either an inferior species or really not human at all. (1970, 46)

Women's Resistance—Or Lack Thereof

The lack of concerted resistance among women has left scholars who depict gender relations as conflictive with an empirical shortfall. As in some accounts of class and race consciousness (Genovese 1974; Scott 1985), some scholars of gender relations have attempted to reconcile the discrepancy by emphasizing the many ways in which women engage in personal behaviors that constitute hidden or private forms of protest (Cloward and Piven 1979; Anyon 1984). The same interpretive difficulties plague this argument in its application to gender relations as I noted in the earlier section on class ideology. As with the debate about class consciousness, the theoretical significance attached to the presence or absence of conflict is so great that some scholars have felt pressed to scour the minutiae of the relationship to uncover behaviors among women that might be construed as showing evidence of alienation and resistance.

Conservative Theoretical Pressures

The search for conflict in gender relations reflects not only the habits learned from the analysis of class and race relations. It has also been spurred, perhaps even more urgently than in the class literature, by the presence of powerful conservative arguments that gender differentiation

reflects a "natural order" that is manifested in its consensual endorsement by both men and women. Parsons and Bales (1955) argued that gender differentiation is socially functional, serving to integrate the family unit with the larger society while providing for the nurturance and socialization of society's youngest members. The specific "expressive" role of women and "instrumental" role of men were explained as the natural outcome of differences between the sexes in their biological contributions to procreation.

There has also been a large body of literature that promotes the ideas of biological determinism in gender relations. Numerous analysts have argued that there are natural differences in male and female personality types stemming from physically complementary functions in procreation: for example, that genital penetration of the female by the male requires that the male be assertive and the female submissive, that the length of the pregnancy requires nurturant feelings and emotional commitment from the mother whereas the father's physical contribution is fleeting, and so on (see, for example, Storr 1968; Tiger and Fox 1971; Wilson 1978; Bettelheim 1984).

Perhaps because of the readily identifiable physical difference between men and women, combined with the pervasiveness of gender differentiation at the heart of everyday life, conservative arguments based on functionalism and biological determinism have had a deeper impact on the shape of the literature on gender relations than they have on race relations or even class relations. There has been no serious scholarly attempt in the past few decades to explain racial differentiation as functional. In the early years of this century, biological determinism had a central position in American scholarly debate about race (see, for example, the debate published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1908 between Stone and Willcox et al., as well as Pettigrew's history of American scholarship on race relations, 1980). But the scholarly impact of biological determinism on research about race has waned over this century. A few analysts have persisted with the question of whether there are genetic differences between whites and blacks in intelligence (Jensen 1969; Shockley 1971, 1972a , 1972b ; Herrnstein 1990), but such arguments have had little impact on the main thrust of research on either racial inequality or racial prejudice (see, for example, the comprehensive report on the status of race relations in the United States sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, Jaynes and Williams, Jr. 1989). Indeed, scholars of race relations have tended to dismiss arguments about immutable racial differences as Victorian or fascist. In the explanation of socioeconomic inequality, functionalism had a major impact, although still perhaps not quite to the extent that it has in the gender literature. And more blatant biological determinism, in the form of social Darwin-

ism (Spencer [1862] 1958; Sumner 1883), made only a brief visitation to the literature on class. Yet biological determinism continues to be a major influence on the debate about gender differentiation (see, for example, Maccoby and Jacklin 1974; Rossi 1977a ; Gross et al. 1979). A "natural order" is expected to manifest itself in spontaneous consensual endorsement: those who would depict gender inequality as other than "natural" or functional have thus taken the reflexive counterposition that gender relations are fraught with tension and conflict.

Empirical Questions and Measures

The empirical analysis of gender attitudes has been shaped by the theoretical currents outlined above, although not always explicitly. Feminist theorists with a more critical perspective have often expressed philosophical objections to systematic, public-opinion research in the "positivist" tradition (see, for example, Stacey and Thorne 1985), and survey researchers interested in gender attitudes have generally returned the compliment by ignoring theoretical work that depicts gender relations in political terms. Indeed, public-opinion studies of gender attitudes have usually had an empirically driven agenda, proceeding to the empirical business with little or no discussion of theoretical issues. However, the kinds of empirical questions that have been asked primarily reflect the influence of the liberal tradition, exemplified by John Stuart Mill and Gunnar Myrdal, juxtaposed with the functionalists and biological determinists. In more recent years, there has been an increasing tendency for empirical analysts to draw on theories that depict gender relations as expropriative (for example, Gurin 1985; Kane 1989). The resulting blend of empirical questions in research on gender attitudes shares some features with the literature on class consciousness, and some with the literature on prejudice.

Students of social class invested particularly in the attitudes of the working class. Both Marxist and functionalist theories put a heavy onus on the have-not's either to challenge or to endorse socioeconomic inequality, and this is reflected in the empirical literature on class consciousness (for example, Lane 1962; Leggett 1968; Goldthorpe et al. 1969; Hamilton 1972; Huber and Form 1973; Newby 1977b ; Jackman and Jackman 1983). So too have the gender attitudes of women been the object of particular empirical scrutiny. There are numerous studies of women's gender attitudes taken alone (for example, Goldberg 1968; Horner 1972; Parelius 1975; Mason, Czajka, and Arber 1976; Thornton and Freedman 1979; Gurin 1985), along with an increasing number that compare men's and women's attitudes (for example, Sherriffs and McKee 1957; Broverman et al. 1972; Cherlin and Walters 1981; Simon and Landis 1989; Kane 1989).

Most of these studies have focused on attitudes about "sex-roles," rather than on attitudes about power relations between the sexes, suggesting an almost exclusive influence of functionalist ideas. The net result was that gender-attitudes research shared the emphasis of class-ideology research on the attitudes of subordinates, but without the attendant conception of gender relations as exploitative. Recently, however, there has been a growing awareness of this deficiency in gender-attitudes research, and an increasing number of studies are incorporating measures that show sensitivity to the power dynamics of gender relations (see, for example, Gurin 1985; Kane 1989; Simon and Landis 1989; Kane and Sanchez 1992).

There has been little tendency to follow the lead of the prejudice literature by focusing exclusively on the attitudes of the dominant group (Goode's essay on "Why Men Resist" [1982] is a rare example of a discrete discussion of men's gender attitudes.) At the same time, the liberal, social-reformist sentiment of the prejudice literature is shared by many students of gender attitudes, and that tradition too has shaped the kinds of questions that have been asked about gender attitudes—and especially women's gender attitudes.

These dual influences from research on class consciousness and racial prejudice have resulted in two broad themes of empirical inquiry about gender ideology. The first of these is a focus on prejudice against women and on women's self-esteem. A repeated question has been whether women suffer from low self-esteem and poor achievement orientation. There have been numerous studies of gender stereotyping, devaluation of women, and low achievement orientations among women. The language of these studies parallels that of the literature on racial prejudice. For example, Sherriffs and McKee state that "both men and women esteem men significantly more highly than women" (1957, 451); Broverman et al. conclude that "sterotypically masculine traits are more often perceived to be desirable than are sterotypically feminine characteristics" (1972, 75); Goldberg answers "yes" to the question "Are women prejudiced against women?" (1968); and Horner declares that women have a "fear of success" because their self-conceptions are tied to low status (1972).

A second major line of empirical inquiry has been the extent to which people, and especially women, endorse the traditional division of labor between the sexes and, more recently, the division of power and economic opportunities between the sexes (for example, Mason, Czajka, and Arber 1976; Thornton and Freedman 1979; Spitze and Huber 1980; Cherlin and Walters 1981; Helmreich, Spence, and Gibson 1982; Thornton, Alwin, and Camburn 1983; Gurin 1985; Mason and Lu 1986; Simon and Landis 1989; Kane 1989). Analysts have been interested both in

monitoring the overall level of support for "nontraditional" gender arrangements and in assessing what individual factors (personality, socialization, personal experience, or demographic characteristics) affect gender attitudes. And as in the prejudice literature, there has been a special interest in monitoring change in gender attitudes over time, as an indicator of the wave of liberal progress. But unlike students of racial attitudes, who have been largely unplagued by notions of a "natural" or functional order of racial differentiation, students of gender attitudes have not been free to lay the onus of progress unequivocally on to the dominant group. Many analysts of "sex-role attitudes" appear to base their inferences about the pace of change on the attitudes of women alone, implying that women's attitudes are the prime source of energy in determining the form of their relationship with men. Other analysts draw on concepts about class consciousness to view women's gender attitudes within the political context of an expropriative intergroup relationship in which men are the more powerful group.

Thus, the empirical analysis of gender attitudes reflects a blending of concerns from the theoretical and empirical traditions of class consciousness and racial prejudice. The resulting depictions of women are pervaded by two conflicting undercurrents: the female as victim (like the black), beaten by prejudice into abject submission, and the female as a conjectured collaborator (like some images of the poor and working class), contentedly endorsing her assigned position in life or moving assertively to alter it. In this context, women are held to have some complicity in their own fate in a way that blacks are not. It is implied that the onus is on women to indicate whether their station in life has become a painful anachronism or continues to be the fulfillment of their biological proclivities.

Summary

I have analyzed the prevailing concerns and assumptions that have governed the study of class, race, and gender attitudes. My purpose has not been to elucidate the full variety of ideas that are to be found in each corpus of research—such a purpose would require volumes in itself. My purpose, rather, has been to identify major themes that have shaped the development of each literature.

I have attempted to draw out two important points. First, from a common family of ideas, research on class conflict, racial prejudice, political tolerance, and gender ideology broke apart in disparate networks of development. Second, the abiding focal point for each network has been conflict and hostility. The result has been that, as each body of literature followed its own course, it developed a distinctive welding of ideas to

address a common and enduring concern with conflict versus consensus in the assessment of unequal social relations.

In the analysis of social class, the legacy of Karl Marx was to weld conflict to the very conception of class as the basis for expropriative social relations. According to Marx's model, the working class signals its realization of the exploitative basis of its relationship with capitialists by becoming ideologically alienated from the capitalist system and organizing to overthrow it. Those who debated with Marx or his ghost did nothing to dislodge the theoretical expectation that exploitation would lead to conflict, and, indeed, they reinforced that expectation as they argued backwards from the lack of empirically observed class conflict to claim that class was either not exploitative or that it did not exist at all. In the face of the empirical shortfall in class conflict, some scholars have attempted to salvage the central elements of Marx's class analysis by accentuating evidence of dissension among classes, by arguing that subordinate classes engage in "hidden resistance," or by depicting subordinates' consciousness as "false." I have argued that all these attempts contain important insights, but they are weakened by their ensnarement in the conflict model. That ensnarement causes analysts to stretch their arguments out onto a thin ledge where rules of evidence lose their clarity or contradictory assumptions undermine their theoretical consistency. Empirical analyses of class ideology continue to revolve around issues pertaining to the existence and importance of class as a basis for exploitative and conflictive relations, with particular attention to the political consciousness of subordinates.

The analysis of racial prejudice has been driven by the spirit of social reform. Students of prejudice have sought to eradicate racial discrimination by developing models that approach the phenomenon in terms of individual psychological dispositions. Analysts have focused on the psychological construct of prejudice—an irrational, parochial antipathy based on faulty, categorical perceptions of the target group. The intergroup beliefs, feelings, and behavioral dispositions of prejudiced individuals in the dominant group are thought to be locked together in a negative position. Some analysts have diverged on a theoretical strand that posits that prejudice is motivated by a sense of group position (rather than by irrational parochialism), and some analysts have argued that prejudice is being expressed in more subtle and nuanced ways than the traditional prejudice concept stipulates. But all conceptions of prejudice have retained the central emphasis on intergroup hostility as the core of the problem. With relatively little attention to the dispositions of subordinates, students of prejudice have focused on trying to monitor and explain the racial animosity of the dominant group, whites.

The concept of political tolerance grew out of democratic theory. It

was held that democratic systems require citizens to have consensus on rules of the game in order to resolve conflicts peacefully. According to this perspective, hostility and conflict are unavoidable aspects of social life, but democratic citizens must learn to respect the civil rights and civil liberties of all other citizens, even when they personally disagree with them or harbor animosity toward them. The problem for analysts of tolerance has been to assess how successfully democratic citizens have disconnected their behavioral dispositions from their personal feelings toward a group. Interest has focused primarily on the tolerance of dominant-group members toward political and racial minorities.

The relatively recent growth of research on gender relations has fed from themes that were developed in the analysis of class and race relations. In the attempt to draw attention to gender as a significant and problematic social relationship, analysts have depicted gender relations as ridden with the commonly recognized symptoms of oppressive systems—force, violence, and hostility on the one hand, and fear, resentment, and low self-esteem on the other. Even more than in the class literature, the analysis of gender relations has been wedged in by a theoretical debate that includes staunchly conservative arguments depicting gender differentiation as a "natural order" that is endorsed consensually by men and women. In this context, the manifest passivity of women has created serious theoretical difficulties for scholars who wish to depict gender relations as expropriative. And as in the literature on prejudice, many analysts of gender attitudes have been motivated by the liberal spirit of social reform, but their primary focus on the gender attitudes of women has implied that it is the subordinate group (as in class relations) that must bring about change, rather than the dominant group (as in race relations). This merging of somewhat incompatible themes has often left empirical analyses of gender ideology in something of a theoretical void, as analysts have proceeded with an empirically driven agenda to monitor and explain popular endorsement or rejection of traditional gender arrangements.

All these lines of research tend to depict intergroup attitudes as primarily the property of individuals and as being purely expressive, rather than as political communications. That is to say, the common working assumption is that attitudes are raw acts of individual expression, articulating the inner thoughts, feelings, and reactions that individuals generate as they march through life.

At the same time, different assumptions have been made about whether humans express themselves in ways that suggest rationality or irrationality. Analysts of prejudice have been explicit on the point that prejudice is an irrational phenomenon that bears no relation to a rational processing of valid information about the target group. In the literature

on class conflict, however, it has been taken as a given that people do rationally process information and personal experiences. In the Marxist perspective, individuals are presumed to perceive and act rationally on their own behalf. Rationality in that model refers specifically to the ability to perceive one's economic interests and to act in concerted ways to further those interests, either by defending current economic arrangements (among those who benefit from them) or by rejecting those arrangements and working to alter them (among those who are hurt by them). Research on political tolerance is less clear on the issue of rationality, but it seems to assume that people rationally perceive competing interests in society: the task for democratic citizens is to learn to disregard the feelings of antipathy that arise from those perceptions as they formulate their policy dispositions toward competing groups. Research on gender ideology has embroiled competing strains of thought from theories of class conflict and prejudice, and thus no clear set of expectations about human rationality can be deduced from this line of research.

In the next chapter, I begin to raise questions about these various facets of ideology. Are attitudes raw acts of individual expression or politically motivated communications? Do intergroup attitudes originate with the individual or with the group to which he or she belongs? Are intergroup attitudes rational or irrational? How are these attitudes formed? I start by proposing a specific conception of rationality and considering some of the constraints that are present in intergroup relationships of inequality. Those considerations lead me to suggest that the preoccupation with conflict and hostility in the analysis of class, race, and gender relations is misplaced. My purpose is not to argue that such factors are devoid of significance for unequal social relations, only that their importance has been seriously overestimated. As we consider the role of ideology in social control, we will see many pressures that work against conflict and the expression of hostility. By using hostility as the flag for the inequality, students of class, race, and gender alike have misread the character of their material.

Chapter Two—
Ideology and Social Control

The best point at which to manage conflict is before it starts.
E. E. Schattschneider (1960, 15)

Because of the abiding concern with conflict among students of intergroup relations, questions have tended to hinge on the issue of whether one group is using force to subjugate another, with all the attendant ideological trappings of hostility and derogation. But dominant groups may be playing a different game. If their energies are geared toward the prevention or containment of conflict, social control may rarely be reduced to the use or even the explicit threat of force. The question of whether subordinates' position in the relationship reflects their own volition or forced compliance is a false question, unless we are sure that force and the threat of force are the primary weapons in social control.

There are several reasons to believe that these weapons play only a minor part in the day-to-day practice of subjugation. The threat of force always hovers in the background; under extreme duress, the threat is moved to a more conspicuous position, and, if necessary, actualized. But groups who enjoy the fruits of domination prefer to obviate this necessity by managing conflict "before it starts," or failing that, to contain its incipient development. In this endeavor, they work to engage subordinates in a common view of the world that rationalizes the current order. The surest method of social control is to induce subordinates to regulate themselves. To that end, the unmeditated weapon of choice is ideology.

I assume that groups gravitate to ideologies that are rationally consistent with their interests. However, my conception of rationality does not lead me to expect confrontational ideologies. A rational actor does not naively pursue goals on the basis of their desirability alone, but is sensitive to constraints. Occasional mistakes and miscalculations are to be expected, but groups do learn from their mistakes. Most of the time, the attitudes of unequal groups reflect responses that strive to maximize

their control over resources, not in an ideal world, but within the actual conditions they confront . This assumption does not lead me to expect much confrontation or hostility from either side of an intergroup relationship. Myrdal expressed the impact of these pressures well, when he discussed the lack of protest behavior among African Americans in the 1940s:

The accommodation motive has predominant importance in the daily life of American Negroes. . . . the influence of the protest motive is limited mainly to the propagation of certain ideas about how things should be. Everyone, however, has to get on with his own life from day to day, now and here . Even when the individual plans for future employment, for business, or for schooling, he has to reckon with the world as it is. He has to accommodate. (Myrdal 1944, 768)

For as much as people on each side of an unequal relationship might wish to increase their control over resources, they are also aware, if only implicitly, that their present holdings are not invulnerable. In that sense, even subordinates have some stake in the present system, insofar as they have not been stripped of all their resources. And members of the dominant group have a major investment that they wish to preserve. As people grope through the uncertainties of life, they have a tendency to tread carefully: rash moves carry too many risks.^[1]

When societal resources are distributed to groups according to the terms of an unequal relationship, the members of those groups have no choice but to communicate with each other about those terms. The relational basis of the exchange necessitates communication across group lines, and the members of each group also compare notes with others from their own group, to whom they have ready access. The quality of all those communications will be affected by the pressures to which the members of each group are subject.

Those pressures derive initially from the structure of the intergroup relationship, which sets outer limits on the kinds of communications that are safe and potentially effective in the ongoing political exchange. As the members of each group stake out a position, that enters into the political picture by shaping the moral climate within which the members of the other group interpret their situation and make their next move. Viewed in this way, intergroup attitudes are communicative and political rather than naively expressive. This means that participants on both

[1] Interestingly, the members of the community who are typically the most likely to make bold moves are young adults. At the initiation of adulthood, people have a smaller personal investment in the current order, and therefore they have less to lose. Young adults also have a weaker sense of history than those who have been around longer: they are less aware of the past experience of the group, and they thus have an inflated idea of what they can achieve.

sides of unequal relationships have their antenna habitually cocked to the messages coming from the other side. As they follow the path of least resistance through the day-to-day exigencies that they encounter, their perspectives on the unequal relationship that binds them are molded by the pressures that reside therein.

To explore these ideas, I begin with the constraints that face dominant groups as they seek to maintain their advantaged position. This leads me to consider the limitations of force as an instrument of social control. I then pursue the implications this has for the function and character of intergroup ideology. With those general considerations in hand, I turn, in the second part of the chapter, to the specific forms of ideology that are nourished under different structural conditions.

The Limits of Force

In their discussion of the politics of inequality, Bachrach and Baratz (1970) offer an insightful analysis of power and force in the dynamics of social control. They argue that in a relationship founded on explicit power, one party gains the compliance of the other through the threat of sanctions. They stress that before one can assert definitively that power has been exercised one must be sure that a threat has been made and that it is this threat (and not something else) that motivates the compliance of the other party. Thus, in an explicit power relationship, compliance is based on fear.

Such a hard-line approach to social control carries an uncomfortable dilemma. When faced with noncompliance, only two options are available. On the one hand, if threats are not carried out, they lose their credibility and hence their potency. The basis for power is undermined and further noncompliance is thus encouraged. On the other hand, if threats are carried out, the application of force is an open acknowledgment that control through threats has failed. Bachrach and Baratz conclude that in this instance as well the power relationship is undermined.

In addition, they argue that the application of threatened sanctions introduces further risks. Subordinates may find the sanctions less exacting than they had anticipated, a discovery that invites further noncompliance. Sanctions that are harsh, however, weaken the opponent sufficiently to preclude the possibility of compliance while those sanctions are in effect. Punishment by death constitutes the most complete (and irrevocable) example of compliance foregone. Short of death, sanctions must be severe enough to be punishing but not so severe that they incapacitate the opponent—a difficult assignment.

Bachrach and Baratz's argument throws a different light on force than is implied in the literature I discussed in chapter 1. Instead of seeing

force as the expression of power, Bachrach and Baratz describe it as a failure of power. A similar evaluation was made by Merriam in 1934, in his analysis of political power: "Power is not strongest when it uses violence, but weakest. . . . Rape is not an evidence of irresistible power in politics or in sex" (1934, 180). In essence, any application of sanctions is an open admission that one failed to obtain the other's compliance through the use of threats, that is, one failed to exercise power—hardly a salutary observation for the party who seeks to control another.

These considerations have three important implications. First, reliance on explicit power (that is, the threat of sanctions) to gain the compliance of subordinate groups is intrinsically hazardous. Incidents of noncompliance threaten the basis of social control, whether or not force is applied.

Second, because of its conspicuous nature, the explicit exercise of power sharpens the subjective rift between groups. The subordinate group is made aware of its concessions, and under such conditions the services extracted are likely to be carefully circumscribed. This limits the dominant group's effective access to the resources of the subordinate group. In addition, the subordinate group's awareness of its concessions is more likely to heighten than to diminish its sense of grievance. In this way, the instrument of social control itself incites the motivation for noncompliance, which in turn increases the probability that force will have to be applied. Anger and bitterness might build up sufficiently among subordinates to provide them with motivation to withstand even severe privations, rather than comply with the evil oppressor. In such a situation, the use of force by dominant groups may even backfire by confirming subordinates' negative interpretation of the relationship and thus inflaming their resistance further. The latter phenomenon was evidenced in the resistance movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thus, in the best case, explicit power relations produce delimited compliance, and in the worst case, an escalation of noncompliance.

Third, the only payoff from the use of force for the dominant group is in the provision of a demonstration or deterrence effect. Dominant groups may be prepared to forfeit temporarily the compliance of some subordinates in order to instill sufficient fear in them to induce their subsequent compliance, or to cow the rest of the group sufficiently to elicit their submission. But prolonged or repeated reliance on force indicates that the demonstration effect failed.

Edmund Burke eloquently summarized many of the drawbacks of force as an instrument of control in his speech to the British Parliament "On Conciliation with the Colonies" in 1775:

First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary . It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of

subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty . Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains, but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness, but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. (Burke [1775] 1954, 89–90)

From this perspective, the degree of open conflict and friction in a relationship of inequality tells us how well (or rather, how badly) the dominant group has things in hand. If we rely on such features to indicate how much expropriation is involved, or the degree to which the relationship is a "problem," we may bypass the very relationships where the expropriation is the most pronounced, where the dominant group's control is the most pervasive.

Thus, although Bourdieu (1977, 192–197) and Scott (1985, 307–309) have argued that overt, physical coercion is the preferred method of domination that reflects the most complete form of control, I am led to the opposite conclusion. Whereas Bourdieu and Scott see covert forms of coercion as relatively costly, both economically and socially, my position is that those costs are trivial compared to the costs of overt coercion. An explicit power relationship, with force as its clumsy adjutant, represents the end of the line for the dominant group, leaving it with uncomfortably reduced degrees of freedom as it must cope with a hardened opposition.

Consider, for example, the increasing incidence of overt conflict in South Africa in the past decade or so. This does not signify an increase in racial exploitation, but rather a decline in the white minority's effective control of that expropriative relationship. Indeed, the South African government's suppression of news coverage about their racial conflict in the 1980s reflected an acknowledgment of its damaging implications for apartheid's legitimacy and an attempt to contain that damage. And, despite the prolonged use of violence and legal sanctions by the white apartheid government against South Africa's blacks, black protest has persisted to the point where the government has eventually confronted a choice between the long road of concessions and reform or the short road to failed governance. The South African government might well endorse Burke's proviso that "a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered."

The factors that give a relationship a high profile for researchers also

give it a high profile for the participants, hardly a desirable outcome for those who benefit from the relationship. As Barrington Moore has noted, "In any society the dominant groups are the ones with the most to hide about the way society works" (1966, 523). For these reasons, groups on the top side of an unequal relationship may be expected to gravitate toward other methods of social control, methods more subtle in their technique, more flexible in their application, and more insidious in their impact.

Implicit Power and Ideology

As a minimal step, dominant groups set up institutions to carry out the ongoing task of expropriating resources from subordinates. Those institutions become a communal property, transmitting expropriative patterns from one generation to the next. That the expropriation from subordinates is practiced via institutions, rather than by each dominant-group member singlehandedly, has profound implications for the way it is experienced and interpreted by all the participants. The ideology that evolves around expropriative arrangements is shaped by the pressures that inhere in those institutions.

Expropriation Embedded

The institutionalization of expropriative arrangements yields multiple advantages to the dominant group. Most fundamentally, the institutions stabilize and routinize the supply of benefits from one group to another. They stack the deck so that the path of least resistance for individuals on either side is to accept the fait accompli. For example, institutionalized arrangements between employer and employee preempt any risk of constant negotiations about who should get the profits from the enterprise or who should set the length of the workday. Similarly, the institution of marriage regulates behavior between men and women and removes the possibility of reiterated negotiations about how sexual access should be decided or how the products of sexual union should be nurtured.

For subordinates, institutions limit the opportunities for, and raise the costs of, noncompliance. As the individual subordinate's social and material survival is conditioned by her ability to accommodate herself to the daily demands of social institutions, adaptive behaviors become molded into everyday habits, dimming each person's vision of social alternatives and hedging in her choices. And any failure to comply with institutional directives would be a provocation to the edifice of organized life, not merely a simple act between two individuals—this means that subordinates are less likely to engage in noncompliance lightly, as the personal investment that would be required grows heavier.

This is advantageous for the dominant group in itself, but it yields the further advantage of shifting the locus of control away from the individuals in the dominant group to the institutions they have historically erected. This means that benefits are delivered to individual members of the dominant group routinely, without any need for individually initiated acts of assertion. The institutions operate as an experiential buffer, blurring the direct, expropriative basis of the inequalities between groups both from those who receive the benefits and from those who supply them.

These factors have profound consequences for the kind of ideology that the dominant group espouses and for the reception that it gets from subordinates. The institutionalization of inequality releases the individual members of the dominant group from any sense of personal complicity. As they seek to interpret the happy situation in which they find themselves, they have no reason to feel personally defensive—after all, they have personally taken no steps to extract from others the benefits that regularly come their way. Instead, the ideas that prevail are the product of pressures coming out of the institutional arrangements. Individuals pick up those ideas piecemeal without any effort. Unfettered by any need to construct their own personal motivation scheme for discrimination, the individual members of the dominant group instead succumb to the relentless institutional pressures as they grope to interpret the world in which they live. Because the members of the dominant group are released by institutions from the rude necessity of having to exact subordinates' compliance singlehandedly, they are able to espouse and promulgate ideas that are institutionally convenient with uncontrived sincerity.

Ideologies that are promoted with sincerity are more compelling. This in itself gives the dominant group an advantage in persuading subordinates that all is right with the world, but subordinates are rendered more vulnerable to such appeals because their perceptions too are constrained by the existing institutional arrangements. The dominant group thus avoids the wearying and hazardous journey into the explicit assertion of power by making the inequalities into a societal habit, ingrained into the way of life. Weber has described the process well:

An order which is adhered to from motives of pure expediency is generally much less stable than one upheld on a purely customary basis through the fact that the corresponding behavior has become habitual. The latter is much the most common type of subjective attitude. But even this type of order is in turn much less stable than an order which enjoys the prestige of being considered binding, or, as it may be expressed, of "legitimacy." (Weber [1947] 1964, 125)

Bachrach and Baratz maintain that authority is not simply power institutionalized, that compliance in response to authority is based on an entirely different consideration—a shared set of values. They argue, for example, that most people obey the laws of a society not because they fear the sanctions that are threatened but because they adhere to a set of values that places a high stock on the necessity of a legal system to preserve an orderly and peaceful society. Bachrach and Baratz overstate the case—the ability of the legal system to command compliance would be severely tested were it stripped of its ability to inflict sanctions and compelled to rely entirely on shared values to generate compliance. But their argument contains an important insight into the ideological dynamics of intergroup inequality.

Institutions can legitimize and stabilize inequality by removing compliance from the self-conscious realm. The authority of an institution rests implicitly on its ability to use force, that is, to inflict punishment on those who resist it. However, the advantage of authority over the explicit assertion of power is that the threat remains implicit, submerged beneath an elaborate ideological edifice. Instead of being engaged provocatively in the direct use of threats, the power differential between groups is deployed more effectively in molding the institutions and accompanying values that constitute a way of life. Compliance is more readily given if subordinates have been induced to adopt the same values as the dominant group. Lukes has put it well:

To put the matter sharply, A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants. . . . Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial? (Lukes 1974, 23–24)

In this context, even the use of force, should the dominant group be pressed to it, assumes a safer meaning than it does in explicit power relations. The application of sanctions against the occasional straggler can be interpreted self-righteously by both dominant and subordinate groups as a just punishment for transgression of the social order, not as the cold assertion of one group's will over another. Instead of placing the dominant group's position at risk, such a use of sanctions thus reinforces the morality of the entire social order. The benefits that the dominant group derives from that social order are pleasantly obscured beneath a value system that has been made a consensual property.

Several observers have pointed to the subtlety with which power works to constrain the institutional and moral framework within which political judgments are made. Schattschneider (1960) talked of the use of institutions to generate a "mobilization of bias"; Bachrach and Baratz (1970) discuss the process of "nondecision-making" and "decision-shaping"; Lindblom (1977) uses the concept of "constrained volitions." Although the specific emphases of those arguments vary, for our purposes they all identify a common phenomenon—the implicit use of power to prevent or contain conflict rather than the explicit exercise of power to subdue it. Rather than engaging in battle with subordinates who challenge the status quo, dominant groups prefer to constrain the vision of subordinates sufficiently to preclude the emergence of a serious challenge. The surest strategy for social control is to confine the agenda within which a challenge might take place.

Empiricists may complain that the process thus entailed is not empirically observable. Merelman (1968), for example, objected that Bachrach and Baratz's "nondecision" is by definition a nonevent that has no grounding in the empirically observed exchanges of everyday political life. But it is precisely because of its invisibility in the day-to-day arena that the institutionalization of bias is so profound. By defining the bounds of reasonable discourse, institutionalized power limits the kinds of political exchanges that may take place without sullying the awareness of any of the participants. By contrast, it is the very conspicuousness of the explicit exercise of power that reduces it to such a clumsy basis for durable social control.

Ideology As Communication

The members of the dominant group evolve a compendium of symbolic messages to interpret the expropriative institutions from which they benefit. Those messages are directed both to the other members of their own group and to the other parties in the relationship, as the continued support of established institutions is necessarily sought from both parties: the stability of expropriative institutions requires both the continued cooperation of dominant-group members and the continued compliance of subordinates. Thus, in order to have credibility, ideological messages must seem compelling to those on both sides of the relationship. Under these pressures, dominant-group members are moved to interpret arrangements in a way that is personally gratifying and that also appeals to the sensibilities of subordinates.

The symbolic messages that thus evolve are the natural accompaniment to the institutionalized expropriation from subordinates, protecting that expropriation through camouflage. The institutional arrangements within which inequalities are practiced and the symbolic

interpretations of those arrangements have complementary goals—to define, respectively, the practical and the moral imperatives of social life.

In a penetrating essay on ideology and class relations, Abercrombie and Turner (1982) argue that the practical imperatives of institutionalized power alone are sufficient to coerce subordinates into compliance. They claim that moral imperatives are both ineffectual and unnecessary in the management of subordinates. Pointing to several examples of specific moral strictures that commanded stronger adherence in the dominant classes than in subordinate classes, they reason that ideology functions not as an instrument of social control, but simply as an expressive device for the dominant classes. By providing them with a moral justification of the status quo, the dominant ideology serves as a symbolic banner around which the dominant class can rally.

According to this view, the dominant ideology is a pure epiphenomenon, thrust up by the structure of inequality and serving only as the symbolic embodiment of it. This view presupposes, however, a state of open hostilities between have's and have-not's. In such a state, each side closes ranks and directs its moral energies entirely toward its own constituents. In these circumstances, subduing the other side has become a lost cause, and the adversaries on each side must instead work on motivating their own ranks to invest in the high costs of outright conflict. In this all-too-familiar scenario, people on each side then assert their group's cause by claiming a distinctive moral code and derogating their opponents.

But open conflict is precisely what dominant groups are driven to avoid. As they aim for stability rather than disruption, these groups must direct their moral exertions more inclusively toward all participants in the relationship. They are not free to indulge in moral expressions that provide psychological gratification only to those who share their side of experience. The practical coercion provided by institutionalized power relations is not sufficient to secure the stable compliance of subordinates. Habits are established and reinforced so much better when there is a compelling moral basis for them. If the institutional arrangements were left unadorned, or worse, emblazoned in a moral code that failed to embrace the sensibilities of subordinates, the dominant group would face a battle to obtain even recalcitrant compliance from subordinates. The potency of institutionalized power lies not only in its ability to constrain people's options but also in its ability to buffer the direct relationship between have's and have-not's. To complete the obfuscation, institutions must be enshrouded in a moral code that makes an inclusive, rather than an exclusive, appeal. The legitimacy of those institutions hinges critically on making them morally palatable to those whose compliance sustains them.

Amorphous and Flexible Ideology

The ideology of the dominant group provides a broad moral framework that touches every aspect of life. The amorphous quality of popular ideology has made it an elusive concept for scholars to define or measure precisely, and one finds the term used in multitudinous ways by scholars focusing on different aspects of social and political life (for example, compare the various discussions of ideology in Apter 1964; also Gramsci 1971; Thompson 1990). Researchers have experienced similar problems with the general concept of power (see, e.g., Dahl 1968). The empirical products of both power and popular ideology are so subtly shaded into every aspect of life that they elude bounded definition and observation. But from this stems their enduring significance. They work together to permeate the social structure and to mold the terms in which that structure is experienced and perceived by all the participants. Because implicit power relations necessarily have an inclusive reach, so too must the accompanying ideology.

None of these considerations imply that the dominant ideology should be applied with a uniform stamp to lock reactions into a tight consistency or to force a universal code of behavior on all participants. Indeed, the strength of an ideology lies in its loose-jointed, flexible application. An ideology is a political instrument, not an exercise in personal logic: consistency is rigidity, the only pragmatic effect of which is to box oneself in. A slight change in circumstances or a compelling challenge to one part of the ideology would render the whole ideological edifice vulnerable. Although it is advantageous to have subordinates' options hedged in, the members of dominant groups are not drawn to patterns of thinking that would limit their own maneuverability.

Another factor working against ideological consistency is that ideologies are not hatched up in a single, contrived action. They are not static but fluid, and they evolve piecemeal rather than being fabricated in toto. They develop historically, shifting and changing constantly as the specific exigencies are altered. There is not a clean sweep of the entire ideological framework with each minor change in exigencies: instead, some ideas are dropped swiftly while others linger or are slowly reshaped. In addition, the unself-conscious way in which individuals absorb the various ideas that float past them causes two forms of inconsistency. First, any individual amalgam of ideas is likely to contain idiosyncratic combinations of elements, depending on the particular currents of information to which he or she has been exposed. Second, there will be gaps or logical inconsistencies in many individuals' renditions of popular ideas, insofar as they drift into ways of thinking that are convenient rather than sign on to a clearly labeled package of ideas.

Thus, the perennial search of scholars for sharp intellectual

consistency in expressions of ideology (see, for example, McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara 1960; Converse 1964; Achen 1975; Nie, Verba, and Petrocik 1976; Sullivan et al. 1978; Converse and Markus 1979; Smith 1989) is misleading. In the political needs of the group, in the way in which ideologies evolve and are propagated, and in the ideological proclivities of individual group members, there is little pressure for the articulation of a tightly consistent ideology. This is especially true of ideologies that are broadly consistent with existing institutional arrangements. People who challenge the modus vivendi are more self-conscious and are forced more on their own motivational resources, both of which generate slightly greater pressure toward consistency. But this is a difference of degree only: challenging ideologies also develop in a trial-and-error historical process, and here too, tight consistency remains a political liability.

By the same token, it is misleading to take as the measure of an ideology's reach its success in implanting identical mores into the minutiae of everyday life of all participants in the relationship (as do Abercrombie and Turner 1982). If the conduct of the relationship does not require identical behaviors of all participants (and more typically it requires just the reverse), there is no advantage in imposing the same moral minutiae on subordinates as on one's own group. The insidious reach of a dominant ideology inheres in its elevation of a few abstract principles for general consumption and the subsequent application of those principles judiciously and adaptively to the various exigencies that it confronts. Broad moral principles contain enough flexibility and ambiguity that they lend themselves admirably to multiple ad hoc applications as the need arises. One marvels, for example, at the highly various deeds and practices that have been justified in the name of Christian religious principles. The unequal relationship from which the dominant group benefits creates disparate conditions of life. An ideological system that does not address itself to those conditions by developing diffuse applications will fail to be inclusively compelling.

Thus, in feudal society, the central moral precepts of loyalty, honor, and obedience were necessarily applied with sensitive discrimination to the specific daily behaviors of the peasantry and the nobility. Given this, what Abercrombie and Turner (1982) interpret as a failure to reach subordinates is instead a mark of the success of feudal ideology in adapting to the disparate conditions of life that the feudal organization of labor had created. Similarly, the moral code associated with the system of slavery in the antebellum South included a core set of tenets to which all participants were answerable (especially the moral strictures of Christianity), as well as distinct codes of ethics for slave-owners on the one hand (for example, to be protective, to advise and adjudicate over

"weaker" mortals) and their slaves on the other (for example, to be loyal, hardworking, and respectful). The specific ethical codes for each group were of course compatible with its position of dominance or subordination in the expropriative business of slavery. And again, in contemporary gender relations, there is an overarching, abstract moral code that encompasses both groups, but at the same time, each group is exhorted to follow a specialized moral code that is adapted to its position in the intergroup relationship. Indeed, many conservatives in gender relations have been moved to exclaim anxiously, "Vive la difference!"

The Sensitive Shroud

In the amorphous ideological framework of the dominant group, the segment that is especially sensitive is the attempt to explain and interpret the relationship with subordinates that is at the core of social life. This topic must be broached by the dominant group, but with some delicacy. The intergroup attitudes of the dominant group are its most direct communication with those whose compliance it requires. The portrayal of the subordinate group and affective and behavioral dispositions toward subordinates are all articulated with intuitive care, constrained by the need for inclusiveness. The dominant group cannot afford to indulge in unbridled messages that gratify only the sensibilities of its own membership. As the members of the dominant group seek to preserve their privileges, they express views that swathe arrangements in a soft, protective shroud. To that end, they are drawn to ideas that are likely to soothe subordinates rather than pound them. The alternative forms that these efforts may take are the subject of the next section.

Coercive Love and Reasoned Persuasion

Slavery identifies the interests of rich and poor, master and slave, and begets domestic affection on the one side, and loyalty and respect on the other. . . . We abhor the doctrine of the "Types of Mankind"; first, because it is at war with scripture, which teaches us that the whole human race is descended from a common parentage; and, secondly, because it encourages and incites brutal masters to treat negroes, not as weak, ignorant and dependent brethren, but as wicked beasts, without the pale of humanity. The Southerner is the negro's friend, his only friend. Let no intermeddling abolitionist, no refined philosophy, dissolve this friendship.
Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854, 43, 95)

With friends like that, who needs enemies? But no one need doubt the sincerity of Mr. Fitzhugh's passionate defense of Southern slavery. It is instructive to read proslavery tracts such as Fitzhugh's and those

collected by Elliott (1860). Absurd as it may seem through the cynical lens of temporal detachment, those essayists defended the flagrantly expropriative institution of slavery on the grounds, not of hatred, but of love and humanitarianism. Interestingly, those learned gentlemen were not oblivious to the benefits that accrued to Southern whites from slavery (see, e.g., Fitzhugh 1854, 27, 93, 163). But what is conveniently missing from their discernment is any realization that those benefits were being extracted at the direct expense of the other group in the system, blacks.

The same sticky syrup still coated the affirmations of some of the Southern whites interviewed by Johnson in the 1940s (Johnson 1943):

They make perfectly delightful servants. I wouldn't have any other kind. (Charleston housewife to Johnson 1943, 195)

The Negro in his place is really an assistant in the South. He's what the Lord Almighty intended him to be, a servant of the people. We couldn't get along without them. (Official of the Arkansas industrial welfare commission to Johnson 1943, 195)

The Negroes around here are not capable of doing the more skilled work. They are often helpers. The men prefer them to white helpers: they are more humble, obedient and strong. They know their place and keep it. (Union official in Georgia to Johnson 1943, 205)

The cordial, self-righteous pleasures that are sometimes offered by domination do indeed seem almost boundless. What are the conditions that nurture such warm and satisfied feelings of privilege?

The Inclusive Reach of Dominant Ideology

It has been observed before that dominant groups gravitate effortlessly toward interpretations of inequality that portray its benefits as diffuse and general rather than as specialized and lopsided. Marx regarded the neutralization of the relational basis of inequality as the primary ideological task of ascendant classes:

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. (Marx and Engels [1846] 1970, 65–66)

In a similar vein, Dahrendorf (1959, 284) argues that "the dominant groups of society express their comparative gratification with existing conditions inter alia by visualizing and describing these conditions as ordered and reasonable."

What has been overlooked, however, is that such an ideological en-

deavor is incompatible with the expression of hostility toward subordinates. Because they seek the "loyalty and respect" of subordinates rather than their fear, dominant groups eschew hostility. Only when they are driven to abandon the quest for loyalty and respect by the existence of potent threats to their position will dominant groups let hostility slide into their ideological communications. But to the extent that dominant groups are successful in embracing subordinates ideologically, the probability that they will have to face such threats is sharply reduced.

Marx's excited prediction that capitalist society would devolve progressively into "two great hostile camps" is inconsistent with his recognition that dominant classes always strive to embrace their would-be adversaries with an inclusive ideology. The only way to reconcile these two assertions of ideological inclusiveness on the one hand and conflict on the other is by relegating ideology to a strictly expressive role, with no communicative or political instrumental function. But the notion of an inclusive ideology itself suggests that dominant-group members are not simply venting an expressive need geared solely to their own gratification—their ideology is a means of communication to assist them in the ongoing business of social control.

The ideological outcome that Marx foresaw for capitalist class relations—class conflict—is rendered improbable precisely because of the profound workings of ideological universalism. Ideology does not work alone, but as the natural accompaniment to institutionalized, implicit power relations. Together, they obfuscate the bare reality of expropriation and constrain the moral latitude of any challenge that might surface. Like Marx, subsequent scholars of inequality have been riveted by the potential for conflict and have thus given scant attention to the conservative pressures that more typically prevail in long-term, unequal relationships—pressures that foster harmony or that spare dominant groups from more than a modicum of acrimony.

The intergroup attitudes that are exchanged between groups locked in an unequal relationship cannot be treated as naive, unconstrained acts of personal expression. Because the groups are bound together in a relationship, they have no recourse but to communicate with each other. The intergroup attitudes expressed on either side of the relationship are the symbolic representations that each side makes to the other in a continuing dialogue. Those attitudes are constrained by the structural and moral framework of the relationship within which they are formulated.

Communication under Constraints

The dominant group clearly has the primary advantage, but even so, its interpretation of the relationship with subordinates is confined by the

way the relationship is structured, by the preexisting moral framework, and by the kind of attitudes that are presented by subordinates. Subordinates, in turn, are hemmed in even more tightly. Even when the structure of the relationship permits some insulation from the intergroup messages of the dominant group, subordinates are still bound by the existence of a relationship with the dominant group to engage in a dialogue rather than a monologue. Thus, the intergroup attitudes of subordinates are always reactive rather than independent: they are framed by the broad moral code that shades the institutional structure of the relationship and by the specific appeals that are made by the dominant group.

Within these constraints, the dominant group relies more on love or reasoning as instruments of coercion than on hostility and force. These efforts do not fall into a void, but set the moral parameters of the dialogue with subordinates. If the structure of the relationship is conducive, subordinates may be trapped by the serenade into generous compliance. If the structure of the relationship restricts the opportunity for the dominant group to infiltrate the emotions of subordinates, the general moral code that envelops the relationship shifts to a different gear, but it still operates to limit the nature and scope of subordinate complaint. Before discussing the characteristic features of the different ideological forms that find voice, I trace the structural conditions that foster each.

Intimate Versus Distal Relations

It is to the advantage of the dominant group when the structure of the relationship with subordinates dictates intimate contact between them. The more the daily lives of the respective groups are intertwined, the greater and more varied are the opportunities for the dominant group to invade the emotional and cognitive vulnerabilities of their unequals. If one supposes that it might just as easily work the other way around, one must bear in mind that the intimacy between groups does not take place in a neutral setting but within the institutional structure of their organized inequality, a context that gives the dominant group the natural advantage in any encounters.

But expropriative relationships are not always structured in a way that facilitates intimate personal contact between groups. The most important limiting factor lies in the functional requirements of the productive process that is the core of the redistribution between groups. This is perhaps clearest in the case of class relations. Advances in the technology of communal production that we associate with increases in productivity and efficiency have also dictated a reorganization of work relations, creating larger and more mechanized production units and altering the functional relationship between those with unequal control over the means

of production. Marx's comparison of the social organization of peasant agriculture with that of industrial production is well known (Marx 1964, 184–189). Feudal agriculture placed scattered communities of peasants within the social and economic grasp of individual landlords on a lifelong, multigenerational basis. Although the amount of contact between a landlord and his peasants was still not as frequent as within-class contacts, the ties between classes were individualized, and their permanency broadened their reach beyond the utilitarian basis of the class relationship to cover all aspects of social life. By contrast, the industrial mode of production dictates a less personalized pattern of contact between different functional groups. The specialization of tasks and the accompanying aggregation of labor push the work-related communications between groups toward more utilitarian, contractual negotiations between aggregates. Enduring ties to specific individuals in other groups are no longer a normal feature of the exchange process in production.^[2]

The structure of the relationship between whites and blacks in the United States was also influenced by these economic pressures, insofar as the expropriation of African American labor in economic life has always been an important component of that relationship. The pattern of contact between whites and African Americans in the antebellum South was marked by similar constraints to those that existed between landlord and peasant in feudal Europe. With the dissolution of slavery, those patterns were partially maintained through the system of sharecropping in the rural South. However, as industrial growth in the North drew blacks away from the rural South and as the South itself industrialized, blacks were gradually funneled into the aggregate of laboring masses, and their personal contact with their white masters consequently diminished.

The inequality between men and women is founded in control of sexual access and sexual reproduction. The technology of procreation has dictated one-to-one contact between sexual partners: in order to control procreation, men require intimate access to individual women, and the long maturation period for their offspring lends itself naturally to individualized, long-term relationships between members of the two

[2] There have been sporadic attempts in the history of industrialism to structure industrial relations with enduring, personal ties across group lines. The most prominent examples are company towns (see Newby 1977b ; Burawoy 1984), and the model of labor management followed by some Japanese firms (see Genovese 1974, 661–665). As several analysts have commented, however, the vagaries of capitalist markets make the strict application of long-term commitments to particular individuals impractical. Thus, even when industrial firms attempt to institute more personal ties to workers, they lack the certain durability of interpersonal relations across class lines that existed in the feudal organization of labor.

groups.^[3] In addition, sexual access, treated as an asset in its own right, intrinsically involves physical intimacy. The enduring and individualized quality of contact between men and women permeates the relationship not only between coupling partners but also between parents and children.

The functional requirements of the productive process that establishes the inequality set outer limits on the pattern and quality of contact between the groups. Within those limits, dominant-group members have a continuing need to differentiate themselves from subordinates, and this prompts behaviors that reaffirm their status prerogatives. These, too, have a direct impact on the frequency and quality of interaction with subordinates.

When the division of labor between groups is deeply embedded in social institutions, the routinized role prescriptions alone constitute sufficient affirmation of the status prerogatives of the dominant group. In this context, close physical proximity to subordinates is "safe" because embedded rules govern interactions between members of the two groups, unambiguously defining the social meaning of any interactions and by the same token removing the possibility of challenge from the social agenda (Goffman 1956; van den Berghe 1967, 27; Reskin and Roos 1987). Personal interactions between status unequals are marked by numerous behavioral asymmetries that reaffirm the distinctions between them. These include the familiarity or formality used in terms of address (servants and patients are addressed by their first names, masters and doctors are addressed more formally), invasions of personal space and touching behavior (for example, in interactions between women and men, students and teachers, and employees and employers, the lower-status participant is more likely to be touched physically), initiating and interrupting in conversation (males interrupt females more than vice versa, work supervisors initiate conversation more than subordinates), expressions of anger (it is more acceptable for status superiors, such as work supervisors or men, to express anger than for inferiors, such as subordinates at work or women, to do so), and tone of voice (loud or soft, authoritative or diffident) (Henley 1977; Henley and Freeman 1979; West and Zimmerman 1983; Ellyson and Dovidio 1985). When these behavioral asymmetries become habitual and ingrained, repeated

[3] The technological innovation of artificial insemination now makes it possible for procreation to take place without physical contact between sexual partners, but this does not alter the requirement for men to maintain intimate contact with their sexual partners if they wish to ensure ready access to their offspring. Since it is women, rather than men, who bear babies, it is women who would have presumptive parenthood if men did not link themselves unambiguously to their sexual partners (this point is, of course, a central tenet of Engels' well-known thesis [1972] about sexual inequality).

personal contact with subordinates provides a risk-devoid opportunity for members of the dominant group to reaffirm their status prerogatives.

When the practice of the expropriation does not afford the opportunity to seal status distinctions into the daily code of conduct, dominant-group members are pressed into a more defensive position. In order both to safeguard their status prerogatives and to insulate themselves from the uncomfortable possibility of personal challenge, the members of the dominant group retreat to the practice of spatial exclusiveness. Litwack (1979) provides an interesting example of how status anxiety in the dominant group affects the symbolic meaning of physical proximity between unequal groups. He reports that in the antebellum South, where it was complacently assumed that blacks were in the service and control of their white masters, blacks had relatively free access to a variety of physical settings. In the wake of slavery's dissolution, however, Southern whites quickly became more sensitive to the physical proximity of blacks: the presence of blacks in designated white areas came to symbolize a violation of racial status barriers, because the terms of blacks' physical presence were less clear-cut. The continuing symbolic significance of spatial segregation in American race relations may be interpreted as an attempt by whites to insulate themselves against the threat of encroachments on their racial status prerogatives.

In class relations, where material distinctions themselves visibly assert the differentiation between classes, dominant classes still promote status prerogatives as a way of symbolizing their gains and consolidating those gains for their offspring against encroachments by would-be competitors from outside their ranks. Snobbery associated with such nonmaterial factors as spoken accent, type of dress, and mode of personal expression help to secure the boundaries between insiders and outsiders, thus limiting the competitive field where immutable physical rules for group membership do not exist. Spatial exclusiveness encourages cultural divergences that are convenient handles for status distinctions, and it also serves directly to insulate dominant classes from too many incursions by assertive subordinates.

The contingencies that encumber physical proximity between unequal groups are seen especially clearly in the context of gender relations. Here, the functional locus of the inequality requires high physical proximity between individual men and women, the definition of group membership is immutable, and the status prerogatives of group membership have been relatively secure. Yet even here, some residual status anxiety drives the dominant group to maintain selected domains of spatial exclusiveness. In those domains that offer no clearly defined, distinctively "female" functions, the physical presence of women threatens the status boundaries between groups and is therefore unacceptable. Hence, spatial

proximity to women in the workplace is threatening to many men if the women are assigned to the same occupations as themselves, but it is quite untroubling if women are there to serve men's needs (spatial proximity to secretaries and typists is desirable whereas contact with a female co-executive may be avoided). Similarly, all-male social clubs exclude women as members but may welcome women as servants or sexual playthings (waitresses, dancing girls, or prostitutes).

In short, the degree of physical proximity between unequal groups is limited by the functional constraints of their relationship and by the desire of dominant-group members to maintain status boundaries between themselves and subordinates. In domains where the functional basis of the expropriation does not dictate physical intimacy between groups, physical proximity to subordinates threatens to undermine the social boundaries between them. Such proximity is only acceptable in domains where there are clearly prescribed status-bounded tasks for each group; otherwise ambiguity hangs over subordinates' presence and threatens a violation of status boundaries. The fewer "safe" domains there are within the functional confines of an unequal relationship, the more the dominant group resorts to a policy of spatial exclusiveness to protect its position.

The organization of intergroup relations along intimate or distal principles carries indelible implications for the practice of ideology. Distinctive opportunities and constraints are thus introduced. I turn now to the varying ideological forms that are thus given life.

Intimacy and Coercive Love

In intergroup relationships characterized by a high degree of personal contact between groups, dominant-group members offer love, affection, and friendship to subordinates—on strict terms. Instead of threatening punishment if compliance is not given (an ugly scene), dominant-group members are in the happier position of offering rewards if compliance is given. The implied sanction is no less potent than when an explicit threat of punishment is made, but the symbolism that is invoked is warm and friendly instead of cold and threatening. After all, most parents know that it is more satisfactory to promise their child a chocolate for good behavior than to threaten a spanking for bad behavior.

The Entangling Net of Conditional Love

Specific traits compatible with the subordinate role are idealized and subordinates are exhorted to strive for the ideal. The more successful a subordinate is in achieving the idealized traits that have been assigned to her group, the more lovable and sought-after she becomes. Within the institutionalized structure of the intergroup relationship, a subordinate's best chance of success in life is

to excel in manifesting the traits and behaviors that have been designated for her group.

In this context, stereotypes about the subordinate group are in part meant as existential declarations and in part as ideals that subordinates should strive to attain. Thus, popular conceptions of the attributes of subordinates are a fusion of existential beliefs and moral strictures. The specific traits that are attached to subordinates are compatible with the tasks that are required of them in the expropriative exchange and with their subservient position in that exchange. The concept of "feminine" delineates a bundle of attributes that includes warmth, emotional and physical weakness and vulnerability, submissiveness, deference, dependence, and loyalty (Bell and Newby 1976; Rubin 1983; Cancian 1985, 1987). The inculcation of these traits in women is useful in itself, but it also makes women more vulnerable to a system of control based on conditional love. As Cancian has argued, women are rendered more dependent on male affection and protection by defining such traits as intrinsically feminine (Cancian 1985, 1987). In the antebellum South, slaves too were described and idealized as weak, dependent, deferential, loyal, and loving.

Subordinates who manifest the specified traits of their group are rewarded with love, affection, and praise. But subordinates who deviate from the stereotype are branded as "unfeminine" or as troublemakers, for which they may be punished, rebuked, ostracized, or ridiculed. The connection of these rules to the legitimation of the inequality between groups is brought out well by Bledsoe, in his Essay on Liberty and Slavery (1856):

There is no form of human excellence before which we bow with profounder deference than that which appears in a delicate woman, . . . and there is no deformity of human character from which we turn with deeper loathing than from a woman forgetful of her nature, and clamourous for the vocation and rights of men. (Bledsoe 1856, 224, quoted in Myrdal 1944, 1074)

By specifying and idealizing the traits of subordinates, members of the dominant group put themselves in the enviable position of being able to define what subordinates' needs are. This permits them to cast their own role as one of magnanimously providing for subordinates' needs. Dominant-group members are thus spared the unpleasantness of withholding something from subordinates that they themselves value—after all, subordinates have different needs than they do. This then clears the way for them to define their relationship with subordinates as one of charming complementarity and mutual obligation:

Slavery is the duty and obligation of the slave to labor for the mutual benefit of both master and slave, under a warrant to the slave of protection,

and a comfortable subsistence, under all circumstances. The person of the slave is not property, no matter what the fictions of the law may say; but the right to his labor is property and may be transferred like any other property, or as the right to the services of a minor or an apprentice may be transferred. Nor is the labor of the slave solely for the benefit of the master, but for the benefit of all concerned; for himself, to repay the advances made for his support in childhood, for present subsistence, and for guardianship and protection, and to accumulate a fund for sickness, disability, and old age. The master, as the head of the system, has a right to the obedience and labor of the slave, but the slave has also his mutual rights in the master; the right of protection, the right of counsel and guidance, the right of subsistence, the right of care and attention in sickness and old age. He also has a right in his master as the sole arbiter in all his wrongs and difficulties, and as a merciful judge and dispenser of law to award the penalty of his misdeeds. Such is American slavery, or as Mr. Henry Hughes happily terms it, "Warranteeism." (Elliott 1860, vii; see Genovese 1974 for numerous other examples of slaveholders' reconception of their expropriation of black labor as "a duty and a burden")

The relational basis of the inequality is thus cast in happier terms as a mutual interdependence between groups rather than as an expropriation of resources from one group to another.

Subordinates are unable to buffer themselves from the conditional love that is thus proffered by their betters. As long as the conditions are not violated, individual subordinates may engage in the reciprocal warmth of affectionate relationships with individuals from the dominant group. But if an individual subordinate should violate the terms of the affection, he or she cuts off that source of love or affection without having any other organized source of interpersonal gratification available. Because the daily practice of the relationship is individualized and intimate, subordinates either return the love offered them by members of the dominant group, within the terms specified, or face probable exclusion from organized social life.

The more completely the dominant group can penetrate the day-to-day lives of subordinates, the more tightly it constrains the calculable options of subordinates as well as the visibility and subjective plausibility of alternative options. An implicit understanding based on conditional love is much more satisfactory to the dominant group than an explicit contract. The implicit arrangement raises the costs of noncompliance for subordinates. At the same time, it removes the specter of noncompliance from the explicit day-to-day communications between groups.

Intimacy and Social Control

The singularly coercive power of conditional love in relationships marked by high intimacy between groups has escaped the attention of analysts preoccupied with hostility and conflict.

Several analysts of gender attitudes have commented on the importance of individual-level intimacy in male-female relations in undermining the development of an assertive group consciousness among women (Mill 1970; Hacker 1951; de Beauvoir 1953; Rossi 1977b ). But these analysts have focused primarily on the structural obstacles that this poses for women as an organizational unit. For example, de Beauvoir wrote:

Women lack concrete means for organizing themselves into a unit which can stand face to face with the correlative unit. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat. They are not even promiscuously herded together in the way that creates community feeling among the American Negroes, the ghetto Jews, the workers of Saint-Denis, or the factory hands of Renault. They live dispersed among the males, attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain men—fathers or husbands—more firmly than they are to other women. (de Beauvoir [1953] 1973, 678-679)

That analysis is reminiscent of Marx's famous portrayal of the smallholding peasantry in nineteenth-century France as so many "potatoes in a sack" (Marx [1869] 1959, 338). In a similar argument, John Stuart Mill saw the individualized organization of gender relations as providing men with a unique opportunity to keep women under their thumb:

Every one of the subjects lives under the every eye, and almost, it may be said, in the hands, of one of the masters—in closer intimacy with him than with anyone of her fellow-subjects; with no means of combining against him, no power of even locally over-mastering him, and, on the other hand, with the strongest motives for seeking his favour and avoiding to give him offence. (Mill [1869] 1970, 136)

The structural dispersal of the members of a subordinate group is surely important in hindering the ease of communication amongst them that might have fostered the growth of a common sense of community. And their simultaneous individualized link to members of the dominant group does indeed allow for their close observation by dominant-group members. However, what these analysts have overlooked is that the meaning of such factors is significantly altered by more fundamental pressures that are put in place by the institutionalization of intimate ties across group lines. The primary significance of intimacy is that it permits dominant-group members to define their relationship with subordinates in a way that preempts explicit power considerations. This opportunity is pivotal, for it molds the way coercion is wielded and the way it is experienced by subordinates.

By making love the very instrument of coercion, dominant-group members swathe the unequal exchange with subordinates in the warmth

of personal affection even as they hem in subordinates' options with a taut thread. Through the medium of longstanding personal relationships, men can dictate women's behaviors, condition women's perceptions of their experience, and capture their emotions. Individual subordinates are rewarded with love and praise for their fulfillment of specified, subordinate traits and compliant behaviors. There is no need to engage in explicit power negotiations with subordinates if one has an embedded, ingrained understanding that the continued exchange of affection is contingent upon the fulfillment of specific obligations. With such an institutionalized understanding in place, it is taken as a given by all the participants as they formulate their responses to one another. Their responses are thus tightly constrained even as their cognizance of the pressures is so ingrained that they have no need to deliberate about them consciously. As students of child development have long recognized, behaviors are instilled more indelibly if they are internalized as norms than if they are imposed externally through explicit threat of punishment.

Only among some radical feminists does one find discussion of the obfuscating and coercive properties of love, but the interpretation that they place on love is more as a deliberate and conscious manipulative device employed by men (see, e.g., Millett 1970, 36–37; Rich 1980). Some radical feminists even portray the role of love as one whereby men subjugate women by feeding off their love without offering it in return (Firestone 1970; Atkinson 1984). My argument, however, is that in conditions of high personal intimacy, relations between groups become infused with personal love and affection in an uncalculated gravitation. These bonds of mutual affection provide the members of the dominant group with an insidiously potent and self-gratifying vehicle for tightening their grasp around an unequal arrangement. They offer their love to individual subordinates, not freely, but within the rigid confines of an idealized and sanctified declaration of the distinctions between groups.

Love and Violence

Although physical coercion has little direct bearing on the day-to-day practice of social control in unequal relations that are organized around intimate one-to-one contacts, the use of violence by members of the dominant group is not precluded. Indeed, the intimate, one-to-one practice of the relationship ironically permits dominant-group members to engage in the freer locution of personal violence against subordinates than is possible in more distally structured relations. Such relations provide more opportunities for incidents of personal violence against subordinates and such incidents are less likely to damage the expropriative arrangements between the groups than would be the case in more distally structured relations. There are two ways that inti-

mately structured relations facilitate the commission of violence against subordinates.

First, the risk of violence faced by individual subordinates from strangers from the dominant group (for example, rape of women by unknown men, or the brutal treatment of runaway slaves by slave patrols in the antebellum South) drives subordinates to find protection. The uneven distribution of resources between groups and the individualized, personal structure of the intergroup relationship leaves the individual subordinate with no option but to seek a personal tie with someone from the dominant group who can function as her protector. By attaching herself to an individual man, a woman secures protection from other men. Her awareness of her vulnerability to physical violence from unknown men thus leads her to value her attachment to an individual man more highly and deepens her emotional tie to her chosen partner. And in the antebellum South, the individual slave had little recourse but to rely on the mercies of his owner: in a world populated by slave patrols off the plantation and possibly by harsh overseers within the plantation, the slave might well regard his owner as the person who was best positioned to protect his well-being, and, by virtue of his economic investment, also the person with the biggest vested interest in his well-being.^[4] Given these miserable constraints, the slave's security was best served by seeking to establish an emotional bond with his owner. Thus, the known risk of violence from members of the dominant group drives subordinates to seek the protection of a personal relationship with someone from that group. And it simultaneously encourages them to dissociate the violence committed by other members of the dominant group from their personal relation with a specific individual from that same group. The one-to-one relations that are the mainstay of the intergroup relationship are thereby reinforced by the existence of violence outside such one-to-one relations.

Second, the emotional bond that exists between the individuals in each one-to-one relationship swathes their personal interactions and makes it more acceptable for the individual from the dominant group to express anger and to indulge in physical violence within the confines of that personal relationship. Ironically, a woman often excuses physical violence against herself if it is perpetrated by the man she loves (and who she believes to love her), whereas she would not excuse the same act if it were committed by a stranger. Explosions of anger and violence are considered acceptable for a man within the context of an intimate, love relationship with a woman. If he is duly contrite after the incident,

[4] The pecuniary interest of the slave-owner in the welfare of his slave property was explicitly recognized in the legal code of slavery (Elkins 1968, 58–59).

professes his love, and asks forgiveness, many women are unable to resist the appeal. In essence, the love relationship between them gives him a license to commit violence that would be unacceptable between strangers. (And the inequality that is nested in the love relationship is evident in the asymmetrical norm that such exhibitions of anger or violence would be unacceptable coming from the subordinate.) The wife's confusion is shared and reinforced by society at large. The interpretation of specific physical acts is so conditioned by the context within which they are committed that forced sexual intercourse between spouses is not usually recognized legally or morally as rape (Russell 1982). The institution of marriage seals off the intimate relationship between a man and a woman, making the interactions between them "private" and beyond the purview of other societal or governmental institutions. A man's home is indeed his castle.

Slavery in the antebellum South permitted a similar protection of violent behaviors by slave-owners, although the situation was not exactly parallel to that of contemporary gender relations. From its rather abrupt initiation, and throughout its relatively short duration, the institution of slavery relied more overtly on physical coercion than does gender relations. Slave-owners' relations with their slaves were less intimate and individuated than are men's relations with women, and physical violence was routinely and openly practiced by slave-owners or their agents as punishment administered for noncompliance among slaves. Such use of physical violence against slaves was sanctioned by the legal system and was openly acknowledged as a part of the system of social control. At the same time, the legal system and the dominant moral code did not condone wanton physical cruelty in the treatment of slaves or the sexual abuse of slaves. These niceties in the fine print did little to protect slaves who were abused, however. Slaves could not testify against their masters, and whatever happened within the confines of the plantation was a private matter.

This protection of the slave-owner's privacy in his relations with his slaves was based on a conception of the master-slave relationship as an extension of family relations (see, for example, Fitzhugh 1854; Myrdal 1944, 1073–1074).^[5] Thus, although the institution of slavery did not lend itself perfectly to the intimate practice of coercive love, slave-owners nonetheless learned to adopt many of its features in order to enhance their control of slaves. Master-slave relations on small plantations or within the household often permitted sufficient intimacy to generate

[5] With unintended irony, Fitzhugh defended slavery with the following analogy: "Look closely into slavery, and you will find nothing so hideous in it; or if you do, you will find plenty of it at home in its most hideous form" (Fitzhugh 1854, 89).

emotional ties between individuals from the two groups. The conditional affection that slave-owners offered their slaves under those circumstances had a coercive strength that should not be underestimated.

The practice of violence in slavery was thus nestled in the symbolism of familial affection, and this conditioned the way it was experienced and interpreted. As in contemporary gender relations, the encompassing moral framework of paternalistic love and affection facilitated the practice of violence against subordinates without contaminating the ongoing expropriative relationship. Apologists for slavery sincerely depicted the institution of slavery in the language of paternalistic nurturance rather than hostile force. That "nurturance" included the "obligation" of the slave-owner to mete out punishment for transgressions by his slaves (see the quote from Elliott above), as well as the paternal right to unleash feelings of anger freely on his hapless slaves.

This encompassing moral framework did not fail to affect the responses of slaves to their predicament. Litwack provides some revealing illustrations of the torn emotions that at least some, and perhaps many, slaves experienced as they watched their white masters suffer through the Civil War—the same war that African Americans hoped would bring their emancipation from slavery. For example, Litwack writes:

Few slaves were immune to the human tragedies that befell the families to whom they belonged. They had known them too well, too intimately not to be affected in some way. "Us wus boys togedder, me an Marse Hampton, en wus jist er bout de same size," Abram Harris recalled. "Hit sho did hurt me when Marse Hampton got kilt kase I lubed dat white man." The tragedies that befell the Lipscomb family in South Carolina provoked one of their slaves, Lorenza Ezell, beyond mere compassion to outright anger and a desire for revenge . . . : " . . . I so mad, I could have kilt all de Yankees. I say I be happy iffen I could kill me jes' one Yankee. I hated dem 'cause dey hurt my white people." . . . As a young slave on a Virginia plantation, Booker T. Washington listened to the fervent prayers for freedom and shared the excitement with which his people awaited the arrival of the Union Army. Yet the news that "Mars' Billy" had been killed in the war had profoundly affected these same slaves. "It was no sham sorrow," Washington would later write, "but real. Some of the slaves had nursed 'Mars' Billy'; others had played with him when he was a child. 'Mars' Billy' had begged for mercy in the case of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them. The sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the 'big house.'" . . . To Washington, there was nothing strange or contradictory about such behavior; the slaves had simply demonstrated their "kindly and generous nature" and refused to betray a trust. (Litwack 1979, 7, 9)

References such as these to love, to "my white people," and to "refusing to betray a trust" are only meaningful within the context of a paternalistic relationship, where love and coercion are insidiously intertwined.

Distal Relations and Reasoned Persuasion

When unequal groups become spatially separated, the dominant group encounters a reduced set of opportunities to exercise social control over subordinates. The essential difficulty is that the dominant group cannot afford to insulate itself completely from those whose continued compliance it requires. Physical separation of the unequal groups runs counter to the relational basis of the inequality. The dominant group must contain subordinates within a common social system, but this becomes problematic as relations between the groups are structured more distally. Stated simply, the dominant group cannot insulate itself without at the same time providing the same opportunity to subordinates. The natural rift that is thus introduced in their relationship is felt in two ways.

First, and less important, it limits the direct access that members of the dominant group have to the services of subordinates. Of course, where the core of the inequality has shifted to a more aggregated mode of expropriation, this lack of ready access to the personal services of subordinates is not critical to the maintenance of the relationship. It does, however, remove or restrict one gratifying and useful benefit of a dominant position—the ability to summon individual subordinates at will.

Second, and more critically, the physical separation of groups restricts communication channels between them and thus threatens to undermine the systemic integration of the groups within a common relationship. Indeed, were it not for the development of mass communication media and mass institutions (especially educational institutions) as an integral part of the technological advances that have worked to aggregate the mode of expropriation in class and race relations, dominant groups in those relationships might find the task of social control insurmountable.

The practice of social control through the medium of individual relationships softens the symbolic context of the expropriation and presents its rigid, group-based rules via individual, personal ties. Without the individualized mediation, the expropriative basis of the relationship is revealed in ruder, hardened terms. This makes it both more visible and less palatable to subordinates. By the same token, the replacement of personalized communications between individuals from different groups with distal communications between aggregates greatly reduces the dominant group's hold over subordinates, both perceptually and emotionally. There are fewer compelling opportunities to condition subordinates' perceptions and interpretations of their relationship. And the opportunity to exercise coercion through conditional love is foregone, as subordinates are thrown more on the emotional and cognitive resources of those who share their own side of experience.

Faced with more independent subordinates who are less generously

compliant, if not downright recalcitrant, dominant groups relinquish the ideological props of conditional love reluctantly, bit by bit. A moral framework of long standing is hard to abandon: based in a long history of its past effectiveness, the patterns of thought have become habitual and ingrained. Thus, there is a natural lag between the morality that infuses people's orientations and the changed structural circumstances that make such a moral outlook anachronistic. A broad moral framework cannot be shed knee-jerk style with changed structural conditions; instead, its ineffectuality must be learned. At the same time, we might expect some cultural diffusion from one intergroup relationship to another within the same society. Moral precepts that govern one relationship may infiltrate other relationships on a trial-and-error basis. The morality of conditional love—paternalism—has an especially strong pull. The high returns yielded by its venerable practice make it difficult for dominant groups to abandon paternalism, even when changed structural circumstances render it obsolete. Added to this is the personally gratifying nature of coercion through love: it offers the members of the dominant group an unrivaled opportunity to exercise discrimination without any shadow of personal culpability or malevolence.

As dominant groups are confronted with the failure of paternalism, they do not rush headlong into the practice of explicit power relations with its attendant hazards of hostility and force. Indeed, the use of violence becomes more hazardous than in paternalistic relations, where its individualized application particularizes its interpretation and thus spares the main frame of the relationship from contamination with hostility. When violence is practiced against aggregates (as in police action against strikers or civil rights demonstrators), the group basis for the action is readily apparent: the violence is administered impersonally against groups of people, and it takes place in the public domain, where it also has high visibility. Thus, as dominant groups learn the impracticality of conditional love as the means of social control, they grope for an ideological alternative that will keep the hazards of explicit power relations at bay. Conditional love is supplanted by reasoned persuasion.

Individualism and Social Control

Whereas the practice of discrimination through personal relationships particularizes its experiential impact, the practice of discrimination against aggregates necessitates an ameliorating ideology that diverts from the hardened experience of group-based inequality. Paternalism is based on the affirmation and idealization of group differenced, but dominant groups in more distal relationships become experienced in denying the group basis of social life. Instead of upholding the idealized group characteristics of subordinates as the rigid contingency for personal love and acceptance, dominant groups attempt

to deny that group membership is relevant for the allocation of life's benefits. When subordinates develop resilience to the pressures of conditional love, dominant groups attempt to coax them into compliance by affirming and idealizing individualism as the guiding principle in social life. The affirmation of individualism as an existential principle is an attempt to portray social life in a way that denies the validity of group-based complaints. The concurrent normative elevation of the rights of individuals to a lofty plane is an attempt to confine the moral horizons of subordinates by denying the legitimacy of group-articulated complaints and thus to channel disaffection into less threatening, individualistic goals.

The distinction between individual rights and group rights is a subtle one, which makes it particularly well suited to an ideological defense of privilege. At a superficial level, it seems obvious that if all individual rights were respected, the problem of group rights would be obviated. Indeed, democratic values have emphasized individual rights as a way of protecting the principle of political equality, and in so doing individualism and equality have been implicitly linked.

The problem is that when the members of one group operate from a disadvantaged position, the principle of individualism does little to promote their advancement and it often stands as an obstacle. Even within the narrowly political sphere it has often been observed that the simple application of universal suffrage (that is, that each individual is given the same formal political rights) fails to provide valid political equality because it does not correct for systematic inequalities that exist in resources, access to information, and general political knowledge, all of which predetermine the ability of different groups to participate effectively (Downs 1957; Parkin 1971; Lindblom 1977). As Parkin argues,

Political equality presupposes sufficient social and material equality to enable contending groups to utilize formal political rights in roughly the same degree. Where sharp social and material inequalities do exist, the provision of equal political rights in effect confers a major advantage on those who command the greatest resources to mobilize in defense of their interests. (Parkin 1971, 185)

Similarly, meritocracies protect the right of the individual to a job for which he or she is qualified, but where one group's access to the necessary qualifications has historically lagged behind another's, the right of the individual comes into direct conflict with the right of the disadvantaged group to advance its collective socioeconomic position. Where the historical disadvantage from which one group operates is the direct outcome of discriminatory practices, the disjuncture between individual rights and group rights is particularly rude. But whatever the origin of the inequalities between groups, the principle of individualism fails to address them.

Yet individualism provides a general, principled, seemingly neutral basis for the rejection of aggregate group demands. The rights of the individual are endorsed vehemently, as there is a systematic aversion to any representation of social problems in group terms. Society is cautioned against responding to the aggregate demands of categories of people because that would interfere with the inviolable rights of the individual—who must have free access to the ideas that interest him, to the job for which he is qualified, to the neighborhood that he can afford, and so on. By upholding individualism as a guiding principle in the empirical and normative interpretation of social life, the rights of groups are thus rendered illegitimate and unreasonable.

Symbolic Concessions

In the same vein, dominant groups learn how to respond to subordinate-group demands with symbolic, rather than substantive, concessions (Edelman 1964; Lipsky 1968). Again, unmitigated rejection of subordinate groups is avoided because it seems so unreasonable and because it is too conflictive. However, actions such as establishing a commission to examine subordinate-group grievances seem responsive and sincere: the dominant group is satisfied that it is looking into the matter and the subordinate group is placated by the show of concern. That the subsequent commission recommendations are not acted upon or are translated into legislation that is not enforced is too lengthy and obtuse a process to be noticed by most of the participants. The net result is the peaceful preservation of the status quo in the face of challenge, along with little or no injury to the sensibilities of either dominant or subordinate groups.

Channeling Egalitarianism into Equality of Opportunity

The conservative effects of individualism and symbolic concessions are felt in the pervasive reshaping of egalitarianism into the goal of equality of opportunity. Inequality in distributive outcomes is morally sanctioned so long as access to opportunities is not unequal (Schaar 1967; Parkin 1971). The normative shift from outcomes to opportunities offers several advantages to the dominant group. To begin, it relocates the focus of the public agenda from group conditions to circumstances affecting individuals. It also diverts attention away from the most threatening issue, redistribution of outcomes. Indeed, it legitimizes, de facto, the concept of having an unequal distribution of outcomes by implying that it is only the procedures for distribution that warrant scrutiny. Correction of the procedures removes any basis for complaint about the specific outcomes. Finally, the "success" of policies aimed at correcting procedural processes is considerably more slippery to assess than are policies aimed at tangible, distributive outcomes (Dorn 1979). When procedures replace outcomes

as the policy focus, the proof is no longer in the pudding, but in the less readily observed method by which it is cooked.

The Muted Terms of Debate

By these means, the central redistributive issues that divide the interests of dominant and subordinate groups are obfuscated and the grievances of subordinates are diverted into less threatening and less clear-cut channels. This rechanneling of subordinates' demands is a modified form of the strategy pursued by dominant groups in more intimate relationships of defining subordinates' needs completely. In distally structured relations, dominant-group members forfeit the opportunity to exercise sufficient cognitive and emotional control of subordinates to preclude their formulation of group-level grievances. In this situation, the dominant group retreats to the next-best strategy of diverting those grievances into less threatening channels.

This general goal frames the terms of the dialogue between unequal groups. The dominant group is not free to lash out at subordinates, much as it may resent their threatened incursions into the modus vivendi. Pockets of outright negativism may exist within the dominant ranks, but the prevailing current of dominant ideology runs to intergroup attitudes that try to appease rather than inflame subordinates. At the leading edge of this current are the better-educated members of the dominant group, whose worldly knowledge and cognitive sophistication give them a natural proclivity for the more complex and subtle world view that best meets the defensive needs of a dominant group under challenge (Jackman and Muha 1984).

In the web of this world view, the intergroup attitudes of the dominant group are pulled away from the rigid affirmation of group differences and group prerogatives that were de rigueur when the relationship was bolstered and cushioned by paternalistic mores. As hostility is introduced into the relationship by discontented subordinates, those who belong to the dominant group try to subdue and contain that hostility by softening and complicating their intergroup messages in a shifting line of defense.

Subordinates are not immune to these pressures. Their better insulation from the dominant group is what makes it possible for them to formulate grievances and to articulate a challenge. But the obfuscatory response of the dominant group insidiously infuses and constrains the dialogue between them. Although dominant-group members can less effectively exclude complaints from the agenda, they can still set parameters that restrict the kinds of complaints that have moral credibility. This sticky web entangles subordinates, whose energies become diverted and exhausted with skirmishes that are on the perimeter of their collective distributive deficit. The core redistributive issues are relegated to a

position outside the bounds of accepted, legitimate discourse, where they slip quietly out of reach.

Summary

I have argued that the role of hostility in intergroup attitudes has been widely misconstrued. Hostility, far from being the natural companion of subjugation, is instead its natural enemy. Intuitively aware of the hazards of hostility, dominant groups work to penetrate the social structure with a world view that either excludes or restrains hostility.

I began by assuming that the members of contending groups are drawn to ideologies that are rationally consistent with their interests. This does not lead people on either side of an unequal relationship to take a confrontational stance. On each side, people are sensitive to the opportunities and risks that are presented by the structure of their social relationship and its enveloping moral framework as they attempt to maximize their control over resources without putting their current holdings at risk. On each side, people have no recourse but to heed the messages from their protagonists as they formulate their own position.

With these considerations in mind, I explored the limitations of force for dominant groups seeking to secure the compliance of subordinates in their expropriative relations. Explicit power negotiations, with the threat and possible exercise of force hovering over them, make an uncomfortable and unstable basis for obtaining compliance. For these reasons, dominant groups work to institutionalize their expropriation from subordinates and to encase such institutions in a moral code that sanctifies them. Both the institutions and their accompanying ideology constrain the options of subordinates. Habitual and ingrained responses develop to institutions that are fixed quantities in their lives, and subordinates' pleas are limited to those that do not incur the wrath of their more powerful opponents and that have credibility within the established moral framework.

The process that is thus involved is one of continual trial-and-error learning over a long period of time. Individuals do not rely solely on their own resources in gathering and evaluating information. They accumulate knowledge from the historical and contemporary experience of others who share their social circumstances. They develop habitual responses to institutions that have been shown to be stable fixtures, and they concentrate their energies on those features of life that seem potentially pliable. These responses develop unself-consciously as individuals negotiate themselves around the rocks and unknown snares that await them in their day-to-day lives. The ideologies to which groups thus gravitate have accumulated piecemeal and the ideas that are welded together

do not manifest tight, logical consistency. Intergroup ideologies are political communications that evolve and change in response to pressures in the relationship, not unencumbered acts of raw expression.

The ideological framework to which the members of dominant groups are drawn is constrained by their interest in pacifying rather than inflaming subordinates. And the institutional stability of the expropriation buffers dominant-group members from any feeling of personal complicity, making it easy for them to perceive the arrangements in a positive light. The specific form of sugar-coating that they adopt is constrained by the structure of their relationship with subordinates. The day-to-day business of expropriation may dictate either intimate, one-to-one relations across group lines or impersonal, aggregated patterns of interaction between groups.

In relations that are structured intimately, dominant-group members gravitate to a paternalistic ideology that permits them to practice coercive love. Subordinates' attributes and needs are defined by the dominant group in ways that are consistent with their ascribed role in the unequal relationship, and subordinates are offered love and affection if they comply with the terms of that relationship. This moral framework constrains subordinates' options tightly at the same time as it swathes the expropriation with the warm and binding ties of mutual affection.

When the expropriative basis of the intergroup relationship ruptures one-to-one contacts across group lines and necessitates more aggregated communications between groups, members of the subordinate group become less vulnerable to emotional control by the dominant group. As subordinates become more insulated from the dominant group, they are thrown more on the cognitive and emotional resources of their own group. In addition, the aggregated basis of expropriative arrangements reveals those arrangements in a harsher and less personal light. In these circumstances, the configuration of costs and opportunities shifts somewhat for subordinates, and they begin to inject more vocal notes of dissension into the relationship.

Faced with less compliant subordinates, the members of the dominant group gradually learn to cast off the venerable parternalistic mold and to adopt an alternative ideology that settles for second-best. If you cannot preempt conflict, then you try to contain it; if you cannot entrap subordinates in love, then you try to reason with them. As the group basis of social life becomes a point of contention, dominant-group members gradually learn to adopt a view that denies the existential or moral credibility of group-based demands. The dominant view shifts to a moral framework governed by the principle of individualism: the rights of individuals are given precedence over the rights of groups. Within that framework, the dominant group steers the course of debate toward sym-

bolic concessions and equality of opportunity in order to divert attention away from the threatening specter of equality in the distribution of resources themselves.

My argument has three important implications for the analysis of intergroup attitudes. First, the process by which individuals and groups gravitate to a way of thinking is political, gradual, piecemeal, and unselfconscious. Intergroup ideologies are not raw acts of personal expression, they are not exercises in personal logic, they are not formulated in a single sweep, and they are not the result of conscious deliberation. As people grope through their lives, their sensitivity to risks and opportunities teaches them to follow the path of least resistance. Ideas gain favor or are discarded according to their political expediency. The resulting ideology is an amalgam of ideas that are flexibly linked to some core principles. Simple consistency has no place in this process: the rigidity that is inherent in consistency would be nothing more than a political liability.

Second, the character of dominant-group attitudes cannot be reduced to a formula reflecting the blatant manifestation of intergroup hostility in the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dispositions of the dominant group. In their ongoing attempt to preserve their advantaged position and continue collecting the benefits that come their way, members of dominant groups are drawn to ideologies that obfuscate, rather than simplify, and that seek to preempt or contain hostility, rather than to inflame it.

Third, by the same token, the attitudes of subordinates cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Subordinates are not at liberty to challenge the status quo in any way, shape, or form. They are caught in the institutional and moral framework in which they are the less powerful participants. Thus, compliance should not be confused with either complicity or "false consciousness." Subordinates do not give up resources freely or gladly; nor do they fail to perceive their interests. Subordinates take what opportunities they may to chip away at the edifice that surrounds them, but outright challenge is ruled out or muted by forces beyond their control.

PART II—
THREE CASES OF INEQUALITY

Chapter Three—
Expressions of Inequality:
Class, Race, Gender

My empirical analysis centers on three cases of inequality—social class, race, and gender relations in the United States. These constitute the most prominent intergroup relationships in American society and they provide us with telling examples, within a single society, of alternative forms of social inequality. My appraisal of the intergroup ideologies that accompany those relations is in the nature of a comparative case-study analysis. It is geared toward establishing general propositions about the ideological dynamics of unequal social relations. The approach diverges from earlier research, not only in substantive emphasis, but in basic analytic goals and strategies.

In this chapter, I begin by delineating the factors that distinguish the physical profiles of the three cases at hand. The second part of the chapter is then turned over to a discussion of the methodological principles that inform my analysis of the three cases. With this as background, I turn in chapter 4 to the factors that mold the structure of intergroup contact in race, gender, and class relations in the United States, and I delineate the empirical patterns of intergroup contact that mark each of those relations.

The Three Cases:
Definitional Parameters

Class, race, and gender have all generated prominent, longstanding relationships of social inequality in the United States. The three cases have different histories, however, and they present distinctive structural constellations. Among them, they capture a significant range of elements from the spectra of social inequality. In order to make maximal use of these cases to draw inferences about the ideological dynamics of

inequality, we need to delineate the features that distinguish the structure of each relationship. In this section, I discuss two fundamental dimensions that define the broad parameters of class, race, and gender relations, respectively: first, the distributive basis for the inequality, and second, the ascriptive rules for group membership. With that material in hand, I take stock of the general profile that is presented by each intergroup relationship, and I describe the empirical definition of group memberships that are used in this study.

Distributive Basis for the Inequality

Social analysts have disagreed about the nature and form of interrelations among economic, status, and power inequalities. The well-known Marxist position has been that economic structure determines the distribution of all kinds of valued assets: any observed inequalities are explicable in economic terms, whether we are concerned with class, race, or gender relations. The Weberian approach, which has gained a wider following, has taken a more agnostic position with respect to both the primacy of economic, status, or power inequality and the question of whether there is any necessary relationship among them.^[1]

I assume that economic well-being, high social prestige, and control over decision making are all prized assets. Each has intrinsic value and value as currency to acquire other distributive advantages. For this reason, it is probable that an advantage gained in one asset will be converted into another, both for the amplification of benefits and for the reinforcement of one's dominant position. Thus, I reject the Weberian argument that an important social inequality may exist on one dimension, say status, without embroiling other dimensions of inequality. Yet the deterministic Marxist position that economic inequality has universal causal primacy is also rejected: it takes an unsatisfactorily rigid view of human values and motives.

Expropriative relationships develop between different kinds of groups on the basis of specific pertinent characteristics that the groups possess. Those characteristics may bear most directly on economic, status, or power considerations. Once the primary inequality is established, however, it is quickly reinforced with other distributional inequalities. In the historical growth of an unequal relationship between groups, the three kinds of distributive assets grow into a mutually reinforcing interlock

[1] Weber was master of the qualified statement. In his essay, "Class, Status, Party" (1946), he at times acknowledged the empirical regularity of interconnections among those three dimensions of inequality, and yet the main thrust of his argument seems to be a cautionary agnosticism with respect to the mutual independence or interdependence of class, status, and party.

that provides the dominant group with both a wide variety of benefits and a strongly fortified position. With this in mind, I now delineate what I see as the primary locus of the inequalities that exist between class, race, and gender groups, respectively.

Class

The core of class relations lies in economic distinctions that are created by the organization of economically productive work. Individuals with an initial advantage in their possession of material assets position themselves advantageously in economic exchanges. They may do this either by expropriating labor from others who have fewer resources at their disposal or by securing more remunerative occupational positions for themselves (such as by purchasing administrative posts in a feudal economy or by purchasing the educational credentials required for entry to more highly rewarded positions in an industrial economy). The economic distinctions that result are highly visible, tangible, and compelling in themselves, but they are buttressed by status and power distinctions.

Differential economic experiences divide the population into socially cohesive groups that develop identifiable subcultures and subjectively salient identifications (Jackman and Jackman 1983). These economic and social distinctions provide fuel for status distinctions that, in turn, reinforce the symbolic boundaries that divide the socioeconomic groupings from one another. Differential access to power, as well, follows effortlessly from the unequal distribution of economic and social resources, even in systems that are organized according to "democratic" principles (see, for example, Lipsky 1968; Bachrach and Baratz 1970; Parkin 1971; Schlozman 1984; Hill and Leighley 1992). And the unequal distribution of power, in turn, is of course critical in securing the continued unequal distribution of economic resources that is the primary basis for class divisions.

Race

The racial division between blacks and whites involves the same ingredients of economic, status, and power distinctions, but they are configured differently. The cultural divide between whites and African Americans provides the material for sharp status distinctions between the two groups. Whites' ability to confer higher status on their own culture and way of life has, of course, been facilitated by their advantaged access to economic resources and to power. The economic benefits that accrue to whites are considerable in themselves, but the particular historical form that whites' expropriation of black labor has taken in the United States cannot be understood without reference to whites' desire for cultural ascendancy in an emerging society. This urgent concern placed status considerations at the core of the relationship between whites and

blacks from the beginning, even as white Europeans initiated their relationship with black Africans simply to obtain cheap labor.

Starting in the seventeenth century, black Africans were brought to the North American continent from an alien culture to perform servile labor for those white settlers who had the material means to procure it. White indentured servants were imported contemporaneously from Britain to meet the labor shortage in the American colonies, but black Africans were the only people who were abducted from their homeland and forcibly removed to the American colonies. This unique treatment of black Africans (which flew in the face of established English principles of personal freedom) was made possible by longstanding English beliefs about the inferiority of black people and the convenient preexistence of a slave trade in Africa (Jordan 1968). At a more fundamental level, white Europeans took advantage of their possession of superior material assets (especially in armaments, transportation, and communication) to seize control of black Africans and to assert cultural superiority to them. They also seized upon black Africans' alien language, religion, and mode of dress, their distinctive physical features, and their less advanced level of economic development as evidence to justify their assignation of greater social prestige to white European culture.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century the importation of black Africans began in earnest and legislation was initiated in the American colonies that distinguished sharply between the legal and economic rights of white indentured servants on the one hand and black slaves on the other (Elkins 1968; Jordan 1968). That legislation symbolized and sanctified the cultural abyss between whites and blacks that had already made it morally acceptable for whites to abnegate the civil rights of black Africans exclusively in abducting and transporting them forcibly to America. But once blacks began arriving in large numbers, it was important for whites to solidify their own cultural ascendancy in the colonies by enacting legislation that placed a permanent restraint on the economic and civil rights of blacks.

By sealing the subordination of the cultural aliens in the legal code, whites assured themselves of a ready supply of servile laborers. Beyond the economic benefit (which was after all enjoyed only by whites of some means), whites secured the continued cultural dominance of their group in the major institutions of the emerging colonial way of life. The economic and political degradation of blacks inflicted further pervasive injury on their social status. It also guaranteed a distinctive experience for African Americans that deepened their cultural rift from whites, thus aggravating white concern about the need for racial exclusiveness.

The easy physical identifiability of blacks served to facilitate whites' efforts to assure their cultural dominance. Status claims and prerogatives

are more readily enforced because "passing" is a near impossibility, and distinctive physical features provide a constant, visible symbol for the cultural divide between groups. Racial distinctions in physical appearance have thus taken on a heavy symbolic significance that works to reinforce vividly the status differential between groups.

With so many prompts, whites have continued to attach an inferior status to blacks long after the major legal restrictions to their civil and economic rights have been removed, despite the fact that most whites have no more than a cursory historical knowledge of those legal restrictions. Economic and power distinctions continue both to serve and to amplify the status distinctions that divide whites from blacks.

Gender

In gender relations, the core of the inequality lies in control over sexual access and sexual reproduction. Men's greater physical strength gave them an initial advantage in this contest. Men have sought to ensure and maximize their sexual access to women and to guarantee their paternity over the physical offspring of sexual union. Engels ([1884] 1972) interpreted those behaviors as economically motivated (primarily men's desire to ensure that their property was passed on to their own physical offspring). But it is unnecessary to resort to economic motives in order to account for such behaviors. Women and children constitute significant property in and of themselves, providing tangible benefits both economic and otherwise to the male who has exclusive control over them.^[2]

Thus, although power is a vital ingredient of any relationship of inequality, it probably has greater primacy in the gender relationship than in class or race relations. Men's control over women and children inherently provides men with tangible benefits in both their personal and worldly lives: it assures them sexual access to women of their choosing; it provides them with human property to satisfy their social, emotional, and economic needs; it maximizes their degree of personal control over their own private lives; and it provides them with tangible assets to assist their worldly standing in exchanges with other members of society. The question of power is important here, not as a means to an end (such as protecting economic and status advantages), but primarily as the central goal in itself.

In this context, the copious status and economic disparities that exist between the sexes function primarily to serve the power differential, even though the status and economic disparities provide ample benefits

[2] The hostility that gay men and lesbians often encounter doubtless reflects the flagrant threat that their alternative sexual behaviors present to the established rules of sexual expropriation in gender relations.

of their own to men. At the same time, the core distributive inequality between the sexes in personal power has permeated day-to-day life so successfully that it is generally less apparent to the participants than are the attendant status and economic insignia of gender-group membership.

In sum, class, race, and gender relations present distinct configurations of economic, status, and power inequalities. I have argued that the core distributive asset that divides the classes is economic, between the races it is cultural status, and between men and women it is personal power. In each case, the core distributive inequality has been so embellished with others that the benefits of holding the dominant position have not only been reinforced but generously amplified.

Ascription to Groups

In the ascriptive rules for group membership, we can draw an initial distinction between race and gender on the one hand, and class on the other. Race and gender each present a dichotomous division based on a simplified categorization of physical traits that are readily visible and virtually immutable. The boundaries between classes are less sharply drawn; many analysts have pointed to the absence of rigidly defined, objective insignia and the partial mutability of class membership. Thus, scholars have regarded ascription to race and gender groups as routine, but ascription to classes has been the subject of a wide scholarly inquiry that has kindled debate about how many classes there are and the very tangibility of classes as social groups.

Although clear differences exist in the simplicity of group ascription, these differences have been exaggerated and overinterpreted. The differences are one of degree rather than of kind. In all three cases, it is important to remember that the groups are social constructions. Indeed, this is what lends the groups their significance. We can readily distinguish redheads from blondes and brunettes, but these easy physical distinctions are bereft of social significance because they have not become a basis for social organization. The main way in which race and gender differ from class is in the extent to which the rules for group definition have been commonly reduced and simplified. As we inspect those rules, it becomes apparent that their construction is not somehow intrinsically predetermined, but is bound to pressures stemming from the specific basis for the expropriative relationship between groups. I compare the rules of group ascription for race, gender, and social class in terms of two critical elements: the clarity of group boundaries, and the mutability and heritability of group membership.

The Clarity of Group Boundaries

By social convention, the members of race and gender groups agree on a core set of differences in physical

appearance between the groups. Although not everyone may agree on every detail of the physical makeup of each race and sex, the consensually recognized set of physical insignia are so instantly identifiable that they suffice to demarcate group boundaries sharply and effortlessly. In both cases, this is achieved by the rigid application of simplified rules. Those rules virtually eliminate the possibility of ambiguous stimuli and by the same token keep the categorization dichotomous.

With gender, this is achieved by attaching overwhelming significance to one sexual characteristic at the expense of others: genitalia take precedence over everything else, including sexual preference and hormonal makeup. This simplified rule reflects the centrality to the relationship of control over sexual access and sexual reproduction. Incorporation of gradations in sexual preference and hormonal makeup would not serve the distinctions that are critical to that relationship because they are not directly pertinent to its core distributive contention. In addition, those criteria are more prone to subjective definition, and their incorporation would therefore reduce the dominant group's control over group assignment on the basis of the asset in which they are most interested. At the same time, the prime criterion for gender-group membership is socially heightened and made more readily identifiable by its embellishment with gender-specific dress codes that have quick visual recognition and that become imbued with symbolic meaning (Henley and Freeman 1979).

With race, potentially ambiguous stimuli (people of racially mixed parentage) are resolved by assigning overwhelming weight to the presence of any black physical insignia: gradations in skin color or other racially associated physical features are not formally acknowledged. The so-called "one-drop rule," which specifies that just "one-drop" of "black blood" makes a person black, emerged from the American South to become the nation's definition (Myrdal 1944, 113–136; Jordan 1968, 167–178; Williamson 1980, 1–2; Davis 1991, 4–6, 31–80). By the 1920s, it was universally accepted as the rule for assignment to the white or black "race" in the United States (Davis 1991, 31–32).

This ascriptive rule, with its flagrant disregard for standard genetic criteria, is unique to the United States (Williamson 1980, 2; Davis 1991, 32). Intriguing analyses are offered by Jordan (1968) and Davis (1991) of the historical circumstances that gave rise to the "one-drop rule" in the United States, but two factors were probably especially important. First, there was a ready availability of white women to serve as the legitimate sexual partners of white male colonists. In that context, sexual encounters between white males and black women were sub rosa, and the offspring from such encounters were an embarrassment whose existence was painful to acknowledge. The solution was to define them as full members of the subordinate racial group. Second, the continued

practice of this strategy was doubtless aided by the fact that white Europeans generally enjoyed the numerical advantage in the American colonies. In the 1700s, whites outnumbered blacks everywhere except in South Carolina (Jordan 1968, 102–103, 141), and over time whites came to outnumber blacks by a hefty margin. Today, blacks comprise only about 12 percent of the population of the United States. If blacks had formed a larger proportion of the population, it might have served whites' control over them to subdivide them according to degree of "blackness." But in the absence of such a constraint, racial status distinctions are preserved with greater clarity by the application of a simple dichotomous scheme in which assignment to the higher-status group is sharply restricted. In keeping with the implicit exclusiveness of white racial status-imperatives, this simplified decision-rule makes it harder to join the higher-status group than the lower one.^[3]

Oddly, the lack of formal recognition of gradations in skin color (or other racially associated physical attributes) has not prevented the tendency for whites to confer favored treatment on those blacks with more white-European physical attributes. Increasing evidence has surfaced that in the antebellum South, lighter-skinned slaves were more likely to be appointed to privileged occupations (such as house servants) and to be granted other benefits, including manumission (Myrdal 1944; Mullins and Sites 1984; Keith and Herring 1991). A lighter skin has continued to be an advantage for blacks: recent evidence suggests that skin tone is a consequential predictor of socioeconomic attainment for blacks, even after controlling for such factors as parents' socioeconomic status and other pertinent background characteristics (Keith and Herring 1991). But because racial gradations are not formally recognized, whites' tendency to moderate their discriminatory treatment of blacks in accordance with their manifestation of "white" physical traits remains a sensitive topic that the members of both racial groups are reluctant to discuss openly.

The criteria for class membership are less rigidly defined and there

[3] In other nations where whites have subordinated African blacks, the latter have been socially subdivided in some way. For example, in South Africa, blacks were subdivided into sharply differentiated categories: blacks are distinguished from "colored" according to whether their ancestry is entirely black African or partially white European, and further subdivisions are emphasized within the black population on the basis of tribal membership. In Brazil, racial distinctions have taken the form of multiple, amorphous categories based on racial ancestry (various combinations of white European, black African, and indigenous Indian), with boundaries as ragged as those for social classes in the United States. For more detailed discussion and comparison of the economic, demographic, social, and political factors involved in these and other cases, see van den Berghe 1967; Klein 1967; Jordan 1968; Degler 1971; Fogel and Engerman 1974; Baker 1983; Conrad 1983; de Queiros Mattoso 1986; Fogel 1989; Tomich 1990; Davis 1991; and Marger 1994.

is an absence of simplified decision-rules by which gradations in socioeconomic standing might be routinely truncated into a social dichotomy. As even some neo-Marxist scholars have acknowledged (e.g., Wright 1979, 1985), industrial economies have not disgorged two categories of socioeconomic experiences. The technology of industrial production has produced workers of varying levels of education, managerial authority, and income. That those gradations have not been reduced by social convention to a dichotomous classification is a function of forces operating from two different directions. First, the distributive asset that forms the core of the class relationship—economic inequality—has a highly tangible quality that makes it less malleable to symbolic redefinition. Variations in access to economic rewards produce vividly observable differences in the material quality of life that would be difficult to disguise. Second, there is no motivation for those at the socioeconomic pinnacles to attempt such a symbolic redefinition. Because of their relatively small numbers, it is not in their interests to align the rest of the population in a single group against them. Indeed, from a managerial standpoint, it is advantageous to highlight the distinctions within the rest of the population, in order to encourage its fragmentation rather than its social and political solidification. And the effective expropriation of labor in industrialized, capitalist economies has no need for the rigidification of group boundaries: elasticity in the supply and application of labor is more useful in responding to changing technologies and markets, and the incitement to individual achievement is better adapted to the ambitious production goal of economic growth. Indeed, if the technological and political needs of the socioeconomically dominant were operating in solo, one might find a complete absence of classes as meaningful social groups, with socioeconomic distinctions operating as unbroken continua. However, the vividness and tangibility of economic distinctions make them a highly compelling magnet for the formation of subjectively salient social clusters among those who share similar economic experiences.

The admixture of these two different kinds of pressures has resulted in the emergence of several social classes, each one representing a cluster of people with broadly similar socioeconomic experiences, and each one depending for its definition on subjective identification. There is an absence of rigid, explicitly imposed rules for group definition because that would not assist the practice of economic inequality, and, indeed, such rules might work to undermine it. The definition of social classes arises, therefore, from the subjective potency of socioeconomic distinctions that draws people with similar configurations of socioeconomic characteristics toward one another. The boundaries of these social groupings remain relatively ragged because, unlike the racially advantaged and

gender-advantaged, there is no incentive for the economically advantaged to impose rigid rules for group ascription.

Thus, in order to identify social classes, analysts must rely heavily on self-placements. There is clear empirical evidence that such self-placements correspond systematically to configurations of objective socioeconomic criteria, such as educational attainment, occupational standing, earned income, capital assets, and level of job authority (those relationships are explored in detail in Jackman and Jackman 1983). But the correspondence is not rigid because rules for group definition have not been explicitly articulated or enforced. The lack of clearly visible, physical insignia for group membership (as compared to gender and race) makes it easier to leave group boundaries ragged; this, however, is not the critical factor obstructing the sharper delineation of class boundaries. Recall that physical insignia are themselves not intrinsically free of ambiguity; they must be invested with symbolic significance and cognitively simplified in order to be useful as tags for groups. By the same token, it would be possible for class boundaries to be rigidly defined according to a clear, objective, socioeconomic referent and reinforced with dress codes or other visual aids—but they are not.

Because of the central role of subjective identifications in the development of socially defined classes, the most efficient way for the analyst to identify those classes is to rely on the class terms that find frequent articulation in popular usage: poor, working class, middle class, upper-middle class, and upper class. Those terms are the symbolic magnets around which groups of people cluster who share similar configurations of socioeconomic characteristics. Although there is no single, consistently applied rule about the exact placement of the boundary between each of these classes, the magnetic force that generated the classes is sufficiently compelling to provide the basis for the growth of meaningful and salient social communities. A detailed discussion and empirical examination of the objective and subjective elements of the social communities that cluster around those commonly used class terms is provided in Jackman and Jackman (1983).

Mutability and Heritability of Group Membership

Apart from the clarity of group boundaries, ascription to social class has often been regarded as fundamentally different from race and gender ascription because it is relatively mutable. The subjective significance of this distinction remains to be demonstrated, although the prevalence of popular norms about equality of opportunity suggests there is some psychological vulnerability to this distinction. Again, however, the difference between class and the other two intergroup relationships in this factor may have been overdrawn.

The virtual immutability of the physical insignia for race and gender groups makes membership in those groups a lifelong affair for the overwhelming majority of people. For race, group membership also extends across generations, although more rigidly for blacks than for whites. Blacks almost invariably share their racial group membership with their social parents and, even in the case of intermarriage with whites, blacks confer their racial group membership on their children. In practice, because of the small amount of racial intermarriage, most whites also have the same racial status as their parents and children; but in the (unlikely) event of intermarriage, whites cannot pass on their priviledged racial group membership to their children. For gender, this sense of permanence only partially extends across generations: the majority of people have a social parent from each gender group and have no necessary expectation about the gender group of their children.

The imperatives of economic privilege in advanced industrial societies do not rule out the possibility of movement from one class to another; and empirically, there is some mobility from one socioeconomic standing to another. However, although not immutable, the constraints imposed by economic inequalities in practice restrict the volume of such mobility in the population and make movements over short socioeconomic distances more probable than over long distances (see, e.g., Blau and Duncan 1967). The upshot is that some people may attain a different social class in adulthood than the one in which they were raised as children, although such movement is more likely to be between adjacent classes than distant ones. At the same time, most people will share the social class of their parents and their children, either because of an absence of intergenerational mobility or because their mobility is not sufficiently consequential to cause a shift in class identifications. In this respect, the loose social definition of boundaries between adjacent classes assists the retention of consistent class identifications across generations, and, in combination with the hierarchical (rather than dichotomous) structure of the categorization scheme, it diminishes the import of any shift that does take place in identifications across adjacent classes. Viewed in this way, it becomes apparent that, in practice, there is more intergenerational permanence associated with class membership than with gender group membership.

Summary

In sum, we can delineate a crude distinction between class, on the one hand, and race and gender, on the other, in the clarity and immutability of ascription to groups. That distinction, however, is neither qualitative nor impermeable. I have emphasized that in all three cases the ascriptive rules are not intrinsically predetermined, but are social constructions. As such, their varying nature does not reflect the

popular salience of the groups concerned, but instead it reflects the specific social and political pressures that arise from the expropriative basis of each relationship of inequality.

Race, Gender, Class: Defining Parameters

Variation in the expropriative basis of the inequality and in the ascriptive rules for group membership have shaped the physical profiles of the three intergroup relationships. We now take stock of the parameters that define race, gender, and class relations, respectively.

Race

The deep, historically reinforced rift between black and white Americans is rooted in whites' desire to maintain cultural dominance as they were forcibly importing large numbers of blacks from an alien culture for the purpose of expropriating their labor. The abolition of the slave trade coupled with the continued immigration of Europeans to the United States reduced the numerical threat posed by African Americans, but the cultural divide was hardly diminished by the discriminatory practices that had been established by whites. The social distinction between blacks and whites has been maintained as a simple dichotomy, with visible physical attributes being the criterion for group membership. Gradations in skin color or other racially associated physical features are not formally recognized (as they are in, say, Brazil), and decision-rules instead emphasize a rigid demarcation between the two racial groups in which membership in the higher-status group is treated more exclusively.

Other racial and ethnic divisions have coexisted with the division between blacks and whites (for example, "white ethnics," Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans, all of which are further subdivided into multiple groups). But the presence of these other ethnic groups has not impinged on the historically durable rift between white and black Americans. Today, the physical profile of the race relationship presents itself as a dichotomous division in which the dominant group vastly outnumbers subordinates. Further tacit distinctions among blacks are made on the basis of gradations in skin color, but formally, a person's racial group membership is set at birth in one of two categories. Subordinates always transmit their group membership to their children, but dominant-group members only give their privileged status to their children if they refrain from sexual unions with subordinates.

Gender

The gender relationship also involves a dichotomy, but here of course the two groups are of about equal size. Coexisting with the division between the sexes are distinctions among gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals, but again, these distinctions do not impinge on the main lines of the gender relationship. The relationship between men and

women is centered on control over sexual access and sexual reproduction, and people are ascribed to one group or the other on the basis of their genitalia. Secondary sexual characteristics (for example, body shape) and dress codes make ascription to gender groups usually instantaneous. As with race, gender-group membership is set at birth (with a few rare exceptions), but both men and women have only about a fifty-fifty chance of passing on their gender-group membership to their children.

Class

Class relations are centered on control over economic resources of production and consumption. They are distinguished from race and gender relations in that the affected groups are less readily determinate. The numerical minority of people who enjoy economic dominance have had little reason to accentuate the distinction between themselves and the rest of the population, and class relations are bereft of any rigidly imposed rules for group membership. The definition of social classes stems from the salience of socioeconomic distinctions that cannot be masked: social classes reflect loose configurations of socioeconomic experiences, with ragged boundaries between them. The definition of social classes and people's class membership relies on self-identification much more heavily than does race- and gender-group membership, and that process is sensitive to distinctions in socioeconomic attainment.

Many analysts have insisted that class distinctions can be treated as a dichotomy, although they have disagreed about its basis (e.g., capitalists versus workers, blue-collar versus white-collar workers, workers with and without authority in the workplace). The class nomenclature most commonly used in popular discourse, however, suggests five social classes: poor, working class, middle class, upper-middle class, and upper class. There is a strong relationship between the class membership of parents and their children, and most people form stable class memberships over their adult lives, but some experience sufficent socioeconomic mobility to alter their class identification from that of their parents or from their own class identification in an earlier career-stage.

Empirical Definition of Group Memberships

The data in this study come from a national survey that was designed to give comparable information on race, gender, and social class in the United States. The questionnaire was administered to a national probability sample of the adult, noninstitutionalized population of the United States in the fall of 1975.^[4] Interviews were conducted in respondents'

[4] I designed the questionnaire; the pretesting, sampling, interviewing, and coding were administered by the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The sample is of the adult, noninstitutionalized population,aged eighteen and over, residing in the forty-eight contiguous states. The response rate was just under 70 percent, giving a total N of 1,914.

homes, and every effort was made to match the race of the interviewer with that of the respondent. Membership in race and gender groups was determined by interviewer observation; class membership was based on respondents' self-identifications.

Race

Of the total of 1,914 respondents in the sample, the study includes 1,648 whites (86.1 percent), 195 blacks (10.2 percent), and 71 respondents (3.7 percent) from other racial or ethnic groups (primarily Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans). Analyses of data on race are restricted to respondents who are either white or black.

At the time the study was in the field, the term commonly used to refer to Americans of African descent was "black." That term was used in the questionnaire, and it is thus used predominantly in the book, especially in discussions of data from the survey. However, in the past few years, the term "African American" has gained increasing popularity among many people who formerly called themselves blacks. Survey data from Detroit for spring 1992 indicate that about 32 percent of blacks in that city prefer to be called African American, whereas 44 percent prefer to be called black, and 12 percent have no preference; preference for African American is positively related to education (Farley 1993).^[5] Because Americans of African descent were obliged historically to accept whatever names their captors chose to give them, the selection of a particular appellation for the group carries high symbolic significance in contemporary race relations. The term black came into vogue in the late 1960s as a rejection by the black community of the term Negro , which was associated with slavery and the Jim Crow South. In the hopeful political atmosphere of the 1960s, adoption of the term black symbolized a bold break with the racial practices of the Jim Crow South: "Black is beautiful." But in the disillusioned wake of the 1970s and 1980s, a significant portion of Americans of African descent have begun to adopt the term African American (especially among the well-educated) because of its more positive emphasis on ethnic heritage rather than on skin color. For that reason, I will at times use the term African American interchangeably with the term black .

[5] Responses were to the question, "Which term describes what you like to be called? . . ." Another 6 percent of Detroit blacks preferred to be called Negro, 4 percent colored, and 2 percent were not ascertained; the total number of blacks in the survey was 750. Among those with less than 12 years of education, 24 percent prefer to be called African American and 44 percent prefer black: with increasing education, the percentage preferring black remains fairly constant, but preference for African American steadily increases to 47 percent of the college graduates (Farley 1993).

Gender

The study includes 802 men (41.9 percent), and 1,112 women (58.1 percent). The higher response rate among women is not unusual in public-opinion surveys and is likely related to discrepancies in men's and women's social roles. The dictates of those roles affect both the availability of each gender to survey interviewers who arrive on their doorsteps and the willingness of males and females to comply with requests for an interview.

Class

Because the definition of classes as social groups depends so heavily on subjective identification, ascription to classes in the present study draws on respondents' subjective identification with classes that are frequently termed in everyday discourse. Accordingly, respondents were asked:

People talk about social classes such as the poor, the working class, the middle class, the upper-middle class, and the upper class. Which of these classes would you say you belong to?

The structure of the class-identification item is discussed in Jackman and Jackman (1983), along with a detailed assessment of information from numerous follow-up questions that probed the meaning of people's subjective class identifications. Those data suggest that most respondents related to the class identification item with ease and that people think of the classes in terms of a graded series of status groups that have their basis in configurations of socioeconomic characteristics.

The distribution of class identifications in the study is as follows: 19 respondents identified with the upper class (1 percent); 157 with the upper-middle class (8.2 percent); 829 with the middle class (43.3 percent); 701 with the working class (36.6 percent); and 145 with the poor (7.6 percent). The tiny remaining balance of respondents gave nonclassifiable responses (1.3 percent), denied the existence of classes (0.5 percent), said "don't know" (1.5 percent), or their responses were not ascertained (0.2 percent). Analyses of data on class are restricted to respondents who identified with the upper-middle class, middle class, working class, or poor. The upper class is too small to provide for reliable inferences about the attitudes or behavior of this group in a standard cross-sectional survey, although we may make inferences about other people's attitudes toward the upper class.

A Comparative Case-Study Analysis

Analysis of the intergroup attitudes associated with race, gender, and class relations has a venerable but dispersed history. My study is an attempt to capture that dispersed subject matter within a single framework.

In so doing, there is an important shift in the empirical and conceptual terrain that comes into focus.

My empirical framework entails three important departures from the prevailing analytic strategies of previous empirical research on race, gender, and class ideology. First, my interest is comparative, rather than specific to a particular intergroup context. Second, my interest is in the exchange of attitudes in an intergroup relationship taken in its entirety, rather than being restricted to the attitudes that are expressed on one side of the relationship or the other. Third, I treat intergroup attitudes primarily as the property of groups, rather than of individuals, and I examine the pattern of attitudes in the group as a whole as an expression of the group's collective experience. Taken together, these three strategies allow me to shift the focus to general questions about the attitudinal dynamics of unequal intergroup relations. The three points are interrelated, but they warrant separate discussion before taking stock of the implications and limits of my empirical framework.

A Comparative Analysis of Intergroup Attitudes

Class, race, and gender relations in the United States are of considerable intrinsic interest. My analysis of them, however, is motivated primarily by what they can contribute to our more general understanding of the ideology of inequality, treated as a recurrent feature of organized social life.

As I argued in chapter 1, the analysis of class, race, and gender ideology has generally been conducted in discrete bodies of literature, each motivated by localized theoretical and policy concerns. Students of class attitudes have been engaged by the theoretical question of the significance of class as an organizing factor in social life. Reference to other intergroup relationships has only been pertinent to the extent that it bears on the significance of class, not because of any insights that it may offer about intergroup attitudes as a general phenomenon. The separate bodies of research that developed on race and gender attitudes were motivated largely by policy concerns specific to each intergroup relationship. Those concerns consumed researchers' intellectual energies and generally closed out other intergroup attitudes from consideration. Comparative work has been largely confined to the ad hoc assertion of parallels between race and gender in order to validate the credibility of gender relations as a field of inquiry (as I discussed in chapter 1). Such assertions had little impact on the empirical research agenda of either race or gender scholars.

A number of scholars have focused on the way the various forms of inequality intersect with one another, either to create special pockets of grievance in the population (as, for example, in the case of poor African-

American women) or to dilute individuals' sense of grievance among those with inconsistent statuses (as pluralists argue). I will address this issue at greater length below, but for now, we can note that evaluation of the intersections of race, class, and gender presupposes a strong comparative understanding of the three cases. That comparative groundwork is missing.

The comparative student faces a disconnected body of knowledge about intergroup attitudes as a general phenomenon. By the same token, the student of race, class, or gender relations confronts different gaps and unasked questions in any of the intergroup relationships taken singly. The central concern with hostility and conflict found expression in multiple, idiosyncratic frameworks and terminologies that had little to say to each other. Parallel ideas were usually obscured, and potentially relevant ideas from one intergroup context were left unnoticed in another.

Two bodies of literature developed which were motivated by more general questions, public-opinion research on political tolerance and experimental research on the "minimal-group paradigm." In each case, however, the search has been for universals rather than for comparison and variance. The motivating concern of the tolerance literature has been to understand a particular attitudinal phenomenon, with reference to a variety of out-groups. This has not implied a comparative interest in different kinds of intergroup relationships, but more a disregard for intergroup characteristics as a source of explanation. The minimal-group paradigm is premised on the assumption that any group division, created on the basis of any arbitrary or even random criterion, will result in preference-behavior for one's own group. Although many experimental manipulations have been introduced to exacerbate that effect, the phenomenon is conceived as originating in basic, universal, cognitive processes. The emphasis is on how experimental manipulations feed those universal cognitive processes, rather than on how different kinds of expropriative intergroup relations cause the participants to formulate specific kinds of intergroup ideologies.

My approach is directed to the latter question. I assume that in social and political life, some group divisions assume salience whereas others are inconsequential. This occurs because some group divisions impinge on important societal assets: a relationship develops between such groups that reflects their unequal control over those assets. The specific asset that is the central contention between the groups and the way in which the distribution of that asset is organized have important implications for the way the relationship between groups is structured. My purpose is to evaluate the impact of these factors on the kinds of attitudes that are espoused on each side of a relationship. Thus, intergroup attitudes

are conceived not as a function of human personality or cognitive proclivities, but as cultural expressions that are molded by the structure of a specific unequal distribution of valued societal assets.

To address the central issues involved in the varying ideologies of unequal intergroup relations, I draw on a single, public-opinion survey that I designed to provide comparable data for race, gender, and social class in the United States. The measures that I have employed are an attempt both to capture the conceptual parallels between one literature and another and to apply unique insights from one intergroup locus to another. The use of a systematic, comparative framework opens up new questions about each case and raises more general issues that reach beyond the confines of any one intergroup relationship.

Each intergroup relationship becomes a data-point in a broader, comparative context. This casts a different light on each case than is possible when it is treated in solo, thus offering the prospect of a new theoretical understanding of the attitudes associated with any one of the intergroup relationships. But my analysis is not motivated by a primary concern with the indigenous characteristics of any one intergroup relationship. Instead, each relationship is analyzed with a view to its instrumental value as an instructive case of a variant social phenomenon. It is only by a systematic comparison of the ideologies of race, class, and gender relations that we may ascertain the distinctive features of each as well as the general features of ideologies of inequality. By comparing the characteristics of the three relationships, we can begin to formulate ideas about the way the structure of an unequal relationship introduces pressures that shape the attitudinal dynamics between groups.

Intergroup Attitudes As Relational Communications

The second distinctive feature of my approach is that I view the attitudes found in any one group as situated within a mutual relationship that involves an ongoing exchange of communications between groups. Much previous research has been restricted to questions about the attitudes of a single group. For example, there is a readily identifiable body of research on whites' prejudice toward blacks, another on women's gender attitudes, another on working-class consciousness, and so on. Intergroup attitudes have in addition usually been treated as a separate issue from group consciousness, the former of interest when examining dominant groups, the latter in subordinate groups. As a result, certain theoretical questions have repeatedly been bypassed, and we have been left with a fragmented understanding. These comments are least true of the literature on class attitudes, where there are a number of empirical studies that compare the attitudes of different classes. However, even there, the primary interest is in the attitudes ("consciousness") of subordinate

classes, and the attitudes of other classes are included primarily as a referent, in order to assess the degree to which subordinates deviate from status quo ideology.

In contrast, I treat each intergroup relationship as a dynamic entity and examine the attitudes of both dominant and subordinate groups within that relationship. The attitudes of the members of any single group cannot be fully understood without an appreciation of the context within which the group is operating—that is, the structure of the relationship with another group and the attitudes presented by the other group. In this approach, the ideas that have been associated with intergroup attitudes and group consciousness are fused. The attitudes of dominant and subordinate groups are seen as embedded in an ongoing exchange, in which each side continually influences and is influenced by the other.

Of course, my data are static, offering a snapshot of a dynamic process that has a history and a continuing motion forward. Thus, I rely on cross-sectional comparisons to draw inferences about what causes change over time. That inferential process is framed, however, by an emphasis on the relational interchange between unequal groups. The attitudes of each group cannot be understood in a historical or political vacuum: they must be interpreted within the ongoing exchange of which they are an inextricable part.

Intergroup Attitudes As the Property of Groups

The third distinctive feature of my empirical framework lies in the shift from the individual to the group as the primary focus of attention. Previous research on intergroup attitudes and group consciousness has overwhelmingly focused on individual-level variance in attitudes in the endeavor to answer questions about the causes of those attitudes. Thus, the enduring empirical research questions have been in the following vein: Does an increase in years of formal education make whites less prejudiced toward blacks? Does an increase in personal contact with blacks break down whites' racial prejudice? Are certain personality types (especially authoritarians) more likely to be prejudiced or intolerant? What individual life experiences account for some women having less "traditional" sex-role attitudes than others? What factors in an individual's experience in the workplace (e.g., authority relations, unionization) influence the articulation of class consciousness?

Without denying the validity of variance among individuals, I wish to explore a different avenue of explanation. In this study, I shift the primary empirical burden to the aggregate level of the intergroup relationship taken as a whole. My strategy is to identify the prevailing attitudinal properties of each intergroup relationship and to focus attention on the

variance that exists among different kinds of intergroup relationships. My purpose is to uncover and explore sources of variance that cannot be identified within the empirical framework of past research.

There is a necessary relationship between a specific methodology and the substantive questions that come into focus, and the present case is no exception. My shift from the individual to the group as the primary focus of attention invokes both a different methodological strategy and a different substantive emphasis from that common to past research. Individual variance exists within groups both in the intergroup attitudes that are espoused and in pertinent experiential factors. Past research sought to exploit that variance. Such an approach, of course, assumes that the variation that exists within groups captures a broad enough range to be empirically useful. At the same time, that approach places an implicit emphasis on the individual actor as the source of intergroup attitudes. This has encouraged a relatively atomized conception of the individual actor: it is assumed that something should be experienced directly and personally to enter the salient realm of human cognizance.

That assumption is evidenced in standard analytic strategies. It is taken as a given that if a proposition is valid, it will hold true at the individual level. For example, the hypothesis that intergroup contact affects intergroup attitudes has been tested by comparing those members of a group who have had personal intergroup contact with those who have not (rather than comparing groups from different intergroup relationships where the prevailing experiences are different). Similarly, it is routinely anticipated that if authority relations affect workers' level of consciousness, this should be demonstrated empirically by an observable difference in attitudes between workers whose personal experience has been with different kinds of authority relations (rather than examining how the prevailing mode of authority relations may condition the consciousness of workers as a whole). Analysts have sought to test theories by seeing whether they have explanatory power at the individual level.

This has especially been the case in the analysis of racial prejudice, where the phenomenon itself has been conceived as an expression of individual experiential and psychological factors. Thus, when Allport asked, "Prejudice: Is it Societal or Personal?" (1962), he was not posing a choice between the group and the individual as the unit of analysis, but between the individual acting according to the dictates of his personality (for example, prejudice as a function of "authoritarianism") and the individual responding to factors that derive from his social experiences (for example, prejudice as a function of formal educational attainment). In a somewhat similar vein, Tajfel's lengthy discussion of "Individuals and Groups in Social Psychology" (1981) essentially poses the question of the extent to which individual behavior is driven by indige-

nous biological-perceptual proclivities or is a response to factors acting on the individual from the social environment in which he lives.

In an early commentary on the prejudice literature, Blumer argued that this emphasis on the individual level of experience was misplaced:

The dominant group is not concerned with the subordinate group as such but it is deeply concerned with its position vis-a-vis the subordinate group. . . . The sense of group position is the very heart of the relation of the dominant to the subordinate group. . . . To seek . . . to understand [race prejudice] or to handle it in the arena of individual feeling and of individual experience seems to me to be clearly misdirected. (1958, 4, 7)

Blumer's comments had almost no impact on the research agenda on prejudice. That agenda continued to be dominated by theories that identified individual differences in personality or experience as the root of the problem. Interestingly, even those empirical analyses that have been most influenced by Blumer's work (analyses based on realistic group-conflict theory) have still been drawn to individual-level variance as the explanatory wedge (see, e.g., Wellman 1977; Smith 1981; Bobo 1983; Giles and Evans 1986).

Blumer's notion of "the sense of group position" was perhaps too obliquely defined to have utility as a sharp analytical tool. He stopped short of seeing dominant groups as being driven by tangible interests; his conception of prejudice emphasized the same features as did mainstream conceptions, except that they were transposed to an aggregated level. Hostility toward and derogation of subordinate groups were attributed to a collective cultural process that dealt with subordinates as a symbolic abstraction. Blumer's "sense of group position" was very much a "sense" rather than a tangible "position," which made it an aggregate-level analog of individual-level prejudice. Because it was not linked to specific aspects of the structure of the relationship between groups, the "sense of group position" did not carry a clear enough set of empirical referents to suggest a particular line of empirical inquiry. But Blumer's idea that the problem of prejudice was located in a collective group process did run directly against the prevailing social-reformist current of research on prejudice. That current mandated the identification of specific individual-level factors that might be manipulated to reduce prejudice.

Research on gender and class attitudes has also placed the overwhelming explanatory burden on individual-level variation, even though the phenomenon of interest is not seen as so exclusively within the psychological realm. The literature on class consciousness, in particular, has been shaped by theories that address the macrostructure of society. Yet individual-level motivational factors are still regarded as a critical element, and those factors are seen as primarily the product of direct individual

experiences (e.g., Lockwood 1966). Indeed, the common emphasis among students of class, race, and gender attitudes on hostility as a vital ingredient of expropriative intergroup relations is consistent with the broader analytic assumption that the locus of energy is in the individual. If one casts the attitudes of the group as the simple sum of its members' individually generated attitudes, personal feelings of hostility make an intuitively plausible motivational basis for the existence of discriminatory dispositions.

The assumption that the critical energy lies at the individual level is so ingrained in our way of thinking about intergroup attitudes that it is even reflected in the basic methodology of questionnaire-item construction. As Weissberg (1976) has pointed out, a requisite characteristic of good questionnaire items is that they elicit variance in responses, and it is a cardinal rule to avoid items that do not generate reasonable variance. Although this rule is dictated by the pragmatic need for individual-level variance if that is to be the fuel for analyses, it clearly has conditioned the way we define empirical problems. Issues that arouse consensual responses from all the members of a group reveal something about the shared experience of the group. Similarly, issues that elicit consensus from all participants in a relationship tell us about the prevailing values that encase the relationship and that define the limits of the political agenda (Weissberg 1976). Such issues may be especially germane to our understanding of the central currents in an intergroup relationship, but in explanations that hinge on individual-level variance, they are dismissed as "constants" with no utility.

I do not mean to deny that individual variance exists on salient issues or that differences in individual experiences bear on the expression of intergroup attitudes. However, exclusive attention to such individual variation, especially in the context of a single group in a single relationship (for example, whites' racial attitudes or women's gender attitudes), draws the explanatory endeavor away from questions about the overall structure of the relationship. The latter may impinge deeply on the participants in the relationship, constraining the amount of variance to be observed within a single group or relationship.

Consider the question of how the degree of personal contact between groups affects intergroup attitudes. This question has been studied primarily via individual variance among whites in their personal contact with and attitudes toward blacks, and yet there is only limited variance in whites' contact with blacks. Most whites have little or no personal contact with blacks and the intimate end of the continuum is marked by a small minority of whites who can name one friend who is black (or occasionally two). Contrast this with the gender relationship, where the overwhelming norm for intergroup intimacy far exceeds the extreme

end of the continuum for race and where the physical separation from subordinates that most whites experience is a rare event for men. Either relationship by itself captures only a portion of the empirical range of human experience that exists across relationships. The variance between the two relationships expands the observable range dramatically and thus offers the opportunity to measure the effects of intergroup contact over a broader spectrum.

The shift to variance between intergroup relationships as the explanatory source, whether or not it increases the observable range of experience, carries with it a consequential shift in the kinds of substantive questions that come into focus. It draws attention to the structural conditions that encase an intergroup relationship and it underscores the point that individual actors are not free agents but are caught in an aggregate relationship. Unless we assume that the individual is socially atomized, her personal experiences constitute only one source of information that is evaluated against the backdrop of her manifold observations of the aggregated experiences (both historical and contemporaneous) of the group as a whole. Even if we are willing to assume that the individual is motivated entirely by selfish concerns (which I am not willing to do), it would still be hasty to assume that her inferences about how best to serve those concerns are based solely or even primarily on her direct experiences. As I argued in the prologue, because the individual is situated within social relations, she cannot help but draw inferences about her own fate from her observations of the experiences of others, especially if she has reason to believe that her fate is linked (either positively or negatively) to those others. Individuals do not have to wait until they are personally knocked down by a hurricane to understand that hurricanes are dangerous.

This is not to say that all members of a group are expected to think the same way. The structural constraints imposed by the organization of an intergroup relationship are not felt uniformly by all members of a group. People are not impervious to their direct experiences. And information is not dispersed evenly to all members of a group. There are channels of communication that systematically influence the information to which individuals are exposed. For example, educational institutions influence people's cognitive style and the kinds of ideas and information available to them: dominant-group members with an advanced formal education are thus likely to espouse a more elaborate and sophisticated ideology to defend their group's interests (Jackman and Muha 1984). Similarly, direct personal contact with members of a subordinate group alters the information available to individual dominant-group members and has been shown to influence some aspects of their intergroup attitudes (Deutsch and Collins 1951; Wilner, Walkley and Cook

1955; Jackman and Crane 1986). Some information also trickles through the group along irregular and unpredictable paths depending on the particular constellation of personal characteristics and experiences that each individual has from childhood through his adult life. And as these individuals meet and interact with one another, some idiosyncratic networks of communication are created that could be either durable or ephemeral. thus, it should not be surprising that analyses using individual-level data have found that no single explanatory model can account for more than a small portion of the variance among group members in their intergroup attitudes.

The intergroup attitudes that people espouse are not their personal property, devised from their own experience independently, but the property of the group to which they belong. The group's collective experience provides the informational context within which individuals interpret their personal experiences. For although individual characteristics and experiences influence personal gravitation to one kind of attitude or another from those that are arrayed in the collective culture, the array is not infinite but is instead constrained by the limits of the collective experience. As ideas appear, they gain or lose currency according to their efficacy in meeting the political needs of the moment. They may spread rapidly, fizzle out, or gradually become reshaped over time. At any single point in history, the ideological baggage of the group as a whole reflects all these currents, as new ideas are heaped on top of old ones that then become discarded (rapidly or slowly) as they lose their political utility.

As we examine the pattern of attitudes that characterizes each group, we learn about the collective condition of the group as it faces another. We can then ask whether the position of a group in a relationship (dominant or subordinate) produces any systematic tendencies in attitudinal dispositions, or whether completely different rules seem to govern the exchange between groups from one intergroup relationship to another. We can observe whether unequal groups face off in competing, internally unified camps, whether they join together in a common consensus, or whether they are engaged in muted conflict that displays internal divisions within each camp or shifts from intergroup consensus to conflict from one kind of issue to another. By examining such questions across different cases of inequality that manifest widely variant structures, we can formulate ideas about the generality of the attitudinal processes that accompany inequality and their sensitivity to alternative structural pressures.

A Comparative Case-Study Analysis: Analytic Issues

As I draw on the information contained in the three cases, I follow the design of a comparative case-study analysis. This design raises some

distinctive analytic issues. My sample of cases is small, all three cases come from a single society, and each embroils all or almost all of the population. I discuss the implications of each of these issues in turn.

Small Number of Cases

Three cases do not constitute a large enough N for normal hypothesis testing, and, in any event, the cases are not a random selection of the universe of unequal intergroup relationships. Instead, the three cases have been selected purposively, both for their shared prominence in the world's preeminent capitalist-democracy and for the diverse range of characteristics that they capture. My analysis promotes a different way of asking about the sources of intergroup attitudes and of interpreting the meaning of various attitudinal expressions.

Because I am relying on a small, purposive sample of cases, constraints are imposed on the analysis that prevent normal hypothesis testing (see Lieberson 1991 for an excellent discussion of the obstacles to making causal inferences from a small number of cases). The most fundamental problem is that the number of potential explanatory variables exceeds the number of observations. Thus, the inferential process throughout the analysis will necessarily take interpretive liberties. My purpose is to exploit the distinctive features of the three cases in order to explore new propositions about the ideological dynamics of long-term relations of inequality. The three intergroup relationships of race, gender, and social class should be conceived as comparative case studies, each selected purposively to throw a different angle of light on the ideology of inequality. To the extent that the three cases manifest clearly interpretable patterns, I can establish the empirical plausibility of my theoretical framework.

Cases Drawn from a Single Social System

All three cases are embedded in a single social system at a single historical time-point. This imposes restrictions on the analysis that are both limiting and helpful. Three main implications for the analysis should be noted.

First, patterns observed in these cases may have restricted application to societies with different political or economic structures than the contemporary United States. Since those background factors are held constant across the three cases, the analysis will be unable to elucidate their importance.

Second, by the same token, this restriction simplifies the analytic task somewhat. By holding constant the social and historical milieu, a possible confounding influence on comparisons across cases has been removed. As we compare the three cases, we can rule out the possibility of idiosyncracies in their social or historical contexts lurking unidentified. In view of the small number of cases, it is helpful to restrict the possible gamut

of competing explanatory variables.^[6] It becomes possible to focus more sharply on the structural distinctions among the three cases.

Third, we must recognize that there are opportunities for cultural diffusion from one intergroup relationship to another. Ideas that pervade one relationship may creep into another, or ideas that spring from democratic, industrial, or capitalist pressures may seep into the ideology of all intergroup relationships in the society. I return to this issue in the final chapter, but for now, we should recognize that differences among the ideologies of the three cases may be muted by their coexistence within a single social system.

Overlapping Group Memberships

Individual citizens are embroiled in different intergroup relationships, and their multiple group memberships may be crosscutting (as, for example, among middle-class black males) or reinforcing (as, for example, among poor black females or upper-middle-class white males). The impact of this factor on the intensity of group loyalties and the pattern of organized political life has generated considerable speculation and discussion, especially among scholars from the pluralist school (see, for example, Truman 1951; Simmel 1955; Tocqueville [1850] 1969; Polsby 1980). Although pluralists have emphasized the potential for the muting of cleavages by the existence of crosscutting group memberships, equally plausible is the potential for the hardening of cleavages among subcommunities of people who have reinforcing group memberships. There has been increasing interest in the latter possibility (see, for example, Anderson and Collins 1992; Baer and Jones 1992; Blea 1992).

Little direct, systematic, empirical evidence has been brought to bear on this issue, and, indeed, it is premature to map out such possibilities until we have gained an understanding of the general parameters of each intergroup relationship taken on its own terms. For example, if we found that one intergroup relationship involved a deep rift between groups whereas another was pervaded by consensual attitudes, it would clearly be inappropriate to specify a model in which both sets of groups were given equal weight as a draw on people's emotional or political energies. An understanding of the distinctive experiences that belong

[6] The advantages of this strategy have been noted in several discussions of comparative social research. For example, according to Lijphart, "The principal problems facing the comparative method can be succinctly stated as: many variables, small number of cases" (1971, 685). To address this issue, he recommends a focus on "comparable" cases, which are "similar in a large number of important characteristics (variables) which one wants to treat as constants, but dissimilar as far as those variables are concerned which one wants to relate to each other" (1971, 687). Parallel arguments have been made by Przeworski and Teune (1970, chapter 2) and Smelser (1976, chapter 7).

to different intergroup relationships logically precedes any expectations about the state of mind of any subcommunities that weld specific combinations of experiences.

In this study, I am concerned with the prior question. I treat each intergroup relationship as a discrete experience shared by aggregates of people on the assumption that the primary stimuli affecting the attitudes pertaining to an intergroup relationship come from the structure and dynamics of that relationship. Recall that I assume people do not rely solely on their own direct experience for information: they also gather and integrate information from other sources, and, indeed, they interpret their own experiences in the light of that other information. People thus learn to distinguish fairly reliably among the multiple sources with which they come into contact, and they develop an appreciation of the regularities in life that create groups with similar experiences. All this suggests that people develop a sensitivity to the constraints posed by the position they hold in a specific intergroup relationship, regardless of their position in other intergroup relationships. The validity of this assumption can be appraised as we assess the degree and pattern of variation in ideology across the three intergroup relationships that are the subject of this study.

Empirically, the nondiscrete nature of race, class, and gender relations bears on the cross-composition of group memberships in the sample in three ways that should be noted. First, there is a relationship between racial group and class membership: blacks are considerably more likely than whites to identify with the poor (about 28 percent of blacks versus 5 percent of whites), somewhat more likely to identify with the working class (about 42 percent of blacks versus 36 percent of whites), and less likely to be middle class or upper-middle class (about 24 percent of blacks versus 55 percent of whites). This is reflected in the racial composition of social classes such that blacks constitute about 37 percent of the poor, 12 percent of the working class, and only about 5 percent of the middle class and 2 percent of the upper-middle class. Second, although gender has no overall relationship to class, women are slightly more likely than men to identify with the poor (about 9 percent of women versus about 5 percent of men).^[7] This affects the gender composition of the poor such that it has a higher proportion of women than do the other social classes (women comprise about 70 percent of the poor compared with about 53 to 60 percent of the other social classes). Finally, women are somewhat more overrepresented among black respondents in the sample

[7] Women are somewhat less likely than men to identify with the working class (34 percent of women versus 43 percent of men), slightly more likely to identify with the middle class (47 percent of women versus 42 percent of men), and have the same probability as men of identifying with the upper-middle class (about 8 percent).

than among whites (women constitute about 68 percent of blacks and about 57 percent of whites).

These compositional differences and the subgroups that are created by the nondiscrete existence of the three forms of inequality are outside the main thrust of the book. I begin with the premise that people's responses to a particular social relationship are shaped by the exigencies they face in that relationship. By comparing the way race, gender, and class relations are structured and the attitudes that accompany each intergroup relationship, the plausibility of that premise is investigated. Within that analysis, however, the possibility of subgroup variation is not dismissed: all data are checked by subgroup and any instances of subgroup memberships impinging on people's responses to an intergroup relationship will be noted.

Summary

The empirical framework of this study diverges from the main thrust of earlier research on race, gender, and class ideology. My objective is to compare these three different intergroup relationships in order to establish general propositions about the ideological dynamics of long-term relations of inequality. In this chapter, I have prepared for that analysis in two ways. First, I outlined the defining parameters of the three intergroup relationships that are the subject matter of my comparative case-study inquiry. Second, I delineated my strategy for their analysis, and I assessed the methodological and substantive issues that are thus brought into focus.

Class, race, and gender relations differ in terms of the expropriative basis for each relationship and the socially established rules for ascription to the pertinent groups. The social construction of groups and the rigidity and clarity of ascriptive rules are molded by the technological and political exigencies that spring from the expropriative basis of the relationship.

Thus, class relations are bereft of any rigidly imposed rules for group membership, because the numerical minority who expropriate economic resources of production and consumption from others have little reason, either technologically or politically, to define precisely the distinction between themselves and the rest of the population. The social definition of classes arises from the compelling nature of the socioeconomic distinctions and experiences that are put into place by the day-to-day practice of economic expropriation. Inequalities in such tangible items as educational and occupational attainment, income and wealth, job authority, and material standard of living are keenly felt, and people form communities with others whose socioeconomic attributes cluster close to their

own. The classes that are thus formed are identified by self-placements: they have ragged boundaries and are neither immutable nor completely heritable, although class memberships are usually stable over people's adult lives and are strongly related to parents' social class. The social classes that find common expression in popular discourse fall into a loosely arranged hierarchy: poor, working class, middle class, upper-middle class, and upper class.

The deep, historically reinforced rift between white and black Americans derives from whites' anxieties about maintaining cultural dominance over African Americans as they were bringing them here for the purpose of expropriating their labor. Whites have sought to protect and solidify their status prerogatives over blacks, and demographics have generally made it unnecessary for whites to be concerned about the lower-status group outnumbering them. Under these circumstances, the social distinction between the two groups has been maintained as a dichotomy that relies on a simplified rule for attribution to groups—the so-called "one-drop rule" by which one drop of African "blood" makes a person black. This rule makes membership in the dominant group very exclusive. It also means that group membership is immutable and generally heritable—except that those whites who form sexual unions with blacks are unable to pass their racial privilege on to their children.

Gender-group membership is also based on a simplified rule that results in the social definition of two groups on the basis of genitalia. Gender relations are based on control over sexual access and sexual reproduction, and thus the basic definition of gender groups avoids acknowledgment of the many shades of sexual preference, since that would only serve to undermine clear rules of sexual dominance. Gender-group membership is generally immutable, but it is the least heritable of the three types of groups in the study—both men and women have only fifty-fifty odds of transmitting their own gender-group membership to their children.

The data for this study come from a probability survey of the American public, conducted in 1975, that was designed to gather comparable information on class, race, and gender relations in the United States. My framework for analyzing these data departs from most past research on the ideologies associated with these intergroup relationships. First, my focus is comparative. Second, I analyze intergroup attitudes as relational communications between contending groups, making it necessary to examine the exchange of attitudes in an intergroup relationship taken in its entirety. And, third, I treat intergroup attitudes primarily as the property of groups, rather than of individuals, in order to assess the pattern of attitudes in the group as a whole as an expression of its collective experience. The resulting framework is in the nature of a compara-

tive case-study analysis. I seek to exploit variance among these three intergroup relationships to explore how the ideological communications between unequal groups are shaped by the constraints and exigencies that each group faces.

The three intergroup relations of race, class, and gender have been selected purposively for the range of characteristics that they capture. As I proceed with their analysis, we must remember that the small sample of intergroup relationships precludes standard hypothesis testing, and their representation of a single society limits our ability to assess the influence of broader historical and social factors. My purpose, instead, is to examine the patterns manifested in these three cases to evaluate the empirical plausibility of new propositions about the ideological dynamics of long-term relations of social inequality.

In the next chapter, I proceed with the core issue of delineating the structure of intergroup contact for each case. I consider different ways that social differentiation between groups may be carried out and the different kinds of constraints that are thus imposed on intergroup communication channels. I then compare the way intergroup contact is structured in race, gender, and class relations in the United States.

Chapter Four—
The Structure of Intergroup Contact

The way in which contact between unequal groups is structured is crucial, for two reasons. First, it tells us how differentiation between groups is implemented in the routine practice of social life. It is this factor that frames the day-to-day presentation of the relationship in people's lives. It constrains the awareness of all participants, even of those whose personal contact with the other group is deviant, because the prevailing pattern defines the common understanding of the relationship within which meaning is attached to specific events and experiences. Second, the organization of intergroup contact has immediate bearing on the way that members of the groups communicate with each other and thus on the kinds of messages that are likely to take hold, both within and between groups. It lays the basic communication grid within which some messages may flow with greater ease than others.

In this chapter, I begin by considering the conceptual distinctions between two major forms of intergroup differentiation—role (or social) segregation and spatial (or physical) segregation. What factors shape the prevalence of one or the other type of segregation, what are the various manifestations that each type of segregation can take, what is the experiential impact of each type of segregation for the participating groups, and what are its implications for communication patterns between groups? I then evaluate empirical data on the prevailing patterns of intergroup contact in race, gender, and class relations in the United States.

Role Segregation and Spatial Segregation

Some form of social differentiation is integral to any relationship of inequality between groups: the institutions that accomplish the unequal

division of resources constrain the structure of interaction between groups. The specific form of differentiation that prevails in a given relationship is conditioned by the functional mechanics of the expropriation that undergirds the relationship. At the same time, dominant groups do not play an entirely passive part in the matter. Within the bounds set by the functional mechanics of their relationship with subordinates, dominant groups practice exclusionary behavior as a way of buffering their position. The nature of that behavior varies from one relationship to another, as dominant groups follow the path of least resistance and maneuver within the course that is laid out by the organization of the inequality.

In this activity, dominant groups are restrained by one important consideration. Any form of differentiation simultaneously erects some barriers to communication and thus there is a clear disincentive for piling multiple forms of differentiation on top of one another. This would represent an overachievement with accumulating risks to the ongoing task of social control. Indeed, intergroup differentiation presents a delicate dilemma between two countervailing pressures. There is an initial need to differentiate the groups sufficiently to procure the inequality. But this is balanced against the need to integrate subordinates within a common relationship, in order to preserve the orderly flow of benefits. Too much differentiation might rupture the groups apart into disconnected social systems.

In assessing the variance across intergroup relationships in the prevailing patterns of intergroup contact, I make an initial distinction between two broad forms of social differentiation. First is the separation of groups from one another by rules or norms that specify behavior according to group membership. This is generally discussed as role (or social) segregation . Second is the separation of groups from one another into different spatial spheres , which is generally referred to as spatial (or physical) segregation . As I argued in chapter 2, all systems of inequality are permeated to some extent by both forms of differentiation, but the specific representation of each varies considerably (van den Berghe 1960). Each form can be manifested in varying guises and in varying degrees, with profound implications for the quality of social interaction within and across group boundaries. I briefly discuss each form of segregation, the pressures that generate it, its different manifestations, and its experiential impact.

Role Segregation

By role segregation, I refer to social rules and customs that specify behaviors on the basis of group membership. These behaviors define the kind of role that group members fulfil in social life—stated more simply, they constrain the way group members may interact with others in society.

In this context, the term "role" takes on a political meaning that it lacks in functionalist uses of the term, which treat roles as more voluntaristic (see, for example, Parsons and Bales 1955). Role segregation incorporates three main types of behaviors. First, groups may be allocated distinctive tasks in economic and social life (occupations and social activities). Second, socially appropriate interpersonal behaviors may be specified for each group, in order to govern both the kinds of behaviors group members may manifest in any social interactions (such as displays of anger, knowledge, affection, concern, fear, or helplessness) and rules of etiquette targeted specifically at interactions across group lines (such as manifesting assertiveness and self-assurance or submissiveness and diffidence). Third, dress codes may be established for each group to aid in the identification of group members and to heighten the social distinctions between groups. Various elements of role segregation have been addressed by different scholars, and many of the pertinent issues were discussed earlier in chapter 2. For excellent discussions of the multiple aspects of role segregation, see van den Berghe (1960) and Reskin and Roos (1987).

Any system of inequality entails at least some rudimentary role segregation, insofar as the distributive process that divides the groups generates distinctive tasks and perquisites for the respective groups. It is also the case that role segregation always carries in its trail some spatial segregation, since the specialization of tasks and perquisites alters the odds of each group's presence in various physical arenas. These observations do not take us very far, however. The specific character of role segregation and its interpenetration with physical segregation vary significantly across intergroup relationships.

Role prescriptions may be highly elaborated with great specificity or they may be only loosely formulated. They may be rigidly or casually applied. They may have a broad reach that radiates over many domains of activity or they may be narrowly restricted to but one or two domains. Three factors seem especially germane to an understanding of such variation. First, role prescriptions are most likely to be found in domains of activity in which the conduct of the inequality between groups requires sustained interaction between the groups. Second, the more critically those interactions bear on the nexus of the inequality between groups, the more sharply will the role prescriptions be drawn: those are the areas in which the dominant group has the strongest interest in avoiding any ambiguity about the activities and behaviors that are appropriate to the respective groups. Third, role segregation should play a more pervasive part in the conduct of relationships in which the core distributive process throws a large portion of the people in the affected groups into personal interactions across group lines, especially when those interactions are

sustained. Such relationships provide both the greatest opportunity for and the most pressing need for role segregation to maintain group boundaries. Thus, we may generally expect to find well-elaborated and strictly applied rules for behavior in at least one or two domains of activity that constitute significant distributive contact-points in an intergroup relationship. But role prescriptions are most likely to have a pervasive reach over many domains of activity and to have a rigid intrusion into the pattern of social life when the core distributive process throws the respective groups into close physical proximity.

The joint effect of these three factors on the structure and significance of role segregation is illustrated in the three intergroup relationships of interest in this book. In industrial class relations, the allocation of people to distinctive roles in the economy may be regarded as the fundamental basis of the inequality. Rules for group-appropriate behavior are thus most clearly specified in the core distributive context of the workplace, where interaction between representatives of the affected groups establishes the framework of the relationship between groups. Workers are supposed to perform the tasks that their employers dictate; it is taken for granted by all concerned that this rule conditions their relationship. But because the distributive process of industrial production tends to clump people together according to the occupational roles they perform, there has been little development of role prescriptions for personal behaviors. Thus, there is a general understanding that social class membership is associated with the performance of different kinds of occupational tasks, but this does not carry over into elaborated specifications about appropriate personal behaviors outside the workplace. Even in the workplace, the personal behaviors that are circumscribed are limited almost entirely to the conduct of work tasks and the maintenance of authority relations.

Contemporary American race relations do not contain the elaborated codes of race-specific personal behaviors that they did in the slave economy of the antebellum South when personal contact across racial lines was the norm. As the race relationship was reshaped by industrialization, African Americans continued to be assigned economic tasks that were consistent with the lower cultural status to which whites had relegated them. And in keeping with the continuing central significance of cultural status to the race relationship, some personal behaviors that have traditionally been associated with African Americans, such as the speaking of "black English," have continued to be circumscribed by whites as inappropriate for occupational tasks involving responsibility or authority. The same delimitation applies to spoken accents associated with lower-class whites, but it is more intensely and rigidly applied in the case of black English. At the same time, however, other personal behaviors have

generally slipped out of the reach of racial role prescriptions: with the decline in physical proximity between the races that was engendered by industrialization, personal behaviors became less significant to the maintenance of the inequality. Rules of racially appropriate personal behaviors were sacrosanct in the master-slave relations of the antebellum South, and they continued to have high social significance in the sharecropping relations of the rural South. But they have faded from the consciousness of whites as African Americans have been banished to more distant, remote physical enclaves.

In gender relations, the core distributive process (sexuality and sexual reproduction) necessitates sustained, personal relationships across group lines, making it imperative for the dominant group to set clear rules that condition the quality of all interactions that take place. This dictates rigid role specifications that have a broad reach over many domains of activity and that infuse even minute aspects of personal behavior and dress (see, for example, Henley and Freeman 1979; Bell and Newby 1976; West and Zimmerman 1983; Cancian 1987). The most sensitive domain of activity is the home and family, and it is in this context that rules for group-appropriate behavior find their most elaborated specification. The institution of the family is saturated with commonly understood rules about the responsibilities and perquisites of its constituent members. The specification of personal behaviors is so intrinsic to the relationship, however, that the rules radiate out to be applied to any situation in which men and women find themselves in personal contact. Rules governing personal interactions between men and women are applied as ingrained habits, even in situations where the women may have been given the same task-activities as the man (for example, with male colleagues in the same occupation and authority-rank at work, women may still be expected to exhibit such female traits as deference and sexual submissiveness). More commonly, as women venture out of the designated female realm of domestically focused activities, they are steered into distinctive occupations that are a consistent extension of the same ingrained rules about appropriate "feminine" personal behaviors: much has been written on the pervasiveness of occupational sex-segregation (see, for example, Blau and Hendricks 1979; Treiman and Hartmann 1981; Reskin 1984; Bielby and Baron 1986; Jacobs 1989; Reskin and Roos 1990).

Spatial Segregation

Role segregation dovetails into spatial segregation. As dominant groups seek to differentiate themselves from subordinates, they pattern their practices within the lines set by the structure of the distributive process from which their advantaged position is derived. As I noted above, any

division of tasks and perquisites accomplishes some physical separation of the groups. For example, even in gender relations, which create unusually high physical proximity between the groups, role prescriptions have reduced the physical presence of women in the workplace and have led to employed women performing functionally distinctive jobs that may locate them in different physical sites within the workplace (see, for example, Reskin and Roos 1987, 1990). By the same token, in all intergroup relationships there are at least some physical sites that lack built-in task-specifications for the respective groups. In such situations, dominant-group members may rely on other group-designated behavior-codes or dress-codes to maintain boundaries, or they may resort to spatial exclusiveness. If they exercise the latter option, subordinates' physical presence might be banned completely from the site in question, or physical restrictions may be placed on their access to the site. For example, according to orthodox Jewish practice, women cannot worship side-by-side with men, but they may attend religious services if they sit in a separate section of the synagogue. Similarly, men sometimes retreat to clubs based on mutual fellowship and loyalty, such as college fraternities: in such clubs, women's presence is tolerated only if it is within the confines of designated role prescriptions, such as maids, social assistants, or sexual playthings (see, for example, Martin and Hummer 1989). For these reasons, no intergroup relationship is likely to be completely devoid of spatial segregation, just as some form of role differentiation is a given. However, the relative importance of each in the practice of the relationship depends on the degree to which the distributive process steers the groups physically together or apart. When the groups are pushed further apart, the symbolic significance of spatial separation is heightened among the participants.

As with role segregation, spatial segregation may be practiced in a variety of ways that profoundly shapes its experiential impact. Most important is the elementary point that different forms of spatial segregation impose varying degrees of physical distance between the respective groups. Spatial segregation may involves any one or a combination of the following three practices, each of which imposes increasingly greater physical distance between the groups:

1. The allocation of groups of different parts of the same facilities (such as men and women seated in different sections of an orthodox synagogue, whites and blacks seated in different parts of Jim-Crow buses) or to use of the same facilities at different times (such as whites and blacks given different times to use recreational facilities in the Jim-Crow South).

2. Allocation of different groups to separate, sometimes adjacent, fa-

cilities (such as men's and women's bathrooms, white and black bathrooms in the Jim-Crow South).

3. Allocation of different groups to distinct residential areas (such as ghettos for Jews in the history of many European and Middle-Eastern cities, residential segregation by race and class in contemporary urban America).

Racial segregation in the Jim-Crow South involved all three practices, but it relied primarily on the first two in conjunction with considerable role segregation by race as well. I believe it is that package of practices that many Americans, even today, commonly understand to be meant by the term segregation . Racial segregation in the contemporary United States, however, is marked predominantly by the third type of spatial segregation—urban residential segregation.

Spatial-segregation practices that introduce the least physical distance between the groups are those that specify separate use of the same facilities. This is done either by allocating a separate part of the same facility to each group (for example, as when Southern blacks were restricted to traveling at the back of the bus), or by specifying separate times of usage (for example, as when Southern blacks were granted access to sports facilities or parks at different times than whites). This is likely to be practiced in situations where physical proximity is unavoidable but where there is no embedded task differentiation along group lines. In such situations, dominant groups preempt the possibility of subordinates approaching them on an equal-status basis by imposing physical barriers between the groups. By assigning subordinates to less desirable space or times, the practice additionally serves to make a statement about status prerogatives.

This kind of physical barrier has a contrived quality that makes it more conspicuous to all the participants than are the behavioral barriers that are incorporated in role definitions. Yet this form of spatial segregation is the least removed from role segregation in its experiential impact, and, indeed, it is most likely to be practiced in relationships that are dominated by role segregation but in which there are residual arenas of activity that throw groups onto common ground that is role-neutral. In the Jim-Crow South, African Americans and whites occupied fairly well-differentiated roles in economic, social, and political life that regulated a considerable amount of personal contact between the races, but the role segregation was not pervasive enough to radiate over all realms of activity. This primitive form of spatial segregation, along with the allocation of separate facilities when feasible, covered any potentially ambiguous terrain.

The rules that governed the separate seating of blacks and whites in

buses in the pre-civil-rights South exemplify the blurred line between role segregation and primitive spatial segregation. The rules regulating racially segregated seating in Montgomery buses in the 1950s blended spatial separation of the races with behavioral prescriptions for racial deference in access to seats. The first few rows were reserved for whites' exclusive use and were off-limits to blacks even if there were no whites on the bus and all blacks' seats were filled. At the same time, if all the white seats were occupied, blacks sitting in seats closest to the reserved white rows were required to yield their seats to whites entering the bus (King, Jr. 1958, 41). In this way, only the whites' seating was exclusively bounded, and the physical line between black and white seating moved backwards in the bus to accommodate white demand without removing the physical barrier between the races. Thus, Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955, not for breaking the spatial rule, but for her violation of the deference rule when she refused to yield her designated "black" seat to a white in a crowded bus (King, Jr. 1958, 43).

With increased community resources, this form of spatial segregation may be elaborated to the provision of separate, often adjacent, facilities for the respective groups (as in the Jim-Crow South). Its main effect is to place a somewhat greater physical distance between the groups in the domains of activity that are thus segregated. This further reduces the possibility of personal contact in segregated areas, thereby obviating the need for behavior prescriptions to cover situations in which members of the unequal groups might find themselves interacting with one another in the same physical space. At the same time, it allows the dominant group to reinforce status distinctions more definitively through the spatial rules themselves—by making the parallel facilities of unequal quality. For example, in 1915, South Carolina spent almost $14.00 per capita on white schools but only $1.00 per capita on black schools, and the school year for white children lasted twice as long as for black children (Robertson and Judd 1989, 176). In essence, subordinates are expected to submit to the superior status of the dominant group by accepting the inferior facilities that have been allocated to them: the deference rule is built right into the spatial rule.

Thus, the allocation of separate facilities further heightens the symbolic value that is attached to the spatial separation of the groups, and physical closeness to subordinates begins to assume a repugnance for members of the dominant group. In cases where some domains of activity are ruled by role segregation and other domains are spatially segregated, members of the dominant group learn to distinguish between the two with ease. For example, in the Jim-Crow South, a white matron might have felt quite relaxed with her black maid in her home, since the role segregation between them was sufficient to preserve her status preroga-

tives in that setting. But she would probably have been repelled at the prospect of eating in the same restaurant with either her maid or other "colored folk," since physical proximity in that context would violate white status prerogatives.

The provision of separate facilities for the unequal groups retains a fairly high profile in people's day-to-day lives, but it does not have quite such a high profile as the more rudimentary version discussed above. The segregation is more conspicuous when the groups can see each other seated in different parts of the same theatre than when they are seated in different theatres. It also affords subordinates more insulation from the dominant group. Once they are within the facilities that have been allocated to them, subordinates are released from the mindful supervision of the dominant group. This accords them a measure of personal freedom that they cannot achieve in situations that are spatially segregated in the more makeshift way that was described above. However, as long as the facilities are adjacent or nearly so, there is still a tacit recognition that the expropriative basis to the relationship does not permit wide physical separation of the groups. In view of this, subordinates can only break partially free from the role prescriptions that adhere to their group.

As the mode of distribution tends to clump the members of different groups into separate physical domains, the normal day-to-day practice of the relationship leads to fewer interpersonal contacts across group lines and robs such contacts of their built-in status demarcations. Under these conditions, wide physical separation of the groups becomes the natural strategy for the dominant group as it reinforces socially the structural tendencies that already exist. This strategy is facilitated by the advent of sophisticated systems of mass communication and transportation, most notably the telephone, television and radio, the automobile, and mass transportation systems, all of which make it possible for people to communicate and travel over much greater distances than was formerly possible. These technologies allow for wide spatial separation of the groups without severing all contact between them.

Those are the circumstances that have spawned the form of spatial segregation with which we are familiar in contemporary American race relations and class relations—urban residential segregation. When the conduct of the unequal relationship hinges on use of the aggregated labor rather than the personal labor of subordinates, the development of separate residential areas follows readily. Residential segregation by class is accomplished with little concerted effort: if personal access to lower-wage workers is not required for expropriative purposes, individuals with more economic resources can separate themselves from such workers residentially simply by situating their own residences in clusters

(neighborhoods) that contain no properties that are small or humble enough to be within the financial reach of those with fewer resources. With the advances in mass communication and transportation, even those workers to whom one requires personal access (such as servants or other household workers) need not reside nearby.

Some residential segregation by race follows in the wake of class segregation. Because of racial role segregation, African Americans have been disproportionately relegated to lower-wage occupations and that by itself would have resulted in some racial residential segregation, given the preexistence of class residential segregation (Massey 1990). However, the extreme form of racial segregation that holds in many American cities (referred to as hypersegregation by Massey and Denton 1989, 1993) has been brought about by the intervention of governmental policies, laws, and Supreme Court decisions that fostered and enforced residential segregation by race (Taylor 1986; Robertson and Judd 1989; Judd 1991; Massey and Denton 1993). For example, during the New-Deal and post-World-War-II years, the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration actively promoted the development of racially segregated neighborhoods as they underwrote a substantial portion of the housing construction that built the suburbs. Their financing programs for housing explicitly favored white applicants or required racially segregated housing developments. These federal policies were supported by law and amplified by local government policies and the enforced racial segregation of educational institutions and public facilities.

In small towns or villages, residential segregation does not accomplish wide physical separation of the groups because the total unit size is still small. But the industrialization process that has aggregated labor relations has by the same token created large urban areas. Urban residential segregation achieves an unprecedented physical separation of the groups—it maximizes the spatial distance between the groups and it radiates over many domains of social life as separate schools, shopping, places of employment, and recreational facilities follow effortlessly from the existence of separate neighborhoods. Spatial segregation in neighborhoods thus spills over into all walks of life, creating de facto physical separation of the groups throughout social life.

In addition, Massey (1990) has demonstrated convincingly that the combined effects of class and racial residential segregation have led to further economic losses for urban, poor blacks, contributing to the problem that is commonly known as the "urban underclass": a lower tax base, poorly equipped schools, deteriorated housing, fewer stores, fewer jobs. Because of the flight of capital from such areas of concentrated poverty, negative economic outcomes spiral disastrously for the African Americans trapped there, and residential segregation thus helps whites retain a

larger share of the nation's economic resources. And the poorer material quality of segregated black neighborhoods also reinforces the status differential that whites maintain between themselves and African Americans.

Even as the physical separation of the groups acquires new heights of symbolic significance in the practice of the relationship, this system of segregation places most members of the dominant group at such a wide spatial distance from subordinates that the latter become a depersonalized abstraction for them. The typical dominant-group member thus maintains the physical separation without consciously taking any active steps in his day-to-day behavior. Although racial residential segregation was promoted by governmental policies and it continues to be supported by institutionalized practices in the real estate industry, the individual white residing in a white neighborhood is blissfully unaware of such policies and practices. And because so much subsequent spatial segregation follows de facto as the afterbirth of residential segregation, the individual white is likely to feel quite blameless in the whole affair. Whereas many forms of social segregation and the two more rudimentary forms of spatial segregation require the active participation of all members of the dominant group for their maintenance (albeit by habit), individual dominant-group members can reap the benefits of residential segregation without lifting a personal finger to bring it about. This is not to say that whites are reticent to lift a personal finger when the need arises—but most of the time, the institutionalized processes are sufficient to maintain residential segregation and its afterbirth, without active participation by individual whites, and hidden from their view.

Because of the unique way in which contemporary residential segregation has been realized, it is not enforced as rigidly or consistently as the other forms of spatial segregation. The degree of racial residential segregation varies somewhat from one city to another (Massey and Denton 1987), and whites often fail to be vigilant about minor lapses in the pattern.^[1] At the same time, this form of spatial segregation achieves a

[1] Although the practice of racial residential segregation clearly reflects the prevailing preferences of whites, there is no evidence that individual whites who find themselves in physical proximity to blacks in their neighborhoods, schools, or workplaces do so out of personal choice (Jackman and Crane 1986, 483–485). Situations that throw whites and blacks into proximity occur in individuals' lives as accidents over which they have little or no control: such people are simply caught in a "lapse" in the prevailing (but imperfect) pattern of spatial segregation. There is no evidence that whites with positive racial predispositions self-select into neighborhoods or places of work in which blacks are present, or that the whites who are least tolerant of exposure to blacks are those who exit such situations. People's options for residential and job mobility are constrained by many factors other than their racial predispositions. This means that blacks who find themselves in physical proximity to whites may have no specific expectations about the initial reception they willreceive from the individual whites involved, but there is certainly no reason for them to anticipate an initially warm reception.

physical separation of the groups that is unprecedented in its scope and pervasiveness. Indeed, because of this, unremitting enforcement would only have the effect of rupturing social relations between the groups entirely.

Differentiation and Communication

Role segregation and spatial segregation each present their own hazards to social control, but I have stressed that the latter subjects a relationship to more strain. Strict and pervasive spatial segregation would obliterate one-to-one contacts between groups and thereby severely reduce opportunities for the dominant group to penetrate and control the social awareness of subordinates. Spatial segregation also has the effect of lumping together people within each group, fostering communication channels within groups and thus further hampering the social containment of subordinates. Strict role differentiation is primarily subject to the risk that the attendant sharp disjuncture in social experiences may throw up an impenetrable barrier to effective communication—the world frame of each group may then become unfathomable to the other (Rubin 1983; Cancian 1987). However, in the context of sustained and intimate personal interactions, this danger is mitigated critically because the members of the dominant group are provided with ready access to the hearts and minds of subordinates while communication channels within the subordinate group are simultaneously restricted.

The structure of intergroup contact is thus a sensitive indicator of the general experiential presentation of an unequal relationship, and it also tells us about the kinds of channels that are available (personal or aggregated) for communication across group lines. I expect these factors to have a profound effect on the receptivity of subordinates to different kinds of messages and on the proclivity of dominant group members for various forms of persuasion. Whether an intergroup relationship is structured intimately or distally preconditions the participants to different kinds of ideological communications.

Data:
Intergroup Contact in the Three Cases

I now compare data on the prevailing features of intergroup contact between whites and blacks, men and women, and different social classes in the United States. Certain aspects of the intergroup contact in these relationships are well known. It is widely recognized that contemporary race relations in the United States manifest a pronounced form of resi-

dential segregation whereas the practice of gender relations relies heavily on role segregation; class relations exhibit an admixture of less pervasive forms of residential and role segregation. As we examine data for each case, the distinctions among them will be clarified. My concern is with intergroup contact as an experiential factor in intergroup relations, and my data are thus drawn exclusively from respondents' reports of their contact with the members of other groups.

The data are divided into three spheres. First, I consider the degree to which the groups are physically insulated from one another. Second, I evaluate the significance of role segregation in governing interaction between members of unequal groups. Here, I am concerned not with the opportunities for interpersonal contact across group lines but with the presence of rules that condition the quality of such interactions. These alternative kinds of differentiation impose distinctive constraints on the volume and character of affiliative ties between groups, and this is the third manifestation of intergroup contact that I examine.

Physical Insulation of Groups

Tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 present data on people's reported exposure to their own and other groups in selected social settings. These data give us a picture of the degree to which spatial separation of groups is experienced in race, gender, and class relations. Because of the known pervasiveness of spatial segregation in race relations, the questionnaire contained more questions about the racial composition of various social settings than about their gender or class composition. I asked people about the racial composition of the following social settings:

The neighborhood you now live in
All the people at work whom you come in contact with at least once a week
          or so
The people where you go shopping
The high school nearest you
The grade school nearest you
All the people who are in clubs or organizations that you are involved in
          [respondents had previously indicated involvement in clubs or organizations from a list]

Respondents were provided with the same response options for each question: "all black, mostly black, about half black and half white, mostly white, all white." I asked about the gender composition of the second and last of those social domains (workplace and clubs/organizations), with the five response options ranging from "all women" to "all men" in a parallel format to that for race. I asked about the class composition of the first and last of the social domains (neighborhood and clubs/organiza-

tions); in each case respondents were asked "are they mostly poor, working class, middle class, upper-middle class, or upper class?" (all mentions were recorded). In tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3, "don't know" responses are also included in order to show cases where there is only a hazy awareness of the pertinent group composition.

In comparing the data on spatial segregation for race, gender, and class, two constraining factors must be recognized. First, for race and gender, the group division is a dichotomy, whereas for class the division is into five graded groups. This frames the pattern of physical segregation differently for class than for race or gender. In class relations, the members of each class experience a pattern of contact with each of multiple other classes, making more complex and differentiated channels of contact possible among all the groups encompassed by the relationship.

Second, the relative size of the respective groups varies from one intergroup relationship to another. In the relationship between whites and blacks, the dominant group has been in the numerical majority by far (in the 1970s blacks comprised less than 12 percent of the population). The gender relationship is between two groups of about equal size. And in class relations, the working class and the middle class each comprise about 40 percent of the population, whereas the classes at either extreme are considerably smaller: the poor and the upper-middle class are each about 8 percent of the population, and the upper class is a minuscule 1 percent. These differences are important because any lapses in spatial segregation are likely to be felt disproportionately by groups that are relatively small: where physical contacts involve the same absolute number of people from each affected group, this constitutes a larger proportion of the smaller group. This issue is discussed by Lieberson (1980, chapter 9), as it bears on the estimation of residential segregation, and Massey and Denton (1987) apply this factor to the estimation of trends in urban residential segregation for blacks, Hispanics, and Asians from 1970 to 1980. In any imperfectly practiced system of spatial segregation, the relative size of the groups is thus consequential in terms of who bears the experiential brunt of lapses in the physical insulation of the groups. When the dominant group outnumbers the subordinate group, the practice of spatial segregation at anything less than a perfect level affords the dominant group the opportunity to insulate itself from subordinates without granting the same degree of insulation to the subordinate group.

This factor applies especially to contact between whites and African Americans, since whites are in the overwhelming majority. Contacts involving only a small proportion of the white community can effectively invade the lives of a considerably larger proportion of the black community, and blacks are more exposed to whites on a day-to-day basis than vice versa. In class relations, the two classes that have the numerical

advantage are the working class and the middle class. All other things equal, people in these two classes have more opportunity to insulate themselves from other classes than do people in the poor, the upper-middle class, or the upper class.

Race

The data in table 4.1 suggest pervasive but incomplete spatial separation of blacks from whites. Because whites outnumber blacks so heavily, the system works asymmetrically, affording more racial insulation to whites than to blacks. In addition, racial segregation attends some social settings more than others.

Whites are more likely to be insulated from blacks in their neighborhoods than in any other setting, with 65 percent describing their neighborhoods as "all white" and another 30 percent saying they are "mostly white." Whites are somewhat less insulated from blacks in their workplaces and in the clubs or organizations to which they belong, with fewer than half describing either of those settings as "all white." Whites are most likely to be exposed to blacks in their shopping districts, which are described as "all white" by only 14 percent of whites. Local schools are also less likely to be described as "all white," but note that schools are the only place where any appreciable number of respondents say they don't know the racial composition: some respondents without school-age children presumably pay little attention to their local schools. If one

disregards the "don't know" responses, 19 percent of the remaining whites describe their high schools as "all white" and 29 percent describe their grade schools in this way.

Although these six settings vary considerably in the extent to which they afford racial exclusiveness to whites, it is important to bear in mind that as many as 65 percent to 95 percent of whites describe any one of these settings as either "all white" or "mostly white." Consider also that the overwhelming majority of "mostly white" responses probably indicate the presence of either a single black or at best only a few blacks. Thus, although the majority of whites are unlikely to experience complete insulation from blacks in any setting other than their neighborhoods, they are also unlikely to encounter more than a token representation of blacks.

The experience for blacks is somewhat different. The lapses in spatial segregation penetrate the relatively small black community more deeply than the larger white community. This is manifested in two main ways. First, blacks are less likely than whites to experience complete racial insulation. The setting in which blacks are the most insulated is in the clubs and organizations to which they belong: 42 percent describe them as "all black." Fewer than one-third of blacks say they live in neighborhoods where all the residents are black, and fewer than one-tenth describe any of the other social settings as "all black." In all, about two-thirds of blacks describe their neighborhoods and their clubs and organizations as either "all black" or "mostly black," and between about 17 percent and 43 percent describe any of the other four social settings in those terms. Second, when blacks do encounter whites, they are more likely than whites to experience either a similar numerical presence of the other group or to be outnumbered by the other group. Between one-fifth and one-half of blacks describe any of the six social settings as being comprised of roughly equal numbers of blacks and whites, and another one-tenth to one-third of blacks describe any of those settings as either "mostly white" or "all white." Thus, blacks are not only more likely to experience contact with whites than are whites with them, but they are also more likely than whites to experience contact in settings where their presence is a token one only, with the other group in clear numerical dominance.

Gender

Outright spatial segregation of groups is patently less of a factor in gender relations, and men and women experience a high degree of proximity in their neighborhoods, schools, and homes. Role segregation is a more pertinent organizing principle in gender relations, but it does spill over into spatial segregation in some social settings. Table 4.2 suggests that each gender group experiences considerable physical insulation from the other in the workplace and some in clubs and organizations as well.

Men's larger numerical presence in the workplace has afforded them more gender insulation from occupational segregation than women experience. Almost one-quarter of men describe their work environments as comprised entirely of men, while only 6 percent of women say they work exclusively with women. In all, about two-thirds of men say their work environments are entirely or mostly male, and almost half of women report that they work entirely or mostly with women. This asymmetry is also evident in the slightly higher proportion of women (16 percent) than of men (under 7 percent) who report that their workplaces are comprised entirely or mostly of the opposite sex.

Gender segregation in clubs and organizations is less pronounced than in the workplace, and it is experienced by both groups symmetrically. In both groups, about one-tenth describe their clubs or organizations as comprised entirely of their own sex, about one-third describe them as "mostly" made up of their own sex, and about one-half say they are comprised of men and women about equally. The result is that men are more likely to experience physical insulation from women in their workplaces than in their clubs and organizations, whereas for women, their clubs and organizations afford them a slightly greater probability of insulation from men than in the workplace, or at least a somewhat lower likelihood of being outnumbered by men.

Taking both social settings, spatial segregation is neither as pronounced nor as asymmetrical for gender as it is for race. However, given the lesser significance of spatial segregation as a differentiating mechanism in gender relations, the degree to which it is present in gender relations is noteworthy. This is especially true of the workplace, where the pattern of spatial gender segregation approximates (albeit in weaker form) that for race.

Class

Table 4.3 presents data on the degree of spatial segregation experienced along class lines in neighborhoods and in clubs and organizations.^[2] Because the questions for class were phrased slightly differently and because the choice of stimuli involves a graded series of five categories rather than a dichotomy, the data are not directly comparable with those for race and gender. However, careful comparison suggests that spatial segregation by class in neighborhoods and in clubs and organizations approaches the level of racial segregation in those settings. The main distinction between race and class is that the physical barriers between adjacent classes tend to fade into each other rather than being as sharply drawn as they are between the races.

The pattern of class segregation is very similar in both social settings. The classes that experience the most physical insulation are the two larger classes, the working class and the middle class. Substantially less physical insulation is experienced by the smaller classes that lie on either side of those classes, the poor and the upper-middle class. In the neighborhood setting, the working class experiences the most physical insulation, with over two-thirds describing their neighborhoods as made up mostly of their own class. About half of the middle class, almost one-third

[2] Recall that respondents identifying with the upper class are excluded because there are too few of them to constitute a reliable basis for analysis, but the upper class is retained as a stimulus in questions.

of the upper-middle class, and about one-seventh of the poor report the same degree of class insulation in their neighborhoods. In clubs and organizations, it is the middle class that is the most insulated, with almost two-thirds describing their clubs and organizations as comprised mostly of their own class. In this setting, similar attributions are made by just over one-half of the working class, a little more than one-quarter of the upper-middle class, and only one-sixth of the poor. In evaluating these data, it is important to bear in mind that almost all mentions of exposure to higher or lower classes entail an adjacent class only (data are not displayed here). In keeping with the graded nature of social classes, physical contact with classes more distant in status drops precipitously. Thus, the four classes differ primarily in the degree to which they are physically insulated from adjacent classes.

In comparing these data with those for race and gender, the shading-off in the pattern of class spatial segregation distinguishes it from the single line that divides the groups in the race and gender dichotomies. Even so, the amount of spatial segregation between classes is quite pronounced, especially when one considers that none of the classes approaches the relative size of the white population. Take, for example, the physical insulation experienced by the middle class in their neighborhoods. Fifty percent describe their neighborhoods as mostly middle class, but only a small minority (5.5 percent) report that their neighborhoods include residents from classes other than the two adjacent ones (the working class and the upper-middle class). The figure of 50 percent is substantially smaller than the 95 percent of whites saying their neighborhoods are all white or mostly white, but the insulation of the middle class from the poor (and from the upper class) is very similar to the insulation experienced by whites from blacks. Regarded in the same light, the physical insulation of the working class from higher classes is very similar to, or possibly exceeds, that experienced by blacks from whites. Recall that 67 percent of blacks describe their neighborhoods as all or mostly black: compare that with 68 percent of the working class who describe their neighborhoods as mostly working class, and with the fewer than 4 percent of the working class who report any upper-middle-class or upper-class presence in their neighborhoods. The physical insulation experienced by the two smaller classes, the upper-middle class and the poor, lags considerably behind, but still no more than about 15 percent of the upper-middle class and 24 percent of the poor report having residents in their neighborhoods from nonadjacent classes. Patterns of class spatial segregation are very similar for clubs and organizations.^[3]

[3] Patterns of class spatial segregation are generally duplicated among both white and black respondents, with one interesting exception—the class-neighborhood segregationexperienced by blacks and whites identifying with the middle class. Black middle-class respondents reported considerably less insulation from the poor and working class in their neighborhoods than did their white counterparts. Of the 43 black respondents identifying with the middle class, only 28 percent reported living in a neighborhood that was "mostly middle-class," and as many as 67.5 percent mentioned lower classes, either in combination with their own class or, more often, without any mention of their own class. Among the 755 whites identifying with the middle class, 51 percent described their neighborhoods as "mostly middle class," and only 37.7 percent made any mention of lower classes (usually in combination with their own class). These data help to explain those reported in Jackman and Jackman (1983), which showed that although the affective class bonds of poor and working-class blacks were very similar to those of their white counterparts, blacks identifying with the middle class tended to have stronger affective bonds to lower classes than to their own.

In an effort to ward off exhaustion among my respondents, I did not ask them to report the class composition of their schools, shopping districts, and work environments, but I would expect similar patterns of class segregation in those settings as in neighborhoods and clubs and organizations. Even in work settings where the chain of command dictates a certain degree of physical proximity between different roles for instrumental purposes, that proximity is mostly restricted to contiguous authority levels that may even lie within the same social class.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that spatial segregation along class lines has scored social life as deeply as it has along racial lines. This is clear if we consider the extent to which spatial segregation is manifested in family patterns. Families, especially extended families, are more likely to include people from different social classes than from both races. Intergenerational mobility has produced extended families that include people of varying socioeconomic standing, and sometimes that variation is sufficient to make for different class identifications (Jackman and Jackman 1983). At the same time, physical separation of classes in families is considerable, and is not to be likened to gender relations, where both the extended and the nuclear family bring the two groups into close proximity.

The Terms of Intergroup Contact: Role Segregation

Beyond the question of how much contact there is between groups lies the issue of the terms under which contact takes place. To what extent are distinctive roles assigned to groups that invest those groups with different prerogatives and levels of authority?

Because of the high physical proximity of men and women in most spheres of life, this issue is especially pertinent to gender relations, and there has been much empirical research on the pervasive effects of gender role prescriptions on the division of labor in the home and in the workplace (see, for example, Meissner et al. 1975; Walker and Woods

1976; Pleck 1977; Reskin 1984; Ross 1987). Of course, role prescriptions also condition the quality of interactions between social classes and races. For example, data presented in Jackman and Jackman (1983) suggest that there is fairly high consensus among Americans about what kinds of occupational roles belong to each of the social classes; in addition, they found that the varying degrees of authority that are vested in various occupational positions reinforce class distinctions. We also know that occupations at the lower rungs continue to be filled disproportionately by blacks, despite some lessening of racial role segregation in the labor market in the post-World War II era (Farley 1984). However, because of the restricted opportunities for contact between people from different classes or races, the role prescriptions associated with class and race do not have the heightened significance that they do for gender relations. It is only in the latter case that role prescriptions are reiterated in the routine, day-to-day practice of personal life. For these reasons, the data that I present here on role segregation focus primarily on the gender relationship. In tables 4.4 and 4.5, I present some simple information that gives us a glimpse into the workings of role segregation in gender relations, and to a lesser extent, in race relations.

Table 4.4 focuses on the manifestation of gender role segregation in domestic life. This arena of life is central to the division of resources between men and women, and it is the arena in which men and women find themselves repeatedly thrown into contact. Other studies have documented gender role segregation in the household more thoroughly than is possible in these data (e.g., Meissner et al. 1975; Walker and Woods 1976), but the figures in table 4.4 offer a good summary of the differential activities in which husbands and wives are engaged. The first two panels of the table have data on participation in the prescribed female tasks of housework and childcare, the next four panels focus on male breadwinner tasks, and the last panel addresses the domestic stature of husbands and wives.

To measure engagement in designated female tasks, respondents were asked how much of the housework was done by themselves, their spouses, children, and other paid or unpaid help; for each category of persons, response options were "All, most, about half, some, none or very little." The same question was asked about childcare. The measures that are reported in the first two panels of table 4.4 focus on the relative contributions made by husbands and wives. "Equal" contributions were defined generously, to include respondents who used adjacent response-options to describe the contributions of both spouses as well as those who gave identical responses for both spouses. Only about one-sixth of either husbands or wives described their contributions to housework as even approximately equal, and fewer than one-third described their rela-

tive contributions to childcare in this way. Married men appear slightly more likely to claim they make some contribution to domestic labor than married women are to perceive it, but the modal tendency of both is to see the wife as doing most of the household labor with the husband making minor contributions. The prescriptive rather than pragmatic basis of this division of labor is apparent when one observes the minuscule shifts that are achieved when wives join their husbands in the labor market outside the home (see, for example, Meissner et al. 1975; Walker and Woods 1976; Jackman and Jackman 1983; Ross 1987; Hochschild 1989).

To address engagement in the male side of the domestic role arrangement, the next four panels of table 4.4 present data on the continuity of labor-force participation of husbands and wives and their current time commitments to the wage-labor market. Respondents were asked for the total number of years they had worked and for the number of years their spouses had worked since they had been married. Continuity of respondents' labor-force participation was measured as the proportion of their adult lives (that is, between ages twenty-one and sixty-five inclusive) they had worked; continuity of spouses' labor-force participation was measured as a proportion of the years they had been married. Current time commitments to the labor market were measured in terms of the number of hours worked each week by the respondent and spouse, including both main and second jobs. These measures indicate married women's relatively marginal relationship with the wage-labor market. Although most married women had had experience in the labor force, fewer than one-fifth had participated in it without interruption, and well over half were not employed at the time of the survey. These figures contrast sharply with those for married men, among whom the modal experience is continuous, full-time employment. Women's marginal acceptance in the paid labor force is underscored when one considers the extent to which women in the labor force are found in a relatively narrow subset of occupations (Treiman and Hartmann 1981; Beller 1984; Reskin and Roos 1990). Research on occupations that have "turned" female suggests that occupations are more available to women when they are routinized, lack autonomy, and/or offer limited promotion opportunities (Strober 1984; Reskin and Roos 1987, 1990). Such occupations are less attractive to men, offer less financial remuneration, minimize job-market competition between men and women, and do the least violation to prevailing gender-role prescriptions and prerogatives.

Men's and women's distinctive rates of participation in domestic versus breadwinner roles should not be construed as a neutral, "separate-but-equal" arrangement. The unequal amount of authority vested in each role is plainly apparent in people's conceptions of who is the head of the

household. Respondents were asked, "Do you think of anyone here as the head of the household?" and, if so, to identify the person or persons. The overwhelming majority of currently married men and women identified the husband as the head of the household (70 percent of husbands and 82 percent of wives). Significantly, these figures are barely altered when both spouses are employed: 62 percent of men and 82 percent of women from such couples still identified the husband as the head of the household.

The issue of the differential authority conferred on different roles is pursued further in table 4.5. I discussed earlier how common understandings about the direction of authority in the chain of command at work condition interaction between various occupational levels in the workplace. Table 4.5 presents data on respondents' exposure to men and women and to whites and blacks at varying levels of responsibility in the workplace. These data underscore the point that information about the degree of spatial segregation tells only part of the story: exposure to different groups in the workplace is not necessarily benign since the quality of the exposure more often reinforces the unequal positions of the respective groups than it neutralizes or undermines them. In this respect, although the patterns of spatial segregation in the workplace by race and gender are somewhat different, the degree of positional segregation by race and sex is very similar.

Respondents who were currently employed were asked a series of three questions:

Are there any people with more responsible positions than you at the place where you work?

Are there any people with less responsible positions than you at the place where you work?

Are there any people at work in positions with about the same amount of responsibility as you?

If they answered "Yes" to any of those questions, respondents were asked several follow-up questions, including items on the racial and gender composition of the pertinent level of responsibility: "Which of the categories on this card best describes how many blacks and whites [men and women] are among the people with . . ."; the five response-options ranged from "All black" ["All women"] to "All white" ["All men"] as in the racial-and gender-composition items reported above.

For both gender and race, the existence of spatial and role segregation in the labor force constrains the amount of exposure people can have to people from other groups at any level of job responsibility. This factor is especially pronounced in limiting whites' exposure to blacks. However, in both cases, the likelihood of encountering members of the subordinate

group increases noticeably at lower levels of job responsibility. About one-half of employed men describe the authority levels that are higher than or the same as their own as being made up entirely of men, whereas only 28 percent describe lower levels of responsibility as all male. Among employed whites, 68 percent describe higher levels of responsibility as made up entirely of whites, 57 percent describe their own level as all white, and 46 percent describe lower levels as all white. Thus, although whites are more likely to be physically insulated from blacks than men are from women in the workplace, the relationship between level of job responsibility and degree of exposure is similar for both groups. Among both men and whites, there is a difference of 22–23 percentage points in the likelihood of exposure to members of the pertinent subordinate group at higher versus lower levels of job responsibility, and for men, there is the same distinction between their own and lower levels. If we flip the question around and look for the work situations that are most likely to expose dominant-group members to a larger proportion of sub-

ordinates, we find that over one-third of men report that women constitute one-half or more of those who occupy positions lower than their own, whereas only 11 percent of men report that degree of representation of women in positions higher than their own. Among whites, about 17 percent report that half or more of those at lower authority levels than their own are blacks, whereas only about 5 percent describe authority levels higher than their own as having half or more blacks.

These experiences have their counterpart on the subordinate side. Blacks are somewhat less insulated from whites than women are from men in the workplace, but both groups experience more exposure to dominant-group members at levels of responsibility higher than their own. Almost one-half of employed women report that those at higher levels of job responsibility are all or mostly men, whereas only 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively, describe the gender composition of their own or lower levels as so overwhelmingly male (these are differences of about 35 percentage points). Among employed blacks, about two-thirds describe higher levels of job responsibility as entirely or mostly white, whereas 26 percent and 20 percent, respectively, make this description of their own or lower levels (these are differences of about 39 and 45 percentage points).

In short, within the constraints set by role and spatial segregation in the labor force, both men and whites experience the least insulation from their respective subordinates when viewing those with less responsibility than themselves in the workplace. On the other side, subordinates are the least insulated from members of the dominant group when they observe those in positions of higher responsibility at work. These patterns are consistent with the prerogatives of advantaged or disadvantaged group membership.

The data in tables 4.4 and 4.5 have illustrated how the points of contact between unequal groups tend to be structured by rules that confer unequal prerogatives on the respective groups. Such rules invade the experiential quality of the relationship between men and women at a more personal and intimate level than is the case with either class or race relations.

Affiliative Behavior

The volume and quality of personal interaction across group lines can be seen as a product of both physical availability and role constraints. Spatial segregation and role segregation each creates barriers to personal interaction by preventing its occurrence, restricting the locations where it may occur, constraining the behaviors of the individuals concerned, or limiting the substantive content of interactions. In this section, I assess evidence of barriers that prevent or constrain the development of affilia-

tive ties across group lines in race, gender, and class relations. I begin by examining the frequency of informal interaction between members of different racial groups in the neighborhood and between members of different racial, gender, and authority groups in the workplace. I then compare the extent to which people's friends and acquaintances are contained within the boundaries of various groups. After considering those data, I evaluate the extent and quality of personal interactions across group lines in the conduct of each relationship.

Informal Interaction

Table 4.6 presents data on the frequency of personal, informal interaction across racial lines in the neighborhood and across racial, gender, and authority lines in the workplace. When people are exposed to members of other groups in those settings, how much

personal, informal interaction takes place? Measures come from a series of items. Respondents who had indicated that there were members of the other racial group in their neighborhoods were asked, "Do you and any of your black [white] neighbors ever do anything like talk informally over coffee or in the street, lend each other things, or help each other out with babysitting or chores?" To gauge informal interaction across group lines in the workplace, employed respondents who had indicated that there were any members of the other racial or gender group in their workplaces were asked, "Do you and any of the blacks [whites/women/men] at work ever have lunch together or talk informally over coffee about things not related to work?" This question was also asked with reference to people at higher, the same, and lower levels of job responsibility, if respondents had indicated there were such people in their workplaces. If respondents said "Yes" to any of these items, they were asked, "How often do you do this—very often or not too often?"

I begin with the first two panels in table 4.6, which present data on the frequency of informal interaction across racial lines in neighborhoods and workplaces. Observe that exposure to people of the other race is by no means a guarantee that any personal interaction will take place. However, interracial contact in the workplace is considerably more likely to lead to personal interaction than it is in the neighborhood. And a somewhat higher proportion of blacks than of whites report interacting with members of the other race in either setting. Only about one-quarter of whites who have black neighbors have ever chatted with them, and only 5 percent say they have done this often; in the workplace, almost two-thirds of whites have chatted over coffee or lunch with their black co-workers, and one-quarter say they have done this often. Over 40 percent of blacks have interacted with their white neighbors (and about 11 percent have done so frequently), and about three-quarters have interacted with their white co-workers (and over one-third have done so frequently).

These figures speak most directly to the issue of physical availability. Blacks are somewhat more likely to experience personal interaction with whites than vice versa because (since they are outnumbered by whites) they are more likely to find themselves in an interracial setting where the other group comprises a substantial proportion of those present. And intergroup contact in the workplace is more productive of personal interaction because (1) interracial workplaces are likely to involve a higher proportion of blacks than interracial neighborhoods, and (2) the workplace is a more finite locale that presents more opportunities for casual chit-chat than in the neighborhood. Neighbors whose homes do not lie immediately adjacent to one another may rarely or never cross each other's path (Festinger et al. 1950), whereas the organization of

work often encourages or necessitates some degree of personal interaction.

Of course, entrenched norms about racial separation may also intervene, creating a social reticence on both sides because of inexperience in such situations and anxiety about the likely outcome of personal interaction, even when whites and blacks find themselves in the same physical space. In this respect, the neighborhood may represent a more sensitive territorial bastion in which there are stronger psychological barriers to personal interaction across racial lines as well as fewer opportunities for such interaction. Data presented in Jackman and Crane (1986) show that whites' likelihood of interacting personally with the blacks in their neighborhoods or workplaces increases substantially both as the proportion of blacks who are present increases and when whites have previously had black neighbors or co-workers. This suggests that both present availability and past interracial experience work to break down barriers to personal interaction across racial lines.

The third panel of table 4.6 gives comparable figures for personal interaction between men and women in the workplace. The most noticeable thing about these figures is their strong similarity to those for racial interaction in the workplace. As many as 43 percent of men and 37 percent of women say they have never chatted over coffee or lunch with their co-workers of the other sex. These figures are notable because generalized physical avoidance has not been a factor in gender relations as it has in race relations in the past few decades. This suggests that the high level of personal interaction that exists between men and women within the context of family life is closely circumscribed. When women appear in male-dominated domains outside those bounds, personal interaction between the sexes appears subject to the same pressures as it does between the races.

The last panel of table 4.6 gives data on the informal interaction of respondents from the upper-middle, middle, and working classes with people at lower levels of responsibility at work, and of respondents from the middle class, working class, and poor with people at higher levels of responsibility at work. These data are not directly comparable with those for race and gender, because many of the cross-level interactions do not involve people from other classes, and few of them are likely to involve people from classes that are not proximate to one's own. The line of command at work is generally segmented, so that adjacent levels of responsibility often do not involve a shift in social class and they are most unlikely to involve nonproximate classes. For example, the factory lineworker and the foreman may both be considered working class or the foreman may be considered, at most, middle class; similarly, the supervi-

sor in the office is likely to be a member of the middle class, and those he or she supervises may be either middle class or working class.

Informal interaction with those at lower or higher levels of responsibility at work appears to be the prevailing experience of employed people from all social classes, with the possible exception of the poor (and we have no data on the upper class). Only a small minority of people from the upper-middle, middle, and working classes (between 7 and 19 percent) have had no informal interaction with those at different levels of job responsibility. It is only among the poor that an appreciable number (40 percent) say they have had no informal interaction with people at higher levels of job responsibility. The last figure should be treated with caution since it is based on an N of only 25 people, but it is plausible that the occupational roles filled by the poor are more socially isolating. Relations between other levels in the chain of command tend to be escorted by personal chit-chat and social niceties. Far from undermining the chain of command at work, such factors humanize immediate authority figures and thus make their authority on the job more personally compelling. Although this often does not involve people from different social classes and rarely involves people from nonadjacent classes, this pattern also works to segment and soften somewhat the physical and social gulf that separates classes that lie further apart.

Friends and Acquaintances

Tables 4.7, 4.8, and 4.9 present data on the restrictions that race, gender, and class impose on the development of friendships. Using a "Friends Sheet," respondents were asked to list the first names of all the people they considered their "good friends" and then to indicate the race, sex, and occupation of each friend. These questions were introduced in the interview as follows:

I would like to ask you some questions about the people you consider your good friends—by good friends I mean adults you enjoy getting together with at least once a month or so and any other adults who live elsewhere that you try to keep in close touch with by calling or writing.

Parents, spouses, and children were excluded from the sheet, in order to restrict it to affiliative behavior outside the immediate family. Eighty-eight respondents (4.6 percent) said they had no good friends; among those who did, the median number of friends was 6, with the highest emuneration of friends being 20.^[4] Following the questions about friends, respondents were asked, "Are there any other people you keep in touch with or get together with occasionally?"; if they said "Yes," they were

[4] The "Friends Sheet" and the data and composite measures derived from it are described in detail in Jackman and Jackman (1983, 173–178).

asked about the racial and gender composition of those acquaintance circles, with five response-options ranging from "All black [women]" to "All white [men]," as in the spatial-segregation items presented above. Again, the data for class are not directly comparable with those for race and gender, since they present friends' occupational status (in terms of the Duncan socioeconomic index) rather than their attributed class membership. However, we may conclude from the data in these three tables that the most severe social rift between groups exists in race relations, where spatial segregation has found its strictest application, whereas the rift is weakest in the gender relationship, where role segregation prevails. Class relations show a social rift as marked as that for race between highly disparate socioeconomic levels, but the rift is less marked between proximate socioeconomic levels.

Racial segregation in the social circles of whites and blacks is pronounced but lopsided in its experiential impact on the respective groups. Blacks are usually absent from whites' friendship circles and they appear among whites' acquaintances only somewhat more frequently. Fewer than 10 percent of whites include any blacks among their good friends, and in most cases the referent is a single black friend. Just over one-quarter of whites include blacks among their acquaintances, and in most of these cases "mostly white" is the way the acquaintances are described, which probably indicates only one black acquaintance or possibly two. Thus, although whites are almost twice as likely to include one or two

blacks among their acquaintances as among their more intimate friends, the penetration of blacks into either circle is very limited.

Blacks' social circles are less likely to be racially exclusive than are those of whites; again, because of whites' numerical advantage, there is an asymmetry in the degree to which each group penetrates the experiential world of the other. About 35 percent of blacks include whites among their friends, and these cases are almost as likely to involve two or more whites as they are to involve a single white. About one-half of blacks include whites among their acquaintances, and over 10 percent say that at least half of their acquaintances are white.

Table 4.8 presents the proportion of men's and women's friends and acquaintances who are of the same sex. People's social circles are considerably less segregated by gender than by race, but gender segregation is still fairly marked, especially in people's friendship circles. Because women's presence in men's friendship circles goes well beyond the minuscule number of blacks found in whites' circles, gender representation is measured in terms of the proportion of friends who are the same sex as the respondent, rather than the bare number.

Almost one-third of both men and women include no members of the other sex among their good friends, and the overwhelming majority have more friends of their own sex than of the other sex. This again suggests that the relatively high personal interaction experienced between the sexes in family life is somewhat circumscribed. Outside those

bounds, the close affiliative ties of men and women are more likely to involve their own sex. Interestingly, additional analyses (not presented here) indicate that men who are married are somewhat more likely than unmarried men to have friends who are exclusively or disproportionately of their own sex. For example, 33 percent of married men versus 19 percent of unmarried men have exclusively male friends. This pattern is not duplicated among women, but it suggests that, for men, once the business of finding a sexual mate is removed from the social agenda, men retreat somewhat from women's company outside the family. Sex segregation is less in evidence in acquaintance circles: about two-thirds of both sexes say that half or more of their acquaintances are of the other sex, and acquaintance circles that completely exclude the other sex are a rarity.

To assess the impact of class on the pattern of affiliative ties, I examine data on the socioeconomic status of respondents' friends. Respondents gave the occupation of each friend, and this information was used to assign a Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI) score to each friend. The SEI is an estimated prestige ranking of occupations that ranges from 0 to 96 (Duncan 1961). These data provide two different measures. First, I calculated the mean SEI score for the friends of each respondent, in order to have a summary measure of their socioeconomic composition. These mean SEI scores are broken into four categories, and the percentages of each class with friends in each category are presented in the first panel of table 4.9. Second, I calculated the average absolute size of the deviations of friends' SEI scores from that of the respondent (the respondent's score was based on the occupation of the head of the household), in order to measure the extent to which people have friends who are similar to them in socioeconomic status. The mean deviations are expressed in SEI points and are broken into five categories, ranging from very small mean deviations (10 SEI points or less) to large ones (30 points or more). The percentages of each class with friends in each category are presented in the second panel of table 4.9.

I begin with the first panel of table 4.9, which shows a marked association between the class of respondents and the average socioeconomic status of their friends. The percentage distributions of the upper-middle class and the poor are almost the obverse of each other, although the tendency of the poor to have low-status friends is somewhat more pronounced than the tendency of the upper-middle class to have high-status friends. Almost three-quarters of the upper-middle class have friends whose mean SEI scores fall in the top two categories (with 44 percent falling in the top category alone); and at the other end, only 5 percent of the upper-middle class have friends whose mean SEI scores fall in the lowest category. Among the poor, over 80 percent have friends whose

mean SEI scores are in the lowest two categories, with 44 percent falling in the lowest category alone. The figures for the middle and working classes fall in a gradual progression between the upper-middle class and the poor. Among middle-class respondents, almost two-thirds have friends whose mean SEI scores lie in the two middle categories, and of the two more extreme categories, their friends are more likely to be in the highest than the lowest. Among the working class, three-quarters have friends whose mean SEI scores lie in the two lowest categories, with the largest proportion (47 percent) falling in the second-lowest category.

The second panel of table 4.9 approaches the issue in terms of the status homogeneity of people's friends, and these data lend a similar picture to that suggested by the first panel. People from all social classes tend to have friends whose socioeconomic status resembles their own, although the pattern is loose rather than tight. Only about one-fifth to one-quarter of the people in any class have friends whose socioeconomic status is very close to their own (that is, within 10 SEI points), but about three-quarters of the upper-middle class and about 60 percent of each of the other classes have friends whose status lies within an average of 20 SEI points of their own.

The data in both panels of table 4.9 reinforce the picture of class

contact that was suggested by the class data in tables 4.3 and 4.6. People's friendship circles indicate considerable "bunching" of individuals with similar socioeconomic characteristics and a strong tendency for people of widely divergent socioeconomic status to lead separate social lives. However, this is obscured somewhat by the fact that classes lie in a graduated series rather than a dichotomy. The social circles of the upper-middle class and the poor rarely overlap, but in between lie the middle and working classes, whose own localized social tendencies work to segment the social ravine between the more disparate classes. This pattern is exacerbated by the fact that the specific location of the boundaries between classes is less rigidly specified than it is for race or gender, with the effect that social boundaries between the classes tend to fade into each other rather than being sharply marked by a single line.

Summary

As dominant-group members differentiate themselves socially from subordinates, they are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, differentiation is inevitable and necessary in practicing expropriation from subordinates. But on the other hand, social differentiation erects barriers to communication with subordinates, making it more difficult to integrate subordinates within the unequal relationship. In this chapter, I began by considering the distinctions between two major forms of intergroup differentiation—role (or social) segregation and spatial (or physical) segregation . I discussed the factors that shape the prevalence of one or the other form of segregation, the various manifestations that each form may take, the experiential impact of each, and the implications of each for communication patterns between groups.

Unequal relationships between groups are likely to embroil more than one type of social differentiation, but the specific form that prevails is conditioned by the functional mechanics of the expropriation that undergirds an intergroup relationship. Dominant groups practice exclusionary behavior within those constraints. When the functional mechanics of the expropriation require sustained, intimate contact between groups (as in gender relations), the dominant group develops a more highly elaborated system of role segregation to demarcate the boundaries between groups. When the expropriation involves a more aggregated use of subordinates, the dominant group turns to spatial segregation as the primary symbolic marker between groups.

Both role and spatial segregation may be implemented with greater or less scope and intensity, and each form of segregation has several faces. Role segregation may specify activities and occupations for each group, interpersonal behaviors (both within and across group lines), and

dress codes. In each area, role presciptions may be loose or strict, and they may have a narrow scope or a broad reach over different domains of social, economic, and political life. Spatial segregation may involve a fairly rudimentary physical separation of groups within common sites (as when whites and blacks were seated in different sections of the same buses in the Jim-Crow South), it may mean the allocation of each group to separate, sometimes adjacent, facilities, or it may entail the allocation of each group to different residential locations. Each of these elaborations steps up the physical distance between groups, and contemporary urban residential segregation in the United States has injected a spatial rift between whites and African Americans that is unprecedented in its scope and pervasiveness.

These different forms of segregation vary greatly in their experiential impact and in the opportunities they offer for communication between groups. The rigid application of role segregation produces ingrained expectations about appropriate personal behaviors and activities for the members of each group, and those expectations perpetuate status distinctions between the groups as their members interact with one another. In the close-knit relations between groups, there is ample opportunity for the members of the dominant group to reinforce those expectations on a daily basis. In systems of spatial segregation, restraints are not placed on the personal behaviors or activities of subordinates, but instead status boundaries are built into the allocation of space to each group. High symbolic value is attached to the physical separation of the groups and to the allocation of space to each group according to the desirability and material attributes of that space. Because subordinates are placed at a greater physical distance from the members of the dominant group, this complicates communication across group lines. Relations that rely on role segregation embed status distinctions in reiterated, personal, day-to-day interactions between individuals from each group. Relations that rely on spatial segregation, however, must turn to more impersonal, aggregated, and distal communications to reach subordinates who have been given the opportunity to draw more freely on the social resources of their own group.

In the second part of the chapter, I turned to a comparison of data on the structure of intergroup contact in the three cases in this study. Race, gender, and class relations were compared in terms of the physical insulation of groups, the degree to which intergroup contacts are conditioned by role prescriptions, and the amount of affiliative behavior across group lines. Those data offer some insight into the distinctive ways in which intergroup contact is structured in race, gender, and class relations. I summarize the most salient points about each intergroup relationship in turn.

Race

Race relations are marked by pervasive spatial segregation that has served to keep most whites socially insulated from blacks most of the time. At the same time, blacks experience less racial insulation than whites because the lapses in spatial segregation affect a larger proportion of the smaller black community. Interracial contact is also most likely to take place in situations in which blacks are a token presence among an overwhelmingly white majority. Thus, whites have been able to penetrate the black community to some extent while keeping the white community relatively insulated from blacks. In addition, the points of personal contact between whites and blacks are quite likely to be engraved with role prescriptions that uphold the white position of status dominance: for example, whites are more likely to encounter blacks at work as their status-inferiors than as their equals or superiors. Overall, whites' numerical dominance has afforded them the opportunity to insulate themselves from blacks without severing their communication lines with blacks commensurably. Nonetheless, whites' indulgence in pervasive residential segregation by race has resulted in their personal communication lines with blacks becoming much curtailed.

Gender

Gender relations are governed by role segregation more than spatial segregation, but the role prescriptions themselves generate some spatial segregation which, in turn, experientially reinforces the message carried in the role prescriptions. Within the bosom of the family, men have repeated opportunities to communicate personally with women, and the communication channels are nested in clear role positions that unobtrusively reaffirm the power differential between the two groups. In addition, women learn that their intimacy with men is circumscribed. In spheres of activity outside the conduct of family life, women experience a noticeable degree of spatial separation from men; and when they do enter male-dominated domains, they are likely to be assigned tasks that leave gender role prerogatives inviolate.

Class

Class relations are visibly marked by both role segregation and spatial segregation, although neither form of differentiation is specified as sharply as it is for gender and race, respectively. Classes perform different roles in the economic production of society, and the physical aggregation of those roles in industrial production has engendered considerable spatial segregation by social class, both in and out of the workplace. The social contacts experienced by the members of each class are centered in their own class and do not usually extend far beyond the boundaries of adjacent classes. Because the classes lie in a graded series rather than a dichotomy, and because the boundaries between classes are relatively ragged, the resulting pattern of class contacts is a seg-

mented one, with the contacts of each class centered on a different point and fading out over different spans.

Thus, in both the workplace and the conduct of social life, the wide chasm that separates the highest classes from the lowest is partially bridged, in segments, by the classes that lie in between. This does not afford the highest social classes the same direct, personal communication channels with the lowest classes that men have with women. At the same time, it means that the social rift between the top and bottom of the class structure, wide though it is, is sketched in ragged lines rather than being sharply engraved as it is between the races.

The Communication Grid

Race, gender, and class relations each present distinct patterns of intergroup contact. These differences have profound implications for the kinds of communication lines that are laid down in each case. In the next part of the book, I explore the intergroup ideologies that are articulated in the three intergroup relationships. We may then assess the extent to which the ideologies that groups espouse are shaped by the structure of their contact with their would-be protagonists.

PART III—
DIALOGUES OF DOMINANCE AND SUBORDINATION

Chapter Five—
Intergroup Feelings and the Definition of Group Interests

It is expedient to hate the adversary with whom one fights (for any reason), just as it is expedient to love a person whom one is tied to and has to get along with. . . . The mutual behavior between people can only be understood by appreciating the inner adaptation which trains in us feelings most suitable to a given situation. . . . By means of psychological connections, these feelings produce the forces which are necessary to execute the given task and to paralyze inner countercurrents.
George Simmel, Conflict (1955, 34)

Simmel's reasoning exemplifies the logic that has prevailed in the literature on intergroup attitudes—that love for our own and hatred for our adversaries are the natural pivots in one group's orientations toward another, providing the necessary energy for the conduct of their unequal relationship. I discussed that reasoning in Part I and found it wanting. I argued that the ongoing, relational basis of the inequality between groups demands that one must get along with rather than fight with one's "adversaries," and, indeed, it is problematic whether the other group will even be defined as an adversary. Ironically, this means that the feelings that dominant groups find "most suitable" to the "given situation" of their relationship with subordinates may not be hatred, but instead affection or at least temperance. These pressures should mitigate against the expression of disparity and hostility and instead draw the dialogue between groups toward more amicable declarations.

In this part of the book, I appraise the part played by hostility and affection in the shaping of the dialogue that takes place between groups who are bound together in different kinds of unequal relationships. Over the next few chapters, I will be examining data on different elements of the intergroup attitudes that accompany race, gender, and class relations in the United States.

I begin, in this chapter, at the most fundamental level: do contending, unequal groups express negative or positive feelings toward one another, and do they view their interests as adversary or unified? The character of intergroup feelings is basic because it sets the tone of the relationship between groups: before we can interpret any other elements of people's

intergroup attitudes, we need to delineate their emotional packaging. The perception of group interests tells us about the cognitive understandings that accompany intergroup feelings: do unequal groups believe they are separated by a deep divide in their interests or do they see each other as having a shared community of interests?

I start by assessing the differing meanings attached to intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests in traditional conceptions of prejudice, tolerance, and group consciousness. I then discuss problems involved in the measurement of intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests, for despite their intrinsic conceptual significance, these two elements have rarely been directly measured. With those issues in hand, I outline my approach to the meaning of intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests. The second part of the chapter proceeds with an examination of my data on these two key elements of intergroup ideology.

Two broad sets of questions govern that analysis. First, to what extent do the feelings expressed by dominant and subordinate groups reflect basic currents of hostility or warmth? How sharply do people express an affective preference for their own group, and how much is hostility a factor in their feelings toward the other group? How does the element of hostility vary across the three intergroup relationships, and is there any consistent tendency for the expression of hostility to come more from one side of a relationship than the other?

Second, to what extent are group interests defined in conflictive or integrative terms? Do the members of unequal groups tend to perceive existing social arrangements as serving the interests of all the affected groups, as serving the interests of the dominant group at the expense of subordinates, or as detrimental to the interests of all groups? How does this vary according to the nature of the intergroup relationship and the position of the group within that relationship?

Answers to these questions will uncover the elementary thrusts of the ideologies that distinguish race, gender, and social class relations in the United States. Are those ideologies framed, emotionally and perceptually, by a sense of disparity or unity between groups?

The Issues

Despite their centrality, intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests have had different specific meanings attached to them from one body of literature to another. That variation reflects two main factors: primarily, whether intergroup attitudes are thought to have a rational or an irrational basis; and second, different ideas about the natural attitudinal expression of rational or irrational forces. I briefly consider the

different ways that intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests have been treated in traditional conceptions of prejudice, tolerance, and group consciousness: as we move from one concept to the next, rationality assumes a larger presence. I then turn to measurement issues that have hampered the assessment of intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests. Finally, I discuss my theoretical approach, and I draw out the primary empirical questions that confront us.

Prejudice

Prejudice has usually been conceived as an intrinsically psychological phenomenon, in which negative feelings constitute the hot core. Recall that Allport's widely accepted definition of prejudice is "an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization" ([1954] 1979, 9). The centrality of negative feelings to the concept of prejudice has been restated many times (see, for example, Williams, Jr. 1947, 36–42; Harding et al. 1969, 3–6; Newcomb et al. 1965, 430–431; Simpson and Yinger 1972, 24; Berry and Tischler 1978, 235; Kinder and Sears 1981, 416; Pettigrew 1982, 1–5; Sniderman and Tetlock 1986, 186; Marger 1994, 74–75). The meaning attached to those feelings is somewhat different than in the literature on group consciousness. Most analysts of prejudice have paid almost exclusive attention to the attitudes of dominant-group members within a framework that seems to view all of the energy as coming from the members of the dominant group as they unleash their personality or cultural deficiencies on subordinate victims. Thus, the feelings that drive prejudice are not usually linked to the rational interests of a group within a relationship. Instead, things are seen as more of a one-way tirade: the members of the dominant group are the actors, and their feelings emanate from factors endogenous to their own ranks.

Within this perspective, negative intergroup feelings are seen as destructive, and theories have concentrated on how to change negative feelings into positive ones, in order to convert rejection into acceptance. In this endeavor, the locus of energy is clearly within the ranks of the dominant group: they initiate the hostility, and social change can only be accomplished by altering the emotional proclivities of dominant-group members toward subordinates.

And because intergroup feelings have not usually been linked with the tangible interests of the group, the way group members perceive their interests has not been regarded as critical in most analyses of prejudice. Of course, analysts in the realistic group-conflict school have argued that negative feelings are founded in a sense of threat that people feel vis-à-vis subordinates, and that sense of threat derives from their group's "realistic" interests (see, for example, LeVine and Campbell 1972; Bobo 1983; Giles and Evans 1986). Similarly, Sherif (1965) emphasized the

importance of establishing competitive or cooperative group interests in instigating or de-escalating intergroup hostility. The most common governing assumption, however, has been that it is not disparate interests that are ultimately responsible for dividing racial groups (see, for example, Allport [1954] 1979, 229–233), but rather that prejudice embroils an erroneous belief that the groups have incompatible interests. Thus, although analysts working on the effects of intergroup contact have repeatedly stipulated that contact situations must not contain competitive group interests if there is to be a positive effect on intergroup attitudes (see, for example, Williams, Jr. 1947; Wilner, Walker, and Cook 1955; Allport [1954] 1979; Amir 1969; Cook 1984; Miller and Brewer 1984), the import of that stipulation has been that policies designed to eradicate prejudice must be structured so as to expose the participants to the "common interests and common humanity" that exist between their own and the other group. In this way, policies may break down the artificial barriers that prejudiced people have erected between the groups (Allport [1954] 1979, 281; Wilner et al. 1955: 3–6).

Students of prejudice regard the antipathy that is the core of the concept as a complex puzzle. Some ambiguity hangs over the issue of whether negative feelings derive logically from "faulty and inflexible generalizations" that have been formulated in the absence of accurate information about a group or whether the faultiness and inflexibility of those generalizations are themselves conditioned by preexisting negative feelings (see, for example, the discussions of prejudice in Williams 1947, especially pages 40–41; and Allport [1954] 1979, chapters 1 and 2). Theories emphasizing personality or socialization factors (for example, Adorno et al.'s theory of the "authoritarian personality," 1950) have promoted the latter view. Theories focusing on personal contact with the object-group (for example, Wilner et al. 1955; Stephan and Stephan 1984) have put more emphasis on the idea that the initial negative beliefs derive primarily from ignorance but that once established they become the logical basis for negative feelings toward the object-group. Analyses done in the minimal-group paradigm (see, for example, Tajfel 1969, 1978; Brewer 1979) imply that antipathy toward other groups springs from cognitive and emotional biases that are elicited simultaneously by any intergroup situation, no matter what, or how flimsy, the basis of the division.

In any event, students of prejudice view negative feelings as a destructive force that is hurled upon subordinate groups and that must be eradicated in order to progress toward a more egalitarian society. Those feelings have sometimes been linked to the perception of disparate group interests, but since most students of prejudice regard such a perception as misplaced rather than rationally derived, the source of negative feelings

toward subordinates remains a puzzle—the solution to which holds the key to the problem.

Tolerance

Like other students of intergroup attitudes, analysts of tolerance have assumed that negative feelings toward other groups provide the motivational basis for negative behavioral dispositions toward those groups. However, those feelings are neither irrationally based, as most students of prejudice would have it, nor rationally escalatory, as students of group consciousness would have it. Instead of seeing the existence of negative intergroup feelings as a puzzle that needs to be solved (like students of prejudice) or as an ultimate state that needs to be attained (like students of group consciousness), analysts of tolerance have assumed that such feelings are a constant and unremarkable feature of relations among contending groups in democratic societies. This relegates both intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests to a latent, rather than an active, presence—they are neither the obstacle to intergroup harmony nor the key to constructive conflict.

Contending groups are assumed to represent different interests, and intergroup antipathy is regarded as a natural outgrowth of those differing interests. However, unlike students of group consciousness, students of tolerance do not seem to regard those contending interests as irreconcilable. Instead, they are committed to the utility of a continuing democratic choice among contending political alternatives. Thus, although they view intergroup antipathy as an inevitable outcome of social diversity, they also, like analysts of prejudice, view intergroup antipathy as destructive, or at least potentially so, rather than rationally constructive (see, for example, Stouffer 1955; Nunn, Crockett, and Williams 1978; McClosky 1964; Sullivan et al. 1982; McClosky and Brill 1983, chapter 1).

This line of thinking leads students of political tolerance away from any direct focus on the affective or perceptual boundaries that they assume exist between contending groups. Those boundaries are seen as potentially dangerous, but not subject to eradication. The pertinent empirical problem has been defined as how people learn to override their negative feelings toward contending groups and abide by "the rules of the game" that grant full civil and political rights to the groups they dislike. And because of a primary concern with the danger of a "tyranny of the majority," analysts have focused on the tolerance expressed by politically dominant groups toward "nonconformists" or other minorities.

The difficult attitudinal task of tolerance has been regarded as unattainable when intergroup antipathy is intense (Dahl 1956, especially 75–80; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1979, 1982). Mild feelings and

perceptions of intergroup disparity are regarded as optimal for the continuance of democratic procedures—enough to ensure a political choice but not enough to fragment society irreconcilably.

Group Consciousness

Analysts of group consciousness have viewed intergroup attitudes as rationally derived: groups are generally expected to espouse attitudes that are consistent with their interests. The class literature, in which the analysis of group consciousness is rooted, has implied this in drawing a clear link between the fundamental nature of socioeconomic inequality and the state of class consciousness. The primary concern has been the state of awareness of subordinate groups, with the question of dominant-group consciousness receiving less attention. The result has been a lack of clarity about what form a rational expression of dominant-group interests should take. This, in turn, has led to some confusion about subordinate attitudes: after all, the rational response of subordinates cannot be ascertained precisely without an understanding of the political reality that they confront. The literature on group consciousness offers several possible scenarios.

The picture that comes most immediately to mind is that of emotional and cognitive polarization between groups. This was the picture conveyed by Marx and Engels, as when they wrote in "The Manifesto of the Communist Party" ([1888] 1959, 8) that "the epoch of the bourgeoisie . . . has simplified the class antagonisms . Society is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps , . . . bourgeoisie and proletariat" (emphasis added). Marx's central thesis about the inevitability of increasing class polarization under capitalism rests on the expectation that as capitalism develops, it reveals its workings more and more sharply: the mutually opposed interests of exploiting and exploited classes become manifested unmistakably to both sides, and this engenders feelings of solidarity within groups and disparity and hostility between them.

Within this framework, two elements have been regarded as basic in identifying subordinates' level of consciousness. First, do they identify emotionally with their group and distance their feelings from the dominant group? Indeed, do they hold negative feelings toward those against whom they must fight for social change? Second, do subordinates perceive their group as an entity that has distinct interests that lie opposed to those of the dominant group and that cannot be served within the status quo? These two elements have been considered essential to a sense of "shared fate" that binds subordinates together in opposition to the dominant group (see, for example, Centers 1949, chapter 2; Landecker 1963; Morris and Murphy 1966; Olsen 1970; Oberschall 1978; Tilly 1978; Fireman and Gamson 1979; Gurin, Miller and Gurin 1980; Miller

et al. 1981). Thus, unlike most students of prejudice, analysts of group consciousness have viewed intergroup disparity and hostility as rational expressions of a group's interests that provide the necessary energy for conflict and change.

Although this general expectation provides the backdrop for the analysis of group consciousness, it is not clear how such a state is reached. In particular, there is disagreement about which side is expected to initiate the path to conflict. Some analysts have seemed to assume that subordinates routinely encounter hostility and derogation from dominant groups. This assumption has been especially prominent among those studying ethnic identification (see, e.g., Brand et al. 1974). Many such scholars appear to have accepted the prevailing viewpoint of the prejudice literature that dominant groups are unable to contain their irrationally founded negativism toward minority ethnic groups. Other scholars follow the assumption employed in the realistic group-conflict school that the negativism of dominant groups is the rational expression of their privileged interests. In either case, the issue has been whether subordinates can distance themselves sufficiently to develop a positive sense of group identity in the face of that derogation, assert their interests, and counter with hostility for hostility. Whether or not the presumed negativism of dominant groups is thought to have a rational basis, signs of intergroup negativism among subordinates are interpreted as a constructive and rational response to the barrage that they receive from the dominant group.

Many analysts, however, have argued that it is in the interests of those in command to mask their privileged receipt of benefits. To that end, dominant groups are expected to represent their interests in universalistic terms as being at one with those of society as a whole (see, for example, Marx and Engels [1846] 1970; Dahrendorf 1959, 280–289; Genovese 1968; Parkin 1971, chapter 3; Gramsci 1971; Huber and Form 1973; Giddens 1979, 193–197). This changes the nature of the task for subordinates, putting the onus on them to raise the voice of disparity.

The manifest appeal of universalism to dominant groups, with the self-satisfaction and integrated view of life that it provides, is illustrated in the following excerpts from two essays by Stringfellow in Eliott's collection of proslavery arguments (1860). Tracts such as these show the seemingly boundless breadth of the claims that can be made by a system's beneficiaries about the universality of those benefits.

It is or ought to be known to all men, that African slavery in the United States originated in, and is perpetuated by a social and political necessity, and that its continuance is demanded equally by the highest interests of both races. . . . The guardianship and control of the black race, by the

white, in this Union, is an indispensable Christian duty, to which we must as yet look, if we would secure the well-being of both races. (Stringfellow 1860a , 521)

The facts which have been reviewed prove with equal clearness, that where slavery exists, the white race, and the black, have prospered more in their religious, social and moral condition, than either race has prospered, where slavery has been excluded. We see that an increased amount of poverty and wretchedness has to be borne in New England by both races. Ecclesiastical statistics will show an increased amount of prosperity in religion that is overwhelming.

Such is the prostration of moral restraint at the North, that, in their cities, standing armies are necessary to guard the persons and property of unoffending citizens, and to execute the laws upon reckless offenders. This state of things is unknown in the slave States.

The census shows that slavery has been a blessing to the white race in these slave States. They have prospered more in religion, they have more homes, are wealthier, multiply faster, and live longer than in New England, and they are exempt from the curse of organized infidelity and lawless violence.

A comparison of the slave's condition at the South, with that of his own race in freedom at the South, shows with equal clearness, that slavery, in these States, has been, and now is, a blessing to this race of people in all the essentials of human happiness and comfort. Our slaves all have homes, are bountifully provided for in health, cared for and kindly nursed in childhood, sickness, and old age; multiply faster, live longer, are free from all the corroding ills of poverty and anxious care, labor moderately, enjoy the blessings of the gospel, and let alone by wicked men, are contented and happy. (Stringfellow 1860b , 538–539)

With such arguments as these, dominant groups promote their own cause without stooping to the level of appearing self-interested. Their appeal is made in the name of moral righteousness, and at the same time, the potentially damaging issue of group interests is neutralized.

This implies that, if there is to be conflict, it is subordinates who initiate it. The way that subordinates respond to dominant claims of universalism, however, has been the subject of some disagreement. One argument has been that the political task of subordinates is to reveal the mutually opposed interests that divide the groups and to withdraw their emotional support from the modus vivendi. Dominant groups prefer to deny that there are opposed group interests, but they are eventually forced to accept that interpretation as a result of the concerted political efforts of subordinates. Indeed, Mannheim (1936, 229-235) has argued that dominant groups remain blissfully unaware of their special interests until the matter is rudely brought to their attention by subordinates. Appealing as it may be to view the world from which one benefits as one happy

family, this view may become increasingly difficult to maintain when confronted with repeated shrill denials of happiness from the other "family members."

Another well-known argument is that when subordinates mount a challenge, they are as liable as dominant groups to opt for the language of universalism. That was the argument made by Marx:

Each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class , not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society. (Marx and Engels 1970, 65–66)

This suggests that both established and insurgent groups avoid characterizing society in terms of narrow, adversary interests, as they make competing claims to be the sole representatives of the common good. In this vein, Gamson (1968, 53–54) has argued that all contending solidary groups tend to represent their interests in universalistic terms. Indeed, if dominant groups eschew hostile assertions of their own interests and instead claim that current arrangements are to everyone's benefit, this may condition the moral framework so that any challenge is also couched in universalistic rather than "selfish" terms. In that spirit, socialist doctrine claims that redistributive measures would benefit the well-being and fulfillment of all elements of society, not just the working class, and the liberal doctrine of racial integration depicts segregation as a universal evil that works to the cultural detriment of whites as well as African Americans.

Other analysts have argued that subordinates' responses to the universalistic claims of dominant groups fall short of any outright challenge. Subordinates grapple with the reality of their day-to-day experience juxtaposed against the constant ideological onslaught of the dominant group. As they cope with these inconsistent stimuli, they may succumb to abstract representations of dominant ideological principles but formulate concrete micro-interpretations that are more in keeping with their personal experience (Mann 1970; Parkin 1971, chapter 3; Huber and Form 1973, chapter 9; Abercrombie et al. 1980, 140-155).

For scholars committed to a conflict perspective, subordinate attitudes that do not display some form of challenge are characterized as "false consciousness" (see, for example, Mills 1946; Mann 1970). As I discussed in chapter 1, this phenomenon poses an awkward puzzle for such analysts. Indeed, this is the only point at which students of group conscious-

ness have toyed with the idea of irrationally founded attitudes. A distinction is drawn between what people in a group "ought" to think and what they do think—a distinction that is rather tenuous, especially within a general framework that presupposes rationality in people's intergroup attitudes.^[1] Indeed, this line of explanation credits the dominant class with a rational pursuit of its interests, as it dupes the masses with a glossy picture of the status quo: it is only subordinates who, in allowing themselves to be duped, fail to demonstrate the rational awareness of their condition that is so urgently expected of them. Thus, in the attempt to define away the empirical problem of the lack of any sharp political challenge among subordinates, some conflict-oriented scholars have cut into the very building-block on which the expectation of conflict rests—that is, the assumption that individuals comprehend and respond rationally to the conditions that they experience. Analysts have attempted to resolve the contradiction by relegating false consciousness to the status of a temporary lapse over which rational political organization will eventually triumph, but the ideas that I have reviewed do not offer any sound basis for expecting the development of such an organization from grassroots that are so devoid of rational consciousness.

This is especially true of the literature on cultural hegemony, which represents the most sustained attempt to grapple with the issue of false consciousness. Marx and Engels' famous discussion in The German Ideology provides the basis for ideas on hegemony: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch, the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force in society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force" (Marx and Engels 1970, 64). Building on that argument, Gramsci (1971) posited a process whereby the dominant group gains the consent of subordinates by infiltrating their system of values. Williams gives a good description of the process:

[Hegemony is] an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations, informing with its spirit all taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles, and all social relations, particularly in their intellectual and moral connotations. (Williams 1960, 587)

From this perspective, dominant groups succeed in imposing a single interpretation of social reality, in which all parties embrace the status quo as representing the common interest. Genovese has argued that

[1] See Mann (1970) for an interesting attempt to make an empirical determination of "false consciousness." Ultimately, however, the "falseness" of someone's consciousness is a definitional rather than an empirical problem, resting on prior assumptions about what someone's "true" interests are (see Connolly 1972) and about the rational course of action to pursue those interests.

hegemony depends on much more than consciousness of economic interests on the part of the ruling class and unconsciousness of such interests on the part of the submerged classes. The success of a ruling class in establishing its hegemony depends entirely on its ability to convince the lower classes that its interests are those of society at large—that it defends the common sensibility and stands for a natural and proper social order. (1968, 407)

The idea of cultural hegemony poses a contradiction within the conflict framework. In order for hegemony to work, subordinates must be relatively passive ideological consumers, which makes them improbable agents of ideological challenge. Subordinates are left wallowing in a state of false consciousness without any structural process being posited that might counter the effects of hegemony and instigate the path to emotional and perceptual estrangement from the status quo.^[2] At the same time, conflict scholars continue to uphold such estrangement as the catalyst for a political initiative to attain a more egalitarian society, and thus it is seen as the ultimate rational course for subordinates.

Measurement Issues

Despite their pivotal conceptual status, intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests have rarely been measured directly in analyses of prejudice, tolerance, or group consciousness. Direct measurement of intergroup feelings has largely been confined to the "thermometer scales" used in the National Election Studies (NES 1952–1990 Cumulative Data File Codebook), and those measures have been employed occasionally to make rudimentary assessments of feelings toward other social groups or one's own group in studies of prejudice or group consciousness (see, for example, Campbell 1971; Jackman 1978; Gurin, Miller, and Gurin 1980; Miller et al. 1981; Bobo 1983).^[3] Direct measurement of the perception of group interests is even more unusual; a rare example is found in Landecker (1963).

[2] Gramsci was writing as a political activist as much as an analyst, and his interest in the concept of hegemony appears to have been motivated in large part by the implications it held for the Communist party political agenda. His ideas about cultural hegemony led him to advocate that, in order to accomplish a complete overthrow of capitalism, in all its manifestations, it was essential to foster a working-class cultural hegemony (Williams 1960; Cammett 1967, 204–206; Anderson 1976). However, as Scott (1985, 316) has observed, it is difficult for the analyst to divine how, given one hegemony, there can simultaneously be the latitude to cultivate a counter-hegemony: the two ideas are logically inconsistent.

[3] The community studies conducted by Williams, Jr. (1964, 280–281) included a rare, early attempt to measure blacks' feelings toward whites directly. Two items were used: "Sometimes I hate white people [agree/disagree]," and "In general, how friendly or unfriendly are your feelings toward whites? Would you say you are very friendly, fairly friendly, rather unfriendly, or not friendly at all?" The first of these items was used again by Paige (1972) in a study of blacks' racial attitudes in the 1960s.

The minimal measurement of these concepts is paradoxical, but it is probably attributable to the compounding of two factors. First, ironically, assumptions about these phenomena have been so deeply embedded in various conceptual positions that there has not been much pressure to measure them directly: their importance has been so confidently assumed that empirical validation has rarely entered the research agenda. Students of prejudice and group consciousness have assumed that people's emotional dispositions toward other groups are artlessly manifested in every aspect of their intergroup attitudes, especially in stereotypical attributions of personality traits, social-distance dispositions, and policy views. Meanwhile, students of tolerance simply assumed that people's feelings toward minority groups were negative—and they then concentrated on measuring people's policy dispositions toward a group to assess whether they had attained a state of political tolerance (see, for example, Stouffer 1955). Inferences about people's perception of group interests have frequently been made in studies of class consciousness, but those inferences have generally been drawn from measures of people's policy views—it was presumed that the latter constituted a clear reflection of the perception of group interests.

Second, those proclivities have been compounded by the fact that intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests are relatively difficult to measure directly. Analysts have found other attitudinal elements, such as stereotypes, social-distance dispositions, and policy views, more susceptible to measurement. The inclination to measure indirect manifestations of the attitudinal core rather than the core itself was perhaps encouraged by the influence of Freudian thinking among some early empirical researchers. Some researchers felt that direct measures of people's feelings in particular would be invalid because respondents would be unable to retrieve or reflect clearly on such a deeply embedded and sensitive matter. This kind of concern is apparent in the widely influential California F-scale, whose creators (Adorno et al. 1950) deliberately relied on projective rather than direct questions. But one does not need to be a Freudian to acknowledge the difficulties that confront the survey researcher in measuring intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests.

Feelings are intrinsically nonverbal, and our culture gives us little experience in articulating our feelings verbally. In our everyday efforts, we usually find speech a clumsy instrument to convey the rich texture of felt emotions, and we often rely on nonverbal cues (posture, facial expression, tone of voice, body movements) to transmit the emotional coloration of our words. We may expect, then, that people would find it difficult to retrieve and convey their feelings in the somewhat stilted verbal back-and-forth of the survey interview.

The perception of group interests presents fewer intrinsic measurement difficulties, but because public political discourse rarely portrays political issues explicitly in those terms, the mass public is unschooled in the concrete attribution of group interests. Thus, they may have trouble understanding or responding to questionnaire items that ask about the specific policy interests of their own and other groups, because they are unused to the process of sizing up social life explicitly in that light.

These various difficulties are substantial, but not insurmountable. Indeed, it is essential to develop direct measures of these phenomena if we are to develop more specific expectations about their place in the mapping of intergroup attitudes. I return to these issues when I present my measures in the Data section below.

An additional consideration has probably discouraged researchers from measuring feelings toward social groups especially, and that is concern about social desirability pressures. On a topic as sensitive and personal as one's feelings toward social groups, some researchers may feel that respondents would be reluctant to reveal themselves openly, especially when asked about groups that have been the topic of heated public-policy debate. The potential for social desirability pressures must be respected in designing survey items on sensitive issues, but the significance of such pressures may have been overestimated.

Evidence suggests that people tend to assume that others hold similar views to their own (Schuman and Kalton, 1985, 655), a phenomenon that has been termed "looking-glass perceptions" (Fields and Schuman, 1976) or the "false consensus effect" (Ross, Greene, and House, 1977). Although that may seem surprising, most people are caught up in their own networks of information and experiences: because their own feelings and opinions have been formed within that context, they generally find that their own reactions are consistent with those of others in their social environment. This leaves them unself-conscious about their own reactions. Individuals whose feelings and opinions are out of step with the normative proclivities of their group might be expected to be especially susceptible to social-desirability pressures, but such people generally come from pockets that have been bypassed by the primary information channels that flow through the group, and hence they may also be oblivious to the "social undesirability" of their views. In other words, the same factors that shaped their unusual reactions also buffer them from an acute awareness of their unusual nature. Thus, for example, Fields and Schuman (1976) report that only 2 percent of Detroit whites believed that white and black children should be prevented from playing with one another even at school, but this tiny minority believed overwhelmingly that their own attitude was shared by the majority of Detroit whites. And even when people are aware that their feelings are in the minority

for their group, it is probably more compelling to them that others in their local network share their reactions than are the relatively distant reactions of others who lie outside their day-to-day lives.

On a more fundamental level, the concept of social desirability is less straightforward than it first seems. The problem is that if social desirability exerts pressure on how people reveal themselves, it may not be a narrow problem of measurement error confined to the survey interview, but a general phenomenon affecting the way people express their attitudes to their friends and associates, and even affecting the way they form those attitudes in the first place. If attitudes are seen primarily as the personal, private property of individuals, it is somewhat easier to conceive of pressures outside the individual as a contaminant. If, however, we see intergroup attitudes as being shaped by the exigencies and information that emanate from the group, the notion of the culture of the group exerting an extraneous pressure on its individual constituents' attitudinal expressions no longer makes sense. My argument is that people do not develop their attitudes independently and then lie about them when they believe they are out of step with the predominant cultural values of the group. Instead, the individual's attitudes are acquired without originality from the array provided by the group, and that array is itself shaped by the pressures to which the group is subject: in this unself-conscious process, the distinction between private dispositions and public ones becomes more difficult to maintain. Thus, although it is essential to construct measures that minimize any artifactual pressures in the interview situation itself, the notion of social desirability is not necessarily a simple issue of measurement alone, but entails broader questions about the forces that shape the attitudes we are trying to measure.

Dispensable Hostility

All the arguments I have outlined from past literature on prejudice, tolerance, and group consciousness pivot, for different reasons, on the notion of intergroup disparity and hostility. But I contend that dominant groups, far from having negative feelings toward subordinates, gravitate toward positive, or at least neutralized emotional dispositions. By the same token, I expect dominant groups to maintain an integrated view of the interests of their own and subordinate groups. If this is correct, it changes the nature of the game dramatically from any of the scenarios that have framed past discussions.

First, it means that subordinates do not have to distance themselves from the dominant group in order to have positive feelings about themselves. Second, it means that if subordinates are to take a hostile disposition toward the dominant group, they cannot simply reciprocate with venom for venom. Instead, it is incumbent upon them, from their weaker

political position, to renounce amicable feelings and inject hostility into the relationship—a dangerous game, since the dominant group has the resources to reciprocate more than generously. Third, if the amicability of the dominant group is packaged with an interpretation of social reality that binds the interests of the groups together, subordinates may have a difficult time prying those two items apart, and thus the acceptance of the amicability carries a price tag.

I assume that groups gravitate to an ideology that is rationally consistent with their interests. But I also assume that the rational actor does not naively pursue goals on the basis of their desirability alone, but is sensitive to constraints. Occasional mistakes and miscalculations are to be expected, but groups do learn from their mistakes. Most of the time, the articulated attitudes of unequal groups reflect responses that strive to maximize their control over resources within the conditions that they confront . This does not lead me to expect a great deal of hostility from either side of an intergroup relationship. Indeed, even the literature on group consciousness, for all its endorsement of intergroup hostility as the ultimate rational outcome, does not specify an avenue by which such hostility may be realized. None of the ideas articulated in that literature can be reconciled with the expectation of an eventual conflict, such as that envisioned by Marx and Engels, in which both sides attain an understanding of their mutual relationship and draw a sharp affective boundary between each other.

If, as many students of group consciousness have argued, dominant groups are engaged in establishing the common interest as the moral guideline, it would seem more in keeping for them to espouse the spirit of friendship toward subordinates than to adopt hostile feelings toward them. It is not in the interests of the dominant group to introduce or encourage feelings of hostility because that would (1) expose the inequality in the harshest possible light, and (2) remove their most potent weapon of social control—the offer of amicable relations, on their terms. On subordinates' part, it is hard to see how they can break completely free of such a sticky moral framework and push it to one of sharp mutual disparity and hostility.

At the same time, the totality of the concept of hegemony seems too unyielding and unidirectional to take account of the varying opportunities that different kinds of unequal intergroup relationships offer for dominant groups to invade the perceptions and feelings of subordinates. Subordinates are not passive recipients of dominant ideology, and their frame of mind is much affected by the opportunities that are afforded them to alienate their thinking from that of the dominant group. The dominant group, in turn, is sensitive to the kinds of communication channels that are available and attentive to the mood of the group over

which it seeks to maintain control. In other words, the thinking on both sides responds to the specific constraints that are presented.

In relations that are structured with frequent personal contact across group lines, dominant groups have more opportunity to infiltrate the lives of subordinates. Under these circumstances, there are escalated costs to individual subordinates of emotional and cognitive estrangement from the prevailing arrangements. When relations are structured more distally, warm intergroup feelings are more difficult for the dominant group to maintain and less personally costly for subordinates to abandon—but even here, there is good reason for the dominant group to strive to avoid disparity and for subordinates to approach it with circumspection.

To begin to address these issues, we need to delineate the emotional and perceptual currents that flow back and forth from one group to another in different intergroup relations. Three pieces of information are central. First, is there an emotional rift between one group and another, such that the members of each group feel emotionally attached to their own and separated from the other group(s) in the relationship? In other words, is there a sense of affective solidarity within groups and disparity between them? Second, to what extent is hostility present in people's feelings toward the other group(s) in the relationship? The degree of affective differentiation between groups and negative feeling directed toward the other group(s) represent the two elementary pieces of information that we need to assess one group's emotional disposition toward another. How those dispositions are exchanged between unequal groups throws light on their use and meaning in the interplay of dominance and subordination. Of particular importance is the question of which group—dominant or subordinate—seems more wedded to intergroup amicability or further advanced into the realms of hostility. Third, how do the contending groups define their interests? Do dominant groups tend to portray status quo arrangements as being in the common good, or do they identify distinct group interests? Do subordinates accede to the views of the dominant group? And if they mount a challenge, what form does it take? As we examine the admixture of feelings and perceptions that characterize race, gender, and social class relations, we can identify the place of hostility and amicability in the conduct of different kinds of unequal relations.

Data:
Intergroup Feelings

I begin by examining the intergroup feelings that characterize race, gender, and class relations. After describing my measures, I examine the

data for each intergroup relationship, in turn, and I then draw out the general patterns across the three cases.

Measures

I measured people's feelings toward their own and other groups with two sets of questions that were contained in a booklet that respondents filled out privately during the interview. Interviewers introduced the booklet as follows:

The questions in this booklet ask about various feelings people might have toward different groups. On the first page, you are asked generally how warm or cold you feel toward different groups. The warmer you feel toward a group, the higher the number you should select from the scale at the top of the page. The colder you feel, the lower the number you should select. Don't feel you have to spend a lot of time on this. Again, we're just interested in your first reactions.

Interviewers were instructed to hand the booklet and a pencil to the respondent, to busy themselves with other tasks while the respondent filled out the booklet, and to put the booklet in an envelope when the respondent handed it back.

On two separate pages in the booklet (back to back) were two sets of questions of the following form:

In general, how warm or cold do you feel toward ———?

In general, how close do you feel to ———?

The stimulus-objects were poor people, working-class people, middle-class people, upper-middle-class people, upper-class people, women, men, blacks , and whites , in that order for the warm/cold questions, and rearranged as gender, race, and then class groups for the closeness questions. For both sets of questions, subordinate groups preceded dominant groups as stimulus-objects within each relationship, so that respondents would use subordinate groups as the anchor. The scales that accompanied these questions at the top of the page were marked in single digits from 1 to 9 going across the page: 1 was identified as VERY COLD and NOT AT ALL CLOSE for the respective sets of questions, 5 was identified as NEITHER COLD NOR WARM or NEITHER ONE FEELING NOR THE OTHER, 9 was identified as VERY WARM or VERY CLOSE, and the other numbers were left unmarked.

These questions are modeled, with several modifications, on the thermometer questions used repeatedly in the National Election Studies conducted by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan (NES 1952–1990 Cumulative Data File Codebook). Like the thermometer items, these questions rely on

numbers rather than words as the vehicle to communicate feelings, thereby avoiding the difficulty that respondents might have in using words to articulate their feelings accurately. The use of numbers seems to require a less complex transliteration of a nonverbal phenomenon. The thermometer scale relies on the analogy with a thermometer to assist the respondent, but I used a shorter numerical scale because I feared that the use of 100 points might convey an expectation of precision that would lead the respondent to become more self-conscious and guarded. A relatively crude numerical scale, with higher numbers corresponding in the intuitively easiest way with warmer or closer feelings, should maximize respondents' ability to express their feelings with as little self-consciousness as possible.

The questions have four features to alleviate possible social-desirability pressures. First, and most important, the presentation of the questions in a self-administered booklet made people's responses private from the interviewer, thus removing the most immediate potential stimulus for social-desirability responses. It is hard to assess how much or what the respondent assumes about the attitudes of the female stranger who interviews him or whether the respondent cares, but whatever pressures exist to impress another should be more potent when face-to-face with a live person than vis-à-vis an anonymous researcher at the other end of a computer somewhere. Second, reliance on numbers rather than words for responses avoids the social overtones that adhere to many words associated with emotions. By intercepting responses without using the language of social discourse, any pressures stemming from that source are kept more at bay. Third, by asking respondents about their feelings toward each group separately, they are spared the invidious task of drawing explicit comparisons between different groups. Although comparisons are still implied in the sets of questions (and are of primary interest in our analysis), they are broached with more delicacy than would be the case with explicit comparisons. This, too, should make respondents more relaxed in answering the questions. Finally, I used balanced questions with graduated response-options in order to avoid loading the questions in one direction or the other.

In their content, my measures focus on the two affective responses that are most fundamental to discussions of intergroup attitudes—feelings of like or dislike, and feelings of closeness or distance. Although the former presents clear positive and negative poles (warm versus cold), the latter has no clearly negative pole but instead strikes at the degree of affinity someone feels for her own and other groups. These two kinds of feelings are very similar, but their particular nuances may elicit subtle differences. In particular, if people tend to avoid the expression of hostility, they may be more inclined to give responses that suggest a feeling of closer

affinity to their own group than an outright preference for their own group on a positive-negative dimension.

With both kinds of feelings, I am interested in two aspects of their expression. First, and most important, I gauge the extent to which affective boundaries are drawn between groups. Are groups solidified by emotional bonds within ranks and ruptured from other groups by affective disparity? This is measured by examining the difference between the feelings respondents express for their own group and for the other referent group. Each respondent's warmth- or closeness-score for the other group was subtracted from her score for her own group. With 9-point scales, difference-scores could range from +8 (strong preference for one's own group) through 0 (same score for both groups) to –8 (strong preference for the other group).^[4] These scores are collapsed into three categories in tables 5.1 (for race), 5.3 (for gender), and 5.5 (for class), to show the percentages of each group who (1) feel warmer or closer to their own group, (2) do not differentiate in their feelings toward the two referent groups, and (3) say they feel warmer or closer to the other group.

Second, I look behind the issue of affective differentiation at the absolute level of feeling respondents express for other referent groups. This gauges the way their emotional dispositions toward other groups are cast. The 9-point scales for warmth and closeness were each collapsed into three categories: negative feelings (scores of 1–4), neutral feelings (score of 5), and positive feelings (scores of 6–9). Those data are presented in tables 5.2 (for race), 5.4 (for gender), and 5.6 (for class).^[5]

Results

For each intergroup relationship, there are two tables presenting data on, first, the affective boundaries that lie between groups and, second, the degree to which hostility or affection is the emotional currency that is being tendered. I examine race, gender, and class, in turn, before drawing out general patterns.

Race

Race relations present our best evidence for reciprocated hostility between groups. Even here, however, the hostility is muted. Table

[4] The difference-scores for warmth and closeness are highly correlated. The Pearson's r's (with missing data excluded) are as follows: for race, .77; for gender, .59; and for class, they range from .42 to .67 across the ten possible class comparisons.

[5] In tables 5.1 through 5.6, respondents with missing data or who said "don't know" are excluded. Such respondents comprised about 3–5 percent of the total sample on any given measure.

5.1 presents the percentages of whites and blacks making different kinds of affective distinctions between the races, as well as the mean difference-scores for each group. Table 5.2 presents the percentages of whites and blacks expressing negative, neutral, or positive feelings toward each other, along with the mean warmth and closeness scores.

Whites and blacks almost mirror one another in the affective distinctions they draw along racial lines. No blacks and virtually no whites express greater warmth or closeness toward the other racial group: affective differentiation ranges from neutrality to preference for one's own group. In feelings of closeness, own-group preference predominates, with about 60 percent of both whites and blacks saying they feel closer to their own group.^[6] In terms of warmth, where the scale contains a clear negative pole, there is a little more reticence about expressing a preference for one's own group, especially among whites: 45 percent of whites and 56 percent of blacks feel warmer toward their own racial group.

Expressions of own-group preference are unlikely to be fulsome, however, on either side, and whites are especially inclined to confine their expressions of preference to modest levels. More detailed data for the uncollapsed scales (not presented here) indicate that about half of the whites who express a preference for their own group on either scale are drawing a distinction of only one or two points, and the percentages drawing larger distinctions drop off rapidly. Blacks are just as unlikely to draw gaping distinctions (that is, to have difference-scores of 5–8

[6] Middle-class blacks are slightly more likely than blacks in the poor and working class to say they feel closer to their own race. In the poor and working class, blacks express about the same degree of own-race preference as do whites, but in the middle class, 72 percent of blacks and 64 percent of whites say they feel closer to their own race.

points), but they are a bit more inclined to draw moderately large distinctions: about 80 percent of the blacks who prefer their own racial group have difference-scores of 1–4 points, with differences of 3–4 points occurring with about equal frequency to differences of 1–2 points.

When we look at the absolute feelings that are exchanged between groups (table 5.2), we find that outright negative feelings are expressed by a minority on either side. However, negativism is a little more likely to be expressed in terms of not feeling close than in terms of feeling cold toward the other group, and it is found more among whites than among blacks. Among whites, as many as 25 percent say they feel cold toward blacks and 39 percent say they do not feel close to blacks. Among blacks, only 14 percent say they feel cold toward whites and 20 percent say they do not feel close to whites.^[7] The balance of responses is titled slightly toward neutral expressions among whites and slightly toward positive expressions among blacks. The result is that among whites, professions of warmth still slightly outweigh professions of coldness toward blacks, but expressing a lack of closeness outweighs some degree of closeness by about two to one; among blacks, positive dispositions outweigh negative ones by more than three to one in terms of warm versus cold and by more than two to one on the close/not-close dimension.

The data in tables 5.1 and 5.2 indicate that whites and blacks roughly mirror each other in an exchange of muted hostility. Blacks are somewhat more likely than whites to express a preference for their own group, but a larger minority of whites invokes negative feelings toward the other

[7] Black women express a little more negativism than do black men in their feelings toward whites: 6.5 percent of black men and 17.2 percent of black women say they feel cold toward whites; 8.1 percent of black men and 25.6 percent of black women say they do not feel close to whites.

group. These small differences aside, the prevailing feelings on both sides range from neutrality to restrained affective disparity.

Gender

The affective character of gender relations contrasts sharply with that of race relations. Although men and women also tend to mirror each other's feelings, the tenor of the exchange is markedly more positive. The pertinent data are presented in tables 5.3 and 5.4.

The data in table 5.3 show that few men express an emotional preference for their own sex, in terms of either warmth (under 5 percent) or closeness (14 percent). Instead, most men either draw no affective distinction between the sexes (56–60 percent) or actually state a preference for women (30–35 percent). Thus, men's gender feelings tend to cluster around the neutral point, and deviations from affective neutrality are more likely to extend in the direction of preferring the other sex. In addition, men are likely to draw slightly larger affective distinctions when their feelings favor women: among men favoring their own sex, difference-scores are almost never larger than 2 points, but among men favoring the other sex, the differentiation generally falls in a range from 1–4 points.

Women more or less reciprocate men's feelings, although they are slightly more likely than men to feel warmer toward their own sex (20 percent) or closer to their own sex (32 percent), and they are a bit less inclined to express a preference for the other sex (15–16 percent). Nor do women share men's slight proclivity to draw larger affective distinctions in favor of the other sex than their own: among women, affective distinctions that favor either their own or the other sex tend to fall in the range from 1–4 points.

Not surprisingly, the data in table 5.4 indicate that in the affective

dispositions of each sex toward the other, positive feelings abound. About two-thirds of men and women have positive emotional dispositions toward each other, and negative feelings are expressed by only 3–8 percent of either group.

Thus, the overwhelming tenor of gender feelings is a lack of affective differentiation along group lines and a positive emotional disposition toward the other sex. Feelings of closeness are slightly less likely than feelings of warmth to evince such inclusive feelings toward the other sex, and women are a little more hesitant than men, but the general pattern stands in sharp contrast to race relations.^[8]

Class

Because class relations do not involve a simple dyad, assessment of the exchange of feelings among social classes is necessarily more complex. Table 5.5 presents data on the affective differentiation made by members of the upper-middle class, middle class, working class, and poor between their own class and each of the other classes. Table 5.6 presents data on the level of warmth/coldness and closeness expressed in people's feelings toward each of the other classes. Upper-class identifiers are excluded from these tables because there is an insufficient num-

[8] Black men and women are more likely than their white counterparts to express an affective preference for and positive feelings toward the other sex, but this tendency is especially pronounced among black men. Most notably, among black men 63 percent feel warmer toward women than toward their own sex, and 65 percent feel closer to women (as compared with 33 percent and 27 percent of white men expressing those feelings). Among black women, 25 percent feel warmer toward men than toward their own sex (as opposed to 13 percent of white women) and 33 percent feel closer to men (as compared with 14 percent of white women). Thus, black women do not display the slight tendency observed among white women to prefer their own sex over men; but, at the same time, the asymmetry between black men and black women in the degree to which they favor the other sex is considerably larger than it is among whites, with black men leading even more in the expression of inclusive feelings.

ber of them to allow for reliable inferences (see chapter 3), but the upper class is retained as a stimulus for those who identified with other classes.

The amount of affective disparity expressed between classes and the level of warmth/coldness and closeness expressed toward other classes are both highly variable, being dependent on two main factors. First, affective distinctions and negative feelings are more in evidence when people are contemplating classes higher than their own than when they regard those lower than their own. Second, such feelings come more to the fore as the status-distance of the referent class increases. These effects are compounded in the overall pattern of class feelings, to which

I now turn. Examples are drawn from the warm-cold data, but note that affective disparity and negative feelings are both more likely to be evinced in terms of degree of closeness than in terms of coldness versus warmth, especially when the referent class is lower than one's own.

The heightened sensitivity of people to the gap that separates them from higher classes than from the gap between their own and lower classes is illustrated neatly in the affective distinctions drawn by the middle class. When the upper class is the referent, about one-half of the middle class express warmer feelings toward their own class and virtually no one states a preference for the higher class; but in relation to the poor (an equally distant, lower class), only 28 percent of the middle class express a preference for their own class, and this is almost matched by 22 percent who express warmer feelings toward the lower class. The more generalized display of this phenomenon is in the marked asymmetry between the intergroup feelings expressed by lower and higher classes in relation to one another. Lower classes express greater affective disparity from higher classes than is reciprocated, and this asymmetry is more pronounced than that observed between unequal racial or gender groups. For example, only 27 percent of the upper-middle class feel warmer to their own class than to the poor, and this is matched by 28 percent of their class-compatriots who profess warmer feelings toward the poor. But among the poor making the same affective comparison, 55 percent feel warmer to their own class, and fewer than 8 percent express greater warmth toward the upper-middle class.^[9]

This asymmetry is also evident in the exchange of feelings between

[9] The asymmetry in the feelings exchanged between higher and lower classes is more sharply pronounced among blacks, even though their class identifications effectively span only the distance from the poor to the middle class. In the exchange of feelings among those three classes, blacks in the working and middle classes are less likely than their white class-peers to express own-class preference vis-à-vis lower classes, and are more likely to prefer the lower class; in addition, there is a (weaker) tendency for blacks in the poor and working class to be more likely than their white class-peers to feel warmer and closer to their own class than to higher classes. For example, in differentiation in feelings of closeness between the poor and the middle class, only 17 percent of the black middle class prefer their own class whereas 43 percent prefer the poor (as compared with 42 percent of the white middle class who prefer their own class and 12 percent who prefer the poor); among the poor, 58 percent of the blacks and 43 percent of the whites prefer their own class over the middle class. These distinctive class feelings among blacks are most readily interpreted in terms of the intensity of racial identity combined with the overrepresentation of blacks among lower classes and their marginal presence in the middle and upper-middle classes: blacks in all classes may feel more distant from the middle and upper-middle classes because these classes are predominantly white, whereas they feel closer to the poor and the working class because they have a stronger black contingent and because they identify their historical roots in those classes (these issues are discussed in greater detail in Jackman and Jackman 1983, 46–53).

proximate classes, where class feeling is weakest. Between any pair of proximate classes, own-class preference is generally expressed by about one third of the lower class, whereas affective neutrality prevails much more heavily in the higher class (only between the poor and the working class do feelings of warmth fall closer to the neutral point on both sides). Expressions of affective disparity increase steadily among both lower and higher classes as the status-distance of the referent class increases, with lower classes maintaining greater affective distinctions than are reciprocated.

Thus, affective differentiation between the classes encompasses a wide range. In some class comparisons, there is a virtual absence of affective disparity (as when higher classes regard proximate lower ones). This is akin to men's feelings vis-à-vis women, except that men's feelings show more of a tilt toward an actual preference for the subordinate group. At the other extreme are the class feelings expressed by the poor and working class vis-à-vis the upper and upper-middle classes: here, the extent of affective disparity exceeds that expressed by blacks vis-à-vis whites. The response of the upper-middle class, however, is more tempered than the response blacks get from whites. The size of the affective distinctions that are drawn between the classes also varies widely, in tandem with their frequency: the smallest distinctions are comparable to those expressed by men vis-à-vis women and the largest are about as large as or larger than the racial distinctions drawn by blacks.

The absolute level of people's affective dispositions toward other classes reflects the same mixture of elements (see table 5.6). In feelings toward the upper and upper-middle classes expressed by the working class and the poor, feelings of warmth generally outweigh feelings of coldness by a factor of two or three to one, with about one-third to one-half holding positive dispositions. This is similar to blacks' level of warmth toward whites. However, in the emotional dispositions of the upper-middle class toward the working class and poor, there is an even stronger positive bent: well over half of the upper-middle class profess feelings of warmth toward the working class and poor, and only a negligible percentage (5–9 percent) express negative feelings. Positive feelings are generally heightened between more proximate classes, although they usually fall short of the level of positive feeling expressed by men toward women.

General Patterns

Two general patterns are present to a greater or lesser degree across all three intergroup relationships. I discuss each pattern in turn and then consider the sources of their varied expression from one relationship to another. Figure 5.1 provides a quick reference for this discussion, by summarizing the differentiation in feelings of

warmth expressed between whites and blacks, men and women, and the poor and the upper-middle class.

First, and most important, there is a general avoidance of hostile feelings by both dominant and subordinate groups. Even in the staunchest examples of affective disparity (as in the feelings of the poor and working class vis-à-vis the upper-middle and upper classes, and in the feelings exchanged between blacks and whites), one-third to one-half of the members of those groups refrain from socially divisive feelings. In addition, the affective distinctions that are made are most likely to be small or moderate in size—gaping affective distinctions are rare. By the same token, most respondents stay away from the negative side of the two scales in expressing their affective dispositions toward other groups.

The general avoidance of inflammatory feelings is further demonstrated in the amplified expressions of own-group preference and slightly freer use of the negative side of the scale for other groups when respondents were asked about degree of closeness to each group rather than feelings of warmth versus coldness. The lack of a clear negative pole in the former scale gave respondents an opportunity to express a feeling of closer affinity to their own group without seeming to disparage the other group. The pattern of responses in all groups was affected at

Figure 5.1.
Summary of affective differentiation between groups: Percentages of whites and blacks, men and women, and the
upper-middle class and the poor expressing warmer feelings toward their own group, neutral feelings, and warmer
feelings toward the other group. Based on figures from tables 5.1, 5.3, and 5.5.

least slightly by that delicate distinction (even in the gender relationship), but dominant groups appear somewhat more sensitive to this than do subordinate groups.

The second general pattern that holds to some degree across all three intergroup relationships is a slight asymmetry between the feelings of dominant and subordinate groups. Subordinate groups run a little ahead of dominant groups in expressing a feeling of preference for their own, and the affective distinctions they make are likely to be a bit larger than those made by dominant groups. This asymmetry is never dramatic—the feelings that are exchanged between contending groups are generally in the same vein—but dominant-group members seem slightly more reticent than subordinates about drawing affective boundaries along group lines. Interestingly, the asymmetry is more noticeable on the warm-cold scale (with its clear negative pole) than it is on the closeness scale: in the safer context of affinity-without-disparagement, dominant-group members come nearer to matching subordinates in expressions of intergroup disparity.

The general restraint that is shown in the expression of intergroup feelings suggests that pressures on both sides of unequal relationships mitigate against flagrant emotional divisiveness. That dominant groups show particular restraint probably reflects a slightly different balance of pressures to which they are subject. To begin, dominant groups may be less sensitive than subordinates to the experiential disparity that exists between the groups. The experience of deprivations may be a more compelling nudge to awareness of disparity than is the enjoyment of benefits. It is easier to overlook or minimize the rude division between unequal groups when the arrangement delivers benefits rather than deprivations. By the same token, as dominant groups enjoy the sweet benefits of harmony within the status quo, divisiveness looms more unequivocally as a risk that could lead to a narrower circumscription of those benefits or even their loss. For subordinates, however, the costs of conflict (which are still considerable in view of their weaker position) are weighed against the daily price they pay for their integration in the status quo as incumbents of an inferior position.

This discrepancy in the pressures felt on either side of an unequal relationship is exacerbated in class relations, where the upper-middle class has been the tardiest in reciprocating the affective disparity expressed by the poor and working class. I suggest two main factors are at work here. First is the importance of self-identification, rather than imposed group definitions, for the existence of social classes as status groups. Dominant groups should be especially aversive to reciprocating affective disparity vis-à-vis groups whose very existence they would prefer to obscure. A second factor is the step-wise structure of class relations,

which has important implications for interclass contact and communication. People in the upper-middle class live far removed from the day-to-day existence of those in the poor and working class; this gives those distant subordinates the same opportunity as blacks to develop separate affective bonds, at least vis-à-vis classes located at the more distant extremes. But the feelings of the poor and working class toward higher classes are fragmented, with less disparity felt vis-à-vis more proximate classes, with which they are more likely to have interclass contact. For their part, those in the upper-middle class also have relatively frequent contact with more proximate subordinates in the middle class, which conditions that relationship more amicably. The limited reach of their downward exposure to those whose interests are only slightly estranged from their own may leave them less keenly aware of the depth of disparity felt by people in classes that are further removed. The buffering action of the middle class leaves the upper-middle class less directly exposed to the more divisive feelings that lie further below and thus it obscures their perception of those feelings. And at the same time, people in the upper-middle class are prevented from allying their feelings unequivocally against those beneath them because they still turn to face a class yet higher than their own, from whom they also harbor a feeling of disparity.

The exchange of intergroup feelings comes closest to reciprocated disparity in race relations, where physical separation of the groups is the sharpest, and where the dyadic structure leaves communication between groups uncomplicated. Because of the pervasive spatial segregation of racial groups, whites have forfeited the opportunity to penetrate and condition the emotional vulnerabilities of blacks. At the same time, the dyadic structure of the race relationship leaves the members of the dominant group with no buffer between them and restive subordinates. Thus, strict physical separation of the groups gives subordinates more opportunity to disentangle their emotions from the grasp of the dominant group; and because there are no buffering groups, the dominant group receives direct delivery of subordinates' feelings and may also feel beleaguered more quickly when confronted with feelings that are less than amicable. In such a context, whites have come closer to reciprocating the affective disparity expressed by subordinates and have slightly outstripped blacks in expressing negative feelings.

The most amicable exchange of feelings is found between men and women, where intimate intergroup contact is the norm, and where the dyadic structure of the relationship makes communication between groups straightforward. In this situation, men's and women's lives are emotionally intertwined, and without any other pertinent groups to create interference, each side can read the other's mood relatively easily.

Even here, however, there is a slight asymmetry between men's and women's feelings, with men's feelings being a bit more eagerly inclusive across group lines than are women's.

These patterns all suggest that no group in an unequal relationship seems predisposed to hostility, but subordinate groups are a little more inclined to gravitate toward feelings of intergroup disparity, albeit tentatively. As they retreat emotionally behind group lines, subordinates tend to stay away from expressions of outright hostility toward the dominant group and instead curb their feelings to a preference for their own group. Because the data are cross-sectional, they do not offer direct information about which side introduces affective disparity into the relationship, but it is subordinates who seem to be at the vanguard in every case, even in the prevailingly amicable gender relationship. The most plausible interpretation is that it is subordinates who introduce affective disparity and dominant groups who try to prevent or restrain such a movement.

The success of dominant groups in that regard depends on their ability to entangle subordinates emotionally within a social structure that binds the groups together in close physical proximity. That entanglement is severed when the groups are spatially separated. Without repeated physical contact, emotional ties across group lines are harder to maintain on both sides, but it is subordinates, as they experience the daily sting of deprivation, who are more inclined to emotional withdrawal behind group lines. The extent to which dominant groups feel the direct blast of subordinates' change in mood depends on whether their relationship is dyadic or whether there are intermediary groups who buffer communications between top and bottom and fragment the exchange of feelings. But once introduced, hostility changes the tenor of the relationship unavoidably, and dominant groups are shunted fitfully into the game of muted conflict.

Data:
The Definition of Group Interests

As before, I describe my measures and then proceed to an examination of the way group interests are perceived in race, gender, and class relations, in turn. To what extent do the groups on different sides of those relationships define their interests as mutually opposed? Or do they take a more inclusive view by seeing their interests as either communally served or communally hurt by the status quo? After delineating the exchange of perceived interests in each case, I turn to more general questions about the proclivities of dominant and subordinate groups to portray social arrangements in divisive or integrative terms as they seek to defend or challenge those arrangements.

Measures

To measure the perception of group interests, I used specific policies and practices as the stimuli, rather than asking about the global interests of groups. The latter is a more abstract concept and, in view of the particularistic quality of public political discussion, respondents are most likely to have contemplated the interests of their own and other groups in relation to specific policies and practices. By asking about the implications for relevant groups of well-known, specific policies or practices that have high symbolic value in the conduct of a relationship, it should be easier for the respondent to understand the question and to consider its meaning in concrete terms. In this way, the questions also avoid hazy generalizations by anchoring people's responses to a more tangible reality.

The items focused on two policies or practices for each intergroup relationship, presented as follows:

People have different opinions about who benefits and who is hurt by certain policies and practices in America today. I am going to read you a short list of such policies and practices and ask you for your opinion about who benefits and who is hurt by each of these.

If blacks generally live in black neighborhoods and whites live in white neighborhoods, who benefits from this—whites, blacks, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this—whites, blacks, everyone, or no one?

How about private ownership—rather than government ownership—of business corporations? Who benefits from private ownership of business corporations—upper-class people, upper-middle-class people, middle-class people, working-class people, poor people, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this? [same response-options presented on show-card]

Who benefits from the practice of women staying home to take care of children and men working to support the family financially—men, women, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this—men, women, everyone, or no one?

If blacks generally go to some schools and whites go to other schools, who benefits from this—whites, blacks, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this—whites, blacks, everyone, or no one?

Who benefits from the tax policy that reduces taxes for some types of business investments—upper-class people, upper-middle-class people, middle-class people, working-class people, poor people, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this? [same response-options presented on show-card]

There are more women in certain kinds of jobs such as nurses and secretaries while there are more men in other kinds of jobs such as engineers and doctors. Who benefits from this—men, women, everyone, or no one?

Who is hurt by this—men, women, everyone, or no one?

All these policies and practices are highly salient to the conduct of the intergroup relationship in question. Five of them have also been the focus of considerable public discussion; the only one that has not is private ownership in industry, but since this is the core tenet of capitalism, it is implicated in much public discussion of subsidiary economic issues and is too central to our system of economic organization to be omitted from any inquiry into perceptions of class interests. At the same time, the wording of all the items was kept as neutral as possible, avoiding such value-loaded terms as "racial segregation" that might trigger defensive or pat responses. The purpose was to focus on the prime substance of specific arrangements without appearing to cast them in a negative or positive light.

For similar reasons, the question of who, if anyone, is hurt by each arrangement was separated from the question about beneficiaries. I wanted to leave respondents with as many degrees of freedom as possible in answering the questions. Responses to the items in each pair were combined afterwards to assess the degree to which people's perceptions of group interests fall into categories that have been discussed most often in the literature. Respondents who think the dominant group benefits and the subordinate group is hurt are taking the classic view of mutually opposed group interests in which the status quo serves the interests of the dominant group at the expense of subordinates. Those who think everyone benefits and no one is hurt are interpreting group interests as being communally served by the status quo . People who think no one benefits and everyone is hurt are of the logically contrary opinion that the status quo universally hurts all the groups involved. Many other combinations of responses are also possible, which may suggest a partially formed view of distinct group interests (such as "the dominant group benefits but no one is hurt"), a neutral view of the matter (such as "no one benefits and no one is hurt" or "everyone benefits and everyone is hurt"), or an idiosyncratic view that is less readily interpretable.

Results

The pertinent data are presented in tables 5.7 (for race), 5.8 (for gender), and 5.9 (for class). Responses to each pair of questions about who benefits and who is hurt by each policy or practice were combined to yield the categories listed down the left side of each table, with the "who-benefits" response given on the left of the pound-sign (#) and the "who-is-hurt"

response given on the right of the pound-sign. The list begins with the most divisive perception, that the dominant group benefits and the subordinate is hurt by a specific policy or practice—that is, that the interests of the groups are mutually opposed. For class relations, the existence of multiple groups means there is no single place to draw the line, and so three different kinds of responses are presented as alternative expressions of mutually opposed interests: (1) that the upper and/or the upper-middle class benefit and the poor and/or the working class are hurt; (2) that the upper and/or the upper-middle class benefit and the poor, the working class, and/or the middle class are hurt; and (3) that the upper class benefits and "everyone" is hurt (I assume that, since the upper class constitutes such a tiny minority of the population, "everyone" in this context was shorthand for "everyone else").

The next row presents a muted version of a zero-sum view, which is that only the dominant group benefits, but no one is hurt. The next three categories involve different ways of denying special group interests: in turn, that the policy is detrimental to everyone's interests ("no one benefits and everyone is hurt"), that it is beneficial to everyone's interests ("everyone benefits and no one is hurt"), or that it is neutral in its impact (almost all of these responses were that "no one benefits and no one is hurt"). The next category ("don't know who benefits and don't know who is hurt") involves a more passive kind of neutrality, stemming from uncertainty or ignorance about the issues.

The final category, labeled "Other," incorporates an amalgam of dispersed responses. Most of these responses represent slightly different twists of the main categories already listed (for example, "no one benefits and blacks are hurt" or "everyone benefits but women are hurt"), which make sense in their own terms but which do not fall neatly into any of the classic positions. Most of the specific combinations of responses incorporated under the "Other" label were articulated by only a handful of respondents, but a few of them (such as the examples given above) were expressed by a sufficient number of respondents to merit separate recognition: these will be mentioned in context.^[10]

Race

Table 5.7 presents whites' and blacks' views of how racial group interests are served by racially segregated neighborhoods and schools.

[10] The number of different "Other" response-combinations in each intergroup relationship was as follows. For race, there were 21 separate other combinations on each item-pair. For gender, the sex-role items elicited 27 other response-combinations, and the occupational-segregation items elicited 20. For class, where there are many more possible permutations, the private-ownership items elicited 86 separate other combinations of responses and the tax-policy items elicited 75. In each case, no more than 2–8 of the separate combinations attracted more than 15 respondents.

The two sides differ in the degree to which they take a critical view of racial segregation, but plainly divisive interpretations are not popular in either group.

The view that has the plurality among whites (34–38 percent) is that racial segregation in neighborhoods and schools benefits both racial groups and hurts no one. When one takes account of the additional 15 percent or so who think that racial segregation is neutral in its impact and the 6 percent who don't know who benefits or is hurt by it, well over one-half of whites espouse a view of racial segregation that denies that it harms anyone or that it serves any special group interests. Very few whites (7–9 percent) see racial segregation as something that benefits whites and hurts blacks, and even the muted view of special group interests that whites alone benefit but no one is hurt is espoused by only another 1 percent of whites. About 20 percent of whites view racial segregation as harmful to the interests of both groups, and another 5 percent (incorporated in the "Other" category) take the slightly different view that blacks alone are hurt by it, but that no one benefits from it.

Blacks are more likely to see the two racial groups as having mutually opposed interests, but still only about one-fifth to one-quarter take that view. Equally popular among blacks is the less divisive criticism of segregation as detrimental to both groups' interests: about one-quarter or more of blacks believe that racial segregation benefits no one and hurts everyone. Most blacks who gave responses in the "Other" category be-

lieve that segregation is harmful, either to blacks solely or to everyone, with the combination that no one benefits and blacks are hurt being given by about 10 percent. Blacks are about as likely as whites to see segregation as neutral in its impact on racial groups (15–16 percent) or to say "don't know" on the issue. But blacks are considerably less likely than whites to go as far as to believe that segregation bestows benefits in a color-blind way—only 14 percent of blacks think neighborhood segregation benefits both groups and hurts no one, and as few as 8 percent think this about school segregation.

Gender

The muted conflict of race relations stands in sharper relief against the amicable consensus that permeates gender relations. There are no important differences between men and women in the way they see, or rather do not see, gender-group interests.

Approximately one-half of both sexes believe that everyone benefits from and no one is hurt by traditional domestic sex-roles or the sex-typing of occupations. When one also takes account of the respondents who said these gender arrangements have no impact on the interests of either group or who said they did not know (11–12 percent on sex-roles and 20–26 percent on the sex-typing of occupations), a total of about two-thirds of men and women either view gender arrangements as a communally positive good or fail to see any involvement of group interests. Only a small minority see men's and women's interests as mutually

opposed (5–11 percent) or even view gender arrangements as harmful to both groups (4–10 percent).

The amalgamated "Other" responses display the same tendencies toward consensual inclusiveness. The items on traditional domestic sex-roles elicited a larger number of responses that fell into the "Other" category (about 23 percent), which in part reflects respondents who named children as beneficiaries of traditional domestic sex-role arrangements. The majority of the "Other" responses to this item-pair involved perceptions either that no one is hurt by traditional domestic sex-roles or that if women are hurt, they are also among the beneficiaries. A slightly larger portion of the "Other" responses to the occupational-sex-typing items involved allegations that it is harmful to either women or everyone, but only 8–10 percent of all responses fell into the "Other" category on this item-pair.

Class

There is more evidence of conflictive views of class interests than there is of either gender or race interests. The specific pattern of responses varies, however, across the two issues of private ownership of business corporations and tax reductions for investments.

Both class issues elicited the perception of mutually opposed group interests with considerably more frequency than did either gender or race issues. The first two rows in table 5.9 give the percentages of respondents with unambiguous views of class interests as mutually opposed, while the third row presents separately the relatively small percentage of respondents who offered the slightly less clear-cut zero-sum response that upper-class people are the sole beneficiaries and everyone [else] is hurt. When contemplating private ownership, respondents from

different social classes vary somewhat in their tendency to perceive mutually opposed class interests: just over 40 percent of the poor and the working class see private ownership as benefiting higher classes and hurting lower ones, whereas 36 percent of the middle class and 25 percent of the upper-middle class take that view. Correspondingly, the more integrative view that everyone benefits and no one is hurt by private ownership gains in popularity with ascending social class, with the percentages increasing monotonically from under 9 percent of the poor up to 37 percent of the upper-middle class. On the issue of tax-reductions for business investments, more than one-half of every social class see class interests as mutually opposed; and the more integrative perception that everyone benefits and no one is hurt is taken by only 5–6 percent of the poor, working class, and middle class, and by just 12 percent of the upper-middle class. Virtually no one in any social class espouses the view that either private ownership or investment tax-credits are harmful to the interests of all classes.^[11]

Consistent with the greater polarization that characterizes the perception of class interests, almost no one in any class sees either of these policies as neutral in its effects. However, as many as one-fifth of the poor and one-tenth of the working class take a more passively neutral position by saying "don't know." And between one-sixth and one-quarter of each class gave responses that were amalgamated in the "Other" category. A substantial minority of the latter (about one-sixth) involved the perception of mutually opposed class interests in which the middle class was named as a beneficiary rather than being aligned with the poor and working class, and there were many other responses that drew slightly different cut-points in identifying specific classes that benefit or are hurt by these economic practices. As with the patterns in interclass feelings, these data suggest the importance of the step-wise structure of class relations in fragmenting and scattering the ingredients for polarization.

General Patterns

Two general patterns mark the perception of group interests in race, gender, and class relations, and these patterns parallel

[11] On both of the class issues, blacks are somewhat more likely than their white class-peers to take the position that the classes have mutually opposed interests and less likely to take the benign view that everyone benefits and no one is hurt. In people's views of private ownership, it is primarily among the middle and working classes that blacks are more caustic than whites (with differences of about 14–22 percentage points). In people's views of investment tax-credits (where perceptions in general have a more divisive cast), it is among the poor that blacks differ most from whites in their adoption of a class-divisive interpretation (among the poor, 59 percent of blacks and 45 percent of whites take the view that class interests are mutually opposed, whereas no blacks and 9 percent of whites take the position that everyone benefits and no one is hurt). These patterns are discussed in greater detail in Jackman and Jackman (1983, 66).

those observed for intergroup feelings. First, sharply divisive perceptions of group interests are far from being the order of the day. This holds even in class relations, where they put in their strongest appearance. Second, subordinate groups tentatively lead the way in drawing divisive distinctions between the interests of contending groups. Dominant groups show more of a preference for the inclusive view that current arrangements serve the needs of all pertinent groups. As with intergroup feelings, both sides appear to tread cautiously, with subordinates showing slightly less reluctance to express divisiveness.

The presentation of these patterns varies from one intergroup relationship to another. In gender relations, which are marked by intimate contact between groups and permeated by role segregation, divisive perceptions are the farthest removed from everyone's mind. Both sides tend to embrace gender arrangements as serving communal interests.

In race relations, which are pervaded by physical separation of the groups, blacks show more indication of seeing status-quo arrangements in a critical light. But they are as likely to include whites along with their own group as being ill-served by racial segregation as they are to accuse whites of benefiting from segregation at black's expense. The prevailing response among whites is to persist with an inclusive view of racial segregation as being communally beneficial or at least neutral in its effects.

The perception of class interests is the most polarized, but the polarization is fragmented and dispersed by the step-wise structure of class relations and the ensuing pattern of communication among social classes—there is no single rift to clarify polarization. That aside, the pattern of responses in class relations suggests that economic interests have a tangibility that is harder to obscure than are interests based on cultural distinctions (such as in race). This is particularly noticeable on the concrete issue of tax reductions for business investments, with respect to which a majority of every class sees class interests as mutually opposed. On the more abstract issue of private ownership, ascending social class is associated with an increasing proclivity to the integrative view that it serves the interests of all classes, but those in the poor and working class do not see mutually opposed class interests quite as readily as they do on the more explicitly distributive issue of investment tax-credits.

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have addressed the rudimentary questions of how contending groups in the unequal relationships of race, gender, and social class define the boundaries between them, emotionally and perceptually. What part is played by hostility and affection in the definition of group boundaries, and do groups perceive their interests as opposed or shared?

Past research on racial prejudice, political tolerance, and group consciousness has overwhelmingly emphasized hostility and the perception of mutually opposed interests as the key germs in intergroup ideology. Contrary to that emphasis, my contention has been that hostility is dispensable—indeed, an encumbrance—in the dynamics of intergroup inequality. The members of dominant groups are inclined to strike an inclusive tone as they orient themselves toward those from whom they derive everyday benefits. And subordinates restrain themselves from a costly expression of negative affect.

The data in this chapter on intergroup feelings and the perception of group interests suggest there is a strain toward inclusiveness in the emotional and perceptual delineation of intergroup ideology. Most significantly, the pattern of results suggests that the expression of inclusive feelings toward subordinates cannot be construed as an abandonment of the unequal terms of the relationship. Indeed, it appears that dominant groups lean toward inclusive intergroup feelings as part of an effort to integrate subordinates within status-quo arrangements. Their success in molding the feelings and cognitions of subordinates is never complete, but their efforts do not meet with absolute failure in any of the three intergroup relationships. Whether one encounters the near-incorporation of subordinates or their contained estrangement depends on the opportunities for ideological incursion that are offered by the structure of the relationship.

When the normal conduct of the relationship provides frequent one-to-one contact between groups, conditions appear most conducive for luring subordinates into mutual affection and the perception of shared interests. In this paternalistic nest, dominant-group members express affection for subordinates and they define subordinates' needs as being met by current arrangements. Their efforts appear to meet with success. Unsullied by hostility, such a relationship depends on mutual good feeling and shared perceptions of communal interests to embrace the role segregation that sustains the inequality.

When the conduct of an intergroup relationship separates the groups physically, the dominant group forfeits the opportunity to infiltrate the feelings and awareness of subordinates. Under these circumstances, subordinates become more inclined to withdraw their good feeling and to separate their interests from those of the dominant group. However, through sporadic trial and error, they grasp that radical confrontation is not efficacious in changing the system in which they are the weaker party. They come to couch their withdrawal of support in terms that minimize its alienating effect on the more powerful party while providing themselves with an adaptive (rather than a frustrating) interpretation of the world in which they live. Confronted with recalcitrant subordinates,

the dominant group learns that the least costly response is to contain the damage by restraining the element of hostility and continuing to reach out to subordinates with an inclusive appeal. Each side opts to engage the other with persuasion rather than to resort to open hostilities.

However, even as subordinates tread wearily, they still step a little ahead of dominant groups on the path to divisiveness. For subordinates, there is a trade-off between their implicit understanding of the need for restraint and their discomfort with the costs they bare under present arrangements. This formula works in all three intergroup relationships to lure subordinates to the fragrance of challenge. Always with caution and with varying ardor, subordinate estrangement ranges from the tempered recalcitrance of women to reciprocate men's proffered affection to the stronger expressions of group bonds and group interests among the poor and working class and among blacks.

For dominant groups facing challenge, their satisfaction with present arrangements and their understanding of the costs of divisiveness both work to restrain confrontation in their response and to steer them toward an inclusive, persuasive appeal. The specific form their restraint takes depends on the exigencies of the relationship. For example, the tangibility of material differences in interests between social classes makes them more difficult to obscure, but the step-wise fragmentation of class relations makes it easier for the upper-middle class to stay away from negative feelings toward lower classes. Whites, caught in a dyadic relationship from which many members of the other group have withdrawn emotionally, find it more difficult to contain their emotional response, but the cultural basis of their unequal relationship makes it easier to cling to the inclusive perception that racial arrangements do not injure the interests of either group. In both instances, however, the dominant group takes reluctant leave of the comfortable ideological system that was built on an exchange of good feeling and shared perceptions of communal interests. It is prodded into the forum of muted conflict.

Chapter Six—
The Articulation of Policy Goals

Views about policies that affect the relationship between groups are a first-order expression of grassroots political alignments. The choice between egalitarian and expropriative policies defines the fundamental issue of contention between unequal groups. To what extent do groups align themselves on contending sides and pursue policy goals that promote their control over resources?

Policy goals are articulated as part of the dialogue that evolves between unequal groups. In that dialogue, the political posture of each group is not formulated freestyle. Groups maneuver within constraints. Those constraints arise from two sources. First, the day-to-day practice of the relationship with another group generates specific pragmatic and moral exigencies that mold the formulation of policy goals. The institutional means by which the expropriation is practiced and the communication channels that are thus created between groups generate varying opportunities and risks for each of the participating groups. Second, at the same time broader societal pressures bear down on the relationship and steer the moral parameters of discussion. The society in which the intergroup relationship resides is enveloped by a broad moral climate that is the product of the various intergroup relations and institutional arrangements that have shaped its history. Those pressures lend moral credibility to certain ideas at the expense of others and hence steer the direction of policy discussion in each intergroup relationship.

Intergroup policy goals in the contemporary United States are shaded by the normative climate of capitalist democracy, a climate in which egalitarianism has interfaced with individualism. This has had the dual effect of transmogrifying the popular understanding of egalitarianism and of lending a special moral significance to individualism. The specific pres-

sures generated by the practice of race, gender, and class relations are each nested within that broader ideological context.

The chapter opens with a discussion of the meaning and significance of people's intergroup policy views. Those views have been the subject of repeated deliberation in research on racial prejudice, tolerance, gender attitudes (especially "sex-role attitudes"), and class consciousness. And unlike the attitudinal elements under examination in the last chapter, they have also been subjected to extended empirical analysis. I start by considering, briefly, the various concerns that have guided past research and the measurement issues that have confounded that research. I then delineate my theoretical approach, in which I emphasize the pursuit of resources within pragmatic and moral constraints, and I consider the significance of individualism as an overarching moral principle that shapes contemporary policy debates. With those issues delineated, I outline the empirical questions that confront my analysis, before turning to an examination of my data.

The measurement of intergroup policy goals has been snared by a number of issues. In particular, many analysts have drawn a distinction between people's articulation of abstract policy principles and their positions on specific, concrete policy issues. Uncertainty about the resilience and meaning of that distinction obstructs our understanding of intergroup policy goals. Accordingly, the analysis of my data proceeds in two stages. I begin by asking about patterns of support for abstract policy principles. To what extent is there consensual endorsement of egalitarian (or individualistic) policy principles, and how does this vary across the three intergroup relationships of race, gender, and social class? Second, I assess views that are articulated about specific governmental policies. What are people's beliefs—both prescriptive and existential—about governmental intervention to promote affirmative change on behalf of subordinate groups? That is, how much affirmative activity do people think should be taking place on behalf of blacks, women, and lower social classes—and how much activity do they believe is already taking place? How much of a rift is there between dominant and subordinate groups in their beliefs about what should be, and what already is, the thrust of governmental policy?

The Issues

Analysts of prejudice, tolerance, gender attitudes, and class consciousness have each pursued and interpreted people's articulated policy views within their own distinctive framework of concerns. I briefly discuss the varying meaning and significance attached to people's policy views in past research, along with the measurement issues that have snagged that

research. My theoretical approach is then delineated, and I draw out the primary empirical questions that inform my analysis.

Prejudice

For students of prejudice, who have always been motivated by a strong social-problems orientation, whites' behavioral predispositions toward blacks have been a continual target of investigation. When physical segregation remained virtually unchallenged, researchers' policy concerns were primarily occupied by the question of how whites would react to intrusions by blacks in their personal lives—with acceptance or antagonism. But as the nation began to grapple legislatively and legally with racial segregation and the issue assumed increasing public visibility in broad policy terms, scholars enlarged their focus. Increasingly, whites' orientation toward racial integration and blacks' civil rights, in terms affecting blacks as a whole, became an absorbing policy question of immediate practical import. After the violent eruption of black urban discontent in the late 1960s, some scholars also began to ask about the racial-policy views of blacks (G. Marx 1967; Campbell and Schuman 1968; Aberbach and Walker 1972; Schuman and Hatchett 1974; Schwartz and Schwartz 1976; Turner and Wilson 1976; Schuman et al. 1985; Sigelman and Welch 1991). But the primary focus has been on the degree to which whites—the status-dominants—have resolved the "American dilemma" by retracting their support for established patterns of racial discrimination and endorsing affirmative change on behalf of blacks' civil rights.

At a deeper level, whites' responses to survey items about racial segregation have also been monitored as a barometer of the underlying level of racial antipathy. Because of the urgent significance attached to both the policy goals themselves and the deeper antipathies thought to lie beneath, there has been intense debate among scholars about the extent to which whites have abandoned support for segregation. Numerous studies have documented a marked decline in whites' support for racial segregation, in principle, over the past few decades (for example, Greeley and Sheatsley 1971, 1974; Jackman 1978; Schuman et al. 1985). And yet this has not been accompanied by a comparable change in whites' enthusiasm for the idea of specific governmental interventions to promote racial integration (for example, Jackman 1978; Fairchild and Gurin 1978; Sears et al. 1979; Kinder and Sears 1981; McConahay et al. 1981; Schuman et al. 1985; Taylor 1986; Sigelman and Welch 1991). This apparent gap between principle and implementation has left students of prejudice divided and uncertain about both the state of whites' dispositions toward blacks and the future of legislated racial integration.

Tolerance

Policy prescriptions have been the attitudinal element of prime interest to students of tolerance. Indeed, with the exception of Jackman (1977, 1978) and Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1979, 1982), policy prescriptions have been the sole empirical target of research on tolerance. Questions address support for civil liberties and civil rights, and people's responses have been interpreted as indicating the degree to which they adhere to the democratic norm of tolerance. As with studies of racial prejudice, the problem has been couched as one involving dominant predispositions toward minorities, but the construction put on those predispositions is very different from that found in research on prejudice. Far from being a barometer of underlying feelings toward target groups, such feelings are instead presumed to be less than positive, and policy prescriptions are taken to reflect the extent to which people can override their affective dispositions in the way they orient themselves toward political minorities. Thus may people demonstrate their graduation to democratic citizenship.

The norm of tolerance occupies such a vital role in theories of democratic legitimacy and stability that observations of its weak presence have struck scholars as a daunting puzzle. Different assaults on that puzzle have roughly paralleled the lines of debate in the literature on prejudice. Prothro and Grigg (1960) found consensual endorsement of the guiding principles of majority rule and minority rights, when those principles were stated in their most general form, but they found sharply diminished levels of adherence when people were asked about specific policy-situations that embroiled those principles. Discouraged, they ironically concluded that the solvent that stabilizes the democratic system is mass apathy. They and other scholars offered the reassurance that those most actively engaged in the democratic endeavor—social or political elites—were the most likely to apply the norm of tolerance consistently to specific policy-contexts (Stouffer 1955; Prothro and Grigg 1960; McClosky 1964; Converse 1964). Some analysts have optimistically observed increasing levels of tolerance over the past few decades (Davis 1975; Nunn, Crockett, and Williams 1978), but Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1979, 1982) found tolerance was still largely wanting, even among social elites, when they explicitly built affective reactions into their measure and asked people about their policy dispositions toward groups they personally disliked. They concluded that democratic stability is left undisturbed primarily because of the diversity of personal targets among the citizenry.

Gender Attitudes

The division of labor between the sexes is the most visible symptom of gender inequality. Like spatial segregation in race relations, the specifics

of role segregation between men and women have assumed high symbolic significance, and analysts of gender attitudes have had a primary interest in measuring support for that traditional division of labor, in its various manifestations (for example, Mason and Bumpass 1975; Mason, Czajka, and Arber 1976; Thornton and Freedman 1979; Spitze and Huber 1980; Cherlin and Walters 1981; Helmreich, Spence, and Gibson 1982; Thornton, Alwin, and Camburn 1983; Mason and Lu 1986; Simon and Landis 1989). Questions about endorsement or rejection of traditional sex-roles and equality of opportunity for women are often interspersed with, and not sharply distinguished from, questions on people's beliefs about the traits of women and the needs of children. All of these indicators are seen as parts of the psychological nexus that bolsters or opposes the traditional gender division of labor, and, indeed, they have commonly been termed sex-role attitudes.

As I discussed in chapter 1, the prime and sometimes exclusive interest has been in the views of women. This contrasts sharply with research on racial prejudice and tolerance, where it is the views of dominant-group members that are treated as the focal concern. Research on sex-role attitudes has not generally assumed any necessary power relationship between the sexes. Instead, the underlying presumption seems to have been that, since women have participated in the roles that differentiate them from men, those roles must be consistent with their preferences, in a power-neutral sense (for an extended discussion of this point, see Kane 1989). With women held as responsible at least in part for their own fate, the question becomes whether they indicate a ground swell for change or satisfaction with traditional gender arrangements. Empirical studies have suggested decreasing support for traditional sex-roles over the past few decades, and this has usually been treated as an important indicator of contemporary social currents.

Class Consciousness

Policy views are the most common empirical focus in analyses of class consciousness, where they are treated as an indicator of the rational perception and pursuit of class interests. The question has been whether different classes, and especially lower classes, take policy stances that suggest they understand and pursue their interests on distributive issues. This information is assumed to be vital to assessments of the fundamental organizational properties of class, including whether classes exist as social entities. Like women, the working class is asked to demonstrate an open sense of dissatisfaction with current arrangements, but, unlike women's views, the views of the working class are almost always assessed in comparison with those of higher classes. The goal has been to show evidence of either class conflict or benign consensus.

Because of the underlying concern with the existence of politically opposed classes based in distinctive social communities, analysts have attended not only to articulated policy goals but also to existential perceptions about the degree of equality and openness that already holds within the status quo (for example, Mann 1970; Parkin 1971; Huber and Form 1973; Abercrombie and Turner 1982). It is assumed that privileged classes will portray the status quo in benign terms as unbiased and open as they articulate conservative policy goals, whereas lower classes, if anything is amiss in the dominant portrayal, will indicate so with more jaundiced perceptions of current policies as they frame goals that call for affirmative change.

Studies have generally shown modest differences between classes in their perceptions of and prescriptions for socioeconomic policy, leaving analysts to argue about the implications of such differences for the viability of class conflict, and therefore of class itself. A repeated observation has been that when asked about policies as broad abstractions, socioeconomic policy views are more consensual and conservative than they are for specific, concrete issues (Mann 1970; Parkin 1971; Huber and Form 1973; Abercrombie and Turner 1982). Analysts have concluded that at an abstract level, there is a pervasive dominant ideology, but that subordinate classes are more inclined to pull away from the dominant interpretation of social reality when dealing with concrete issues that have definite experiential correlates. Whether the latter tendency heralds incipient class conflict or merely reflects minor quibbling on the fringes of a broad consensus about governing principles of distribution is a matter that hangs unresolved over the literature.

This failure of subordinates to deviate decisively from the dominant view has been interpreted by some as evidence of "false consciousness" (see, e.g., Mann 1970). But, as Mann's article demonstrates, the task of distinguishing empirically between false consciousness and spontaneous consensus is fraught with ambiguities. Besides, if the working class is judged to have fallen short of a rational awareness of its "true" interests, analysts are left with the theoretical problem of explaining how such a lapse in rationality could occur without at the same time undermining the long-term prediction of confrontational politics growing out of a rational processing of class experiences. The injection of false awareness among subordinates raises a theoretical inconsistency that weakens the long-term prognosis of rationally based class conflict.

Overview

Despite their urgent significance for research on race, gender, and class attitudes, people's articulated policy views have been interpreted quite variously from one body of research to another. At one extreme are

policy dispositions taken as a reflection of prejudice, where whites' views are examined to assess their readiness to relinquish irrational, parochial opposition to blacks' civil rights. At the other extreme are class policy views, where different classes (if they exist) are expected to reveal themselves in the articulated pursuit of rationally opposed goals: policy views are scrutinized to ascertain the extent to which classes manifest their Marxian-ordained destiny for head-on conflict. Between these extremes lie the analyses of sex-role attitudes and political tolerance, each of which incorporates idiosyncratic combinations of elements from either extreme. Sex-role attitudes have generally been examined as barometers of a benignly changing climate of opinion about women's roles in society—a climate in which women are presumed to take the lead by indicating freely any changing aspirations. And tolerance is measured to assess the degree to which society has elevated itself above narrow group interests to embrace the concept of universally equal political and civil citizenship—an elevation that is regarded as lying critically in the hands of dominant groups.

All analyses of articulated policy goals seem to share an understanding that what is at stake is the allocation of valued resources. But only analysts of class consciousness treat that allocation in clearly relational terms that recognize that if disadvantaged groups get more, then currently advantaged groups must give something valuable up. This perspective on policy goals casts them as a contest between the have's and the have-not's rather than as a test of the dominant group's readiness to advance itself to a higher moral state or of subordinates' benignly spontaneous election of change. What analysts of class consciousness have also assumed, however, is that if the have-not's are being exploited by the have's, the only rational course ultimately for the have-not's is to issue a head-on challenge to the unequal arrangement. In this framework, only one set of policy goals for subordinates is recognized as a rational expression of their interests: uncompromised confrontation.

Measurement Issues

Although people's policy views have probably been measured more frequently than any other aspect of intergroup attitudes over the last twenty years, doubts have beleaguered that research about what kinds of measures are most appropriate and how to interpret people's responses to various measures. Those doubts generally spin out from one or more of the following three issues.

Abstract Principles and Applied Policy Goals

The distinction between abstract policy principles and specific policy implementation has been a centerpiece of empirical debate in research on intergroup policy views.

The focus of disagreement is about which level of analysis provides the more valid indication of people's policy views. And as with many other measurement debates, the substantive implications are profound: indeed, the discussion turns more on conceptual and interpretive issues than on methodological issues per se.

Prothro and Grigg (1960) were the first to comment on the significance of the distinction between abstract principles and applied policy views. In their well-known article, they found widespread popular support for the abstract democratic principles of majority rule and minority rights, but the level of support dropped precipitously when respondents were asked to react to specific policy situations that involved an application of those principles. The nonequivalence of abstract and applied policy principles has continued to intrigue students of public opinion, especially in the contexts of racial policy attitudes and class consciousness, where scholars have struggled to explain the meaning of this distinction.

Students of racial policy views have repeatedly observed that whites exhibit higher levels of support for the general principle of racial integration than they do for specific governmental policies that would implement integration. Further, whites' opposition to the general principle of racial segregation has been steadily increasing over the past few decades to near-consensual levels while their support for specific governmental policies to implement integration has languished with virtually no change over the same time-period (Jackman 1977; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985). This persistent gap between abstract and applied policy principles among whites has been a central puzzle that has been the focus of considerable research, speculation, and debate (see, for example, Jackman 1977; Kinder and Sears 1981; McConahay, Hardee, and Batts 1981; Jackman and Muha 1984; Pettigrew 1985; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1985; McConahay 1986; Schuman and Bobo 1988; Kuklinski et al. 1991; Sigelman and Welch 1991).^[1] The assessment of the current state of whites' racial attitudes and the prognosis for their trend-line and future direction have been seen as hinging critically on the interpretation of the discrepancies between abstract and applied views.

Various interpretations have been offered. Jackman (1977) argued that whites' commitment to racial integration is sincere but superficial: in specific contexts, the commitment to racial integration is not deep enough to override other values or interests that come into play. Several other scholars have argued that whites do have a serious commitment to racial integration but that in the applied context, the injection of the

[1] This discrepancy in whites' racial attitudes was the subject of an article in Research News , published for general dissemination by the University of Michigan (Katterman 1987). The article's title captures the state of the literature: "The Attitudes Gap: White Americans Endorse Racial Equality, Yet Show Little Support for Policies to Achieve It."

federal government as the proposed agent of change causes many whites to back off: many citizens lack confidence in the federal government and are unable to endorse policies that rely on that agency for implementation (Margolis and Haque 1981; Kuklinski and Parent 1981). Empirical analyses by Jackman (1981a , 1981b ) turned up no evidence to support that optimistic interpretation. Others have argued that it is the mechanics of some racial policies, such as school busing, that make them distasteful to many whites: whites' genuine desire to see racial integration implemented does not find a satisfactory outlet in existing policy options (Greeley and Sheatsley 1974). Yet another interpretation that puts a relatively good face on whites' racial attitudes is that many whites resist specific intervention by the federal government because they resent the coercive power of government in general or they resent any intrusions on individual liberties (for example, Lipset and Schneider 1978; Stinchcombe and Taylor 1980; Sniderman and Hagen 1985; Taylor 1986; Merriman and Carmines 1988).

Several more skeptical arguments have also been made. Some have argued that the positive sentiments elicited from whites on survey questions about abstract support for racial integration reflect only lip service to democratic platitudes: the underlying resistance to racial equality is manifested as soon as one starts talking about specific policies that would implement racial integration (Crosby, Bromley, and Saxe 1980; Dovidio and Gaertner 1986). Scholars in the "symbolic racism" school have argued that the old, more blatant expressions of racism (such as overt support for segregation) have become socially unacceptable, but the racism itself is deep-seated and finds expression in objections to specific policies that are designed to redress racial inequalities (Kinder and Sears 1981; McConahay et al. 1981; Kinder 1986; McConahay 1986). Finally, I have argued (Jackman and Muha 1984) that many whites oppose racial segregation as a general principle because it violates their reverence for individualism—but, by the same token, they are unable to support governmental policies that would enforce integration, since those too would trample on individual rights. And the commitment to individualism is an integral part of the defense of racial privilege, not an orthogonal value that merely collides accidentally with racial policy goals.

At the same time as students of racial attitudes have debated about whether the abstract or the specific level is the more valid reflection of people's policy views, students of class consciousness have used the discrepancy between abstract and applied policy views as a wedge to identify the limits of consent in the working class. Focusing on the degree to which different social classes show consensual or conflicting views of the social order, they have observed the dissipation of conservative consensus as one moves from the abstract to the specific level in both

perceptions of how the system operates and in economic policy goals. In this research, the dominant class reveals itself fairly constantly across abstract and specific contexts, but subordinates slip from an abstract endorsement of the regime to specific views indicating disaffection. Mann (1970) uses the discrepancy between abstract and specific views to infer that working class endorsement of the status quo reflects a "false consciousness," imposed from above, rather than an internalized set of values. He reasons that dominant values are absorbed by the working class at only the abstract level: in concrete applications, the divergent experiences of the working class lead them to take a more critical view of how the system operates and a more assertive position on economic policies. Without entangling himself in the question of what constitutes "true" or "false" consciousness, Parkin (1971) makes a similar attribution to a "subordinate value system" which he describes as accommodative: although working-class people unthinkingly soak in the broad moral precepts of the dominant value system, the milieu of the local working-class community provides the source for specific perceptions and normative judgments that are more jaundiced. The disjuncture between the two levels of abstraction is left unresolved within working-class culture. Other analysts too have emphasized the duality of working-class political beliefs, in which abstractions endorsing the status quo reside next to specific views and moral judgments that are far more cynical about how the system actually works (Huber and Form 1973; Abercrombie and Turner 1982).

Two questions are suggested. First, is the discrepancy between abstract principles and applied policy views a constant, or does it vary with different kinds of policies or in different intergroup contexts? Second, is there anything in the patterns of discrepancy that can throw light on which level of abstraction carries more significance? Is the specific application confounded with idiosyncratic factors that make it a messy test of policy commitments, or is the abstract level too vague to be meaningful? Perhaps it is only in the abstract that policy principles are unsullied by particulars that create interference. Or is it only when we get to specifics that the logical implications of conflicting interests are manifested?

Agents and Methods of Change

This issue intersects with the one above: what are the legitimate agents of change and the desirable methods of change? Some analysts have argued that, in asking people about their specific policy views, idiosyncracies about the proposed agent or method of change may determine people's responses, irrespective of their views about the general target of change. This issue has been discussed above, and I will not reiterate the various arguments here. The crux of the matter is whether people's disaffection from the agency of change or

fears about the disruption or inconvenience associated with the method of change are confounding our inferences about their preferred policy outcomes.

But what are the policies that can alter the patterns of discrimination that are built into our way of life without at the same time disrupting elements of that way of life? Inconvenience to the more privileged parties seems intrinsic to any effective policy, since the only way to eradicate socially patterned discrimination is to circumvent or counteract it with the introduction of socially "artificial" measures. Policies that are not socially disruptive will by the same token fail to alter the discrimination that is the "natural" product of established social practices.

By the same token, to what agency of change might we turn if we deprive the federal government of that role? No other governmental body has the same breadth of authority or the same powers of enforcement. For that reason it is hard to digest the plea that some people would be more comfortable if local governmental agencies had the responsibility for blacks' civil rights: a preference for local government connotes a preference not just for another governmental agency but for a weaker one. Indeed, in the context of the history of blacks' civil rights, the federal government has been indelibly associated with any moves for affirmative change (from the Emancipation Proclamation on), and any argument that a more local government agency could do the job better flatly contradicts the experience of history. I suggest that what most whites find objectionable in the proposition of federal government enforcement of racial integration is the prospect of enforcement . That flies in the face of individualism and free choice and implies an imposed uniformity of standards from which personal or local deviation is impossible.

Tangible Policies and the Framing of Policy Debate

This measurement issue is more elusive, buried in the depths of our conceptual approach. As empirical analysts, we prefer to focus on policies that have found some tangible expression in the extant political arena—and we ignore those that lie outside. This means that our empirical thinking about policy issues is directed by the way those issues are framed on the political agenda that is the site of our analyses. Examples of this slant can be found in research bearing on class, race, and gender policy views. In analyses of class policy views, there is a plentitude of questionnaire items on support for welfare policies but very few items asking about radical redistribution of income or about the elimination of private ownership. Items about racial policy focus almost exclusively on racial integration and equal opportunity, bypassing the question of racial equality in economic resources, status, or power. And in research on gender policy views, there has been a repeated focus on opinions about the particulars

of gender-role definition along with a dearth of items on male status or power prerogatives.

It is unlikely to be productive to ask people about their support for policies that are completely hypothetical and removed from the realm of everyday political reality. Respondents would have no real-world framework in which to place such questions and hence would have no reality-based cues to interpret their meaning. Under such circumstances, responses would tend to be unstable, the stimulus would fail to have a standardized referent, and for many respondents it would have no referent at all, leaving the researcher with a harvest of haphazard reactions and "don't know's" in lieu of valid information about their policy goals.

For these eminently sensible reasons, empirical analysts contain their attention to issues that have been given life in the extant political arena. And yet, as Bachrach and Baratz (1970) have pointed out (in the context of the empirical debate on how to analyze community power structures), this strategy creates a slippery path whereby we allow our conceptual definition of the range of policy options to be captured within the net of those that already exist. Polsby has rightly argued that we cannot observe that which does not exist (1980), but we must nonetheless apply the conceptual corrective that what exists is but a restricted subset of a much wider theoretical range, a subset created by non-neutral political pressures. The only practical empirical strategy is to devise measures of people's policy goals that draw on known policy options being aired on the public agenda. But as we allow the existing political agenda to determine the focus of our empirical inquiry, we must resist the pressure to define our theoretical parameters within the same narrow scope. As we interpret responses to the policy options that are the necessary focus of our measures, our inferential framework should also incorporate those unmeasured policy options that lie outside the bounds of public political discussion.

The Constrained Pursuit of Resources

The sustained, unequal distribution of resources creates groups that are bound to each other by their mutual relationship. Dominant groups depend on the compliance of subordinates for the continuation of the way of life that they enjoy, and subordinates are obliged to pay heed to their more powerful protagonists if they wish to hold on to whatever limited control over resources they have attained. What this implies is that groups on both sides are bound by the constraints imposed by their mutual relationship as they formulate their policy goals.

Within this framework, the members of both dominant and subordinate groups seek to maximize their control over resources. At the same time, neither side puts all or even part of its current holdings at risk in

the attempt to gain more. The central goal is to maximize: neither side will invest energy in quests for advancement that have few or no prospects of success, and there will be an even greater aversion to goals that may overstep the moral latitude of the relationship and thus incur the wrath of the other group. The malevolent interdependence created by the relational basis of the inequality forces the participating groups to be cognizant of their protagonists as they formulate their political goals.

I view the policy goals that are articulated by the members of unequal groups as the rational expression of their desire to control resources. And because I assume that the rational person avoids danger as much as he or she seeks to improve his or her condition, I cannot pronounce what goals are in the "true" interests of a group without attention to the constraints that are operative. Indeed, I assume that people seek to improve their lot only to the extent that it can be done without jeopardizing what they already have. Thus, I expect that over the long haul, barring occasional miscalculations and mistakes (which become part of the group's corporate history and knowledge), the articulated policy goals of group members will reflect their desire to improve their control over resources, limited by an implicit cognizance of the operative constraints. Those constraints emanate not only from pressures indigenous to their specific relationship with another group but also from broader societal pressures that bear down on the relationship from without. Those pressures affect both the formulation of policy goals themselves and the particular expression those goals take.

Within the confines of the debate between functionalists and conflict-oriented scholars, analysts were obliged to assert prima facie whether a group's "true" interests are served better by support for or opposition to inequality. Anything short of opposition to inequality among subordinates was in danger of being taken as evidence that inequality is benign rather than exploitative—with the only escape hatch being offered by the tenuous interpretation of "false consciousness." But by disentangling conflict from expropriation, we can avoid the bind of interpreting the absence of conflict as either the sign of benign consensus or as an incorrigible puzzle. We are freed from the imperative to make an assumption about whether the true interests of a group lie either in seeking complete equality or in embracing inequality. As Connolly (1972) has convincingly demonstrated, determining a group's ultimate, true interests remains a complicated philosophical issue that presents no ready solution. With the question of expropriation separated from the expectation of conflict, we can view the political goals of unequal groups in a less exalted light.

As people muddle through their daily lives in a reality that holds much uncertainty, they grope to maximize their control over resources that ease the business of living. In that unmeditated endeavor, the knowns

in life that are imposed by the institutional structures and the moral climate within which the person is born provide the guides as to what is possible and what is safe. Attitudes are not contrived actively through the independent thought of individuals, but instead evolve unself-consciously through the collective experience of a group that is bound to another group in an unequal relationship. The individual members of those groups are trying to maximize their control over resources while avoiding danger. It follows that the political goals of individuals will be molded by the pragmatic and moral reality that surrounds them.

In this light, the limits placed on subordinates' goals by the culture and morality that infuses their lives are not a block to their perception of their true interests (as Gramsci would have it). Instead, those limits are an affirmation of the link between pragmatic and moral constraints. The morality that is promoted by dominant groups is not an artificial phenomenon—it springs from the pragmatic reality in which the members of dominant groups find themselves and over which it casts a delicate veil. And, further, that morality itself dominates the political climate within which subordinates grapple for resources, setting bounds that are at once pragmatic and normative on what kinds of proposals have political credibility.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s recollections of the Montgomery bus boycott provide an interesting example of how these pressures operate to constrain the substance and tone of subordinate challenge. In their initial meeting with the city fathers and bus officials in December 1955, the Montgomery Improvement Association limited itself to three fairly modest proposals:

(1) a guarantee of courteous treatment; (2) passengers to be seated on a first-come, first-served basis, the Negroes seating from the back; and (3) employment of Negro bus operators on predominantly Negro routes. (King, Jr. 1958, 109)

Each of these proposals was explained to the Montgomery city fathers and bus officials, drawing on arguments that might appeal to their specific moral sensibilities:

I made it clear, for instance, that our request for a first-come, first-served seating arrangement, with Negroes loading from the back and whites from the front, was not something totally new for the South; other Southern cities—such as Nashville, Atlanta, and even Mobile, Alabama—followed this pattern, and each of them adhered as rigorously to a pattern of segregation as did Montgomery . . . (King, Jr. 1958, 110)

Despite the modest nature of the proposals, the representatives of the white community remained intransigent:

The commissioners and the attorney for the bus company began raising questions. They challenged the legality of the seating arrangement that we were proposing. They contended that the Negroes were demanding something that would violate the law. We answered by reiterating our previous argument that a first-come first-served seating arrangement could exist entirely within the segregation law, as it did in many Southern cities. (King, Jr. 1958, 111)

Ultimately, segregated seating in buses was completely overthrown by a Supreme Court decision imposed on the community from outside. But within the context of locally based negotiations, the leaders of the African-American community in Montgomery were mindful of the mentality of their white opponents as they formulated their initial demands. Those are the pressures that operate, on a more diffuse scale, in the general formulation of subordinates' policy goals. The issues that are addressed in the public forum are a constrained subset of the full range of possibilities, and that subset then frames policy awareness at the grassroots level.

The morality that infuses an intergroup relationship derives from the specific exigencies imposed by the expropriative basis and structural form of that relationship. In addition, the broad moral climate of the society in which the intergroup relationship is nested is likely to wield some influence. As I discussed in chapter 3, within a particular society each intergroup relationship does not operate in isolation but is affected—sometimes tangentially, sometimes critically—by events in other intergroup relationships that cohabit in the same society. In this sense, there is the potential for cultural diffusion from one unequal relationship to another when they exist in the same society and embroil the same people. The diffusion could take place directly, as individuals apply lessons learned in one intergroup setting to their orientation toward another intergroup relationship. Or the diffusion might take place indirectly, as when a particular intergroup relationship plays an important part in the historical development of a society and thus shapes the general moral code of that society. A potent example of such a process is the unfurling of individualism as a governing principle of the American moral code.

Individualism and Egalitarianism

The principle of individualism is an undisputed bedrock of American morality and, indeed, of the Western capitalist-democracies in general. The centrality to Western ethics of the associated norms of individual liberty, achievement based on individual merit, and "free" competition has been observed by such disparate social analysts as Edmund Burke ([1775] 1954), Alexis de Tocqueville ([1850] 1969), Karl Marx ([1857–1858] 1971, 70–73, 128–131), and Max Weber (1946b ; [1930] 1958). Its pertinence has repeatedly been stressed in anal-

yses of class consciousness (for example, Parkin 1971; Huber and Form 1973; Abercrombie and Turner 1982; Jackman and Muha 1984), racial attitudes (for example, Kinder and Sears 1981; Jackman and Muha 1984; Sniderman and Hagen 1985; Bobo 1984; Kluegel and Smith 1986; Kluegel 1990), and contemporary American culture (for example, Bellah et al. 1985; Gans 1988).

The Western democracies also put a high stake on egalitarianism, or so it would seem, but the pervasive influence of individualistic values has worked to twist the popular meaning of equality to make it consistent with individualism. The "egalitarian" distribution of the vote in the Western democracies has been cast in terms of providing everyone with the same right to vote, not in terms of ensuring that everyone's voice is actually heard (Parkin 1971, 185). People do not have the equal distribution of public goods as their normative ideal—what is instead upheld, in the name of equality, is equality of opportunity. And as Schaar (1967) has deftly observed, equality of opportunity ironically presupposes a competitive world in which resources are allocated unequally. The morality of inequality hangs on the rules by which the race is conducted, on whether all competitors are given an equal chance in the race:

The doctrine of equality of opportunity is the product of a competitive and fragmented society, a divided society, a society in which individualism . . . is the reigning ethical principle. It is a precise symbolic expression of the liberal-bourgeois model of society, for it extends the marketplace mentality to all spheres of life. It views the whole of human relations as a contest in which each man competes with his fellows for scarce goods, a contest in which there is never enough for everybody and where one man's gain is usually another's loss. . . . The fundamental character of the social-economic system is unaltered. All that happens is that individuals are given the chance to struggle up the social ladder, change their position in it, and step on the fingers of those beneath them. (Schaar 1967, 237)

The same sentiment is expressed in a more glowing light by Morris Abram (appointed as vice-chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan presidency):

Civil rights have a unique meaning in this country. Elsewhere, in some of those societies where engineering a certain distribution of wealth and goods is part of the state's mission, people have economic rights—the right to housing, health care, and other goods. But civil rights have a different meaning in this country. We live in a constitutional democracy built not on the proposition that each [individual] has a fundamental entitlement to a particular piece of the economic pie, but rather on the concept that it is up to each individual to compete for economic goods, constitutionally protected from interference by guarantees of equal protection under the

law, due process, the Bill of Rights and, most fundamentally, the ballot. (Abram 1984, quoted in Taylor 1986, 203)

In this moral code, competition is hallowed. Indeed, the contractual, competitive work relations that mark capitalism have created a framework in which "freedom" takes on the individualistic meaning, "freedom to compete."

This shift in the meaning of equality to connote equality of opportunity is captured in the term "discrimination," which is the term that recurs most frequently in popular discussions (and in many scholarly discussions) of inequality. It is discrimination that collects all the feelings of moral disapprobation associated with the systematic disadvantages experienced by subordinate groups as a result of inequality. The term "discrimination" conceives of the problem as a violation of individual rights—that individual members of subordinate groups are not given the same opportunity to compete for public goods because they are treated categorically rather than on the basis of their individual attributes. With this normative emphasis, any ideological tendencies that encourage the categorical treatment of group members (most notably stereotypes) are seen as damaging, because they lower the probability that group members will be treated on an individual basis. By the same token, if discrimination is conceived as a violation of individual rights, so too is "reverse discrimination" (Gamson and Modigliani 1987). The speed with which this relatively new term was adopted in common usage reflects the moral precedence of individualism: it is regarded as morally equivalent to give a categorical preference to the members of either dominant or subordinate groups.

Scholars have made different arguments about the means by which individualism enters into the articulation of egalitarianism. Some have taken the more optimistic view that the prominence of individualism is just an unfortunate happenstance that gets in the way of support for specific egalitarian policies (for example, Merriman and Parent 1983; Sniderman, Brody, and Kuklinski 1984; Sniderman and Hagen 1985; Merriman and Carmines 1988). This view has been especially prominent in discussions of whites' lackluster support for interventionist policies on behalf of blacks' civil rights. It is argued that whites' objection to specific racial policies, such as quota systems, is based on the fact that these policies violate individualistic principles: the commitment to individualism is seen as a coincidental obstacle driven by factors independent of racial inequality. Indeed, Sniderman and Hagen (1985, 22) go so far as to say:

Individualism . . . undercuts efforts to realize racial equality not out of hostility to the idea of equality but for just the opposite reason: Individualism is itself a species of egalitarianism. . . . Even were this a world free of preju-

dice and meanness of spirit and ignorance, there would still be opposition to racial equality—an opposition rooted in egalitarianism in the form of individualism.

Other scholars have taken a less benign view of the role of individualism in popular responses to egalitarianism. Students of class have been especially likely to see individualism as an intrinsic part of the defense of inequality in the contemporary Western world (for example, Parkin 1971; Jackman and Muha 1984). Parkin (1971) has argued that the individualistic goals fostered by equality-of-opportunity issues have provided a convenient distraction from core redistributive issues, and that the political agendas of left-wing parties in Western democracies have shifted more toward equality-of-opportunity issues because they are less threatening to established groups and thus present a more fruitful avenue for contention. And some students of racism have also identified the morality of individualism as something that is actively invoked in the defense of racial inequality (for example, Kinder and Sears 1981; Jackman and Muha 1984; Gamson and Modigliani 1987). Kinder and Sears have argued that the traditional American values of individualism and self-reliance form the moral basis for racism and also provide a "safe" outlet for voicing objections to affirmative action programs. For these scholars, the popular whine of "reverse discrimination" reflects the moral envelopment of racism in individualism. The tone of principled moral outrage in the "reverse discrimination" argument is drawn out clearly by Gamson and Modigliani (1987), and they show how exponents of that argument sanctimoniously defended the rights of individuals against incursions on behalf of groups. For example, they quote Cohen (1979, 44) as saying, "Injuries are suffered . . . by individual persons. . . . The sacrifice of fundamental individual rights cannot be justified by the desire to advance the well-being of any ethnic group," and Glazer (1975, 220) is quoted as saying that affirmative action abandons the "first principle of a liberal society, that the individual and the individual's interest and good and welfare are the test of a good society" (quoted in Gamson and Modigliani 1987, 146). In this way, antiracist and "equality" symbolism were adroitly summoned to oppose affirmative action on behalf of blacks (Gamson and Modigliani 1987, 169–170).

I have argued that individualism has been the hallmark cry of dominant groups under challenge in the capitalist-democracies, precisely because it offers a principled way of denying the moral legitimacy of egalitarian demands made on behalf of groups (Jackman and Muha 1984). As Gamson and Modigliani (1987) point out, the symbolism that is thus invoked sounds conveniently like egalitarianism, and it also makes a trenchant appeal to "fairness" norms. Individualism has been especially

appropriate for the defense of class inequality in the "free-market" era because dominant classes have no incentive to emphasize the boundaries between classes. The practice of the expropriation does not require an emphasis on the "groupness" of the arrangements, and, indeed, as I argued in chapter 3, dominant classes prefer to encourage the notion of unsegmented socioeconomic differentiation where people's placement from one generation to the next is seen as fluid. Industrial economies require the recruitment of talent into skilled positions, and individualistic, meritocratic principles are consistent with that requirement.

The shift to equality of opportunity has had such overriding significance in the conduct of political life in the capitalist democracies that it should influence the articulation of policy issues even in relationships in which there is less indigenous pressure for individualism. Ideas that have worked in one context drift comfortably into another: they are the ideas that are the most readily available, and they have demonstrated credibility. However, it is in relationships marked by prolonged challenge from subordinates that individual rights become established as a bedrock moral tenet. This has a profound effect on the shaping of subordinate demands and the tenor of political debate between groups.

Empirical Questions

My argument is that unequal groups pursue resources under constraints. Those constraints emanate from the specific pragmatic and moral exigencies that are posed by the intergroup relationship of which they are a part, as well as from the broad moral code of the society in which the relationship resides. By examining the policy goals of unequal groups in relationships where different constraints are operative, we can assess the degree to which those goals do appear to reflect an ongoing endeavor to maximize, within constraints, control over resources. I have argued that the more distally relations are structured in the day-to-day exchange between unequal groups, the more opportunities there are for subordinates to disentangle themselves from the dominant group cognitively and emotionally and to frame policy goals that aim at affirmative change. However, one set of constraints is traded for another. When the dominant group is faced with institutional arrangements that deliver benefits to them in a cruder, more aggregated fashion and with subordinates who are more restive about those arrangements, dominant-group members move to contain the damage by redirecting people's moral sensitivities into more individualistic channels. The moral emphasis is shifted from the group to the individual, and subordinates are pressed to transform their group demands into individual aspirations. With the political credibility of groups undermined, those demands that continue to be issued by subordinates shift away from the redistributive issues that lie at the core of the intergroup relationship to

the safer moral ground of individual rights and equal opportunity. Indeed, those pressures have been such a central feature of American social history that we may find the morality of individualism is omnipresent in the articulation of policy views in all three intergroup relationships.

This argument directs us to the following empirical questions. What are the policy goals that are voiced by groups as they face each other under different kinds of constraints, and what refrains, if any, are found in all three intergroup relationships? To what extent do the members of each of the groups attempt to increase their group's control over resources or restrict their goals to more of a holding operation? And in their dialogue back and forth, what concessions, if any, do groups on either side appear to grant to their protagonists?

On the dominant side of the relationship, is there a tendency to pursue reactionary policies that would enlarge the inequality, to maintain a conservative stance that aims at keeping things as they are, or to make concessions to subordinates by acknowledging the need for some affirmative change? What kinds of concessions are most likely to be offered, and to what extent do dominant groups attempt to satisfy demands from subordinates with concessions that are symbolic or that involve only minor readjustments, enough to shave off the most offensive aspects of the inequality while leaving the main thrust of arrangements intact?

And on the subordinate side, how much of a tendency is there to demand affirmative changes or to hold on conservatively to current arrangements? How moderately or radically do subordinates compose their demands, and what direction is followed in the shaping of their policy goals? Is there any evidence of a readiness among subordinates to yield some ground to their protagonists by supporting reactionary changes that would further diminish their control over society's resources? Are there circumstances under which subordinates are prepared to suffer some additional symbolic indignity or to advocate some small tangible loss in order to stave off greedier assaults on their resources?

As we evaluate the policy goals of unequal groups, we should differentiate abstract principles from more specific policy views. Are there systematic differences in the way people think about general policy principles on the one hand and specific policy issues on the other? And it is important to assess people's specific policy goals against the existential perceptions of governmental policy that frame those goals. Without knowing the subjective existential framework through which people see ongoing public policy, it is impossible to assess the meaning of their prescriptions about how much activity they think the government ought to be promoting on behalf of various groups. It is also important to assess the extent to which group membership determines political perceptions.

Do the members of a group share the same perception of their fate at the hands of the government? And does the experiential quality of the intergroup relationship create a common estimate across group lines of the current level of governmental activity, or does it lead to sharply disparate existential views between the contending groups?

Data:
Abstract Policy Principles

I begin with the abstract principles that are espoused by contending groups in race, gender, and class relations, and then in the next section move to people's views—both existential and prescriptive—about specific policies. At each level, I start by assessing the opinions that are exchanged between groups in each intergroup relationship, and I then draw out the general patterns that are suggested by comparing the three cases. These data allow us to assess the way policy goals are shaped as unequal groups face each other under constraints.

Measures

Race

I use two items to reflect abstract racial-policy principles. Both items are modeled on those used repeatedly in the National Election Studies:

Generally speaking, are you in favor of racial integration, racial segregation, or something in between? (IF NECESSARY: By integration we mean when things are racially mixed, and by segregation we mean when races are separate.)^[2]

Which of these two statements do you agree with more?: Blacks have a right to live wherever they can afford to.
or
White people have a right to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods if they want to.

These items have been frequently used in the past and need little comment here. Both items clearly address the general principle of racial integration, which has had high visibility and symbolic importance over the past few decades. Note, however, that they do not address the principle of racial equality per se—that principle has been relatively distant from public discussion about racial policy and is thus absent from these items. The second item even idealizes the concept of economic inequality

[2] This item was worded a little differently in the National Election Studies: "Are you in favor of desegregation, strict segregation, or something in between?" (National Election Studies 1991, 274). I modified the wording to reflect the terms that had more currency in the 1970s.

with the qualifier, "Blacks have a right to live wherever they can afford to ": that phrase gives voice to the assumption that not everyone can or should be able to afford the same quality housing, and more obliquely, it also leaves unmolested the expectation that blacks lie considerably behind whites in what they can afford. As I have argued elsewhere (Jackman and Muha 1984), both items implicate the norm of individualism rather than equality. During the height of the civil rights movement, Southern-style segregation of facilities was repeatedly depicted by the media as a serious violation of individual rights; and the right of individuals to buy and sell freely on the housing market without neighborhood interference is another premise of individual freedom in an economy ruled by private ownership.

Gender

There are three items to reflect abstract gender-policy principles, and they focus on the issues that have been aired the most in public discussion of gender policy. The first two items address the classic division of domestic responsibilities between men and women, and the third item focuses on equality of job opportunity for both sexes:

Generally speaking, do you think that doing the housework and taking care of the children should be mainly the woman's responsibility or that it should be the man's responsibility as much as the woman's?

Generally speaking, do you think that the man should have the responsibility for providing financial support for the family, or that the woman should also have some responsibility for providing financial support?

Which of these two statements do you agree with more?:

A woman should be considered just as seriously as a man for any job that fits her interests.
or
Certain jobs should be open to men only.

As with the race items above, these items are straightforward and deal with familiar topics, but a few points are in order. First, the two items on domestic gender-roles necessarily deal with a more personal and privatized aspect of life than do the items for race or class. This is in keeping with the conduct of gender relations, in which home and family comprise the prime theater. But by the same token, this means that many of the central symptoms of gender inequality lie in a zone that has been exempted from the normal purview of public, governmental policy. Thus, they are not as susceptible to policy manipulation. This is intrinsic to the structure of gender relations and indicates yet again the advantages that accrue to dominant groups when they establish social control over subordinates through paternalistic arrangements that hinge on personal, one-to-one contacts.

Second, the two gender-role questions focus on the delineation of gender-appropriate responsibilities rather than whether certain tasks are beyond the ken of either sex. The purpose was to gauge opinions about basic principles of role definition rather than about whether one spouse may help another with gender-defined activities. For example, someone may consider it fine for the wife to take paid employment if she wishes and even to supplement the family pot with her earnings but at the same time consider the financial provision of the family to remain the husband's responsibility . Similarly, someone may think it appropriate for the husband to help his wife wash the dishes or the baby's bottom, but still believe that the cleanliness of house and family is the wife's worry. Public discussion of these issues usually presents them in terms of individual freedom of choice to deviate from prescribed norms if circumstances permit rather than in terms of how responsibilities should be assigned. Some respondents may not have been able to break out of that pattern of thinking, despite the stricter wording used on those items.

Third, the question on housework and childcare poses an egalitarian division of responsibility as one option, while the question on the family's financial support does not pose a completely egalitarian arrangement as an option, just some diffusion of responsibility. Pretesting indicated only minuscule support for an egalitarian division of financial responsibility between husbands and wives: the "egalitarian" response option was diluted to its present wording in order to capture whatever leanings away from traditional male role-definitions could be found.

Finally, the item on equality of opportunity is closer in spirit to the racial-policy items above: it deals with a public sphere more within the purview of government, and at the same time it implicates the principle of individual rights rather than equality. In this regard, note that the item only asks whether women should be considered for any job, not whether they should be hired. This distinction is important: the wording makes it plain that the focus is on procedures rather than outcomes, and endorsing the principle of an open procedure is of course not tantamount to expecting an egalitarian outcome. Indeed, such prominent theorists as Emile Durkheim ([1897] 1951, 385) and John Stuart Mill ([1869] 1970) were moved to advocate open procedures for women's employment opportunities while at the same time reassuring their readers that such procedures would not lead to any serious competition between the sexes in the job market—because, they argued, women's natural aptitudes would steer them into different occupations than men without any imposition of discriminatory rules.

Class

The general policy principle that is most central to class is economic inequality. I have two measures reflecting that principle, both phrased in terms of occupational inequality in earnings:

Thinking about the amount of money people in different occupations earn, do you think there should be a great deal of difference, some difference, or almost no difference in how much people in different occupations earn?

We're interested in getting people's opinions about how much money people in different occupations should make. Please look at these occupations and tell me how much money you think people in each one should make, regardless of how much they do make. Just tell me what you think would be best.

Now, how about a school teacher? How much money do you think an average school teacher should make in a year?

How much money do you think an average assembly-line factory worker should make in a year?

How much money do you think an average doctor should make in a year?

How much money do you think an average business executive should make in a year?

How much money do you think an average janitor should make in a year?

The first of these measures is the simpler test of support for income inequality as an abstract principle. Note that it does not include a response option for complete income equality: as with the item on the gender division of financial responsibility, pretesting indicated that complete income equality is outside the moral bounds of American society.

The second measure relies on a set of questions about desired incomes for a range of occupations to construct a general recommended ratio of incomes of low-level occupations to high-level occupations. Each respondent's concept of how much income inequality there should be was calculated by taking the mean of four recommended-income ratios: janitors to doctors, janitors to business executives, assembly-line factory workers to doctors, and assembly-line factory workers to business executives.^[3] The closer the ratio to 1.0, the smaller the desired income gap. Note that the occupations chosen as stimuli do not represent extremes in the occupational distribution (as, say, between migrant farmworkers and corporation presidents), but are intended to capture opposing poles in the mainstream of the labor force. This measure addresses general notions of the optimal income-gap by asking about concrete salary preferences: it thus allows us to validate the first measure, which relies on broader language to capture the same concept.

Results

Race

Racial segregation is largely repudiated by both blacks and whites—and yet there is a divergence between the two groups in their

[3] Respondents with missing data on two or more of the four individual ratios were excluded from analysis. (Application of a more stringent decision-rule excluding those with missing data on one or more of the individual ratios resulted in a slightly smaller N , but yielded virtually identical distributions.)

enthusiasm for what would seem to be the most obvious alternative, racial integration . That divergence reveals itself suggestively rather than starkly. Table 6.1 displays the percentage distributions of responses given by whites and blacks to the two items on racial integration.

Only about 15 percent of whites endorse either the right of whites to exclude blacks categorically from their neighborhoods or an overall policy of racial segregation; this is not very different from the near-complete lack of support for segregation among blacks. For many whites, however, rejection of segregation is not tantamount to endorsement of racial integration. When forced to choose between the right of whites to exclude blacks categorically from their neighborhoods and the right of blacks to live wherever they can afford, about eight out of ten whites endorse the latter right. But on the other item, which offers the option of "something in between" racial segregation and integration, fully 44 percent of whites are drawn to that response, leaving only 35 percent supporting unmodified racial integration. By contrast, only 15 percent of blacks find "something in between" racial segregation and integration an attractive proposition: 73 percent of blacks support racial integration and 97 percent support blacks' residential rights. Thus, overall, the principle of racial integration receives overwhelming support from blacks, whereas among whites it has frequent but guarded support.^[4]

[4] Data from the American National Election Studies reported in Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985, 74–75, 95–96, 144–145) suggest even higher levels of attraction to the "something in between" response among whites (and also among blacks) than is indicatedin my data. In the NES data, whites' support for "something in between" increased from 46 percent in 1970 to 60 percent in 1978, and blacks' support for this option increased from 18 percent to 39 percent over the same time period. Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo provide evidence from a split-ballot experiment that the NES's placement of the item in the interview schedule immediately after an item on federal school intervention (a particularly sensitive issue) was contaminating responses to the "general principle" item and increasing the number of "something in between" responses. In my interview schedule, the item on general support for racial integration preceded the item on federal school intervention; the only racial items asked immediately before were on respondents' personal preferences for interracial contact in the workplace and neighborhood, which I judge to be relatively innocuous.

The figures in Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo (1985) indicate that the percentage of blacks to be drawn to the "something in between" response has also increased, although it still trails behind the percentage of whites giving that response. This pattern suggests that blacks may have backed away from the goal of racial integration in the face of unrelenting white opposition to racial integration in specific policy contexts, especially in public schools. Blauner (1989) argues that blacks have become disillusioned with the goal of racial integration, and the growing interest in Afrocentrism among blacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s lends support to that view. Confronted with unyielding white opposition, the goal of seeking more contact with whites may have lost its appeal as a means of attaining racial equality. This may be especially true in the context of public schools, where the prospect of sending one's children to learn in a hostile white environment may seem an unsatisfactory outcome.

One might well ask what "something in between" racial segregation and integration could be. What it probably conjures up for most people is the idea of racial integration or segregation being decided on the basis of individual free will, without any external interference—so-called "voluntary integration." Taylor maintains that the principal issue of contention in whites' orientation to policies of racial integration since the 1950s has been over mandatory versus voluntary compliance (Taylor 1986, 24–38, 191–204). As though to underscore that point, Herrnstein (1990, 6) carefully distinguishes between "desegregation" (by which racial segregation is made illegal) and "integration" (by which equal proportionate representation of groups is mandated). It is well known that Northern whites who opposed slavery in the 1860s did not generally have racial equality in mind as the obvious alternative; likewise in the latter half of the twentieth century, it seems that many Northern whites who opposed the de jure segregation of the Jim-Crow South did not object to the de facto segregation that characterized the neighborhoods and schools of Northern cities.

The attraction of whites to "something in between" segregation and integration suggests that their support for racial integration might most generously be described as soft. Indeed, it may not reflect support for the rights of blacks so much as the rights of individuals to live their lives as unencumbered as possible by the stipulations of others. Individuals should be able to buy and sell in a free housing market and they should

also be able to decide whether they want to have contact with another racial group. No one should be prevented from selling his house to whoever can afford it, and by the same token no one should be forced to have contact with another racial group. Such a view falls considerably short of an abandonment of the racial status quo and implies a larger gap between the racial policy principles of whites and blacks than a cursory inspection of the data might suggest.

Gender

The views of men and women on gender policy principles reveal two important contrasts with the racial policy principles expressed by whites and blacks. First, rejection of discriminatory gender-policy principles lags considerably behind the repudiation of racial segregation found among both blacks and whites. Second, men and women do not differ markedly from each other in the gender policy principles they espouse. Men and women exhibit a roughly parallel division of opinion on the subject. The percentage distributions of men's and women's responses to the three items on gender policy principles are presented in table 6.2.

When asked about responsibility for housework and childcare, there is an almost even division of opinion within each gender group. Close to half of each sex endorses the principle of an egalitarian division of domestic labor; almost as many men and just as many women maintain that domestic labor is primarily the woman's responsibility. When asked about whether women should share some of the financial responsibility for the family (recall the conservative phrasing of this question), the distribution of responses from women is very similar to that elicited from them by the item on housework and childcare. Men lag a little behind, with only about one-third supporting even some diffusion of financial responsibility to women and just over one-half seeing the financial support of the family as the man's responsibility alone.

On both of these items, a small minority of each sex (11–16 percent) broke away from the absolutes that were posed and volunteered conditional answers (such as, for the first item, saying it depended on whether the woman worked, for the second item, on whether the husband's income was sufficient, and for both items, on whether there were children). That some respondents were moved to volunteer such statements without any encouragement from the question itself suggests that such considerations feature prominently in people's thinking. Their effect is largely conservative, and their insertion into the issue implies that others' support for egalitarian principles of labor-division may also be fragile, crumbling easily in the face of specific objections that might be raised in individual cases. Few men or women may believe in an egalitarian division of labor between the sexes as a first-order right of women, but

rather as something that is permissible, if individual circumstances are favorable or if it can be done without violating the primary obligations of either gender.

The third item on gender policy principles directly broaches an issue that is hallowed in the Western capitalist democracies—equality of opportunity—and in this respect its focus parallels the race item on equal housing opportunity. This gender item elicits more affirmative responses than either of the other two items on gender principles, but equal job opportunity for women still does not receive as much support as the principle of equal housing opportunity for blacks receives from both blacks and whites. And as with the other two gender items, this issue does not elicit very different responses from women than from men: 57

percent of men and 64 percent of women endorse the principle that a woman should have an equal opportunity to be considered for any job that interests her.

Class

Egalitarian principles seem even further removed from most people's thinking when confronted with the topic of how incomes should be distributed. And although there is some disagreement by social class, the vast majority of people in all social classes subscribe to the principle of income inequality to some degree. The percentage distributions of people's responses about income inequality, by social class, are given in table 6.3.

When asked in the most general terms about whether there should be a great deal of difference, some difference, or (as the timidly egalitarian option) almost no difference in how much money people in different occupations earn, the variation in responses by social class is limited. The main distinction is that, with descending social class, there is some retraction of support for a great deal of income inequality; the position to which people in lower classes remove themselves, however, is most likely to be support for some difference in income. Among those identifying with the upper-middle class, there is a roughly even division of opinion between those favoring a great deal of difference and some difference in incomes. Among the three lower classes, opinion shifts slightly

to favoring some income difference over a great deal of difference by a ratio of about 2 to 1. The idea of almost no income difference remains largely out of bounds in all social classes: that idea is supported by only about 8–11 percent of the upper-middle, middle, and working classes, and 17 percent of the poor. Data from an open-ended probe asking respondents why they took the positions they did indicate that the overwhelming majority of people in all social classes subscribe to some version of an individualist-achievement rationale (those data are discussed in detail in Jackman and Jackman 1983, 206–213).

The pattern of responses to the income-ratio measure replicates responses to the more global item above. Again, we observe a general aversion to the idea of a very small income gap. Note that the most egalitarian ratio-score category in the table is set very inclusively at merely .58 and above, and even so, it attracts very little support. Again, there is a mild relationship between social class and conceptions of the optimal size for the income gap. With descending social class, there is some retreat from the idea of a very large income gap and a timid lead in favoring a small gap. About 60 percent of the upper-middle class and 40 percent of the middle class advocate an income gap in which the highest occupations earn at least three times as much as the lowest occupations, whereas about one-third of the poor and working class support such a large income gap. Conversely, about one-quarter of the poor and working class favor an income gap in which the highest occupations earn less than twice as much as the lowest occupations, compared with only 4 percent of the upper-middle class.

General Patterns

The general policy principles that are espoused in these three intergroup relationships betray only limited support for egalitarian goals and only restricted disagreement between unequal groups on this score. Egalitarianism in the shape of income equality elicits the least support overall, and there is modest disagreement among social classes only in the extent of their rejection of the principle of income equality. In gender relations, both men and women are divided almost evenly between egalitarian and discriminatory principles on the division of labor between the sexes. It is in the context of racial segregation/integration that one finds the strongest endorsement of affirmative principles, but the race items invoke equality of opportunity rather than racial equality per se. Blacks assert their right to equal treatment more clearly than do women or the poor or working class. Whites also reject the idea of the categorical separation of the races more vehemently than men (or women) reject the categorical separation of tasks between the sexes or than the upper-middle class rejects the notion of wide income differentials. But, nonetheless, whites lag behind blacks in their enthusiasm for

the principle of racial integration , resulting in a larger rift in general policy principles between the races than exists between the sexes or classes.

These patterns suggest that subordinate challenge of categorically unequal treatment may push the dominant group away from a stance that morally endorses such treatment, but the position to which the dominant group retreats is likely to be one of equal opportunity rather than egalitarianism pure and simple. Thus, although whites have largely repudiated racial segregation, they have not embraced racial integration either. Many whites appear to be drawn to an alternative that leaves the rights of individuals confined as little as possible. In a similar vein, the arena of gender relations that shows the highest rejection of unequal treatment is that of employment opportunity, the arena that most directly invokes the principle of individualism. Note, however, that the rights of individuals are not enunciated as vehemently in the context of gender as they are in the context of race. Finally, the almost total absence of support for the concept of income equality is explained by the respondents themselves as stemming from a belief in individualistic-achievement principles.

Data:
Specific Policy Goals

To explore the substance of people's specific policy beliefs, I begin with their ideas about the appropriate course for governmental action, along with the existential beliefs that subjectively anchor those prescriptions—their perceptions of the current level of governmental activity. In the second part of the analysis I build that anchor into my assessment of specific policy goals. I measure the extent to which people advocate affirmative change over the perceived current state of affairs, no change (that is, conservatism), or reactionary change back to a lowered level of governmental intervention on behalf of subordinates' rights.

Measures

Given the importance of the federal government as the most powerful institution in American politics, my measures of specific policy goals all focus on federal government intervention. And in keeping with my concern that people's prescriptions be anchored in their subjective perceptions of the current status of policy activity, respondents were asked about both their perceptions of and prescriptions for governmental action.

Specific policy goals for race, gender, and class were measured with a series of item-pairs: for each policy issue, a question about respondents' existential perceptions of governmental activity was followed by a question about what level of governmental activity they would prescribe. The

pairs of items for policies relevant to race, gender, and class were interspersed among one another, and the series was introduced as follows:

People have different opinions about how much the federal government is doing about various things. People also differ about how much they think the federal government should be doing about these things.

First of all, how much do you think the federal government is doing to make sure blacks and whites go to the same schools? Just look at the card and tell me what you think [A lot, Quite a bit, A little, Nothing].

Now, how much do you think the federal government should be doing about this?

The pairs of questions covered the following policy issues for race, gender, and social class:

(RACE)

. . . to make sure blacks and whites go to the same schools?

. . . to make sure that blacks can buy any house on the market that they can afford?

. . . to make sure blacks have the same job opportunities as whites?

(GENDER)

. . . to make sure women have the same job opportunities as men?

. . . to make sure laws are applied in the same way to women and men?

. . . to provide daycare centers for the children of working mothers?

(CLASS)

. . . to make sure that everyone who wants a job can get one?

. . . to give welfare benefits to people who don't have very much money?

. . . to make sure that everyone has at least a minimum income?

To interpret these items, two factors need to be considered: (1) are they straightforward applications of the abstract principles addressed in the earlier questions?; and (2) to what extent do they address the enforcement of individual rights or equality of opportunity versus group rights or the redistribution of resources from one group to another? I consider these issues for race, gender, and class, respectively.

The specific policy questions for race all involve straightforward applications of the general principle of racial integration. These items address three alternative, highly visible policies that seek to implement racial integration. As with the abstract principle of racial integration itself, these policies do not broach the issue of racial equality, but instead are aimed at the protection of individual rights. But, unlike the questions on abstract principles, these questions do ask about enforcement, and as such, they automatically remove some of the laissez-faire connotations that notions of individual rights and personal freedom have for many

people. In addition, two of the items (on jobs and schools) do deviate somewhat from the abstract principles in that they implicitly entangle redistributive issues. Of the three items, that on equal housing opportunity has the closest correspondence with at least one of the abstract-principle items and it is the most oriented toward individual rights. The item on equal job opportunity also broaches the enforcement of individual rights, but for many whites the issue of enforcing equal job opportunity may conjure up visions of racial quotas or preferential treatment of blacks (cutely termed "reverse discrimination" because they violate whites' individual rights), and to the extent that this is the case, this item embroils a significant redistributive element. Finally, the item on school integration undoubtedly elicits thoughts about school busing: school busing was designed to create equality of educational opportunity for blacks and whites, but the implementation clearly involves some redistribution of valued educational resources from whites to blacks.

The items on specific gender policies are tangential to the basic principles of gender-role definition, but one item corresponds quite closely to the abstract principle of equal employment opportunity for women. As I noted earlier, the principal sphere for the enactment of gender-roles is in intimate personal relationships, conveniently beyond the reach of normal governmental activity. Thus, the question of how to enforce any change in gender-role definitions becomes moot. Instead, these items focus on policies that address some of the fallout from gender differentiation: women's inferior employment opportunities, women's inferior legal rights, and women's need for daycare for their children so that they can participate in the paid labor force. The first two of these issues involve the enforcement of individual rights (with the same proviso as noted for the comparable racial-policy items), whereas the third item involves the redirection of resources to assist women's participation in society on the same terms as men.

The three specific class-policy items are essentially soft applications of the general principle of income equality—to the policies of full employment, welfare, and minimum income. The item on guaranteed employment is the most moderate of the three: although full employment has traditionally been a higher priority of the left-wing, it is regarded as desirable by both the left and the right, especially insofar as it is associated with a healthy economy rather than with governmental intervention through public work-programs. The item on welfare programs probably has the most cogently redistributive meaning, both because of the frequent public discussion of welfare programs and because such programs are generally assumed to connote the direct redistribution of resources at the government's disposal. Note, however, that in keeping with the boundaries of public discussion of economically redistributive measures,

none of the specific policies addressed in these items does more than raise the possibility of minimal safety-net measures. Such measures merely aim to soften the harshest punishments of economic inequality: they fall far short of any attempt to eliminate or even to reduce significantly the gap between rich and poor.

Results: Prescriptive and Existential Beliefs

Race

The disagreement between whites and blacks that showed itself only suggestively in the articulation of abstract policy principles becomes a marked and systematic rift when we examine people's prescriptive beliefs about how active the federal government should be in pursuing specific racial policies and also in their existential perceptions of the current level of governmental activity. The relevant percentage-distributions are presented in table 6.4: the first two columns give the percentages of whites and blacks who advocate that the federal government should be doing "a lot," "quite a bit," "a little," or "nothing" to ensure

racially integrated schools, equal housing opportunity, and equal job opportunities for blacks; the second two columns give comparable distributions for whites' and blacks' existential beliefs about how much the federal government is currently doing on those same racial policy issues.

Whites' support for governmental intervention to promote blacks' civil rights tends to be lackluster—blacks are much more likely than whites to think that the federal government should be intervening vigorously in this area. The gap between the races widens still further when one considers that whites also tend to see the current level of governmental intervention on behalf of blacks' civil rights as much more vigorous than do blacks. I begin with the prescriptive beliefs of each racial group.

The policy that elicits the least support from both racial groups is that of racially integrated schools; equal job opportunity elicits the highest levels of support from both groups. But there the similarity between the two groups ends. Among blacks, about two-thirds to three-quarters think the federal government should be doing a lot to promote these policies, and virtually all the remaining blacks think the government should be doing quite a bit. Among whites, only 14 to 24 percent think the government should be doing a lot on any of these policies. On the issue of equal job opportunity, only slightly over one-quarter of whites go to the opposite extreme of advocating little or no governmental activity, but 40 percent of whites would like to see little or nothing done to promote equal housing opportunity, and on the issue of racially integrated schools, over one-half of whites think the government should be doing only a little or nothing.

These data give us an indication of the different directions that the two racial groups take when they apply their abstract policy principles to specific issues. What looks like a reasonably high, albeit guarded, endorsement of the principle of racial integration among whites is unlikely to manifest itself in a desire for strong governmental measures to bring integration about. But among blacks, endorsement of the abstract principle of racial integration is highly likely to be manifested in a strong commitment to specific policies to achieve that goal. Thus, for example, although 80 percent of whites believe blacks have a right to live wherever they can afford, only 18 percent think the government should be doing a lot to ensure that right. Among blacks, however, 97 percent endorse the same abstract principle and 72 percent think the government should be doing a lot to make it happen. Thus, what appear at face value to be relatively modest differences between blacks and whites at the level of abstract support for racial integration translate into a serious rupture in real policy terms.

When we consider people's existential beliefs about the same three racial policies, the rift between the racial groups deepens. Governmental

activity is most likely to be seen on the issue of integrated schools, with equal job opportunity close behind and the least activity being perceived on the issue of equal housing opportunity. This rank ordering is found in the perceptions of both whites and blacks, and it corresponds reasonably well with the relative public attention that each issue has received in the media (note also the relatively large number of whites—18 percent—who say they don't know how much the government is doing to promote blacks' housing rights). All this might suggest that people's existential beliefs about racial policies are cleanly grounded in a common reality. However, on each issue, whites and blacks diverge sharply in their perceptions of what the current level of governmental activity is.

Among whites, the most frequent perception is that the federal government is currently doing "quite a bit" to promote blacks' civil rights, with "a lot" of governmental activity being the second-most frequent perception on two of the three issues. In all, as many as three-quarters of whites believe the federal government is already doing either quite a bit or a lot to ensure integrated schools and equal job opportunity; about one-half of whites see that degree of governmental activity on the issue of equal housing opportunity. Against this existential backdrop, whites' policy prescriptions are revealed in a yet meaner light.

Blacks' estimates of the current level of governmental activity tend to fall far short of whites': only about one-quarter of blacks think the government is already doing a lot or quite a bit to ensure equal housing opportunity or equal job opportunity for blacks, and even on the highly visible issue of school integration, only about 40 percent think that a lot or quite a bit is being done. The most frequent perception among blacks is that the government is doing only "a little," with about one-half of blacks having that perception; over the three policy issues, the perception that the government is doing little or nothing to ensure blacks' civil rights is held by over one-half to over two-thirds of blacks. With these existential beliefs as the backdrop, blacks' advocacy of governmental intervention is revealed even more urgently. The rift that separates their policy views from those of whites gapes open to a chasm.

These existential beliefs also provide, less directly, contextual information by which we may reinterpret the abstract policy principles of whites and blacks that were reported in table 6.1. If many whites believe that much is already being done to ensure racial integration, this suggests that their conception of what constitutes racial integration is much less far-reaching than what many blacks have in mind. This is consistent with my earlier argument that the large proportion of whites who favor "something in between" segregation and integration (when they are given such an option) suggests that many whites endorse a vaguely conceived, laissez-faire situation of "voluntary integration" that would pro-

tect whites' personal freedom of choice without "forcing" them to conform to the requirements of either racial segregation or integration. Such an arrangement would of course fall seriously short of any guarantee of racial integration, but this shortcoming is doubtless less apparent to whites than to blacks.^[5]

In this regard, bear in mind that the urban residential segregation that characterizes race relations in the contemporary United States has a de facto quality that leaves most individual whites feeling personally blameless. The policies and practices that have brought about residential segregation have had low visibility and they are buried in history, lost behind such positive terms as "suburban growth" and "urban renewal." Most whites are blissfully unaware of the policies pursued by federal and local governments and by the banking and real estate industries that established racially segregated neighborhoods. And whereas the racial segregation of the Jim-Crow South required the active involvement of the white population in order to maintain it, contemporary residential segregation achieves a pervasive separation of the two groups without individual whites having to take any active steps. Thus, much as most whites express a clear personal preference for neighborhoods that are all-white or mostly white (Jackman and Jackman 1983, 197), they are rarely called upon to act on their preferences. Segregation is so well entrenched that most whites can enjoy its benefits without exerting any personal effort. Blacks reside in different locations, and segregation in schools and jobs follow "naturally" from that. In such a situation, a laissez-faire approach by whites is sweetly convenient.

Thus, the so-called gap or inconsistency between whites' racial policy principles and their specific policy views may be illusory. At both the abstract and the applied level, many whites gravitate to a policy solution that puts a priority on individual freedom of movement with as little governmental intervention as possible. With an initially weak conception of what constitutes racial integration, whites are consistently following through (rather than inconsistently backing off) when they oppose specific policy proposals that would accelerate governmentally enforced racial integration.

Gender

Men and women do not differ markedly from one another in their views about governmental gender policies. Table 6.5 presents the percentage distributions of men's and women's prescriptive and exis-

[5] The wishful thinking that is manifested in whites' support for "something in between" racial integration and segregation might be likened to Walter Laqueur's analysis of German citizens' cognizance of the holocaust: "while many Germans thought that the Jews were no longer alive, they did not necessarily believe that they were dead" (Laqueur 1980, 201, quoted in Elster 1983, 152).

tential beliefs about governmental intervention to ensure equal job opportunity for women, equal legal treatment for women, and daycare centers for the children of working mothers.

Of the three issues, it is equal legal treatment for women that elicits the strongest support from both sexes. Almost 40 percent of both sexes think the government should be doing "a lot" and about another 40 percent think the government should be doing "quite a bit" to make sure that laws are applied in the same way to women and men. Both of the other two policy issues elicit somewhat less support from both gender groups, with women's level of support only a shade ahead of men's.

Both men and women are less likely to think the government is currently doing a lot or quite a bit than that the government should be doing that much. On the issues of equal job opportunity and equal legal treatment for women, this tendency is slightly more marked among women, with 46 to 50 percent of women and 56 to 60 percent of men believing

that quite a bit or a lot is currently being done by the government. The issue of daycare centers is less likely to be seen by either men or women as a target of governmental activity, with only about 20 percent of men and 30 percent of women believing that a lot or quite a bit is already being done.^[6]

These figures contrast sharply with those for race. Most notably, women do not deviate seriously from men in their views about governmental intervention in women's civil rights. And although men appear to be slightly less withholding than whites in their prescriptive policy beliefs, this difference is not nearly as large as the difference between women and blacks in the degree to which they advocate affirmative change. Indeed, on the issues of equal job opportunity for blacks and for women, respectively, whites and men exhibit virtually the same levels of support—they differ only in that men are somewhat less likely than whites to believe that the government is already engaging in "a lot" of affirmative activity. Women, however, lag considerably behind blacks in the strength of their support for governmental activity on behalf of their group, and they also display considerably less jaundiced perceptions of the current level of governmental activity on their behalf than do blacks. Whereas almost all blacks advocate either a lot or quite a bit of governmental action to ensure equal job opportunity for blacks and only one-quarter believe that level of activity is already happening, about two-thirds of women advocate a lot or quite a bit of governmental activity to ensure equal job opportunity for women and one-half believe that level of activity is taking place already. The net effect is that only a hint of the rift found between racial groups is to be found between women and men.

Another contrast with the data for racial policy views is that, for gender, the move from abstract principles to specific government policies is not associated with any clearly interpretable changes in the data. In both realms, men's and women's views parallel one another fairly closely, and neither realm elicits systematically more or fewer affirmative prescriptions from either group. Of course, comparison of the two realms is less straightforward because the issues that come into focus are not directly comparable: the most central abstract principles for gender deal with egalitarianism in the conduct of people's "private" lives, whereas governmental intervention is usually raised in relation to the enforcement of individual rights in the public sphere. The former broaches redistributive goals at the sensitive core of the relationship; the latter

[6] But this issue also elicits a large number of "don't know" responses (about 30 percent). Daycare centers cater to a relatively narrow constituency, and the issue may not be very salient or visible to those who do not have preschool-aged children.

raises the threatening specter of enforcement but on issues involving individual, rather than group, rights, and away from the nerve center of family relations. In my study, there are just two items that allow for a fairly clear-cut comparison: those on abstract support for equal job opportunity for women and on support for governmental intervention to ensure that opportunity. On this issue, approximately 60 percent of both sexes support the abstract principle whereas about 30 percent think the government should be doing "a lot" to guarantee the principle and about 40 percent think the government should do "quite a bit."

Class

Social classes present a similar pattern of disagreement to that found between whites and blacks—but in muted form. As with whites and blacks, lower classes are more likely to advocate governmental intervention whereas higher classes are more likely to perceive that such intervention is already taking place. However, existential beliefs are less disparate by class than are prescriptive beliefs, and the pattern of class differences in general is not as dramatic as it is for race. The data for class are presented in table 6.6.

Descending social class is associated with a gradual increase in advocacy for these economic policies, and there is a difference of about 30 percentage points between the upper-middle class and the poor in their propensity to advocate "a lot" of governmental intervention. The magnitude of this class difference is constant across all three issues, even as

the absolute levels of support shift. It seems that the more directly a policy carries redistributive goals, the less support it receives from any class. Thus, the provision of welfare benefits receives the lowest endorsement from any class, with fewer than one-quarter of the upper-middle class and about one-half of the poor advocating "a lot" of governmental action on that issue, whereas the provision of guaranteed jobs receives the highest levels of endorsement, with just over one-third of the upper-middle class and about two-thirds of the poor supporting "a lot" of governmental intervention on that issue. Virtually no one among the poor believes the government should do only "a little" or "nothing" to guarantee jobs or a minimum income and about 13 percent of the poor take such a position on the more sensitive issue of welfare benefits. Among the upper-middle class, between 26 and 40 percent advocate little or no government action on the three issues, with welfare benefits exciting the strongest exhortations to inaction.

These figures (both in the pattern of disagreement among classes and in the absolute levels of support for egalitarian goals) are broadly consistent with those for abstract economic policy principles. If anything, there seems to be slightly less resistance in all classes to specific redistributive governmental policies than to economic egalitarianism in the abstract. As I noted earlier, however, these policies encompass only modest safety-net provisions, and thus they do not broach the issue of economic equality as boldly as did the items on the abstract principle of income equality.

In existential beliefs, the largest class differences occur in perceptions of the government provision of welfare benefits. The upper-middle class is almost twice as likely as the poor to believe that the government is already doing "a lot" or "quite a bit" to provide welfare benefits: among the upper-middle class, about 40 percent think a lot is being done and another 40 percent think quite a bit is happening, whereas only about 20 percent of the poor believe a lot is happening and fewer than 30 percent of the poor think even quite a bit is being done. On the other two economic policy issues, class differences in perceptions are in the same direction but smaller. And as with economic policy prescriptions, the gap between the poor and the upper-middle class is bridged in stepwise increments by the classes that lie in between. In this way, the political rift among classes is fractured rather than presenting alignments on either side of a simple, dichotomous cleavage.

These class divisions in economic policy views fall short of the gaping chasm that exists in both prescriptive and existential beliefs between whites and blacks. At the same time, the differences among classes are persistent and systematic, and far exceed the mere hint of disagreement found between men and women. This muted rift is reflected in the abso-

lute levels of support for affirmative policies that are displayed by the various classes. The upper-middle class demonstrates about the same degree of support for affirmative economic policies as do men for affirmative gender policies. The degree of support gradually increases from one class to the next until, at the other end of the class structure, the poor's advocacy of redistributive economic policies is almost as strong as blacks' advocacy of governmental action on behalf of blacks' rights.

General Patterns

Overall, these data yield very similar patterns to those that obtain for abstract policy principles. It is only in the relationship between whites and blacks that the rift between groups is revealed much more sharply in the context of specific governmental policies. And this shift is solely attributable to one group—whites—whose policy goals appear considerably less affirmative in the context of specific governmental policies. In gender and class relations, the policy goals of the respective groups appear fairly consistent in the abstract and specific contexts. In either arena, there is very little rift between men and women, with both groups indicating moderate levels of support for egalitarian and affirmative policies. Among classes, there is a muted rift that follows a step function from modest support for redistributive policies among the upper-middle class to fairly strong support among the poor. There is, if anything, a slight tendency for social classes to express slightly higher levels of support for specific governmental policies than for abstract egalitarian principles.

Thus, there does not seem to be any necessary relationship between the level of abstraction of policy questions and the degree of support expressed for them. Subordinate groups do not systematically reveal more radical goals in the "real" world of governmental policies. And dominant groups do not display any systematic tendency to espouse lofty principles and then abandon them when they move to specifics. Finally, there is no evidence of a general aversion in any group to the federal government intervening in social or economic issues. The oft-cited "gap" between abstract and applied principles in whites' policy views may simply stem from ambiguities that are inherent to items that measure general principles. Abstractions are by definition nonspecific, and it is only in the context of the specific that their meaning is revealed. Investigators may have optimistically read more into people's responses to general items on racial integration than was really there.

Support for a policy instead seems to hinge on three interrelated factors, none of which is related to the distinction between abstract principles and applied policies. First, policies that strike at the core of an intergroup relationship generate more cautious responses than those that aim at the periphery of the relationship. Thus, enforced racial integration

in schools generates the least endorsement from both whites and blacks because its sensitivity is recognized by both sides: whites guard their schools with particular ferocity because schools constitute the primary institutions by which cultural values and achievement-related skills are transferred to the next generation, and blacks are less likely to be assertive in an area that is most likely to elicit a backlash (and perhaps especially since it is their children who would be on the frontline). Second, by the same token, policies that have a broader scope elicit less support than policies that seek only small changes. And third, people are more likely to shy away from policies that threaten individualistic values, especially freedom of choice. All of these factors are interconnected, and, indeed, the prevalence of individualism lies in its ideological convenience as dominant groups strive to divert energies away from core redistributive issues to those that lie closer to the periphery of their relations with subordinates.

There seems to be a common understanding between contending groups of the moral framework that binds their disputes. As subordinate groups attempt to enhance their control over society's assets, they cope with the uncertainty of the terrain by avoiding dramatic demands that violate the terms of that framework. Dominant groups continue to proselytize the broad outlines of the moral code as they resist the specific inroads that subordinates attempt to forge. Subordinates have no choice but to be sensitive to the hard spots and soft spots of the dominant group and to calibrate their demands accordingly. In this way, the contending groups get locked in a delicate struggle that is several steps removed from the core redistributive issues that define their relationship. The rights of groups appear to lie beyond the confines of legitimate political contention, and the domain of debate becomes restricted to questions about the extensiveness and enforcement of individual rights.

As the contending groups address those questions, a comparison of their prescriptive and existential policy beliefs reveals that they are divided by both. People's sensitivities—whether to the indignities of deprivation or to the threat of lost benefits—affect not only their advocacy but their perceptions of reality as well. Subordinates are generally more likely to advocate government intervention, whereas dominant-group members are more likely to believe that government intervention on behalf of subordinates is already considerable. In this way, the separate existential worlds of dominant and subordinate groups reinforce the rift created by their differing prescriptive views. The dual-edged divide is most pronounced between whites and blacks, somewhat weaker in class relations, and only whispered in gender relations. Men and women do not differ substantially from one another in their prescriptive views, but women do tend to see somewhat less government activity already in place

than do men. These patterns suggest that the import of the policy goals that people articulate cannot be fully assessed unless we know the existential context in which they are framed.

Results:
Affirmative Change, Conservatism, and Reaction

In order to define the lines of contention between groups more sharply, I now synthesize the data on specific policy goals by building people's existential beliefs into the measure of their policy prescriptions. In this way, each individual's policy prescriptions are measured with a built-in reality check—against the existential beliefs that frame those prescriptions. This yields a more sensitive indicator of people's policy goals.

Measures

I take the difference between each respondent's belief about what should be done and her belief about what is already being done by the government for each policy issue.^[7] For each policy measure, this yields scores ranging from -3 (the government should be doing a lot but is doing nothing) through +3 (the government should be doing nothing but is doing a lot). These scores break down into three distinct categories: those who advocate affirmative change (that is, they think the government should be doing more than it currently is), those who take a conservative position (they think the government is doing about the right amount now), and those who take a reactionary position (that is, they would like to see the government do less than it currently is).

By using perceptions of the status quo as the anchor for prescriptions, we can directly assess the degree to which various groups advocate affirmative change. For example, the white who says the government should be doing "a lot" to ensure equal employment opportunity for blacks takes on a less glowing pallor if she also thinks the government is already doing a lot. We can also assess whether resistance to affirmative change takes the form of conservatism or is outright reactionary. In this way, the character of the debate between contending groups may be specified more acutely.

Definition of Policy Domains

I begin by examining the zero-order correlations among the government-policy difference-scores, to check the extent to which the measures for race, gender, and class, respectively, fall into distinct domains. Table 6.7 presents correlation matrices (Pearson's r 's) for the government-policy difference-scores (below the diagonal), as well as for the original prescriptive government-policy items (above the diagonal). The correlations for policies within each intergroup

[7] Respondents who said "don't know" or who had missing data for either item in a pair were excluded from the calculation of the difference score for that pair.

relationship are in boldface. The difference-scores are in their continuous scoring from -3 to +3, while the original prescriptions are scored from 1 ("A Lot") through 4 ("Nothing"). "Don't Know" responses and missing data are excluded on a pairwise basis.

For gender and class, the two sets of measures display similar correlations. For race, however, the policy difference-scores are more highly intercorrelated than are the uncorrected policy prescriptions. This doubtless reflects the double polarization between whites and blacks that is captured when both prescriptive and existential beliefs are incorporated.

Of the three intergroup relations, the policy goals for race show the sharpest internal convergence. The three race-policy difference-scores are all intercorrelated between .56 and .68. These correlations are not only very high in themselves but they all exceed the correlations between any of the race measures and the measures of gender or class policy goals. Thus, the three race-policy measures demonstrate both high convergence as well as clear separation from the policy domains of gender and class.

The three gender-policy measures do not cluster together as sharply. The difference-scores for equal job opportunity and equal legal treatment are strongly intercorrelated (.46) and this intercorrelation is higher than either measure correlates with measures from race or class (although the correlations of the equal job opportunity measure with the race measures are only a shade lower). The daycare measure does not

correlate distinctively with the other two gender issues, and its correlations with the class measures especially suggest that it is seen as a class issue at least as much as a gender issue.

The class-policy issues, not surprisingly, tend to be somewhat entangled with the race issues: interestingly, the welfare issue (the most directly redistributive policy) is also the one that is the most highly correlated with the race issues. Given the disproportionate share of blacks who live in poverty, it seems unrealistic to develop any measures of views about redistributive economic policies that would not be intertwined with views about racial policies. Yet the welfare difference-score still correlates more highly (r = .45) with one of the other class policy measures (guaranteed minimum income) than it does with the race issues. The guaranteed minimum income and the guaranteed jobs difference-scores also correlate more highly with each other (r = .46) than either does with the race issues. It is only the correlation between welfare and guaranteed jobs (.35) that fails to exceed the correlations of welfare with the race issues.

These data indicate that the issues surrounding policies that are aimed at a specific intergroup relationship tend to fan out to other intergroup relationships. Insofar as race, gender, and class all involve alternative manifestations of inequality in the same society, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be spillover effects from policy views in one area to those in another. The intergroup relationship that has had the most sustained policy visibility—race—should be expected to generate the tightest set of policy views, as people get more experience in using contextual information from that intergroup relationship to cue their reactions to any new policy issue that arises. Indeed, habits of thinking coming out of that intergroup relationship then take on psychological primacy and are especially likely to permeate the way people think about policy issues arising in other intergroup relationships as well.

The Lines of Debate

I now evaluate the lines of policy debate between groups. What are the blends of affirmative advocacy, conservative resistance, and reactionary opposition that color each intergroup relationship? Table 6.8 presents the percentage distributions by group for the pertinent policy measures, for race, gender, and class, respectively.

The chasm between whites and blacks is revealed starkly with these measures. Whereas the overwhelming majority of blacks (72–89 percent) want affirmative change on each of the policy issues, whites are almost as overwhelmingly conservative—or reactionary. On the issue that generates the staunchest opposition among whites and the least support among blacks (integrated schools), over 70 percent of blacks want to see affirmative change whereas almost 60 percent of whites desire reactionary change. On the other two race issues, almost 90 percent of blacks

advocate affirmative change, whereas about one-third of whites take a reactionary position and about 40–45 percent are conservative.

For gender, I restrict attention to the two issues that reflect gender concerns relatively cleanly, equal job opportunity and equal legal treatment for women. The opinions of men and women almost parallel one another on these issues: both groups are predominantly divided between conservatism and affirmative advocacy, with women leaning slightly more in the affirmative direction and men's views weighted more toward conservatism. Reactionary views are less frequent, although the issue of equal job opportunity generates stronger resistance than does the issue of equal legal treatment: fewer than 10 percent of either sex take a reactionary position on the question of equal legal treatment, but about one-quarter of men and one-fifth of women take a reactionary position on the issue of equal job opportunity. The general tenor of opinion on these gender policy issues is thus more moderated than for racial issues and involves much less disagreement across group lines. But, nonetheless (as with whites' racial policy goals), support for affirmative change in gender policies is considerably lower than was inferred when people's prescriptive views were considered separately from their existential beliefs. Only slightly over one-third of men favor affirmative change, and women have just nudged ahead of men in advocating such change.

With the class policy measures, one issue—guaranteed jobs—generates fairly high levels of affirmative advocacy from every class, but the other two issues—welfare benefits and guaranteed minimum income—are more divisive. The clear majority of every class (ranging from 57 percent of the upper-middle class to 77 percent of the poor) wants to see the government do more to guarantee jobs, and most of the balance of opinion is conservative rather than reactionary. More governmental effort to guarantee a minimum income is advocated just as strongly by the poor (79 percent), but with ascending social class support gradually slips away to only 43 percent of the upper-middle class. And although most of the balance of opinion in each class is again conservative rather than reactionary, ascending social class brings a steady increase in reactionary opinion, from only 3 percent of the poor to 18 percent of the upper-middle class. The most sharply divisive issue is that of welfare benefits. On this issue, the stance of the upper-middle class is almost as withholding as that of whites on school integration (only 19 percent of the upper-middle class supports affirmative change and 45 percent is reactionary); opinion shifts slightly in the direction of affirmative change from the middle class to the working class, but among the poor there is a pronounced shift in opinion, with 60 percent of the poor advocating that more be done and only 13 percent taking a reactionary stance. In

all, the class rift in policy goals is pronounced, although it still does not equal the rift between whites and blacks.^[8]

These data thus portray rather disparate dialogues across the three intergroup relationships as the contending groups articulate their policy goals. Although subordinates consistently take the lead in the direction of affirmative change, the depth of their rift from their dominant-group counterparts varies dramatically. Between blacks and whites there is a searing disparity, among social classes there is a large but graduated disagreement, and among women there is only a hinted departure from the policy goals of men.

Conclusions

This chapter has been directed by one central question: to what extent do contending groups in an unequal relationship seek to increase their control over resources? Although the question sounds straightforward, the answer is necessarily layered beneath a series of considerations.

Intergroup policy goals have been the object of repeated empirical inquiry, but scholars have varied widely in their assumptions about whether policy goals reflect underlying, irrational, intergroup antipathies (prejudice), the apolitical quest for altered lifestyles ("sex-role attitudes"), the overriding of conflicting interests and intergroup antipathies (political tolerance), or the rational pursuit of group interests (class consciousness). Investigators have also disagreed about how to interpret various measures of policy goals. Attempts to measure intergroup policy goals have been waylaid repeatedly by an observed gap between the views expressed about abstract principles and applied policy goals. In research on prejudice and class consciousness, scholars have debated fretfully about the meaning of that gap. This has led to arguments about what agents and methods of change are most appropriate to achieve particular goals. And throughout, the measurement of policy alternatives has been restricted to those that have been given life in the public debate. Scholars have generally lost sight of the broader spectrum of issues that lies outside the realm of public discourse.

My approach calls for the examination of intergroup policy goals as the rational pursuit of group interests, within constraints. As people attempt to further their interests, they do not operate freestyle. They ma-

[8] Within each class, blacks are more likely to advocate affirmative change in these economic policies than are whites. Further, among blacks there is no systematic relationship between class and class policy goals. Although whites' support for these economic policies gradually diminishes with ascending social class, blacks' support remains at a high level, making the racial difference larger as one progresses from the poor to the middle class. This underscores the intersection of race and class issues in American society.

neuver within pragmatic and moral conditions that render some routes plausible and others futile or even dangerous. The society that houses an intergroup relationship is infused by a general moral climate that has grown out of the various intergroup experiences that have dominated its history: that climate limits the kinds of demands and appeals that have moral credibility. Within that societal context, specific constraints are posed by the internal structure and politics of the relationship itself. The parameters of public policy discussion are set by the conditions that are fused from those two sources.

Out of the growth pains of capitalist democracy, individualism has become established as a bedrock moral tenet. The norm of individualism has infused popular conceptions of intergroup policy goals and twisted the meaning of equality into something more accommodative—equality of opportunity. Attempts to assess popular sentiment for an egalitarian redistribution of resources have repeatedly run aground on the shoal of individualism. The patterns displayed in my data underscore the pervasiveness of individualism as a guiding principle in the articulation of intergroup policy goals. Indeed, the so-called gap between abstract and applied policy views that has persistently intrigued empirical analysts may be nothing more than segmented reflections of the layering of individualism beneath egalitarianism. The silent transformation of egalitarianism to incorporate individualism is masked in many survey questions, leading to apparent inconsistencies in responses to various questions.

On the issue of racial integration, questionnaire items measuring abstract principles have elicited more support from whites because they leave the rights of individuals untrammeled, whereas questions about government intervention to enforce racial integration uncover the conflict between individual rights and group rights. Many whites then back away from enforced racial integration as they opt for the protection of (their own) individual rights. In gender policy goals, the degree of support elicited for different abstract principles varies according to their link with individualistic principles. A general question on equal employment opportunity for women invokes individualistic principles and it elicits much stronger support than do general egalitarian principles for the division of labor between the sexes. And once the unsullied individualism of the general principle of equal job opportunity for women is harnessed to governmental enforcement, support for stepping up that enforcement drops to about half the level garnered for the general principle. In class policy goals, it is the abstract principles of egalitarianism that elicit less support than do questions about specific governmental policies, because in this case it is the abstract principles that state the goal of equality more boldly whereas specific governmental measures merely cast safety nets to cushion the deepest ravines of inequality. And among questions that

ask about various specific governmental policies, the degree of support for those policies is elevated or depressed as a direct function of the extent to which such policies are respectful of individual rights or tilted more toward an egalitarian redistribution of resources between groups.

Hedged in by the pervasive morality of individualism, the contending groups in race, gender, and class relations formulate their policy goals. The issues that are thus breathed into life in the public arena do not call for radical changes in the established division of resources but involve readjustments at the margins. Even those issues, however, do not gain easy acceptance. As dominant groups resist intrusions by subordinates, contending groups become locked in disputes—at times heated, at times mild—about potential alterations to arrangements at the periphery of their relationship.

Within these boundaries, do contending groups seek to increase their control over resources, simply maintain their current holdings, or make concessions to their protagonists? On what kinds of issues do contending groups yield concessions or press harder to advance their control over resources? Are these proclivities affected by the position of the group in the relationship (dominant or subordinate) or by the structure of the relationship between groups? To address these questions, I examined people's prescriptions for policy against their existential beliefs about the current state of governmental intervention. In this way, we can distinguish those who favor affirmative change, those who wish to maintain things as they are (the conservatives), and those who would like to reduce the amount of government intervention (the reactionaries).

To begin, we can observe that in all three intergroup relationships, subordinate groups show little tendency to give up their current holdings: their energies are primarily divided between preserving what little they have and pressing for more control over resources. That is to say, very few members of subordinate groups voice the reactionary view that the government should reduce its intervention on their behalf. Women are the only subordinate group to evidence such a propensity among more than a handful of their members, and even here, it is distinctly a minority view within the group. The policy goals of subordinates generally range between conservative and affirmative, with blacks showing an overwhelming preference for affirmative change, the poor and working class leaning almost as strongly toward affirmative change, and women showing only a slight preference for affirmative change over conservatism.

Among dominant groups, affirmative change usually finds less support than do conservative or reactionary policy goals, but the aversion to affirmative change among dominant groups is less extreme than is subordinates' aversion to reactionary policy views. It might thus seem

that dominant groups are more susceptible to relinquishing resources than are subordinates, but recall that the policies under discussion have already been molded by the time they reach the public arena so that none of them threatens flagrant redistribution. By steering discussion away from the most threatening issues, members of the dominant group can afford to have occasional concessions wrung out of them on the more peripheral issues that become the focus of public debate. Among those issues that do surface, dominant-group intransigence increases as specific policies come closer to touching core redistributive issues. On the issues that are more threatening (governmental intervention to ensure equal job opportunities for women and blacks, racially integrated schools, and provision of welfare benefits), the responses of dominant groups are largely torn between holding on to present arrangements and increasing their control over resources in a reactionary bid. The reactionary spirit is most in evidence in the racial policy goals of whites and least evident in the gender policy views of men. Among men, preserving current policies is the prevailing disposition. In the upper-middle class, the prevailing weight of opinion ripples from affirmative to reactionary, depending on the specific policy at hand. And among whites, the prevailing policy stance is lodged between conservative and reactionary, with the specific tilt dependent on the policy at hand.

There is clearly an interplay between the policy goals of dominant and subordinate groups. Within each intergroup relationship, the issues on which dominant groups are more intransigent are also the issues on which subordinates are less likely to push forcefully for affirmative change. Subordinate groups learn to throw more energy into issues that keep a safer distance from core redistributive concerns. And so the game goes on, with contending groups apparently torn between preserving current holdings and gingerly seeking to increase their control over resources. Subordinates generally yield to their more powerful protagonists by shying away from issues that are more threatening to the relationship. When more assertive policy proposals slip into the public arena, they meet with stiff resistance, or even reactionary counterproposals. But on more peripheral issues subordinate investment is more likely to be rewarded with occasional minor concessions—after exhaustive debate.

This pattern holds across all three intergroup relationships, but it is played out with varying ferocity, according to whether communication channels between groups are personal or aggregated. Between men and women, where the structure of intergroup contact is the most intimate, each group arrives at its mutually negotiated position with only a hinted rift between them. Between whites and blacks, where the physical separation of the groups is the most extreme, the negotiations between groups take the severest form. As the groups communicate across a great divide,

messages must be shouted to be heard. Each group must react to the demands and vulnerabilities of the other in full public view. Finally, in class relations, the physical separation of disparate classes is broken by a step-wise pattern of restricted personal contact between adjacent classes. Both of these channels of communication affect the negotiated policy position of each class. The result is a graduated but resilient rift between contending classes in their articulated policy goals.

In these variants, it is the policy position of subordinates that is more vulnerable. Dominant groups retain the upper hand and they do not stray far from a general proclivity to resist change. At the same time, it should be remembered that it is generally the dominant group's hold over resources that is under more immediate threat in these policy discussions. A defensive position, backed by the full weight of established institutions and their supporting morality, is easier to maintain than is the assertive position of visualizing, demanding, and justifying affirmative change.

The opportunities that are offered to subordinates to advocate affirmative change are never great. They gravitate to causes that do not pose deep risks and that offer some promise of success. That steers the mainstream of subordinate effort inexorably toward less radical issues. But the ability of subordinates to chip away at even the periphery of their relationship with the dominant group is constrained by the structure of that relationship. As the structure imposes increasing physical distance between the groups, subordinates are afforded more opportunity to coalesce around demands for moderate, affirmative change.

Chapter Seven—
The Ideological Molds of Paternalism and Conflict

The prevailing approaches to intergroup attitudes and group consciousness anticipate "consistency" in people's attitudes as the emblem of coherence, constraint, and crystallization in the way people think about their relations with another group. In particular, the policy dispositions of dominant group members toward subordinates should be a direct reflection of how positive or negative their feelings are toward subordinates. The latter, in turn, are thought more likely to assert their political rights when they feel hostile toward those who assert dominance over them. The only "inconsistent" attitude structure that has been the object of sustained scholarly attention is tolerance, that is, the advocacy of equal rights for another group despite negative feelings toward the group.

In this chapter, I explore the relationship between people's intergroup feelings and their policy dispositions. My approach to intergroup ideology does not anticipate a pivotal role for feelings of intergroup hostility. Nor does it anticipate that the magnet that binds attitudes and lends them coherence is "consistency" in the conventional sense. The extent to which groups pursue their interests must be disentangled from the issue of whether feelings of hostility pervade the relationship. The intersection of intergroup feelings and policy views holds considerably more subtlety and implicit finesse on the part of both dominant and subordinate groups than conventional approaches have anticipated.

My thesis is that the beacon to which dominant groups are drawn is the "inconsistent" attitudinal mold of paternalism—the combination of conservative or reactionary policy dispositions with positive feelings toward subordinates. How much paternalism is manifested in the three different relationships under investigation in this book? To what extent is paternalism displaced by "consistent" attitudes comprising negative

feelings and conservative policy views or positive feelings and affirmative policy views? And how empirically viable is the alternative form of attitudinal inconsistency, the configuration of tolerance?

The ideology of paternalism is geared toward eliciting deference from subordinates—warm intergroup feelings and conservative policy dispositions that comply with the dominant design. How successfully do the different dominant groups elicit such deference from their subordinates? What blends of feelings and policy goals are interlaced by subordinates to deal with the rigors of inequality, and how does this vary from one type of intergroup relationship to another?

I begin the chapter by discussing the featured role of consistency in the literature on attitudes and public opinion. This includes a brief discussion of the single empirical concept that has posited an inconsistent attitude structure—political tolerance—to assess its bearing on the prevailing preoccupation with attitudinal consistency. I then consider the factors that have contributed to the binding significance of consistency in attitude theory, and I challenge the underlying assumptions on which that significance rests. Following this, I address two different theoretical concepts that imply attitudinal inconsistency, but which have developed without reference to that issue. The first of these is "hidden" or "everyday" resistance, which depicts the attitudes of subordinates. The second concept is paternalism, which addresses the attitudes of dominant-group members. With those issues delineated, I turn my attention to the intersection of intergroup feelings and policy goals in my data for race, gender, and social class.

I begin that analysis by examining the ways in which positive and negative intergroup feelings are converted into policy goals by people in different kinds of dominant and subordinate groups. I then present a simple empirical scheme that allows us to identify broad configurations of intergroup feelings and policy views. As I address the meaning of each of the categories in the scheme, it becomes apparent that there is not a straightforward equivalence between dominant and subordinate attitudes and that the meaning of particular attitudinal compounds depends on the position of the person's group in an unequal relationship.

This scheme is used to make a baseline empirical assessment of the prevalence of alternative attitudinal configurations in the exchange of ideologies between dominant and subordinate groups in race, gender, and class relations. These data also suggest broader inferences about the dynamics that pervade the articulation of intergroup ideologies by unequal groups. In this way, we can delineate the intersection of the two basic parameters of intergroup ideologies—the expression of hostility or friendship and the pursuit of group interests.

The Issues

Attitudinal Consistency and Ideological Constraint

An assumption has run like a deep dye through public-opinion research that the hallmark of constraint, coherence, and crystallization in people's belief systems is consistency. Since Philip E. Converse's seminal article, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics" (1964), students of public opinion have taken it as a given that consistency is the key indicator of whether attitudes have substance and meaning. A number of factors have conspired to foster the preoccupation with consistency in analyses of attitudes and public opinion.

The work that riveted the attention of political-opinion analysts on attitudinal consistency was Converse's 1964 article. His argument was located squarely within the context of mass political opinion in liberal-conservative partisan politics. He contended that most members of the mass public in the United States have only a hazy understanding of the terms liberal and conservative and that they have poorly formulated political opinions of their own. The issue stance of the average citizen fluctuates on the liberal-conservative axis, both over time and from one policy issue to another. Converse demonstrated empirically that correlations were weak between people's issue-stances on the same issues over time and between different specific issues at the same point in time. From this evidence, he argued that belief systems in the mass public generally lack constraint. He reasoned, further, that this lack of constraint derived from the low salience of political issues to most members of the mass public, as well as from poor information about both those issues and the broader political principles that could lend them coherence. This public-opinion muddle was contrasted with the political opinions of political elites: the latter were portrayed as having considerably more constrained belief systems and as being better schooled in the principles that bind specific issues together.

Converse's argument was very compatible with earlier work on voting and public opinion which had already decried the ideological confusion and lack of coherent political thought that reigned in the mass public. For example, the main conclusions of a major empirical study of political opinion by Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee (1954) were that the average democratic citizen lacks political interest, motivation, or knowledge and casts his vote in a way that is unconstrained by principles and without reference to considered thought about political issues. A similar argument was made in 1960, in a much-cited article in the American Political Science Review by McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara. In an empirical comparison of the policy views of a sample of the mass public and a sample of the participants in the national conventions of the Republican

and Democratic parties in 1958, McClosky, Hoffman, and O'Hara argued that the mass public contrasted sharply with political leaders in having poorly formulated political ideologies and in being poorly informed and having low interest in politics.

Converse's research completed the indictment of the American mass public. This dismal depiction of nonattitudes withering the grassroots of democracy inevitably drew fire. Converse's paper was the lightning rod for a crop of articles that sprang up over the years from scholars who found the picture offensive or unpalatable, or who sought to defend or elaborate Converse's original argument. The ensuing debate has been catalogued by others (see especially Smith 1989). One line of research took off on the question of whether the level of (in)consistency has changed over time (e.g., Bennett 1973; Nie and Anderson 1974; Hagner and Pierce 1983; Kirkpatrick 1976; LeBlanc and Merrin 1977; Nie, Verba, and Petrocik 1976; Piereson 1978; Smith 1989), or whether changes in survey question-wording in the National Election Studies were responsible for the observed changes in consistency (e.g., Bishop, Oldendick, and Tuchfarber 1978a , 1978b ; Bishop et al. 1979; Brunk 1978; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1978; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1979). Another line of research raised statistical questions about how best to measure consistency, pursuing such concerns as measurement unreliability, the idiosyncratic properties of various measures of association, and the statistical confounding of true change in attitudes with mindless fluctuations in political views (e.g., Butler and Stokes 1974, 276–295, 316–337; Achen 1975; Weissberg 1976; Krosnik 1991). Meanwhile, Converse continued to develop and buttress his original argument with further empirical work, most notably with two articles titled (meaningfully) "Attitudes and Nonattitudes: The Continuation of a Dialogue" (1970) and, with Gregory B. Markus, "Plus ça change  . . . The New CPS Election Panel Study" (1979).

In short, the publication of Converse's article in 1964 provoked an enduring research agenda and molded the way public-opinion analysts continue to think about attitudes. For all the energy that has been absorbed by the questions of how much consistency there is in the mass public and how to measure it, no one has paused to ask whether consistency is such a vital concept in the first place. It has been accepted intrinsically that consistency is the benchmark by which we judge whether attitudes have meaningful substance and whether they may reasonably be considered to belong to a coherent belief system. Indeed, consistency and constraint have been treated as equivalent terms.

There is only one form of attitudinal inconsistency that has engaged empirical analysts of mass political opinion, and that is political tolerance. This construct has been the subject of sustained empirical inquiry, but,

perversely, that research has done nothing to undermine the prevailing conception of attitudes as governed by the pressure toward consistency. The concept of political tolerance, as it emerged in empirical research on democratic norms, is concerned with the ability of democratic citizens to grant full civil liberties to groups with whom they disagree or whom they dislike. In other words, the concept posits a logically inconsistent attitude structure: can people override their negative feelings toward out-groups and support affirmative policies toward them? The concept is central to empirical democratic theory, and it has generated a substantial body of public-opinion research, starting with Stouffer's classic study, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (1955), and continuing actively to the present (e.g., Kuklinski et al. 1991). I have discussed that research in chapters 1, 5, and 6. What is of relevance here is that, despite the central position of that research in the literature on public opinion, it has not undermined the prevailing conception of attitude structure as bound by the pressure to be consistent.

There are probably three main reasons for this apparent disconnection. First, although tolerance was conceived as an inconsistent attitude structure, empirical measures initially focused on policy dispositions entirely, without heed to respondents' feelings toward the target groups. Respondents' feelings were simply assumed to be negative. But because feelings were not incorporated in measures of tolerance, the specific composition of the tolerant attitude was not acknowledged explicitly. This element was not highlighted in empirical work until Jackman (1977, 1978) and Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1979, 1982) developed measures of tolerance that incorporated both feelings and policy dispositions. Second, tolerance was initially conceived as a difficult state to attain, something uniquely required and fostered by democratic political systems. The problem was posed in terms of whether people could overcome their natural tendency to express their negative feelings in negative policy dispositions and instead develop the restraint necessary to sustain political tolerance. Tolerance was thus thought of as the exception that proved the general rule of attitudinal consistency. Third, empirical research on tolerance showed that it was, indeed, a difficult state to attain. Although scholars have disagreed about the extent of its dearth (see, for example, Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1979, and Abramson 1980), studies have generally found political tolerance to be present in no more than a minority of the population. By default, then, the consistency rule was reaffirmed by empirical analyses of tolerance.

The intuitive reliance on consistency as the cement of attitudes is not restricted to the literature on political opinion. Students of prejudice have conceived of that phenomenon as a lock-step of negative beliefs, negative feelings, and negative policy dispositions. The unprejudiced

person converts those negative values into positive ones: just as negative feelings fuel discrimination, positive feelings undermine it. Similarly, students of class consciousness have expected a proletarian "class-for-itself" to show its ripened political consciousness by adopting negative beliefs about and hostile feelings toward the dominant class, along with assertive policy goals and combative strategies. In the cases of both prejudice and working class consciousness, feelings feed policy dispositions.

In another variant of the consistency approach, Abercrombie and Turner (1982) reflexively use the presence or absence of a consistently applied moral code as a yardstick to assess the fiber of dominant ideology. Their reasoning is that if the dominant class propagates an ideology as a broad moral code to induce the compliance of subordinates, the same moral precepts will be used consistently to dictate the social behaviors of all members of society. They argue that dominant classes in history have not held their subordinates to the same moral code as they apply to themselves and that this means that dominant classes do not in fact have coherent ideologies that would qualify as viable instruments of social control. As I argued in chapter 2, however, this implicit reliance on consistency as the yardstick for the salience of an ideology is misplaced. Dominant groups are not in a contest for consistency: in the day-to-day business of eliciting compliance from subordinates, rigid consistency may be more of a political liability than an asset. Belief systems that are unerringly consistent are vulnerable to attack from all angles: the demolition of a single segment would cause the entire edifice to crumble. Additionally, there seems little practical compunction to apply the identical moral precepts to the group from whom one desires compliant behaviors as to the group whose design it is to govern: divergent roles in life would seem to call instead for flexibility in the application of an abstract moral code.

The common reliance on consistency in these different variants of research on attitudes, belief systems, and ideology is not a coincidence. It can be traced back to the way attitudes were initially conceived in classic attitude theory. An attitude is a purely theoretical construct that is not susceptible to direct empirical observation or measurement. What can be observed in human behavior is sporadic expressions of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral predispositions: in order to tighten their conceptual grip on such an unwieldy class of phenomena, attitude theorists relied on consistency as a key building block. Most definitions of attitudes have given a central place to an evaluative or affective disposition: the feelings that lie at the core of an attitude are thought to be supported by consistent perceptions and, in turn, to drive a stable predisposition to respond to the object of the attitude (see, for example, Allport 1935; Doob 1947). In this way, some order and predictability were carved out of a complex web of empirical phenomena.

The theme of consistency was to be replayed in a range of theories about the structure and characteristics of attitudes. Heider's balance theory (1946) posited that people press their cognitions into consistent configurations. A state of cognitive balance exists when an entity is perceived as having the same dynamic character in all respects (as when a person both admires and likes an object), when all parts of a unit are perceived as having the same dynamic character (as when they are seen as all positive or all negative), and when entities with different dynamic character are segregated from one another. A state of imbalance produces tension that creates pressure to reshape incongruent cognitions so that they come into line with the perceptual gestalt .

These postulates laid down a framework that was explored, developed, and elaborated in theoretical and empirical work by a large and influential school of researchers (see, for example, Newcomb 1953; Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955; Cartwright and Harary 1956; Rosenberg 1956; Festinger 1957; Abelson 1959; McGuire 1960; Cohen 1960; Abelson et al. 1968). Some of the most influential ideas to come out of this school of thought have been that incongruent perceptions cause dissonance in individuals that they are driven to resolve (Festinger 1957); that the affect an individual feels toward an object is tied logically to specific positive or negative perceptions of the object (Rosenberg 1956); that changes in evaluation are always in the direction of increased congruity with the existing frame of reference (Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955); that the greater the salience of a topic, the less tolerance the individual has for attitudinal inconsistency about that topic (Cohen 1960); and that the more directly two issues are connected with one another, the less the individual is able to tolerate inconsistent cognitions across those issues (McGuire 1960).

It thus became a theoretical maxim that attitudes can be identified by their internal consistency: the more salient a topic, the more the individual thinks about it and the more internally consistent the attitude becomes. A lack of consistency signifies the lack of an attitude. Research on political ideology, prejudice, and class consciousness simply built on that theory. Consistency became the standard currency of that research. People's attitudes are thought to manifest increasing internal consistency as they become more crystallized. Indeed, the standard procedure for testing the validity of specific questionnaire items is to check their consistency with other items on the same topic.

Consistency clearly has intuitive appeal to scholars as a magnet to organize the tangled web of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral dispositions that are observed in human expression. Two assumptions underlie this appeal. First, there is an implicit assumption that attitudes are self-contained and individually driven. This creates the theoretical imperative

to find the source of someone's policy dispositions toward an object within the structure of the attitude itself. Thus, discriminatory policy dispositions are driven by negative feelings, whereas positive feelings remove the individual's motivation for discriminatory policy goals and lay the foundation for affirmative policy dispositions. The feelings, in turn, are logically fed by the person's beliefs about the object. Second, there is an assumption that people have a need to be consistent when they think about something. As a topic becomes more salient, the individual thinks about it more often and more intensely: the pressures increase to mold the various idea-elements into a consistent mass. Inconsistency can only be tolerated on topics that receive little attention and are not salient to the individual.

Both of these assumptions are problematic. To begin, the assumption that attitudes are primarily the property of individuals is questionable. Although individuals are the bearers of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral dispositions, they do not hatch these thoughts and feelings independently. Instead, they borrow from the cultural repertoire that is available to them. This book is premised on the idea that the intergroup attitudes that individuals espouse are not formulated discretely out of their personal experience, but are the communal property of the group to which they belong. Second, as people grapple to understand the world in which they live, they do not work according to the principles of either originality or logic. Instead, they reach for ideas from those that float past them on a daily basis, ideas that are espoused convincingly by others, and that have the ring of truth that only familiar things can have. Various thoughts and feelings are borrowed as needed.

The principles that guide the adoption of specific beliefs, feelings, and behavioral dispositions are convenience and efficiency. People tend to think and feel whatever is convenient, and they tend to deal with an issue as efficiently as possible, thinking about it only as much as is necessary to satisfy the political and practical exigencies of the moment. As the political reality changes, the members of a group will adjust their views and feelings, gradually, in a piecemeal fashion. How those exigencies are seen and interpreted can vary within the group: individual variation could stem from variation in personal experiences or pressures, and from differential exposure to information flows. Thus, for example, the well-educated members of a dominant group may espouse a slightly different variant of their group's intergroup ideology: their prolonged experience in educational institutions molds them into an especially individualistic way of thinking and it also exposes them more directly to information flows that contain the latest ideas (Jackman and Muha 1984). But the prevailing force that shapes an individual's intergroup attitudes is his or her membership in a group that has interests to defend or

advance. The specific interests of the group and the history of its collective experience always limit the range of ideological options available to the individual actor.

Intergroup attitudes that are shaped by political exigencies are not perversely static. If political conditions remain unchanged, the prevailing intergroup attitudes will likewise remain in place. But as people respond to the political dynamics of the intergroup relationship in which they participate, old ideas are abandoned, gradually, if they are found to be less serviceable. New ideas drift into their place. At any single point in time, examination of a cross-section of attitudes in a group most likely uncovers a variety of elements, old and new, surrounding the prevailing theme. Similarly, individuals in the group have amalgams of thoughts and feelings that may contain residues from an earlier era along with the currently adopted line. As new information and ideas disseminate through the community in irregular flows, new patterns of ideological response emerge. An interesting example of this process is provided by Gamson and Modigliani (1987) in their analysis of the various packages of ideas that emerged in the unfolding public debate on affirmative action from the 1960s to the 1980s. In response to the policy initiatives of the federal government in the 1960s, a welter of competing ideas in the media were gradually reduced to an identifiable set of packages, out of which one emerged as dominant—the "reverse discrimination" argument. As I discussed in chapter 6, the "reverse discrimination" argument caught on because it resonated with the morality of individualism, and thus it provided whites with a basis for opposing affirmative action that felt comfortably principled and unbiased.

In such a dynamic and political process, the expectation of a clean consistency at either the individual or the group level defies political or common sense. The structure of intergroup attitudes conforms, not to what is consistent, but to what is politically expedient. Indeed, political expediency may dictate an inconsistent attitude structure.

Inconsistent Attitudes in Ideology

In the theoretical literature on intergroup attitudes and group consciousness, two different ideological modes have been posited that imply technically inconsistent attitudes. One of these, known as "hidden" or "everyday" resistance, is described as politically expedient for subordinate groups. The other is paternalism, and it applies to the politics of domination. The concepts of hidden resistance and paternalism have developed without reference to the empirical literature on attitudes, but each of these concepts has important implications for the structure of attitudes in intergroup ideology. The first of these, hidden resistance, has attracted a good deal of attention from scholars of group conscious-

ness, but it is problematic, with serious measurement ambiguities. The concept of paternalism has attracted less interest, and scholars have been wary of its subtleties. I discuss each concept in turn.

Hidden Resistance

An idea that has gained increasing currency among scholars of group consciousness is that a common, stable response to subordination is "hidden resistance," masked by visible acts of compliance (Genovese 1974; Cloward and Piven 1979; Anyon 1984; Scott 1985; 1990). The essence of the argument is that there is more resistance and alienation among subordinates on an everyday basis than a superficial observation of their behavior would suggest. This approach emerged out of the consternation of scholars as to why there has been little sign of an assertive conflict-orientation among subordinates. The argument is that we just were not looking hard enough. The major acts of compliance that are readily observable are depicted as politically expedient acknowledgments by subordinates of the superior might of their oppressors. Underlying such apparent conservatism are definite feelings of alienation from the dominant group which are expressed openly "in house" and which bubble up in acts of petty sabotage, dissembling, and minor infractions of the dominant will. This everyday resistance lies behind the grand theater of compliance (see, especially, Scott 1990, 1–16, 45–69). The expression of resistance is restricted to individual behavior, and it is channeled into hidden outlets that are safe from the scrutiny of the dominant group, or else it is disguised in such behaviors as fawning, feigned stupidity, or incomprehension.

This argument is interesting in that it highlights the subtleties that are nested in the interactions that take place between unequal groups. It also breaks free of the all-or-nothing approach to intergroup conflict. It is still, however, bound by the general parameters of the conflict model, seeking to bring the search for intergroup conflict to a fruitful conclusion by redefining the nature of conflict. In so doing, it introduces some serious definitional ambiguities that sometimes cloud the delineation of resistance beyond recognition. Major acts of compliance are discounted whereas petty acts of noncooperation or sabotage are given predominant weight in the assessment of subordinates' state of mind. Resistance becomes something individual (rather than a group action) and something private or camouflaged (rather than openly combative). Further, scholars acknowledge that acts of hidden resistance often also function as accommodative acts, buffering their practitioners from the worst indignities of subordination as they comply with its requirements (Genovese 1974, 597–598; Anyon 1984). Many acts of day-to-day "resistance" are safe precisely because they conform to the dominant group's expectations (such as beliefs that subordinates are childlike, irresponsi-

ble, emotional, or stupid), and such acts thus also function to reaffirm dominant ideology and legitimize the regime. Indeed, the line between accommodation and resistance becomes faint, and sometimes evaporates altogether (see, especially, Anyon 1984). Malleable rules about which behaviors are valid reflections of the underlying consciousness of subordinates and about how to read specific behaviors turn the observation of human behavior heavily into a matter of interpretation. This makes it difficult to verify or falsify the concept of hidden resistance.

Despite the ambiguities of the concept, we can extrapolate expectations for the structure of subordinate-group attitudes. It implies that subordinates refrain from threatening the dominant group on issues that embroil the conduct of their mutual relationship, but beneath this conservatism lie feelings of estrangement and alienation from the dominant group. These feelings are a part of everyday discourse among subordinates and are thus a part of their consciousness. What this implies, then, is that subordinates have conservative policy views that comply with the dominant will, but that they retain negative feelings toward the dominant group. Any negativism in their behavioral dispositions is restricted to safe areas that are petty or hidden from view.

Paternalism

Dominant attitudes that are paternalistic combine positive feelings toward subordinates with discriminatory policy dispositions. By taking over the definition of subordinates' interests, dominant groups bring themselves to believe that the inequalities that they seek to perpetuate are actually to everyone's benefit. This frees them to practice the inequality without any sense of unpleasantness or hostility. Instead, they can discriminate against subordinates while professing warm feelings toward them and indulging in a gratifying sense of duty and obligation. It is a central premise of the book that this ideological system is a favorite with dominant groups.

Yet paternalism has received remarkably little attention from scholars. Genovese's rich and sensitive (and controversial) portrayal of slavery in the American South features paternalism as the central organizing principle of that system of oppression (Genovese 1974), and Newby has used the concept with effect to analyze both rural labor relations in Britain (Newby 1977a ) and historical changes in the control of industrial labor (Newby 1977b ). There have also been a few scholars who have made use of the concept of paternalism to throw light on race relations or labor relations (e.g., Blumer 1951; van den Berghe 1967; Burawoy 1984).

There is a strain that runs through these discussions of paternalism, as scholars try to reconcile the dominant group's espousal of positive feelings toward subordinates with the presence of exploitation in the intergroup relationship. The subtle but shattering difference between

paternalism and benevolence lends itself both to a misconstruction of the dynamics of paternalism and to an edginess or defensiveness in using the concept. Analysts are torn between assimilating the many expressions of positive affect that emanate from the dominant group and contemplating the brutalities that are also manifested in such a system of inequality. It would seem that analysts experience some disbelief or puzzlement as they are confronted with these apparently contradictory phenomena. Warm feelings seem incongruous with a discriminatory intent, even in the minds of scholars who work with the concept of paternalism.

Indeed, both Genovese (1974) and Newby (1977b ) have argued that a paternalistic system of control gives subordinates a wedge to extract more concessions from the dominant group than they could otherwise obtain. In essence, they believe that the dominant group's espousal of warm feelings toward subordinates poses an internal contradiction in paternalistic systems of control. This contradiction causes a strain that clouds the relationship and leaves the dominant group vulnerable. They argue that subordinates can take advantage of the dominant group's sanctimonious casting of their relationship in terms of a sense of duty and mutual obligation to make a moral claim on some small transfer of resources. Both scholars see dominant groups who espouse paternalism as being vulnerable to giving away more than they bargained for, in order to preserve the legitimacy of their system of inequality. At the same time, the intrinsically demeaning character of paternalism is noted by these scholars, and Genovese is at pains to point out that paternalistic ideology did not prevent white salve-owners from practicing routine violence against their subordinates. These different themes are not integrated, however, and an ambiguity hangs over these analyses.

But it is precisely this ambiguity and subtle deception that makes paternalism such an insidious form of social control, and that generates the lure that it holds for dominant groups. Paternalism offers a way for them to have their cake and eat it too, a way to enjoy the fruits of expropriation without feeling they are taking anything, without having to wrest it away. Far from causing dissonance, expressing affection toward those whom one exploits comes as naturally as retracting your finger from a flame—as long as subordinates are duly compliant and loyal. If analysts sometimes trip up in the morality of paternalism, even as they are observing it from a distance, imagine how well that morality captures that awareness of the hapless participants who are living by its precepts.

In any system of power relations, it is an implicit rule that the dominant party must give some resources to subordinates. In order to facilitate social control, it is important to make sure that subordinates have something to lose. Groups who have nothing to lose pose a dangerous

threat, since they have no stake in the system, no resources to protect. The trick is to keep the exchange of resources as unequal as possible, that is, to extract as much as possible from subordinates while giving as little as possible in exchange. Paternalism, far from lessening the dominant group's control, actually makes it easier for the dominant group to obtain a more favorable exchange. First, paternalism presents the inequality less harshly and thus masks the inequality of the exchange. This leaves subordinates less offended and therefore less guarded. Second, in a paternalistic system, the dominant group has seized more control over the way subordinates' needs are defined. This makes it less likely that subordinates will demand something that the dominant group does not want them to have. And finally, as its trump card, paternalism trades a distinctly invaluable commodity in return for compliance: friendship. If subordinates are dependent on members of the dominant group for the fulfillment of their emotional needs and for their full acceptance in organized social life, the dominant group has an extremely potent weapon with which to extract their compliance.

The coercive potency of paternalism thus draws vitally on the "inconsistent" attitude structure that lies at its core. In order to grasp fully the special dynamics of this ideological system, it is critical to acknowledge this rudimentary point. Feelings toward a group are important, but not in the conventionally understood way of dictating logically consistent policy dispositions. Instead, feelings that are logically inconsistent can enhance the dominant group's ability to practice discrimination. For this reason, I argue that paternalism can become a highly crystallized ideological form that is hard to dislodge. Thus, attitudinal coherence and constraint should not be measured in units of consistency. Dominant groups have every reason to crystallize their thinking in the form of positive feelings toward subordinates and discriminatory policy dispositions.

Data

I begin my analysis by examining the extent to which people's intergroup feelings seem to influence their policy goals in the conventionally expected, logically consistent direction. Next, I investigate the various ways that feelings and policy goals can intersect, first by considering a simplified empirical scheme, and then by examining how the data for race, gender, and class fall into that scheme.

The Relationship between Intergroup Feelings and Policy Goals

How consistent are the data with the expectation that feelings drive policy dispositions, as dominant and subordinate groups face each other in their ongoing relations? Tables 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 present data that address

that question, for race, gender, and social class, respectively. These tables show the percentages of each group with affirmative, conservative, and reactionary policy goals, according to the distinctions they draw between their own and the other group in their feelings of warmth.

Intergroup feelings are measured in terms of the distinctions people draw between groups, since they are a more sensitive and cogent indicator of affective boundaries than are people's absolute feelings toward the other group. In addition, recall from chapter 5 that people are generally much more likely to express an affective rift between their own and another group than to express outright negative feelings toward the other group. Thus, use of measures of affective differentiation between groups draws out feelings of rift where no absolute feelings of hostility may be present. They make a less exacting indicator of intergroup negativism than would absolute feelings.

Intergroup feelings are categorized slightly differently across the three tables, since the distribution of feelings varies somewhat from one intergroup relationship to another (see chapter 5). And feelings of warmth (rather than closeness) are presented, since the former seem more pertinent to the rudimentary issue of the presence or absence of intergroup hostility.^[1] Similarly, the analyses in chapter 6 indicated that policy goals are reflected more sensitively when they are measured against people's existential perceptions. Policy goals are defined as in chapter 6: affirmative goals are those that advocate the government should be doing more than it currently is doing, conservative goals are those that urge no change , and reactionary goals are those that advocate the government should do less than it currently is doing.

Conventional conceptions of intergroup attitudes anticipate a substantial difference between the policy goals of those who draw intergroup affective distinctions and those who do not. If feelings drive policy goals, we should expect the percentage supporting affirmative policy goals to shift substantially and systematically as one moves from those who draw affective distinctions to those who do not. However, across the three tables, the data fall considerably short of that. Overall, the relationship between intergroup feelings and policy goals might most generously be described as loose. I discuss the data for race, gender, and social class, in turn, before drawing out the general patterns.

Race

Table 7.1 displays the figures for whites and blacks. Among whites, intergroup feelings range primarily between degrees of prefer-

[1] Intergroup feelings of closeness and warmth are in fact very highly correlated (see chapter 5, footnote 4). And when tables 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 were reestimated, substituting feelings of closeness for warmth, the results were highly comparable.

ence for their own group and affective neutrality, with just a tiny minority of whites (1.4 percent) saying they feel warmer to blacks than to their own group. Among blacks, intergroup feelings vary between degrees of preference for their own group and affective neutrality. In neither group does this variation in intergroup feelings bear distinctly on racial policy dispositions.

Among whites, the relationship between feelings of intergroup warmth and racial policy goals is nonmonotonic and of only moderate strength. There are only modest shifts in the percentage supporting affirmative policy goals (shifts of 10 to 20 percentage points) and somewhat larger shifts in the percentage advocating reactionary goals (15 to 30 points) between those who feel much warmer toward whites and those who draw no affective boundary. Policy goals shift more sharply among those few whites who go so far as to prefer blacks to whites: among those whites, the percentage supporting affirmative goals shifts about another 30 points beyond those who draw no affective boundary. Such an abundance of good feeling, however, is not only rare but it is more than should be required to remove any affective basis for racial discrimination. The three lefthand columns in table 7.1 represent a wide range of inter-

group feelings, and yet the shifts in policy goals that accompany that range of feelings are fairly limited.

Whites who express affective neutrality are, indeed, more likely than those who prefer their own group to take an affirmative stance on racial policies, but these differences are modest. And unless they go so far as to express an affective preference for blacks, it remains only a minority of whites who can bring themselves to support affirmative racial policy goals. The effect of feelings is consistently more pronounced in drawing whites away from reactionary policy opinions. But dislodgement from a reactionary position does not translate into a comparable increase in support for affirmative change.

Among blacks, the overwhelming preference for affirmative racial policies is budged only a little by their interracial feelings. Between those who draw larger and milder affective distinctions, there is no difference in their policy dispositions. And the move from making slight affective distinctions to making no distinctions in feelings of warmth between the two races brings but a moderate shift (of 8 to 20 percentage points) away from affirmative policy goals.^[2]

Gender

Table 7.2 presents the data for gender. Recall from chapter 5 that feelings between men and women span a smaller range than for race or class. In general, neither gender draws an affective boundary between the groups, and feelings do not stray far in either direction. Although women show a stronger tendency than men to prefer their own gender group, women's gender feelings have no bearing on their policy goals. Among men, gender feelings have a modest effect on their policy goals: between men who feel warmer to their own group and warmer to women there is a shift of 11 and 21 points, respectively, in the percentage supporting affirmative policies to provide equal job opportunity and equal legal treatment for women. Most of that difference occurs between those who prefer their own group and those who draw no affective distinctions.^[3]

Class

The data for class are presented in table 7.3. For ease of presentation, interclass feelings are dichotomized into those who feel

[2] Measures of association for the cross-tabulations in table 7.1 tell the same story of only moderate associations between interracial feelings and racial policy goals. For whites, Goodman-Kruskal gammas range from .27 to .40, and Kendall's tau-b's range from .16 to .26 (recall that these measures of association include those whites who express an affective preference for blacks over whites). For blacks, gammas range from .29 to .34, and tau-b's range from .12 to .20. Gammas are of course sensitive to the presence of cell N 's that are zero or small; the more stable tau-b's range from small to modest.

[3] Measures of association for the cross-tabulations in table 7.2 are uniformly trivial: for men, gammas range from .08 to .13, and tau-b's range from .05 to .08; for women, gammas range from .01 to –.04, and tau-b's range from .00 to –.02.