The New Temperance: The American Obsession With Sin and Vice

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The New Temperance

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The American Obsession with Sin and Vice

/

A

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-'A Member of the Perseus Rook Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of h e r i c a . No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any farm or by my means, electronic or mechanic$, in-

cluding photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright 43 1991by Ili-lvidWagner Published in 1997 in the United States of h e r i c a by Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview 1)ress, 12 Hid's Copse Road, Czumnur Hill, Odord OX2 911 Library of Congress Catdoging-in-IjublicationData Wagnel; David, 'The new temperance : the American obsession with sin and vice / D a ~ Wagner. d p* cm.. Includes index. ISBN 0-8133-2568-4(he). ISBN 0-8133-2569-2 (phk.) I. United Srate-Mord conditions. 2. Tempermee-United States. 3, BehaGor modification-lXnired States. 4, X)oliticaJ correctnesUnited Stares. 5, Con~er~tism-UnitedStares. X. Title. HNSO.MfiW34 1997 306:09"i"4~21 .---

96-51514 CX13

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American Watiunal Standard for krxnmence of Paper for Printed Library Materids 239.48-1984.

To the millions opmericans in jail, prison, or under correch'onal surueillance, a large number of them victims of the bipartisan "war on drugs"


Acklzawkedgnzelz2;s

1 The New Temperance The Coercive Consensus, 2 Defining the "New Temperance," 4 Qlxestiorlirlg the Behavior Wars, 8 Organization of the Book, 9

S#?B Ddjh Vu All Over Again RememberingWhen, 13 Declaring Temperance Dead, 15 Back to the Past: The Old Temperance Movements, X7 The Old Substance Wars, 18 The Old Sex, Censorship, and Hedth Wars, 22 Censorship Wars: The Vice Societies, 22 S% Wars: The Social Purity Movement, 24 Sex and Health Wrs: The Social Hygiene Movement, 28 Themes: Hperbole, Social Control, Class, and PoXitical Pawer, 31

8 Temperance and the Social Construction of Risk

35

Constructing Socid Prabierns, 35 Limitations of Social Constructionism, 3'7 Medicatization and Moral Panics, 44 Toward a Theory of Temperance, 48 The Rndency for Voliticaf and Social Elites to Support Temperance, 49 The Tendency Tobvard a Populist Temperance, 59 HistorieaX Change, 64

4 "TheSlippery Slope,"or ScaringThem Straight "Dry Lagie," "7 Blurring Boundaries: Drugs, Fear, and Trembling, 73

67

False Concreteness: The "Smoking Death," 78 Reversing Cause and E&ct? The Tken Pregrlaney "ProbIem," 84 Science as Morality: The ""Multiple-Partner"Risk, 89 The Judgmentd Dupe: "'For They Know Not m a t They Do,'995

3 Getting "Lean and Mean": The Middle-ClassReturn to Respectability

103

The Dilemmas of Being Middle Class, 104 The Achievement of Respectabillity in America: 1830-X920,IOri" 110 The Partial Democratization of "DeGance"A920s-1960~~ The Radical Attack on Respectabilig: 1960s-1970s, 112 The New Temperance and Economic Decline: 1970s-194Qs, 115 The New Middle-Class Imperatives, 1I9 Social Class, Bebavioral Norms, and Temperance, 130

G Manufactun'ng Consensus:The Politics of Puritanism

135

American Eleetord Consematism and the Politics of P~xritanism,136 The "Personal Is Political," U137 Sin and the Republican S t r a l e ~141 ~ The Left and Puritanism, 144 The Construction of Anti-Corporate Healthism, 146 S%, Violence, and Feminism, 153. De-Sexualizing the Gay Movement, 157 Convergence in the Politics of Danger, 161

W From Loyalty Oaths to Urine Tests Demonizing the 1 9 6 0 ~ 168 ~ The Limits of the TotatXy Administered Society, 173

Nlotes About the Book andAuthor

I~dex

167

led

Witing affords me the chance to reflect on cantinuities and changes over the course of my life, Atthough E alone must accept any blame for this work, I would like to thank some people vvho have been crucial to me in the writing process, The first continuiq is the aid of Marcia B, Cohen of the Universiv of New England, my wife and colleagtte. Mthougb this is my first book in which she is not actually a direct participant in the events of the text, the book bears her influence as my first reader and editor. Moreover, she continues to be a strong souxe of support at a time when having radical ideas is not very common or easy to maintain. A second continuity for me is the wonderful staff of W e s ~ e wPress. Dean Birkenkamp ~llasmy editor for rrly last book, Cherc;kerbourdSquaref and steered this project through its early and middle stages, T was sorry to lose him as an editor last year, but Jilt Rothenberg has done an exceptional job at bringing this project to fruition. Melanie Stafford, the project editoz; has done a great job of putting together the book and Christine &den, the copy edit-or, also did excellent work, A third coninuiv for me is the environment of the Universiq of Southern Maine, where X teach, The university not only helped me complete this book by pro~dimzga sabbatical leave but also provides a toterant and open atmosphere in which to be a faculty member. This is something to appreciate because environment so shapes our ability to think and raise critical questions. There are four people I would l i b to thank whose aid was invaluable to me, who X either did not know when X started this project or did not know how important they would be. First, Jenn Machley a former student at my university, did a great job as =search assistant, not only checking facts and gearing library material butt positively enjoying the process of rhinking about and tatking about social issues. Two h e d i s h colleagues, Thornas Knoll of Walmstad University and Ingrid Sahlin of Lunds Univeniry; thoroughly read several dra.fts of this manuscript and proGded a wonderful eross-cultural G e v o i n t , Atthough this book focuses primarily on the United States, it has benefited greatly Erom their comments and ~ e wDennis ~ , Must, my brother-in-law and partner in crime in the new literary journal for poor and other disenfranchised

people, Flying Horse, has not only been an important reader but a great source of support about the actual process of writing, Although W have known each other for years, our recent collaboration has come as a strong positive surprise that has influenced my thinking and writing. Finally, since this book is about controversial subjects-the repression of pleasure in America and the constant mantra of danger-T feel f should say a word or two about the text, II find that having an author's personal likes and dislikes, memories and wishes, sins and virtues cast throughout a text is boring and annoying. So, for the mast part, f have not discussed my o m habits or vices. (Of course, those who are friends either know them or are welcome to ask me.) Moreover, I find contemporary Americans' obsession with the personal to be a sort of "Catch 22": If one pleads guiIry to sin, of course, one is discorlnted or aigmatized; but curiously these days, if one has not sinned enough, he or she is disregarded as a person with no experience of the particular issue or problem. The best stance, I suppose, is that of ""rcovered"":"To admit to a long-ago, far-off vice now ~ p u d i a t e d(perhaps one never really inhaled anpvay). 1 v121 say that the book is in some ways ironic for me, In the late 1960s, when I was a student radical at Columbia passing out flyers, I looked over at some ofthe hippies smoking dope and tried to figure out how to lure them into political demonstrations. En other words, E was not one of those baby boomers in the 1960s and early 1970s who L.hought ""sex, drugs, and rock 'nn" roil" were actually going ta do much to "liberate" America. E held quite the reverse position and sought to politicize the culmral rebellion. Yet now, decades later, a funny thing has happened: Not only is a defense of sex, drugs, and rock h' roll necessaw but it is almost: rwohtionary because of the repressive climate in America, Only now do I lhink I realize how radical the 1960s realty wert?, and this in part explains why we have become so intent on repudiating these times since then, I plead w i l y to what is perf-taps the ultimate crime in the eyes of the establishment: a cerlain radical nostalgia for the 1960s and early I970s, since in many ways American society was more alive and ~ b r a n t then,

one

The last decades of the twentieth century may well be remembered as a time when personal behador and character flaws dominated the American mind, As prominent political figures from Gary Hart to Robert Packwood were brought down by personal scandals, even death seemed to provide no respite from examination of behavior and morality, The media reported on the deaths of the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and baseball star Mickey Mande as exercises in moral diagnosis. Manlle was said to have died from too much ""partying"; and Garcia, from assorted dmgs, cigarettes, and food, Constant public service announcements, political speeches, and public health pronouncements urge us to "just say no" t a drugs, cigarette smoking, fatty foods, teen sexuality; nonmanogamous sex, and viotexrl: TV shows and music lyrics, T p i c a b the media have applauded such changes as rclllecting the new mood of the times:

Campus social life no longer revolves around the keg party , . . 'The whole euItr~reis more wellness-conscious, Certaidy our students are, The promotional stuff does sink in after a while about what dcohol does ta your body,'J said Earl Smith, dean of Colby GoUege. "Weke got a fearfd generation t h t k come of age now between AIDS, dating violence and the much more serious repercussions of d r i m g drunktPkaidMike QPNerEl,coordinator of a Vanderbiit Universiv program that shelled out $60,000 this yeaflfo students Who agree to run nondcoholic pmties.1

New social problems, ham eating disorders ta "codependency;" were discovered in the 1970sand 19650~~ while older unmentionable problems such as child abuse and domestic violence continued to draw public attention, The X99Qs,meanwhile, are witnessing the emergence of still newer: probitems of the personal:

The New Rwzperance

""X's sort of like cigarette smoking," she [ S c h ~ d tcomplains, ] 'They are invading my primey" 'ether she recnlizes it or not, Schmidt is part of what could be the next big niltion~debattle that pits hdividual rights ag&nst public health concerns: the push for fragrance-free environments.

Support Group Helps Peaple with "Messy"Prablems A wdk through ludy's house used to mean stepping over pifes-piles

of magaines, piles of catafogues, piles of letters. . , , So h d y started a chapter of a support graup-"Messies Anonymous" for slobs. . . . After the group was witten up in the Miami HemEki! "I got 12,000letters saying, %elp!"Telton said."

The Coercive Consensus Athough the New Temperance is in part a matter of national mood, and of a turning inward since the 1960s away from broader social and politicat concerns, the Poctls on personal beflavior is not only a matter of style. The new mood in America also reflects a coercive strateg~.of punishment for those wba fail to conform to the nekv norms, Regixlning in the 1980s, no amount of control, however personal or onerous, was considered excessive to stamp out the ingesting of drugs. By the X990s, the "war on drugs" was leading to mare than I million arrests a year, the majoriv of them for possession of small amounts of illicit substances. The drug war-complete with mandatory drug tesling in many workplaces, mandatory criminal sentencing, and constant suweillance, particularly in ghetto arc3as-has been the major factor responsible for illling Arnerican prisons to record numbers. The drug war almost ensures that African-American males driving in poor neighborhoods wilt be stopped and searched:bnd, in some areas, that white, middle-class high school students will have their lockers and possessions searched. Mothers have been arrested, charged with ingesting dmgs into their ktuses; medically ill people have been denied access tu drugs for medicinal puyoses; and even religious rituals such as the h e r i c m Indian use of peyote have been halted-all because ofrhe war on drugs, ?he drug war now includes among its targels legal drugs such as aleohol and tobacco, The charge of hypocrisy by public health and liberal critics of the drug war has spawned an almost equally virulent war against these substances, As a result of recerrt legislation, many people with alcoholism or drug addiction are being cut from the Social Securiq disability rolls as a punitive measure. Youths unlucky enough to be caught with alcohol at a spoas event or behind the school btlilding incur

charges tantamount to treason, leading at t h e s to suspension or expulsion from sdtool, In many New England towns, police are ticketing and even arresting youthful cigarette smokers. And some companies and public employers are refusing to hire cigaretre smokers, whether their smoking is on or off the job. Yet such repression never seems quite enough, as nekv calls for surveillance and punishment continue to appear, Consider this recent report from my Local paper: PIm Enlists Commuaziq in Drug Wm Police would conduct sewches of school lockers at a moment¬ice. Store omers w~uXdroutinely cdl police when they suspect-a customer of bugng dcohoi for minors. Residents whose homes me used for teen pmlies with drugs and diteohoX would be warned of the legal consequences. Clergymen would speak about substmce abuse during church s e r ~ c e sThose , deterrents were part of a Go uniq Wde Substance Abuse Policy being proposed,"

Rivaling the alarm over subslances is the panic over sex and sexual displays, Beginning with the rise of the New Right in the 1970s, wars have been waged against promiscuity, pornography, and teen pregnancy. Democrats soon joined Republican enthusiasts in promoting "family values'" and condemning out-of-wedlock births and teen sex.5 A key ingredient of conservative attacks on welfare benefits has been the pathologization of the single mother and teen parents. But not to be outdone, President Clinton fired his first Surgeon General for Ulking about masturbation, while his secretary of Health and Ht~manS e r ~ c e s catted out-ohwedlock births "morally just wrong,'" By the 1990s, the consensus against sexuality had reached the point where politicians were competing with one another to support measures to control movies and W,approving "v-chipspffor parems to control children's retevl'sion, advocating censorship cm the Internet, and pressuring adwrtisers (such as C a l ~ Kleirx) n to withdraw sexy ads, Conservatives are sometimes outperformed by putative liberals on the New Temperance issues,Washinson Mayor Marion Barry, a Democrat, only recently =leased from prison for his conviction for crack use, has called for mandatory Norplant implants for young women who are sexttally active.7 And liberal columnist Ellen Goodman has suggested that government fight the war against teen pl.egnancy by tracking dawn older male teem who are having sttx with younger teens: substanrial number of the men are wh;r can only be called sexual predators. A substantial number of teen-age mothers are what we once called jailbait. . . . Maybe statutory rape is an idea whose time should return."B

4

The New Rwzperance

The line between health warnings and moral suasion, on the one hand, and force, on the other, is a thin one. Even the new food moralism-touting the a-voidance of fat or meat, promoting correct eatingsometimes turns into social control. For instance, my local "alternative" paper recently featurcltd an article about a welhre recipient who was 1FalXowed around and charged with (among other things) spending her money on ""junk faod."Wonsematives who criticize any pleasurable use of taxpayer money are joined by liberals who disapprove of such dietary excess: In a letter to the same paper, a person complained that ""a meat market is soon to move into . . . [name of] Street. m a t kind of message will this send to the neighbarhood, including the kids across the street at [name of] school?"^^ The present book explores how the America of "'sex, drtrgs, and rock ?nn'roll" of the 1960s and early 1970s became so consumed with personal bebavior and social control by the 1980s and 1990s. Elements of the Left as well as the Right now vie with each other ta stamp out drugs, nonmarital sex, and unhealthy habis, differing only, it seems, on the question of which groups ta p.tlnislt-2more.'l As politicians no longer rail against colnmuxlisrll but emphasize their toughness on crime, drugs, sexual abuse, and violence in the media, this book asks ' m y ? " M a t some have called the "new sobriety;" others have termed the "new puritanism," and still others have praised as the new health consciousness or ""healthism," h i l l define here as the "New Temperance.?$IZ

Defining the "NewTemperance" For most Americans and certainfy the rnajoriq of the edncaed public, a large percentage of daily human behavior has become pathologized in the last two decades. Whether the topic is cigarette smoking or fatty foods, teen pregnancy or excessive television .viewing, we have been constantly bombarded with messages about health and morality My intent is not to argue that any or X aX of these behaviors are heatthy or wise, nor do I advocate that the reader smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol ta exess, take illegal drugs, or engage in violent behavior, Of course, health messages contain some Riendly advice. Rut to acknowtedge risks, is, b r n a soeological perspective, not to explain very much about the American obsession with personal behaviol=This book argues the constant focus on personal b e b a ~ o in r America serves as a tool of political power as well as a popular social movement. Rmperance is a national ideology. That is, Americans of the last two decades seem to have become rigidly beused on problems of personal behavior, as if such issues explain all of life and provide

meaning to all events. 'f"o say something is an ideology is not to argue that all of its obsewations and ramifications are negativc or undesirable, Temperance ideology has much basis in reall life; indeed, life has many risks and dangers, and it is good to be warned of them, But ideologies are highly culturally and politicallql contextual. Wllat one culture sees as risky, others would not. Many Indian tribes saw tobacco as a god, whereas Por some Americans today it evokes only concerns about secondary smoke and death. The members of most indigenous cultures are shocked upon first observing Mlesterners dri~xxgaround in huge steel boxes that kequently crash (and always spew off smoke]. They regard cars as bizarre and quite dangerous. Even in the industrialized world, though, temperance is an especially American ideology13 For exampie, when It visited Hungary, X couXdnft explain to my hosts why many Americans would be surprised at their high-fat diet, their heavy smoking, and the easy availability of drink and pornography at virtually each corner. X found similar opinions in Sweden, where people laughed at these American obsessions, along with our new taste for decaffeinated coffee and our dismay over teen sexuality. Nor is temperance only a matter of national or cultural borrndaries, America has not always been consumed by temperance ideologies, as anyone vvho grew up in the 1950s, X960s, or 29"i"s can affirm, America has long witnessed moralistic popular movements against citizensbins and vices {see Chapter 2). Because the most famous was the Temperance Mavement, lasting from the 1820s fa the passage of National Prohibition (against alcoholic beverages) in 191.9,1 draw upon this name. Although I mean ta define &mpemnce as being far more than a movement against aXcohol, there are persuasive reasons to recall this earlier movemer-rt. First, as we shall see, although American temperance activists saved their sharpest denunciations h r the '"ernon rum," klemperance organizations and activists in the nineteenth and early twemieth centuries had close links with many longliorgotfen movements including the Vice and Vigilance Movement and the Social Purity Momment, which campaigned against prostitution, prorniseuity, pornography, and "'white slavery"; the Anti-Cigarette Movement; the Social Hygiene Movement aimed at preventing venereal diseases; and a variety of popular health movements stressing proper diet, sexual rectitude, and proper exercise, such as that typified by cereal inventor Dr. Harvey Keltogg (whose popular health movement joined water cures, vegetarianism, and exercise with temperance and sexual chastity) .l4 Second, it makes sense to discuss today's behavioral control m m ments in terms of temperance because, like the old (anti-alcohol) Temperance Movement, they produce similar political, alignments, As in the

6

The New Rwzperance

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rural fundamentalists and conservative traditionalists have become allied with urban middleclass "progressives," uniting some elements of the Right and Lleft.Xs Such movements focus not on broad economic, social stmctural, or cultural failings of American society but, rather, on individual behavior (though liberal temperance activists criticize a few sectors of corporate power such as the liquor and tobacco industries). And as with the R m perance Movement of old, today's universalist claims about the harms of "immoral" "behior hide major subtexts of anxieties about social class, race, and ethniciq. Temperance actiGsts of the past saw rum as corrupting immigrants and other poar people, whereas today the ghetto 'kunderclass" is the locus of American fears, The writers of old temperance tracts warned their middle-class readers against the evils of whisky, whereas today's middle class seems to have an almost bottomless pit of anxiety; focusing on e-veryfhingfrom street crime to secondary smoke to teen and child sexuality, Afthough I w~uXdnot reduce all of these anxieties solely to economic causes, Darbara Ehrenreich'f imputation of a "fear of falling" in the American middle class, leading this clfass to constantly examine behavior as status cues, does explain some of the paradoxes of middle-class angst.lVor example, how do we reconcile the rising middle-class fear of drugs and cigarettes with evidence of sharp declines in these b e b a ~ o r sover the past many years? One possible answer is that temperance idealow helps distinguish the anxious '"respectable classes" from grungy "1~wlifes"who may still. smoke cigaretes or marijuana, much less use crack cocaine, and that such boundary markers have salience only when the middle class is able to differentiate itself from other classes based on behavioral norms, My approacf.1 differs somewhat from other sociological tmatmenb of these concerns (see Chapter 3). T understand temperance to be an ideology, but also an elite s m t e g ~on the one hand, and a p o p l a r soclat movemen6 cm the other. Mast social science treatments stress only one part of the equation. For example, some social scientists-especially proponents of the "medicalizatian of social problems" thesis-tend to focus exclusively on professionals and related experts as shapers of social problem definitions. Others stress only the media's influence or the popular appeal (""moral panies"")f certain problem formulations. These are certainly aspects of the New Temperance, but they donPt completely explain it, Accsrdingiy, the present book builds on social csnstrrlctioni&theor?/ wflile also imegating this approach with other theories. The vvork of French philosopher and social critic Michel Foucault is particularly helphl toward this end, as his undemtanding of power strategies and their dihsion throughoM socieq tlellJls us to comprehend how elites develop sQategies that are then used by a variety of other forces in

socieq and how power mechanisms may originate at the bottom but become useful for elites.17 With this introduction, I can now define today" temperance ideology, movement, and strategy as reflecting a belief in the responsibility of the state and private powers (e-g.,corporations) to regulate and re. public health and public education strain personal b e h a ~ o rAlthough workers hope to instill successful i n d i ~ d u aefforts l at self-control, the failures of self-regttlationjustify socie@'s mom coercive role for the presumed 'kwn good" of the individual, QC course, activists involved in one aspect of behavioral concern do not always support suppression of other behaviors. Nevertheless, the New Temperance can generally be seen as focusing on the folIowing four areas:

* Substance Abuse: 1 refer here to the movements to viflainize and repress or punish drug users, These ma-vements take many forms today, from campaigns to prohibit the use of tobacco in prtblic to those punishing and preventing drunk driving, from campaigns telling kids to "just say no" to fodxgs to those requiring drinking-bee zones in sports arenas, * Sexual Belzavior: DespiCe the publiciv about "culfure wars,'"B some broad convergences in American thinking over the last two decdes have once again appeamd. For example, temperance warriors n w pathologize and stralegizr:against teen sex and pregnancy; against promiscuous sex (which was deemed an evil even before the AlDS epidemic), and at times, it seems, against all nonmarilaif sex, * Food and Fitness Movements: As noted above, not only the current h e s i c a n obsession with diet (particularly as it relates to the dangers of cholesterol and Cat) but also current health fads from fitness to running exhibit parallels to the healthist mo-vements that originated as far back as the 1830s. * frrzproper SWeecCz aad Oslier Portrayals:Adherents of temperance ideology often see speech about or portrayals of-violence, hate, or sex as being dangerolrs or potentially dmgerous, At times, the Left and Right have joined furces to rid the nation of pornography; teletrision violence, and lewd or violent music lyrics, To some extent, the Left's focus on speech and private bebavior (""p1itical correctness"")though somewhat exaggerated by critics, can be seen as an element ofrhe New Temperance, Owing to the vastness of this subject mattex; I will not describe every aspect of temperance, For reasons of space and emphasis, then, I will focus on subslance use and sex as examples of the ""behavior wars," In

8

The New Temperance

particular, I hope to provide a sociological interpretation of events in the last two decades based on my reading of recent history, of cultural events and texts, and of secondary sources about various forms of “deviance” and ill health.

Questioningthe BehaviorWars A reader might ask, “Even though there are excesses, aren’t the wars against bad behavior worth fighting?”Or, “Isn’t it obvious that America has a drinking/drug/smoking/sexual behavior/eating/aggression problem?” Yet these questions raise some interesting issues. First, it is not at all clear that temperance movements follow an increase in the behavior being criticized. Often quite the opposite is true. We know, for example, that cigarette smoking was far more widespread two decades ago than it is now, yet smoking did not arouse public anger in the 1960s or early 1970s. Further, Stanton Peele argues that Americans drank far more alcohol in the eighteenth century than at any time in the twentieth, and Troy Duster notes that more Americans took illicit drugs (primarily morphine) in the late nineteenth century than during the 1960s.19 These examples raise sociological questions as to when and why issues of behavior have come to be of such great concern to people: and, indeed, this is a subject on which the book focuses. Second, to view health and moral admonitions as simply benevolent would be to ignore considerable latent functions in both the older and contemporary versions of temperance. One such function, as previously noted, is the development of a social control machinery that, along with detecting personal problems, systematically buttresses the power of corporations and government over Americans’ daily life. Mandatory drug testing in the workplace confirms the ability of employers to control the most basic personal habits of the employee. And government efforts to control smoking, monitor computer communication, register sex offenders, and mandate psychological treatment for a variety of offenses strengthens the state’s control over everyday life. Another major problem with all such measures is that, despite their proclaimed goal of fairness, social control-from criminal sanctions to the educational and social service systems’ identification of “high-risk”youngsters-seems always to target the behavior of some people and not others. The wars we conduct-whether against drug users, teen parents, or “at risk” students-are wars against primarily the working class, ethnic and racial minorities, and poor people, usually young. Finally, I argue that temperance is a diversion from the critical issues facing America, that it is doomed to failure even on its own terms.

Rather than insisting that the personal behavior of Americans is "out of controljPhecould understand the fundamenlal reasons why many people feel alienated and, in turn, why many Americans are anxious about the personal behavior of their young. First, vast economic changes have sharply ~ d u c e dthe standard of living for many Americans. This historic downturn since 197'3 has led not only to increased poverq and misery in the tower classes h t atso to increased azlxieq and fear in the middle and ~llorkingclasses. Remedying the economic situation-particularXy the endemic poverty for millisnts-would likely achieve more of a reduction in child abuse or alcoholism than a thousand educational campaigns. Second, many of the presumed solutions to our "misbehaviar" only aggravate the hndarnental cultural problem facing our countv-namely, the tack of corrrmuniry that has accompanied modernizalion, teehnologization, deindusrialization, and geographic mobility. Xn commenting on Americans7ears about missing children, Ilaloween food poisoning, child sexual aabuse, and so forth, Peele n o e s that efforts at social control (increased fingerprinting of children, computerized information networks on suspects, stronger efforts by parents to restria their children) are misgtrided becmse "rhe campaigns and the spirit underlying lhem directly attack community li.f"e."mXn other words, the very forces that helped protect children in bygone days-such as the involvement of neighbors in one another's lives-have been eroded by rising levels of suspicion and punishment, and by the pressure on parents to become further isolated from other adults and their children, Most of the social problems so emphasized by temperance movements can be linked to cultural alienation; yet, as Peele suggests, the solut"rons usually proposed by the various "helping" syst:erns are often just the opposite to improving commnity.'l By calling for isolation and increased surveillance of "deviants'"in the community, .eve may (to paraphrase General Westmoreland) be destroying our communities to save them.

ation of the Book Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of the paradox common to those of us who are ""baby boomers": namely; that in the 1960s a vast array of previollsly "deviant'"t>eaviors were seemingfy becoming acceptable, What happened to confaund not only our expectations but many social theoristskxpeclations that American society was becoming freer and more tolerant of such behaviors? X will then go back to the past to review some social movemen& from the Victorian err? and the Progressive period in America (Rorn roughly 18"I to 1917) in order to discuss cer"cain similarities bemeen these times and the period from the mid- 1970s on, For a variety of reasons, these older movements against alcohol, cigcrreltes,

10

The New Rwzperance

and sexual impropriety (involving even the covering up of nude statutes) are rarely discussed today even by social scientisb. From this historical perspective on the New Temperance I shift to a review of theoretical perspectives in Chapter 3, As examples, I begin with questions such as,PVho tends to support temperance movements, and why?Why is drunk driving considered a social problem, but not the auto itself, despite the thousands of deaths it causes? Why was masturbation regarded as a severe socid evil until about seventy-five years ago? For answers, X draw upon current work in social constructionist theory; coupled with the analysis of power best proGded by some M a r ~ sand t conRict traditions, In Chapter 4, I examine in grcater detail several behavion pathslagized by the dominant American media and political elites: the feared illicit drug, the maligned cigareEe, the stigmatized teen mottler, and the specter of mukiple-paflner sex. Mthotlgh I acknowledge the risks associated with these behaaolrs, X argue that temperance ideology de-conkxliualizes behaviors from their actual social environment. 1 question whelher temperate belravior is a l w w logical and desirable. Fur example, I consider such paradoxes as the finding that drugs help some people work harder, that cigarerres help some depressed people feel better, and that bearing a child while young may be function& for 1o.c~-incomewomen. Yet these paradoxes are r a ~ l ydiscussed; evidently it is easier to assume that the eradication of such "immorat" or unhealthy behaviors wiH somehow bring a utopian happiness to the public. The very lanwage of temperance misrepresents the concl.eteness of our howledge: "Smoking-relaed death" are about as meaningful as saying a death is ""eating related," despik the scientific: sound; warnings about '~romisctloussex" intentionally conhse morality with the dangers of sexuat transmission of disease under certain circumstances; and ~ferencesto ""dug dependence" or to ""dug-crazed" people are moral judgments, not scientific ones. ( m y for example, do we not describe businesspeople as ""pofit-dependent"" or ""money-addicted"'?) The remaining chapters of the book demlop a historical argument for the great changes in herica"s view of betlavior since approximately the mid-f 970s. In particular, I stress the social class and political dimensions ofrhe New Temperance, Tn Chapter 5, X develop the argument that a combination of factors led to the popularity of social conservatism by the late 1970s. The radical democratimtion affecting clothes, hairstyle, language, drug use, and sexual norms that occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s came close to reversirlg the stattrs markers that earlier h e r ican sociev struggled to construct. The result ~llasa sevem crisis in social class reproduction, accenttzated by the dramatic economic downturn that began with the recession of 3_9"i"1974. Xn the context of these

new ""fan and mean" "lirnes, dtlring which uncompetitive workers were discarcfed and a new 'knnberclass?' "developed, status markers have ree middle class and other classes turned with a vengeance to d i ~ d the seeking respectability from the poor and the dowtruardty mobile, In Chapter 6, I argue that the New Temperance is also a politic& strate a . As such, it has primarily aided the Right, but afso, ta some degree, the moderate and liberal residue af the 1960s movements. As was true of the older temperance movements, the political "consensus"-br "family values," monogamy; home protection, and the work ethic-most favors consematives. Indeed, the Kigtlt is far more skllful in using kmperance symbols, and has a more consistent record of social conservatism and Puritan morality; than the Left, But neither the older turn-of-the-century Temperance Movement nor the movements of today would have gained popularity without suppofl among urban middle-class liberals. Accordingly, 1briefly re.view the Republican strateg on sin developed in the 1960s and 1970s while also noting the support given to healthism by some leeists, the call for stricter social control measures over personal behavior by same a c t i ~ s t in s the women's movement, and the embrace of the end of the sexual revolution even by some leaders of the gay movement, Alchough there are many specific reasons for these developments, T note that temperance ideologies retain their great usefufness in. Arrlerican culture precisely because they y mduce convergent ar eonsensual political results. In the final. chapter, X suggest that, syxnbolicrrlty, the New Temperance has served as a vehicte through which the remnan& af the "'60s'"fiave been c o n q u e d and expunged. As with the McCarthyism of the 1950s, one purpose of the new sociaf conservatism is to repress all positive memories of dissent and social unrest, Whereas McGarthyism aimed to dismantle all opposition emanating from the social movements of the 1930s, the New Temperance vitlainizes the 1960s. Tt demands an active renunciation, particularly on the part of baby boomers and former activists-just as the suppression of social unrest in the late 1940s to 1950s required people to purge themselves by "naming names." finally, on a more optimistic note, I raise questions about the idea of totally administering the behavior of citizens and argue that behnvioral controls and repression are rarely "successful" "wen on, their own terms. Xn fact, power has limits and resistance, and the New Temperance wifl. most likely be defeated in the kturt?, just as the movement to prohibit alcohol eventually went down to dekat in the past.


two At the risk of some simplification, 1suggest that the resltrgence of moralism in the late twentieth century aimed at substances, sex, food consumption, and other beha\l-ior was a stunning reversal of mid-century trends, harkerring back to Vicmrian h e r i c a . l This chapter places the New Temperance in context by situating it in the American hidorical tradition that, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked off the "respectable e2asses" from the poor, the lawlife, and the dismputable. In paaicular, the '"behavior war$ of the last two decades most resemble the period from about 1870 through World War T in h e r i c a n histov.

Remembering For those readers b H w e n thirty and sixty years of age, the New Temperance stands in remarkable contrast to the social norms of our youth. The "'baby boom" generation grew up with TV ads beckoning them to "walk a mile'9or a Camel cigarene and to use Brylcreem far sexy hair that "she would love to rub her fingers through". Bays grew up reading Playbojt, with its consumerist view of sex, and both boys and girls read Mad magazine, with its irreverent atlacks on conformity and the dulf white-collar world, We took seriously film heroes such as "Murray," who, in.A Thousnnd Clsw~zs,quit working on Madison Avenue to ""hing y trmeled out" and "'Captain America" and ""Biliy,"who, i~ E ~ s Rider, across America get"cirxg stoned and engaging in orgies. As Barbara Ehrenreich has pointed out, the cultural rebellion against the traditional work ethic and pmdery of Puritanism preceded the cultural and political rebelfions of the 1 9 6 0 starting ~~ with critiques of conformity in books of the 1950s such as The Orpnkation Ma~zand The Man in the Grey Flalz~relSuite2A combination of postwar prosperity in America and the growth of a cansumer-oriented culture that associated products with pleasure helped start a cultural rebellion long before the hippies,

14

Dejd Vu AIE OverAgain

the cotlntercultnre, the New Left, women's liberation, and the gay and lesbian movement. To put it mildly, the 1960s movements hrther challenged the cultural norms of the day, Retrospectives of the 1960s that focus only on the civil r i m s movement and the anti-war protests minimize that decade's rebellion against the central tenets of the culture-the work ethic, the -f"amiEy ethic, monogamyt prudery, even rational consciousness, The countereulture challenged the point of worEng at dull routine jobs; of maintaining rational, linear thinking rather than the ""drop in, drop out, tune out" drug mantra proposed by Tirnothy Leary and others; and of upholding individual propem rights (rather than "liberating9>oods, as Abby WoEman, for example, proposed in his books). In addition, radicais of the New Left and earb feminists saw ""s&ng monogamy" as representing a rebellion against the ""bourgeois vdues" of the repressive Camily Although care must be taken not to exaggerate the impact:of the X960s, there is empirical evidence not only of a dramatic rise in the middle classhse of drugs during the 1960s and 1970s but also of the realiv of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 19"Is.S lit is doubtful that a mode like Paul Mazlxrsb's Bob, Carol, Ted, aitnd Aldce [1969), in which middleclass suburban couples engaged in paaner swapping, could be made today, at least not without the imposition of severe penalties on the characters such as a violent death or a deadly disease.4 Moreover, during the early 1970s soff-pornography classics such as Deep LTfzroaland TfzeDeu1'2 in MissJanes became box-ofice smashes h r the first time in American history. Nor is it likely that popular heroes of the period would be perceived the same way today Consider, for e m p l e , Ken Kesey's popular play and, Eater, Milos Foreman's Academy Award-winning m o ~ of e the same name, One F i w over the Cuckoo"sest, about the horrors of life in a mental hospital. The lead character, P. 1.McMurphy, has been sent from a work farm to a mental hospital because he is a sex offender. Not only has MeMurphy committed statutory rape, but he is a proud malingerer (recall that he feigns mental illness to escape the work detail), a boozer, a gambler (he promptly arranges an assortment of high-stakes card games at the institution), a smokes, and a procurer of prostitutes [whose entry to the hospital leads to the tragic death of feltow-patient Billy Babbitt), Millions of people saw the play and mro~e,and cheered for McMurpby in his struggle with the villainous Nurse Ratched, Today, howeve&it is hard to imagine a play or film poaraying a similarly unsavory male and strong female nurse enjoying our sympathy in the same way: Would anyone cheer a 1990s McMuryhy? More likely a modern-day Wched wottld be the hero instead of the McMurphy character. Of course, many Americans rejected the counterculture and other radical. changes of the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, as we shall later see, the

crrltrlrrrl rebellion ofthat period can be a w e d to have led, paradoxically, to the success of the New Right and other anli-sin politics,

Declaring Temperance Dead Tt is interesting to note that social theorists at the time generally also believed that the moralistic polities of the past-the kind that praGded status to the "'drys" who campaigned against alcohol for a century-was on its kvay out*Joseph Gusfield, one of America's most renowned saciologists and an important historian of the older Temperance Movement, began his 1963book by noling that the '"irrre of temperance is long past' and associating it exclusively with lower-middle-class Protestant evangelical~:""SabrietJr was virtuous and, in a community dominated by middle-class Pratestmts, necessary to social acceptance and self-esteem. . . .As Americans are less work-minded, more urban, and Xess thealogical, the same behavior Wffich once brmght rewards and self-assurrrnce to the abstainer today more often brings contempt m d rejection.'" Swiolagists of delriancy concurred that the days of moralism were over: Western man [sic]has, on the whole, developed increased tolerance and compassion for problems that were previously dogrnaticaliy treated as mord iissues,6 [Tlhe generd pattern in h e r i c m sociev seems to be one of decreasing stigrnadzation of behaviors once considered reprehensibIe.7 A slow but steady transformation.of deviance has taken place in American

societSI; . , , Deviant bekza~orsthat were once defined as immoral, sinful, or criminai have been given rnedicd meaningsS8

In hct, this view was not limited to American theorists. RadicaI philosopher Michel Foucault made a similar point in a 1975interview: "I believe that the great intolerance of the p o p f a i o n for the delinqrterrt, which the mordiv and politics of the nineteen.lh century set out to establish, is in fact now being eroded. Certain hrms of illegality or irregularity are becoming more and more accepted . . . for example, . . . stealing something from a shot).?'Y It now seems clear that contrary to F~ucault,stealing ham shops is regarcted as pathotogical and criminal, and that contrary to Guslleld, temperance both as personal behavior (i.e., abstinence) and as a political slagan is a status enhance6 not a stigma. Nor does the increased tolerance and compassion discussed by these social theorists reflect attitudes today tollvarcl the unwed mofher, the pregnant teen, the c i g a ~ t t e smoke&the street person, the drug use&the w l h r e recipient, or the alcoholic,

16


This is not to suggest a complete lack of important social progress for some groups coming out of the 1960s socid movements, The civil rights movement not only radically altered conditions for people of calor in the United Stares but also stimulated the growth of numerous other movements from women's liberation to the gay and lesbian movement to the disabitity rights movement. Despite deep pockets of resistance among Xarge parts of the population, gay and lesbian people are no longer viwed as sinners or diseased people but, rather, have become accepted and, in same places, legally protected groups in society Physically arld mentally disabled people have also gained powerful lega! rights in recent years. Even homeless people have been granted statutory rights to vote, to receive benefits, and, in some areas, to panhandle, Only two decades ago, societies around the Western world were opening up and dumping long-held laws regarding vagrancy, commitment far insanity; sodomy; prostitution, drug use, even the age of sexual consent, At the time, it seemed logical to predict a continuation of such a trend. Yet in the historical short term, this was not to be. Many Americms, and even the social mo-vernentsfighting b r rights, seem to have adopted the classic sociological distinction between "ascribed" and ''achieved'' stauses. The statuses socially constructed as "ascribed" are those a person is said to be "born m$&"(such as race, sex, age, and some developmental and physical disabilities) or to have involuntariIy acquired (such as disabililies reslrlling from accidents). '"Ascribed" "slatuses arc; statuses that have inct-easingly become legally protected and socially accepted, Conversely, those statuses associated with groups seen as voituntarily deviating (such as dmg users, cbitd molesrers, teen parents, and cigarette smokers) are considered either "immoral" or ""pathologica2" and are based on behaGors. These behaviors, in turn, are seen as "achieved" because the dominant Western culturaf view of them is that they are freely chosen acts of 'Ue~ance,"To a great degree, the battle aver gay rights concerns the question of whether sexuaI orientation is an "achieved" {(freelychosen) or ""ascribed"status. The presentation of gay sexuality proGdes an example of the historic change we are examining, The Gay Liberation Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s strongly affirmed the right of all people to 'hake love with anyone, anyway anpime" (in the words ofthe Gay Activists Alliance),lo The idea that one was born with a fixed ""sxual orientation" ('"ga'br '"traigill"" that one "'had no choice about" was strongly opposed at that time by the theory of polyxnorphaus sexuality Since the late 1970s, however, the struggle far gay and lesbian rilJflts has usually posited an '%ascribedHstatus, That is, gays are argued to be either a biologicai category (""horn that wayP'")r members of a finite social minoriw who have little or no choice about their sexual orientation. Afthough there is internal conlroversy over the genetic-difference argument

lllithin the gay community, mo& pro-gay righls political campaigns do sttppofl a notion of a fixed sexual orientaion, a strateg developed in light of the success of ethnic minoriq organizing in America,f fn this light, the new ""don't ask, don't tel'bolicy of the military toward gays can be taken as paradigmalic of the contradiction bemeen the limited success of the civil rights mo-vements and that of the New Temperance. American society appears to be gfudgingfy accepting of some rights h r those vvho are deemed "ascribed" ta a category, yet it has simultaneaust_y.moved to enfol-ce controls over behavior that is seen to be up to the individual, In theory, then, it is all right to be "'gay," but the practice of gay sex or the public discussion of it is still sti&nzatized.The rnediealization of problems such as mental ifllness is arguably seen in the same XigJht. The ascription of mental illness proGdes legal protection lior some disabled people at the workplace and elsewhercl; but at the point where a person acts "mentally ill" (e.g., hears cl-sices or perhaps XaugXls inappropriately), he or she may then be stigmatized or discriminated against. The New Temperance's scrutiny and control over beha.vior may actually make perfect sense in tight of the increased legal protection of previously excluded groups {racialminorilies, w m e n , etc.) in the workplace and elsewhere, Far example, now that employers are unable to sort their workers by ascribed characteristics (such as race and gender), they are increasingly turning to accountings of achieved behavioral statuses: The employee was fired not because he is African-American but because he has a drug problem; the company decided against hiring the woman not because of her gender but because she acted inappropriately at the jab intemew. These accountinigs are not primarily about covering up racial, gender; and age discrimination [though, of course, such discrimination does occur); rather, they reflect the needs of businesses and others to judge human capital in a period of economic competition and downsizing without appearing to violale the taw, f

Back to the Past: The Old Temperance Movements Historically; a case can be made not that the "1960s" ~volutionizedsocial norms but that dominant American norms at century's end have simply rettimed to older conservative patterns. In other wards, the period horn the late 1950s to the early X9"Is was an exception rather than a rule*1will dwelop this argument in more detail Xater on, f"or now, however, it is interesting to consider that throughout much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, campaigns led by middle-class Protestants demanded behaviors similar to those I have defined as the New Temperance. The Temperance Movement and the hti-Cigarette Move-

18


rnent dramatically parallel today" battles over drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. And three other historical movements-the Social Purity Movement, the Vice and VligiiXance Movement, and the Social Hygiene Movement-roughfy parallel today's movements focused on cf3ast:ityand teen sex, promiscuim chiid sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and censorship in art, media, and popular culture. A discussion of these historical movements requires some caveats. First, popular movements undergo many stages and have many wings; ~ some activists avokv extreme ideas, whereas others are m o maderate* Some of these movements had a "Left" and a ""Right,"and, as we will see, temperance ideologies are particularly subject to the combining of repressive and mare liberal ideologies. The [anti-alcohol) Temperance Movement, for exampie, encompassed conservative churchmen and businessmen, but also leading Ceminisls of the time and some Christian and Fabian SociaXists.lz Second, the language of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not ""politically correct" but, rather, relied on religious and moral metaphors. It was also usually intended for "respectable" audiences, not for the "dangerous classes." And although these older movements had overlapping memberships and similar constituencies, and seemed to peak at similar times (between the 1890s and World War I), they were not necessarily coordinated with one another nor did all supporters of one form of behavior control support the others. These camats aside, the Victorian and Prog~ssivePeriod movements were characterized by what scholarly observers consider an exaggerated [described by Guslield as '"topiad') notion of their ability to change beha.\rior,by a huge faith in government" aabitity ta regulate every aspect of privae life, and by a strong ethnocentric belief in the correctness of vvbite, Protestant, middle-class social norms (called the "white life" in some Women's Christian Temperance Union and Social Purity propaganda, with an intentional pun on race and purity).ls In simplified terms, the consemtive supporlers of temperance lieared the ""dangerous classes">opolitical and industrial unrest, seeing lower-class b e h a ~ o as r emblematic of social danger to their way of life, In addition, Progressives and early feminists hoped to socialize immigrants and the lower class to middle-class norms in order to tame this social unrest, while also reducing the personal m d social strife that the habils of the "dangerous classes" were presltmaMy wreaking on innocent women and childrm.

Followers of both the Temperance Movement and the Anti-Cigarette Movement were fwfly aware of the harms of the bottle artd weed long be-

fore any Surgeon Generalbreports. Like today's anti-drug, anti-smoking, and antidurtnk driving mcrvements, these earlier causes appealed to the nation's health, to its concern for safety, pmfitslble industry; and the future of its children, and to its desire for successful social mobility and status. However, one difference between the earlier movements and today's anti-smoking and anti-alcohol movements was the hrmerb confidence about banning the use of the substances themselves, The common Errglish usage of the word rempernnf is misleading, of course, inasmuch as these reformers eventually became abolitionists, not supporters of Ximited or moderate usage. Wereas early temperance proponents aimed at limiting alcohol (by defining age restrictions, limiting where it could be sold, licensing bars, etc.), by the 1890s the militant Anti-Sdoon ]Ideawe and Prohibition Party had developed a fully prohibitionist program. In 1919, activists succeeded in gaining the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting the consumption of alcshal.14 The Anti-Cigarette Movement, although it accepted limitations on sales and production in some states, was also prohibitionary. By the first decade of the mentieth century; it had succeeded in banning cigarettes from hurteen stares (as well as many municipalities and county jurisdictions).~~ Like the anti-drug movement of today, vvhose stern "just say no'hessage is meant to conjure up visions of immediate physical harm ham the use of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, LSD, and so on, temperance suppoflers vilified "demon nlm'knd the "'soot weed" in the harshest terms: Alcohol . . . [is] the most subtle, the most far-reaching, a d , jrrdged by its ultimate effects, incomparably the most. virulent of poisons. Regujlar moderate drifixrg. . . lowers the grade of your mind, dulls your hi&er es&etic sense, and takes the finer edge off your morals (from McClurehagwine, 1908).'G

It is the devil in solution, distilled damation, more destructive than war, pestilence, and famine; a cancer in human society; and the sdoon a rathole for men's wages, a prolific hotbed of anxchy, vile politics, m d profane ribddry (kom RaiEurty Couzduct.or, 1919).17 Many m d mmy a bright lad has had his will power weakened, his moral principle sapped, his nervous system wecked, his whole life spoiled before he is 17 by the detestable cigarette. The dgaretre fiend in tin~ebecomes a t t.hel)lzs to get money to feed his insaliar and a thief. He will c o m ~petty tiable appetite for nicotine. He lies to his pwents, his teachers, a d his best friends, He neglects his studies and, narcotized by nicotine, sits at his desk half stupefied, his desire for work, his ambition, dulled if not dead feommenf by New York School Co ssioner Charles Hubbell, X893).1@

Temperance became a popular movement by the latter part of the century; not only a powerful poXitical movement with hundreds of active

20


chapters but also a major cultural presence involGng the production of popular plays, songs, and novels. The nation split regionally, racially ethnicaHy; and socioeconomicaltybetween "wets" and 'Irp"; indeed, it was not until after the repeal of Prohibition in the 1930s that the "wet/dv" issue ceased to be a I'actor in national, state, and local elections. Generally; upper- and middle-class Protestants were "dry;'?as were mast rural dwellers, Temperance held a strong base in the Midwest, in New England, and, more gradually, in the Wed and parts of the South. The "wets" were mosdy Irish, Italian, Eastern European, and German immigrants as welt as Africa-Axnericarts and other people of color. Class was a critical factor as well, inasmuch as poor and working-class people opposed temperance, as did most voters in the major urban areas. Religious g m p s split, with Roman Catholics and Jews more likely to be "wet" and Protestants "dry" Business became strongly supporlive of temperance, Some employers fired or refused to hire woltkers who drank; others discharged workers who snroked; and still others demanded pledges of abdinence from both substances, In contrm, labor unions (except for a few locals composed of highly skiHed native-born workers) opposed temperance, as did the Socialisr party of Eugelre Debs and the Wobbties (the International Workers of the Wllorld).lg And Emma Goldman, an early-twentieth-century radical, had nothing but contempt for the ''drys": As to Prohibition, everyone knows what a farce it really is, Like aII other achievements of Puritanism, it, too, has but driven the '"evil" deeper into the human system, Nowhere else does one meet so many drunkards as in our Prohibition towns. . . . The fact that some great geniuses have seen their reflection in the goblet too frequently, does not justify Puritanism in attempting to fetter the whole g a u t of humm emodarrs, . . . Puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ.20

The leaders of the Anti-GgareEe Movement frequently overlapped with those of the Temperance Movement, though on a national level the pragmatic leaders of Mramen's CGhstistn Temperance Union (WCTIJ) and the hnti-SaXoon League \IYisely concluded that an official endorsement of too many issues might cause political losses, NeverlSleless, on a municipal and state level, Protestant churches, businessmen, ministers, professionals, and reformms led the Anti-Cigarette Movement, They in turn were generally opposed by workers, the poor, and immigrants, Despite the fact that smoking had originally arisen as an upper-class habit," aanli-cigaretle propaganda targeted the '"cigarette fiend" as youngl male, and lower class (in fact, the movement never opposed cigar smoking, which was associated with respectable men). Even more outrageous to social reformers, however, was the specter of women

smoking. As women took up "rhe fiabit," more and more governments rwhed to prohibit women from smoking. In New York City in 1908, ~enty-nine-year-oldKatie Muleahey '"as arrested and jailed for lighting a cigarette in front of a policeman and then compounding the crime by asserling 'No man shall dictate to rne.'""z" The passage of laws against alcohol and cigarettes was met by exaggerated claims of ""hawn on eartI.1""by supporters, who believed that these laws heralded a new day in America. m e n national Prohibition passed, the famous minister Billy Sunday told a live audience of 10,000 along with a huge radio audience: "The reign of terror is over, The slums will soon be a memory W will turn our prisons into Erzctories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs, Men wiII walk upright now, women will smile and the children will laugh. HelZ will forever be rent.'fzs It soon became clear, however, that poverty and slums would not disappear (in fact, after World War I conditions worsened for the poor) and that jails would get even more crowded with bootleggers and other violators of Prohibition. The passage of Prohibition coincided historicalfy with a strong rightward political shift that included the famous "Palmer Raids" aagina imrrligram and suspected leHists; the passage of antiimmigrant legislation; and the Warding, Coolidge, and Hoover presidencies, EEorts to restrict the use of alcohat and cigarerrs failed, collapsing from the onus of enforcing public moraliv on millions of people. Prohibition began losing favor only a few years after its passage, and many repeal activisls were former supporters. Many btlsinefsrnen and legislators feared that disrespect for law was becoming so widespread and acceptable that the example wsutd s p ~ a dto other issues and cause general lawlessness." And so after the rise of organized crime and the pain and suffering of the Great Depression, repeal finally came to lamerica in 1933, Anti-smoking legislation was even harder to enforce, Laws usually prohibited production or sales of cigarettes within a state, but interstate commerce could not be prevented without national legislation, By World. War I sotdiers were demanding tobacco, and opposition to cigarettes became equaed with opposition to the "fighting men."= Further, when states did try to en-foze cigarette bans, officials were often. met with hostility, Utah, with its strong Morrnon strictures againa smoEng, was one of the last states to prohibit smoking. In 1923, when police tried to enforce the ban by arresting people, mass rallies were held, steam whistles were sorlnded in protea, and naional press coverage heaped ridicule on state leaders.2" Until the recent wars on drugs, cigaret* smoking, and alcohol, ternperarlce agitation seemed relegated to an association with "dour, cadav-

22


erous, puritanical fellows who were obviously not enjoying fife very much."z7

The Old Sex, Censorship, and Health Wars The older movements to control sexuality that dominated white Pratestant culture in b e r i c a and England betvveen 18'70 and World War II were in many ways as pmdisb and conservative as the word Victorianimplies. Same acti~ties,especially those practiced by the vice societies and the VVCTU-such as the covering up af nude statues and the banning of ballet because of the pink tights worn by ballerinas-would strike many as absurd today Other activities-such as the "chastity pledges" taken by milylions of h e r i c a n and English men-are quite similar to those practiced by today's Christian fundamentalist organization, the '"Promise Keepers,"aIIet, as with the substance wars, it would be a mistake to believe that the sex wars were only conservative campaigns*The leaders of the vice societies, the Social Purity Movement, and the Social Hygiene Movement were linked, in America, with Frances WillardKhrirlistian Socialism, the women's surErage movement, the social settlement house movement, and other early forms of social work, and, in England, with Fabian Socialists such as Sydney and Beatrice MIebb.29 Further, although some actions taken by these actiGsts paralfeI modern consematism, as DPEsnilioand Freedman point out," others parallel twentieth-century liberalism. Fox:example, the hankness with which the Social Purity leaders (and later the Social Hygiene leaders) discussed sex shocked many Victorians, This fact, combined with the firm belief of many of these leaders in sex education, more closely Iinks them with modern liberals in the field af se3x education, the health professions, and the AIDS education mwement than with contemporary conservatives.

CensorshipWars: The Vice Societies Although movements against graphic portrayals of sex and lewdness had arisen before, the American history af eensorship,:%fvice squads, and repression of ovefl sexual displays into segregated "red light districts" was a product of the vice movement that began in the 1870s and lasted, to some extent, well into the 1940s. Associated with the bombastic L"icMrianianthorty Comstock, who rounded the New Yurk Socieq for Suppression of \lice, vice activists went to such extremes that George Bernard Shaw coined the term eomstockerl)ras a commentary an American censorship and prudery32 The vice societies were dominated organizationallyby affluent Protestant men, Aecarcting to hiaoriaft Paul Boyer, New\'ork"sVigilance Sociev

and Boston" Watch and W r d Society "read like a W o M o of the dayBf3s and included I. F! Morgan, copper magnate William Dodge, and the Abbott, Cabot, Endicott, Levereft, Lodge, Lowell, SaltonstallX, Weld, and other Boston Brahman families, The vice societies were also linked to the WCTU, the h u n g MenPsChristian Association ( U N I U ) , the Salvation Army; the Boy Scouts, the Episcopal Church, Friends societies, state charity society groups, and olbers. In addition, the vice societies gained the supporl of Dr. Ellzaberh Blackell?the first female physician and an early feminist, Susan B. Anthany and other suffrage leaders, Jane Addams, Josephine Sbaw Lowell and other social sewice leaders, and former abolitionists such as Wendell Phil1ips.x As Byer reminds us, purity in speech and representation, pmtection of the young from sin, and conversion of poor people, immigrants, and nonwhiles to civilization through purie wem very much a liberal, Progressive mission: ""Surprising as it may seem to a later generation, the vice society movement was initially wlcarned as a natural and valued expression of late Hdl Cerlturjl philanthropy . . . [Ilt aroused . , .broad and enthusiadic support."Ss According to the philanthropic and Prag-ressive reformers of this period, the postcards and playing cards picmring naked ladies, ar the graphic pairltings hanging in many bars, reflected the symbiosis of sin betwen saloon and brothel (which, in turn, were jointly opposed by the Temperance and Social Purity forces). The reformers also believed that such ma&rial produced in the unknowing and undiscernirlg poor, "feeble-minded," or uneducated a compeiling desire to sin, The connection betLveen the representation (through art, literature, and books) of sex or violence and the commission of crime and sin, which today still rings true far both conservatives and anti-pornography actiGsts in the feminist movement," was axiomatic at this earlier time: m i t e others endeavsr to remedy the effects of crime, W strive to remove the causes. . . . [Elvery suceessk1 blow at immoral literature, the brothel or gabling-hell goes far to remove the necessiq for the hospitd, the asylum, and the chariv home (BostonWatch,and Ward SocietJr,18882.37 Literature must bring pure and beautiful ideas to the human mind. The brutal, the violent, the excessive, do not need to be increased and multiplied in the pages of a book. . . . It becomes the wardians of society to keep a watchful eye on the press (reformer JuXiaW r d Howe, 18"10s),38

The vice movemenl had profound effecls over a lengthy period of American history, Beginning with the passage of the Cornstock Act of 18'73, which banned the use of the U,S. mail for all sexual information (including contraceptives and information about contraception), and continuing through the censorship of movies by the vice squads and Legions of Decency of the 1930s, censorship of prurient, lewd, and Go-

24


lent representations held its grip as late as Mibrld War 11.3"he following is only a partid list of the forms of art and recreation that wew censored: mrSljor books, mrSljor plays, films (known early on as " " l ~ n gpictures"") music halt entertainment, nude modeling for artists, advertisements, public statues of nudes, waxworks that included nudity, dance halls, illustrated newspapers, seaside photographs, the ballet, and, owing to rlleir violence, football and boxing." The most dramatic example came when members of the WCTU campaigned to cover up naked piano Iegsl

Sex Wars: The Social Purity Movement The Social Puriry Movement against prostitution, against sexual exploitation ofyoung women, and ibr a single rather than double standard of morality united the late-nineteenth-century feminists and early Progressive leaders with conservative businessmen and political leaders, Wemas some aspects of this movement-its suppofl of the vice societies, its chastity pledges, and its opposition to masturbation-seem quite conservative, its crusade against the double standard, sexual abuse of children, and domestic violence are comparable to m a y contemporary liberal kminist concerns. The h e r i c a n Social Purity Movement bad its roots in the early 1870% batlle against the ""reglementation" 'system of prostitution. European doctors in the mid-nineteenth century had lent their support to a legalized s w e m af prostitmion because of the spreading danger of venereal disease. Paralleling the current controversy over the dissemination of clean needles ta addicts to prevent the spread of HIVIAXDS, doctors and political leaders in Europe felt the moral kvrongs af prostitution were less important than the gains to the populam generated by legalized ~ g u f a tion of prostitution. The ""reglenrentation" "stern aroused broad opposition in Europe and h e r i e a , from both conservatives and from feminiss and progressives. Susan B. Anthony; Elizabeh Cady Stmton, and other feminists in the 18ms began lecturing against this system, collecting petitions and organizing yubXic praests, For them, "reglememariorI" was the institutionalization of the double standard; it was a license to exploit women, particularly young women. Furthe5 they felt that it provided police with a legal mcuse, under the wise of regularion, to stop and hdl: any woman wdking afone.41 The issue of prostitution, like that of alcohol riz century ago, was cornplex and symbolic, Prostitution was far more prevalent in the nineteenth century than it is today and certainly there wert? cases of involuntary s e r ~ t u d e("white slavery"") as discussed later. Because laws governing "age of consent" (for sexual activity) eitfier did not exist or, in some states, gave ten-year-olds the right to legizlly have sex or rnarry,ii"he lur-

ing of young girls (and sometimes boys) into proslitution or forced sex was rarely prosecuted. Prostitrrtian along with sexual abuse and harassment (though such terms were not -used in those days) were clearly problems that contributed to women's oppression. The attitude toward prostitutes maintained by at least the kministlProgressive wing of the Social Purity Movement was in theoy not a punitive one*These "fallen women'heeded rescuing, after afl, Reformers favored opening up institutions to house and rehabilitate such women. They placed the mdor blame for prostitution on men. Nevertheless, the Victorianskabsession with "fallen women" and sex had many repressive aspects, The Social Purity Movement ultimately had little concern for the economic survival of prostitutes, who, in a labor market Ear more rmrictive against poor and working-ctasswomen than it is today, often had little choice but. to be sex wrkers. Many pmstitutes did not wish to be ""satled" and resisted the constant efforts of upper-etass do-gooders to "rescue" and institutionalize them. Paradoxically, the rctpression of prastitMion in this period (1870-1920) weakened women's control over the sex industry and forced them into the modern model of control by a male pimp, since strong protection against vice squads and other forms of repression became necessary43 Marclover, because the reformers refused to believe that an,y woman would consent to prostitution, they constructed a sexuality that placed all responsibility Cur sex on the insatiable appetites of men, while insisting that females were asexual, This construction was symbolically held in place by constant "white slavery" wsces, during which men [atmost atways foreign) were said to have forced women into wicked dens of iniquiq These scares led to the passage of new age-of-consent laws and, in 1410, to the passage of the Mann Act prohibiting the crossing of state lines with women for immoral puwoses. The scares also coincided with the lynchings of thousands of Southern black men on charges of rape," In addition to maintaining the rigid sex norms of Vietoriana, the focus on foreigrzers and ' ' 0 ~ "racial groups sttggesls that, like the Temperance Movement, anxieties about issues other than sexuality were at work. Led by the same mix of conservative and Progressive churchmen, feminists, emperance leaders, popular health leaders, and social service leaders as those in the vice sacieties,45 the Social h r i t y Movement formed a m i t e Cross Movement modeled afer the Erlgiish counterpart begun by the Episcoprzf Chureh. In the 1880sand 18Ws, crowds of young men, numbering perhaps in the millions, took t h e m i t e Cross pledge illustrated in Fiwre 2.1. A key aspect of the pledge involved listening to purity lectures and speeches, which were often laced with images of graphic sexuality. Speeches by miniaers, in particular, stressed the dangers of nrasturbation. One minister, for example, "aIwa.ys [told] a harrowing story of art

26


FIGURE 2. l The White Gross Pledge S o u ~ eD%milio : and Freedman, lntimale?Maners, after p. 274.

Elton boy, son of a colonel in the army a brilliant lad, always head of his class . . . vvho had been reduced to drivefling imbecitity as the result of sect-et sin, the sight of an obscene photograph exhibited by a scoundrel whom he met in a railway train."46 The Social PuriQ Movement successfully worked to promote the raising of age-of-consent laws and the disco-very.of"white slavery" ktween I886 and 1895, most states raised their age-of-consent laws dramatically. Purity reformers we= disappointed, however, because they had hoped the states would raise the age to twenty-one when in fact most went no higher than shreexl or eighteen.47 It is important to note that whatever the social gains from raising the age of consent, it ~llasWctorianisrn (not abstract human natitzre) that constructed a "chiXdhoodm&fined as nonsexuaf. The continuing effort to exciude adolescents fmrn sex-ualivcontinues to this day, as 1will discuss in later chapters, Some historians regard the constant "white slavery'' xsces as "moral yaxlics,'"escribing them as racist and xenophobic. These scares not only dominated the U.S. and English press but were the subject of repeated international conferences and incidents between 1890 and 1920, In this comection, Bristow writes: The constant use of the term "white slavery" and the permanent search for Gctirns had predictable consequence%Through Britain and North America it finafly generated a series of hysterical panics, . . . [Bly 1914 i t was claimed

that over one billion pages w r e witten on white slavery in North America, By then absurd drugging and abduction reports had become endemic, In this cIimate of opinion . . .42 states passed their own so-citlled white slave measures.48

Claims that millions of women, particularly young girls, were being held against their w i U began to proliferate, Often the public was warned by pruriew and sensationalistic tracts displaying pictures of naked or partially naked women being held by Asiatic despots or Eastern European mongers, One wonders wherher these t r a m were designed to eliminate sexual fantasy or ta stimulate it. Fuflher, ""white slavery'hnecrer seemed to originate with native-born Americans but, rather, was always b m g h t in by immigrants disrupting h e r i c a n culture: "The vilest practices are brou&t here from continentd Europe,'' a report to the Senate in 1909 wamed, including "the most bestid refinements of depravity;'Vederal. investigators claimed that "large numbers of Jews scattered 2.hrou&out the U.S. . . . seduce m d keep girls. Some of &ern are engaged in importation . . . [and] they prey upon young girls wham they find on the streets in dance halls, m d similar places.'' . . . Diseased alien women, through their ma3e clients, had infected 'Ynnocent wives and children" m d ""dane more to ruin homes than my other single cause."49

Racid conflicts were exacerbated by the sex wars of the time. In a famous 1912 incident, the first African-herican bo,uing champion, Jack Tohnson, was charged under the new laws for abduction, but the "abdtrctee'9urxred out to be his willing white wife. After this charge was dropped, fohnsods enemies managed to get him prosecuted and sentenced to a one-year prison term for an old dalliance with a white prostitute in Golation of the Mann Act.5" Such anti-foreign and racial attacks wcre not inconsistent with the ~ e wofs TemperancelSociaX Purity acti~sts.Typified by their Progressive hero Theodorc3 Noosevelt, they were extremely ayyrefiemive both about the "race s~icitie"they believed would be the result of racial intermixing and about the growing immigration of swarthy Eastern Europeans, Undoubtedly, much of their sexual a M e q reflected classt race, and &hnic I'ears-the same kinds of fears that motivated the anti-alcohol crrtsade. Moreovelr, the Progressi-ves' concern about poverty; the immiseration of the working cjass, and the gromh of dependent pop~llationsled them to suppofl not only political reforms but also a program of eugenics and curbs on immigration, In short, temperance statements about race, drink, and sex certainw do not seem very different from those of white Southerners who lynched AErican-Americans at the time. For example, Prances Willard of the W T U blamed ""re grogshop . . . the Negro's center of power, %&ter whiskey and mom of it,'sshe wrote, "is the ralfying cry

28


of great, dark faced mobs,%hose drunken exploits menaced "the safety of women, of children [and of] the home . . . in a thousand loc&ities*"'~~

Sex and Heda Wars: The Social Hygiene Movement Shortly after the turn of the century; a New York physician, Dr. Prince Morrow Earnred the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophyfds. His organization, which aimed at controlling the spread of venereal diseases through the marriage of medicine and morality; captured the imagination of Social Purity brces, Within sever& years, dozens of similar societies existed throughout the nation, 1,oosely known as the Social Hygiene Movement, this movement essentially replaced the Social Purity Movement." It soon i m l v e d most major Progressive figures, including Ttzeodsre Roosevelt and Jane Addams, as well as such organizations as the newly formed Trawlers Aid Society; the Barent-Teacher Association (PTA), and the National Education Association, Of interest for our purposes is the ease kvith which the nekv social medicine and public health models were wedded to social purity through the use of venereal disease as a moral warning against prostitution, promiscuity$masturbation, and vice, at the same time that health and sex education were being promoted. In some respects, the Social Hygiene Movement presaged the modern construction of public health and social medicine: Among its positive features were an increased wil2irxgness to discuss sex and to confront the realiry of sexually transmieed diseases as welt as the insight that disease and health were social, not just indi~dual,issues and hence had to be tackled at the enGranmentd Xewl, However, the Social Hygiene Movement was limied by a moralistic and elitist bias that led it to define health risks as emanating from the '"therm @heIower classes, racial minorities, prostitutes, etc.). Moreover, like contemporary public health movements, it had a penchant Eur enggeration and spreading panic. Rnereal disease (VD), in existence at least since the fi&eenthcentury; had long been a cartse for moralization. Indeed, D. H. Lawence suggested that the rise of Puritmism in England may well have stemmed from the particularly vriolent strain of syphilis that befell the country in the skteenth century," "Disease" dodoes not exist in a neutral sphere distinct from mordity; rather, the response and construction of human disease (as well as of other life risks) are gready dependent on their moral meaning, Thus, atthaugh far morij people were killed by cholera and the plague than by venereal disease, the moralistic lessons of VD were thought to be critical to proper education, so mare attention accrued to sexual diseases.55 Moral and social objectives were frequently tied to an

interest in sphilis, As Bristow notes, "'Sphilopholbia [was]a well-knom phenomenon in the 19th Century Moralists did their best to reinforce it and French fathers sometimes took their sons through the local.VD ward to complete their moral education, . . . [A]swith masturbation, the purity rclforrners merely promoted anxiety about VD when it would otherwise die downe'%G The Social f-fygiene Movement was consislent with other healthist movements in that it vastly exaggerated the number of people with venereal disease and the ease with which it could be spread. In writings and speeches, Dr. Prince Morrow dairned that huge numbers of people had venercltal disease-upwads of '*"G%of all men."s-".rBut historians of the disease consider such rates to be fanciful and implausible.58 MorrowS cltaim reminds us of the apocalptic predictions about the AIDS epidemic made throughout the 1980s and early 199)0s, some of Lldhich specified that a quarter or more ofrhe worldQpouiation would die, In addition, even the physicians of the Social Hygiene Movement were conlent to allow the public to beleve that syphilis could be contracted at public water fountains, park benches, and pubXic Estrooms. A recognized hisroriaxl of venereal disease, Allan Brandt, suggests that this panic paralleled the kars of the Protestant elites about the city: "Progressive unease about hygiene, contagion, and cleanliness was evoked in the belief that in the brief encounters of everyday life-at the grocery in the park, at the barber shop-these infections , . , could be passed to middle class hxnaralXmericans, Fear of contagion, justified a distaste for social contact with the urban masses."~~ Brandt quotes a slrpporler of the Social Hygiene Movement as noting that panic about venereal disease was widespread: Many people today have a very exaggerated idea as to ease of infection m d especially the symptoms sf syphilis. Gonorrhea, which used to be likened to a cold in the head, is now-a-days likened to leprosy or cmcer; while the innocent victim of acne, shingles or poison ivy is shtrrmed as iirn infectious syphSitie. And whereas only from five to eight percent of syphilitics develop grave lesions of the nervous system, every ltrerie [syphilitic] now-a-days looks upon himself as doomed to locomotor atmia.6"

Why did this exaggeration and fear mongering occur? First, public health leaders and physicians have a vested ixtterw in promoting health crises; doing so allows them the challenge of discovering disease and warning about it as well as treating it. Thus heall& anxiety has played a major, if rarety acknowledged, role in the gro\rvfh of modern medicine, particularly in public health bureaucracies. Second, the fear and panic Fdcilitated two agendas: the repression of sexuality and the stigmatization of the ""Other,'?primarily immigrants and native-born 4'deviants"

30


(such as pros(itcrtes and ""feeble minded" "persons) being excluded from American life at the time, As with HIVIAIDS seven decades later, it was ideologicalfy more palatable for the Social Hygiene Movement to blame the ""f)ther"than to see disease in a more neutral, scientific way, And indeed, in the late mentieth century, the HIVIAIDS disease has been alternately blamed on gays, Haitians, Africans, and prostitutes rather than seen as a viral disease with numerous means of transmission, Chastity and sexual morality werc: likwise the key components of the anti-VD war: Education about sex should include as a cardind feature a correction of the fdse impression instilled in the minds of yomg men that sexual indulgence is essential to health and that chastity is incompatible with full vigor f Prince Morrow].G1 In all previous efforts to sakguard the morailiw of youth, the ethical.barrier

was done ava2abfe and the situation seemed hopeless, . . . [Sjexuitl morality, long an ethical ided, became grounded upon the most convincing scientific facts f Reverend Willim Lawrence, a Social Hygiene leader).a

The &re&fear of Morrow, Roose-vek, and other Progressives waf that venereal disease, if not confined to immigrants, would lessen the reproduction rate of the white race, hence allowing swarthy immigrants to domina* America. In short, they saw their movement as linked to eugenics. For example, Bran& quotes Morrow as saying that '"tjhe function of eugenics is to produce a race healthy; .cveEl-formed and cl-igorous by keepirlg the springs of heredity pure and ulrdefiled. . . . ['Tltae effects of venereal disease is to produce a race of inferior beings, by poisoning the sources of life and sapping the cl-italityand health of the offspring."63 The impact of the Social Ifygiene Movement included increased repression of prostittlks (or women who, to officids, looked like prostitutes), incwased accusations of white s l a m ~and , increased anti-immigrant and anti-foreign sencinxent. During LZiorld War 1,30,000 prostitutes and suspected prostitules wem detained by federal troops and held in detention camps because of the fear that W would spread ta the fighting men.64 The Social Hygiene Movement also succeeded in securing sac-mandated blood tests at marriage, mandatory repofling laws, and, in some regions, compuEsory examination and quarantine of suspected carriers. hterestingty, all of these proposals were again made in the 1980s to corrlbat the spmad of HIV, but they were generally defeated by an alliance of civil libertarians and gay actiests, fithough the Social Hygiene Movement certainly promoted health and, Ihrough its public education message, may have saved lives, it also helped construct an approach fa prokssional public health management linked to Victorian morality-a link that to some extent continues to this day. Further, although public health officials are far morc: sopNs-

ticated now than during the Progressive era, current public health models are neither "apolitical" nor neulral. The '*"warm-like metaphors promoted by even liberal public health officials have often suggested social repression "at odds with civil liberties,""" The health morality associated with the turn-of-the-century movement is still consistent with Amen.can society's penchant for blaming canragion on the sexuality of the ""Other," The Social Hygiene Movement, and its successors today, demonstrates the paradox that those who campaign to talk constantly of "sex" may only represent the Ripside of Victorian. morality; as MichaeE Foucault noted in his HJsmv flexualiq," That is, although aspects of the Social WBgiene Movement parallel conservative efforts in our own era around sexually transmitted diseases, its constant discussion of disease axld sex, and its exaggeration of risk, has many similarities with today's '""prgressive'>sex activists, Movements around sex continue to make for strange bedfellows,

Themes: Hyperbole, Social Control, Class, and Political Power I do not question the idealistic motivations of those vvho campaigned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries against alcohol, tobacco, prostitution, nude pictures, or sexttallly transmitted diseases. Like the New Temperance, the older movements attracted many reformers who believed that changing the norms of peflsonal beha.vior is key to human progress and the diminution of violence and ill health, Wowewr, claims of altntisrn are not suacient to prove the overdl positive value af a social movement or of major cultural trends, After all, the Ku Uux Uan (a s m n g supporter of the temperance movements of the Victorian and Progressive eras) made the claim that it championed and proected the Grtue of (white) women and children. But the fact that the KJan campaigned against alcohol, extramarital sex, and child molestation hardjy leads us to view it as aftruistic.67 Two important aspects of temperance movements (both old and ne~yv) thus deserve serious examination, quite apart from the positive motives that many paflicipants bring to these movements, First, we must question the degree to which the hyperbolic lanwage used by temperance movements is helpful to clear thinking. For example, opponents of "demon rump"see Chapter 4) actually believed that one drink would send a man into a perdition of immorality and vice; anti-cigarette advocates claimed that children died as early as age eight from smoking the "soot weed"; and participants in movements against vice and pmstittltion warned that girls who masturbated were destined to become "klten women,'These notions were not merely odd beliefs of the old days; they impelled policy They broughl about intolerance and repression of ac-

32


tual people, Early beliefs about the harms of masturbation led to spiked penile rings and circumcision for some boys and clitoridectomies for some girls. Moral campaigns against '"alien w ~ m e n led " to the incarceration of suspected prostitutes in workhouses, prisons, and detention camps. And thousands of people wert? arrested during Prohibition for drinking or patronizing '6speakeasies.'p As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the New Temperance is characterized by hyperbole as well. Having pathologized such actions as drug taking and y-r>urhfuEexpressions of sexuality, the New Temperance (albeit in modern language) makes its ow:n ove ought citaims about befiavior. Likewise, its opposition ta the use of subs&nces, sexual beha.\rior,and certain consumption patterns has led to social control measures usually undertaken agairra poor people and racial minorities. The demonization of "crack""has resulted in hundreds of thousands of arrests as well as the removal of children from families; the construction of an immoral underclass has prompted attacks on welfare benefits for poor women; and attacks on violence in rock music seem to target the lyrics of black rap stars mare than those of other musicians. Granted, many r&rmers do not seek repressive measures but, rather#altempt to use educational or puiblic hedtlr approaches to alter behavior. But the het remains that throughout American history; hyperbole and moralizing have led to severe social control rnemres. A second concern arises with the ascriplion of altruism to temperance ma-vements. As discussed in the following chaptert; ewry social or potiticized issue is a choice made from among many poterrtial (tJossibly limitless) social issues. There is nothing ""naturd" about viewing behaviord issues as the most critical ones for society to confront. During the period of the older temperance movements, for example, were alcohol and prostitution the most irnpoflmt issues confronting America? Most historians would maintain that they were not. This was the era of the "Great Barbecuet" the Gilded Age in which massive wealth and monopolies were built up while slarvatlon and pweay reached dramat-iclevels, particularly during economic depressions. The frequent and bloody class conflicts waged bemeen industrialists and incipient unions caused far more deaths and injuries than most sf our overseas wars. After Reconstruction ended, African-Americans were deprived of their rights of citizenship by Jim Crow taws in the South, suffering viciocls repression and repeated lynchings well into the first half of the twentieth cenwry. And women were denied not only the right to vote but mast other rights of citizenship as welt. The fact that middle-class reformers stressed the harms of alcohol or cl-ice rather than those of, say; capitalism or racial inequality suggests to some critics that the temperance movements were often the result of

displaced symbols.~~ In other words, the social-class position of the refanners themselves as well as the plirieal ui~bttivof issues of personal beha.\rior made these symbols (the '"demon rum," the 'Tallen woman") more salient ~;othe white middle class than, for example, racial equaliliy or socialism. The Victorian quest for pedectiloility and the Progressives' '"search for order" wem political responses to the pel-ceived need to controt the social unrest of the immigrams and nalive '8dangerous classes'" of this period, Although the morc: liberat rehmers of the Progressive Period did seek social reforms such as child labor laws, the eight-hour workday, and women's sufiage, their deep anxieties about the decay of white Protesant hegemony prevented them from condemning the social structural arrangements of American society. In particular, they feared that grwing labor unrest, radicaX ideologies, and the diluting of the U.S. native Prorestant population by millions of immigrants could lead to revolution or, at a minimum, major losses of status and power.63 In this sense, ""dmon rum," "cture postcards of nudes, and prostitution were not just moral. evils but symbols of the decline of old values. Again, I am not suggesting that the b e h a ~ o r scampaigned against (e*g.,excessive drinking) wt-eharnlless; but it is ironic that reformms from Carry Nation to Theadore Roosevelt were far more horrified by alcoholism and prostitution than they ever wem by the lynching of blacks or the shooting of unarmed Srikers. This book will develup the argument that in many (though, of course, not all) respects, the period since the mid- 1 9 n s parallels the late Victorian era and the Progressive Period. First, the new wars an use of substances and sexual and other personal behadors reflect a new middfeclass status anxiety; in part cornparable to that experienced at the turn of the century. These new wars have occurred in the context af economic decline and the loss of racial and culrurd hegemony experienced by many in the white middle class since the 1970s. Second, even kvirhil-x, the social movements that have sought broader political and social change, it appears that the symbolism of behwioml controls has facilitated the development of political coalitions, Both turn-of-the-century Progressive reformers wtzo endorsed the temperance movements and many ex-activise of the 19GOs would cerlainly have preferred mare significant social change than actitzally occurred. But given. the power of deeply held conservative social norms ix-r the United States, it is ultimately not suvrising that alcohol prohibition and strict controls over immigration-rather than the eight-hour workday or the minimum wage-came out of rhe earlier middle-class rnovemems. Nor did the social movements of the 1960s succeed in their more radical demands. The ~ e wofs modern "prog-ressives" "regarding personal behavior and its control (as manifested in, say, laws agairm doxrleslic violence, hate crimes,

34


and smoking in public places) have succeeded far more than efforts at, say "comparable worlh in pay for women," '*wagesfor housework," or "43 guaranteed income for e-verpxre" of which. were leftist slogans that readily fell by the wayside), One can conceptualize social movements, l particularly of the middle class, as making both social s t r u c l u ~ demands-for legal and economic rebrms, for example, that alter powr-and demands on their fellow citizens that they change their behavior-alcohol prohibition or use of apprupriate speech, for: exmple. Tn each period, character reforms are far easier to achie-ve because, as I shaft argue further fater, they are less threatening to those who hold power and morc: conducive to achieving a middle-class consensus than are social structural changes, Finally, we need to ask why it is that, except during rtnuscral circumstances (such as times of international conflict), behavior "wrs" are so popular in America, kvbereas attempts to change power relations are so digcult. This issue wiI1 be addressed later in the book,

ree

To situate temperance as ideolow, stratew, and movement, we could explore broad areas of theory; but for our purposes, it is the social construction of personal behavior as the major risk of life that is of interest. After all, life poses numerous risks, including the possibilil~rof natural disaster (earthquakes, global warming), technological failure (nuclear plant meltdowns, plane crashes), economic collapse (personal bankruptcy economic depressions), and p~liticitfcrisis (warfare).11t Western society, it is usually personal risks that state officials and a variety of professionals warn against, rathm than nattrral or economic risks, In the prclsent chapter 1 explore this issue through dismssion of the social constructionist perspective in sociolo%gy;using two examples: the automobile and masturbation, Drawing on a number of social theories, 1 also propose that temperance as an ideology and strategy appeals to political and corporate elites, and, at times, to large sectors ofthe public as well. Through the use of a historical sociological method, I suggest an ongoing dynamic between temperance strategies and movements and the forces that tend to resist them,

Constructing Social Problems Many Americans, ixreitudixlg social scientists, view social problems or issues as '4abbjctive'brnalters,subject to empirical verification. VVhelher the issues of concern are those dealt with in this book or others (e*g.,the behavior of foreign leaders), the assumption. is that these issues have a clear, "real" existence that we can discover, Although W m q sometimes doubt the accuracy of certain things we see or hear (e.g., commercial advertisements), most of us trust scientific and official reports about real-

36

Temperance and slze Social Constrt~ctionof Risk

ity, For instance, we accept the truth that Saddam Hussein is a "dictator" paaly because we ourselves have no way of verifying this "fact'" but, mare important, most of us are also conditioned to accept the authoriv of political leaders, news media, science, and the professions, The social constmctionist perspective in sociology can be &aced back to phenomenalog, the sociology of knowledge, symbolic interactionism, and the work of Berger and Luchann.1 It also shares some features with recent movements in literature and cultural criticism h a w n as ""dcsnstructionismen"21thoughsocial constructionist theories vary kvideIy (indeed, the sociologists who identify as ""sciial construetianists'~iffer among themselves),Vhey have in common the questioning of sociews "truths," "us suggesting that our knowledge is historically; culturally; and temporally contextual, The claim that anflhing is ""god" or ""evil" in moral terms, or healthy or diseased in. medical terms, is based on subjective and cultural understanding~of these terms, In the 1990s Saddaan Hussein was conslrrlcted by Western mass media and political leaders as ""evil" and "dangeraus,?' but this construction kvas not ""rurh" to his 1Folla\vers in Iraq or to the millions of his other supporters elsewhere, Social construetionists would inlerprclt the media coverage of and political attacks on Saddarn as consisting of "claims" about the truth-that is, rhetorical "framesMintended to convince the American people of Wussein's sllainous nature, In short, no clear goodievil, sane/insane, or other distinction can be made in the abstract: Our beliefs about Saddam are mediated by many different variables, including, of course, our political views and our (American) nationality The canstrutction of Saddam as enemy was accomplished not only through '"lrnth claims" made about his behavior but also through a cfassificatory scheme that sociologist Joel Best calls rz '"typif cation."4 We know that Htxssein was an invader sf Kuwait; but we are also told that he is to be classified as a "bloodthirsty dictaror'hlong with Hitler, Noriega, Castro, and other enemies of the US. government. Such rz t y p i 6 c a . i ~ ~ helped constmct Hussein as a suitable target for warfare. Yet note that it is possible both to disagree with the ""truth claims" about Hussein and to disagree with the classificawry scheme. That is, some people have rzrgued that Ht~sseinbactions not so terrible, or incomp~hensihleas presented, thus disputing the claims about him, whereas others have concurred with some or all of Itre claims made but have reftised to accept the twification sEHtxssein as resembling Hitler, thus disputing the classificatoq scheme. The latter observers consider him a typical Third World dictator of the sort the Urlited States has been on good terms with, Social canstrutctionist theorists have been particularly interested in criticizing ""scial problems" "definitions, including many of the topics

Temperalace and the Social COI.ZS~TUC~~QI.Z of Risk

37"

explored in this book, They have studied aspeas of the recent alcohol and drtxg wars as well as such issues as missing children, child abuse, AIDS, and crime waves, Generally these theorists question the cliassificatory schemes by which we label ""d~ance"or ""social. probjems" as abstrael: moral, legal, or scientific problems. For example, Woward Becker, in his well-knokvn treatment of the marijuana scare of the X93Qs,5saw the development of an aggressive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Naxotics at that time as key to the acceptance of the ""dnger'kf marijuana. In his study; Becker nated that although na new scientific information about marijuana had emerged in this period, then Commissioner of Narcotics W. J. Mslinger and others led a campaign to illegalize the drug. Dubbing them moral entrepreneurs, Becker described their use of atrocity stories and their association of the drug with Mexicans to convince the public [and Congress) that marijuana was evil, Leading to the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Tn a similar vein, Best's work on the missing-children scare of the 1980s challenged the objective existence of the new social problem of "missing children." RRaler, he 10cated this problem brmulation in the success of elaimsn~akersin influencing the media and in developing an alliance of la akers, police, social service, and other interested parties concerned with bringing recognition and legitimacy to this issue." According to social construclionists, ctaintsmakers or moral entrepreneurs, though often politicat leaders or medical and other experts, increasingly are ordinary citizens who have came tagether in social [email protected] theorists see an increase in claimsmaking in Arnerica; I-hey see a veritable army of competing reformers, demantling that we dimct our attention ta countless sets of issues, QbviausIy some claimsmakers are unsuccessful, or only briefly successful, at getting our atrention, whereas others draw our attention more consistently. For a further itlustration of the social constructianist view, campare Box 3.1, which concerns the automobile (an issue most Americans clearly w u l d not consider a social problem), and Box 3.2, which examines masturbation QabehaGor that for centuries has been viewed as a major medical and social problem).

Challenging the ""naturalness'hnd everyday reality of events is a strength of socialogical theory, particularly of social. canstructionism. Using the social constructianist approach, we can strip from our modern thoughts about the car Box 3.1) any prclconceivcd notions about its necessity and sorne~yvbatvaunted status. From the same perspective, the construction of masturbation as a "social problem" Box 3.2) is seen to be

BOX 3.1 Xs the AammobiXe a ""Social Problem"? Social eonstructionists generally analy~eand theorize about issues that are already widely vriewed by societ-gr as ""social problemsp'-that is, those issues that have been successfully transformed into public issues. (:anversely, they rarely analyze issues that have hiled to eiicit successful ""ruth claims." The issues that become defined as social problems are usuaily those of individuals or of sopresented as grave dangers to the health and safef~r ciety as a whale. Claimsmakers warn us that drugs or teen prewmcy &L1 lead to x number of deaths, that y amount of productivity wilt be lost to Industry, or that n number of families will become destitute.Yet arguably the automobile in American socieq-usualjy not typified as a danger like drugs or MD$-causes far more fatdities, injuries, and diseases thm do nlany of the risks we are constantly wilrned about, With the exception of accident sratistics, data on death and disability caused by autos are quite incomplete. Xi'esearcherswould need to include figures on automobile production, repaia; use, disposal, and ~spiratory prtlhlems related to the breathing in uf ehaust fumes tcz get a n y h e r e near an accurate total. But partly because the auto is not regarded as a serious public issue, data are nor collected in a way that allows for a curnulafive total*Nevertheless, 1 have presented some of the wailable data beXow: * Alatc7 c~cf(~erzds:Accidents are the nlost publicized heatth risk associated with the auto, accounting for 43,500 deaths and f .6 million disslbling injuries in 1991 alone.? * QIcctapali;ona/d w r h and ipzjuries ipz rhe prodcdctio~zof autos: In 1991, r~fficiallyat least 1,300 of a total 9,900 occupationd deatlrs occurred during the production process, of automobiles (a propoarian that would be even. higher if aJl ancillary industries were included in the calculations).In the same year, 140,000workers were injttred.8 * ErfouseiczoM and orher nonocmpazional i~tjuriesus ~ w l cns l accicknrs rlirkz autos a~zduum-related prodacts: The National Safety Council does not provide a breakdow of the nurnber of accidents that occur at home t3r in the community as a result of people warkng on their cars, children swdtovving oil or r~therauto products, or other incidents invul~ngautos. Wet at least nine accident categories-poisoning, fire and games, inhalation and ingestion, hat substances, electric current, explosive gases, machiner5 Pdling ubjeets, and fdls-include deaths and injuries involtred in mishaps &&Iauto parts ur products. Some portion of the 38,500 dea&s and 5.4 million injuries at home or in public are due to auto products.9 * a n c g r deathsfiom sum mhntfit: The Environmenfai Protection Agency (EPA] h= taken a consewative appnlacb to t h i s topic, but its data suggest that between 1,500 and 30,000 cancer deaths a emissions conyear have been due to vet~icleehaust,l(~hlthaugh tmls and other reforms are now in place, past estimates figure as high as 2,000 premature deaths a year in New York City done,]' * Nuncancer dearlisfiovn nuro exjtaust: The E134 has presented no yuanzritatiire finding on this issue despite the fact that it reports

the following consequences frorn long-term exposure to benzene, flormaldehyde, butadiene, acetaldehyde, and gas and diesel particulates tall chemical emissions associated with autos): bIsc3d disorders, immune system diseases, developmental and reproductive diseases, respiratory and lung diseases, heart disease, and genetic diseases. The El% does cunclude -that a percentage of noncancer deaths are associated with auto emission. Critics have also noted ntxmerous other health and social consequences of automobite use that are hard to quantiQ: the impact of the auto un uur lifestyle, which since the 1920s has beesnle increasingly sedentaq leading tc3 the grtimt-2 cif heart disease, stroke, and other msdern diseases; the impact of junking and disposing of autos and auto parts on the environment, including the casts of this pol1utior-r;the environmentaX damage done both by autos themselves and by the huge changes in the eecjsystem resulting from the building of highways; stress produced by long commutes, greater trafic, smog, and congestion; and, finally, even violence, Not only have we seen shootings on freeways, but the auto has also pl;tyed a role in the general hastilify and agitation that characterixs modem culture; consider, for example, the impact: of traffic, of people "bating each other sut" &?rparking spaces and competing to pass each other on the high\nrays.l" My purpose here is nor to propose that the auto be banned but, rather, to raise the r!ze~recicr;rlquestion as to why the auto is nor cIassjRed or "typified" as a social problem (as a disease or dangerous substance would be). In all prob&ility, the car is seen as tc3o pditically m d ectinsmically indispensable to modern industrid society for clairnsmakers to mount a successful campaign against it, Czalls to ban autos in An3erica are ustlsllly branded as "nut&" or "rd.dicalaV CC:Laimsm&erswould have to w g e a massive struggle against a large number of autc3-related lobbies, including the atxto cumpanies, the highway lobby, the eneru industry and others with a vested interest in the car. Of course, problems redat& to autos have been accepted as "social prr~blerns":Especially since Ralph Naderk 1960s campaigns about auto safety, issues ranging frorn safety testing to seat belts and air bags have been in the news; the public has accepted controls over drunk driving, limits on highway speed, and efforts to reduce air pallufon, But what has been defined as the issue is not the autc3 It.~eybutonly its inappropriate use (speed, driving while into~xieated)rir its inefficient teebncilogy (the need for better emission devices, or for further safety improvements).lf is implicitly assumed that the automobile is critical to Rrneriean life and, hence, that reform efforts must focus on minimizing its risks, as balanced agknst the enjoynentlneeessity of driving. This, of cclurse, is not the American approach to problems such as ilfieit drug usage, Clairnsm&ers here achotvledge no necessiq for drugs, nor any need for the pleasures associated with them. And since there is no "wt~rthypurpose" R) the use of drugs, social prilicy supports their elirninati;orz rather than the possibility of reducing their harm rir risk-ven &ou@ far more people die or are injured on h e r i c a n highways than from taking illicit drugs.

lJntil relatively recently in otlr Westenr history, masturbatiorz (also referred to as onanism) was corlsidered a major social evil, the focus of educators, doctors, phiinsophers, lawmakers, arzd reti@ot~s arzd poIitical leaders. Between the early eighteemk cetztury and tize 192tIs, it was believed to cause insaniq, stcrili2y, a lowering of inteliigexlce, a wakening of the nervous system, idiocy, and even eariy death. Though such fears may seern ludicrotrs to rnany toltay, the social definition of masturbation in llurope and America was not "an old wibres'talenor folk wisdom hut was ktpheld by the principal elites of the socleq Voltaire and Kant philosophized against it;ls knerica's father of psylxiatry, Belljamin Rush, wrote about its dangers along with those of alcoholisxrr and xnental illness;ls schooinrrasters expelled stttdents fronrr schools for masturbatlng;""e Boy Scouts, the PuriQ Movement, lfie YMCA, arzd tile 'Teml2erance Movcinrtnt combated it;I7 and the medical i~rofessio~r fectured against it. I3y the mid-irii~eteetlcentury, physiciarzswere "designing douches to cool the ge~ritalsarzd devices to restrain tl~emlike the spiked penile ring; they then rook the t~ltirnatestep to clitaridectomies and circuxncisions as treatment for xmsturbation."~~ Eoucauiit notes that not only did "t11e sex of the schoolboy become, in the course of the 28th E:entury; . . .a public problern" hbrtt atso that the arclr~itectural design of secondary schools was influenced by the battle atgairlst the evil habit.f"pace far classes, the shape of tables, and the morritoring of hedtitne and sleep periods at private schools ori@natedfronrr this concern. Masturbation was made iilegal by the sodol~lylaws of the t h e , and the anti-masturbatow carnpaigtls lasted weU into the menfieth century, Maurice Bigelow, a professor of hioloky at Columbia lJliiversity and a leading Sociai Hygiene Mwemeirt aCtivist, w a r ~ ~ eit1d the 1910s &at "the habit will weaken the nervous system and indirectly affect att ge~lerafhealliz." 'I'he doctors of the mtwemeirr recomme~zdedsports alrd recreation as arz arztidote: '"ITIIe lad ~ 1 1 plays o vigorotrsly . .. possesses a great bulwark of defense agaixlst sexual vice, especially its secret forms.'""" A harbinger of nrlodern times was a 192X meeting bemeen the White Cross Society in EngXdnd and Ernest lanes, a eollea~fue of Freud who was regarded by nrrany as a dangerous radical at the time. Dr. lanes told the Wirrite Gross Socieq that the worst psyctziatric problems he had seen '"resulted Emnr the intolerable brtrden at present heaped or1 tire auto-erotic by elergg8; doctors, and schoolnrrasters alike." 'thougtl the White Cross Society attacked lones's "vague Eulowledge oaf Chrisdan ethlcs,'Vze darzgers of rnasturbatio~rhad evidcrzlfy receded ellot~ghthat they subseqtleirdy kvithdrew tlzeir most fectcrdt~lpamplrlet, The Perils @lmpriri&, One Errglish politiciarz everz co after all, "if rnasturbatio~rwas so destnlctirse, haw cotlld Britain hiwe worz the war?"21 The historic claims abtatrt nlasturbation rzise nrlaxly fdscinating questions. IIow is it that this "stlcial problem'' could have been defined and tpified for so long as a danger, wit11 the vdst nlajcarity of the intelligentsia supporting such a definition, and yet now be regarded as a normal behavior? f low is it that this ""sclal proble1n~9zasalmost vanished, but without a word of apoioa to the thousands of youngsters expelled fronrr school,or forced to undergo surgey as a result of their private moral violations? To what extent can these past '"rtith ctairns'2e sel~aratedfrom the Western co~rstnrclio~l of sexual morality arzd medicine to whiclr they kveri: bot~ird?Shouldn't tlze old war against masturhas questiorz otlzer aspects ofWesterrs morality aird scie~zce? tiorl cause t ~ to


41

problematic; we cannM say simply that this episode ~vas"historfhr that scientific inquiry was less sophisticated in those days, Social constructionists do nor assume that today's science is either "value neutral3' or "accurate*"h fact, theorists are increasinglytreating science itself as a ""social problem" "connected with a modern Western discourse in vvbich certain definitions and claims are privileged whereas others are disearded.22 Despite the power of the social constructionist ofientation to rellrame our day-to-day reality as problematic, semrall issues in social constructionist theory remain unclear and prevent totally satisfactory answers to such questions as why neither the car nor masttirbation is considered a major social problem today, Social canstructionism brings us to the door of the problem, but each theorist who has opened it seems essentially on his or her own. Several amas of inquiry or evaluation are suggested. First, almost all social eonstruetionist inquiries involve a ease study approach that provides little basis for comparing phenomena. Second, although many authors provide same proximate history of various social problems, they do not adequately situate them in historical context. Third, m a y social constructionist inquiries are characterized by a tendency to deny their implicit value scheme rather than to explicate it. Most social constructionist inquiries are based on a case study approach (e.g., as with the marijuana issue or the missing-hildren problem discussed previously). However, social problems are usually composed of "clusters'harld thus are "btuldled" "logether, As we have seen, historic wars against substance abuse, I'or example, are not waged in isolation from braader issues, fly using the concept of "Temperance," 1 have sought to identiQ a group of bundled vattres, symbok, and defined knowledge. The enmples in this chapter (Boxes 3.1 and 3,2) also cannot be ~ebvedin isolation from other issues. The auto retains its cultural hegemony and insulation from social and politicd attack because it is part of a broader cluster of American technological s p b o l s and achievements, which, though not immune from attack, require a major disaster (of the magnitude of the Three Miite lsfand nuclear disaster) to p r m k popular critique. A broader andysis of the auto would require an exploration of the American view about many types of technological changes and "advances.?' The issue of masturbation can hardly be studied in the abstract either. Attitudes toward onanism were integrally bundled with attitudes both toward other "nonproductive'"pleasures and toward work and discipline from the eighteenlh through the ear@WMieth centuries. Some social theorists are now coming to use this approach, Philip lenkins, far example, has made a similar argument, As discussed in the next section, he

42


has noted the "interdependence" of social problems, many of which he links together as "'moral panics.'""" Further, we cannot understand the construction of social problems witholrl gathering historical evidence and using such material to develop theory Yet most case studies, though they provide brief historical bacbround on the particular social problem, do not M y develop the social embeddedness of the claims being studied. As Best has noted, "inhere is a tendency among social constmctionists to 'finesse' the historical pre-conditions of the rise and .fall sf social problems or at least [to] fail to account for periods oaf high claims-making activity,"%To understand the construaion of masturbation as a central '"problem" for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we require historical e ~ d e n c eas to its symbolic meaning durhg this period in Europe arzd America. Although sexual taboos are stitl sufficiently powedul to lead to the firing of a Surgeon General, panic over mastitzrbation does not completely jibe with the "truth claims" oaf our time. In the example of the auto, we need to develop evidence about how opponents of the car or of highway construction [potential "claimsmakers"")ave been characterized and portrayed ('"typified'" since the early days of the automobile, If my hmch is correct, historical evidence would show that potential daims were met with organized derision and discrediting by a broad array of forces within Antericarz society-farces that have helped dissuade other reformers from challenging the popularity of the car. In this book X have attempted to sirua* the historical cantext of what Best calls ""periods of high ctaiznsmaking,"~As noted in Chapter 2, our own time is not unique but, rather, harkens back to the American obsession with drug use, sex, and other personal beha.\riors in the nineteenth century, Historical treatments of such issues call our attention to the impact of major events on many diEerent social problems. Far example, the dekat of the first Temperance Movement meant tl-rat the stratea of "moralization""" (and strong claims against some behaviors) would also sttfkr a generd defeat. That is, the repeal of Prohibition, in combination with e-vents such as the Great Depression (which brought the issues of economic equity and social class to the fore), is theorized to have led to a general weakening ofAmerican Puritanism as a political farce well into the post-World War 11 period. In contrast, it is well documented that the anti-communism and McGarthyisnl of the late l94Os had serious social impacts beyond their more manifest aims, leading, for example, to increased repression of sexuality and otl-xerpersona1 behaviors.26 Finally, we must confront the unspoken issue of values and perspeetive, Sacial constmctionism, which clearly provides a critique of ilmerican society; is sometimes charged by critics with "debunking" h a avay that exposes hidden causes and structures that are not obGous to the


43

parties and hence may only be imputed." Far example, social constrtraionists privilege the latent Eunaions of the wars on alcohol and drugs rather than their manikst aim of improving the nation" health axld welfare; they look beyond the narrow fiarning of "crime" to raise questions about broader economic or cultural components of our crime wars, k"et social csnstructianists often do not acknowledge the critical nature of their sociological theory: TypicaIly, they tend to justify their critique only by the argument that the '"claims" of moral entrepreneurs are "exaggerated." In an excellent treatment of the demonhation of "crack"' cocaine, for example, C, Reinaman and H, Levine critique the social construction of crack, primarily on the basis of the exaggerated nature of its effects and the differential treatment this drug has received in comparison with other drugs (e.g., non-crack cocaine). This empiricd demonstration of exaggeration, serves the authorskritical sociological stance, in that it provides a vehicle Tar mploring the many symbolic racial, class, and political overlones of the issue. The critique can thus be conduered along with obligatory bows to the harm of drugs.28 Such determixrations of ""exaggeration" oar empirical comparison of problems have been criticized by some sociologists as "onlological gerymandering."B But in my view what is problematic about these sociological treatments is not so much their methodotom as the obfuscaion of the worldview they mpresent. In other worc-ls, which is the real issue for Reinarman and Ije\l-ine:csnfronting the relative harm of crack (versus heroin or other drugs) or confronting the American drttg wars? A close reading of the artide cited suggests that their main project is the latter. The critique of many social construtctionistsis hidden behind specific measuremen& and comparisons. Rather than apologize for a critical social view or rekain from such analysis, social constructionigs should simply admit their biases, True, challenging popular beliefs about drrlgs or criminals will not make such theorists popular; it might even greatly reduce chances for government funding, Clearly, in conservative times there is a tendency among social scientists in general to ""te the line" h t e r m of what social problem governlnexrls and private funders will support. But social scientisls cannot be limited to staying within the boundaries and ideologies of their own time and culture, In fact, they need to do the opposite, Years ago C'. Wrighc Mills noted how limited people are in the abilty to see, wilhirr their own times, the social structural, cultural, and other issues raised by daily life: Vet men [sic] do not usuaily define the troubles they endure in terms of historical chmge m d hstittrtionai contradiction. The weEl-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs in the societies in which they live. Seldom aware sf the intricate connection bemeen. the pat-

44


terns of their own lives and the course of world historyt ordinary men do not usua2ly h a w what this connection means for the kind of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part.30

Millsh~r~rds remind us that social theorists often prialege expiana(ions that traxlscerld the current style of the times, In this book, I arwe that temperance is in part an elite ideology and stmteg or, in Cramsciart terms, a hegemonic project of our times, Indeed, it is because the cluster of symbols surrounding temperance is most valuable for the maintenance of power that E oppose the temperance wars. E &so believe that some problem formulations help people see the inequities in a social system or the prablems within a culltrre, wt.lereas Mhers lead them awc?y from such insights, I suggest that raHying against drugs or chifd malesters in the csmmunity will move American socief-y not in a positive direction but only towad the illusion that socieQ5 ills will be cured by increased repression, These are my biases. As E shall discuss in Chapter 6, history suggests that the rhetorical flourishes of "the personal is political" b slogan of the New Left and women5 movement) were probably unnecessary in our society. Instead, Americans usually turn the "politicat" into the "personal," and they do so in a way that is often politicalty and culturally conservative. Rather than embracing "'value neutrality," this book is critical of dominant power stmctures, social control strategies, structured inequaliv, and privatized views of social problems,

Medicakatian and Mord Panics Two theoretical constructs that can be seen as partial remedies to the Iimitatians of social constructionism are "medicalization" and "moral panics," Although these constructs have different origins, they both represent attempts to conceptualize the social treatment of ""dviance" and help move us beyond the case study approach, The term wzdicalkation originated in critieai opposition to the n3edicirl mode1 in the work of such social critics as Thornas Szasz, Ivan Illieh, and Michel Foucault, as well as in the women's, New Lea, and gay movements of the 1960s and 2970s.3-1It also bund its s a y into American sociology througfi both sociology-of-the-professions literature and social constructionism.32 Essentially, medicalization traces the historical movement of Western society from an explanatory model of b e b a ~ o r based on moraliv to a medical dassification system based on scientific classifications-or, as E? Conrad and J. Schneider succincly put it, from to that of4'sickness."33 the label of '%badness99


45

In brief, behaGor held to be ""sinful" in earlier times is currently held to be progressively absorbed into a "medical" or at least professional classificatory model, "Madness" has become "mental illness"; drinking or using drugs has been 'rransforrrled from immoraliv into "addiction"; unmly children are now suEering from "mention deficit disorc-ler"; eexcessive eating or dieting are now 'kea.ng disorders3';and excessive desire for sex is now declared to be ""sxual addiction," "though the medicalizing of b e h a ~ o r scan be seen as beneficial in some respects, especially when campared to punishment of "deTI-iantsW @.g., most current forms of treatment of the mentally ill are preferable to chaining the "mad" in cells, as was done in earlier centuries), medicalization is also viewed by theorists as intertwined with bourgeois ideology and thus as a nehv, more efficient form of social control. Many critics of medicalization have questioned the accuracy of defining so much behavlor in "mmedieaX"- or "diseaseM-relatedterms, seeing this construction as having mare to do with the imperialism of medicine and other professions than as being a form of "help." And many activigs have organized in opposition to the medicalization of some "Eorms of b e h a ~ o rmost , notably the construction of homosexuality as a psychiatric problem, which was ocremrned by the American Psychiatric Etssociation only in the 1970s.34 m e r e a s social and political mo-vernents opposing the dominant professions combined with a critical socioIow in the United States to develop a critique of medicalization, British social constructionists seem to have been drawn more to the metaphor of "msraIl panic." Criticalty decanstructing the broad societal fears in the 1960s provoked by juvenile gangs ('"mods" and ""rockers") in England, Slanley Cohen described this great hubbub of publicity and anxiety as folIows: A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become de-

fined as a threat to societd values and interests; its nature is presented in a selized and sterea~picdfashion by the m a s media; the mord bwricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians, and other right t h i ~ n peog ple; socidly accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and soiutians; ways of coping are evohed or (more often) resorted to.35

Wereas many American theorists saw the medical labeling of personal beha.\rior (alcaholism, homosexuality; eating disorders) as being the dominant force in naming and hence constructing behavior, maxzy British theorists folfowed Coben in highlighting the mass media, politicians, and broader public opinion in shaping the construction of ""dviancy"9n case slitdies of crime, child abuse, AIDS, dnrgs, and pornography? Although mast of the work in this vein shams the limitations of case studies noted eartier, Tenkins has recently grouped together a set of

44


"moral panicsu-specibicalXy, child abuse, sexual abuse, pedophilia, and Satanism-and defirled them as interdependew As metaphors, both medicalization and moral panic have made importarlt contributions to recent sociological theory and are relevant to the subjea matter of this book. Nedicalization helps explain the transformation of beha.viorrs predously judged "normal" inta behadotts now deemed "medicaliy" poblematic, (Three examples that come to mind are attenion deficil: disorder, codependence, and learning disabilities,) Societal obsessions ~ t medical h metaphors have even crept inta places where they are not meant to be taken as literally medical. (Consider, for example, ""sickbuilding syndrome" or ""~vorkahotism."') Yet medicalization is not the sole cause of this increased tendency to label dedant b e h a ~ o r . Xn the process of rev.ie.IPving The Re~dersGuide to Periodical Literature, X found more than ]LOO new terms far ""deviant" or undesirable behavior listed in 1992 that were not present in 1970.37 Granted, medicalization, has sparked dozens of new words (acrophobia, addiction behavior, and attemioa deficit disorder are among just the wards beginning with a), and Oprah Winfrey and others constantly bombard us with talk of new medicalized problems; but panics about moral and criminal b e h a ~ o r have s also triggered many new classifications of behavior, T"kventy years ago g , murders, ha& crimesl custody kidsuch phrases as passive s m ~ k i ~sevi;al nctppi~.lg; enabli~zgand elder abuse did not exist, The mass media present the world as an increasingly dangerous place, subject to new and growing disorders. Some social critics have even described panic "as the environmental mood of pmt-modern culrure,"":2'suggesting that our entire worldview has become shaped by "'ear and trembling,'" 'Vet, despite their usefulness as metaphors, both constructs have lirnitations, One difficulty that emerges in all discussions of social problems is the problem of "agency,'Tbat is, who or what is primarily responsible for the naming, cllassiQing, or exlfo~ingof socid problem ctassificatians? Medieatization theory and moral panic theory tend to proGde wry different answers, althortgh these answers are not mutually exclusive, Medic~lizrationas a term priMleges physicians and associated professionals, excluding targe sectors of the populillion who have an interest in defining "deviant" behavior. For example, in the bansfarmation of "madness" into '"mental illness," why privilege only medical actors by the concept of medicalization? Social reformers such as Dorothea Bix and social movements such as the Menial Hygiene Movement of the early twentieth century are at least as important to the acceptance of "mental illness" as any medical classificatory achicctvement (they also pmceded the ability of medicine to actually treat the disorders of the mind). Even where medicine or expert personnel are involved in naming, why is their role more critical than that of, say, the political and eco-


47

namic elites who ultirnakly may accept or reject medicalized definitions, such as "mental illness"'?Medicine has no monopoly over problem definitions; it has played a key role in the naming of many forms of ""dGance" but only a minor role in dozens of other ""dviance" "signations (e.g., domestic violence, rape, elder abuse, homelessness, and school dropouts). If medicalization gives the impression that professional etites conwot "devianee'Yesignations, some hrms of moral panic theory give the impression that popular opinion, or at least opinion shaped by the media, completely shapes vlews of ""cteviance,'%~orat panic theory begs the historical and theoretical quesions as to how the "criminal," the "mentalfy ill" "person, or the teen mother became so villainous to begin. with. Neither construct necessarily ixlcorparates a critical understanding of how power rt?tationsat the top of socieq may play a role in privileging abstinent behavior or norms of selficsntrol over beba.vior regarded as wasteful, frivolous, or dangerous, m y , then, do some issues become the subject of moral panic wllereas others (such as driving) are undersmod to carry risks but do not lead to stigmatization (e.g., of the driver or even the auto racer)? Both construes have other limitations as welt, Medicalization theory already seems a bit dated, inasmuch as it implied that the harsh attitudes toward personal ""dviance" oaf the past would diminish, Mediealization suggests that when a moral problem is framed as a medical problem, the treatment of the offender is altered; yet there is little support for this contention, Does the understanding of m o a Americans that smoking tobacco or taking illicit dmgs is a physical "addiction'"ramatically alter the view of the smoker or drug user? Arguably not. Most b e r i c a n s are also familiar with the argument that sexual.abuse and pedophilia are "sicknesses"; yet, terminology aside, the new medical labels have not much affected the angry crowds seeking to keep child molesters out of their neighborttoods, Hence, medicalization m w really be a "figleaf""far what Foucault has described as the "'moralization" of beha.\riars, It is likely that medicalization has a broader relevarlce to middle-class "purification rituals" in which relatively educated and cosmopolitan people confess their waknesser;: the allcoholism of a president" wife, a movie star's bout with an eating disorder, an f l u e n t college smdexltk memory of her 'Vdysfuncional" family, or a politician's admission of a psychiatric depression. These "sins" are ritualistically forgiven, and the media often praise the Victim for his or her ""apemess." However, behaviors that are (actuallyor perceived as being) "lower class'9n nature, from crack use ta cigaretk smoking, from delinquency to child abuse, often tend to be viewed not as medical problems free from blame but as moral

48


sins worthy of punishment. It is also true that the same behaGor that would lead to a meclicalized ""sck role" in the case of a middle-dass person (e.g., psychiatric d e p ~ s s i o nor alcoholism) would lead to severe repression in the case of a lower-cltass person. Not only is the actual impact of m y problem gmater for the latter @hesame case of psychiatric depression may lead to poverty or homelessness without proper insurance for treament) but it is also more likely to be jtrdged in moralistic terms (e.g., the "street drunk"' and ""bg lady" are not viewed through a medicdized lens). If medicaliz&ion as a theo~ticafconstruct works less w t l today in describing bow behavior became mstigmatized in recent years, the concept of the "moral panic," hough hifTlnXycompelling in capturing the popular nawfe of today's temperance movemen&, sufliers from vawertess, What brine about a moral panic? And in whose eyes does it become so? In an incisive critique of maral panic, RA.J. Waddinson asks,M a t would constitute a ""sober realistic appraisal" of problems that are labeled "panics"? Sharing my criticism of social con&ructionisrn, she argtles that there is little definiilionat agreement about what should be considered an exaggeration of a problem as opposed to an accurate characterization; and, since this lack of agreement is often the key claim of the critics, she asks, How do W assess kvi~ethermugging (for example) is being overreacted to or not? She also notes the bidden political agenda of moral panic theory; Noting the tendency of British theorists to label reactions to same behaviors (such as crimes commified by the poor and minorities) as "panics," she suggests that these theorists would be reluctant to give the same label to movments closer to the hearts of the Left (e.g., movements against rape, hate crimes, or police bmtality).ss The medicalization and moral panic constructs have moved social constrrtcfionist rheory brward by grouping together social phenomena and p r o ~ d i n gus with. valuable metaphors. Yet they are limited in two ways. First, they focus our attention only on selected groups (medicine, media, ere,) in society, rather than accounting for the dominant role that "personal problems" appear to play in the economic, political, and symbolic culture of modern American and English societies as a whole, And, second, though implicitly criticd of the labelirtg of persond problems as either sinhl or diseased, they stop short of p r o ~ d i n ga clear argument: as to why the tendency towarct pattlotogizing personal behavior should be vietved criticaJXy

Toward a Theory of Temperance Tn the remainder of this chapter T situate temperance ideology kvirhin a historical sociological perspective that buttresses the social construe-


49

tionist project with contributions from a varieq of theories, I begin with a set of theses that attemp& to specify the role of power elites in the shaping of social problem definitions. Rather than attributing social problem designations only to "moral entrepreneurs" or medical prafessionds, emperance arguably follows from the specific power needs of madern capitalist societies (as welt as state socialist ones)." Hence the ideology of ""personal problems" may serve key s p b o l i c power needs of the state and elites. This is not to sagges that paradoxes and contradictions are not at work, For example, capitalist advertising often seems to link pleasure with buying?thereby encouraging intemperance, A second set of theses suggests that temperance also tends to become a popular social movement at times, succeeding in secular b r m the appeal of religious revivalism, Finally, I propose that there is a historical dynamic between popular temperance movements and continued resistance by segments of the population. Concern with temperance rises and falls with the needs of the powerful as well as with the rises and fals of social movements themselves,

The Tendency for Political and Social Elites to Support Temperance I Bourgeois socbty emerged hisfaric~llyolrs the basis gl&chinzs to asceticism and meritocmcy Despirc! the fact h a t indivldrral members of elite$ (or perhaps san3e;kimeset,en a n3ajoriV) often do not live up to these standards in their owtz kiues, the claim oftlle bourgeoisie to power r a t on &is meritocratic ideology, which includes personal behavtor:Hence viobt'sns of personal behavi~ralnorms are vialations ofthefz~~zd~rne~ztal ideology ofmodert-2indusf ial societg? Pllthorrgh all human societies enforce some social norms through patterned social control, many human societies have tolerated cansiderable freedom in sexual or consumptory acti.vities or have exempted large parlions of their societies from stria behaviaral rules. At one time, most indigenous cultures throughout the world were viewed by Europeans as ""svage" in part because their customs seemed to countenance less discipline in behavlor than European social norms did. We need not leave the Wstern tradition to see variation: Ancient Rome allowed considerable sexual and other freedoms to its freemen, and many European aristocracies we= known for their owrconsamprion of food and drink, and for their general sexual abandon. Martin 1,rtther"setselfion against the CathoIic Church was greatly justified by the chureMs toleration (even encouragement) of &most all human frailties, as long as the church had the power to adjudicate the sin by penance or the sale of indulgences, Prior to the modern state, ruling elites needed no meritocratic or behav-

50


ioral justification for their dominion. Kings m d queens, emperors, nobles, and chiefiairls ruled through hereditary right arldlor charismatic authority. Such God-given power did not require beha~oralcontrol by etites. Most of the time it mattered little whether kings or chiefs had an ascetic or k-tawdy lifewle unless other external events (such as defeat in war or mass pestilence) undermined the ruler's cellaim to legitimacy41 In contrast, as noted a century ago by M m Weber, the bourgeoisie (along with modern Protestantism) arose as a rebellion against the excesses and perceived vices of the luxuriaus and lazy ruling classes of earlier days. Puritans associated the British aristocracy with sin; and the Cromweltian Revolution quicMy prohibited drinking, gambling, theater, and sports, '*which.were the prized leisure of upper-class Roman Catholics against whom they rebeXIed."Q The French Revolution produced a similar mood, Whereas the Puritans emphasized enforcement of a moral utopia, the French revolutionaries hoped that education, in the new ideologies of reason and science would lead the average citizen to morar rectitude. Foucault quotes one revolutionary Leader as foltows; "Bytraining citizens in frugality, by means of simple dietary laws, by showing young people above all the pleasures that may be derived from even a hard life, by making them appreciate the strictest discipline, . . . how many ills would be prevented . . . ? [Let us] undertake the splendid task of establishing in men's lives the positive role of health, virtue and frappiness.?'43 The utopian goals of the bourgeois revolution rested on an understanding of the perfectibiliw of human nature-an understanding that held productiviv and control to be virtues, while assaciatirlg all wasteful luxuries or idleness with the feudal or the "primitive." Even todaypbourgeois societies posit a meritocratic indiviidualism that enshrines chieftains of industry and political elites with a claim to power based on their se1.f-controland moral rectitude. A Rockefeller or a Trump, a Roosevelt or a Reagan, is not given a hereditary, natural claim on power but only a contingent one. This acceptance of their power hinges in part on their ability to ac~urnutllatecapital or to exercise political authority while stilf complying with the moml aspects of bourgeois ideolog?l, including a commitment to the work ethic, to the norm of proper-appearing fanrib life, and to proper public displays of devotion. Saciologist Werner Sombart, follo\kiingMi'eber, characterized temyerance as a featurn of the life of the shopkeeper or trader "who must be thrifty and sober and industrious and chaste if he does not want to jeopardize fhisj existence, 'Xb succeed, this crass must believe [that] wasting time, love afhirs, etc. would lead to beggary.?'44And C;usf eld described the nineteenth-century Temperance Movement as reflecting class, status, and religious warfare whereby "'abstinence as a symbol of middle-


51

class membership" became also "a public affirmation of the abstemious, ascetic qualities of American Prorestantism," "triumphing wer the poor immigrant's cultural traditions.45 Temperance as a bollrgeois fzegemonic praject is intimately bound with the ideology of individualism, The bourgeoisie generalized from their okvn experience that "anyone could make itP'tncapitalist society by availirlg oneself of opporttlnities. Such an ideolog!: then points to those wllo fail to 'bake it" in terms suggesting that personal deficits stand in their way: The poor are alleged to have failed to strive due to laziness or through their a m faults such as aleohoIism or sexual excess. Afthough the ascetic style of the early bourgeois has passed, the basic behavloral messages remain. Although we all know that leading industrialists and political eXites act pretty much like everyone else (or worse) in their personal lives, the revelation of sin committed by politicians from Chades Parnell in the nineteenth century to Gary Hart in the tkventieth is enough to lead to their disgrace. Nor does the capitalist:urnally advertise his or her gluttony luxurious lifestyle, or extravagant affairs."TThe power of the political leader or capitalist is undermined by the remlation of sin since the fact of sexual incontinence, intemperance, or personal instas ideology by the discrepanq between the nobility t h ~ a t e n bourgeois tion that the leader or business okvner is entitled to his or her power and the notion that those who are failures are poor as a result af their o m sins. Though we all suspect that this ideology E S ~ S on a fiction, those who hold pokver and are found to be misbeha.v;ingusually must abandon their position for their open violation af these bourgeois norrns.47 2, Beginrzing.in Ihe l ~ t eighteen& r ceatuly, the mader@bourgeois stcn& developed a pawer strafegy in the form sfck~ssifleation-specifically, in I& invetzriors @categories of deviant perssorss such m the ''mad" agrzd the 'kriminwk"Such categories inerewed the power ojrpolitimt eltires by seruiag m impsrl-t2~2$ t.ools of social control, They also gradually c@me;to rej n ~ extremely f popular ways ofseeiq the utsrld. m e r e a s W e r made an association among capitalism, indivldualism, and Protestant asceticism, MicheE Foucault, the French philosopher, has signiGcantly added to our understanding of how bourgeois society developed a classif catory system to separate out the poorer classes (and other ""deviants"")hile eventually creating a highly popular appeal for "morali~ation.'~ Until well into the nineteenth centurJI in both Europe and the United States, poor people and society's "misfits" were not classified or studied, nor was their misbehaGor understood as having resu1ted from clearly defined behavioral traits ["delinquency'br "alcoholism" for example). Sin, personal detriance, and pauperism were all conceptually mixed together, and k w people were irlterested in sorting through the great

52


mBlange referred to as the ""rabble." The early drnshouses of America, h r example, indiscriminately lumped together the pauper, the mentalty ill and mentally retarded, the criminal and delinquent, the widokv, orphan, and elderly poor, the intemperant, and even the fiddler, palm reader, gambler, and btaspheme~48 It was the invention of bourgeois society to demlop a classificrrtory system that divided social outcasts (primarily the poor) into "allegedly universd moral categories"" such as the "mentally ill,'-the "'criminal,'" the ""dlinquent," the ""drunkard," the "wayward woman," and the "orphan," "ginning in the 1830s, separate insrittrtional arrangemezlts w r e developed for each group of deviants, and eventualty special personnel were put in charge of diffel-ent groups of deviants.50 Key to developing these classifications was the rise of the profession-medicine, psychiatrypcorrections, social work, socialoar crimindog?i psycholag3i and so on. One could trace the whale demlopment ofwestern society since the early nineteenth century as a movement to develop ever more precise measurements of the properties of various deviants: Today, more than ever, social scientists as well as a host of natural scientists (biologists, medical researchers, geneticists) are increasilrgly specifying new labels and classifications that claim both predictive value ( W o carries what gene?) and prescriptive value (How do we deal with those who are "dually diagnosed?"). Most salient in Foucaultk work was his understanding of this process as renecting the power intemsts of the bourgeois class and state authority, which arose simultaneously, Knowledge, said Foucauft, is not independent of pawer. We know someone to ""becriminal" not througl.1 a neutralistic application of principles but, rather, through a "pawer/ knowledge" that privileges some types of behavior over others, The "norm" for deviancy was a bourgeois norm of behavior that, during the nineteenth century contrasted with many popular sentiments. For example, Foucault reminds us that many criminals were popular among the poor in European socielies; in fact, they WE seen as rebels or heroes. The robbelr, highwayman, pickpocket, and con artist were a danger primarily to the rich. The development of both a pend system and the ideology of crime and criminality in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was in part an effort to prevent the lovvest ranks of the working class and the drifting poor (who were then seen as the most potentially rebellious segments of society) from having any legitimacy among the mare stable ranks of wol-kers: The . . , role of the penal system: ta rnak the proletariat see the non-proletarianized people as mmgind, dmgerous, irnmorai, a menace to sociev as a whole, the dregs of the population, trash, the ""nnob,'Tarthe bourgeoisie it is a matter of imposing on the proletxiat by means of pen& legisfalclon, of


53

prisons, but also of newspapers, of ""lterature,'kertain dXegedly universd mord categorieswhich function as m ideological bmier bemeen them and the non-proletariarnl~edpeople, AU the literaq, journalistic, medicd, sociotogicd and mfiropo2ogical rhetoric about criminals . . . plays this role.51

According to FoucauEt, the development and spread of a popular moral ideology not only split the poor from the working masses (at a time when mass riots and unrest were fairly commonplace) but also helped protect the bourgeois"roperty: How was waith to be protected? By a vigorous morality, of course: hence the formidable layer of moralisation deposited on the nineteenth-centuq population, Look at the immense c a p a i g n s to christianize the workers during this perisd. Tt was absaXuteZy necessary to constitute the populace as a moral subject and bre& its commerce with crimindit-y m d hence segregate the delinquents and to show them to be dangerous not only for the rich but for the poor as well, vice-ridden instigators of the gravest socid peras.52

Ajlthough Foueault separately addressed the ""pwerlknowledge" of crime, madness, and sexuality, not examining a cluster of "temperance"' values, his identification of "'moralisatian'r as a critical nineteenth-eentury feat parallels the rise af organized temperance movements in America. IS also helps explain how the viewpoint ofthe bourgeois of the early nineteenth century came to be gradually ingrained in much of the societ?r,Whereas detective literature and police gazettes were popular staples of the mid-nineteenth century, today countless television shows and films, newspaper and tejevision news stories, and '"show trials" give us the vantage point of the '"judge" gazing at the criminal deviant. We usually see TV news stories {and rnocriesf about crime events not from the perspective of the "perpetrator" "n fact, the old m o ~ codes e prohibited this perspective) but from that af the criminal justice, police, psychiatric, and medical establishments. Thus we usually root for the hei not for roes of N.KPD. Blue or Law and Order or U Law or M i ~ w tVice, the drug dealel; burglar, or murderer, The constant societat focus on the sins of the deviant is, in Foucaultps terms, a 'kcoEonizationn&vice, which is meant to inhse us all with an identification with power-the power of the police, the courts, and, ultimately the state." The s t a e has achieved legitimacy to replace the church as the arbiter of morality: Although a loosening of moral norms occurs at times, it does so atways within limits, particularly where the poorer dasses are concerned, 3, As Anmnis Cr-amscihas argued, t.emperral?ce (or ?un'~nkwz,"as he called it) became essential r;o industrial development in the process of

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capitalist development." The mtr~ctl'onof the mminz urn labor pawer of each i~zdizlidzralwrker phces a premium on persorzclk behavior both @S a means sfpr~dractivil-yand as an msura12ce that the worker will use his ar her wagafir subsisrerlce. The economic interns& of the bourgeoisie in temperant moraliv w r e not the primary focus of either the Weberian or the Foucaldian analysis. Weber thau&t of Puritanism as an ideolow of the bourgeoisie primarily based on the status temperant behavior conl'erred on the individual and its ability to politically jtlstiQ the rise of this new cllass; Foucault considered "moralisation" to be primarily a political strategy of the newly emerging elite. But the emerging industrialists of the late nineteenth century supported temperance movements lFor economic reasons as well. The argument was made that alcohol consumption, cigaretle smoEng, sexual vice, venereal disease, and other social protalems interfewd with production. To this day, a key argument (at times even the primary argumenr) againa some forms of bellavior is that they decrease the nation's economic productivity. On an almost daily basis, magazine and news articles quote expertskstimates of the '(cost" to business of drugs, alcohol, smoking, teen pregnancy, sexuaJily transmitted disease, high cholesterol, and so on. Gramsci, an Italian Marxist intellectrtzal, offered one of the clearest explanations for the role of temperance as an adjunct to the extraction of surplus value from the worker, He believed that modern civilization itself was "a continuing struggle . . . against the elements of 'animallity' in man," inasmuch as all forms of advanced labor involved "coercion" and ""rationalization""vvfiereby the ease of lik in earlier times was brutally transhrmed by industrialism. M a t kvas new about Ameriml?capitalism (in the late nineteenth and early mentieth centuries] Lvas unprecedented productiviv based on a combination of power m e destruction of craft unions and the breakdown of Iabor through Taylorization), on the one band, and (relatively) high wages and other benefits (dubbed ""Frdism'", cm the other. "The American phenomenon," mid Gramsci, "is also the biggest collective effort to date to create, with unprecedented speed, and with a consciousness of purpose unmatched in history, a new type of worker and of rnan."s" mo is this "new type of worker and of man," and why does he require personal controlWttlough not completely flesbed out by Gramsci, the new man seems to be committed to production and available to constant exploitation through a longer, healthy life that is free of the ""animal instincts" &derived from pleasures such as drinking or sexual excess. The opposition of the capiCafist to drinking and excessive sexualiv seems to have two roots: one in the productive process and the other in the reproductive process.56 In the production process, alcoholism or sexuality


55

stands in the way of both extraction of the maximum labar power available in each worker and the necessary compliance to the discipline of the nekv production. As Cramsci noted: "In America rationalization of work and prohibition are undoubtedly connected, The enquiries conducted. by the industrialists into the workers?private lives and the inspection semces created by some firms to control the h m l i t y ' of their workers are necessities to the new methods of work, . . .A forced seleetion will ineluctably take place; a part of the old working class will be pitilessty eliminated in the world of labor."s7 But capitatists also have a strong interest in the personal behavior of workers outside of the workplace, In particular, the workers need to stay physicaIty fit and healthy get sufficient rest, and consume a diet sufficient to maintain energy Thus, as Gramsei further notes, Puritanical initiatives simply have the purpose of preserving, outside of work, a certain pslyeho-physicd equilibrium which prevents the physiological collapse of the worke~;exharnsted by the new method of production. . . . It is necessary for the worker to spend his extra money ""rtiona1I-y"to maintain, renew and, if passibje, increase his muscular-nervous eficiency m d not to corrode or destroy it. Thus the struggle against alcahot, the most dmgerous agent of destruction of labouring power; becomes a function of the state. It is possible also for other ""ptlritanical" "rfruggles as well to became .functions of the state if private initiative of the industridists proves insufficient. . . . The sexual question is aggn connected with that, . . . Abuse and irregularity of sexual functions is, after alcoholism, the most dangerous enemy of nervsrrs energies, and i t is commody observed that "~bsessianal" work p t ~ ~ ~alcoholic k e s and sexual depravation, . . . ft seems clear that the new industridism wmts monogamy: it wants the m m as worker not to squander his newaus energies in the disorderly and stimulating pursuit of occasional sexual satisfaction.58

In addition to suggesting powerhl reasons for capitalist support for temperance, Gramsei makes the point that modern capitalism (or perhags alt industrialization) increases the desire Eor substance use or sexual ltelease ta the extent that the human mind and body become csnstraixled throughout large portions of daily life. Nthougfi hard to prove empirically, this association makes historical sense, in that industrial society does appear to generate a sense of deprivation, dullness, and barrenness that often leads people to seek corrlpens&iorl through the absessive pursuit of pleasure. Gramscik notion that lalrge elements of the old working class would be t h r o m out of the workforce ("the weak and non-conforming into the limbo of the lurrrpen classes"")amllels Foucaultk idea about moralization as a political. stttateg to divide the ""slid workers" from the unruly ones, h t it sugge- arlotfler dynamic as well: Wa1/ing divided the work-

56


force in this way (i.e., on the basis of morality), the process becomes syrrzbolic and self-fulfilling; that is, although the promiscuous worker may be as productive as the monogamous one, the ideological belief that the former is less productive rewards sexual conformity and punishes defiation. Hence, over time, the elites and employing classes come to associate productidty with clean liang. (Xn a similar hshion, discrirnination against fat people historically occurred because they were believed, to be unable to control themselves.) 4, There is a klis;toricalparadox in the faet that tke cclnsumpl.l"veneeds gc?nemfedby capitalism requivt?businesses to sell mare gaods,ilrdver~ising, firoug;?,which pleast~reis mnstantI;IIas?i~ciUtedwitlz ~ T O ~ U Cr~nS qI itser lead intgmperance, However, crilies an both the Left and the Right have, in my judgunen t, somewhat ouermted thiwctor, which m q well be a Ilme-limited pherzomerzon. Although much of Gramscihnalysis was prescient, his view of capitalism may have underemphasized the need to sell. products (which could arise only after the initial stage of accumulation had occurred) compared with the need for labor productivity. Beginning in the post-World War I1 period of prosperity, but becoming particularly prominent in rclcent decades, a successful mass marketing of all sorts of goods to the public has occurred along with the constant promotion of pleasure, Leftist as welI as rightist critics have suggested that much intemperance can be located nol: only in the marketing of specific patentially unhealthy products (cigarettes, alcohol, pornography) but also in the association of sexuality with other consumer goods (cars, perfumes, clothes, music, etc.), The consumer, then, is led not only to smoke and drink butt to demlop an insatiable need to buy the latest products, to garner the rewards of attractiveness and sexuality promised explicitly or implicitly by ads, In an addictive way, the consumer wants more and more*sg As X will discuss in Chapters 5 and 6, this development was undoubtedly one cause in the gro\ni.thof middle-class intemperance in the twentieth century, democratizing habits such as alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking, which previously had been more limited to certain ethnic, class, and regional strata, Rlevision and cinema probably helped spl-ead the sexual revolution ofthe 1960s and 39ms as well. Nevertheless, X suggest that such a strong accent on capitalism's role in promoting intemperance is exaggerated. First, it relies on a passive '"judgmental dupe" "e~vv of the consumer as being easily manipulated, while failing to accoum for the hi& levels of intemperance in cottmries (such as socialist ones) that lack such advertising. And, second, critics of media intemperance have o-verestimated the advertisersbeed for appeals to excess. True, advertisers promise pleasure, But they have also


57

been quick to adopt their sales pitches to, say, healthy foods that "lead to a long lifep'and are low in fat; they have eliminated references to cigarettes and hints of drugs from commerciaEs; and, for the mast part, they have even proGded a more measured and ""politically correct" prsonification of gender roles in ads, True, some companies continue to promate products that are not healthy; but they are alrguably in the minority Temperance products are, in fact, ""hot": Stocks in companies that provide alcohol and drug treatment, in the diet and fitness industries, and in Erms marketing the many products claiming fa help prevent crime (such as security systems) are all excellent investments, As the New Temperance presses wayward advertisers and media moguls back into the more culturally conservative aspects of modern capitalism, the critique of acfvertising as a main souree of intemperance is partly vitiated. 5. Historically, san3e el'aims about "risk'"(whetjzer technological, envirotzmentaL political, ar economic) are potentially aati~heticalor challe~ging power holdem; in contrash Q sociology of risk lhatjocuses on. personal taboos Eomted in individual behavior is not a plolil-l"d.cnl challenge bug, rather, can ecirsiky be managed by elites, Not only do modern elites often preach the desirabifiw of tempemt behavior, but political and civic leaders as welf as professional experts rtsrrally stress the risk of immoral or unhealthy behavior, Aftllollgh thcse leaders rarely accent the risks of war, nuclear disaster, or daily emplopment, they continually emphasize statistics on drug use, alcohol consumption, teen pgnancy, and high-ht diets, Dottglns and WiLdasb attempt to account Tor the d i f f e ~ n i a assessl ment of risk in various societies from an anthropological perspective, They begin with the assumption that risk is cultural, arguing that "each social arrangement elevates some risks to a high peak and depresses others below sight." T h s , h r example, some African tribes are calm in the face of deadly tropical diseases but view events that have moral or supernaural connotations as major risks. (Examples of the latter include barrenness in women and lightning strikes,)mDouglas and MliXdasky hrther argue that all risks are moral and political, not independent of blame and eqlanation. Primary among cross-cultural fears, they say, is'"pofftion"" or defilement-that is, a contagious, harmful state caused by outside, mysterious forces that ""represent a moral defect usually [caused] by the dangerous impurity attr;ibuted to moral transgrcrtssians of one kind or another."a Fmm this viewoint, certain beha~ors,such as those relating t s sexual taboos, have always been a key pollution fear. When a disaster of some kind struck tribal peoples-famine, flood, poor harvest-it was s those in IOW castes who were blamed for the usually social d e ~ a n t or polfutian because they had suppostldly defiled the group in some way.

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Like Foucault, Douglas and W1dask.y link the concepts of pollaion and power: "Polluion ideas are an instrument of control. W e n the central establishment is strong, it holds a monopoly of explaining the natural order. Its explanations of misformne make social outcam carry the stigma of vice and disease, From the point of view of the central political establishment, the socially inkrior are morally and physically contaminating, to be segregared artd formally confined."""" In a similar vein, Douglas and Wildasky saw in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s the rise of a new kind of risk assessment emerging from the "'sectarians" (rather than from central authorities or capitalists). These sectarians were the intellectuals and new professionals who perceived risk in technolompen~ronmentalcrises, and many other features of the modern society that had preGously been taken far granted. Despite the authors' prejudice against this new view of risk, their analysis can be helphl in comparing the differing polities of risk. Many of the environmental and consumer movements of the 1960s and 1970s challenged industrialists and state power, and demanded morc: accountability and rewlation. Xn contrast, Douglas and Wildasky themselves note that the ""defenders of industr~rin the 1970s constantly pointed out that much ill health [is]life style relatedef'63 This conRict is key, X believe, Risk assessments that challenge technalogical, economic, political, and environmentat systems also challenge those in power, primarily the corporate and political sectors, From Ratph Nader's campaigns for auto safety to demonstrations against nutclear power plan&, there waf a time not so long ago when it looked like the "margins" of society (to use Douglas and WildaskyS term) might alter the shape of the debate about risk, and attach the charge of "'defilement" and pollution to the corporate giants and governmental leaders in America. It is thus not simply insurance liability and health-care costs that have led rtze corporate sector to promote "healthy likwles" aaxld to Eight smoking, high-fat diets, and drugs [though these factors have cert;linly played a role); also implicated has been a reconstruction of risk that is politically efieient far the return of corporate domination of h e r i c a n life after the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. "'Lifestyle" illnesses, which began to be trumpeted by government, medicine, and business in the 1 9 7 0 ~cast ~ the moral blame back at the individual-the smoker, the drinker, the wereater-rather than attributing the potential defilement to corporate greed, government inefficiency; or the failure of our culture to satisfy human needs. Further, most constructions of personal risk center on social outcast groups; examples include the drugs of the ghetto, the smoking of the Xowr classes, and the diseases attributed to sexual or social d e ~ a n t s .


59

To reassert this older construction of risk (in the polluting bebaGors of individuals), capitalists had to co-opt aspecG of movements that Douglas and Wildasky saw as more radical, such as en\l-ironmentalisrn, For example, the current fashion among corporate oflicials is to accept some blame for isolated sectors of the economy (such as tobacco companies) for their role in creating X li health, thus to some degree ineorporaing an earlier "marginal" criticism, Most of the effects of the social. the ~ challenges ta risk that Douglas movements of the 1960s and 1 9 7 0 ~ and WiXdasky so feared, have been absorbed by symbolic acts such as the ""eolorme green" message in corporate commercials, The more daminant construction of risk is now that in vvhich individual behavior is Fdulted.

The Tendency Toward a Populist Temperance The origins of temperance in bourgeois i d e o l o and ~ as a power strategy do not contradict the popularity of temperance movements among sectors of the public at certain historical.points, At first glance, this observation may seem paradoGcal; after all, we are all supposed to be unable to resist the joys of ice cream, intoxicating spirits, or unlamed sexuality But what we often lose si&t of is the fact that people also enjoy the ability to righkously resist and refrain from sin and vice, Having sex or eating ice cream may give pleasure, but it is also true in America that abstinence or control over bebaviar can be fun. The successfut dieter or ex-smoker feels a sense af control and mastery, perhaps even moral superiority over obese people or smokers. People enjoy campaigns b r safe , adults and children seem to like the camasex and AIDS a c t i ~ s mand raderie in DARE @rug Abuse Resistance Education) programs. Many people spend countless hours doing nonpaid labor for these causes in their communities. Commitment and solidarity certainly emerge from these social movements, and aspects of religious revivalism can. be found in much of modern h e r i c a n life, from self-help groups to "Take Back the Ni@t9'"]lies, Moreover, as we shall explore further in Chapter Et, the political realm seems uniquely situated for discourse about control over behavior rather than discourse about pleasure, Pleasure is considered hivolous and nonpolitical; even when it is acknowledged or supported, the public sphere is not usually believed to be the place to make known one's desires for sex, food, or intoxication. Tn contrast, the state has long had an achowledged roje [across the political spectrum) as the protector of public safety For political leaders, temperance wars, like foreign wars, are mobilizations that can serve as strategies to excite the masses of people and, for this reason, ewrjoy continued use.

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Temperance movemen& generally take the form eithm of voluntary purification riluals or c o e ~ i v emoral-indignation movements. That is, either they aim at i m p r o ~ n the g seror perhaps those nearest the self, or they seek enforcement of temperant norms over rule violators through the power of either group pressurn or state action. 1. Man,y t.emperral?ee movemen& are modern secular forms af confession and puri$c~tiion n"tuals in which I'ndz'vidualIsovereome uan'ous personal prublenzs &rough collectiue acts ojFredempliorz b ~ s e don their adn3isss'an of sin (alcoholism, overeatingpsmoking, taking drugs, etc.), Such s~rurc?gies also provide respectabilit;y a~zdir-r.tegraflofi fir indivic;lualsafzd group that m1"ghzorherwise be charged with dqfilr;?rne~~ It may seem odd that Americans, in Iarge numbers, are csnfessing in self-help groups, in magazine and news articles, and an teletrision talk shows to a wide varieq of sins and transgressions fdmg use, eating disoders, sexual deviancy; "dysfunctional" hmilies, etc.). But the current period differs from the past, only in the secularization of such rituals, The power of confession as a bond of solidarity and redemption was first demlsped by Christianity and has had a place in America since its earfiest, days, Social control in Puritanical New England, for example, was primarily tied not to punishment but to religious confession and penance. For example, as Dzmilio and Freedman note with respect to New England towns, the fornicator or adulterer, though Iheomtically punishable by hanging, most often "'had to publicly repent, . . . ta stand in front of the congregation, confess, and publicly weep." Only those who failed to confess were excommunicated or further punished." Of course, we do not know how people actually felt during these conkssians; but the norm violators were presumably reintegrated into the coxzlrnuxliq and, having admitted to the violations in question, experienced some degree of mlief while strengthening communily cohesion. The earliest American temperance movements (in the 1820s-11840s) coincided with the 'Second Great Awakening" of Prateslant rijvivatisrn in America, and the later surge coincided with the new Social Gospel in Protestant reVTivitli~m.65Yet the weakness of these ma-vernents throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries hinged on their religious association with Protestantism (thus partly explaining why most Catholics and Jews opposed the temperance movements). m a t eventually occurred in Axllerica was the diffusion of a power strategy (in Foucafdian terms) from religious ritual to secular movement, One direct link is the initialfy small group named AIc~holicsAnonymous, or M (which was founded in I935 and affiliated with the Protestant Qdard Group). M pioneered a secular farm of confession and purification ritual that has evidently worked for millisns of people in numerous self-help


61

groups; it also spawed the "U-step" model, which is popular enough to be considered a social movement. M and other forms of ritual confession function as power strategies in two ways, First, there is the power that the cotlective modet brings to bear on the acmaf behavior of many group members (in terms of social control over drinking or other problems), Second, ritual purification models offer a redemptive quality that reinlegrates the person into respectable society. To became a "'rt?coveringndrinker is ta acquire a new status that can exert a pokverful claim on others, a claim to time and prestige and trust that the norm violaor might previously fiave lacked, The new status is respectable not only because the person has overcome a problem behavior but also because, prior ta recovery the class and social starus of the person rnay have limited the claim that he or she could place on others. Regardless of whether groups like itA acltlalty lead to upbvard social mobility; they do provide the trappings of respectability to some who may not have been capable of such claims in the past.66 As with any power stratew, however, the distinction beween voluntary confessions and coerced ones lessens, as Foucault notes, because power strategies difEuse tflemsetves throughout soci* Beginning as a purely voluntary model, M and other 12-step programs have increasingly been appropriated by the state as a strateg of coercion: The drunk driver now gets released iJ1 he or she agrees to attend it4 meetings, the alleged child abuser is required to attend a therapy group, and the teenager -Found with drugs in his or her locker is given the 'khoice" between suspension and courrseting, The state has found that this stratew ofUvoluntarycomp1iance'"jlf the "deviant" truly "accepts treatment" and repents) is superior in many ways to pure punishment, The secularization and popularity of confession and ritual purification in the post-1960s period rnay represent a generational and social class response to the "60s" ppoiiticaf and cultural unrest in which baby boomers (in particular) haw come to repent for the excesses of youth, wheher sexual, consumptive, or political. As the model diffused throughout society, it became available to a variety of age and class groups that could then attempt to gain power and respectability (although the poor and people of color are still least entranced with it). 2. A nzore coercive form af temperance attemp& to dewztl~~d of otjzers some bel-mvioral chnage or to exclude others ort the bmis MIP7eir hehavior:As w "movement of indignation" 21 c a n i e s f o r w a both an evaugeliwl tradition and a populist aggack on elites, Accusations af sin are also a pawer st~.n~t:gy that often derivesfroun uictlmhaad. By focusing orr others' sins, uictims derive power that they might lack in the a h s e n ~of such claims,

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Temperance movements have historically a m s e d moral indignation, allempts at conversion, and coercive measures, Whereas voluntary temperance movements can be seen as purification rituals, conversion movemen& reflect evangelical roars, In fact, the movemen@discussed in Chapter 2 paralleled the " n w social gospel" aimed a ""prifyingl secular American sociev and moving it to moral perfectionism. Evangelical approaches seek to give the uninitiated the word of God, and to teach them ways of puriQing themselves and correcting their behavior. Yet indirrTrdua1spfailure to accept the ""light" may allso bring calls h r coercive action, In today's socieq many movemen& still follow religious leaders who advacate behavior change h i m e s s the tremendous success of Christian fundamentalists in organizing since the 19"1s). Other behavioral change movements haw become more secular, led by claimsmakers from politics (anli-drug and anti-crime movements), from health and medicine (anti-smoking and anti-teen pregnancy campaigns), and Prom social sefvice organizations (campaigns against child abuse, rape, and domestic Golence). The interesting thing about the coercive power strategies of today's anti-drug, anti-smoking, and anti-crime initiatives is their abiliq to elide power relationships by appearing to be anti-elitist and democratic, They accomplish this in two ways. First, they utilize the link between mord coercion and the historic role af the crowd in promoting socid control. In ei@teenth- and nineteenth-cent~iryEngland, fur exmple, the crowd was frequently amused to ~ o l e n c by e such issues as prostitution, homosexuality, and child sexual abuse.m American higory has also been fraught with rc;?portsof crowd hysleria, from the witch trials of Massachusetts to lynchings in the South ""justified" by charges of rape of white women made against black men, The crowd often demanded that elites or political leaders &ange their o m behavior or enforce their own laws. Such indignation calls t s mind the frequent exposures of moral impropriety among political leaders and clrltural heroes todw 'fo oppose the sexual behavior of the English Tory leaders (as in the Profumo scandd) or the American Gary Harts, Clarence Thornaser;, or Roberf Packwoods seems anti-elitist, going well with our tendency to doubt the morality and truthhlness of leaders. Of course, such moral arousal does not change much about the system itself, and it is arguably a mere social safe@valve for the masses. Moreover, populist indigation obscures rhe extent to which the day-to-day social control apparatus of the state acmally fumes norms upon the poor or outcast rather than upon elites. Many nineteenth-century Engish workers, for exmple, supported the Social Puriq Movement because they associaled sexual deviance (pwtiwlarly homosexuality, pedophilia, and kvhite slavery.)with the aristocracy68 Not surprisingiy, however, the Social Purity Movement did not really harm many members of the elite, but it did lead to numerous arrests among the poor.69


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Second, coerciw temperance movements serve as an elision of power in that they turn otherwise privileged people into ttictims, who then have a claim on the use of moral indignation, Concerns about secondar?, smoke, for example) are uncommon among the poor but prevalent in the middle class, 0rdin;urily a business executive or lawyer would not be seen as a ui~tim,but moral indignation against the cigarette smoker can suddenly bring legitimacy to the demand that a blue-collar worker or poor person stop smoking near the lawyer or executive. ""Plitical comectness" among liberal middle- and upper-class individuals arguably serves a similar function, In a recent essay Marilyne Robixlson recounts an incident in which the old ""sobbery," as she terms it, was conmrted into political zealotry: Recently X saw a woman correct a man in public-an oIder m m whom she did not know well-fox a remark of his she chose to interpret as ethnocentric. What he said could easily have been defended, but he accepted the rebuke and vvas saddened and embarrassed. This was not a scene from some guerrilla war against menlightened &ifingmThe w ~ m m had simply made a demonstration of the fact that her education was more recent, more fashionable and more extensive than his, with the implication, which he seemed to accept, that right thi&ng was a propertrgr or attainment of hers in a way it never could be of his, To be able to defend magnanimity while asserting class advantage!And with an aindience already entirely persuaded therefare more than ready to admire.70 of the evils of ethno~entriciq~

Some middle-class social movements assert claims to vrictimization, relying on the possibility of personal mbuke or assault, That is, the possibiliw of being a crime viaim, an aggrieved listener, or a potentially harassed pel.son is made central to fife's condition. Katie Roiphe's critique of the ""sxual correctness" movement on campus (concerning date rape and speech codes, for example) questions how "'voiceless" the "Princeton women, future lawyers, nekvspaper reporters, investment bankers . . . are, by most peopleMefinitions," when they claim the mantle of ogpression.71 I do not defend or deny harassment or hateful speech when I note that liberal political correctness movements have often elided social power in presenting affluent women (or racial minorities) as poweless. Marry Americans, paflicularly working class and poor people, have some trouble visualizing either Clarenee Thomas or Anita Hill, Hillary Clinton or Leona Helmsley, as Getirns. Yet: the combined logic of moraX indigrlation and political correctness rrloverrlenb presents being a woman. or an ARican-American (or other group protected by moral indignation movements) as a potential victim, h I discuss furrher in Chapter 6, victim status as a result of behavloral pollution (cigarette smoke, drug use, pornographic images, fear of crime and viotence) made Eor a particularly good fit b e m e n the g r o ~ n New g Right movemenl of the 1970s and the increasingly less radical rclrnnants

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of the 1960s social movements, By the 1980s, a consensus on behavioral control around a host of issues seemed to have crossed political lines, I do not deny that violent or hurthl actions are committed by individuals when X suggest that the symbolic value af the issues of indignation (such as smoking ar date rape) are ones that easily evoke an Americm consensus across political lines. Xt is Fa- more difficult to move Americans with cries for economic ar social justice than to oppose the sins af pollution and defilement.

Historical Change Temperance,as bath an elite strafegyand a popular wtovemelz2; is subject to mpid rises aad falls, o w i ~ gnot only ~opopular resktanccr but also to exter~w l historic ewnirs &.g., economic clzauge, wars, social movewtelzts). h the remairzder af this book I aim $0 explailz why personal behavior w ~ rhave s been waged so ofierz since the 1970s in the United States. Despite its achievement of "common sense" logic, temperance has at times aroused widespread resistance. It has been subject to rapid declines in popularity due both to its a m instability and to historic events that have dramatically altered social norms. In the twentieth cenltlry the most o b ~ o u generalized s defeats of moralization were the collapse of Prohibition in the early 1930s and the w i d e s p ~ a dcldtural changes in the 19GOs and 1970sthat temporarily overturned sexual m o ~ and s other patterns of b e h a ~ o r . Even when dominant, Temperance or Puritanism has entailed resistance, particularly fi-om the lower classes, from the p u n g , and ffom racial and ethnic groups holding low status. Prohibition, for example, was always unpopular among these groups, The ""6s'kculturat rebellion cefiainly involved young people and, despite its perceived association with the middle class, was arguably stimulated by aspects of both black culture and Southern Iowr-class culture (consider the origins af rock h' roll, for example). Today, despite the dominance of the ""just say no'%wars against drugs, cigaretks, premarital sex, and other social beha~ors,professionals constantly complain that too many young people (particularly poor and racial minoriv children) are doing dmgs, drinking, smoking, h a ~ n promiscuous g and early sex, or b e h a ~ n gaggressively Partly at issue here is the general culture's ambivalence about pleasure. Temperant messages about sex, food, dmgs, and so on compete with aspects of the capitalist cultural market that sell commodities, so that even if indusl-ries with m obvious imerest in sin (pornography) or substances (tobacco companies) wcre banned, the generat cultural message of cansumption wouldnPtchange*That is, rich b o d , legal prescription drugs, and goods advertised with sexy models would conlinrre


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to send the message of ""just say yes," h t while many leftist activists and liberal professionals emphasize capitalism's call to overc;onsurne or consume obsessively; they underrate the symbolic nature of intemperant behavior as a form of resistance, That is, rhey tend to treat young working-class or poor kids as if they are '"judgmental dupes" wwho don't "know" they shouldn't smoke, drink, or have premarital sex, when in fact it may be their very "knowing" of authority's position that contribwes to their resistant behaviors. As I will discuss in. Chapters 4-6, social class and status are intermined with personal behavior. Young people, poor people, and racial and ethnic ottlgroups are overrepresented among those charged with misbehaviorr, I suggest that this fact is intimately bound to stigmatization of behavior, The stigma of cigarette smoking and drug use is directty tied to the prevdence of these bebaviors in the middle class, m e n the middle class changes its norms, it does so in. part to disassociate itself from classes below it, as a status marker, Less clear hifiorically is the degree to which popular resistance should be credited with major changes as opposed to certain external "signal" events, For example, many historians see the Great Depression as the final downfall of Prohibition, Moreover, they usually view waflime as periods of looser moral strictures. The social control needed for mobilization seems to =quire governments to Xoosen up oL1Ihe more minor restrictions of Life, such t h a c i g a ~ t t e and s alcohol are made available to soldiers along with some time for blowing off steam. Even when governmen& seek behavioral control-as occurred during both wurld wars when they battled the s p ~ a of d venereaf diseas ars lead to changes in sexual norms, Not only do men separated ham partners frequently stray, but cutrural historims have seen even more profound changes in women's lives during wartime, when they left isolated households and came to work in war industries within. the cities, oaen breaking with conservative social norms as they did so.72 Obviously the cultural changes of the 1960s art? hard ta imagine without the political unrest sparked by the cir?iE rights movement and the anti-war movement, Nor can the spxszbotic meanings of one period be detached from the nelit; the cult.ura1movemenlts of the 1960s and ILSTQswere, at one level, a reaction to the middle-class conhrmity and Puritanism of the 1950s. And as T argue in Chapter 6 , the New Rmperance of the 1980s and 1990s has been shaped by negative arritudes toward the mores of the dreaded "60s." It is the dift-icuitt task of this book to develop the links beween events at the macro level (involving the econorrly and the politicat sysem) and the changed meaning of many forms of personal beha.vior in the last two decades, I suggest that dite political strategies were at work; one exam-

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yle is the strategy of moralization that emerged during the Nixon administration as a way of developing a Republican P a w majority These strategies were paralleled by corporate America's drive ta compete by gerring "ken and mean," Yet the strategies could xlM have succeeded from the mid-1970s on without popular support. Their appeal was largely based on the intense economic and social anxieties besetting the Arrlerican middle and working classes, and on rhe convergence of politic d symbols b c ~ e e naspects of the 'Middle America" strategy and the rightward direction of orher social ma-vernents that had occurred by the late 1970s. Both the increased attention to personal behavior and the prescriptions regarding misbehavior can be seen as a drive to repudiate the aspects of""Gis""-stylemovements that were culturally threatening.

FIGURE 4. I The First Drop Source: A. Sindair;Pr~l"ll'bl'tio~~: TheEra ofExcess (BQS~CQTI: Litrle, Brown, 19621, p. 17.

"DryLogic" Lest the older Temperance Movement notion (see Figure 4.1) of health education seem dated, our popular ""zero-tolerance"campaigns against

68

"T!zeSkippely Slope,"or Searing Them Straight

drugs today should remind us that the '"lipper?: slope" of "dry logic"one drink (or toke) Ieads ta perdition-is still very much alive. As Stanton Peele comments: %ds on drug and aitcohol abuse combine the direst possible prctdictions; if you think you have a drinking problem-you do; a drinking problem can only grokv worse; a drinking alcoholic ends up either dead or institutionalizeddf'lIn a similar vein, Lester Grinspool, a Harvard psychiatrist, remarks that "Partnership [for a Drug-Free America] ads about marijuana scare the hell out of a high school senior. This student then goes off to college, where his roommate smokes marijrraxla with no apparent adverse effects and without going on to shoot heroin. He begins to wonder ifhefieen lied to, and winds up trying pot for hirnself, He lives!""" The "slippeq slope" characterizes much of our thinlcing about sexuality as well. Cammenting on the "Seared Chaste" trend in. sex education, Leslie Kantor of the Sex Information and Education Council points out: Students are told that teens develop a sort of '%tolerance"to sexual activity and that it takes increasing amounts of stimulation to achieve the same mousd over time. Sexual activivt in the exercise entirled ""TheWoo ScdeSr' t is likened to the a n d o w of a frog which is boiled to death ~ t h o uknowing it when the heat is turned up gradually. h o t h e r idea:promoted by this concept is that any sexual activity will eventually progress to intercourse. . . . The rnesssige [is[&at sexual activiq &ways gets beyond the control of the people involved,3

Nor are ""slippery slope" ~ s c tactics e that catastrophize behavior limited ta conservatives or religious traditionalists. Overwrought and calamitous attacks on cigarettes as a "'poison" and "mass killer," warnings against fatty foods as "merich deadliest missifes" or as "a heart attack on a plate," and descriptions of sexuality in the era of AIDS as "a deadly miasma of contagion and deat3""are characteristic of much liberal discourse." Martian visiting Atrlerica might well be terrified into beliedng that everyone who ever smoked a cigarette, ate a hamburger, or had sex without a condom would inc?vitably become a victim of disease and early dealh. Most likefy he would turn his spaceship around and return home. 'That many young Americans resist such totatistic rhetoric surprises moralists and health advocates, but their resistance is not surprising. In this chapter I examine how the ""scare them straight" strateg of temperance contradicts much of what we know about drugs, fatty hods, cigarettes, teen pregnancy, multiple-paflner sex, and other risks. Though purporting ta be scientific, the poTyver strategies of temperance actrtzally de-contextua1iil;eand misstate risk by taking real-life events out of daily

""7Slippery h Slope," or Searing Them Str-sight

69

context. Such magnification of risk supports the argument made in the previous chapter that our society privileges almost all claims about intemperant behador for Rasons of power and morality

The key ontological device that effectively catastrophizes much of human life is the de-conte~ualizationof isolated behaviors (smoking a cigarette, eating a hamburger) from both the person, incllading his or her c h a r (age, social class, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, etc.), and his or her situatiorz (being lonely, angry, sad, aggressive, euphoric, etc.). "Dry logic" @rthe general logic of temperance) seems natural ta us only because Western science and knowledge routinely de-contexhalizes behavior (including life's most intimate aaivities such as giving birth and even dy.'xng)from personal, social, and cultural experience and presents them to us as large-scale data sets (such as statistical correlations), Such data becorrle reified as they are conveyed to us daily through media sound bites. These reifications succeed because they build on a historical tradition of other ""knowledge" such as Western religious lore and its pronouncements against sin. Tbe rclinfo~ementof our cuXtura1Imoratistltr;izditionaIistagenda with secular rationalistic support by professionals results in a kind of consensuaf fog, leading to anger against inanirnat-e objects (e.g., a drug or a cigamtte) or certain behavion (a teenager having sex),This anger, in turn, buttresses any claim, no matter how exaggerated, made about some behaviors. A power l ~ ~ g uabout ~ g estigmatized behaviors then develops.We may describe people arrested for invol-vement with drugs in a ghetto neighborhood as "hug-crazed," but we do not speak of corporate chiefs as ""profit-crazed." We hear aibottl "making-related deaths" but not about 'bverwork-related deaths" or "sports-related accidental deaths." We discuss ""sxuafly transmitted" "diseases (STDs), but we dontt often refer to illnesses as ""airbornetransmitted,'"kater transmitted," or "food transmitted." The marriage of morality and public health allows for several types of risk distortion. First, claims about health, even with litlfe empirical support, gain immediate media attention and evoke public anxiety. Yet when new or contradictory information. calls into question such fears, these latter rclports rarely have as much impa6. For example, serious questions have recently been raised as to whether the health advisaries about fat and choXestero1 have validity for the general public, Even experts who support arguments about the dangers of fat admit that diet alone may account for a mere few months' difference in life expectancy on average,"

70


Second, the language of popular health risk reifies and de-contextualizes life by universalizing a problem Even whew health data are fairly convincing on avers(%(;, \ye cannot conclude that a particular behador has the same impact on all people, because none of us is the "average" person. Once actual pi~ropleare brought back into the picture, even the most hearty moralist must pause a little before passing judgment, For example, since the factor of social class interacts with at1 behavior, it complicates ali argumem about addiction, risk, and health. In other words, much of what is described as the ill effects of unhealthy or risky. behavior may well be caused or affected by social class. For example, the vast majorie of homeless people 1 met in my study of street people in a city in northeastern America used substances (illicit drugs, aIeohol, and cig;~trt?aesf to get them throu* each day-to dull hurlger, pain, and suffering, and to pass the time more quicMy in the face of great difficulties,f) In the context of hnn3elessness oz; for that mattel; of Ive in tke innerciv, where there are few or no opportunities, it is hard to imagine how drugs or cigarelte smoke could be the major dagger to heafllr. "'Dry logic" assumes a middle-class perspective. For a ghetto resident or a street person with a low life mpectaxlcy, the adwice to avoid drugs, fatty hods, or cigarette smoking is actually questionable because the real threats ta longegty are poverty; violence, and general hardship. If anything, substances arguably buffer and mitigae these circumstances. "Dry logic" also assumes a middle-aged perspective, Media and prokssional spokespersons continually tell youngsters that ""Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" and that "'VirGnity Is Not a C)irtyWord."7 But the youlhful recipients of these dicta not only Cace a very diEerent context for sexual acti+ty but may even doubt whether they'll ever make it to middle age or have a long-term partrrel: Perhaps even more interesling is the rclsponse of elderly people ta all these health admonitions. Are we to label as "promiscuous" the many elderly people who are having ou't-of-vvedlacksex in retirelnem centess, condominirtrns, and nursing homes? Should they be worried about pmcticing safe sex or 'keducing their number of partnersn"7re they at serious risk of disease? Since temperant pronouncemen& are aimed at the young, similar queaions can be asked about the relevance of most behavioral admonitions. Is it really critical for those who are sixty-Eve or seventy to worry about smoking cigaretres or cigars or eaing fatty hods? Nor is it clear that habits h a t start when one is young are irrevocable; witness the millions of people who have given up cigarette smoking, alcohol, or drug use, usually by middle age, In short, many health and lifestyle pronouncements depend on a host of demographic factars and genetic and envlronmental wlnerabilities that are obscured by simple ""just say no'' aadGee,


71

Finally, both "'dry logic" and traditionalist moraliq de-contextualize risk by taking the person out @his or her sltucdtiun in life. For example, the smoking of tobacco is weighed against a clean bill of health (presumabty eAibited by the nonsmoker]. But the rabid attacks on smoking obscure the het that many people smoke to cope with anxiety and depression (including serious psychiatric illness), which, if they were FZOL using tobacco, might lead to even more severe psychiatric illness, to wiolence, or to sulzstitute subaances such as illicit drugs, alcohol, or prescription pharmaceuticats. Prozac, for instance, seems to help people cope with smoking cessation, a finding that suggws some undedying common chemical fnctors may be irlvafved in subdance use. But public health pronouncements accept no ""~eason"for smoking as worthy; nat for those who are terminally ill or severely upset, not for those who are grief-stricken, not h r the prisoner or the unemployed, the angry discharged worker or the bored homeless pel.son. Tt is nor only that the low life expectancy of the poor makes health pronouncements less rele-vant. Indeed, just as cigarettes are given to soldiers to steel their courage and bind their anxiety, people liv;ingon the streets and in cl-islentareas of the inner-city may rely on subs(ances wh8e trying to survive in what is essentially a war zone. "Dry logic" "depends on a model of life that assumes na anxiety, boredom, worry pain, sorrow, suffering,jay,or excitement. Rather, it regards life as a purely rationalistic utilitarian venturn. fithough this view may correspond with stereotypical Western rationalism, kve must question whether it describes anyone's reality Most certainty it does not for those peopte who are neither middle aged nor middle dass.8

Tn the remainder of this chapter I provide examples of how the universalistic judgments of ""dy logic" &-cantextualize behaGor in order to magnify risk, Although I have chosen to focus on four issues-illicit drugs, cigarette smoking, teen pregnancy; and multiple-partner sex, T believe the same tactics are true of other presentations of risk such as warnings against high-fat diets, TV violence, and pornography These tactics fall into the 1Follswingcategories: I . BlurP.i~gBoundaries: ""Drylogic" catastrophizes phenomena by

blurring the boundaries ofa problem, It categorizes human behavior in such a way as to ctusler together all activities with a vague connection and suggest only the worst possible consequences [disease, death, etc.) while at the same time including in the problem statement all possible related forms of behaGor in

7.2


order to mminzize its extent, For example, the "war on drugs" mstains its drama lhrough images aE'krazed" crack addicts who are vriolent and engage in bizarre bef-ta.viox;butt the majority of drug users who go ~o work, sleep, eat, and live altogether less dram&ic existences are rarely p ~ s e n t e dto us, Furlher, the drug Lllar is directed against all those who use any drug (including that one toke of marijuana), since the drug war seems to require a typification of wry large numbers of miscreants. 2. In2posl"lzga False Cancre&ness:Diseases, deaths, casualties, and sorrows are presented to us with the inference that only the personal misbehavior of the user has caused the pmblem-that the result cannot be etiolagically random, multicausal, or compfex, For example, heart-attack and lung-cancer deaths are classified as ""soking deaths?'if therc: is any indicaion that the deceased once smoked tobacca. Not only are these deaths thereby dissociated from other causes (occupational, environmental, accidental), but one must wander how death came to be so categ0rizc.d in the first place. Is there any one ""reason" that each of us dies?And at what age is a dedh "premature"'? 3. Falliq irrto Ecologic~fFallacies: ''Dry logif makes much of associatl'arcs,which themselves may be by-products of other facton, That is, warnings about health, safety, or well-being may mistake terrain behavioral or demographic characteridics for social class or cultural differences. Or admonitions may calf forth alarm about a behaGor when that behaGor has little intrinsically to do with the danger at hand. Two illustmtions follow First, the irnpxt of social class on life chances is usually ignored. For example, inner-city teen parents are held responsible for their own and their children's downward mobiIi~;but we are led to believe that, absent this transg~ssion(i.e., pregnancy.),both mothers and children would be affluent and healthy. Second, the identification of lIW and other sexually transmitted diseases with moral characteristics such as "promiscuity" is based on the historical tradition of finding moral wrong in disease sufferers (e.g., lepers), Humans, regardless of their behavior, have always been awed by dread disease, belie\l-ingthat someone is to blame for the disease. But truEy we are all "innocent" "vtims, Even critics of the dominant brand of morality-based AIDS and STD education tend to subaimte their own brand of beha~oraladmonitions, which associate new categories of sexttal "deviancy" with disease. 4. CrgatingJudgmentaEDupes: ""Drylogic'9reas the individual as weak, passiw, and dumb. Substances, sexual desire, and food, even tele~sionand rock music, are portrayed as all-gowerhl so that the


7.3

subject is seen as becoming "addicted" "without hawing it or as being simply incapable of managing life's risks. Of course, once the subject is troubled by addictions or unhappiness, only professional help can assisl him or her in leading a healthy life. For example, "dry ltogic"' ppresents humans, paaicularly youth and poor people, as cognitiveIy impaired. The apparent assumption: If only they had paid attention to the proper lecture, adolescents woutd not have sex or become pregnant. Overeaters would diet, cigarette smokers would quit, and tele~sionwatchers would read more books,

Blurring Boundaries: Drugs, Fear, and Trembling Just as the Temperance Movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries associated any and all drinking with inebriation, the poorhouse, prison, and the gallows, the late-mentieth-century discourse on ""dnlgs" presents a picturril of an unmitigaled evil. Conservative leaders, of course, are mast clear in their insistence that drugs are the work of the devil, Consider this staement by Wiftiam Bennetl, brmer U.S. '%mg czar": "Drugs art? the grctat lie, the Great Deceiver. . . , I've seen what I can only describe as the hce of evil. Those people who doubt there is evil ixl the world need to travel a few weeks with me on the dmg circuit."g athough media and professional imagery is less relgious in tone, it is na less fatalistic, In the 1980s and X99Oa;, if was routine to see drugs touted as the root of evils ranging from lw economic productivity to urban decline and edticatianal failure: IUegaf. drugs have become so pervasive in the U.S. workplace that they are used in almost every industw. . . . Their presence on the job is sapping the eneraPhonesy, m d reliability of the h e r i c a n fabor farce even as csmgetition from fareign. companies is growing even toughem: . . . [TIhe costs of drug abuse on the job are staggering.10

Drug abuse is at the heart of what many peopIe think has gone w o n g with b e r i c a . . . urbm blight, the destruction sf fmilies, the failure of schoals, the lass of economic productivi~.. . . The horrors of drug abuse have became depressingly familiar: crack-addicted mothers abmdaning their babies; young chadren deating drugs instead of going to school.11

One technique for sustaining the mythology of a ""drugcrisis" in this country is to lump together all substances conceivably called '6drugs9'p whatever their uses, whether casual or long term, and then to impute only the most serious eflecls' to each of them, Since studies indicate that mast drugs are not harmful to most users [as we will see later), drug warriors must manipulate the boundaries nor only tz-eerr specific drugs

74


(tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc.) and their respective dangers but also between people who are dependent on dr~xgsbut lead rewlarized lives and those whose lives are harmed by drug use (or who may harm others because of it). Only by including all '"drugs"' of all types can the '"crisis" atmosphere be maintained. For example, Rsbert DuPont, hrmer director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, assere that more people are drug dependent taday than in the past: "Never before in world history," he says, ""has so large a segment of a national population used such a large number of dependence-producing drugs,""""But this statement is probabb untrue. We h o w that Andean peasants chewed eoca leaves centuries ago, that Asian natives smoked opium from poppies for thousands of years, and that indigenous peoples throughout the Americas have always used drugs. Between 1865 and 1900 in the United Srates, at least 3 percent of the population was addicted ta morphine,ls and cocaine-a key ingredient in patent medicines m d soft drinks-was rourinefy imbibed by millions of Americans. In fact, in 1885 Parke, Davis & Company introduced coca-leaf cigars and cigarettes whose active ingredient, cocaine alkaloid, when smoked, provided the same sensation as smoking crack.14 Vet no morphine or cocaine "erisis'kccurred during this eariier period. Morphine and cocaine were legal then, and their users wem chiefly middle- and upper-class citizens. The stigrnaization of a drug thus appears to follow its association with ethnic minorities (as in the case of Chinese users of opium) and the lower classes (as when cocaine and heroin were used by poor people and racial minorities and subsequently made illegal). The lumping together of all1 illicit drugs, from cocaine and heroin to marijuana and hallucinogens, both exaggeraes the number of ''drug users'hnd allows the imputation of the most dangerous usage to the least harmfinl use, For example, despite the large publicity given to drugs like "crack," most Goitations of drug laws are for marijuana usage,ls Further, claims are no longer limited to illegd drugs. Beginning in the 19i"Os, a c t i ~ s tand s same health professionals began accusing the government of hypocrisy for not including harmful legal substances-alcohol and tobacco-in its warnings about dnxgs, The paradoxical result was that rather than liberalize punishment for use of illegal drugs (as advocated by most liberals), the New Temperance has added campaigns against legal "drugs" to its broad claims about drug use. Not ta be stopped there, many advocates suggest that large numbers of people are hooked on prescriptiorl, drugs, and some anti-drug activists believe that h e r i c a n s should be free of all substances-including even caffeine. Such csncegtual broadness leads ta hyperbole, For example, in 1983 then-Senator Dan Quayle made reference to ""5 million illegal drug


75

rtsem in h e r i c a , " while gassing over the fact that 90 percent of this total principally used rnarijuana.16 Meanwhile, expefts have categorized 20-25 million Americans as ""alcoholics,"as many as 80 million Americans as '"codependents," and more than 50 million American cigarette smokers as '"substance abusers."" bngressrnan Peter Stark, among others, argues that more emergency room sits and other health-care costs are retared to legal prescription drug problems than to other drugs, and that millions of people are ""addicted or at risk of addiction to minor tranquiXizers,""tsAnd if these numbers are not large enough, educaton and public health oft-icialshave developed the broad category of "at risk"' people, particularly youngsters, so that no person need ever ingest a drug in order to become subject to anti-drug suweitlance, Tf the wide definition of drug abuse prevention specialists is to be believed, there are probably few (if any) Americans who are neither d n ~ users g nor "at risk""of being abusers. The blurred boundaries of the drug war also provide politicat leaders and the media with the fle?iibiji~to shift the bcus of public attention from one drug to anather, from one statistical "blip" to anothel-,kvithout ever h M n g ta account for what exactly happened to the last drug '*mefgencyOFOr exmple, sociologistsJames Orc;utt and J. Blake Turner demonstrate how, in 1986, Newsweek magazine (along with other major media outlets) referred to a statistically insignificant rise in reports of cocaine use among high school seniors as an ""epidemic."" h fact, cocaine use peaked in the 19"i7s,as did the use af most other drugs; (yet this "good news" was not emphasized by Newsweek). m e n the statistics on all drug use continued to free-fall later in the 1980s and in the 1 9 9 0 ~ ~ Newsweek turned '"he good news of declining prevalence estimates . . . [into]%ad n e w k f a new drug crisis" by headlinixlg an "'alarmingristl"3n LSD use-acltlally just a statistically insignificant one-year jllrnp Erom 4.9 percent to 5.4 percent in IASDuse among high school seniors.20 The skillful use of numbers by politicians and the media suggests that the Rexibility provided by the many drugs of the '"drug crisis" has been Irelpfut in fueling the anti-drug campaign, because otherkvise '6success" would have to be admitted and the ""war" metaphor weakened. Nor is there much scientific justiiicatiorl for lumping all itlegaf. drugs together or for grouping all illegal drugs with legal drugs, Some may suggest that a physical addictive process supports such classifications. &though it is clear that some heavy users of alcohol, cocaine, or tobacco become physically addicted, there is no evidence that drugs such as marijuana, PGR solvents, and hallucinogens are physically habit-forming. Moreover, a majorify of users of all substances seem not to become physicaify addicted to the drug. IS if the change in consciousness that critics of drug use object to? Some have arwed that what we really fear

76


about drugs is their ability to alter our sense of logical time and space, k t even if this argument works Ear hallucinogens or cocaine, i cerrainly does not support lumping tobacco with "drugs," nor does it explain why we don" campaign againsl psychoactive medications, including the new "wonder" anti-depressants, given that these medications are claimed to produce personality changes.21 "'Urugs,'?then, may have nothing in common with one another, mcept h r our beliefs about tbem-&at Cerald Klerman calls Americans' "pharmacologicd Cal~nism."Klerman points out that in America, if "a drug makes you feel good, it must be morafly bad," "nce it violates theological views of salvation through "good works" '&her than through pleasure. Hence, he argues, many Americans resent even the use of medications to treat depressed or otherwise troubled psychiatric patients rather than having them '"work out" their problems through therapy or some other form of secular redemption.2"~ubstances that originate in the natural world (marijuana, tolbacco, opium poppies) could be grouped with fuods, such as coffee and chocolate (both of which are extracted from plants). And chemically produced substances such as LSD and Brozac, as well as over-the-counter medications, could be grouped together, It is only our political, srategic construction that unites these mry diverse "drugs." We h e r i c a n s subscribe not only to ""parmacologicaI Cal~nism"but also to what C. Reinarman and his associates have called a ""plarmoeconomic determirrism.""2 That is, we seem to belie-ve, or have been Xed to believe, that all zlsers of substances turn. into "addicts." Casual use is often equated with long-term use, whereas addiction is assumed to occur despite evidence that even the most demonized drugs are not physically habit forming. 'fyyically, the mosl fear-inducing headlines are about olze-time or experimental use of a substance. Printed within the borders of an, exaggerated spiked graph in the Newsweek issue critiqued by Orcutr and Turner is the phrase 'K Coke Plague," "followed by a caption reading "Within the next 2 years, more than 20 percent of highschool seniors may have tried cocaine." h addition to the altered graph drawn by Newsweek% artists, the failure of the predicted number to reach 20 percent, and the vague rclference to students who 'knzczyhave tried cocaine," note that the big scare here is about kids ha.ving ever fried cocaine, as if experimentd use could constitute an epidemic."^^ Like opium in the late nineteenth century, heroin in the 1 9 2 0 ~ mari~ juana in the 19303, and hallucinogens in the 1 9 6 0 ~""eacY ~ cocaine is now the demon drug. Described as "instantaneously addictive" and as the ' h o s t addiaive drug on earth," it has been made to shoulder the blame for almost ali the social problems of the 2980s and 1990s. According to M. Fitlco: "Crack makes users aggressive, violent, and paranoid.


77

. . .As one young mother who had sold her baby for crack explained, 'This drug will make you do anything, Therepsnowhere it won'l m a k you goe"Q25~fevidence suggests that most crack users do nag became addicted to the substance, Recent studies in support of this canclusion report the bll~wingfindings: * 4'Approximatelyone in six users of crack becomes addicted,"""" * "The data from suweys, self-selected user studies, and dinical *

* *

*

studies . . . proGde no eddence that cocaine in any form has a high addictive liabiliq or that an epidemic is under way,"zl "Despile the aaribution of many deaths to cocaine and crack, a careful study ofthe official government reports and available medical literature found that none of these deaths (inthe first half of 1986)could be confirmed,'QB "1 esearchers found no e.viidencethat crack is instantly addictive or violence inducing, arld that the percentage of users who get in trouble with crack is about the same as with other drt~gs.?'zg "One could also conclude that only 3%ofrhose between 18 and 25 who ever tried the drug (cocaine]fell inta this category [problem users] and that only 10% of those who used cocaine monthly wem at risk."30 "The estimate that there are now one million cocaine addicts sugg e s a~ one in thirv chance of addiction to cocaine through experimentation*"31 "

Wt-rether there is statistical validity in spe"k"ing of only 3 percent of users, or whether 20 pel-cent of users become "addicted," is really unknowable-in part because we are dealing with a stignlaized arld illegal aclivity. The key point is that most experts do agree that, despite the hype, there is nothing ""istantly addictive" about drugs, including the much -vif ified "crack." Even among the smaller number of people who do become "drug dependent," the catastrophization of drug use is unsupported. Most ''addicts" are not violent, nor do they behaw bizarrely Studies suggest that most addicts are able to go about their daily activities. For instance, Reinarman and his associates bund that despite all the media claims of lost produdivity, many heavy cacairle users reported that drug use enhanced their work-for instance, by allovciing them increased pmductiviry and tolerance far overtime."2 Faupel and aockars3 study of heroin addicts found that "most worked in conventional jobs, . . . performed household and child rearing tasks, [and engaged in] feisurr: activities and . . . altogether unl.emarkab1erpkbeviorr,s3 And a sttzdy by Phitlipe Bourgeois found that crack users managed their schedules so as to be

78


more active users on weekends but less active users during the work week.34 None of the bregaing is meant ta minimize the harm that some drugs do to some people, Overall, however, the boundasy blurring and catastrophization of drug use obscurcls morcl than it elucidates. Peele argues persuasively that it is '"pseudo-science" to see murder, the&, or prostitution as resulting from drugs: "It is a mark of naivet6-not science-to mistake the bekavior of some dntg users with the pharrrracologicd effects of the drug.""" He also notes that drugs%eha~orrxfeffects are linked to culti~ral interpretation. In many societies, drug use is not considered to be . the cultural interpretation causative of viiotencc:or aberrant b e h a ~ o rBut in the United States has always been that vriolence, aggression, hostililty; and so forth can be explained by the use of, say, alcohol, Provocatively; Peele implies that it is the cufl\lr,?llegitimacy of the claim of dmnlcenness (i.e., the claim made by wife beaters and other assailants that they behaved as they did ""because they w r e druny), not the chemical properties of drugs like alcohol, that accounts for America's use of the addiction paradigm as an explanation for a11 sorts of behaTI-isr.36 Finaly, the totaiization of drug use as evil obscures the situcttians in which people seem to seed dn~gs.J. Wenningfield of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) notes that 90 percent of the Vietnam veterans hooked an heroin were able to ""kick their habits once free of the strctss of ba~le."37This finding supports the argument that drugs (including cigarettes) often serve to ease stress and fear in dangerous circumstances and, hence, are frequently used by socially victimized groups as welt as by young people.

False Concreteness:The "SmokingDeath" 11' government officials, health-care professionals, and other opinion makers have exaggerated the eBects of drug use to "scare them strai&tPP3 conjuring up visions of vfolence, crisninalie, and addiction, the "Cigarette-Speak""ofthe late tliiventieth century minces ewn fewer words. Very simply; cigarerres are equaed with death: Cigarette exports are disease, disabilit-y;and death.38 No drug can rival [the cigmettel; . . . the cwnage perpetuated by its purveyors; the merciless irl-eversibility of destiny once the Gctim contracts lung cmcer or emphysema. . . . [DleatFzis in a cigaretfg.39

I do not suggest that the repeated ingestion of tobacco through srnoking, with particles and chemicats passing through one's throat and lungs, is healthy The ill effects of this stlbstarlce were known soon after Sir Waler Raleigh introduced it to England and, as culturd critic Richard


79

Uein notes, "probably by every schoolboy when they take up smoking to begin with." "at constitutes ideology in contemporary anti-smoking messages is, first, the insistence (against the weight of evidence) that cigarmes are always a kilkr rather rllan a potential health risk (a distinction that is morc: than just rhetorical, akin to charging that all gun owners are murderers or that all those with swords will cut themselves) and, second, the refusal to acknowledges tot>accoPspyositive benefits for the many people whose lives are actually enhanced by it (and who, if denied access to tobacco, might replace it with substances or actiaties posing equal or greater risks to their health). The health case against smoiacing should be stated as follows; 'Cantinuous, long-term, h e a v cigarette smoking over many years n3ay lead to illness and disease." Yet in the 3_9"i"s,particularly under the leadership of then HEW Secretary foseph Ctilifano, in the anti-smoking campaign, health warnings became marked by a statistical head count of "excess deaths" "(and, more recently, 'kmoking deaths"")attributed annually to the smoking of cigarettes. CW are constantly bombarcfed with concrete figures-3l4,OOQ deaths in 1980,395,000in 1985,500,OQOin 1992,and so forth (intercsstingly, the numbers have risen as smoking has dedinedlleading us to conclude that between a fifth and a quarter of all deaths are ""eaused by smoking,""" These figures are then broken down state by state, county by coune, and so on, such that deaths (at least from smoking) appear to be a known quaintiw at1 tied up in a scientific package, But such statistics, as Peter Bel-ger puts it, are "a hncifinl cambination of epidemidow and econome-trics,"""reflecting both txy~lerboleand the use of science as a political weapon. First, since we all die eventually the meaning of ""excessdeaths" i s unclleal: Even in an age when (paradoxically for temperance warriors) life-expectancy figttres have been rising rapidly, such figures arc: only awrages. That is, none of us is gt~aranteed a long life simply because some people are Si~nguntil the age of ninety or nineq-five, If we use such a standard, men, for example, could make a political issue out of their significantly lower life expectancy than women. In any case, regardless of whether we smoke, drink alcohol, or eat right, some of us will die "young" for a varieq of genetic, chance, or environmental reasons that we may or may not be able to infiuence. The anti-smoking war applies to diseases whose causes are multiple or unknom a quantitative concreteness that would be appropriate to events like wars (which, after all, permit ac't-ualdeath counts). The modern industrial era has seen a dramatic increase in diseases h a ~ n g less identifiable causes such as cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Death certificates, of course, do not list ""soking" as a cause of dealh, as even the most cl-irulent opponent of smoking knows, because they cannot link individual cases of heart disease or cancer to smoking. Wet, by attriburirlg a percentage of cancer, heart disease, empbsema, and even fire-related


R0

deaths to smoking (55,000 or one in seven ""soking deaths" in in985 were the result of fire), government and health officials are making a political statement. Thus, for instance, a percentage of, say, the lung-cancer deaths of blue-collar workers who smoked (even for only a part of their lives) are deelared to be ""soking deaths""even when the work settings, living conditions, environment, genetic makeup, and other circum-nces of these workers may have contributed to or been the "cause" of their deaths, A percentage of the deaths of people who art? poor and exposed to the elements, inadequate nutrition, and harsh environmental and living conditions are also termed ""soking deaths." The classification of many fire deaths as '"making relaecf" is a ppslitical choice as well, placing responsibility on smokers and $re victims rather than on, say, landlords who have neglected to install w o k e detectors or sprinklers or have failed to anend to electrical systems. In the social construction of risk and death, someone now must take the blame in ollr society: But who is it to tze"tonsider the smoker who is distrtrcted while drivlng because she is looking far a match, but whose car has poor brakes because of a, dekct in the vehicle: Should W exonerate the auto company and blame the smoker for her death in the event of a fatal cmsh? The New Temperance statistiealty blames the smoker in this instance. 11:seems to do so whenever a possible link between t~baccoand misfortune can be found. Opposition to cigarette smohng is politicafly easy and noncontroversial. As Douglas and WiIdasky noted in relation to the politics of risk, leaders can deflect &tention from their w n inabiliq to satis@ sig-nificant economic and social human needs by developing consensual sources of pollution and defilement." Republican administrations engage in this practice: h 1990, !Secretary of Heath m d Humm S e ~ c e sSdivm ] is m&ng m impassioned anti-tobacco speech, while his boss [George Bush] is trading off e n ~ o n m m t reforms d in Congress to we&en the law, . . . In an administration that has been faulted h r not vigorously addressing problems of the inner-city; its minister of health and weXX being seeks to mobilize indignation of the citkenq against the tradition&lutlury of the poor [thecigarettel.43

Demacratic leaders do so, too: Congressman Wmmen [former CangressionaI Committee chair and a fervent mti-smoker) may not be able to do much else about the living canditisns of people in his fine city of Los Angeles . . . and Robert Reich [Glinton's secretary of labor] may be at a loss on haw to improve the tabor conditions of the h e r i c a n woAer, but when it comes to smoking, Mr. Wamen is as ri&teaus as he is polite, m d Mr. Reieh is as principled as he is t&."44


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The false concreteness of the cigarette = death equation contains several logical fallacies. First, as with any product or substance, the danger of tobacco is subject to amaunt, just as many products that are "goodFp for you can kill you if overconsumed. In the case of cigaretle smoking, it is assumed that the poor addict is trapped Cram the time of his first puff until his death from a two- or three-pack-a-day habit. But this assumption is not valid. Many people smoke art occasional cigarerte, many people smoke for a while and quit, and many people smoke only when under personal strain or in times of crisis.45 Even the many people who do '"cluit" mokirzg, it turns out, have occasional cigarettes wir-hout necessarily returning to the habit, Further, given that more than 40 million Americans have quit: smoking since the Surgeon General's report of 1964 (most ~ t h o uany t professional assistance), the inevitability of addiction is questionable. Nar is there evidence that smokng a small number of cigarettes over many yean is harmful. Scientists do not even agree as to how many cigarettes "cause" cancer or heart disease or combine with other predispositions to possibly lead to these illnesses. A second problem with the catastraphizing of tobacco smoking is that even if the g~vernment'sstatistical extrapolations are accurate, most smokers will not die from ""smoking-relateci"causes. Some figures indicate that mo-thirds of those who smoke a pack of cigarettes or more a day do not die of s m o k i n g - a t deadzs (as broadly defined as they areI.46 W Kip Viscusi, an expert on risk assessment, a r p e s that most h e r i t - a m have an exaggerated sense ofrisk of getting lung cancer from smoking becaitse of W a the publiciq.47 The lung-cancm numbers themselves are not dramalic. Gintzcll, the anti-smoking physician quoted previously says that smoking risks may combine to create as much as a one-in-ten chance of geltkg lung carlcer; others cite a 5 percent fignre.48 Fmln an epiderniological perspective, these are indeed high numk;lers,but they are still a Ear cry from the way cigarette smoking has been p ~ s e n t e dto the public, as if evesy person who ever ligh%up is kiiling him- or herself! Another troubling aspect of "'Cigarette-Spear is that it confuses correlations based on stnokers ~ 4 t hdata about smoking, Since people are nor tab rats, mperiments isol&ing our vasious behaviors from real tife cannot be conducted, The only way scientists can study the impact of tobacco on humans is to use correlational data that compare cigarette smokers with nonsmokers, This is done through a computer program called Smoking ARributable Morbidiy, Mortality, and Economic Cost (SAMMEC),which is based on assumptions, called smoking attributable Practions (SAFs),about each putative smoking-retatect disease."g Several issues need to be addressed here, however, First, we do not h o w how people are classified, since smoking status is fluid (some people are oc-

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casional smokers, some are continuous long-term heavy smokers, some are episodic heavy smokers, etc.). Second, since the causes of ilfnesses such as cancer or heart disease are not certain, nor are these illnesses necessarily tlnicausal, we cannot mliably &"libute any disease or death to cigarette smoking. Government officials often cite an American Cancer Society study of its membership that compares smokem with nonsmokers, but this study, in addition to being dated, is based '"rimarily on amuent, uvhite, Protestant, urban, married, college graduates not exposed to hazardous environments or occupations" and thus, on the whole, is "not a valid cross-section of Americans,"%) Even a more randomized study population of smokers and rzonsmokers would entail a large number of conhuxlding problems. For example, smokers compared to nonsmokers are (I) largely from lower- and warking-class backgrounds, and more likely to be downwardly mobile than upwardly mobile; 42) less educated on average; 43) more prone to depression and other psychological illnesses; (4) more likely to be div o ~ e d(51 ; more likely to engage in other risky behaviors such as drinking, taking drugs, being ""impulsive," and being sexually active; and 16) less likely to wear seat belts.51 Such confounding factors undermine the rctliabiliv of ali statistical projections, including the smoking attributable fractions noted previoudy Recall that some staristics suggest that 10 percent of smokers but only 4 percent of nonsmokers die of lung cancer: W do not know how much of this difference is due to smoking itserand how much i s due to the poor nutrition, toxic en~ronments,inadequate health care, and severe stress besetzing poor and working-class smokers. Nor do we k n w how much of the difference is due to the pl.esence of hazardous products m d materials at the workplace, how rnllch is due to differemial genetic predispositions, and how much is due to some combination of these various behaviors and enGronmental factors, Our medical knowledge of heart ailments is probably even less clear than our understanding of cancer etiology, We do& b o w if a heart atack in a sixty-five-year-old man who drank alcohol ihea~tyand was depressed (but atso a smoker) can be artributed to smoking. It is possible that a '"cause" of the heart atlack was stress or a combination of genetic predisposition, heavy alcoholt use, and depression, or a combination of still Mher factors, Conversely, it is possible that smoking helped this man cope with the stress of unemployment or divarce*Watecrer the proposed explanation, the problem with these statistics is that they confuse correlations about people with correlations about behaviors, The temperance paradigm assumes that the substance or the behavior is causative of a problem-for example, that the "rotten weed" causes death or illness, But if it is true that many smokers are depressed or psy-


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chologically troubled or undergoing stress because of their class slams or personal problems (such as divorce), we must also acknowledge that, for many people, cigarette smoking mediates these stressors, This issue has come to the fore in studies of schizophrenic: and depressed psychiatric patients who are dispropoflionately heavy cigarette smokers, Experts have found that smoking improves patients"'under1ying psychopathology by enhancing concentration and redirecting discomfbrt," reducing anxiety, diminishing the side effecs of medication, and easing Parkinsonian symptoms.5"TE-xese experts have speculated that cigarettes brirlg about an anti-depressant effect '"lfirorrgh the modulalion of d~pamine.~'"" If it is true, then, that people are "%If-medicating"with tobacco (there is extensive e ~ d e n c suggesting e that illicit drugs and alcohol are used in this way as well), what happens if they are prevented from smoking? "It all depends," says Alemnder Glassrnan, a Columbia I_fniversil;ypsychiatrist. Classman goes on to explain "that people who are 'psychiatric casuattieskf smoking cessation coftld, at the very worst, commit suicide, while in the throes of a depressive episode."s" That substance substitution is a common kvay to deal with underlying problems is also supported by evidence Pforn studies demonstrating that many addicted people obtain abstinence only by "adqtirtg other compulsions" ".geg,,they stop drinking and staf-l.smoking or vice versa),^^ as well as from studies of psychopharmaeologists who haw successfully treated people addicted to illicit drugs by switching them to psyehoactive drugs,sc Even for those who are not depressed or troubled, cigarette smoking has notable benefirs as well as negative health effeas: It is frequently used to I'acifitate weight loss, to aid concentration, and to reduce anxiety and aggression levels, Cigarette smokers have allso been shown in studies to be more sociable, to have better memories, and to be mort: efficient at many tasks than their nonsmoking counterparts.57 Rather than insisting on abstinence from illicit drugs and cigarettes, government officials c ~ u l ddevelop a strateg of harm reduction that would allow people to benefit from nicotine, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs, while minimizing the ill effects. One observer, Ronald Siegai, makes exactly this point. Calling all dmg use our "'fourth drive" "&er hunger, thirst, and sex) and describing it as a natural part of our biolol5y, he asks: If "former drug czar Williarn J. Bennett can switch from smoking tobacco to chewing nicotine gum, why can? crack users chew a cocaine gum that has already been tested on animals and found to be relatively safe?"%Unfortunately; hovvemr, the politics of both smoking and drugs, along with the moralism of "dry logic," pecludes the ilnplementarion of harm-~drrctionsrategies (such as effofis to make tobacco use safer) that would probably also be more efficient than continually ""searing the bqeezus out uP people"w 'hti cigarette = de&h warnings.59


Reversing Cause and Effect? The Teen Pregnancy "Problemp' At first gance, it is difficult to understand why teen pregnancy became such a concern in the 1980s and 1990s. Teen pmgnmey actually peaked in 195L and the birthrate of teens has been dectining ever since.co Moreover, the healr[tlrisks that very young girls experience in pregnancy cannot be the key rc;rason for concern since only 2 percent of teen mothers are under fifteen, years of age, whereas more than two-thirds of "teen" parc3rrts are eighteen or nin~een-not a noraMy young age to give birth &am a biological, historicd, or cross-cultural perspeclive." The idea of '"children h a ~ n childred-does g not really jibe with the facts eitchel; inasmuch as only one in se-verrteen pregnancies acttratly involves parmers still in school; indeed, the girl is often of post-high school age, and the male gartnex; ewn more often, is in his twenties.62 Teen prewaxlq is not so much a heal& hazard, then, as an issue embodying the following potent symbols; (1)yauthkl femde sewaliv, (2) nonmarital sex (a major change in the last thit-tyyears has been the rise in "out-of-wedlock""births], and (3) race, class, and povert3r; In this sense, teen pregnancy is the modern equivalent of the "fallen woman" of the nineteenth century, a symbol that motivated the Social Puriq Movement (seeChapter 2).h before, fernale sexuality is held to be running rampant, destroying the lives of families and chifctren, leading to poverm ruin, m d irnmoraliry;Neither consewative nor liberal absewers hide their moralistic perspective on this matter: 25: w s once c d e d "bastardy.' Then Wegitimacy.Then. bout-of-wedlock bir~h.' And, now frequently, whoXty sanitized, "non-marital birth.' matever, it's callled, litbat the root of our social problems. . . . [Mlore voluntary ouf-ofwedlock birth yieIds more dependency; more welfare, less parent& control, Mrhich yields more crime, h g s , unemployment m d poor education.@

Girls termed 'sexudy active"&ait has wplaced the word "rorniscuiw\ . . [Nloone seems to mention mordiv as playing a p a t in the subject of sex- Is all the Judeo-Christiantradition wong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be Looked upon as [a]purely physicd t b g ? m 1 don't Like to put this in moral terms, but 1 do berlieve that having a child out of wedlock is just wong.65 25: is parents and reasonable add&who are left to literdy counter the culture, ta do cambat ~ t the h incessant messages nof mainstream films, music, t.x---the conglomerate known as Hsllyood-as best we cm. . . .Et will take iiU their [media] creati\rity to make a successful pitch against irrespansibke sex m d teen pregnmcry;tjG


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Although the i m p a s of the teen pregnancy "crisis'9s morality, yarticulady the increase in out-of-wedlock births and female-headed households since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, political leaders, media spokespeople, and social science researchws are generally more comfoflable arguing against teen sexucrliq and pregnancy from a ""sienistic" prspective, again using correlational data. Teen parenting is presented as a form of economic and social suicide. Like eigaretles arld dnxgs, teen pregnancy is statisically correlated with everything negative, from poverty and child abuse to drugs and gang membership: Teen mothers, 70%)of whom are unmarried, are likely to end up impoverished m d dependent, ill-equipped far motherhood, These teens are likely to rear children who themsetves end up trapped in the same mire of dependency.67 Children sf children are less healthy and more abused than children of oIder parents. They're more likeity to drop out of sehooI, become dmg addicts and move into a life sf crime. Two-thirds of teenage mothers aren't mmried. Most gang members a e the children of single nsotl-rers.~;~

Like dmgs and cigarettes, the isslle of teen pregnancy has been cabstrophized and mismpresented as a '*crisis.'"ut there is reason to believe that many of the economic and social sequelae of teen pl.egnancy reflect a reversal of cause and effect, That is, since young paremhood is a class- and race-linkd. phenomenon, the correlations that social scientists drakv between teen pregnancy and a host of social problems may he PaXIacies, as they are likely to be artifacts of low social-ctass membership, pwertyf and racial differences. To accurately compare the impacts of any beha.\riors or actions, one requires comparable human actors and en~ronments,But the average age at vvhich sexual activiq is initiated, as welt as the age of parenting, has historically varied by social class and racial and ethnic background. As several studies (irlcludingcross-nalional ones) have shown, the lower the social class, the higher the rates of dlildbearing at younger ages.69 This fact has been publicly bemoaned in Western society since Thornas Malthusfs writings in the eighteenth century Congance Nahanson points out that prior to about two decades ago, the association among "illegitimacy" "(as it was then called), poverty, and the need -forbirth control was openly made. Even in the 1960s, the issue was not so much "teen pregnancy'hs one involving the birthrate of poor people and blacks, In her provocative book Dangerous Pmsagef Nathanson argues that, ironically, it was the very success of the civil righls mowemem and some liberal legislatiun (such as family planning) that created a false universalism about teen pregnancy: ""]he emergence in the 19700s of

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%dolescent pregnancybs the dominant metaphor for women" problematic sexual behavior was due in part to the success of birth control advocates in blurring the distinction betliiveen the 'acceptable' sexual behavior of young women who were white and middle class and the hnnacceptable' sexual behavior of women who wert? poor and 131ack."?Q Because birth control, sexuality, and pregnancy wem now to be discussed as mainstream, universal" "sues &hoseugly words rme and elms werr: not to be mentioned), the fact that: a vast majority of teen mothers have always been poor is obscured and, strangely, presented as an @fleet of teen pregnancy. A typical example of such a contradiction c m be fomd in the rhetoric of Marian Wight Edelrnan, president of the Children's Defense Fund. Edelman asserts that teen pregnancy is 'kepidemic: among all races and classes of h e s i c a n youth," But only paragraphs later, she notes that tactually most teen parclnls are poor, and that black teens are five times mare likely than white teens to give birth. She also cites a study comparing single p r under twenv-five with yotrrlg women under r\rveng-livewho have no children and finds (rctmarkably?) that the single parents are nine times more likely to be poor? There are two important fallacies in implying a causeieEea relationship here. First, no one would dispute that, given American social policy (i.e., the lack of family allowances and universall child-care policies as well as the low wages for women and for young workers generally), a woman raising a child alone will be poowr than a single woman. Yet it is not clear that this observation makes a case against teen parenting. A thirty- or forty-year-oldsingle mother &so will be poorer than her childless c o u n e q m s , So it is not a frtnction of teen pregnancy or chddrearing itself tl-ratan eighteen- to menty-one-year-oldwoman with a high school degee or less is likety to make only the minimum wage or a bit better to suppo'l herself and her child(ren). Second, most affluent girls and young women either avoid pregnancy alrogeher or avoid childbirth (through abortion) or dzildrcaring [d.irou& adoption]. Once these women are excluded from our analysis, we have a primarily aMuent sample being compared with a significantly poorer one, It should come as no surprise that, as time goes by, these middle- to upper-class women will increase their income even Eu'lher relative to that of poor young women. Thus the data reveal nothing mare than that the child of, say a manual laborer will on average make less money than the child of a physician! The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that 85 percent of children born ta teens are born to low-income women.72 MOEQV~X; early childbearing has long been a cultural nvrxrl in the Mrican-Axnericm comtnunity.73 Hence it appears that the statistics about teen pregnmcy show only that the rate of ~nostsocial pmblems are correlated with social class, In other words, crime drug addiaion, heatth problems, psychiatric depression, child abuse, and school dropout rates correlate with social class, not


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with the act of teen childrearing,The earlier quote suggesting that " "joost gang members are the children of single mothersW7"eflects, in all probabi1i"cy;a class correlation to the effect that all poar children are statistically more likely to become gang mernbws than middle-class kids (whether they have two paents or a mother- or father-headed fmily, and whether parented by a teen or not), Similarly, Cynthia Tucker's n&on that the "children (ofteen parents1 . . . end up trapped in the same mire of dependencyn75can also be applied (if one wishes to subscribe to this dture-ofpover;fylanpage) to the children of any family in poor areas, Their statistical chance of escaping poverfy (in this era, at leaslf is quite small. As with many other social problems, the teen pregnancy "crisis" is in part a product of the middle class's view of the poor. As Charlotte IAow Allen has put it: Adolescent chsdbearing is a phenomenon of the poor a d the very poom; of young wamen who grow up early and look their best when they are young, have little interest in higher education, do not see themselves as having careers and live in communitieswhere health starts deteriorating quickly The "'oppormniq cosas"-foregone earnings potential-of having a child early are close to niI, and life expectanq is short . . . [Quotingresearcher Arliine Geronornius:j People project on paar teenagers what a middle-class teenager wodd want-going to the senior prom, getting into the best colIeges.76

In other wrds, it makes more sense for a young middle-class girl to sta?, in s h o d and prijpare for college or other career opportunities than to leave school to have a chitd.77 By way of contrast, researchers are finding that for young girls or women sf the lower classes, the foflokving advanta$es may accrtle to early childbearing arld childrearing as a strateu:

* The lowest earning capacities for young women exist when they are young, allowing intensive parenting demands to coincide with a period when they have kwest employment oppo~unities.Moreove~; since young poor women are usually isolated in law-paJ(.ing jobs, they lose little earrrirlg capacity by taking time off for childbirth and chitdrearing. * In many poor csmmunities, particularly those in which Africanb e r i c a n s yredoxnixlate, the greatest access to free child-care assiaance from relatives occurs when the mothers are young. Since young mothers stilf sometimes live in extended families with high mortality rates and poar health, their access to nemorks of kin supporl and child care is likely ta be better when yomger, * From the physiological standpoint of both mother and child, early motherhood-assuming that adequate prenatal care is availablem q be hedthier than delaying parenting because many medical

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problems associaed with poverty (e.g., lead levels in blood, stressrelated diseases) increase with age, Age also increases the chances that vriolence, suicide, substance use, AIDS, tuberculosis, or other diseases will affect the mother, the male partner, or the child. * The whole specter of lift: in poverty areas r e i n h ~ ethe s draegy of young parenting both as a survival tactic and as a way of securing some pleasure from life, In an environment where there are few maniageabite males, where divorce and separation rates are high, unemployment is rampant, and life expectancy is lowpthe "need" to wait is often not clear to poor kids.78 I am not arguing that there are no tragedies in IOW-incomecsrnmunities where babies are abandoned, abused, or neglected because they were unwanted or because environmental or psy~holagicalprclssures simply became too great on families, including young mothers. But many of the reasons for these problems should be blamed on our social policies and social stmaure. As argued earlier with rctspect to dmgs and cigarettes, it is easier to place the blame with personal hehavior than with structural or cultural issues, As one critic suggests: "The poor gat poorer in the Reagan-Bush years, k t it was far more convenient fur Washington policy-makers to blame young women for the teen pregnancy rate than. to blame themselves, Teenage girls make perfect scapegoats. For one thing, they have no political clout."79 As with other temperance issues, the consensus arnang liberals, conservatives, media spokespersons, and social scientists on the problem staement (i.e., that teen pregnancy causes almost every conceivable problem, particularly high school dropout rates, poverty, and wethre dependency) obscurcls contrtrdictory evidence that teen parenting may nut lead to significant long-&rm problems. Far example, one of the few Isngitrxdinal studies comparing poor black women over time wfth one itnotJ2er (rather than with middle-class women) has shown that there were few negative long-term consequences assaciated with early childbirth. Although same women were indeed disadvantaged in the short term, a substarltiaf majoriq of teen moms in the study cohort finished high school and found regular employment. Moreover, those vvho had been on welfare were usually off within a period of years-m A series of smdies by Arline Ceronomius and her colleagues at the University of Michigan has focused on similar within-cohofl groups, comparing, for example, teen mothers with their sisters who delayed childreatring, These studies, too, found only minimal differences in economic standing, education, and earners between those who had children eariy and those who waited.8' Another study has b a n d that, contrary to the conventiorlal wisdom that one of the key risks of teen pregnancy is dropping


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ollt of school, mosl teens who got pregnant were already out of school, In sho~t,the greatest predictor of completing high school successfully was not whether a teen got pregnant but, rather, kvhether she was having trouble in school or preparing to drop out of school to begin ~ t h , @ Discussing teen pmgrtancy as "a trip down the economic scale to poveay"83 or in terms of "resist ling] the messages of rap lyrics and the bullying of peers . . . to prepare for sweess mher than setde for pregnancy and povew'" must seem like ""jive" to ppaor kids whose chances of '"success" are not very high, whether they are mothers or not. Given the long flisrory of teen sexcta1il-yand young childbearirrg in many poor coxnmtlnities, and the lack of "moraf panic" in some European nations where teen sexuality.is high,gs I suggest that the moralistic "just say no" mmpaigns in Arrlerica echo a mrsion of the old Socillt Purity campaigns, which also targeted the imrnoralily of the poor as a key cause of social ills.

Science as Morality: The "Multiple-Partner"Risk Young people must be toXd the tm at the best way ta avoid MDS i s to rekain front saual actidly until as adaltts they me ready to mtabliskr a mutudy fai&M monogmous relatiansMp, -Joint statement by Swretal~yaf Education Wmim Bennett and Surgeon.Generd Everet*Koopne Et firs MreXZ b a r n that a ntutrtdly fdthhl relationship is the best mems of preventing [HW] infectiorr.

In the late 1970s and early 1 9 8 0 the ~ ~ AIDS epidemic reillforced an already growing movement in the middle class to call a h& to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.As Susan Sontag has kvritfen: There is a broad tendency in our eufture, an end-of-an-era feeling that AIRS is reinforcing, an exhaustion for many? sf purely secular idealsideds &at seemed to encourage libertinism or at Least not provide a y eoherent inhibition against them----inwhich the response to AIDS finds its place . . . part of a larger grateful retwn to what is perceived as ""cnverrtions" . ., , the reduction of the imperative of promiscuity in the middle class, a growth of m ideal of monogmy, of a prudent sexual life.88

Indeed, seience-as-ideology came to structure the AIDS crisis; but it could do so only because of puMtic receptiveness. Behre AIDS, the media werc: a l r e a e eumpeting the end of the sexual volution, which they kvould repeatedly do each year since 1980. In that year Time magazine, for example, declared that hewes had ended the sexual revolution

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in an article entitled "The New Sexuat Leprosy": "The herpes counterrevolution may be ushering in a reluctant, grudging chastity back into fashion. . . . [Plerhaps not so unhappily, it may be a prime mover in helping to bring to a close an era of mindless promiscuity. . . . (Fforall the distress it has brought the troublesome little bug may inadvefiently be ushering in a period in which sex is linked mare firmly ta commitment and trust."@" m a t is mod interesting is the easy suppog for such moralism in the scientific community as well as among political leaders, Throughout the AIDS crisis, a wide varieq of temperance warriors have called far abstinence and monogamy, as well as sometimes repressive actions, against gays, bisexuals, and prostitutes under the rubric sf public health supported by the netv "16,s-Speak"' concerning sex with "multiple partners." AS noted in Chapters 2 and 3, science's claim to a neutral stance separate from the dominant morality has always been weak. It was only a while ago that experts began moving away from warnings about the harms of masturbation, And for hundreds of years many physicims and experts promoted an intentional policy of "qphiXophobiar' in wMrlcich (despite the availability of treament axld prophylactics) moralism was dispensed along with medicine, Theador Rosenberg, a medical historian writing ten years before the appearance of AIDS, captured tlie dominant medied paradigm far diseases associaled with sex: ""ltthe absence of anything better to tell the young, we keep rclpeating the old injunction against sex before or outside marriage. . . . [Ttt is a legacy tracing back to Puritanism, to a doctrine of original sin and beyond. "The idea has no roots in hygiene or in a howled@ of human behavior. Maybe for that reason . . . the prohibition has never worked."~~ Historians of disease point out that it is humanshneed to construct meaning that transforms microbes into moral or political entities, As human evolutionary progress halted the earlier ability of microbes to spread from person to person far more easily than today; sexual contact gradually developed as one of very k w ways for ceaaift diseases to spread, (Rosenberg notes, for example, that humans' adoption of clothing, settlement in less dense quarters, and improved sanitation cut off some routes of disease transmission,) Nthaugh the decreased ability of disease to spread is hardly consolation for those who have suffered the impacts of sexualfy transmitted diseases, it is important to keep in mind that there is nothing intrinsic about sex acts fortypes of sex acts or num bers of sex acts) that bmeds disease. Nor, overali, does sexual cantact appear to be the major route far most baeterial or viral disease transmission. Even though more germs are spread by the simple act of breathing, our lack of interest in this mundane a c t i ~ r yof life premnts us from developing a category of "breath-transmitted diseases."


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Despite this rather dry scientific reality, plagues and epidemics generate panic, causing us to develop a m o d accounling b r them that is almost allways a variant on the biblical ""Sdom and Gomorrah""theme* Humans often attribute disease not to microbes but to their own actions: blasphemy, religious disbelief (recall that Jews and Moslems were blamed for the Black Death), witchery and sorcery; the immigration of despised hreignem, or the habits of the poor, As Douglas and Wildavsky note, the modern construction of causation is not terribly different from that of tribal people, since we impute immoraXify as the cause of suffering and urnally try to erect boundaries between the "norrnal" and the '*deFlled."glAs Simon Watney puts it, the geneml public '*isheld to be threatened by the 'leakagekof HIV infection, which, like nuclear fallout, is widely and errorleously perceived to be everywhere abollt us,""s" In the nineteenth century, cholera was b l m e d on dnxnkenness and tubel-ctllssis was connected to the '"miasma" of the poor (the air was said to be contaminated in the impoverished areas of the cities). More recently, AIRS has been b l m e d on sinners of one sort or another (the sexually immoral, drag users, etc.) or on racial and ethnic minorities (Haitians, the urban underclass, etc.). Sociologists Stephen Murray and Kennerlr Payne argue that if HlVIA1DS had not initially been discovered in the gay ghettos of the mdor cities, the ""promiscuity paradigm," as they call it, would not have taken hold as an explanation for AIDS. They furlher argue that because MDS was '"arced into the theoretical procrustean bed of an acute, discrete sexually transmitted disease rather than being conceived as a chronic illness (triggered by introduction of a virus into the bloodstrc3am),'hany victims of the disease (from African heterosexuals to American TV drug users and hernophiliacs) were ignored at first. Moreover, the etiology of the disease was obscured for several years as viCtims of the "gay disease" (as it was initidly labefed) were intenogated about the '"nlavrzber afpartners they had.''SS As the Center for Disease Controit (CDC) developed its obsession with numbers of sex paners, the explanaion that pmmiscui@ caused AIDS took hold. For unkrrokvn reasons, the first cases of AIDS reported to the CDC: occurrtsd among people with large numbers of sex partners. Randy Shilts, author of And the Barzd Played On, played a major role himself in the mflh making about the early course of the epidemic by promoting the story of air steward Gaetan Dugas ("'Paient Zero"') who, like "'Qphoid Mary," wstlpyosedly spread the disease among his hundreds of partners, We stilt don't know (and perhaps will newr know) whether the early cases of Hf\i transmission in the Uxlitect States were chance occurrences (since the disease has had a different epidemiologicalveclor elsewhere) or had something to do with the ""lkstyle" or health status of those infected early on. k t even if we could agree on some definition of

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""promiscuity," and on the contention that many of the early cases of HIVlAIDS occurred among gay men with many sexual pa&ners, the sexual promiscuity link to AIDS would again be a matter of assscial.l"an,not causation. Unce~aintydid not stop political, medical, and even some gay actidsts (such as ShiEts) from initiating a campaign against gay bathhouses as "dens of iniquit-y" in which the disease was supposcldly beirlg spread, In the 1980s these moralistic campaigns proceeded in cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, despite the lack of eGdence indicating any link beween the disease's spread and the bathhouses themselvesSStudies have also s h m little differctnce in sex praclices between bathhouse patrons and other gays such as those in bar-going sampEes.94 Repeating the path of both the Social Puriv and the Social Hygiene movements, some staes agemplcd to jail prostitutes ar to force them to undergo mandatory HPV testing-once again, because of the assumption I-hat only the vilified "Other" who was hawing "promiscuotl~"sex could be responsible for the epidemic, Counterintuitive to the "promiscuity" link is the fact that prostitutes have sometimes tested lower in rates of HXWpositive resuitts than other American women. Vet occasional scare stories about their role in the epidemic continue.95 InterestingZy; as AIDS was universatized and made to seem a threat to everyone (particularly after Rock Hudson's revelation in 1985),96 the scmtiny of s e x u a l i ~intensified rapidly shiAing from pmrient intewst in gay sex and prostitution to sexualiw in general. According to one observer: ""fnee doctors are convitlced that a disease is transmitted [through)sexual contact, many assume that any patient with the disease must have acquired it by promiscuous sexual activity. Those affected are presumed to be guilt-yuntil they can prove their innocen~e.'~97 A retrospective method developed by the media and others invotved a "constant stlrveitlance" of sexuality, which seemed to impose on each HIV-infected person a moral Sigrlla unless proven "innocent," h 11991 this obsessive scrutiny of sexuality reached perhaps its greates height with the announcement of basketball star Magic iohnson that he had H1V. Sociologists Cheryl Cole and Harry Denxly noted the moralizing that occurred in response to this event: [Magic]Jshnson's body was placed under m immediate, retroaetiug surveile E1PII: Photographers lance that attempted to make visible earlier e ~ d e n c of kept him under canstmt surveillmce waiting to document the hidden sexualities andlor sexud practices as they become visible on the body. . . . [TIEre popular fixation on Magic's sexual practices motivates a series of strategies meant to situate Magic and HIV outside the general public, , . . Magicbexualiry is made suspect and skeptieism is invited by invoking


93

the authorial voice of science and the statistical-AIDS-imaginaryto suggest taken-for-grmted transmission patterns.98

1 do not mean to suggest that the appeamnce of the AIDS epidemic should not have resulted in public health effofis to control the spread of the disease. Rathex; my point i s that from the early days ofthe epidemic, warnings to check the spread of AIDS were confused with an atribution of sexuality as the disease"skause." "orewer, health warnings aimed at checking the spread of disease often consisted of the tactic of ""searing them straight" by repeatedly stressing numbers. of sex partners, This strategy continued well after the low infectivity potential of the HIV vinns (as discussed below) and evidence that condoms and other preventive measures (e.g., needle-exchange programs for drug users) had been fully documented, Heal.lrh warnings became so bmad and, in some caes, so confusing that their intended targels could not have h o w what to do. First, there were slogans such as ""Reduwyour partners." The logic here was that the more sexual partners you; had, the greater w u l d be your statistical chance of having sex with someone who was EIWpositive, But there's a problem with this logic: m a t does ""Reduceyour partners" actually mean? If Wilt Chamberlain really did have 1,000 sexual partners, would he have increased his health benefits by reducing them in number to 995 or even 8957 h d what of the person who mees another partner after ending a monogamous relationship: Should that person reduce the number of his or her partners from W O to one (forever) because of the threat of WXV? Further, does the proposed reduction last a month, a year, or, as some have promoted, a decade or a lifetime?A second problem is that the equation of partner reduction with monogamy meam that for most people (since few people think in terms of a lifetime of semal plans) the ideal would be ta have one relationship at a met rather than one relationship over a lifetime,As h d y Humm and Frances Kunreuther have noted, many teenagers "'believe that they can9t'get AIDS' from someone with whom they are in a monogamous relationship, even if they may have se-verall monogamous relationships over a relatively short period of time, I-t is bard to counter these myths when the messages on t.v, and from the government reinkrce the idea that monogamy marriage m d love are equated with health \zttlile 'promiscuiry" and drug addiction cause MI)S."99 %emas the advice to "&duce your partners" suffered from vagueness, the next popular idea was to "Know your partnec" Yet this slogan was atso of little value from a practical. health standpoint. As a prominent physician in the fight against MDS put it, 'This know your partner business makes no sense since most people with HIV dont$even know

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they haw it themselves." She further argued that, rather than assume that both paflners know their WIV status and that each partner is being truthful, we should use condoms and practice safe sex,loo E ~ d e n c suge gests that many people, raher than using condoms, have turned the ""Knowyour partner" advice into a reason to select their partners on the basis of status, class, and race. Tn a study of Canadian adolescents, for example, Elemor Maticka-Tyndale found that subjects relied on their own identification of "safe partner by appearance," such that "the primary protection strategy was selecting partners who were not the krong kind of person,""@' In an ironic t ~ s ther , study subjects were arguably safer wi* stra~gersbecause condom use was greater in their casual relationships than in their long-term relationships; indeed, women, in particular, felt that they cauldn" question the truthfulness or infected status of their long-tern male lovers.'= But even though activists criticize some health warnings for not going far enough ("Everyone is at risk for AIDS"") in actuality, evidence inc~asinglysuggests that many of these catchy phrases are scarct Qctics. The ofi-repeated " m e n ysuke having sex, you're h a ~ n g it with everyone they have had sex with in the last 10 years92stypicaf. A, Brandt comments that this "afiarism turns each sex act into promiscuily, each refationship into anonymity; and each heterosexual act into the possibiliv of a homosexual act."lQuIndeed, disease is a binary state: Either one has it or not, either one is unlucky enough to get it or not. On the one hand, if the partner you are with has the disease (whether you are a married monogamous heterosexual or someone wjtlo engages in sex with a w i ety of paflners), it doesn't really matter whether he or s h slept with one person ar 200 people; either way you are at some risk;of infection. On the other hand, if your partner slept with 500 people but does not have the virus, the last ten or menty or thirty pears of his or her life makes little health difference. We have had e ~ d e n c eat , least since the late 1980s, that the HNGrus is of extremely low infectivity,particularly when safe sexual practices are used (It am leadng aside here issues of drug use, blood transhsion, and other transmission routes] ,104 Because the HrV virus is far less infective than other STDs during any single act of sex, and because people tend ta have sexual contact within their own social networks (by class, race, locde, etc.), predictions about the AIDS epidemic:were greatly overbXown; in fact, the disease has not spread beyond of the "risk groups" earlier identified.lQ5Accsding to evidence summarized in. the 1994 national sex study, the inkctiviity of the WW virus for heterosexual vaginal intercourse has a probabili~of 2 out of 1,000,Thus, without condom use, the risk of transmission per encounters is as follows: For one sexual encounter, .00000; for 100 encounters, .00002; and for 1,000 encounters,


95

,00009. For the same encounters msuming condom use, the fig.ures are ,00000, .00000, and ,00002, respectively."e To put this in plain English, within a random population of Americans there is an infinitesimal chance of contacting the M W virus. (Of course, in some areas of the country, the chances of infection are far higher than this average.) Another interesting fact about risk is that our chances of inkction are increased (cfiou;;h only mildIy) by our frequenq of sexual encounters (even with the same partner), Uet even the most strident AIDS wrriors and moralists have not urged us to reduce the number of sex act.&Presurrlabty because certain farms of sex, such as marital sex, are not to be discouraged or made to seem fearful (even though there is some scientific justification b r it), this strategy was avoided. But a woman who has four "one-night stands'3n a year may actually entail less risk than if she were married and had an aff.air, and had frequent sex with bath men, The '+promiscuity" argument tends to obscure this possibility The authors of the aforementioned sex study have criticized the ""pomiscui~ paradigm" as hllows: Knowing only the number of pwtners is not knowing very much. Mether partners are sirnklltaneous or sequential, what the social newarks are from which they are recruited, the frequency of sex, the practices engaged in, the protection employed-all can dramatically affect the likelihood of infeetion. We suggest that , , , the nearly exclusive focus on the number of sex partners that is sometimes found in the public health literature provides a very limiting and potentially distorting Iens through which to view sexud conduct and the risk of disease.107

Of course, low risk is not no risk; but if the statistics noted previously are valid, they suggest rtzat far more risk is involved in driving on the highway than in having sex. The widespread accepance of AIDS panic and of the "promiscuity" "paradigm of the 1980s and 1990s is deeply rooted in. ''dry logic." heturn to this issue in Chapter 6, where I discuss how the response to the disease united various strands of Rrrlerican thought across the political spectrum. Bath the heavy symbolic meaning that sexuality mu& carry in American culture and the appeal of apocalyptic rhaoric to h e r i c a n s seem to be responsible for this coalescence.

The JudgmentalDupe: "ForThey Know Not "Dry logif has historicdly relied on the presentation of miscreants as immoral, addiewed, uninhrmed, or misled, In other words, it has been assumed that drinkers, smokers, drug users, or overeaters would not ra-

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tionally choose such behavior, Hence they must be directed by bad morals, have the wrong informaion, or lack self-control over their impulses. Until the progress of medicafization in the twentieth century misbehavior was mostly seen as reflecting lack of proper Christian morals. To say that this perspectiw is still with us today is an understatement, Richard Nkon, late in his life, still blamed the bad morals of liberals and radicals for the drug problem: "Wbr years the elite class acceped and even celebrated 'recreationall2rug use. . . . Drug use= in the leadership class helped create a climate of social, cultural, and poXitical acceptance that perrrriged the dnlg plague to take root.'"lmIn a similar vein, religious conservatives blame the sexual revolution and its evident fifth column, sex educators, for promisctlic?l,AIDS, homosexuality, and teen pregnancy According to J. Sobran, for example, ' M a t the sex educationists are really doing is burning the cultural bridges back to Christendom-the VVestPstraditional ground of community and public morality. The sexual volution is really a rewltttion in our conception of man, a denial of the immortaliv of the soul, Under color of mere instruction in sexual hygiene, a whole cosmology is beirlg smuggled in,'"""" Consewative moralists maintain the fiction that if it were not for the evil role models of radicals, "de~ants,"and various leftovers Ram the cultural revolution of the 1960s, Americans would be living like Qzzie and Harriet did in their TV world of the f 950s. Hence, as I discuss further in Chapter 6, the Right's cantintled war against what it pezeives ta be the remnants of the dreaded "60s." With rare exceptions, however, the professionals, media spokespersons, and social scientists who constitute a large part of the New Temperance movement, along with various other components of the movements far temperance (such as self-help groups), eschew moralism in order to adopt one of two vriews of judgmental dupe-ism. One popular view is the addictionldenial paradigm, which mediealizes the problem bebavior. Recendy, however, another \liew has been catching on as weli as an explanation for "devianceP'Atrelies on imputing to the mass media. an all-powerful capacity to shape the behavior of its audience, Beginning with alcoholism, then spreading to other at least arguably "physicali" "dependencies such as drug and cigaretk habits, the addiction paradigm has expanded ta the poim where Americans now speak of being "addicted" to ssex, to food, to work, to lave relationships, to television criewing, and to a host of other bebaviors for which a ph~r;sicaEdependence canstitutes at best only a metaphor, Magazines and television shows have Irumpeted the addiction metaphor since the late 197Qs,acknowledging '1America"s addiction to addictians." The addictionldisease metaphor allows professionals and self-help movements to reduce the


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moral stigma of miscreants, but only at the cost of their admission that they art? unable to control their own lives. The victims of addiction then must turn ta a professional, a self-help group, andlor a ""higher powerr' for assistance in providing this missing control, I;or example, drug users, contrary to some af the evidence presented previously, are said to be "enslaved" and irrational: '"rugs abridge the freedom of the individual by enslaving him in a habit which he may no longer control,"llQ Yet, as noted, millions of people are nor physically addicted to drugs; and of those who are, millions are able to control their habits and manage their fives. Furthermore, milions of people have quit smoking, cut s lheir own, without back on drinking, lost weight, or golten off d n ~ g on the aid of professionals or treatment centers or self-help groups, Alcoholism expert Herber'c Fingarette argues that the very success of people who quit on their w n , and af groups like M, actually disproves the diseaseladdiction paradigm. Tf a person were actually out of control of his life and his drinking, he woutd not be able to simply cease drinking at some paint in time and accept the demands of r e a m e n t programs or self-help groups that he abstain henceforth. (Of course, this is not to say that stopping a drinking problem or other serious habit is an easy thing to do.)Ekl Closely related to the addiction paradigm, and so popular that it might be called the American word of the late t-bventieth century, is the catch-all tern dental. Although i is true that people with seveft? problems sometimes don't see them or admit to them, the idea that each substance user or overeater has no awareness of his or her actions or no control over them is probably a cultural fiction, Moreover, the broad term detzl'al removes all power and attribution of rationali~from the affected person ar group of persons, and places true awareness and rationality only with higher-power actors, usudly professionals. The use of the concept of denial as a subterfuge for the rep~ssionof young people, as welt as a means of generating prolits for the treatnlent industw, has become endemic in recent years. As Stanton Peek notes, in 1985 CBS EueningNews got a teenage girt, (who had no drug problem) into a treatment center as a ntse to reveal the profit-generatirIgnature of such hcilities; "'when she claimed she didn't have a drug problem, a counselor was heard saying that this is the response inmates always give . . . [it was1 denial."^'^ Given that the young and poor in paflicular, but also most consumers, have low power relative to professionals and social institutions, how are we to judge what is an irrational ""denial" of facts, and what is a realistic assessment within the context of a persank life2 Far example, it has become fashionable to speak of denial in reference to AIDS, Sara NeXson, echoing the phraseology of self-help books (i.e., referring to women

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"who love too mucWfand make foolish chaices), worries that women are denying the rctali~of AIDS: "Mether you call it cognitive dissonance or denial, now, mare than 18 years into the AIDS epidemic, it seems that smart women are making foolish choices when it comes to AIDS yrevention,"'x13 What is interesting about this charge of 'VmniaE" is that the author elsewhere in the same article notes that most women. accuratc"Eyperceive little risk of getting the disease, k t Nelson displays little self-consciousness; somehow she beliews heflself to be betkr able to gauge the risk of the disease than most women who are inextricably stuck in "denial." Yet, based on what we now know abaut the virus as well as on surmys concerning the perceived dangers of AIDS throughout the 1980s,114 the public at times seems to have more accurately gauged the disease than the experts, Indeed, the latter may have engaged in considerable misstatement about the disease.1l5 Competing with the moralistic views of the miscreant as misled, and with the medicdized view of the miscmant as ""addicted"and in "denial," is the nehv trend, across the political spectrum, toward blaming the media and the "culture." Consider the f o l l o ~ n gexamples, * Conc.~.vuzl"ngfat~fo~ds: ''[Whave) an. establishment that wanted us passive, blissed out in front of telerrised sports, too impacted by beer and junk food to prevent the robbery of our health and countryen"I6 * Concerni~gteen pregnancy " W e n . . . a Baltimore school principal [wasasked by an interviewed the one thing she'd do to reduce teen pl-egnancies, the principal had an immediate . . . answer for her: "hoot Madonna.? . . It" a language shared by parents, teachers, policymakers, the whole range of fnxstrated adults whose voices of reason are drowned out by a culture that sells kids sex as successfulty as it sells them sneakers, Just Do It, . . . our culture offers. . . . Sex without conseq~ence~."X17 * Conmvuzingcigarette smoking: "D]ne furious puff from the intense Winonzis [Ryder]emicixlg tips, one wispy smoke-ring booding the prohund Elhanps[Hawkes]poetic eyes, werL.omes a thousand pages of Surgeon General's prose. 11:obliterates the Food and Drug Adtrzinistral-ion'sthreat to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug. It svrnies the earnest effofis of legislators, social activists, classroom heaXth teachers.""B

ftist as the saloon and the bawdyhouses were blamed in the nineteenth century for luring unsuspecting citizens into drinking, and young girls into prostitution, today's tele\rision, films, and superstars are por-


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trayed as leadng the yollng and innocent dowrr the primrose path to sin. There are several ironies here. First, spectalors are judged as somehow intelfigent enough to understand the countless public service announcements against cigarettes or far condom use, yet they are supyosedly not intelligent enough to retain these messages, .At least not when they see Winona Ryder or Ethan Hawkes smoking cigarettes on their screen, Second, one wonders how media activiists and health critics can blame the "culturcl," perhaps the most puritanical in the Wed, br the sexuality of Madonna without the least bit of irony True, the entertainment industry sells titillation, but most other institutions-from schools, churches, and wrkplaces to the huge vvellness industry-sell temperance, The fact that American consumers prefer Madonna to the "just say no" messages they are exposed to daily does not make our culture liberline. Indeed, a better socid psycllologicjl theory might argue that Puritanism produces both repression and release, Tz: is not, then, Madonna wllo leads kids to sex or Bar@ Strawberry who leads them to drugs, but human desire. Maralias, evidently unable to admit this human capacity;, seek to attribute "sin" only to the ""bad influence" of poor "role modeIing." I suggest that there are at least two alternatives to seeing ourselves and our children as mere judgmental dupes, as either "addicts" or pawns of Madonna and other Wollyood forces b e p n d our control, First, although people sometimes do act impulsively and regret their actions, humans are also often rational actors acting in their okvn self-interests, even when outside experts disagree. Second, it is the very onslaught of just say no 'Vry logic" that leads same people-paflicularfy the young and the poor-into a cultural resistance whereby the object (cigareae smoking, drugs) or the activiq (eating, sexual behavior) becomes symbolic of their outsider status and defiance. To take one example ofrationality: Recall the earlier discussion of how the decision by poor yorlng women to carry a child to term can be seen as a raional survival tactic given the odds of life in the ghem (as well as the lack of joy and satisfaction otherwise available), Leon Dash, a reporter who studied poor black teens in Washingon, D.C., admits that upon starting his research he expected to find a lack of contraceptive knowledge and of sexual sophistication to be the main reason why "cehildren were hafljxlg children," But what he found, in the words of one of his subjects, was that "even when kids are 12, they know all about birth control, Girls out here get pregnant because they want to have babies."""'"urv:ys conducted in Denver and Atlaxlta have corrfirxrred that many reens do not regard the prospect of having a child as a negative event."Vnd according to a recent SIEGUS survey, afthough teens agreed that some kids have children too early, they stared that seventeen

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was not too early, that "few felt pressure to have sex from their peers, partners or media," and that most knew about and used birth control.""" Despite such e ~ d e n c eboth , conservatives and liberals minimize the role of deliberate choice in adolescent sexualie and pregnancy Fur liberals in particular, as Nathanson naes, seeing early childbearing as a deliberate choice would disrupt their view of teen pregnancy as ""a problem in preventative medicine . . . [that] leads them to focus on the unzuilkd consequences of 'pmmature? childbearing, and on the iaevitabilif-y that sexual intercourse, once initiated, will be csntinued.""tz The more people are told not to do somelhing, particrtlarly something that feels good, the more their desire may be provoked. Historically, as F~ucaultpointed our, the prohibition of pleasure has i n c ~ a s e dits attractiveness, In addition, since symbols of collectivily and solidariq often evolve around pleasums, behaviors that art?without intrinsic political or social content @,ge,cigarette smoking, alcohol csnsumption) come to be seen as having meaning. Two enmples of how substance use came to be associaed with specific groups will support the \rie'~vthat people, Fa-from being judgmental dupes, tend to gravitate towarct a behavior or habit as a result of the very injunction against it. First, it is of interest that the drinking of alcoholic beverages among h e r i c a n Irldians \rvas banned tong before the 'kmperance Movement against "demon rum,?' This prohibition was legidated fur reasons of moral paternalism but also out of the fear that intolcicatioxx would lead Indians to rebel and kill settlers. (i\. similar logic aypled to slaves-and, in some states, to white apprentices and servants-all of whom werct prohibited frorn drinking.) Not surprisingly; h r many Indians the drinking of alcohol became symbolic of resistance to the white man's cultural edicts and laws, even though, ironically$it had been the vvhite man who introduced the Indians to booze, Xn a study of Northwest Coastal Indians in the 1950s, socialogist Edlvin temerl round that "'the drinking party was [still] a symbol of political rebellion and cultural loyatty" that demonstrated group cohesion and pride.223 Of course, such symbolism is hardly unique to Indians: In the nineteenth centuq, alcohol also came to be linked to resislance among a variev of white ethnic groups and, arguably, kvithin the wrking class in general. The men of these groups typically used alcohol while mpressing camaraderie, solidariG and opposition to their employers and to elites.12" Social critic Riehard a e i n notes that many sacieties-including almast: all totalitariarl one-have foughl mbacco use and often baxlned smoking. As KLein argues, " [Gligareltesbecome ~ s i s t a n c to e society [because) people know that since moralists no less than doctors have disapproved of tobacco frorn its introduction, its use constitutes a form of


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defiance to arrthorit?/.."""Vnparticular, Klein says, many young people begin smoking illicitly behind their parents' backs, and in those countries where they cannot purchase cigarettes, tobacco becomes the object of petty theft. Starling in the nineteenth century, it was the very illicitness and secretiveness of smoking that built solidarity among the young male roughnecks who were labeled ""eigaretk fimnds" by moralists. L i k e ~ s efor , many adalescents today, smoking sewes as a syxrlbol of growing up and, at least among working-class and poor kids, often as a common group acti-vit-yintended to kill time and perhaps arouse the ire of adults. Considerable truth was also contained in Benson and Hedges"YouPve come a long way; baby" ads of the 1960s, aimed at women. m a t romanticized cigarette smoking was, in part, the fact that it had been harshly repressed among women, and was associaed with "the demonic or sexualized female," prticularly gypsies, actresses, and prostitutes,'26Many women who lit up in the old days were aware of this association, and many who smoked (particularly prior to the 1920s) wem either of the Iower class or intent on expressing rebeuion. (Recall the Bohemians of Gctsenwich Village in the early mentieth century.) 'Xb this day, as Klein poins out, the closer women get to achiet.lng gender equality, the more their rates of cigaretk smoking resemble those of men.127 The fact that cigarme smoking has been sexuallized in advertiskg is ofren aacrked by critics of the media, But paradoxically, it was Puritanism and temperance movements themselves that sexualized the cigarette to begin with, by making it illicit. Even the sex appeal of men has been linked to the cigarette. For example, as cofrxmnist Ha1 Piper notes: 'Xumphrey Bogafi died at 54 of throat caneex; probably by cigarettes. A pity; but maybe it was worth it to have been Bogart, I cadt imagine Bogie without the cigarette at the corner of his mouth,""B The fact that smoking or drinking or any other intemperant activity is a symbol, for some, of resistance or illicitness does not, of eaurse, mean that such behavior is either healthy or, for that matter, the best way of voicing one3 resistance to authority Howevex; understanding the psyc h o l o of ~ resistance does provide us with a more sophisticaed rxrlderstanding of the motives and lifestyles of people, particularly of those whose lives afford few other outlets for pleasure and csllective expression than the answers supplied by rhe clichks of "dry logic."


The remainder of this book returns to the question of haw personal behavior came to be vietved as such a "crisis" h inthe last few decades of the ~ e n t i e t hcentury Of course, my answers will be incomplete, as there are so many issues at hand. Some readers may reject my conclusion that the behavioral crises in America beginning in the 1960s (e.g., drugs, sexuality; "permissiveness"")ere primarily soeiatty constructed, preferring to believe that we were (or are) '"going to hell in a handbasket," Nevertheless, I hcus on two central arguments. First, in this chapter, I contend that the 1960s revolts thl-eatened the boundary markem between the classes in America and, hence, that the New Temperance is, in many respectst a reassertion of the ideology of middle-class respectability Second, in Chapter 6, I contend that the politics of sin, fear, and danger fed to a convergence beween the strateges of elites and some elemen& of popular social movements. For many years, probably for most of American history 'kespectability" was sueeessfully constructed along the lines of native, white, middle-class behavioral norms. athough these norms were dalienged at times, it was only in the 1960s and early 19"Is that a sustained political and social attack on middle-class respectability was briefly sueeessfixl, X refer here to the radical atack by some baby boorners, characterized by B, Ehrerxreieh as ""class treason,""fMrhh in turn led to a s h a v middleclass reaction against "'permissiveness" by the Xate 1970s. The New Temp e m c e is also in part a middle-class rclaaion ta its sevefest economic setback in American history Xt also represents a callective effort on the part of the middle class to differentiate itself from the g r o ~ n numbers g

of poor not only culturally and potitically but also to diaance itself geographically and physically

as of Being Middle Class As noted in Chapter 3, historicalty the middle class arose as a class of self-discipline. The English Puritans, the French aflisans of the Rwolution, and American rebels of the eigt-rteemh century atacked the monarchy and nobility as decadent classes whose claim to legitimacy was undermined by their lack ol:seriollsness and hard work, As a general rule, achiwment and setf-discipline marked the ideofogy (if not always the practice) of respectable middle-class people, differentiating them from the extremely rich and the poor. As Margaret Mead once noted: "The member of the V p e r class rests upon his birth; born a gentlemen, only his [sic] act can take from him something that birth and breeding have given him. The member of the lower class rests in a sense on his birth also. . . . [Bjut the true member of the middle class denies this fixity to which bath upper and lower are committed, Life depends, not upon birth and sl-attls, not upon breeding or beauty, but upon effort.""" Of course, m a w Americans of all classes are w d d e d to what might be callled the ""achievement ideoltagy," whereby deferred gratification, long years of schooling, lengthy preparation for and induction into professions, movement up corporate ladders, and saving money to buy homes are held to be necessary for a satisQing life. But the very rich stilf have less need than others to defer gatificaion and to be self-disciplined, Some can still live off accumulated wedth while maintaining a life of intemperance (the csrnical character in the film Arl_klar csrnes to mind), whereas others can still get by on their "connections," As for the poor, they often have little gratification to defer and may perceiw that there is little to be gained from acting temperantly But the middle class must visibly itcbzieue, No one becomes a doctor, ] a v e r , or educator ~ t h o u t having impressed teachers at some point in time, and wiChout maintairting the seffidiscipline to defer gratification long enough to achieve at least sixteen years of schooting. Then one m& get a license, a wardrobe, a home, a suitable business partner, and, offen, a suitabie mate. Once employed in a profession, corporation, small business, or other position, the middle-class person cannot cease maintaining his or her reputation or achievement because others on the competitive rung always threaten that status. So the middle class must be continually crigilant, sensitive to new norms and bebaGoraf cues. However, the need for vigilance, h r preparing, saving, sobriety-in short, for the Protestant Ethic-conflicts with the need in a capitalist society for mass consumption of goods. Arter all, the raison df@treof

achievement is acrstlmulation: nice cars, good hod, nice homes, good clothes. The genius of American capilalism has been to tie success to pleasure, largely through advertising that leads us on a continual seal-ch for new pleasurable products, The contradiction betmen the need for deferfed gratification (so that one can enter a profession, mmagemem, or the white-collar wol-kforce) and the need and desire to consume creates the anxiety and insecurity of the middle class, There are no obGous answers tci the question as to when middle-class people can "let down their guard" and just enjoy life. Ratbw, as Ektrenreich so well describes, the middle class is conslantly in 'Tear of Calling," Its status is always insecure: The lawyer who drinks too much may Xose everything, the small-business person with a bad reputation rnay lose his customers, the accountant accused of fraud may lose her license, and the executive who does not "fit into" a company because of "'loose morals" or poor perceived performance rnay Xose her job or career, Ehrenreieh notes that if the middle class is an elite, as some believe, it is at the same time a deeply troubled one: "It is afraid, like any class below the mast securely wealthy; ofmishrtunes that might lead to a domward slide, . . . (But it also has] a fear of inner weahess, of growing soft, of failing to strive, of losing discipline and wilt. Even the affluence that is so often the goal of all this striving becomes a threat, for it holds out the gossibili-tyof hedonism and self-irrdulgenceP A second dilemma the middle class faces is h w to socially reproduce itself as a class. QE course, unlike aristocracy or eEites based on inberikd wealth, a small-business person, social worker, or accountant usually cannot transmit huge monetary sums to his or her children. The children of the middlle class must learn either to achiem status and income based on a meritocratic achievement in business or the professions or to dewlap the acquisitive skills needed iror business success, Even then, these children require a good deal of luck to succeed. There is na reliable way to reproduce class stams fram generation to generation. Not only might the child of a doctor fail to become a physician, but he or she could fall into poverty; and the child of an administrative assistant is perhaps even mare likely to fail to secure a good job. Thus, says Ehrenreich, "[a]llthat parents can do is attempt, thraugh careful rnalding and psychological pl-essure, to predispose each child to retrace the same long road they themselves once took, Hence the perennial middle-class preoccupation with the problems of childrearing.'" In short, the middle class attempts to reproduce itself by transmitting to children, first, the need to defer gratification-that is, to avoid the dangers of pleasure, which may interfere with education and work-and, secmd, the need to associate socially with one's o m kind [or prekrably one's bettelrs) so that a suitable set of cotleapes, contacts, and marriage partners can be obtained.

Middle-class parents have traditionally feared drinking, drug use, and sexual promiscuiry not oniy because they threatened to take the child away from studies, work, and fgotentially) the middle-class way of life itself, but also because they h e w that such behaviors served as "class cues,'hhich hismricdly have interEt;red with one's chances of meeting the proper mate and colleagues. Such beha.\riors caused one ta 'Y~crlEin with f i e wrot2.g emwd," In other words, who one associated with was critical to one's social status. Such association& parts of status are highly important. Children present themselves to one another at school not as the offspring of doctors or tawyers or sleelworktlrs but simply as kids, A teenager at a dance may fa11 for an attractive person of a lower social class-the son or daughter of an unemplopd person, perhaps, or even a welfare recipient, For most of American history, the "proper" "ogle came to identiv themselves through, among other things, their respectable conduct. They did not drink aXcahaE heavily, if at all; the ""proper" woman did not smoke tobacco; the ""proper'"gentfeman did not make sexual advances to a woman before marriage; and the "proper" woman did not accept such admnces. Since class b o r e rtzan race or gender) can be invisible, botrndary markers (or status and class markers) are necessary The middle class "user; consumption to establish its statitzs,"varticularty to distinguish itself from the working cltass and the poor, Indeed, the middle class has become extremely sensitiw to the ever-changing boundary markers by which proper conduct is associated with success. Describing food choices in the 1980s, for example, Ehrenreich notes that "@]hetrick was to tmderstand the language [of status) as it changed month to month, lea.ving behind the ignorant and less than affluent, As soon as an affordable fad-the example is often giwn of piita-bread sandwiches-sedimented down to the general public, it would be ~ n d e r e duseless as a m a k of status and abandoned by the cognoscenti.""" Same status markers, parricldarly those affitdable to poorer people, may go from being "h"or "hip" to "d&class4"and even "grungy""(one thinks of cigarette smoking or eating inexpensive cheeses). But the cluster of behaGors I have identified as part of temperance ideoloa is not arbilrary either. Marriage is a key parl: of sucial-classreproduction; and the mare wealth one has, the less cavalier one is about what happens to it, After all, the histoq of the middle and upper classes since feudalism has been very bound up with the idea of legitimacy Eor children and proper partner selection because of the danger that a poor choice of partners could lead to damward mobility; Hence issues of teenage sexualit-y and pregnmcy and the whale cluster of mores around sex, are a continuing concern far the middfe and upper classes. The key issue at Ierxst until the 1950s (&en birth control and the womenS movement came to the fore)

was whether the wealth of these classes' families would continue or, conversely, whether femde sexuality in particular would cause their d o m ward mobility through poor (or no) parmer choice. Unfortunately for social-cjass reproduction, there is a contradiction, again, between the middle class's desire to avoid downward mobility through carehl partner choice and appropriate status cues, on the one hand, m d its need to be the avant-garde of capitdist consumption on the other, That is, at the same time that middle-class elders may be exhorting their young to engage in temperant behavior, middle-class status (yarticularly the upward-moving sectors of the class) rewires consumption of necessary items to maintain or improve status (a matter of "Keeping Up with the ioneses"") So the values of capitalist advancement, particularly in prosperous times, require that class markers be expensive enough to attract the like-minded. This mind-set encourages spending, not saving; exhibition of luxuries, not reticence; and conspicuous displays of walth, not Puritanism. In other words, if upwardly mobile middle-class people must attr;nd the right clubs and wear only the most Fdshionable clothes and jewelyt they will find it diEctllt to maintain the strimre agaixla their b&ng trendsetters with respect to, say, consumption of the latest drug in supply at the time. The push towad consumption has spillover effects, The middle class thus finds itself in a double bind: It must eAibit enough savvy to consume the right goods to attract others with wealth to remain, middle class or (better yet) to gain status, yet it must allso avoid the dangers of hedonism that are attached to consumption since these pleasures might weaken the sound business and social judgment that is needed for success under capitalism. 1 suggest that the norms of resflectabilig stressirlg the sobriety of dxe bourgeois life fvegan to break down in this century and, indeed, came close to being overturned in the 1960s and 1970s, due both to economic prosperity and to pofilical unrest. Many events since the mid- 1970s can o be seen as eflbrts by members of the middle class (and others17 ~ ' reassert respectable statitzs boundaries in order to again clearly separate the classes physically and socially and to prepare their children. to reproduce some vestiges of middle-class life under the highly adverse economic conditions of the late tliventieth century

The Achievement of Respectability rica: 1830-1920 Social norms do not just develop naturally; rather; they must be communicated over a Isng period of time and enbrced by rewards and sanetions, Because Americans Xack a feudal heritage, they have had few sym-

bols of visible status (such as the titles and sumptuarjr laws available to Europeans) by which to idemify others. Rrtraps for this reason as well as because America has been Rooded with one ofrhe most ethnically diverse populations in the kvorld, behaGoral norms have taken on a much stronger role in the development of status markers here than in other countries. It is tme that the religious Qadition of Proteftantism Pfom Colonial times on as welt as the aphorisms of Americans like Ben Franklin seem Fdirly consistent with much of what was encoded as a bourgeois morality, And many norms about behavior have remained fairly stable, As historian John Burnham poinlts out, ""lthe 19th Centurypalt commentators agreed that a number of common vices . . . embodied some level of sinPulrless . . . and they identified . . . a single constellation that included drinking, smoking, gambling, sexual misbebavior.""s Yet it is a bit simplistic its assert that American bourgeois values have always been temperant. After all, if most Americans, including the emerging middle class, had alwys adbercltd to modemtion in life, there would have been no need for a Temperance Moement, a SoeiaE Puriw Movement, or the other movements described in. Chapter 2. It makes more sense to view the cluster of values and personal behaviors that came to be identified with "respectability""as a set of shifting patterns resufting from middle-class social movements thar emerged between the 1830s and the passage of Prohibition in 1919, These movements paralleled the rise of Protestant re\l-ivalism,the first (anti-aXcoha1)Temperance Movement, and what came to be k n o w as the Popular Wealth Movement, and they reemerged periodicdly &rough the century Like all social movements, the temperance movements sought cohesion, Many Americans of that time drmk a @eat deal of af cohol, far more than today. Initially, moral refonn was, as J, Grlsfield puts it, an "'assimilative reform," "persuasive and educational in nature-in short, a form of marat r_liplife,Wemnnbersof the middle class and the respectable, skilled, native working class wem the very groups most proselylized to become abstinent, and early temperance pamphlets and plays alwa3r;s stressed the conviction that drunkerness led to economic min. Clearly, the intent of these movements was to control middle-class people (mostly men) rather than the poor or the heathens, who were assumed to be immoral by nature. It was only in the late nineteenth century, through organizing and prosely-fizing,that mast native-born Protestant Americans came to accept as marks of status a temperant approach to pleasure, an emphasis on saving and hard work, and a gender division of labor resting on the notions of monogamy and purity (at least in theory) h r men as well as women, It was this process in. particular that combined the features of social movement and elite power strateggi as discussed earlier.

Of course, the more these burgeoning movements succeeded among the middle class, the more nonmarital s e x u a l i ~gambling, ~ alcohol consumption, and other intemperant behavriors were pushed into wakingclass and poor immigrant dislricts of the city, As Uurnham notes: "In urban centers, the [Victorian)underwodd bad a real, largely geographical experience. . . in which fiouses of prostitution, drinking places, gambling dens, opium dens, and disreputable people in general tended to locate. . . , In the cities, poor people and people with dubious intentions liwd alongside each other in the slum and boardingfrouse areas."Io The gradual denial of aarlts to those who frequented the tavern or the brothel did not exlinf~llislrsuch behavlors. Rather, such acrivity became associated w3fh poverty; immigration, and '"eTI-iance," The association encompassed not only sexual display, pornographyp prostitution, "demon rum," drug use, and the "cigaretl-e fiend" but also consumption of ethnic foods, coarseness of speech, and the political and union organizing that often occurred in places like the tavern, These issues were joined togerher because, from the standpoint of white middle-class Americans, they all reflected the alien and undesirable character of poor people and immigrants. Rmpermt beliefs also encoded political fears (social unrclst and even revolution) and kars of contagion (the spmad of disease and ill morals to middle-class c h i t d ~ nfrom the poor). As misbehavior began to be policed primarily among the poor and immigrants, the temperance movements shiEted horn being "assimilativep9to being "caercive," as the symbols of intemperance (the tavern, for example) came to represent nor only the potential dowtruard mobiliq of the affluent but also all the dangers represented by the poor.11 Respectability triumphed at a time of strong unrest in the United States amid massive waves of Irrlnligration in which an emerging middle class sought desperaely ta make its place. The chief need of both the upper and middle classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was accumulation-of wealth and labor, of a proper educational s ~ t e mand , of a reformed political system (free of immigrant control through political machines]-alI of which were somewhat problematic. Consutmptive goals, although beginning Evith the purehase of mansions by the rich and the start of vacation taking at the turn of the century, were much less critical at this time, The very successes of the movements described in Chapter 2-the evenmal passage of prohibitionav laws, age-of-consent laws, Camso& statutes, anti-smoking laws, the Harrison Act of 1924-reflected the fact that the majoriq of white upper- and middle-class people had come to some consensus on ""proper"behavior. Moreover, they wert? willing to forgo certain pleasures themselves for the sake of stability and control of the poor, Only now did "'universal" caegories come to exist, Although not all behaviors or practices follawed the same route, priar to the suc-

cess of the coercive movements members of the upper and middle classes simply maintained that when they behaved a certain way (drank, smoked, gambled) they did so respectably hr,after all, they could handle such activities properly; But whereas earlies in American history the same or similar actiwities carried out by the "respeclable" were distinguished from the objects of choice of the "nonrespectabXe9' "he cigar smoking of the rich as opposed to the stigmatized cigarerre of the poor, the use of morphine by some respectable people as opposed ta the dreaded opium of the CX-rinese),the idealism of the late Victorian and Progressive eras began to make such hypocrisy difficult to maimain. By the early decades of the menieth centuq, there could be no doubt about what constituted respectable conduct. Both religiously based rural conservatives and middle-class urban liberals endorsed the mows against dcobol and other forms of intemperance as well as sexuai regulation, and these symbols helped the members ofthe middle class identiQ ot2e arzother as respectable mrirriage pafiners, emplayees, and friendsand colleag-ues. Although the achievement of respeaable bourgeois nonrrs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is commonly minimized, I wuutd argue that the historicat developmenl: of status markers based on temperant behavior still helps to account for same of the differentials in b e h a ~ s between r the social classes todayalzOf all the countries in dte world, Atr-lerica has one of the high- percentages of people who abstain to@lly from alcohul, for emmple, Hidorically middle-hericart Protestant families in particular have been associated with abstinence from both alcohol and tobacco,lWA_tou@the complex cluster of beliefs and behaviors of "Middle Americd' broke down somewhat later, the stereotpe of the righteous American (as parsimonious, sober, thrifty), from Ben FrarrkXin to Norman. Vincent Peele, is not simpl_ya myth. Nor is there evidence for dismissing this slereotype as merr: hypocrisy, We have every reason to believe that the millions of "drys" in, say; Midwestern b e r i c a really did abstain from alcohol, that those who fou&t prastitution and promiscuily really did pmctice chastiv outside of marriiage, and that those who opposed gambling abstained from roiling the dice on, the side, Nor did those people who transgressed these norms disprove the class and status boundaries, Those who violated the norms knew they were social "devjants" and were ashamed oftheir actions,

The P u t i d Demacrathafion af 44"1De~ancerr: 1920s-1 960s Athough mrrated by some observers, some bre&down in the lines of respectability unquestionably occurred in twentieth-century America before the 1960s. The passage of Prohibition reduced alcohol consrrmnp-

tion among t h poor and working class, but not m o n g the rich and sophisticated urban middle classes.'Wven more upsetling to some was the tendency of the a"fuent to flaunt the new law by carrying open flasks and conspicuously appearing in speakeasies, The prosperity of the 1920s undermined the old styles.Women began openly making cigarettes and wearing short skifls. Gradually, between the 1920s and the 1 4 6 0 mader~~ ate consumption oE alcohol as well cigarette smoking were detached from their "'devian" definitions. In addition, food habits converged, particularly during periods of prosperity, as the distinctiveness of irnmigrantsydjiets declined and more and more Americans came to accept steak, hamburger, breakfast cereal, and soda pop as basic staples.]" The prasperiq of the 1920s and, again, during the 1941-29"1 period made it hard to restrain consumptive impulses. h advertising and buying on credit triumphed in the "roaring twenties," an ethic of "~penci"' coincided with having fun. Particularly affected wem members of the urban middle class, who were becoming increasingly soyhiHic&ed trendsetters thanks to the new mass media of movies and radio. The mare open the class structure (as in the post-World War TI period), the less the ethic of d&rred gratification and Hoicisrlr courd be maintained. Of course, middle-class parents always prekrred that their children marry well; but in 1950s and X96Qs,the daughter of a stockbroker who married, say, a mechanic was tikety to live adequately in a suburban house with two cars. In short, she could masonably expect to enjoy the mundane pleasures of consumption. Two other factors weakened the tight social control characteristic of earlier times. First, open immigration to the United States, so fearful to white, native-barn Americans of the nineteenth and early twentieth cenrctries, was virmatly shut off in the 1920s, thus reducing a source of anxiety Second, b r a variety of reasons the social classes mixed mow than they had in earlier days, alllowing h r some difhsion in habits and mares. For example, many historians note that the world wars caused dramatic cllanges in the habics of h e r i c a n s , particularly mral Pratestant soldiers who did not drink or smoke behre the wars but came back behaving less temperantlye Nevertheless, the decline of ~spectabilitywas not politically or economically threatening, nor was it as broad based as some have conjectured, The sexual norms, substance-use norms, and even dietary norms of middle-Americans did not &ange dramatically in these years. Rates of cigarette smoking, heavy drinking, and diet continued to vary by class, To take just two examples: In the 1930s and 1940s, exercise and "correct eating" were already a focus of executives and other middleclass families, but not among poorer classes; and rates of cigarette smoking among the general public reached a peak right after World War

11, yet they were still lowest among farmers, teachers, lawyers, and other prokssional, managerial, and small-business classes. The rate of srnoking in the middle class began to recede as early as the 195Qs.17Of course, many of the behavioral norms challenged during the 1960s were strongfy upheld in this earlier period. Drugs weft? far morr: stigmaized after World War T than befol-e, Moral panics over heroin in the 1 9 2 0 ~ ~ marijuana in the 1930s, and all narcotics in the late 1940s I-hrough the 1960s targeted minonlties and the poor.18 Sexual norms and repression of ilfegitirnacy; homosexuality; pornography; promiscuity; and pre- and extramarital sex were not only stmngiy enfbrced but became the subject of moral panics, (For example, J. Edgar Hower led a much-pubiticized campaign against '"sexual criminals" in the 1930s and 1 9 4 0 ~and ~ periodic campaigns against gays and Xesbims became especially fierce during the McCafihgr era and up until the late lSFOs.)l"n fact, some of the mast brutal =pression of ""dviance" occuned in the 1950s as crime and vice came to be associated with "'difference," Anything 4'un-American" during the Cold VVar period was considered dangerous, indudirlg jazz and rock 'nrx" roll, nanconkrmity to strict sexual roles, and foreignsollndixlg names axld reading mater, It was not until the 1960s that respectability as an ideological construct kvas attacked. Between the passage (and subsequent defeat) of Prohibition axld the mid-1960s, there occurred only some "loosening up3' of the strictures that had been most associaed with rural Rotestantism and the old middle class (farmers, small traders, shopkeepe~). These strictures-including abstinence from alcohol and cigaretteswere alered by the new, more consumptive-oriented urban middle class, which saw itself as mare cosmopolitan and sophisticated. However, there were no groups arguing for personal freedom as an ideologic d principle. Even the lefiist radicds of the 1930s and 1940s werclt unconcerned with issues of personal b e l t a ~ They s ~ were mare likely than not to be socially consernative. Their key concerns were the Great Depression and the War Rgainst Fascism, and they would have considered drugs, sexuality, music, and dress to be, at best, frivolous matten,

The Radicd Attack an Respectabiil.~:1960s-1970s Although many individual aspects of the political and cultural revolution known as the ""6s" were not unique in American history; the link betLveen personal behavior (i.e., the rejection of many, if not all, of the norms held by the respectable middle class) and ideology (i.e., the rejection by some of the entire political underpinnings of the "qstem"")as m o a unprecedented. Through a combination of demographic factors

(especially the huge cohort of baby boomess), economic factors (the greatest period of prosperi@ in U.S. history), and political factors @he civil rights and other social movements), America entewcil an era of massive social and cultural unrest between approximately the mid- 1960s and the mid- 1970s. Beginning with the cultural revolt of a small number of""batniksn and expanding to the student and civil rights movements, the hippies, the counterculture, the anti-war movement, and, by the 1970s, active w~men'sand gay and lesbian movements, "respectable" "cultural norms were arongly challenged, This fact was not lost an conservative spokespeople (and still isn't today), For exmple, ferry Fstlwell comrnened: "If ever there was a time when God needed a job done, it was during the 1960s and 19'70s.The future of our nation was at stake, . . . I sincerely believe that Satan had mobilized his own forces to destroy America by negating the iudeo-Christian ethic, secularizing our society, and devaluating h-trman life,""" But as le&ist social critics Ralph Larkin and Daniel Foss remind us, many aspects of the 1960s movemeMs now presenkd as tridal or self-indulgent (long hair, drugs, rock 'nn" roll), had cultural and political meanin@ at the time: ""[1T)he60s . . . youth movement was not merely against racism, the war or school administrations, but against the ~-stalivafbourgeois "ssael'al relal.l"ans.11:is easy to forget [now] . . . that many took drugs not to ease the pain of realily, but to experience a reality that superseded and opposed bourgeois reall9 Dissident youth had ~ s i o n and s lived mflhs."~~ For our purposes, what was critical about the cultural transformations of the 1S60s-the open sexualiv, the proud use and even political endorsement of drugs, the changes in dress and appearance, the rejection of the work ethic by the counterculture-is that they took place first among children of the middle class, Wllerclas up to this point most "deant" kbaviors in the areas of appearance, sexuality;and consumption were associated with racial outgroups and the poor, here were the sons and daughlers of doctors, professors, executives, and salespeople thumbing their noses at bourgeois norms, As Ehrenreich notes: "To join the countercsulmreone had only tu drop out. . . and pursue one's chosen path ta liberation, which might be lhrough drugs, sex, spiriwaliv communal living, subsistence farming, music or any combination. . . . [Elverythingabout the couxllerculture-the easy nudit-y, the drugs, the disdain for careers, the casual approach to dress and personal hhygienewas an affront to middle-class values,"~~ These behaviors held a long-term danger. If middle-class youth held on to their anti-establishmertt cultural as well as politicd patkrns, they simply would not obtain middle-class jobs, eventually falling into the worEng class or even lower, Quoting an anlrious cultural observer in the

1970s, Ehrenreich suggests that what most concerned the older generation of middle-class parents was that "the radical children have not joined their own class; they have sunk into occupations as "pushcart vendors, taxi drivers, keepers of small neighborhood shops . . . housepainters, houseclemers and movers of furniture,'"'z-? A second development further complicated the task of pressing the cultrlrrrl rebellion of the 1960s and 1910s. Spiro Agnew, George Wallace, and others could easily and successfully attack the ""pmissiveness" of middle-class pawnts and the ""pointy headed intelllectuals," eixling political capital. But by the early 19'70s, the working class, the poor, the rich, and the rest of society-all seemed to be aping the avant-garde middle-class radicals, initially a hirly small1 group, Long hair and jeans were e v e r ~ h e r ebtue-collar ; workers began smoking marijuana and hashish; and the sexual revolution-not to mention the sexualizaticm of sang lyrics, movie screenplays, television programs, and fashion trerrds-exlended upward and damward in the class stmcture, Among the other problems with this new diftlsion of previously unconventional behavior throughout society was the collapse of class markers that the amuent had atways depended on for social reproduction. For example, young people dancing in a disco now faced each other with a new democracy of style: similar dress and language, similar habits and norms, How could allyone tell who was a high schoaf graduate or a dropout, who was the daughter of a stockbroker or a tmck driver, who was the son of a janitor or a psychologist, when everybody looked and acted pretty much the same? The middle-class anxiety over the events of the 1960s and 1970s crystallized into a theory of ""permissiveness""that heavily emphasized the dangers ~;osociaf-class reproduaion, Although even at the height of the counterculture acl;ual behavior still varied considerably by social class E in the lower cliasses),zAa (e*g.,infernperant b e h a ~ o was r ~ O cammon discourse of universalism began to have appeal (with such slogans as "Drug use can happen to anyone" and "Teen pregnancy cuts across all lines"") From the standpoint of the middle class, it was the spread of problems such as drugs to their owr2 ehss, to their sons and daughters, that was the threat. Rs long as drugs or intemperance in general stayed in the ghetto, it posed Xittle concern. Sirnilarty;the new sexual hedonism threatened middle-class reproduction. since almost all aspects of the new revalmions (e.g., the detachment of sexual relations fiorn rnonogamy and the movements to legitimize gay and lesbian relations) threatened the way in which partner choice allowed for cross-generational. transmission of sociaf-class position. Finally, there was an irony about the 1960s cultural patterns that would not become apparent until the Xate 1970s, when the attack on

"yermissiveness'has in full swing. Radicals or fiippies countered criticism about their w n behaviors with an i n c ~ a s i n greliance on criticism of conventional middle-cllass norms as hlyy>ocritical.For example, when their drug use was attacked, New Leftists questioned "straights"' use of alcohol and tobacco. And later, when radicals in the women's movement were attacked for promoting political separatism or lesbianism, they often replied by critiqlrirlg dominant heterosexual norms and behavior. Most importam, the identification of hypocrisy was meant rhetorically and deilensively: Hardly any actiast in the 1960s would have proposed more state controls on cigarette smoking or drinking, for example, And few if an5 of the leaders of the early women's mwernent would have thought of opposing '"promiscuity" or pornography as a danger to women. Yel critiques of hyl~locrisyalways allow for two possibilities: the acceptance of new radical norms and behaviors previously excluded by the alleged hypocrites, or the gradual excluding from respectability of old norms that made the establishment seem hypocritical, In other words, it ultimately became morc: politicdly feasible to attack alcohol and tobacco and reduce their acceptability than ta affect drug legaXization. Likewise, it was more politically feasible to attack pornography or sexual abuse than to ataek monogamy or the powedul legal and normative codes upholding heterosexual marriage.

The New Temperance and Economic Declhe: 1970s-1990s It is, of course, analoically difficult to disentangle changes in cultural norms ham other social changes and to account for complex interactions among the economic, political, and cultural spheres. One can argue that the countercultural trends of the 1960s and 1970s that so shocked the nation were untenable over the long haul and, hence, would eventually s ~ n back g toward the old respectable norms of the middle class, Politically, any threat posed by "60s"-style cultural radicalism actually had been turned into its opposite, a convenient symbol for political candidates to rtln against (as1 discuss Euflher in Chapter G), U y the late 1960s both Regublicm and some conservative Democratic political strategists had tied the rebellious young radicals to the poor and ghetto underclass through a successful construction of the notion of '*permissiveness,'9twas Nixon, after all, who declared the (firsl) war on drugs in 19639, The issue of drugs served as a masterful symbolic code precisely because it t i d e d the disorder on campuses and among youth with what was beginning to be seen as a dysfrtnctional "culture of poverty'' tn the ghetto, En fact, most of the intemperance issues that became popular by the 1980s were already part of the older generation's

bill of complaints against the young by the late 1960s: sexual promiscuity, lack of a work ethic, ""soffness'kr permissiveness, and hedonism, I suggest, however, that the political campaigns against intemperance did not succeed in altering behavior and cultcrral norms until after the economic conditions of the nation had deteriorated, affeaing all social classes but (most important for our purposes) the middle class especially. Despite the considerable political success of conservatives (e.g., surwy~showedwidespread opposil-ionto drugs and other "deviant" actidties, whereas liberals were suffering overwhelming electoral defeats by the late 1960s and early 1970s, hartifly suggeslixlg much support for countercultural ideas), the actual incidence of "misbehavior'9Ihroughout the American. population continued to increase despite the political defeat of the counterculture," ""I"hat is, although the New Left and the hippies weft? now a thing of the past, widespread use of dmgs and nonmarital sexual beha.\riorwem diffusing throughout society This was true as wdX for other forms of intemperance from pornography to increased po'rrqal of violence in the media. The panern of respeetabiliw had been at least temporarily broken; young blue-collar workers, children of the middle class, and children of the poor shared generatiorlal s p b o l s including dress, language, d ~ l l gand ~ , sexual behavior. As class markers blurred, not only drugs and sexual license but even criminafity (such as lllidespread suppaft among the New Left and hippies for pilferrxlg and other minor crime) became pemeived as a threat to midae-class norms. Only in the aftermath of the economic slide that started w3th the severe recession of 19'73-29'74 and continued throughout the next two decades would a gradual consensus Remerge around respectabitiq, at least in the middle class and (what remained of) the working class. The new consensus occurred dtlrixlg a period that paralleled the greatest decline in economic fortunes for middle America since the Great Depression. At first, it kvas possible to believe that the economic slowdown was temporary, and that everyone would return to t h prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s, But by the late 1 9 7 0 ~deindustrialization ~ was well under way*Phenomena such as plant closings, the rise of homelessness, and labor givebacks ( w a e cuts and benefit concessions] brought back a language unknown to those who had not lived through the Great Depression. New phrases such af;corporate downsl'ning,mergeus and acquisitions, and corpara-te r ~ i d e came r ~ into vogue. In the 29'10s, while the decline of America as the dominant world power showed in the "misery index" of constant high inflation and high unemployment, a merciless attack on trade unionism and labor in generat begarl with wage cuts, concessionary bargaining, and the imposition of two-tier salary scales. These factors helped to shape the political sphere, as the New Right arose from the ashes of the old New Deal coalition" collapse, and

Ronald Reagarr rase to power in 1980, at a time when voters were fed up with e n e r g crises and fimrrly Cafler's calls for sacrifice,m a t lay ahead was little b e t t e ~As the president led the attack on organized Xrnbor with the smashing of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO), a new, more severe recession hit in 1981-1982, The 1980swould bring no economic relief to the middle cliass, as only the rich got richer, prices climbed [albeit at a somelvhat lower rate than during the 1.970~)~ and wages slagnated. Social benefit cuCbacks and a massive rise in housing costs helped squeeze out those parts ofthe working class that had barely been hanging on, The last good economic year the nation had was 1973, a time vvhen a thirty-year-old man could meet the martgage on a median-priced home with a fifth of his income; by 1986, payjxlg for a home wollld require double that percentage of income." LiLillian Rubin reports that for all but the top fifth of Americans, median family income dropped slighdy from 19'73 to 1990, even with the increased entry of more family members into the workforce.27 Per capita income has also fallen since 1973. Of course, much has been written about the mast extreme ~ e t i r n of s America's economic decline-about the tremendous rise in the number of homeless people and poor kmale-headed households; the increased rates of poverty among blacks and Itiatir?ros,leading to the social canstrttetion of a so-called underclass; and the radical change in I-he working class from bhre-collar unionized industrial workers to two-wage service-employees making $5 or $6 an hour each, sometimes with no benefits and often ~ t nohunion representation.28 Although middle-class baby boamers were hardly the most victimized, there are numerous reasons to emphasize their 'Tear of fatling." As an notes, the newly lowered standard of Living can be viewed in terms of generational cohorts. Because the baby boomers constituted the largest generation ever to enter the workforce at one time [between the late 1960s and the late 19'70~)~ they faced unique problems: Born during a period of g r a ~ n prosperiv, g this generation developed high expectations for their addt living standmd. However, because theirs is m exceptionally large generation, boamers entering the labor market have had a much harder time. . . . Downward mobility is therefore likely to plague baby-boomers because (I) many wiIJ. find sitreer mobiIiq blocked even as their finacid needs rznd family responsibilities increase; (2) competition. for the best jobs creates a glut of talent, making emplayers confident that they can dismiss and replace employees relatively easily; (3) competition for jobs will retard wage growth; and (4) because of the waker career prospects for this generation, families need two income-earners, pushing more people (m&nly wives) out to work. This places even more

pressure on the job market..To cap the scenario, the size of the baby-boom cohort creates shortages in eveqthing from homes to child care, thus pushing prices for these partly age-specific commodities to unprecedented heights.29

Moreover, the Pax Americana of the post-World Mrar XI period had created the largest midde class in American Nslov one that was self-confident about its status, which it passed d o m to its children as an entitlement to consumer goads and jab securi-ty,It is important to recognize that even as the news media af the past two decades have reported dramatic stories about middfe-class people faling into povertgl and homelessness, many middle-class children who did not by any measure acgually beeclme poor have still felt the anger, bitterness, and aMety that aceonlpany loss of confidence in the future, In fact, o&en the most bitter expressions of loss reported in the press in recent years have come not from homeless people or welfare recipients but from middle-cltass baby boomers employed as reporters, social workers, adrninistrativc assistants, and salespeople, For exmple, in a 1989 article entitled "The Great Baomer Bust," witer Katy Butler spoke for many of her peers when she declared that "the competition with our p m n t s is over, Mrt: lost.'"o Contrasting the home and cars of her parents Cvvlho were average, subuhan, middle-class people) with her o m lack of goods and security, she plaintively stated: ""Zelt s h m e , resentment, conEIIsion setding out in me, By the dmdards of their generation, my parents were only com-flortably middle-cliass, my; then, were they l i ~ n so g much better on one income than Bob and I, who, nearing 40, had rro children and were living on twa?"Sl Butler also reported her friendsband peerskanger and resentment: In our 20s, my friends and X hard4 cared. We ate tofu a d hung Indian bedspreads in rented apartments, W were young; it was a lark. But in our 30s, as we married or got sick of having places sold out from under us, we wanted to be grow-up, vve wanted money, we vvanted houses. . . . [Tlhe stagflation of the 70s m d 80s begot in its victims a sense of individual failure-and its s u ~ v o r sa, sort of chumpislt pride, as though they'd came up in the world by paying $1 00,000 for a house that would Itme cost their pments a fifth as much.32

Mainst the backdrop of the many poor and workixlg-ctasspeople who have fallen into trnemplyment, poverG and even hometessness, it is easy to be critical of middle-class baby boomers who feel sorry for themselves for not being able to have both a new house and a new car while also having children (as Butler complains), But the middle class, as Ehrenreich and others note, sets the cultural tone in America; and to some extent, what happens to it, not to the rich or poor, is what the

media are concerned wWt. Mthough the dwnward mobility of the middle class has probably been exagerated, since the mid- 19'70s economic: fear and anxieq have been facets of daily life h r most Americans (except the very rich), to an extent not seen since the 1930s. h the baby boom genemtion aged and found itself in a world of Gcrce competition both for jobs and for the income needed to pay b r highpriced consumer goods, those who hoped to achieve professional and managerial positions needed new strategies of retaining their class position or at least to avoid "hlling." As in a game of musical chairs, it was as if someone said to the middle-class baby boomers, ""Eaeh time the music stops, another one of you won? be here (in the middle dassf anymore.?' One strategy that developed in the light of these trends was temperance. Indeed, by the mid-19"i"s, a period of ""fshionabite austerity" or "voluntary sirnpliciq had begrxn."s By the 1980s, the phrase "lean and mean," mined by corporate downsizers to describe their strategy of cutting labor and other costs of doing business, could also be used to describe the aggressive set of vdues that was shaping middle-class taste. Consumption (especially by so-callled yppies) increased, but it had to be "upscale" and tasteful to contrast with those who wem 'Vcfownscale." Health and fitness regimens, antismoking campaigns, and ewntually anti-drug, anti-sexuality; and antiaggression movements came to be integrally conneded with the striving of the middle class to regain and reassert the norms of respectability so threatened in the 1960s and early 1970s.The hct that this return to middle-ctass respectability crossed political lines from "Left" to "'Ri&tVreflects the class-based n&ure of emperance as ideology rather than purely political power strategy

The New Middle-Class Imperatives The cultural prescriptions af the 1950s to "'do your awn thing," """bng loose,'bnd ""drop out" weft? based in the material conditions allowing for social tolerance QU"Xm O.K., you're 0.IKlenl. These conditions included the family, economic, or social supports for those who did temporarily "drop out.'Tor example, in the late 1960s and early 1970s traveling across the country or living in a commune lFor a year or two without earned income was "'no big thing" h r young people in an economy where they could get a job when they dropped back "in'kandlor could rely on middle-class or blue-collar working-class parents for support, They c0u1d even reeeiirre food stamps or ather benefits while living in a commune. Accompanpng the sharp economic changes of the 19"i"s were mare gradual changes in the middle class, \rvhich shifted Prom some tolerance

for ""de\riancyUand even politicd dissent in the 1960s to a moralistic outlook closer to its older traditions. Uet its return to the imperative to maintain self-discipline, and t s more temperate class makers to ensure social reprodrtction, made good sense in terms of the changed economy, The other social trend that had strong political consequences also flowed in part from changed economic canditions-namely; a new social distmce from the poor and working ctass that in turn led to support for (or at most only mild dissent from) the new wars against social "de~ a n t s and " the poor. A case in point would be the 'bar on drugs" in the 1980s and 1990s. By the phrase "ken and mean," h e a n some of the obvious trends, such as fitness, good eating, healthy living habits, and abstinence from smoking, that took hold in the middle class in the X970-trends that really did suggest personal '"eanness." By the later 1970s, however, parts of American society were moving from ""assimilative""form to mare 'koercive" mbrrrr, From the New Right's successful attacks on sexuality to "welfare dependenc~"from the anti-smoking and anti-alcohol movements (e.g., MADD) to anti-pornography campaigns, there was a growing sense across the political spectrum that terrain people required contro1 or even "meanness" ('"tough love") far their own good. The most dramatic example of the acceptance of force as a dominant behavioral paradigm is the drrxg war that started in the 1880s. Expanding Pforn drugs to various sexual transgressions (e.g., undemge sex, for enmple) and even to speech acts [e.g., politically incorrect speech), the '"lean and mean" "paradigm most often uses the language of psyehotogical intervemion in dealing with ""deviants" from the middle class (these perpetrators are likely to be sent into treatment or to sensitivity training), whereas it most often takes the form of criminal imervention in dealing with those from lower classes.

As T noted at the beginning of this chapter, a number of conditions of Arrlerican life, parlicularly for rhe middle class but also increasingly for what is left of the working class, dictate a cefiain amount of self-control and deferred g-ratification both to prepare and qualie for certain work and to continue to reproduce a certain level of income and status, X also noted that, particularly during periods of prosperitgr, temperanl norms in the middles class wakened as mass csnsumption increased. Both the practice of self-discipline (aided more and more by state and corporate force) and that of careful attention to class reproduction returned in the 1970s.

Even during the 1 9 6 0 few ~ ~ middle-class people succeeded in obtaining long years of schooling and career credentials without a gmat deal of selficontrsl. Yet even though some violations of social narrns considered ""personal" were punished in cases of extremely manifest behaGor (e.g., extreme alcoholism), there was no routine personal scrutiny in most American workplaees. Production boomed in the 1960s, when a war economy was in force, and few factories could afford to turn away willing and qualified labor. Under these economic conditions, even a criminal record or a psychiatric history was not necessarily a barrier to employment. Conversely, what has occurred since the economic dorrvnturn has simply been the increased power of employers to select "leaner and meaner" employees, h a tight economy, competition favors emptoyers and lowers the abiIiV of the weakest: parts of the labor force to survive (as Cramsci predicted). Ironically; the CiviI Rights Act and succeeding legislation, and its enhrcernent have assisted in this process, by shifting employer discretion from the long-term practice of discrimination by ascribed characteristics (race, genderpage, etc.) to discrimination by behavior (drug use, cigarette smoking, weight and health status, criminal status, abiliq to get alung, etc.). In this era during d i c h democmtization had forced capital to cease using ~ s i b l status e characteristics ta sort labor, a bebavioral code of discipline now developed to sort out workers. But in the 19i"Os at least, norrrrs that encouraged self-discipline and self-control had to flourish in the middle class before employers and other institutions could actually develop more coercive policies. But these policies wert?not hard to come by because rhey built on a prclexisting, historically based tradition of middle-class respectability. Being weweight may not have been held against an employee in the 1960s, but trimness was certainly considered a virme of respectability and fat a symbol of Xaziness. Many people smoked, drank, and took drugs in the 1960s and early 1970s,but middle-class people h e w that these were not produclive activiries, and that they could intederr: with work. And so, as cultural obsewers have noted, by the mid-2970s cigarette smoking and high-calorie, fatty hods were "out" and fitness was "in." Hamburgers, minkies, white bread, and cigarette smoke came to be associated with those 1 ower in class and thus were makers of status, These status diRerences coincided with the creation of an "upscale" market of taste, symbolic of the elite's ability to resist temptation, to defer the gratification of immediate pleasures in order to be ready, able, and always ~1Xing to work, Metaphors of ""hdth'" and of '*"austerity7>n the later 1970s firflher reinforced asceticism among the educated classes. It was not just that

more health information had become available or that the success of the environmental movement in corjljtinction with hard economic times had led to the popularity of ""Iean and mean." By the mid-197Os, healthcare costs were becoming an issue, and governments and public interest groups werr: competing in their effoas to place the ""blame"either on consumers or on broader social forces, Although en\l-ironmentalgroups attacked ixldu-y and government negligence, the Ldtixnately more successful argument came from people who blamed persond indulgence: As Joseph Galifan0 put it, '3ndulgence in private excess has results that are far from grivate.""4 The grolsrth af corporate employee assistance programs and wellness programs in the late 1970s as well as incmased attempts to screen wol-kers by personality (e*g.,through polygraph testing),3%ombined with a concern for reducing health-cze costs, reducing theft, and eliminating undesirable workers altogelher, By the 198Qs,self-discipline and self-control were not merely symbolic acts that would impress employers ar c o l l e a ~ e sRather, . in these new '"lean and mean'" times, jobs came to depend on behavior. So many variables were now related to getting a job that, in 1986,Newsweek:could run a cover slory asking "'Can You Pass the Job Test?" Citing mandaory drug testing, psychological and polygraph tests, heaflh and genetic screenings, the columnist wondered whether ""288.135" had indeed arri-ved." Drugs, the bugaboo of the New Temperance and new corporate dominance, served as a metaphor of two failures of self-discipline*First, alleged users were unable to defer gratification, thus hiling to demonstrate that they we= prodrtctive and &urnorthy employees. Second, in the aftermath of the defeat of social or labor unrctst, drug use became symbolic of any resistance to corporate and government power, Naw that the country had been told to ""just say no," the fact that miscreants continued to say ""yes" was particularly irksome, to say the least. As certain behaGors became more and more stigmatized, it is difficult to know whether the initial socid-control aims (e.g., for a temperate workplace) were predominant or whether any behavioral deviation had become the issue, (For example, as time went on, drug users were increasingly referred to s h y l y as "'lawbreakers," as if explanations were no longer necessary far their persecution.) In the competitive squeeze of the 1980s and 1940s that emphasized more and more compliance to behavioral norms, corporate culture coopted some visions of control of the ""S_efi'"s well as those of the '4Rightp' and "Center." Today; drug and alcohol use [and, in some companies, cigarette smoking can lead to job loss; and the increased stricture around issues such as semat harassment means that the private space of lockers or desks is now policed in some companies, Although corporate tests

generally screen for psychiatric or criminal histories or labor union proclivities, inappropriate speech to coworkers or superiors that might be linked to intolerance or ""potical incorrectness" i s also policed in a growing number of workplaces. What is most important about the new social control is not its content but, as Foucault would argue, its strategic power. Corporations, go-vernments,and other institutions have assumed the right to police aspects of life pre\riousXy seen as ""prsonal," and this power seeps across traditional politic& lines. In turn, the individual has little or no social power with which to back up his or her okvn personal r i g b , given the decline of coumervailixrg forces at the workplace, The accommodation of the c o y o r a e world to politicat and sexual correctness is in part a renection of the success of the 1960s social movements; yet it is also true that insistence an ""praper" and respectable speech and actions in the workplace is consistent with eadier visions of social control that employers have always maintained. Social Reprodturtiom: The Pressure on Pclrt~erilzga& Clziln;tream"~g

Ironically, the changed conditions of middle-class life since the mid1970s have occuned in response to a brief period of time kvhen perhaps the least arlloum of pressure was exerted on yaung people to "'stick to their o m kind," A variety of changes from the easier availabiliv of abortion and divorce to the advent of the birth control pill had helped seed the sexual revaltllion, radically changing sexual habits by the 1960s.This combined with the amuence of the period and even some culrud glorlfication of the poor and ""deTI-iantnh d to an increase in class mixing during these years, It is exactly this trend that the New Temperance has reversed. In a climate in wftich @treeracism and clzsism could no longer be used successfutty to mark boundaries ("Don't play with black children" or "with poor children" "sounds " t a e ~ t~ " most of the middle cltass), paaicularly among the more liberal reaches of the middle class, new types of status markers (which w r e ostensibly neutralistic) had to become available as a way of reerecting barriers to prevent social mixing, As noted earlier, heterosexual partnering and marriqe are the chief means by which social class i s reproduced from generation to generation. ln prosperous times, although parerlts did nor wmt their children to 'harry down," it still was not ""the end of the world" if their daughter hitched up with a hctory wol-ker, Tn the X960s, even less concern would have been expressed about a sonpsdatirlg habits or marriage choice, although the wife was expecfed not only to serve as a proper caretaker of children but also to be educated and able, if not to work, then at least to

represera the family well when the boss came over for dinnel: But the p""essureon dating and partner selection became far morc: intense in the 1980s and 1990s. The tremendous changes in gender roles and kmale workforce participation combined with the changed economic: times to produce a new set of difficult imperatives for young people ernering the world of relationships. Recent years have witrlefsed major changes that suggest the relation of temperant norms to partner selection. First, the mass en&y of middle- and working-class women into the workplace, while providing them with new freedom and powe~;has also cornmodified their potential class contribution in a qualitatively differem way than was historically the case. In the old days, the American 'Cinde~lla"knrasy had some real-lik potential: A poor or struggling woman, if she had good looks, charm, or intelligence, could acltlally find a "prince" who would h l t for her. But this story now has a new twist, as Ehrenreich observes in her analysis of the movie Work-irrg Gi7-1 (L988f.Here the old eirlderella tale is impossible if the secwary is, after all, only a secretary, There is simply no way that the corporate executive would ever fall for the Sraten Island-accented, working-class character piayed by Metanie Criffith. Only when Cril'fith is able to deceptively rctplace her female boss (played by SigourneyWaver), and to mimic her speech, style, and business acumen, is she considered appropriate as a match (as opposed to perhaps a one-night sland) far the leading man played by Hanison Ford, Noting the reluctance of roday's men to marry women '"eneath them" in income and status, Ehrenreich suggests the following new social -class d e s for women: '*p j h e professional middle class has simply become a mare impregnable fortress, Once only men had to scale its walls, devoting heir youth and yaung adulthood to preparation and ayprenriceship, Women could drift in on the strengfh of their charm, . . , Today, however, almost no one gets in-male or female-without submitting to the same discipline and passing the same tests,"%Yetthis bad news for secretaries may be good news fbr the female excutives: But upwardfy mobife young profession& w m e n had much to g a from the tigl-rtened ""pttern of mmriage" w i ~ the n class. Seen as economic partners as wU. as hetpmates, w m e n are more f&el[yto be equds MiitEn their marriarges. They are also less likely than in the past ta be displaced by any of the far more numerous women-secretaries, Right atkendants, cocktall waitresses-who lack pmfessional credentials and impressive resumes.38

How is the male executive to tell the diEerence betvveen the secretary and the female boss? In Mrorkiug Girl, &er all, the secretary not only pulls off a ruse but is Ear more appealing than the executive she =places (Weaver). However, the tension the movie plays on proceeds from the

audience's howledge that the secretary really has a worlking-class accent, lack higher education, chews gum, and has a brasher, morc: open sexuality than. the upper-middle-cllasscharacters in the film. The social class of the secretaries who ride togethm on the Stakrr Island ferry to Manhattan now tends to disqualify them from being upwardly mobile, In the reall world, not only are there few Cinderellas, but class cues such as language, substance use, dress, sexualit?/;food, and fitness are needed because ""bank accounts and resumes are not vlsible attributes" at a time when, as Ehrenreich notes, "a 'nice girilkar a "ood looking gal' would no tonger do," Women who smoke cigarettes, drink Budvveisers, eat cheeseburgers, and wear clothes from downscale department stores are easy to identiQ as "tacky" ".e., lower in class), and those deemed "promiscuous" or "druggie" are ever1 less acceptable to the singe executive or professionaf. as suitable pa&ners.3" But the other part of the equation is the chmged emphasis on male behavior. Left out of EhrenrijieKs account of Working Girl is the incident in which the secretary leaves her crude working-class boyEriend from Staten Tsiand befol-e commencing her liaison k~irhthe male executive, Wereas Warrison Ford (as the executive hero) is viewed sppathetieally in the film, the working-class boyfriend receives extremely negative treatment, allthough his action of cheating on Griffith is exactly .chat the Ford character has done to the female execulivr-?[Weaver). The gender and class politics of lrsrorki~gGirl mimic those of the 1970s film S ~ t u r d a y Night Fever; inasmuch as both movies suggest that the only escape from the tackiness and domward mobility that attach themselves to the ethnic: working class (at least in the outer boroughs of NewYork) is to move to Manhattan. and secure a mare affluent, educated lo-ver or peer group. fithough the 1970s and 1980s brought new pressures on women workers, most of the downturn in per capita income and unemployment resulting from deindustrialization hit male workers hadest (since they occupied most of the blue-collar jobs). m e r e a s potential male partners like MeIanie GriffitVs Staten Island boyEriend we= once of respectable (if modest) status, perhaps employed as construction workers or steelworkers, the same men today would more ofterr be unemployed or lowpaid sewice workers such as gas station atkndants. As William Jlrlius Wilson notes in his discussion of the profound impact of deindustrializatian on the African-herican community in the 1970s and 1980s, female-headed hmilies at least pa&ly reflect the ""low marriageability pool" of available men in the ghetto.40 Although WXson is correct in emphasizing the aagit: consequences of economic decline Eor AfricanAmerican families, his argument need not be 1imi.led to the gheao, as there are "Low marriageabit'rt pools" of men in many other areas of the United States as well,

It is not simply that an unemployed or underemployed male is a poor partner because of his low income alone. In American sociee, the inabiliv to be an adequate breadwinner has dramatic psychologicai effects on mast men, and these effects are usually detrimental to self-esteem, Unemployment, job stress, and the economic dislocation itself feed a self-fu lfiiling prophecy among many poor and warking-class men: Indeed, the worse things are, the more likely they are to drink heavily, to be violent and abusive, to engage in crime, even to smoke cigarettes.4l Add this realiq to the focus of the women's movement afrer the mid1970s on issues of male misbehavior, horn domestic violence to date rape, and it is not surprising that many middle-class single women complain that there are "very Tew good men" around. Indeed, with the advance of more women into corporate and professional fields, more men seem declasse, a process complicated by simultaneous economic downturns and changed gender relations, The working-cfass man is now seen as morc: likely not only to drink, smoke, take dn~gs,or eat pork rinds but also to become cl-islent.Although many of the recent show trials on male abuse or sexual harassment have focused on prominent men-such as Clarctnce Thornas or Wlliam IcIennedy Smith-in a c h ~ d i qhere , is little evidence that middle- and upper-class women are avoiding welldressed, polite, affluent men. More likely, the new; more temperant norms and strictures against substance use as welf as increasingly ritualized forms of regulating sexuality (movements against pornography, against sexual harassment, for dating codes on campus, etc.) are leading to and Legitimizing class discrimination. A sole focus on, for example, male v.iolence reaRrms for many middle-class women the historic association bemeen "male brutishness" "(as the nineteenth-century reformers put it)Q and low social status or racial outgroups. The class mixing that did occur in the 1960s and 19"i"s has probably already become a thing of the past. As E. Malicka-'rynddek research on safe sex shows (see Chapter 41, middle-class women frequently judge the prospeclive beha.\risrof a date by his status cues: the way he talks, handles feelings, and manages impulses,a Uel, althougX3these protective impuises make good sense, they also tend to reinfame class divisions; as reseamh shows, men of IOW status are mare often seen as potential abuse= and rapists than are men of high status.44 K. Roiphe makes a similar point about the middle-class social movements at universities (such as lhose against date rape and for speech codes) that may end up inadvertently targeting racial minorities or lower-class men in the process of walling off the campus from "outside" intruders.45 If partnerirrg became perilous for most people by the 1980s and 1990s, childrearing prodlrced even more pressrtre. Even college gradu-

ates who formed couples and struggled to advance up the corporate and professional ladders found that their children werr: about to inherit a world with few easy avenues to success. Their chances of becoming doctors, lawyers, or college professors were-and are-probably even lower than those of their parents, For many middle- and upger-class Fdmilies, a mo-ve out of cities (teeming with growing numbers of poor people) was in order by the 11380~~ while millions of others remained in urban amas but abandoned the public schools. Early therapy and counseling for children became common to correct all1 sorts of ills. By the 1 9 8 0 the ~ ~ drug war" tentacles bad extended to the point kvhere getting caugl.lt with even a marijuana cigarette in school was tantmount to treason; and for many children, psychiatric care, school suspensions, even criminal charges were the order of the day. And now9in the 1990s, smoking a cigarette, having underage sex, being in possession of pornography; and a host of other acts are deemed betrayals of middleclass status itself, As noted by sociologists such as 1. Best and F! Jenkins, vvho have studied "moral panics," many of the fears expressed by people of the 1980s and 1990s have irlvolved children. We have wimessed the missing-children crisis, the sexual abuse and pedophilia crisis, the ritual abuse and Satanism crisis, the child pornography crisis, the television violence crisis, even a new focus on learning disabilities and other childhood learning problems." "Like juvenile delinquency in the 1 9 5 0 these ~ ~ issues have become symbolic of a society fearhl that it will be unable to reproduce the "goad life" of earlier generations for its children, My purpose is not to suggest that these issues lack reality but, rather, that both their incidence and their importance as political issues have been exaggerated by our anxieties. In sum, the tight labor market of late-~entieth-centuryAmerica has sent the message to prospective families that they must be "ken and mean" or else they will fail, and likely decline in class. One set of protective strategies involves increased care in selecting mates (and, to some degree, Riends as welf); anather involves inel-eased care in pl-eventing children fmm straying beyond the "slraight and narrow" and "falling in with the wrong crowd." Social b)isl-anci;f"lgf Avoiclance, and a Sev-Fulfilling Proplzeqfor the Poor

There is, firrally another social trend that links class reproduction since the late 1970s with the New Temperance: the social and physical distance that the middle class has put between itself and the poor, particutlarty the urban "underelass." The ""white Bight" from the city is arguabty

one response to the racialization of the last few decadeskrnol panics wer crime, drugs, sexuality, and disease. Ehrenreich"~ work on the inner life of the middle class reminds us that in the 1960s this class had ""rediscovered" the poor. Of course, the poor themselves were not lost except in the sense that academics, intellectuals, and journalists had c o n ~ n c e dAmericans that, in an "affluent society," "sues of poverty and inequality had disappeared. A variety of events beginning with the publica:ion of Michael Harrington's book TIze Other Atneriea in 1462 and including the civil rights movement and nutmerous gheEo riots put poverw (aswell as issues of race] back on the agenda of the middle class." Much 1960s activism can be traced ta the metding of dvil rights and poverty issues kvitlt, the issues of middle-cllass youth, In addition, association. across racial and class lines increased during this period as large numbers of suburban middle-class children reentered urban. neighborhoods, actually moGng into al-eas inhabited by the "Other." The paradox is that no sooner had the 1960s movements taken hold, and some white baby boomers had actually begun to socialize with racial minorities and live in integrated areas, this cross-feailization was short-cimuited. A variev of complex economic and political reasons Tor the ~ s u l t i n gclass polarization can be cited. For example, middle-class baby boomers themselves coxltributed to this polarization by raising housing costs in cities whew ""gntrification'koften expelled the indigenous poor, Nevertheless, the most important cleavages betliiveen those lower in the class structure and those higher, and between the middle class (including blacks) and those left behind in the inner cities, occurred as a result of economic changes in the deindustrializalisn period of the 1970s on, William JuliusWilson as well as L). Massey and N. Denton48 are among the social scientists who have demonstrated how the economic downturn of this period coincided with increased racial and class segregaiorl in housing, jobs, and prrbfic services, Ironically, the gains of the 1960s were lost in the economic changes of the 1970s and 1980s. For example, both white and black middle-class professionals have left the inner cityp either h r suburbia or for enclosed sectors of the city armed with sewrity against intrusion by poor peopIe andlor the homeless. This geographical distancing has been paratleled by the political distancing bemeen the middle class and the people who have remained in the inner city, less than fondly referred to as the "underclass." As just one illustration of this change, consider what happened in (previously) tiberaf New Yarlc City bemeen the mid- 1960s and the late 1970s. Tn the period from 1960 ta 1969, especially, liberal kvhites saw themselves as allies of blacks and the poor, and for the most part sup-

yorted civil rights as well as Ne-vvYorFsrelatively generous social welfare prwisions, When the fiscal crisis of 1975 occurred, however, little support for socid weEPare remained in New 'Slol-k, Xea.\ringthe poor and their advocates, along with besieged municipal unions, to fend Por themselves against a combination uf bankers and political leaders of both parties. Then, in X9"1*i", when mass looting broke out after a power blackout, mayoral candidate Ed Koch h u n d new popular@ by referring to the riot as the "'night of the animals,'"t would have been unthinkable a few years earlier for a Democratic candidate to refer to thousands of mostly racial minoritqr citizens as "'animals," but by 1977 this rhetoric had become highly popular and helped propel Kuch to the mayoralty49 This social construction, of ""animality"has a great deal to do with our topic, By the late 19"7s, a constellation of bebaGor identified with the "culture of pwertf' was being accepted by a majority ofthe middle class (as weEl as by both political parties and many academics) as causative of yovertS/,Prominent within this "animal" "cuIture of poverty," of course, were drugs, crime, out-of-wedlock bifihs, teen pregnancy and "welfare dependency" "All of these issues have allso been racialized, thus effectively associating them with blacks m d Latinos in the '~nderclass,'" Meanwhile, middle-class parents have responded to the presence of these "animals" by modng out of the city, placing their children in private schools, andlor supporting increased police surveiltance in poor areas of cities, I do not mean to suggest that there is no basis in reality for the fear of crime or urban disorder, These are complex reasons why the politicization of the 1960s turned at times toward more destructive cultures of resistance in the slums from the 19"i"s on. Rathel; my point here is that as middle-class people (of all races) came to accept the notion that the inner cities were drug- and crime-infested and plagued by imrnordity, elements of self-htfitling prophecy were at work. Ehrenreich captures this process well: [Cllass polarization . . . develops a perverse, self-reinforcingdynadc of its own. As the professional middle class withdraws from public services, those sedces lose their most adammf advocates a d critics. The schools deteriorate into holding bins. The parks are abandoned ta the purveprs of drugs. . . . Qf course, as the poor become dmgerous-addicted, short-ternpered, diseased-t.he middle class dtkadraws still further from contact. Better to close the park, as same affluent lower-Manhattanites have argued, than risk mingling with those who have no other space in which to sleep or pass the time. Better to block off public: streets, as some Miami neighborhoods have concluded, than allow free passage to the down-and-out. , . . And the more the poor are cut off ar abandoned, the less they are eapable of inspiring sympa&y,"l

In other words, ifthe xnddle class had nor abandoned the poor both geographically and polirically at a time when the economy was destroying the basis of s ~ rlEor~large ~ numbers l of people, this self-fulfilling prophecy mighl not have occzured. For as conditions worsened for the poor and racial minorities, the triumph of right-wing ideology (ofen with the nodding agreement of centrist and liberal politicians) was to associate immorality with poverty and the influence of the 1960s: The New Right's mdysis of poverq and welfare becme the conventional Mrisdom. The War on Poverty had failed; welfare had fafled, In fact, they had backfired, inflicting on their intended beneficiaries ""itivorce, alcoholism, drug abuse, psychosomatic illness, neurosis, suicide," and, of course, more poverty, . . . [Lliberat social-welfare policies had f r a ~ the d fabric of American familiy Me, brhging increased crime, illegitimate birth, drug use, teenage pregnanw, divorce, sexually transmitted disease and p ~ v e r ~ s l

Ironically, anee the middle class accepted this social construction, it provided a political and cuhural wedge not only bemeen the middle class and the poor but, ofien, betliiveen adults and their own children as well, As the New Temperance became a coercive movement in the 1980s, exemplified by mandatory drug testing and wholesale arrem of drug users, even sectors of the middle class wem swept up in the police net, atbeit to a lesser degree than the poor. The sociaf-controf paradigm linked a " t h ~ afrom t withour"' the middle class-the contagion of dmgs, sexuality crime, ewn secondhand smoke-to a ""rreat from w3fhinP'those who still did druf;-s,were sexually promiscuous, were so&an pleasures from food to illegal substmces, or who cornmilled child sexual abuse or ather sins, By the 1980s, m o a of the middle ctass, though fearful of social contagion from the poor and, hence, supportiwe of various wars against lhem (e,g., the wars on drugs and crime), had became absorbed in its own problem of social reproduction, In embracing the New Temperance as ideology, the middle class aaempted to erect a cultural barrier between the classes, adding to the geographic and political barriers that were aXready in. place,

Social Class, Behaviord Norms, and Temperance The return of much of the middle class to temperant status markers in the 1980s and 1 9 9 0 ~after ~ the historically brief =bellion of the i196Os, suggests a fair degee of consistency in the pallerrred social norms that accompany behavior by social class, Although periods of prosperity reduced the social distance betwen rich and poor in terms of their behavior (particularly in the postwar Pax Americana), patterns af behavior

among the poorer classes (particularly of young men) are generally yerceived to be, and often are driven toward, patterns that differ from the dominant middle-class norms, This argrtment is a complex one: Not only are poor (and often working-class) people socially constructed as ""dviant,'%ut behaviord differences have a structured reality as welf. Although there are many caveats to consider, hislorically and currently, rates of subslance use Gee.,longterm and heavy use of alcohol, most illicit drugs, and tobacco), rates of felony crime, and rates of wife and partner abuse are overwhelmingEy higher among young men from poor or working-classbackgrounds than among those from middle-clas ones. Marclover, historicatly and crossnationally rates of teen pl.egnancy are higher among poor women, and rates of teen sexuality arzd poor diet are higber among the poor of both sexes.52 The reasons for the structuring of these often stigmatized behadon among those in the lower classes, and (in cases of substance abuse, crime, and aggression) among young males, are too numerous for a complete discussion here.5Wl~atherthan support either an essentialist view of male predisposition. toward violence or a moralistic view that blames socie~"s victims, I stress the following explanations. First, the stigmatization of this bebavior, as discussed, o@n follows middle-class social movements that lead to the illegalbation of certain markets, relegating these markets to the poor and other oulgroups, As we have seen, the use of dcohol and drugs, and the construction ofthe issue of sexuality; cannot easily be separated out from their historic associations with social class, For example, when the nineteenth- and early~entieth-cent~zry Temperance Movement targeted alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, these markets become illegal ones, True, some enterprising businesspeople have trafficked with criminals, managed brothels, and dewloped lucrative drug routes, Hokvever, for the most part, the illegaXization of a product or trade has meant that those who risk arrest are mostly the ones exluded from socieeyk more rewarded roles. Few d n ~ g sellers or prostitutes-and, likewise, few robbers or muggen-have ever hailed from the middle or upper classes. Of course, this fact is explained nut by the better mordiv of the upper classes but by the latter's abill(y to secure income in an easier way than suffering police =pression, personal and sexual exploitation, and other dangers of the '"nderground" street life. Second, many observers have cited the tremendous impact of miserable tivixlg conditions on the poor and the working class ofwestern societies. The social strctss of growing up poor is almost unfathomable to those who grow up in the middle class or above, Constant anxiety over a pa~rrt'sability to feed and clothe a child is transmitted directly to the

child, whose a m anxiety may lead the parent to become frustrated and begin hitting or slapping the child. Living in crowded conditions without privacy; amusement, or relief from boredom has alwa3r;s compelled children to take to the streets in poor areas, where sexual behaviar, aggression, and substance use tend to occur early in life. Unemployment, at least among men, also correlates with substance use and Gotence. Mle do nat fully know the degree to which these behaviors are responses to diminished self-esteem, increased anger, boredom, worry, anxiety, or the lack of being tied to a conventional role. But there is no question that rtnernployr~xentand undercsmploymexlf lead men to smoke m o ~drink , more, andlor assault others more than they would vvhen they have wellpaying work, And, again, excXuded racial minorities are prominent among those charged with crime, physical abuse, or dmg usage because of the economic stress confronting them, compounded by the dirninished esteem caused by racism and discrimination. An understanding of social stress and the pain of lower-class life is critical to understanding violence and, to same extent, sabsance use and youthful, sexuality; but it is only when W also include the kctor of culture that we can begin to account for differences in respolrse to living situations. Some ethnic and racial. differences interact with class, as 1 indicated in the eartier discussion of teen pregnancy Experts on the PdmiEy and sexual behavior describe a Xong history of differences in kinship patters between African-Americans and American Indians, on the one hand, and whites, on the other.sGenerally; blacks and Indians have exhibited freer attitudes about sex than have white Protestants, and the prohibition against early sexualiv as well as the sanctions for violating monogamy appear to have been less strong. The norms associated with lovver-class culture are also arguably different from those of middle. people who are poor and wrking class adapt a conclass c u l ~ r eMany Smith observed more than ventional attitude, but as D, Schneider and i. two decades ago: "[Members ofj the lawer class both envy and defer to middle-class vdttes without necessarily ernbracing them, Merrlbers of the lower classes frequently explain their position in terms of the cl-icissitudes of their daily lives which prevent them from f o l l o ~ n gmiddle class paterns. . . . [Alll classes pay symbolic deference to [thesej vdues while adhering to their owne"ss As 1 have also argtred, the cclftural resistance of the poor usually does not take the form of open rebellion or even that of an ideological or value construction openly antagonistic to middle-class norms. The mare one is subject to personal sunreillance and visibility, the mom one will "go along" at least on the surface with &at middle-class everts say one should do. As Schneider and Smith note, though, verbally '"going along" is a bit different from the reiltity of one"sife.s",n my experience

with a community of street people, for example, substance use and nonm a r i ~sexualily l were moslly just the '"way of the street,'Wthotlgh these behaviors were not glorified-in fact, they were often regretted by those seeking respectabitity from social agencies or job programs-they w r e usually not seen as a sign of devianq or Lack of feLlowship, unless some other norm of the street had been cl-islated (as when substance use was followed by violence or sexual beha.lrior interfered with someone's "steady"' relationship, leading to conflict).sT We can further elucidate these shucturat and cultural arguments about social class by drawing on 12.avis Hirschi's classic formulations about control and definquencysn Hirschi's argument, in a nutshelt, was that w3th0ut a stake in conventional socief-y;poor or working-class people simply have less reason to control their behavior, For example, a poor person is offered some drugs on the street. m a t does he or she have ta lose by taking them? The lower people are in the social order, the less a lack of linear thinking or rational clariq will interfere with their work roles, Nor will being a drug user destrsy a rich iirture career, Conversely; a high school student planning on going to college, or hoping to make a name for him- or herself someday; would probably think it wise to rcll"lrse the drug (at least if there is any chance of being caught by authorities). Qr consider the man who is angered by someone, whether by a spouse, a rival, or an employer, The middle-ctass man may want I;o hit his wife, kill his rival, or assault his boss. But much of the time, he is likely to think betkr of it and control himself. He does so not because he is a ""better person" than his poorer counterpart but because middleclass socializatian is different: [Hligher-clwsmembers are caught in a net of relatively suppressed aEect woven by social orgmizatisn. A more effective socialization, a greater access to secondav means of anger enactment (e.g., the legal suit), a greater vulnerabili~to the undesirable consequences of direct acting out of mger that goes hmd in hand with a greater investment in maint&ning a smooth m d equable facade interpersonally m d in the communiry d 2 1 2 contribute ts the management of angem: . . . "nger-in" is the miljior middle-class mode of "reefiection"when provoked. . . . Middle-class sociafizatian focuses eartier on control of anger and on self-control in general.59

Although, to some people, Wirschik cantrol theory may appear to mirror consewivc: explanations about the poor or others hiling to live up to beha.viora1norms, the idea can atso be applied quite differendy, Using social strucmraf argttarrents in combination with cullural and control theories, I maintain nob that the poor are behavioral 'Veviants," and hence moraliy ~sponsiblefor their own poverty or low status, but that "'proper behaviar" on the part of most poor Americans would not make

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PIT

The New Temperance of the last two decades, though a class and cuttural phenomenon, succeeded foremost as political strategy. Presidents, members of Congress, Surgeon Generals, state Xegislators, judges, and grassroots activists came to embrace the politics of Puritanism, This was most clear in the ""war on drtrgs," vvhiclt saw the development of a powerful state apparatus of control over citizens"rivate fives, including mandatory prison terms and widespread dmg test:ing. In this chapter, I explore how the American political sysem tends to support conset-vativecultural politics. Ironically; same of the slogans of the social movements of the 1960s, such as the "'personal is political," may have backfired on its proponents, since longer-term power alignments in the United States hvor a ""personal politics" of repression and self-control. Mthough the New Temperance can be seen as a victory .fur the N m Right, much of what remained ofthe "Left" by the 1980s and 1990s came to embrace aspects of Puritanism as welZ, Even when liberals and feminiss held to their original ground (e.g.,with respect to aboflion and gay rights), they did so only by finding narrovver (nansexuai and naniibertarian) rights through which to defend these issues from assault, 1arwe that although the right wing c m claim the mantle of NW Temperance, its success is also a \7ietory 1For maderate and liberal a c t i ~ s t in s the nekv social movemen& who have suppoaed a '"&tics of danger" 'rather than the libeaariart politics originally voiced by the. New Left, Fcrrrinism, Libemtion, and related movements,

There is, of course, a major difference between the politics of protest and the politics of governing. The leftist radicds and early feminist and gay leaders of the 1960s were not very concerned about how calls for sexual liberation, "smashing" the family, and ending the bourgeois state "played in PeoriaP"or even in the suburbs of New York City for that matter). By contrast, governing coalitions in America have tended to be culturally and socially conservaive. That is, even when power has been held by parties that accept the "liberal" label, such liberdlsm has rarely supported intemperance or even pleasure seeking. First, the demographics of the American electorate (accttal voters) is somevvltat different from that of the Arrlericart population as a whole. Relatively few Americans routinely vote, and those wha do are mast likely to be middle class (the poor, particularly, vote in smaller numlbersf, whi*, and significantly older than the average American,~8_11 of these Fdctors (as reflected, for example, in data about who uses illicit drugs, who smokes cigarettes, and who engages in youthful or multiple-partner sex) genemlfy favor consewatism in personal behavior, Those who hold political and judicid office, of course, are even more likely to be older, "whiter," and of a higher-clafs background than ttle average American. They are also more likely to be male. It is hard to think of a politician or judge in the last half-century who has publicly supported intemperance, regardless of his or her personal peccadilloes, The demographics of those who govern-namely, older white men of the middle and upper classesis one factor mitigating against a politics ofpXea~ure~2 Most Americans, particularly ofice holders and voters, consider themselves to be religious. And regardless of whether they attend church , take the Ten Commandments seriously or other religious s e r ~ c e sthey (even if they Galate some in practice), The strong cultural traditions of Puritanism, combined with the natural reluctance of most citizens to organize on the basis of "immoral" kbeha.vior (e.g., use of drugs or pornography), have focused ttle political debae on an idealized hdeo-Christian ethic. On the one hand, office holders, their campaign funders, and organized citizen groups are likely to react strongly to attach against the nuclear family, monogamy, biblical teaching, and other cultural pillars of socierp On the other hand, even when mitlians of citizens take drugs (as they did during the 11960s and 19"Is) or engage in illicit sexual relations, not only are they reluctant to admit it, but they are rarety mobilized to mte on. that hiusis. In response to the pollster, the adulterer is usually contri"fe,the cigarette smoker says he wants ta quit, and the

wereater says she wants to lose wight. The sinners, as often as not, are ready to vote against intemperance even if they themselves have engaged in the illicit aetiary; Tn short, religious and cultural traditions exert a powerful pull against endorsement of intemperate behaGor, Even when governing coalitions change dramatically on a given issue (support h r gay rights prc).Videsperhaps the most vivid example of how millions of voters and some politicians have come to suppoa rigf.lts for behaviar that only two or three decades ago had been regarcied as ""tlecl-ianr" or immoral), they do so only along certain lines, The easiest route to political success is to cite ""frmilyvalues" of hearth and home, children, chumh, and the 3 R's. Of courst;, the Right and Cerlter are far more at ease with such appeals than the Left*But the LeftJ liberals, and kminist and gay activists have irtcreasingy turned to this aypeat as well. Tpical of the n w macinstrecvrl appeal of gay rights is the nonsexual, demure, professional, long-term gay partner played by Tom Hanks in the film PhiladetMiu. Stripped oE sex, countercultnral symbots, and any dangerous attacks on gender or family stereolyges, this new sanitized appeat. for gay rights has succeeded in increasing its political support, Tn a similar vein, liberal politicians denounce drugs as they call for more drug treatment liacilities, and many feminists present themselves as defending real 'Yamily values" as they denounce family criolence or sexual abuse. h e r i c a n politics is pragmatic, Politicians do respond when enough pressure or social unrest occurs; but even then they usually do so onIy in a way that proGdes the most minima1 basis of radical demands and reshapes them into a compromise with the dominam order, By cormding radical demands, the poltical system discourages militant activists and usually rewards only the most moderate of leaderships,

The "Personal.Is PoIiGcd'' Prior to the late 1960s, the dominant issues of national polities for several decades (i.e., since the repeal of Prohibition) had been the economy, foreign policy; social welfare, and cir?iE rights. The Left was generally associated with civil rights, labor unionism, a pro-Socir-ttist or at least prodktertte position on communism, and incwases in social benefits ta the working class and poor. Yet one of the contradictions of history is that the political symbolism embraced by the Left and its related social movements of the 1960s and 19x0s stimulated the development of a. New Right tl~at,in many respects, was m o skilIfuX ~ in, its assertion ofthe ""personal is politicd" than the Left was, The history of this phrase remains to be written,s but, briefly statedt it appean to have originated in the New Left during the 1960s. Initially it

stressed the necessity of personal commitment to broader political goals (e.g., taking action against the draft, "putling onePsbody on the line" aaginst the war or racism). Later, after the phrase had been filtered through the women's mrnavement, it was imeryreted as requiring a deconstruction of the split betwcen the public life of "politicsppand the "private" life of sexual, cultural, and familid life. The publiclprivate split in bourgeois society was said to be a creation of capitalism arzd patriarchy that, an the one hand, oppressed women and others (children, sexual minorities) by casting them into the private, domestic sphere, while, on the other hand, minimizing issues of personal life such as sexualiw and aggression in the family. The result was advancement of the political theory for the many "social issues" of the 19"Is: abortion and reproductive rights, gay and lesbian rights, domestic violence, children's rights, anti-rape and sexual abuse legislation, and so forth, However, the "personal is political'' was also quite ambiwous, in that many cl-iewedit as a kind of imperialistic concept in which all human behavior could be evaluated in a "political" way In what would become a much-disputed notion of ""political carrectness," "me actidsts sought to cl-ieweach indiv.idualk patterns of personal relationships and each nuance of personal life ifrom a joke told at a party to one's physical appearance) as being "poi~tical." Irrir-ialfy, the politicization of the "personal" coexisted with the liberroll," In the late 1960s, dmgs were tarian spirit of '"sex, dmgs, and rock hn' still seen by many radicals as a challenge to canventional consciousness and bourgeois rationality, untamed sexuality as a challenge to family norms, and even 'kipping things off"" as a chdlenge to bourgeois property norms. For example, as feminist witer Jean Tepperman recalls, in. the early 1970s""arnongleft ferninis&, it was almost assumed that the desire far sexual fidelity was a bourgeois hang up.'%That attitude was captured in the phrase '"mash monogamy." Of course, the irony as we will see later in this chapter, is that these norms wollld change drmatically. Wt-remas in 1969 ""living the rctvotution'Yor some meant '"ilueratirrg" food from stares and residing in communes, by the late 1970s many leffists and feminis-t-shad begtrn to reject intemperant behaviors. For mample, ceflain segments of the women's m o v e e n t rejected the entire sexual revolution as ""male inspired," and some would agree with Ti-Grace Atkinson that "the institution of sexual intercourse [itself] is anti-feminist,"s recommending the best personal course in rcllationstlips to be celibacy Severat problems would ultimately emerge with the Left's embrace of the idea oE"personal potitics.'Wne problem was the indeterminacy about which behaviors were ""radical" or 'korrect." Many behaviors deemed revolutionary in 1970 might be considered downright reac-

tionary now. Is there, then, really a ""politics" of smoking cigarettes, of driving a car, of having Eriendships, or of disposing of garbage? Were those who failed to live up to some established norm-using correct words or recycling or treating the earth well-to be oswacized or rebuked? Acti\rislswe= always split on these issues, but it seems clear that a Iarge number of people did not remain in many leRftist movements because of their fears (or actual experiences) of being upbraided about some aspect of their personal lives. W e n righteousness about personal habits or speech replaced substantive positions, considerable battles occurred p thin the movements themselves as a c t i ~ s t sattacked each others%abits and predi2ections. A second problem was that many actidsts turned the phrase on its head: If all behaGor was ""political," then a polities of personal improvement RherapeMic and recovery groups, Spaflan commune life, vegetarianism) was as much "p~litics"as picketing, boycotting, or petitioning. Feminist historian Aliee Eehols describes the ""prsonal is political as one of those ideas whose rhetorical power seemed to work against or undermine its explication. It could encourage a solipsistic preoccupation with self-transfo~mation[and]subordinated polities to iifesqle."E Such politics, moreover, could be very self-serving Eur middle-class actiests who in the context of the 19"1s and later had lost much interest in protesting, yet (as noted in Chapter 5) had increasingly become absorbed in adopting the symbols of respectable middle-class life (even if their speech, dietary; and other behar;.isral patterns had transbrmed middle-class life somewhat). Before tve further examine how the new social movements of the Left ma-ved it toward the New Temperance, it is important to note that the Rght (quite ixltelrrionally) froze its view of the Left in tfle late 1960s and early 1970s.Well into the 1 9 9 0 many ~ ~ spokspeople on the Right treated a c t i ~ s t on s the Left as if they wem still rebellious anarchists intent on undermining VVesterxl civilization by urging an end to the family; the church, and h e state, keording to Jerry Falwelf, far example, the Left was promoting 'Tree use of pornography, legalizing prostitution and gambling, and free use oE drugs,"7 This characterizarion is amusing because it came at a time when many leftist activists we= opposing drugs and pornography, whel-eas few leftists were expressing any position at all on proslitution or gambling. matever slogans or discussions about "smashing" the family, the state, or other dominant institlltians might have emerged in the 196Qs,by the 1980s they kvel-econfined to extremely small sectors of the Lek. But if the symbolic meanings of personal behavior changed radically for what remained of the Left a&erthe late 19"10s, new actors in the potitical arena woutd skillfrtlly use the symbols of daily life to win adherents

among the broader public. Prior to the IgSOs, right-wing movemenrs had also emphasized foreign affairs, communism, economic, and social welfare issues, Richard Viguerie, one of the founders of the New Right, highlighted this strategic change! in his book recounting its origins: "For the past 50 years, conservatives have sressed almost exdusively economic and foreign policy. . . . Mle feel that conservatims cannot become the dominant political force in h e r i c a until we stress the issues of eoncern to ethnic and blue collar Americans, born-again Christians, pro-lik Catholics and Jews, Same of these issues are busing, quotas, crime, abortion, pornography, education, and traditional Biblical moral values.)'EI" W e r e a s the Old Right was associated with wealthy elitists like Miilliam Buckfey, a new popu1iH Right emerged; "bold and innovative," it a ~ e m p t e dto capitalize on the racial, semal, and countercultural politics of the 1960s. One historian of the New Right suggests that the construdion of politics as ""personal'kas as new I;o the Right as to the Left: "No longe"; in their eyes, should politics be limited to bread and butter issues such as inflation, jabs, taes, and business issues. Now the gmernment . . . had a constitutional right and duty to be the custodians, or keepers, of a spec@c momtistic worldview and set oJ-behavi~f"~-,?'g This "moralistic worldtl-iew;" of course, would be a "personal palitics" directly opposite to that of the Iate-2960s Left: pra-family, pro-traditional morality, strongly against abortion and woments liberation, srrongfy against gay rights, strongly anti-drug, anti-pornography; and pro-chastity (and at the same time reflecting the more traditional concerns of the Right in being anti-welfare state, anti-Communist, and pro-national defense spending), Compared to the Left, the Nelv Ri@t certainly had a much easier tirne developing a ""personall politics" since it drew on the grass-roots fundamentalist and evangelical tradition of American Pratestantism, particufarty in the South and in rum1 areas, The New Ni@t was innoval-ive in scope and rhetoric as well as in its use of direct-mail orgmizjng; but its genius was in repackaging the mare conservative aspects of nineteenthcentury politics from bomothingism to conservative versions of populism, prohibitionism, and the Social Purity M o v m e n . The Right's quest for Puritan values had a hrther advantage: The demographic tirne clock was such that the symbols of the batsy boomers"youth, particularly "free" sex and drugs, would decline in popularity among this groltp as they aged and had children of their own. Hence, by the 2980s and 1990s, on many of these "'moral" 'issues, the Right wvutd come closer to the nation's dominant opinion than the few aging libeflarians who remained.

Sin and the Republican Strategy The Republican Party; the minority party frorn the 1930s to the X960s, had experimented with some new appeals in the 1960s to improlve its electoral showing. 'Street crime" first became a theme of mord decay in Barry Goldwater's unsuccessl"uE 1964 campaign, Far mare successful, of course, was the Nixon-Agnew campaign of H68 in which crime was linked with '7lawlessness, looting and riating'knd drug use with student unrest and general ""prmissiveness" within. society." Drawing from GeorgeWallace" successful populist appeal, Nkon and Agnew used "law and orderP%nd""mordval.lxesMas codes appealing to a "'silent majority"" of conservative Americans, The GQP hoped to develop a successa"ut "Southern strategy" that would wrest not only the solid Sotlth frorn Wemocratic hands but also socialty conservative, blue-collar, ethnic voters Ram their aaachment to the New Deal-specifically; by offset"cing the economic and social welfare issues with a sociallculturall appeal. Vet although Nixon played successfully on the "permi~siveness?~ theme against liberals, students, and the New Left, for a rrariev of reasons he arzd the more moderate wing of the RepubXican Wfy (Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, etc.) never fully utilized tempemnce/Puritanism as a political strategy First, some of the major events that provoked the development of the New Right (e.g., the h e u Wade decision of 1973) lay ahead, Second, however, Nimn and the other Republican leaders probably did not envision a puritanical approach to sex or even a t a a l attack on drugs to be strategicallywise. Nar did they view a direct attack on the burgeoning women" movement as being in their best interests, For example, in endorsing the Equal Rights Amendment (EM)in the early 1917"0s,Nkon and Republican office holders Gewed the issue as a relatively noncontroversial bow to women voters that would have no revolutionary impact. Xt came as a shock to moderate Republicans, as well as Democrats, when the ERA was later blocked. Xn 1970 Nixon's Commission on Obsceniq and Pornography issued a liberal rt?porlfinding no proof of o b s c e n i ~ bharm, and in 1972 his Cammission on Marijuana recommended decrirninalization (although Nixon himself refused the rclcommendation),Given the gains the sexual revolution was making in the early 1970s and the rise in marijuana use, it was not obvious that these were popular political issues, Xf a wide constituency could be mobilized to vote based on an anti-semalq, anti-modernist, and anti-new social movement theme, this fact had not yet been demonstrated, In the mid-l970s, it remained for conservative strategists such as Richard Viguerie, Paul myrich, Howard Philfips, and Terry Dolan to develop a successful political strategy that would dramatically reverse

Democratic majorities in Congress, as we11 as in many statehouses and legislaturcls, and help lead to a wide margin of viaories far Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, Of course, the New Right was su~cessfulon many issues, so it is hard to separate the impact of what X have identified as temperance issues (sexual behavior, drugs, fslmily values) from that of other issues including forced busing, quotas, militant anti-~smmunism~ and even opposition to the Panama Canal treav, Nevertheless, the feaders of the Right themselves admitted that they had intentiondly targeted sexual and family issues as a way of mobilizing conservative religious voters, Richard Viguerie, the New Right's direct-mail wizard, though not a hndarnentalist himself, was among the first to realize how a political realigxralxent could occur; he estimated that there were 85 million Americans who could h r m a "pra-family'koalition: 50 million born-again Christians, 30 million morally c~nservativeRoman Catholics, 3 million Mormons, and 2 million Orthodox Jew. This "'vast untapped reservoir" could be tapped if political loyalties were cast around moral issues. Indeed, it appean that political consultants, not Christian Ri&t groups, suggested that ferry %!well form a group like the Moral Majority," Paul Weyrich, of the National Consewive Potilicd k t i o n Committee, predieted that '"sexuality [would become] the Achilles heel of liberal Demacrats'hnd rhat "family issues will be tu [the] Right what Vetnam in the 1960s and consumer and environmental issues w r e to the Left in the 1970s."12 The power stratem of the Right was based on polfs suggesting that there was indeed a basis for a politics of Social Purity that closely linked issues such as sexual promiscuity, abortion, divorce, teen pregnancy; and pornography. Atthough certain g m p s on the Christian Riglrt such as the Moral Mitjority and Christian Voice would eventually alienate many people, including moderate and conservative voters, and although many voters never approved af some af the Christian Right's stands (such as a complete ban an aborlion), in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Right managed to position itself much closer to majoriq sentiment than did the remnants of the 1960s Left, For example, John Simpson concluded from his survey that in the late 1970s a plurdity ofiamericans endorsed the Moral Majority's position on homosexuality, prayer in the schools, gender roles, and some limits an abortion, Vingel: and Cutler reported similar results from their survey finding "intalemce toward antireligious and homosexual writings, opposition to legalized marijuana, abortion, extramarital and homosexual relations, and pornography"1"" The success of the New Right on issues of sex and moral behaVTior was based an tbvo factors, One was the ability of the New Right to mobilize

evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants who were either nonvoters or had previously voted Democratic, particularly for firrlmy Carter in 1976." EEd Rollins, the Republican pollster, estimates that 10-12 million votes shifted to the Republicans as a result of the rise of the religious Right, a shift "comparable ta what the Demoera& had gotten from Roman Catholic ethnics in the 1 9 4 0 ~1 ~9 5 0 ~and ~ 1960s."fi end, like the Social Puriq Movement, the New Right found that at a trxne of vast social change and economic uncefiainty, advocacy of traditionalist gender rotes was a popular basis for organizing, particularly among conservative women in the South and in rural areas. 'The New Right skiltrill'ty tied the new sexual norms of the 1960s and 1970s ta male vice and homewrecking. It also made the argument that the sexual revolution and women's liberation were leading to divorce, fanlily breakup, and inc ~ a s i n gpoverty among housewives and other women. In her book T l ~ e Hearts af Men, Ehrenreich directly compared women's support b r the New Right in the X970s with women's support for the 'Temperance Movement of the nineteenth century: In both eras, many women with limited earning potential were drakvn to the idea that protecting the home and traditional ljrnily was a better strategy than the call of feminists Eor women's independence. Thus, in the absence of available high-wage jobs and generous social welfare benefits for women, conservative women saw the traditional sanctions against male vice as their only protection available.16The suprising success of the "'traditiond values" slogan among some women may be one reason why segments of the women's movement shifted in the late 1970s from an anti-farnib stance to a rhetoric lbcused on w m e n k safety (i.e., proteaion against domestic vriofence, rape, etc.) as weEl as to anti-pornography campaigns. Same observers do overrate the success of the New Nigl-rt,Programmaically, groups like the Moral Majority w r e not erribly successful; and soon after Reagan's selection, they bitterly complained that he had abandoned their social issues to focus on btldget cutting and foreign policy They werclt even less enamored of the Bush administration. But whereas the New Right lost legislatively and judicially on a number of irnportaxlt issues such as prayer in the schools, the overturning of %G! V. Wade, and funding for ~ l i g i o u education, s it ~llassuccessful in alkring the political climate and changing the terms of the debate. David Snowball captures this development in his hifiory of the Moral Majorit?/.: Although it is clear that the Mord Majoriv gained little by way of legislative Gctories, . . . the organization helped to reshape the terms of public debate. By the late 1980s, public debate seemed to center on what sorts of controls should be imposed on pornography and abortion rather than whether such controls should be imposed. The question becme how much the defense budget should grow, not ""Souul it grow?" , . . [Albortion is no longer de-

fended by f e m i ~ s t as s a positive good. . . . [lftis, at best, a necessw evil, Mre na longer ask, ""Sbould the schools ga back to the basics?,'3but rather,

"'What is basic?" Fin;tllyf there is no longer my credible poiiticd defense of the vision of the Great Socieg. . . . In each of these areas, we now seem to be debating from fundamentdy BiEerent premises than when first the Moral Majoriy emergedel?

fithough 7erry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others would have preferred to achieve a complete victory on every issue, the culwral success of the New Right kvas so great that by the mid-1980s csnsewative leaden were gloaling about the New Temperance, Commenting respectively on the 1986 Meese commission?^ rreport. on pornography (which versed the Nixon Gommissianb findings) and the Supreme Court ruling upholding state bans on sodomypFalwell and Robertson were ecstatic, Falwell exlaimed, "The new moralism in this counlry has been growing for the past two decades, The awakening is manifesting itself in the change in the national lifestyle." And Robel-tsan remarked, " b e e a definite spiritual revival that is muching the standards of conduct of the entirc: society, which has gone too far toward sexual freedom, . . . [7"1heAmerican people are lookixlg Tor a rettrrn to moral values that strengthen the family.?'18 The reaction fa AIDS by some on the Right was almost gleeful; for these observers, the plague was a God-sent message in their battle against all that the "'60s"' rep~sented,including liberalism and promiscuity. As Toseph Sobran described it: ""]here was an unmistakable feeling in the air: the romaxlce had gone out of the sexual revolution, . , . Today morr: than ever, to fornicate is ta swim in polluted waters. The risk is incalculaible," Don Feder and Ray Kerrissn also referred to ""re Sexual Revolution which began in the "0s and tore down nearly every protective moral restmint. The pitch was T~uucan have it all, baby, without cost.Virtue, chastity, monogamy were labeled Victorian and junked, 'f"aday, the tab is in. Itk staggering and still climbing,'"$ The success of the Right's war against sin, however, also helped promate the New Temperance among the very movements stereaty-ped by the Right (and sometimes the media] as being libertarian or in favor of intemperance.

The Left m d Pmit Interestingly; the association of "free love" and other intemperant behavior with lefiist political Vjews is a retaively recent one, In fact, early counterculttiral activists of the 1960s and 1970s as well as feminist and gay acti.viists of the same period often railed against the social conservatism of the organized Left, particrtlarly the Marxist parties.2"~ often

as not, the Left has embraced temperance, based not on a supra-moralism of religion but, rather, in the war& of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, on "Puritanism of a rational kind, founded not on religion, but on hygiene and on economies,""" h fact, an argument frequently made by leftists is that capitnlism is immoral because it brclaks up families, leads crvomen into prostitution and both sexes into immorality; and "hooks" "people on pleasurable commodities from whose reach they cannot escape,2" Of course, historicd generalizations should be made with caution, but it does appear that revolutionary periods characterized by mass surges of unrest tend to be associated with yopufar movements challenging puritanical symbols. The French Revolution, for example, was associated by the English, and by conservatives generally; with sexual internyerance-yaaicularly aduttery, open prostitution, and nudity.2"nd the Russian Revolution dramatically liberalized the social norms of that era: Proscriptions against homosexuatity were overturned; anti-abortion, anti-dhorce, and anti-contraceptive laws were dropped; and, in fact, almost all laws that limited personal behavior (including age-of-consent and incest laws) were eliminafed.24 The libertarian lelitisrn of the 1960s axld early 1970s in the United States appears to most closely parallel these periods. By contrast, the SoGet Union under Stalin sharply reversed the earlier period of liberalization: The revival of Puritanism !in Russia] led fs not only a condemning of frivolity, prodscuit-y, rape [the definition of which sometimes incltrded having several marriages in a row/, libertinism, seduction, [and] perversions . . . but to [admonitionsagainst] kissing on the street, use of drugs or alcohol, [and support far] abstinence from smoking, , . . [TIhe State further moved to re-crimindize homosexzlalir-yand abortion a d put in more stringent divorce ruXeaz5

For a varieq of eompliex reasons, the Puritanism associated with Stalinism became characteristic of many twentieth-cenmry Marxist and some Ssciaf,Democratic parties, As often as not, governments in Eastern Europe, China, and Cuba embraced a belief in healthism and strict SOcial control raher than in libefiarianism, In part, they wre responding to the administrative dilemmas of governance, which under both communism and social democracy came to resemble the power tactics of capitalist governing coalitions, But even in the United States, where the exexise of power was never a real possibility for the Left, a strand of radicdisrn has always been highly moralistic and utopian in its aims to correct the b e h a ~ oof r the masses, Although perhaps less significant historically than the turnabout that occurred after the Russian Revolution, the shift in the American Left's

rtnderstarlding of personal behavior between the early 1970s and late 1980swas nearly as dramatic. For example, most liberal and leftis political groups and publications, many members of the organized kvomen's movement, and some members of the gay movement arguably came to endorse aspec& of the New Temperance. Mthough many Left observers suggest that the '"influence of the Right" was primarily responsible for these changes on the Left, such arguments are too simple. They fail to account not only for the Left's own beliefs in healthism and moral perfectionism butt also b r the quest of many movements, particularly the "identity movements," for a way to be respectaMe, clemsing themselves of Ihe sexual and other stigmatized connotations of their origins, (Such phrases as ''bra burners" and ""promiscuous gays" come to mind in this contmt). Mthorrgh organized forms of liberalism and Le&ismhave perhaps not dewloped the coherent moral vrision of a temperant life that the Right has, they have converged with the Right in a New 'Temperance consensus along several lines, The Left began to embrace hedthism by the late 1970s. Such moralizing about health is most apparent in admonitions against cigarerte smoking and for proper dietary habits, but over the years some on the Left have also emphasized the dangers of alcohol, drugs, teleGsion viewing, and sexuality; Although many leftists initiaXXy forrrld it diRicult to appear anti-sexrxal, it wt?s during the mid-1970s, when cultural feminism emerged, that much heterosexual behavior, some aspects of homosexual behaGorpand many media portrayals of sex came under &tack and were deemed violent, aggressive, and un~ segments of the Left also healthy Beginning in the late 1 9 7 0 ~various became caught up in their own cl-ision of crime controI. From domestic violence to hate crimes, from stalking to "'deadbeat dads," criticism of incarceration and other f o m s of punishmenl receded, changing to a proactive call for the state to 'kmck dawn" on various types of offenden,

The Construction of Anti-CorporateHealthism Xr must have seemed quite odd to an old leftist of the 1930s, or even to a short-term Rip Van Winkle from the 1960s who had been active in the Students for Democratic S0cie.t-yor the Black Panther Party to read the pages of some leftist and liberal publications in the late 1970s. For example, Mobherlones, a lefiist magazine founded in 1976, featured artides of traditional concerns ta the Ideft,but it also included articles on the dangers of salt, cigaretle smoking, artificial lighting, fatty hods, prescription drugs, television viwing, and pornography as well as on the benefits of homeopathic medicine and eating .t-ofue2G Though named after radical labor organizer Mary Harris Jones, Mofherlorres never explained the re-

fationship between the heatlh issues just noted and the class struggles of the coal fietds.27 Nor in retrospect cm the Left's embrace of these health issues be chalked up to a lack of other important issues: Indeed, the period from the middle to late 1970s was the start of a dramatic damturn in American living standards, deindustrialization and plant closings, and a sewre fiscal crisis ofthe state. There are many reasons for the Left's change in Eocus to "personal politics," First, with the exception of the Black Movement, the Left in the 1960s was a middle-class mo-vement; so, compared to the Ideftof earlier days in Axnerica (and in some other countries], it is not surprising that matters of health and style competed with an interest in the rights of workers and poor people, Second, by the mid-1470~~ many issues that had united the New Left, particularly the draft and the Vietnam War, were no longer around, and a search Eor new causes was becoming apparent. The environmental and consumer movements, which began as liberal issues in the NGOs, had a strorrg impact on much of the Left by the 1970s as a new source of popular organizing issues. Finally, the appeal of the '"personal politics" of feminism, the gay and lesbian ma-vement, and the environmental movement likely combined with the counterculrural lifestyle of many former hippies and leftists to produce an interest in the politics of health and lifestyle, As noted earlier, the counterculture of the baby boom generation was also attracted both to attacks on hypocrisy within the '%systern"%ndto attacks on behavior characteristic of the conservative members of the older generation. One favorite, which perhaps made anti-cigarette smoking and anti-alcohol arguments so popular on the Left, was the comparison betliiveen the relative lack of harm associated with drugs like marijuana and the use of tobacco and alcohol by ""sraights,"Opposition to the illegaliq of marijLIana (and, to a lesser degrclte, of all iflicit dnxgs) was one of the main generational points of agreement for much of the bahy boom generation, Paradoxically, the pro-legalization argument failed to carry the day but the Leg moved to an anti-tobacco and, sometimes, anti-alcohol stance, The Left's critique of cigal-ettes and liquor was easily co-opted by forces as varied as Surgeon Generals and Mothers Again& Drunk Driving (MDDI. By the 1980s the new ""substance abuse" paradigm had strongly linked tobacco and alcohol use 1~3thillicit drug use, and all drug use (including cigarelte smoking) was increasingly being prohibited Bom schools and workplaces, Many b m e r radicals are indeed now employed as teachers, socid workers, caunselors, and doctors who manage the substance abuse industry and police these very prohibitions. But what the Left probably hund most attractive about the New Temperance was the fact that corporate giants were behind the production

of cigarettes, fast food, alcohol, prescription drugs, and other producls criticized by the Left. T&ng on the tobacco industry proved popular because a small number of large corporations could be portrayed as "villains" that profited from peoplek iflnesses or deaths, A similar argument was made with respect to the food industry: The American diet is getting worse because the oligopolistic food industq concentrates on selling sweets m d junk food with little or no nutritionat vaIue. , , , [Tjhe food industry's propaganda runs a close secand to its products in nausea level.28 Our ample supplies sf tobacco and scleid tolerance sf bath smoking and withdrawal symptoms (""Erteed a cigarette"')make its addictive properq nearly invisible. Nevertheless, this is precisely why tobaeco is one sf the countr~r& most profitable and, in turn, most paliticdy powerful industries. Tobacccr's promoters never stop working. Their activities range from contributions to psliricd cmp&gns. . . and support "Earwell-placed members of Congress to the advertisements that make most of the nationQress afr&d to print stories like this.29

For segments of the Left, the ideat targets for attack were c q o r a t e @ants that polluted the environment, produced dangerous or unheaillny products, and w3eXded corrupt or insidious political power. Two decades after the first such attacks by the Left, liberal columnist Eflen Goodman candidly admitted her gfee over the ensnaremen of such juicy villains; "Someday we are all going to miss the tobacco companies. They just don't make covorate ~ l l a i n like s this a n p o r e , Oh, oceasionalXy an oil company turns a massive spill into a public-relations bonanza. But nothing rivals the . . . tobacco industry."30 The basic logic of the anti-corporate argument regarding tobacco, food, alcohol, and (later) pornography and television is that they "'hook"" consumers through glamorous advertisements and promises of joy. Then, over time, the consumers become "addicted" to these substances or pleasures-and, of course, it is in the best interests of the capitalists to keep as many customelrs addicted to the product h r as Isng as possible, in order to maximize profits. Few would argue that this premise is not true: Just as a drug pusher pushes drugs, so a tobacco company pushes cigarettes; McDsnald9ss, hamburgers; Seagram%s, alcohol; and CBS, teteGsion shows, But despice the basic truth of this anti-capitalist analysis, the anti-corporatism of the Idefthas failed to produce the desired results and, indeed, mbodies its o m logical contradictions. Several issues are raised. First, the attack on the food induslry, tobacco companies, and ather corporations was ini"FiaEXy meant as wtemphor: The American people, presumabty througtl edrrcaion about carporale profit making, would eventually see the tobacco or alcohol pushers as pnmdignzatic of capitalism

as a whote, In other \rvorLfs, at least among the organized Left, reform of smoking or eating habits was not really a goal in EfieV but, rather, a vehicle toward a goal (namely; the overthrow of an entire system based on profit). Unfortunately such symbolic metaphors have historically undemined broader goals rather than enhanced them. As foseph Guslield notes, the first Temperance Movement also drew on same radical symbols, such as '"he anri-big business campaign of Populism," But by attacking only the 'liquor trusts," the movement actually helped turn these anti-capitalist instincts into a purely anti-alcoholism crusade rather than an anti-capitalist movemerrt.31As with the old Tempermee Movement, evidence suggests that Ihe basic message the public receives is that cigarettes or fatty foods or alcsholic beverages are "bad." The pubtie may or may not come to believe that the corporate chiefs of these industries (much less those of other induslries) are conupt, Propaganda initialty based on anti-carporatism has turned primarily into agitation about the harmfulness of the particular products. Neither the early temp e m c e movements nor the more recent ones ever succeeded in doing more than focusing the public on the unhealthy aspects of a substance or product, as opposed to revealing the broader rnocaliq of profir-making business. In fact, as with the Temperance Movement of old, since many csnservaiwes and moderales agree with objections raised against the sale of tobacco and alcohol, and are even critical of profit making from unsaitems such as pornography or vriolent mouries, the leftist critique of these industries is popular precisely because it brings about conuergenee with nonradicjl, even conservalive pa&s of the public. By attacking on& these unsawry items, the heal& advocates are implicitly supporting the other products of capitalism, thus presumably implying that there are odd"' and "bad" tlhngs to buy In fact, reformist campaigns against such products almost ine\l-itabllycreate "good guys" to counter the ""bad guys," Hence, in a 19'79 issue of Matherloaes, half of which was de-voted to the ills of smoking, the ""god guys" wwert: often other capitalists, such as broadcasters who wanted to do exposes on cigaretks, Or in the two 1994 issues of I"he NaEior2 that &tacked cigaretle corrryarlies and smoking, the ""god guys" turned out to be people like Everett Koap and President Clinton for taking on the '%obaccscartel."= Both the temperance campaigns of the nineteenth and early Wentiedr cenlctries and the anticorporatism of the New Temperance sugges a basic argument not with capitalism but oniy with ""ire~ponsib1e)Icapitalists, Another logical criticism is that if tobacco companies, h o d corrrpanies, phamaceutical companies, and the like cannot be trusted with the nation's health, why not take a socialist position and caiE for their nationaliz;ation?Mter all, socialist theory would postulate that worker and consumer exploitation arises from the extraction of profits, not only

from the product itself, Moreover, if the incentive to "hook;""people on tobacco, alcohol, elecrision, or drugs rcllates to profits, why not eliminate the profie and the incentive to self more of the product? Christophw Hitchens, a leftist critic of the anti-tobacco agitation, shares my skepticism about health activisb. Indeed, he suggests that they are no Isnger anti-capitalist in any serious sense: Mtrct-1of this militant [anti-tobacco] prohibitionism is fueled by a stern sense that those who practice it are standing up to the big, ruthless carporations, . . . I a, of course, shocked as anyone else to find out that big corporations can behave unethically when it comes to research and marketing, . . . Try a simple thought experiment. Would great and courageous social reformers . . . relax their attitude one bit if T grew my o m tobacco m d rolled my awn, hmdmade cigmettesxhe question mswers itself.:$."

The failure of reformers to propose nationalizing these industries feeds the suspicion that they do not like the smoke, drink, drugs, fast food, and other producs they are criticizing. Under the guise of anticorporatism is an embedded critique that judges the eonsun3er as much as the producer: "The naive indignation about the tobacco industry is no mow than a populist decoration for a campaign which actually targets the consumers rather than the producelrs,""3 h other words, rather than advocating nationalization of the evil industries, the liberal and leftist position on a varieq of subjeds-from smoking to televisionhas merely embraced the public health education approach of haranguing the citizezuy As I noted in Cfrtaptel: 4, the healthist view of the consumer is really quite negative. M a t do these activists really think of people who, after decades of health messages, continue to smoke cigarettes, eat fatty food, drink alcohol to excess, and so on? The best that can be said is that they are seen as judgmental dupes who have no power of their own to stop their unhealthy beha.vior,This view of fife, encapsulated in the popular new jargon of addiclion and self-esteem, is curiuusly conlradicfory.Though the Left historically has spoken of '%mpowerment," "self-deterrrrinati~n,'~ the ""pople's wiX1," and so on, it often embraces a view of corporations as intelligent (if devious) but of the average person as rather dull and unable to make sound dedsions about daily life. Furfhex; the issue of health and habits, cultural likes and dislikes, raises the question of who should decide which consumer goods are to be produced. As sometimes charged by the Right, leftist supporlers of healthism and temperance often. do appear to be elitists when they discuss public habits and culture, &though it is unlikely that a middle-class L& would have such power, one does wonder whether, for example, soap operas or action films would be banned under their aegis as retrograde and urrexllighlening to the public,

Ultimately; healthism has led the Left into a mild liberalism of "corporate responsibility,'" a vague term implying minor limits on only the most untrammeled corporate power, For example, the alcohol industry is called upon to take responsibility for drunk d r i ~ n gor , the television industry is urged to better police its violent shows. Like other vagtle residues of the social movements of the XS(liOs, these stances can be seen as the triumph of an expressive politics, of form over substance. By retaining the trappings of the anti-capitalist language of their youth, many ex-radicals have more easily reconciled their overall peace with capitalism as a s w e m by rilJLhteously condemning tobaeco companies or the entefiainment industry

Sex,Violence, and Fe I &M wards like puriv, moraliqpand decency me vt?ry nice words. I wish the women%movement wadcl reelldm these words.

And yet it wm feminism-not &e new ri@t, eeaddy not the m-yet-unh o w AIRS erns-&at first dkplaiced the eomtercaftur& vision. of sex

with a eorrsiderabfy harsherview. -Rad-i.eaX [""plro-sap') femk~stEEen Walis36

Just as a Rip Van Winkle o f the SDS would be surprised upon waking up twenq years later to find that letiist anti-capitalism had become only a critique of the '%ad gglxy" industries, many of the early activists of the women's liberation movement would be surprised to awaken, in the 1980s or 1990s to find that, in general, feminism was now lbcused on the '*malepredator"' rather than on overrurning the social system. Allhough the move of same feminists from a social-structrtzral critique to a moralistic crusade against male vice has been opposed by a number of yrominent activists in the wings of the mwement, often the most publicized feminists have nor only focused their anger on male vice but have allso been critical of heterosexual sex, and have viewed gender relations in a nea-Victorian light. Interestingly; accounts of the early history of second-wave American feminism from the mid- 1960s to the mid-1970s agree that activists w r e strongly wedded to sexual freedom rather than to sexual corttrol.37 Kate Millet was twical of early leaders o f the women3 movement in calling for an "end of traditional sexual inhibitions and taboos, particularly those that most threaten patria~balmonogamous marriage: homosexuality; illegitimacy; adolescent, pre- and extra-marital sex,""" Indeed, Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs argue in Re-Mak-

i ~ Love g that the women's movement, rather than opposing the sexual revolution, was radical in its insistence that women enjoy sex: The feminist reclmation of sex made women's liberation, at least for a brief few years in the early seventies, as much a movement for sexzlai liberation, CXearly, vvsmen had been deprived, sexually stunted in seMce of the vaginai a d phailocentric sex imposed by men. They needed more sex, but they needed sex in a varietJr that went far beyond the traditional in-and-out, mm-on-top intercowse. Glitord sex, Mix Shdmm pointed out, demanded a vvider range of options, including oral sex, lesbian sex, and positions for intercourse &at were more favarabfe to clitod stirnulafian.A11 the old prohibitions and taboos w u l d have to give way to the needs of the sexually liberated womm.:39

athough the women's movement of the 1960s and early 1970s had much to say that was critical of men's sexual behador and sexism generally, Ehrerrreich and leftist kmisrists such as Etlen Miitlis, Deircire hglish, Aice Eclrols, and LJInne Segal argued that it is "to fdsify [the] past" to claim, as many cultural feminists later did, that the sexual revolution was "male," with only male interests at stake.4" In fact, the stereotype of "bra burners" cultivated by the media, though intentionally dismissive, was closer to the mood of the late 1960s than the stern attitude toward sex that some authors and activists embraced later on. and retrospectively applied to the sexual revolution. Nor was the kminist movement of 1966-29Z5,in either its mare libera1 or its more leftist variant, primarily about male ~ o l e n e eFor , example, the demands of the massive Allgust 1970 march by the National Organization of Women (NOW) in New York City kcused on menwfour-hour child care, aborrion. on demand, and equal ernploymem and edttcalional opportunities," As Lynne Segal noes, in the 1970s the British women's movement heused '"a child care, family allowances artd welfare, women employees organizing, and [the1demand for womeds control wer sexualiw and ferlifify'Q"zape was first introduced as an important women's issue during speakauts in New bl-kin 1912, although it did not become a prominent raltying point until some years later. The issue of barremd women bid not emerge until the midAnd issues such as incest, child sexual abuse, and date rape did 1970~.~3 not arise until well into the 1980s. Of course, all social movements change their hcus over time, and few people would dispute the importance ofthe seminal work an combating Golenee that has been revealed by feminist authors and activists, But a movement fucused on criticizing sexual exess or male aggmssiveness has a very different implication from a movement focused on, say ""wages for housework," comparable worth in pay; welfare rights, or access to birth control. The post-1975 history of the women's movement

includes several complex developments: the detachment of most activists hom a leftist perspective; the defeat by the Right of many proposed reforms (most prominenay the ERA in the it9"ls); and the influence of ctlfturat feminist writers who have countered gender-equality argumena with what has been criticized as an '"esse~ialist"argument in which women excXutsively repl.esent purity; motherhood, and peacehlness whereas men exclusively represent power, aggression, and artger, Rather than calling for gender equality, then, cultural feminiss sometimes assert the eternal superiority of broadly defined 'Ternale" values and culture, Although a historical accoufi of the debates within the women's ma-vement is beyond the scape ofrhis book, I can point to some important differences beween the women's movement that originated on the Left in the 1960s and the more conservative women's movement that came later. First, the earlier movement aimed at changing s0cie.t-yby aXterrrlg the org~nkalionof the social s t r u c t u ~That . is, it understood patriarchy and capitalism to be socially embedded in the economic, political, and legal orders, Of course, early (second-wave) feminism atso recognized personat issues and problems; tzrlt the movement's discmsion of the ""personal" "(even in early consciousness-raising groups) was intended ta bring about broader social change, not to be an end in itself. As s e p e n t s of the movement developed a more cuftlrrat feminist orientation, the power arrangements of society were often elided. In other words, sexism or patriarchy came to be identified more with ifidivid~al men and their behaGor than with the social structure. Hence an attack on a pornographer or an abusive husband or a sexual harasser came to be cl-iewed by some as "political," although it is unclear how punishing individual offenders necessarily advances broader ecanomie or social transformations. Secand, the earlier women3 movement was more optimistic about human behavior and more concerned about creating conditions for both sexes to change collectively than with refying on state power to police human beha.viojb=But as a parallel to what has occurred in other social movements (e.g., racial minorities' and gay activistsbsupport for severe punishment of hate crime$, the more recent position in American feminism is one of support for the identif'ieation and punishment of miscreants, The state, once identified as the seat of patriarchal powr, now often assumes the mantle of a neutrd agent, prorecling women and other cl-ictirnsof crime and ~ o l e n c e . First introduced in the early 19'70s was a ""politics of ragdwthin the women's movement, vvhich was often separatist, hostile to the Left, and highly personal in its attacks on women accused of pursuing 'kale9'"1itics. By the late 19"70s a body of work associated with Susan Brommiller, Adrienne Rich, Andrea Dworkin, Robin Morgan, Catherirte

MacGnnon, Mary Daley, Rita Mae Brown, Sheila Jefkeys, and others was prwiding a new theory fur the movement. Cultural Eeminism saw semality as a primary sphere of male power, which in turn was produced and reproduced through sexual acts, sexual overtures, and the consorting of w m e n who accommodated male lust and desire, For some heorists, rape was indistinguishable from ordinary sex: Violence is male; the mde is the penis; violence is the penis.44 Rape is male biological destiny' . . . ['l")he humm male is a predaf or m d the human femaje sewes as his natural prey.45

All men are potentid rapists, . . . iE]very m m benefits from the actions of every rapist.46

Although many feminists (even those vvithin the c u l ~ r afeminist l orbit) would not agree with these more extreme formulations, several political implicatians d r a m from them helped spur a feminist New Temperance. First, the association beween sex and rape was extended to pornography Tn simple terms, it was claimed that '"pornagraphy is the theory, rape is the practicdLin other words, that the Golent, sexist, and patriarchal psychosacid development of men was predicated on their exposure to semal and r;riolent maferial in books, film, art, speech, and so on. Second, heterosexual relations were so dominated by men that relations bet\sreen women became superior ('"esbianism is the practice and feminism is the theory"") Many kminist activists kvere put on the defensive if they were partnered with or havixlg sex with men. Vet some lesbians critieiztsd the new '"political 1esbianismPhspatronizing and de-sexing of lesbian sexual relationships, That is, some kminists appeared ta accept lesbianism as a political act but to f r o m on actual sex.47 Third, feminists criticized some behmiors that were assaciated with male violence and aggression (e.g., pramiscrxous, underage, public, or sadomasochistic sex] even when such b e h a ~ o r were s practiced by rvomen, and even when the criticism explicitly pitted cultural feminists against gay male activists, And, fourth, since domination of women was associated with the practice oEGolence, a crusade against all forms of individual male violence seems to have taken primacy over other issues. Metaphorically at least, causes such as those directed against "incest and maritstl rape strike blows at the hnbarnental institution of male supremacy itself, the heterosexual famfiy," as Sheila feffreys put it." The Eocus on eternal, essenlid mate vice, coupled with a fixed nation of the ~ctimizedfemale, arguably replayed the moralism of the f ocial Purity Movement of a hundred years earlier. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, groups such as Women Against Pornography (WAP) emerged and mal-ched along with the New Right, pressing city councils and state governments to censor pornographic

books and other media, (They succeeded only briefly in lrldianayolis and Suffolk C o u m , New Uork, before courts overturned the antipornography laws that ensued.) At the same time, hawevex; a number of leftisl Eeminists hrmed groups such as Ferninis& Against Qnsorship Today (FACT) and 'Xo More Nice Girls," a pro-choice organization that linked sexual Xiberation with abortion rights. Yet as noted by EIEen Willis, one of the leaders of Icfiist 44pm-sex'Yminism,although such organizing helped halt furlher resolutions supporting censorship in the women's movement, these groups ""gt little media cl-isibility"in comparison with the anti-pornography movement.49 In the early 1980s, WiXlis and others also connected the new sexual conservatism with the Social Purity and Temperance movements, and warned that such strategies woutd lead to a potitical convergence and cooperation with the Righl: "[Tfhe [wonren?s]movemenvs attacks on sexual exploitation and violence, male irt-esponsibility; pornography; and so on, have often reinforced rigfxt-wing propaganda by giving the impression that feminists consider the loosening of controls over semal behwior a worse threat to women than repression."% In a related context, Wttis noted: matever its intent, the effect of feministskmphasis on controlling male sexua2iw-particuXar@ when that emphasis is combined with a neo-Victorian view of women's nature and the conviction that securing women's safety from male aggression should be the chief priority of the women's movement-is to undercut feminist opposition to the right. It provides powerful reinforcement for conservative efforts to manipulate women's fear of untrammeled male sexu;tli@ inthidating women into stifling their own impulses toward freedom so as to cling to what little protection the tradition& roles still oEer.51

By the 1 9 9 0 ~ a variant ~ of many cull-tlral feminist ideas has succeeded in ha.ving a mgor policy impact, at least where such rhetoric can be utilized to support conventional morality; For example, widespread campaigns have been launched on local, state, and national levels to protect women and children from graphic sexual representations, From the 19863 Meese Commission's citation of radical feminist rhetoric, to the Parents Music Resource Center's reference to violence against women as a reason to censor rock music lyrics, to the efforts at censoring the Internet in 1995, rigtlt-wing, centrist, and liberal politicians have aXI used pro-women rhetoric as a justification for mpressive policies. A strengthening of police apparatus, including centralized information systems and stiffer sentencing, has emerged in both the tlniled States and Great Britain as a result of an informal alliance between the ostensibly opposed camps of women's groups and social conservatives.~Vxamplesinclude mandatory arrest of domestic abusers, com-

rnllnity notification about the presence of alleged child molest:ers, the public stigmatizing of some sex offenders, laws against stalking, laws against ritual abuse, and laws permitting the expansion of the statute of limitations for charges of sexual abuse. Xn 1994, the Clinton administration's Crime Bill, which promised to build morc: prisons and to put more police officers on the sheet, also garnered same feminist and liberal. support because of its violence-against-women provisions, In addition, a variety of reprclssive actions taken against gays and other sexual minorities have obtained same tacit support. Far example, many of the most regressive actions ostensibly taken against HIVIAIDS, such as closing gay bathhouses and increasing harassment of prostitutes, have met with neutraiity and even support within the women's movement, Publicizing the narnes of "johns" hirlvolved in prostitution, prohibiting sexual "cruising," and posling the names or taking m a y the licenses of "deadbeat dads" are additional examples of current social-cantroit efforts that are gizir~ingthe support of some liberal and culmral feminists, Key to the success of the new pm-temperance feminism, as opposed to the older leftist or mare libertarian feminism, has been its very abi1i"cy to shed the ideological baggage of the Left that some activists saw as limiting its apped. Mice Echols, whose hismricd account associates the rise of the women3 movement with the New Ideftand critickes its subsequent detachment, attacks the apoliticism of groups like WAR For example, she disapprovingly quotes activist Judiih Bat-Ada calling for "a coalition of all women [against pornography] . . . regardless of race, calolr, creed, religion, or polblical penurnion," arwuing that Bat-Ada sanctions a "@'and and virtuous sisterhood &I combat male lasciviousness'"Qy making no allowances for class and racial differences, avoiding any suggeaion of unity with oypre~sedmen, axld relflng on the patriarchal state, Though Echols is canect from a leftist perspeclive, this is precisely the point of consensual issue organizing, particularly where the politics of "motherhood and apgfe pie" i s concerned, To gain the support of all women, to unify across class and across pollsicat lines:This is exactly the goat of respectable temperant polities. By choosing conventional issues drawing on long-term cull-trraldistaste and opposition (pornography,violence against women, etc.), mainstream temperant politics achieves a better fit between the women3 movement and the conservatism of the Arrlericaxl political system. Mong the way, of course, the residues of anticapitalism or anti-statism are usually shed at the doorslep of the statehouse or city hall where such tahbying occurs, Like the left's campaigning against cigaretle smoking, alcohol, arld unhealthy diets, campaigns against violence and pornograpfty can be seen as ways of a c h i e ~ n gfeminist respectability As the ""sex.radical" editors of tsoulctrs ofL1alre note in comparing the late nineteenth cenmy

to the 19"70s and 1 9 8 0 ~""(exual ~ politics makes strange bedfellows, . . . Then, as nowj a moral crusade offeris] the Left a chance to cleanse itseXf of the taint of sex radicalism and free love."% The polities of respeaability develops coalitions with dominant powers based on conventional morality both because such coalilions are a time-tested way of achie.viingreforms in the conservative political process and because they allow middle-class radicals or former radicals to prove that they support dominant values (after all) and are deservlirlg of legislative success as well as political, prokssianal, and bureaucratic leadership positions thin the system.

De-Sexualking the Gay Movement

...

W demmd the ri&t to make love with myone, m y a mytime, ~ ... the right to ~ei31fand. emress our bodies as we will and the right to express our o m irrdiddudie. &ay Actiests Alimce @ate19fi0sJ5"

...

Many [are now] prepad to describe hornasemafiq as fdfhgd & i n the mord boundaim of-erica socieq only if it approdmated a d d dle class rommt-ieideal. In this regad they have edisred MBS in their c m p a i p to construct an b a g e of "the respedableharnttsexurrl"'to legiamate a sexual ethic of rnoxrol~amya d rommce where Eras is justified a d y in this cant-, -Stwezr Seidmm (1992J56

Perhaps no movement coming out of the 1960s was as libertarian about personal behavior as the gay rights movement, which emerged after the Slonewall riot in 1969. First, looking back on centuries of oppl-ession by governments throughout the Western world, gay activists were more suspicious of state rewlation than were other activists associated with the Left (e.g., socialists and feminists). Second, at least initially the experience of oppression based on sexuality; so basic to personal life, led gay activists to speak in terms of human Xiberation rather than about fixed sexual orienaion. The r i m not only to practice any sexual act but to conduct oneself in any fashion that was slat harmful to others was championed by the movement. As Dennis Mtman points out ofAmerica, the gay rights in his provocative The Honzosexualiz~~ion ma-vement merged with other liberatary trends in the 1960s and 1970s to influence the behavior of young people who did not identify as "gay." The movement also challenged the "natural" connection bemeen sex and procreation, sex and monogamy, sex and marriage, and sex and privacy, which had all come under question as elements of the sexual revo-

lution and co~lnterculttxreof the era, Ultimately, the gay movement frightened social conservatives not only because it flouted their obvious hostility toward homosexual acts, but also because it was profoundly inBuencing yallng people of all sexual proclivities and seemed to undermine marriage, the family, religion, and the social order.53 By the late JS"i"s, as with the women's ma-vement, a combination of right-wing gains, the collapse of any broader kit,and the need to consolidate and unif?,a separate gay movement united by sexual orientation but cutting across class and other political lines considerably deradicalized the movement. The model of pursuing rights as an "'elhnic minority'hodel based on a fixed gag' or lesbian orientation rather than on the tiberatory goals of freedom of sexual b e h a ~ shas r been critiqued by radical gay author JeffreyWeeks as follows: ''The early theorists olgay liberation echoed rf-ferbert.1 Marcuse and the Le&, and saw gay liberation as leading to 'the end of the hornasexual,' bbl-eakingdown the separate construction, . . . [N~ow.in a great ruse of history, it was the less radical elerlrenls in gag' liberation who took up the idea of a gay 'nrinoriv" which ~ItimateXymade for a better fit with liberal plural ism."^^ The gay movement moved from a call for sexual and personal freedom to a construction of people "who have no choice" but are simply biologically or otherwise driven into a fixed sexual orientation. Rather than beeornixlg ""Xibrtrated,"then, gay behavior was arguably somewhat rernedicalized into something innale ar at least inalterable, Moreover, in response ta hostile attach, ""tberation" evolved into refarmism, a mare narrow justification for gay, lesbian, and bismual righB, along the lines of the American right to privacy (which similarly became the major justification b r abortion rights). As Susan fobnstan points out, in many ways the right to privacy contradicts the sex radicalism of the gay; lesbian, and other sexual minority movemenls: ""The rhetorical strategies in response to the Right" anti-gay campaigning ultimately reinforce raher than disrttpl the Right8sagenda. The rhetoric on both sides depends on liberal political theory, but Liberal Political Theory c a n n a depathologize homosexual sex and therefore cannot produce rights for sexual minorities, . . . [Tjhey are different sides of the same discourse."sg fohnston argues that liberal politicat theory the finding of a civil right for private behavior, contradicts the whole notion of queer rights as moGng "out of the closet," The right not only to have sex with any perderztih oneself publicly as beirlg gay is at the heart of queer son but to i politics. Acceptance ofthe belief that sexuality or some other manifestation of identity should remain a private right exercised at home behind closed doors reinforces the consewative view that the problem with sexual radicals is that they want to be public about sex. Much right-kving rhetoric, in fact, suggests that if gays and other sexual mixlorities would

just stop making their sexttality so visible, and instead be ternperale and private, they w u l d not require;, '"special rights." The use of both a minority model and a liberal civil rights model led many gay leaders to embrace the New Temperance even at a time (in the 1970s) when many male homosexual communities were still associated with open sexuality To those who are leading reform groups, forming pressure g m p s in legislatllres and Congress, and investing in the political process, it is very inconvenient to see embarrassing behavior on the streets or sexual displays on the nebvs, Weks notes that by 19% gay leaders were seeing "'widespread promiscuity as weakening the respectabitity and political pull of the communi@'"Vut beyond promiscuity, the way gays looked, haw public their sexuality was, and what other practices they engaged in corlcerned gay leaders. In fact, by the 19"30s, the public persona of homosexuali~had gradualty begun to parallel the inbrmal rules of the old 1950s-stylepressure groups such as the Mattaehine Society, as described by Tobi Marotta: "Homosexuals Fvho looked and aaed %s(mightp [heterosexual], preferred monogamous couplings, and canfined their sexual actiraity to the bedroom were said to deserve rigtxts and status; those who erljqed proaniscuiv, pornographytr, sex role dewiation, and cmss-dressing were said ttz have probtems; and those who pursued sex in public places, intimacy with minors, and fetishistic sexual activity were alternatively pitied and denouncede8"1 Of course, the AIDS crisis, to put it mildly, further undermined efforts to present gay sexual beha.\risr in a positive light. Here, seemingly korn "~lature,"was a justification for the more rabid critics of sexual freedom to say "we told you so!" The g q movement has stmggled over the last decade and a half against a whole range of proposals for violating the civil liberties of a p e a many people-not only gays but also drug users, prostitutes, people of color, and all people vvho are potentially HIV-posilive, But of interest here is the fact that, under the pressure of public panic about AIDS, the voices from the gay movement most often beard in the mainstream media (as a parallel to the way debates Lllifhin the women's movement have been c o v e ~ dwem ) those of gays who wem the most puritanical about sex, An example is Randy ShiXts, the author of And the B ~ n dPEay;ed On and, bellore his death, one of the most-quoted spokespeople on AIDS and the gay community, SShi1tspsdescription of San Francisco gay life conveyed shock and horror over: the gay communiqk faifure to proreet itself, becoming a vlctinr of its own sexual irresponsibility. This account was widely pronounced as gospel by the media, but it leaves out Shilts's o m par'cicipation in San Francisco's gay poltics as welt as his own role in sgmading panic about the gay bathhouses,Gz Two other widely quoted gay actiGsts wem Iarry Kramer, playwright and faunder oftfle Gay Menwealth Crisis in Mew Uork City, who

attacked gay irresyonsibijity and promiscuiq, and Miehael Callen, a gay a c t i ~ swho t cowrote the alarmist 1982 article "We Know Who We Are," which blamed the AIDS epidemic on promiscuous gay sexem Influenced by AIDS and the temperant visions of the time, "'the new orlhodoxy became that gay promiscuity was a sign of self-hate and immaturity*"and widespread 12-step recovery fanwage hund its way into the gay comrnunil-y as a criticism of bath "'sexual addiction" and open disfllays of sexuality64 As parodied in the irreverent 1995 film J e f l r ~ about gay life in the 149Qs,the conrnntional wisdom of the time regarding gay p~sentationof the self combines recovery language, respectable cornpofiment, and a de-sexualizatiorr of looks and behavior, In one scene from the movie, an inspirational New Age speaker played by Sig'aurney Waver convinces a crowd of gay men that low self-esteem is the cause of AIDS, and that individual will power can overcome the disease and the inner weakness that causes it. In another scene, three gay men parody the "'we are like everyone else" message, mimicking the strong masculine voice with which activise musl speak to the press and joking that their own "gay occupations" "vaiter, interior designer, hairdresser) cannot be revealed to the public because as activiists they must appear to be doctors, Iawyers, or construction workers, In still other scenes, the film satirizes the new injunctions against public kissing and handholding, wearing leather and "booing gay," and being promiscuous or "'an the make." The de-sexing of homosexuality was in part strategic, since the AIDS crisis had perhaps given the heterosexual public far more details about gay sex than they cared to know. Demanding civil rights for averagelooking, Qpresumablflmonogamous, middle-dass doctors and l a v e r s was a far better potitical strategy than demanding sexual ri&ts for effeminate hairdressers or rowdy, ttlreatening-looking men in leaher. Yet this strategy came at the cost of adopting a new standard of sexual and social life that was conventional. As Robert Padgug comments in "Gay Mllain, Gay Hero": The nature sf the gay comunil_y;the institutions that proGde its cohesion, m d the way g;3.ypeople deal with one another have all chmged considerably At the same time, gay sexuality Eras increasingly been reconstructed urrder the impetus of AIDS dong fhe lines of sexudify found in the majority heterosexual world. This has, for e x a p l e , meant a new emphztsis on ""dting" m d on longer-term, more monogamous relationships among gay men. The new sexudi*tyis peli-haps symbolized by the "wedding" ceremony that brought together thousands of gay and lesbian couples to reafirm their cornfitment to each other on Oct. 10, 1987. . . . [CIhange has idso meant a decline in the various forms of sexual experimentation, spontaneity, unorthodox relationships, community '%arnboyance,'' willingness to

cross social boundaries, and sense of '%celebrationw-the '"ionysian" aspects sf Life-that made the gay community so interesting and creative in the 1970s.65

It is, of course, diBcult to speculate exactly how the New Temperance would have developed by the late 1980s and 1990s kvithout the AIDS Grus as a powerflu1catalyst. But observers suck as Attman, Seidman, and Weeks suggest that the trend towad sexual Puritanism started well before AIDS. In their view, a middle-class-sanctioned ""sexual choice but only within defined limits" is not a surprising result given the already limited strategy that g q leaders had developed by the late 1970s. A liberal canstruction of homosexuality was adopted by a varie-t-yof opinion leaders by the 3_980s,paradoxically often helped by the AIDS crisis, which generated sympathy for gagrs, The new liberd view supparled gay rights, but only for those who wem willing to ""reaffirm a sexual ethic that binds sex to romance, love, intimacy and rrr~nogamy,"~ Long-term gay couples who could qudilj for domestic partnership benefits were contrasted with hoxnosexuaX~leading "the fast lane, free-wheeling sexual lifestyle," which, of course, was held responsible for AIDS. E3y the mid1 9 9 0 Ann ~ ~ Landers could reassure: her readers that "most gay males are indistinguishable Eram straight males" and that it was only the ""funatic frixlge, extrexrlias and xlltt cases who impede progress, block acceptance and make fife hard br everybody'"i2he latter presumably being efferninate, overly sexual, and other~visestereatpical geaysl.67

Convergence in the Politics of Danger "mereis &ways a minister of heal&, but d f l u d y nwer of pleasum, There is a grass nationd product, but not a goss national pleasure." -Lionel Tige$rr

In.a sociee that holds up m irrereasin@ypunitive work ethic iibove my ethic of Xove or compassion, lit i s risky indeed to assea pteasure as a legitimate social goal. Bur to r e m b silent is to conecde to a pmicullsur po2ilic d mentali-tyand viw of the world. -Barbara. Ehrenreich, EIhbea Hess, and Goria JacabsGg A convergencet if not on all issues, then on many, now characterizes the partisan political spectrum, as exemplified by the centrist politics of neoliberatism and President Bill Clinton. The "new consen~us"an sex, drugs, and personal behwior, of course?parallels the widely tmmpeted new consensus on issues such as weEPare reform, crime, hreign policy; and a balanced budget. One way of framing the NW Temperance is that

it elevates the politics of danger-crime, disease, dmger, family breakdown--above any possible sense of a politics of pleasure. The "excessesp' of the past, whether in terms of kvelfare benefits, the underclass, the "GOs," liberatism, or lef(ismt are now to be regrerred tzy all "fesponsible'" politicians. Without question, the Right advanced the politics of danger in the mid-1970s, and it bears chief responsibility for prosecuting rhe 'Temperance Wars, including the war against drugs. In concise form, the New Temperance marks a victory for conservative politics. That is, the middle 1960s to early 1970s politics of the New Left, the couxllercullure, the women" movement, the gay and lesbian m m m e n t , and other movements paradoxically produced a stronger right-wing counterreaction in the political sphere than participants of these movements would ever have imagined. SkillfuIly using the synlbols of home and family, and wielding a kind of "apple pie authoritarianism,"m the Right outmaneuvered leftists and liberals in the political process, and placed the nascent social movements of the 1960s on the deknsive. Key among the Right's symbols have been the dangers posed by sex, substances, and 'permissiveness." By the L980s, remnaxlls of rhe leftist social movements as well as the Democratic Party strategically saved a few vestiges of power here and there (primarily in areas such as the academy; joumallism, and social services) and prevented a few of the social gains won by the new social movements, such as abortion and gay rights, from being totally extinguished. As noted earlier, the political process favored the Right on issues of personal behwior, for reasons ha.ving to do with the demographics of the electorae as weli as with the historical, cultural, and religious symbols to which most Americans adhere. These conservative beliefs fitvor a politics based on fear of danger, crime, disease, and social breakdown over a politics of pleasure, 'Vet X am also struck by the degree to which the New Temperance had become a consensual movement by the 1980sand 1990s. Perhaps, as both Tiger and Ehrenreich have noted, the politia of pleasure is just not politically popular.71 And as Douglas and Wildavsky have obsewed, "p]he language of the potiticd process accepts no riskst?'so in a sense the pmibiliy of danger arouses morct emotion than the possibility of personal pleasure.72 The Right has frequentfy made use of, and even. directly quoted, cultural feminist thougtlt to justiPy anti-pornography orlfinances and increased police action against male pmbtors. Similarlp some femini~s have quoted right-wing theorists such as George Gilder to support their view of the ir~nateviolence of xnen.7" the campaigns apinst substance abuse, not only do conservatives and liberals compete about who is "tougher on drugs," but liberals and fefiist critics continue to call for more repression of smokers and drinkers (particuliarly teens), citing the

hpocrisy ofthe "drug war," h turn, some on the Right have used the liberals' mti-smoking war as a favorable example of how improper behaviur can be changed.~"omewhat logically they ask, Xf the beharj.ior of smokers can be changed, why m ' t the s m e be true of sexunl and other behaviors, which liberds sometimes asserZ are immutabJteP" One symbol of the new consensus around health and danger was the popularity of Surgeon General Everell mop, A conservative anti-abortionist, Koop was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981 as a sop to the New Right. Yet over the decade, Koop received praise from many liberals, primarily became of his opposition to tobacco smoking and dxe tobacco companies, and his willingness to speak out against the dangers of AIDS.7Vraise for Koop can benignly be intel-preted as rep~sentingthe new minimaitism (it doesn't take much for a politician to win some liberal praise these days). But morc: imporlant, l i b e d activists seem not to notice that they are embracing a model of social control, which, buried behind its righteousness, is not very "progressive" h its vision, b a p ' s opposition ta smoking, like that of Mormon Orrin Hatch, for exmple, proceeded from the conservative American tradition, and, of course, was linked with the war on drugs and alcohol, m e r e a s Kaopk medical training led him to endorse the provision of condoms to those "who will not abstain"' from sex, his overall approach to the AIDS crisis was to engage in the gloom and doom of vastly overstated predictions coupled with denunciations of promiscui.ly and teen sex, So, even though he never really strayed very far from traditional American consewatism, his popularity suggests jlrst how powerftll d n ~ g e rcan be as a political metaphor, compared with pleasure. Radicaf English gay writer Dennis Aitman has suggested that the response to AIDS in the United States was a particularly hnlerican one. Criticizing the exaggeration and sensationalization of the disease by g q activists as well as by the Right, he pain& to the contradiction implicit in the paranoia about the medical establishment, on the one hand, and the aclivists' all-abiding hith in science, on the other. He also noted "how demands of gays to get government out of their lives . . . became a sad irony [when] in the name of health, gays now demand government action."77 Oddly enough, the conservative Koop and some AIDS aaivists came together in a politics of apocalyp"Ec doom, whereby virtually any observer who questioned predictions about the spread of the disease was subject to criticism or even picketing.78 By the 1990s, the politics of danger had completely succeeded. Litde, if any, difference seems to exist bemeen conservative and liberal parties regarding campaigns ~ . cleanse o television, film, rock 'nproll, even cyberspace, of sex and viafence; campaigns against ""dadbeat dads" and Other child custody violators; carrrpaips of punishment and identifica-

tion of rapis&, child abtlsers, Satmists, and people charged with ritual abuse; campaigns against pornography; campaigns against underage sex, teen pregnancy, and promiscuity; campaigns for anti-crime and anti--domestic violence legislation; campaigns against public sex, prostitution, and cruising; cmpaigns against substance abuse (particularly drunk driving and underage smoking and drinking); and campaigns warning children abaut the dangers of almost everythirlg from suicide and AIDS to high cholesterol and cigarette smoking, Even when liberals dissent from the politics of danger? they often focus on tenuous or tendentious aspects of an issue rather than confronling the politics of danger head on. Those on the Right suspect that liberals endorse abortion rights, gay rights, and condom distribution in the schoots because, somewhere in their souls, they ucmally are pro-sex and pro-pleasure. But even so, liberal columnists and politicians have spent a great deal of time denying it, claiming that they are only combating danger, The right of a young woman to have sex is central to abortion righe, but liberals affirm their desire to prclvent youthful sex, Instead of deknding the right to sex, they engage in Talmudic arguments about the developmental stage at which the fetus reaches personhood. In short, dayzger is the trump card of the liberal abortion argument: Either Lllomen wilX die during back-aXXey abortions or unwanted chifdren will be foisted on the country, Similarly, the stance of many liberal activists and educators is that they f a v ~abstinence r among teens, but since kids are "going to have sex anyvvay" they also favor the distribution of condoms in schools to prevent the AIDS virus, Yet when consewative activists point to the failure rate 1For condom use, a series of technical arguments ensues about whether the actual condom failure rate among kids is 5 percent or 12 percent. In a way, conservativeskriticism of a. sole focus on condom distribution is well "fken because the libera1 advocacy of condoms is so totafisric as to imply that latex is Ihe answer to the AIDS epidemic, But this advocacy both overstates the risks of HIV Tor youngsters through constant pronouncements against the dangers of sex and minimizes the importance of other issues relared to the epidemic, from finding a cure for AIDS to slmtcltlrd changes in the hedth-care system, Except among a few radical actidsts, an argument for the right of teens to have sex is rarely made, Such a right, of course, wolliXd be accompanied by risks, And the risks would be present with condoms or without condoms; but liberals and educators do not confront this fact. Rather than accept the existence of these risks (as would be consistent with Douglas and Wildavsb's argument about the politics of risk),?sliberals present condoms as a sort of technical solution ta sexual disease and reproduction. The politics of danger can offer no justification for teen sex other than that

"it is inevitable, anyay." Little wonder, agairrst this tepid justification for AIDS prevention and sex education, that right-wingers haw an emier time mobilizing people; as far as same parents are concerned, they at least appear to believe strongly in something. The politics of pleasure holds so little sway not only for demographic: reasons (its constituency would likely be young and non-middle class, hence less likely to vote) but also because it seems frivolous, Whereas the marketplace constantly bombards us with visions of pleasure, whether it is to be had through owning a car or boat, smoking a cigarette, or associating sex with the ""rght" kind of running shoe, the politic d realm appears to h n a i o n in almost the opposite way, Vet it would seem politierrlty odd to assert the right to experience the joy of food or sex or any other daily pleasure.@Whocares? And what constilitency directly comes brth in support of pleasure? Pleasure gets defined as personal, whereas danger and disorder are defined as public. A Iang tradition of the statePspolitical involvement in regulating order and policing the dangers of life pravides legitimacy for reformers who seek state action in these areas, But rarely does legitimacy exist for movements that are liberator? in nature. Apparently only corporations (tobacco, alcohol, etc.) have the legitimacy to lobby for intemperance. Ironicalty; the politics of danger, despite its popularity; rarely assists a politics of the Left, at least in this country, If law-and-order and control are the proper responses to danger, as our traditions seem to suggest, the Right (or some tempered version of it) is really much better equipped than the Left, both ideologically and culturally, to mete out punishment. I do not deny that the dangers and risks of lift?are red and apparent; rathex; my point is that the issues raised by the politics of personal "dewiancy'knd responsibility ultimalr-?lydo not jibe well with a lea-wing structural analysis of power in our society


even

T have argued throughout this book that the political strategies and social movements that led to the New Temperance of the late twentieth century contrasted sharply with, and repudiated, the brief liberatory inrpulses in American culture associated with the "60s." The movements and political strategies of the current period, particujarly the drug war and the various campaigns against sexualiv, seem historically consistent with the old temperance movements of the nineteenth and early (Mcentieth cenmries. I have suggested that, afthougX1 both the older and newer versions of these movemen& and campaigns targel behavior that certainly can be dangerous or unhealthy, they all tend(ed1 fa exaggerate the risks of life while de-contextualizing them from their social environments. Furlher, 1 have stressed the class basis of both the New Temperance and the older temperance ma-vements. As in the nineteenth and early mentieth cenlctries, today's campaigns for "correcl"%beavior resonate more with the middle dass than with the classes above and below it, helping it to develop internal cohesion and identity Finally; I have argued that a political convergence has taken place on. several fronts as the successful Republican and New Right strategy against sin and vice has, in turn, influenced many hrmer radicals and liberal activists to turn against the 1960s cultural revolution ol:"sex, dmgs, and rock 'n' rotf.'" In this chapter, 1 suggest that, syrnbolicaHy, the NW Rrnperanct: has served as one mhicle far conquering the remnants of the ""60s" challenge to Anlmican society and its dominant n o r m and political structure. As was true of other periods in this century (e.g., the 1930s), the ideas and movements that arise in times of social disorder not only. Prighten elites but pose se_rous problems of legitimacy Tor established power, Althorrgl? some taaics are useful in adapting to and co-oping these problems, other strategies sewe to suppress the remaining memory of dissent. Later in the chapter I also question how well the state can

168

From Loyal@ Oatf%sto Wine Tests

totally administer the behaGor of citizens: Can behaGoral control and repression be considered ""sccessful" even on their own terms?

Demonizing the 1960s 12: is not coincidental that advocates of the New Temperance have so stronglty &"raked behavior that they claim was at the heart of the ""excesses" of the 1960s. The war on drugs and on many f o m s of sexuality has been 1Fought as much for its symbsticvalue (i.e., as part of a stratea of eradicating the mphologized ""6s"")~ for any af its more manifest purposes, Writing late in his life, Richard Nhon forcefully poiMed us back to Woodstock as a symbolic reason for continuing the war on drugs: '"ven today, when most af the prestige media have marlaged to crowd onto the anti-dmg bandwagon, they could not help indtrlgirrg in a revol(.ing orw of nostalgia during the twntieth anniversaq of Woodstack, The smarmy retrosgectives glossed over the fact that Woodstoek"s only significant legacy was the glorif cation of dangerous iliegd drugs. . . . To erase the grim legacy ofWoo&t.ock, we need a total war agailt~~t drugs,"~ SimilarXy, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was fond of attacking the sexual doctl-ines of the 1960%holding promiscuity and free love responsible h r the AIDS epidemic and the kvidespread chiid sexlrat abuse reported during the 1980s: "We are reaping what was sow:n in the 1960s. The fashionable theories and permissiveness claptrap set the scene for a society in which the old vrirtues of discipline and self-restraint were derrigrated,""2 The historic& events of the "60s'"i-n acltlallq including much of the 1970s) have been repainted in dangerous and frightening hues. Consider this Vitriolic comment by conservative historian Joseph ConXin regading the "IG-Qs"lifewle: " [Llili:in the New Age communes of the 1960s and 29"10s . . . [was like IiGrrg in) "garbage dumps' and %helXs? children smeared in their wrl filth for days, hystericat u n d a the LSD given to paciQ them. . . , [Vlenereal infection, pneumonia, influenza, and the unprimitive affliction of hepatitis reached disastrous praportions,"'" For many people alive at the time af the 1960s counterculture, this sinister and bizarre reconfiguration of hiaory has a clear agenda of vitification. Of course, not evevything that occurred in this (or any other) time period was posithe ar worth repeating, But the presence of a few dirty and sick children on a commune somewhem by no means sums up the reality of this period, any more than conservatives of the time were correGt in sllmming up the French Revoltdion as primarily about terrorism and guillotine practice. The popular movie Forest Clamp similarly portrays 1960s '"long-hair radicals" as ~ o l e n and t misogynist, and the movie hero must save his girtfriend from their abuse. Perhaps there w r e

From Ls~";al@to ULlvintl Tests

169

a few more people af this sort than X was ever aware af in the late 196Os, but it is still absurd to porlray '*6Os"-s~le radicalism in this way. If anything, the image of the peacehl hippie flashing a peace sign would be closer to the mood of the times, Xn short, the retrospective portrayal of the ""6s" "has litde to do with veraciv. Rather, it is an attempt to take the essence of the social and cultural revalut"ron of the 1960s and convert it ta one primarib of sin and vice, The editors of The G& tiVithautApalogy made a similar point morr: than a decade ago: Trashing the 60s has become a strategic feamre of the current struggle for hegemony Attacks on '$ermissivenessIP' the defeferrse of the old-fashioned nuclear family . . , [and] a general turn away from the cultural "stytyles" "of the 60s . . . are parts of a whole ideologicitlconflict for which Grmsci's term hl?genzony remains the most convenient shorthand, a conflict which includes contests over interpretatians of histoq*and above all of that cruciid period both sides call "the 60s." . . . But visions of histo7 play an ensrmous-if incalculable-role in peopleQolitict2 practice in the present m d this all the more when the interpretation. . . [is]of [the] immediate pasf.4

The demonization af a historical period, however, is not a new phenomenon in America. Each period of social unrclst in the ~ n l i e t t cenl tury-1900 to 1924, the 193Qs,and the 1960s to the early 1970s-has been followed by a period af social and political repression. In these lat~ ~ late 1940s to the 195Qs,and the late 19"70s to ter periods-the 1 9 2 0 the the 1990s-political leaders, coqorate ellites, and the dominant media. have sollgbt to activety repudiate the periods that preceded. Most imporlan, those In particul~rwho we= charged with having participated in the disruptive events or could be associated with them (sometimes just by race, religion, personal style, or appearance) were called fortrvard to disown or repudiate these events, In the public mind, a major threat during the first few decades of this century was centered an Central and Eastern European immigrants who constituted a disproportionate number of Ihe radicals in groups such as the Socialist Party and the Industrial VV0rkel.s of the Mlortd ( specter of political and labor unrest merged, again in the public mind, with racist and xenophobic fezs about the lifesvte of Germans, Italians, Russians, and others, particularly during World War I and in the aftermath ofthe Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.Beginning with the repression of those who refused to go to war, or to suppo't it, and culminating in the brutal Palmer Raids, Prohibition, and passage of the anti-irnmigration laws, the threat to power was spbolicalty canstrueted as "alien," as a forclign culturr: &ose germs and ideas would prey on American culture and destroy it. These "germs" had to be purged and expelled (in fact, thousands af suspicious-looking 4haliezrs"were literally put on boars back

1 70


to Europe). But such wiolent repression could not be mounted against aX1 foreigners, much less all suspicious-looking people. Instead, "aliens3' were p ~ s s u r e dto eschew association wit11 things foreign, to swear allegiance to Americanism, and to commit themselves to assimilation (i,e., to the idea of the "melting pot"'), Germans and Russians, for example, had to cleanse themselves by swearing citizenship, dropping their native language in public, leaving the traditional fraternal or other civic organizations organized around their distinctive cultures, and opposing any radical, "alien" ideas, Sacial u n r w in the 1930s centered on the class struggles of workers, unemployed people, and poor people during the Great Depression, Although considerably vitiated by the 1940s through absorption in the New Deal and the Popular Front strategies of the Communist Parq, the specter of radicalism remained after World War 11, as refiected in massive Iabor unrest in 1946. The anti-communism of the late 1940s and 1950s, now b o w n as "McCarllyism," w' as directed not just. agaim the foreign Communist menace (recall those irrational Eears of Reds pouring in from Mexico or Canada), Indeed, it was also intended to cleanse the Arrlerican political system of any radical taint from a leeward direction. The powerful sacial-contraf apparatus put in place in the late 1940s-resulring in the expulsion of Congress of industrial Organizations (CXO) unions as red-dominated, the purges of Eederal workers, the hounding of Wollyv\;'ood writers and aeadernics-was specifically aimed at foreing former, current, and potential leftists to take sides. The loyal@oath and the "re ;you now or have you ever been a Communist?'"qzlestions of the Mouse Un-American Activities Committee (EIUAC) were intended to achieve submission from all potential opposition to the social order* And the key point was to repudiate the ideas and actions of the 1930s through "naming names." By naming the names of those who had signed petitions or demonstrated during the 1930s or 194Qs,a person displayed not only compliance with power but also that he or she had "outgrown'?he taiM of communism or radicdism. I don? mean to imply that repression, whether of indidduals or ofthe masses, was the only taclical strategy for containing the rmnan'ls of radicalism. Repression is not the only to&, or even necessarily the most effective tool, against dissent. For example, the expansion of social web fare programs and retatiwely high-wage contracts in the post:war era considerably empercltd unrest. Similarly, the reaction to the "60s" has been multifaceted; in the areas of civil rights, gender equity, multieuEturalism, and en~ronmentalism,it has included considerable compromise and co-optation in both the political sphere and the private sectar, Yet just as the predsus conservative periods put in place a powerful repressive surveillance system, the post- 2960s period has done the same,


17.2

1 make no claim of originality in drawing a connection bemeen the mandatory drug testing of the current period and the McGarthyism of the 1950s. As early as 1986 a leader of the Civil Liberties Union called drug teeing a "form of social McGarthyism aimed at getting rid of people who wonPtbuy the line. It%a step away from an auhoritarian society."5 Tn addition, writer ElXen Willis has observed a link between the drug test and the l ~ a l oath: q 'The purpose of this "8s version of the loyally oath is less to deter drug use than to make people undevo a humiliating ritual of subordination: ' m e n 1 say pee, you pee.'"e Miflat is puzzling, at first glance, about the power strategies adapted in the 1980s and 1990s is that, unlike the Palmer Raids or the MUAC hearings, they often seem to occur in the 'knonpolitical" realm. Mandatory drug tests as well as other proposals to sort out and contain "deGantsY' have been implemented by corporate and prlvate hedth providers, as have an increasing number of surveillance strategies, from identification of alcohol users artd testing for HlV to scrutixly of personal life both on and off the job, The social control of the 1980s cvld 1990s particularty reflects Foucault's discussion of direct control over bodies, the surveillance of which has become more and more detached from political classification and discussion and placed in the hands of professionals and p e ~ o n n eofficials, l Tke urine tes-along with mandatov sentencing and other sevme behavioml controls central ta the drug wr-is a power straegy that mirrors the "personal is political" mrrxdicalism of the 1960s. Tt takes seriously the proposition that those who resist the dictates of powr, whether or not such resistance is framed as ""political" in the conventionaf sense, are enemies and are undermining production, public ordex; and rationality, Like the loyafty oath and the "naming of names," the policing of everyday life-which in schools, for example, foc~iseson behaviors such as smoking, speech, and sexudity-requires Americans, from an early age on, to comply with the norms of the powerful ~ t h o uasking t questions, and to accept the right of the state and corporate power to hold their bodies captive. Ultimately; it is not important klihether drug testing finds traces of a drug in a studenthrine or if locker sclarches turn up cigarmm or guns or pornographic litemure. Ralher, it is the polking inerthaf: makes the point about who is in control. h o t h e r key point about the role of the New Temperance in s p b o l i cally eradicating the '460s" is its constant use against members of the baby boom generation, particularly those who might be charged with having some mlationship to the social movements of that period. It is not coincidental that Democratic Party politicians from Caw Hart to Dill Clinton have come under relentless questioning about their sexuality; prior drug use, and past participation in political demonstrations (al-

1 7.2


though some Republicans such as forrner Sllprerrle Court justice nominee Arthur Ginsburg have been caught in the net as well). Reminiscent of McCarthyism's "Are you now or have you ever been a Communist??' questions, political leaders (and many potential civic, corporate, and bureaucraic leaders) are now asked %re you now or h m you ever been a %GOs"styXe person?" That is, did you use drugs, engage in nonmarital sex, attend anti-war rallies, or burn a flag? As in the ritualized hearings of the 1950s, most members of the 1960s generation either admit guilt and purge themselves of sin or minimize their past guilt ("I didn't inhale'" and promise Elrture clean living, To some extent, liberals and former leaists have been forced, far more than consewatives and moderate politicians born before the baby boom, to actively ~ p u d i a t ethe 1960s.And like many liberals in the late 1940s and 1950s who dissociated themselves from communism, they have, Eor the mast part, happily obliged, Some sociologists studying the drug war, for example, have observed that, in. the election campaigns of 1986 arld 1988, liberal Democrats hammered home the attack on drugs far more than Republicans did, and charged go-vernment leaden with being "soft on drugs,"? The reason that Bill and Hitlary Clinton, Gary Hart, George McGovem, Tom Hayden and Tarre Fonda, and other leaders or public figures must constantly answer McCarthyite questions about the IE960s, and reveal their views on issues like drugs and sex, is that their opinions on these issues and their distance from the tradition of the 1960s are considered a measure of their respectability and readiness to accept political, corporate, and civic leadership*Conversely, there is litde reason to question the Bob Doles and Dan Quayles whose loyalty to dominant norms has never been in doubt, But among those who have had any association with the dreaded " " 6 ~ only ~ ' ' a repudiation of both the politics and the culture of the times is deemed acceptable by the media and politicall etites as a measure of their potential ta serve as responsible leaders. Novelist Sol Yurick capttires the sense of this constant need to repress the 1960s: ""]he GiOs, like some compuEsive recurrent nightmare[,] stilt persisrs in the consciotlsness of the ruling etites. They must exorcise and reexorcise it, demand acts of conlrition, to ask of its adherents that they confess that they were possessed by the devivil. . . .We are asked to adml'r, , make penarzce afid obeionce and Tor all, . . . [that weJ were w r o ~10 sQnce,to hypostatize those sins inZ;othose devils now on trial,"g There is, however, an irony in the efforts ofthe powerful to repl.ess the symbols of previom social unrest: Sirtce each period of turmoil in h e r ican history never quite repeats the past, and since the symbols and issues associated with these periods (e.g., the 1930s mrsus the 1960s) are often dramatically dit-ferent, the dominant media and leadership are stuck in a retrospective campaign, For example, whereas loydv oaths


1 7.3

and propaganda about communism were still a mdor focus of American life in the early 1 9 6 0 the ~ ~ civil righrs, NW Left, feminist, and other new social movements initially had few links either to 1930s issues or to Marxism, The next period of social unrest is unlikely to occur in the same fashion as the 1960s did, and the "personal politics'kf sex and drugs may have little to do with the issues or symbols of the next period, Despite the constant calls to repudiate the past, the radical caunterculture is long dead and harctfy poses a social drl-eat. Not knowing how to prevent future challenges, political and social leaders hope that the idea of politied protest and social unrest can be expunged from society, but such hope is likely an unmafistic one.

The Limits of the Totally Admhistered Society Social scientists and other authors have long warned us about the syectel:of a brxreaucratized sociev whose exwnded police power would be utilized to increasingly scrutinize and control every human action. In passages from the work of MaxWeber and the Frankfurt School theorists to that af Michef Foucault and George Orwell, the power of elites to manage daily human life down ~ . the o most micro-level (as in "the totally administered society" "described by Theodor Adorno)%eerns exemplified by the New Rmperance, As X discussed in Chapter 3, the irony of total administration-of state intrusion into the most private aspects of life-is that people have often come to E'dentiBwith powerful social controt as being in their own imerest. They often want the state to expurgae drugs or cigarettes or to prosecute criminds or pornographers. But, of course, this identification, at least in America, is highly ambivalent, Those who support the drug war ofien refuse to accept regulation of their guns or tobacco habits; those who oppose controls over sexuality sometimes are happy to have the state control others) gun okvnership or speech habits, As revealed by the public's reactions to the Rodney King beating in 1991 and to the government attack on DaGd Koresh's Branch Daddian cult in 1994, actions by the state can suddenly blow up in officials' faces and unite popular opinion against the power of the state. This is actualfy the good news. There is a strong possibiliv that? despite the increased technical surveillance available to the state and other authorities, the ability af elites to totally control people's lives may be exaggerated. The limits of s u e power and the New Temperance can be shown in this anecdote about Iran noted by drug legalization advocate Arrrold Trebach: h Iran, there is a stoq of the roving execuliorrer of the revolution, AyatoU;lh mdikhali, Khailifiali had a power that many people here dream of, If he found you with drugs, he put you against a wall and shot you. According to wire =parts, wi*fhin a seven-week period, he killed 176 people, fial&hdi

174

From Loyalty Oaths to Urine Tests

was photographed standing amidst stacks of opium bags and drug products. Yet, he was criticized because drug use was still rampant. His defensive response was “If we wanted to kill everybody who had five grams of heroin, we would have to kill five thousand people.”And, then, he added this classic phrase, “And this would be difficult.”lo

The irony of the Ayatollah’s inability to either suppress or eradicate all personal behavioral deviance, despite his access to the most drastic tools, is heartening. If even Iran must stop somewhere, presumably a society based on democratic and civil liberties rhetoric must be limited in its reach. State and corporate control over behavior is ultimately limited in at least two ways. On the one hand, there is ideological opposition to force being applied against specific private acts (drug use, sexual behavior, etc.). On the other hand, there is general public opposition to the use of too much force, whatever the cause-particularly when such force is no longer theoretical but has become personal (as when it is you or your neighbor against whom force is directed) or when television forces you to watch it again and again (as when the Rodney King beating and the burning of the Branch Davidian compound were repeatedly aired). Another matter paralleling the critical issues of civil liberties and social control that I have been raising concerns the pragmatics of repression. Does it work? Despite the acceptance of a simple minded behaviorism by many observers across the political spectrum (i.e., acceptance that some combination of punishment and role modeling will either force or influence people to act “right”),there is fairly mixed evidence regarding the success of behavioral change, whether through old-style Puritanism or the New Temperance. Otherwise, how do we explain the following facts about America?We have more jails and prisons and more crime than any other country in the world; more substance users and harsher laws against all drugs; more dieters and more overweight people; more puritanical views about sex and more rape and pornography. One explanation is, of course, that we need the prisons because of so much crime, and that we need harsh laws to control so much sexual abuse, drug addiction, and so on. The problem with this explanation is twofold. It fails to own up to the historic failure of repression of human urges to “cure”any of these problems, and it fails to accurately reflect the time sequence between disorder and control. The wisdom of public exhortation summed up in the phrase “just say no” is basically the wisdom that developed in Massachusetts with the Puritans. And it has failed. More prisons have not stopped crime, more drug laws have not stopped drugs, and more laws on pornography have not stopped dirty books. Our political leaders can offer us only more of the same, again and again. There’s crime, so let’s build more jails. There’s drug use, so let’s pass more laws. There’s teen


1 7.5

sex, so let's have more prohibitions andlor more education, Neither rep ~ s s i o nnor a public heallh campaign (nor some combination of both) necessarily fends off sin and cl-ice, m a t if the reason for all. the crime and jails, the heav-duty laws and the drug use, is not as it seems? What if repression produces the very dangerous classes it supposedly seeks to p u n i s h M a t if banning drugs c.acoura-gespeople to get tligh, resrllting in mllions of drug offenders? m a t if the state builds more and more prisons and then (surprise!) begins ta fill them up with more and mare prisoners? M a t if exhortations against uncontrolled sexual behavior and food intake lead people to become obsessed with these very drives? One half of the equation produces the other: The obsession with personal misbehavior may produce the very behavior that is prohibited. For emmple, some researchers report that when former President Bush field up a bag of crack in a tele~sedspeech against drugs, millions of people were prompted to want to take the drug.1' This is an interesting example of the failure of prohibilionism. By constanlfy borrlbardirlg young people with the message that using drugs (or srnaking a cigarette, taking a drink, or having sexual rel&ionsf is prohibited, we may be conveying the opposite message. America's obsession with the control of behavior thus has a Rip side: By engaging in constant attention to these behaviors, we reveat a cultcrrat obsession suggesting that such activities are centml to pleasurt: and the essence of life. Far example, in America we constantly call our children's attention to the dangers of substances, sex, and even food. But in. other countries where wine and other aleoholic beverages are used regularly at meals with no special attention paid to them, alcoholism is far less \videspl.ead.fzAnd where h o d is savored over long meats as a pleasure, there is both less dietirlg and less obesity 13 From an empirical ~ e w p ~ i nthe t , assumption that pmhibition lFollows misbehavior is often atso not supported, thus overturning the expeetation that a rise in misbehavior triggers the need for more social control. For example, scholarly works by Witliam Chambliss and Katherine Beckett on the rise of street crime and drug use as political issues s h w rao correlation between increased crime or drug use and public concern. If anyrthing, the reverse is true: It is psEE'ti:al and wzedl'w ntzention to these issues that leads to increased concern and increased erirne fighting and repression,lWow does crime control prodace crime rather than the opposite? One answer is "seek and ye shall find." Chambliss reports that just as it becomes commonplace for young Aii-ican-American men fa be stopped by police, it becomes commonplace to have more and morc: arrests, and hence more and more criminaIs, Initidly police may pull cars over for minor traffic infnzctions. But conflicts bemeen police and citi-

1 76


zens often ensue, even before a vehicular search is conducted. Criminals, then, are essentially produced by constant overwhelming scrutiny, which in turn encourages resistance to authority and self-identification, with that which is being policed. Can those of us who do not live in h e r i c a ' s inner cities even imagine being constantly subject to police scrutiny and harsh treatment? Can we imagine not resisting such authority and fighting back? Police power may also lead to an acceptance of how such power defmes us: ""Ycs,I am a dmg dealer" or "Ues, I am a gun-toting person who is 'bbadWYmota totally irrational response to continual victimization, Of course, it is not redistic to believe that we can have a society without rules and laws, But the New Temperance suggests as much about the limitations of state power as about its success in repressing the radical visions of the 1960s. The New Temperance, lhougb often well meaning, conveys a utopian view of life suggesting that power can be used to promote conformance to a set of established rules, or that all human behavior can be shaped. But the very idealism of temperance is what undermines it, because such moral perfectionism leads to repression and punishment for transgressors as well as to our kuslfalion when humans act so imperEectly As Alvh Gauldrrer w m e d : ""Itis when man [sitj is at his most purely moraE that he may be most dangerous to the interests and the most callously indifferent to the needs of others, Social systems know no fury Like the man of m o d absalrrism aroused,"'s My own view (though it is hard to make predictions) is that the New Rmperance will come to an. end. Its end will not be announced but, rather, will be dwaded by new movements and new periods of unrest that, in turn, will move American society out of its current obsession with personal behavior. Like the earlier fervor to ban alcohol in h e r i e a , the Earce and hcus now dimcted at issues such as illicit drug use may be looked upon by future Americans with the same curiosity and head scratching we now exhibit when contemplaring the days of Prohibition. Perhaps, as with Prohibition's repeal under the weight of the Great Depression, American culture will came so close to a precipice that (as in those earlier days) the governlnexrr mighl even sanction some new farm of drugs to be dispensed to everyone, if only to provide some political relief*

1. Associated Press, ""-NewAge on Campus: Can the Keg," Mc~i~zine Sunday TeEepawz, Mach 13, 1994, p, 4B, 2. See D, Hamilton, ""X a Waft of Fragrance Poisonixzg6iotu: Space?""$Angel= Tims, December 15, 1994, p. El; and Associated Press, ""Suppart Group Helps People Mi.ith MessyTmblems," Maine Sldnday Teilegr~m,February 20, 1994, p, 10B. 3. For a powerkl study of police practices in Vt'ashirzgton, U.C., where ghetto areas are designated "war zones" "against drugs and virtually any African-Americ m male in a vehicle is subject to search, seeW Ghambliss, ""Plicing the Ghetto Underclass: The PoXitiss of Law and Law Enforcement," "~ocial Problems, 4E:2 f 19941,pp. 17";7--.24. 4 . U. Hoey ""Plan Enlists Gomrnuniq in Drug War," Portiapzd Press Herald, Qctober 3, 1994, pp. TA, 9A. (The communiq in question is the &fluent subwb of Gape Elizabeth, Maine.) 5. M. Wines, % ' I Baptist Talk, Cfinton Stresses Mord Themes," Mew York Ti??zes, September 10, 1994, p. 1A. 6. Donna Shdda, secretav of Health and Human Senriees, cited in 7. Stacey "The New Fmily VVales Crusaders," The Nation, July 251August 1, f 994, p. 120. 7. Marion Xlarry, cited in M. Pollit, 'Subject to Debate,'The Nation, Januav 30, f 995, p*120. 8. E, Goodman, 'Teen-Age Morns Don't Do It Alone," B~sslonGlobe, Febrznary 21, f 995, p. 87. 9, "F&en hgel," Cmco Bay Week43 May 12, 1994, pp. 1,8-f I, 10. Letter to the editor, Gas60 Ray Weekly, February Is, 1996, p. 8. 11. It is admittedly difficdt to talk generical4 about a Left and a Right, for fvvo reasons. First, diflferences exist wighin conservative, liberal, and leftist circles, m d each has some libertaim dissenters, Second, since h e r i c a in the f 990s lacks much of an organimd Left, it is extremely dificult to characterize it, AIthou* it is relatively easy to identi@the Genter and Right, Arrrericm socialists, anxelhists, or Communists are h a d to find, I must at times use liberal or left-Iiberal magazines such as The Nation m d Mos-izer jolzes to represent a ""tft$" dthough they might better be sailfed ""liber&,'"n Chapter 6, 1 attempt to situate the development of a temperance ideolou in a Right-Left convergence in the decades of the 19ms through the 1990s. 12. Many authors have been witing and talking about these developments under different n m e s , In 1987,I referred to &ern collectively as the ""newtemperance') (see D. Wagner, "'The New Temperance Movement and Social Control

at the Workplace," Contemporary Drug Proble~rsls,14:4 [l9871, pp. 539-556; and D, Wagner, "The New Temperance m d Social Work," CaEqornia Sociologisr; 10:2 119871, pp. 65-82), A year eadier, R, Goldstein used the "new sobriety" label in "The New Sobrie~: m a t We Risk m e n We Just Say NO," Villagemice, December 30, 1986, pp. 23-28. 'The 'hew puritanism" "lab has m o recently ~ been used in both "The New Writanism," "lmagandl", SpeciaX Issue (Winter-Spring 19941, pp. IOI-102; and E. Willis, No More Nice Girls: Go~~ntercuE~uraE Essap (Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan Ifniversiw Press, 1982).Finally*the ""l?aXthism'"abel was used by 1, Illich, ed,, in Disabling PI-ofessia~s (London: Mmian Boyas, 19%). Never~eless, X consider "temperance" to toe the best andytic construct because it links the ""bhaviord wars" to historic continuities with older sacid movements m d politic& strategies, Other labels imply a religious/ nation& explanation (puritmism) or a mediedization model fhe;tlthism),Moreover, for many people the term sobrieq connotes only dcohoJ; puritanis~rzconnotes mostly sexuaf prudery, but not issues linked to substances or food; and healthism seems to apply best to dieting! exercising issues, 13.1 don't mean to imply that the United States is the only nation that has had strong movements against drugs, dcohol, or other tempermce issues. Indeed, such movements have also occurred, for example, in Canada, Britain, some Nordie na2ians, a d Russia, for exmple. Generdy, however, few nadons other than the United States have experienced such strstained and broad anxleq-based movements concerning so mmy different areas of humm behitviors. (Southern a d Centrral European countrries, by contrast, seem most non-Puritanic&,) 14. See Chapter 2 for a more in-depth discussion of the Temperance Movement {against alcohol), the anti-smoking movement of earlier times, and the Vice andvigilance, Secid Purity; and Social Hygiene movements. AXso note that the health spa in Battle Greek, Michigm, run by Dr. Kellogg is portrayed in the 1994 film The R o d to Wellville,featuring h t h o n y Hapkins as Kellogg. 15, In loseph Gusiield"~ classic Symbolic Crusacke:Status Z>oliricsand t-heAmericwrz Temperarzce Mvenzent {lfrbana,Ill.: Universiq of Illinois Press, 19631, the author agues that this middle-class unie wm one of the key functions of the earlier Temperance Movement. The status and class politics of temperance united the members of the white Protestant middle class in a way that other issues divided them. Hence the anti-alcoholism movement, for example, was more successfuil than other reform issues of the late nineteenth and earty mentielh centuries. Much o E w mdysis is indebted to Gusfield's sociological study of the (first)Temperance Movement. f 6, See B. Ehrenreich, Fear- of Falli~zg:T j ~ Inner e Lge of rlze Mii%dEe CIms (New York: Pantheon, 1989).Mong with Gusfield's Symbolic Crl~sakke(see Note 151, El~renreich'sanalysis of the psycholotry m d sociologgr of the middle class has g this book, been a miljor influence on my t h i ~ n in 17. Xn this connection, see Chapter 3. 'WedicaIization" arguments seem ta me to be narrowly focused on the role of medical doctors and other experts in defining '"eviancy," whereas "moral panic" arguments go perhaps to the other extreme by zeroing in on the media a d popular contagion. Foucault's argument that mordization is a power strategy, available to bath elites and others, semes as m effective .theoreticd bridge in this context,

Notes

1 79

18. ""Culturewars'beems a popular appellation for the liberallconsernative divide on such social issues as abortion, sex education, condom distribution in schools, prayer in the schools, and gun control, See S. Roberts, 'The "Culture Wars of 1990," ".S, Mws and World Report, 108:25 (June25, f 9901, pp. 22-25; and J. Hunter, CuEt~~re Wars: The Struggle to Define America {NewYork: Basic Books, 1991). I do not mean to mir~irnizethe importance of the aforementioned social issues or to imply that liberals and conservatives are in agreement when in fact they are not. My point is simply that political disagreements on some issues c m obscure long-term convergences in broader worldviews bemeen sectors of the Left and Right (and Center). f 9. See S, Peele, The Diseml'ng oJ;llm~rica: Addiction Treatmmt Out' ofeont'r-ol (New York: Houghton Miffiin, 19891, ch. 2; and T. Dustem; "The Legislation. of Mordify: Creating Drug Laws," in in. Kelly ed., DeuianZ:Behavl'sr, 3rd ed, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 19891, p. 32, 20. Peele, The Diseasing ofAn~erica~ p. 25 X 2 l. Ibid.

f . The new revisionist history in the New Left, f e m i ~ s tm, d various postmodern and poststructuralist scholarship has often exposed the redities of life beneath the official pronouncements, Thus, for example, new scholarship has been deelaringvictorian times to be much less ""Victorian"in the sense of sexud prudery than was previously assumed. See, fiar example, E Xlarret-Ducrocq,Love in the Time ofVfcte)rfa[NewYork:Penguin, 1989);J. DZEmiZio m d E. Freedmm, If3tl"nzateMaftr?.rs:A History of SexuaZE"~ in America (NewY;ork: Harper m d Raw! 1988); and M. Foucatllt, The History of Sexualiv, Vol. l {NewVbrk: Pantheon, 1978).Although these new approaches add a needed corrective to the old generdizations, they should not obscure the fact that the \Jictorian era was an extremely harsh time in which to be judged a '3deviant'"a homosexual, an iXXegitimate chgd, a drug addict, etc.);m d it is for this very reason that historians must locate sexual and other "'devimt" aactivify in the "underlife" of the nineteenth centulxy,hidden from public and official view 2. B. Ehrenreich, T!ze Hearts ojeMen (Garden Ciqf N.U.: Anchor Books, 1983). 3- See Chapter 5 for further discussion of how in, the 1960s and 1970s previously ""deviant" or intemperant behavior, once associated with lower-class and minoriv groups, becme prevdent in the middle class as weH. It was durhg this period that the sexual revolution occurred, strongly reshaping norms about premarital and extramarit& sex, and that increasing numbers of middle-class people began using drzrgs, 4. In this connection, consider the portrayal of wife swapping in AIan PakuXa's Consenting Adults (19921, In the tradition of Fatal Attraction, intemperance [here, the desire of two neighboring men to sleep with each other's wives) leads not only to divorce m d fmily bre&up but to death m d the false imprisonment and near coxlviction of the hero, played by Kevin Klein, for murder. The film carries a none-too-subtle message about any type of risk, portraying risk taker Kevin Spacey as both psychotic and psychopathic.

5. J. Gusfield, Symbolic Grwde: S z a t ~ PoEitE'cs and the Amerlican Temperance Movement (Urbarra,Ill,: Universiq of Illinois Press, 19631,p. 4. 6, T. Duster, "The Legislation of Mor&i"rqr:Creating Urrrg Laws," in In. KeUy ed., Devknt Behavhr; 3rd ed, (NewYork:St. Mwtink Press, 19891,p. 33. 7 , R, Troyer and G. MarMe, Cigarettes: The Baflle over Smoking (New

Brunswick, N,J*:Rutgers Universiw Press, 19831, p. 6, 8. I? Conrad and 1, Schneider, Deviarzee arzd MedI'calizadion:From Bdnes?ssr"o Sickness f Philadelphia:Temple Universiw Press, 29922, p. 1. 9. M. Foucault, PswerIKnowledge: Selected Iulrclrvietus and Qther W i t i ~ g s 1972-77 (NewYork:Panaeon, 19801, pp. 42-43. f 0. Gay Activists Allimce mmifesto, cited in 1:Maroffa, Tj~e hlitics ofHomssextalali~(Boston: E-loughtonMifflin, 19821, p. 144. f l. "The trend toward a genetic or ""brn that way" bb.a for being " p y " is much disputed, particularly by radicatls in the gay, lesbian, and sexual minoriv movements; see, for example, L. Van Gelder, "The 'Born That Way?ray," Ms., May/June 1991, pp. 86-87. h d for a recent critique from the Left of the struggle for gay rights, see S*Johnston, ""Qnthe Fire Brigade: Why Liberdism Won't Stop the hti-Gay Gmpdgning of the Right," Critical Sodsloa, 20:3 f 1994). 12. A good source of information on the first Temperance Movement is James ThberlakeWohibition and the Progressive Movement 1900-1 920 f Cmbridge, Mass,: Haward Universi-ty Press, 19661, which clarifies the groups of supporters m d opponents involved. For works from a fednist perspective on this movement, see B, Epstein, The P>olz'Zt'wof Domestt'cl'q: Wonzen, EilarzgelicaEiism, arzd Temperance in f 9th Century America mew York: CoXumbia University Press, 1981);m d R, Bordin, Woman and Tenzperance: The Quest,for Pomr and Liberg (New Bruns~ck, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990).See afsa Mote 27. f 3. See D'Edio m d Freedmm, If%timate Matters, p, 153. 14. The transition from limitation or moderation of dcohol consumption to complete prohibition is given considerable attention in Gusfielcik Symbolic Crusade. Here, ""assimilative"reform (whereby the reformer seeks change by persuasion) is contrasted with ""cercive'kefarm [whereby people we forced to behave properly). GusfieXd identifies this transition as a major historic& change in the Temperance Movement, p. 3. 15. Troyer and Markre, Ciga~ftes, 16. Cited in Timberlde, ProFzibl~onand the Progressi~eMve~rzent,p. 52. f 7. Cited in ibid., p. 87, 18. Cited in G, DiXXow, "The Hundred Year War Against the Cigarette," American Heritagel Februwylllllwcfi 1981, p. 7. 19. Timberlake, Probzibilion arzd tIze Progrwiw Ikrovemerzt, ch. 3. 20. E, Goldman, ""The Hypocrisy of Puritanism," in in. Shulman, ed., Red Emma Speaks:AYZEnzma Goldman Reader {MW York: Schocken Books, 1982),p. 157. 2 1. For an interesting discussion of the origins of tobacco smoking and its association with the "'dandies" of the upper class, see R. Hein, Cigarettes Am Sublime (Durhm, N.G.: Duke Universiq Press, 1993)-It was not until late in the

nineteenth century that mass production of cigarettes occurred; prior to this time, tobacco wm quire expensive m d had to be hmd-rolled. Interesrin@ypas

with many other behaGors we shall consider in this book, the pathologization of cigarette smoking in h e r i c a coincided with its widespread adaptation by the poorer classes. Against the Cigarette," p 1l. 22. Cited in Dillow! "The Hmdred Year W~it" 23. Cited in S, Peele, The Difseasing of America: Addiction Reatmeuzt Qud of Control (NewYork: Houghton Mimin, 19891, p, 41. 24, A good discussion of the forces leading to the repeai of Prohibition can be found in J. Bilocker, American Temperance Mozjements: Cycles of Reform f Boston: mayne Publishers, 29891, pp. 125-129 especidy 25. In this connection, see Troyer and Markle, Cigarettes, pp, 40-41. See aIso Klein, who, in CigargttesArc?Sublime, more generally discusses the association of cigarette smoMng and combat; indeed, smoking has historicitliy been a major way for soldiers not only to counteract fear, ety, m d boredom on the baftlefield but also to mark off time. 26. Cited in DiXlow, "The Hundred k a r M7ilr Against the Cigarette," pp,15, 27, See Blockem;American Temperance Movemerzds, p, xl. Blocker quotes this stereoqpe with disapprovd, as his book is one of several recent w r k s that are sympa&etic to the Temperance Movement. Interestingly, emly histories of temperance and Prohibition such as Gusfield's Symbolic Crusade, Timberlake's Prohibition and f'k2ePI-ogessiveMovemen&m d A. Sincl&r9sProhibition: The Era of Excess (Boston: Little, Brow, 1962) were extremely critical of the temperance warriors, By contrast, such works as Blocker" American TemperanceMovements and BordinWonza~arzd Rmperarzce are sympathetic, representing, T would suggest, the time in which each group of authors is witing, 28. " R o ~ s Keepers," e a major movement invoking Christian. men througf-itout the United States, emerged around E992 and since that time has held large rallies in which &e pwticipants pledge &emselves to mmitrif fideliv, good paxenting, chastity before marriage, and Christian vduea 29. The best sources for the idendficatiarr of key actors in the Socid Puriv Movement are E. Bristow's Mce arzd Vigilance:Pun"@Movenzenfsivz Brifain Since I 700 (Dublin: Gill m d MacMillm, 1977), D. P i v a W u r i ~ sCrusade: , Sexual Morality and Social Gorzlrol1868-1900 (Westport,Conn,: Greenmod Press, 1973),and J. WaXkaetz's "Mde Vice and Femde Virtue: Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in 19th Centupy Britain," in A. Snitow! G. Stansell, and S. S, Thompson, eds., F"owersofb)esir-e:The Poll"$&ofSexuall"~ (NewYork:Monthly Review Press, f 9831, pp, 419-438. F"ar discussion of this movement's activities in America, see especidly Pivar's appendix A (pp, 283 -286). The composition of the Vice andVigilmce Movement is well laid out in I? Boyer, P~iriWin Pn-int (New York: Chwles Scribner" Sons, 19Gi&),ch. 2. And for information regading the Progressive leadership of the Social Hygiene Movement, see A. Brmdt, No Magic Bwllel;.A Socl'aZ H"s$sryofknereal Disease in the United States Since 1880 (NewYork: Qdord UniversitJiPress, 19851,ch. I. 30. B'EEmio and Freedman, Intimate Matlers. See &so Brandt, No Magic BuElet; and J. Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents (hndon: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985). 31, For a history of American censorship up to the 1 9 4 0 ~ see ~ Boyer, Pl~rityin Print;

32, Cited in Bristoy Vice and Vi@lance,p. 11833. See Boyer; Pun'i?y h Pn'nl; p, 6, 34, Ibid., ch. 1, 35, Ibid., p, 12. 36, In. the late 1970s and througf-itout the 1980s, some members of the women's movement allied with consernativeleaders in supporting laws af~ainst pornography and participating in demonstrations and other actions. SeeWeeks, Sexualiq and It;s Discontents, pp*228-236; and S, Seidman, Embattled Eras: Sexual I""slitl"cs and Ethics h ContemporaryAmeric~(New York Roueedge, 19921, ch. 3. For a feminist critique of the potitics of W m e n Against Pornography (whose leaders included Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, and Adrienne Rich), see Willis, No More Nice Gr'rk,particdarly the chapter entitled "Lust Horizons: Is the Women" Movement Pro Sex?" "(pp, 3-14]. See d s a Chapter 6 of the present vsfk1113e. 3'1. Cited in Boyer, Pl~rilyin Pri~zt,p. 14. 38. Cited in ibid., p. 17, 3%The acti\rities of the Catholic League sf Decenw in the 1930s led to vctluntmy production codes in h e r i c a n cinema, to which Hollpaod adhered until the 1950s (see D'EmiXio and Freedman, f~ztz"mate Ma@ers,pp. 282-2841. Concern about media. portrayd of Golence is &so not new. For example, a law enbrcement cmpaiign. (also during the 1930s) forced censors to change film plots &at portrayed gangsters in a positive fashion, For mare on this topic, see R. Toll, The Entertah menr Machine: American Shatu Business in rhe 2011%Centzcr~~ (Odord: Odord UniversitZp Press, 19821,p. 162, 40, There is a Xong histoq of struggle aimed at banning popular sports and leisure pursuits such as cockfighting, boxing, taearbaiting, and horse racing, For further inhrmation on this topic, see W Rybczyrrski, Waitingfir the Weekend (Newfiork: Penguin Books, 1991),pp. 98-104. 4 L. See Pivar, P w n " ~Crusade, ch. 2; and Bristaw, Viceand Vigilance, ch. 4. 42. See Pivam; Pun'l;y Crusadeppp. 141-143, 43. See, for example, Ernrna Goldrnm's piece, "The Traffic in Women," in inhufman, ed., Red E1~2nzaSpeaks, 44. Further discussion is p r o ~ d e din D'Emilio and Freedman, fngimate Matt-ers,p. 216, 45. See Pivar, Purity Crusade,pp. 283 -284, for a list of the leaders sf the American Purity Alliance in 1895, h a n g these leaders were Elizabeth Blackwell, hthony Cornstock, Mrs. Dodge, luXia Ward Hawe, Dr. Kellogg, and the VVGTU's Frmces Waard, The alliance membership encompassed temperance editors as well as representatives of women" suffrage groups, tkze'tr'etliCA,and major Protest m t denominations, 46, Cited in Bristow, Vice and Vigilarzce,p. 143. 411. See the discussion sf this issue in Pivar, Puriy Grlfide, pp. 140-1 43, 48. Bristow, Viceand Vigilance,p. 189. 49. Cited in D'EmiXio and Freedman, intimate Matters, p. 209, 50. Ibid., pp. 202-203. 5l. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, ch. 1. 52. Prances Wafmd, dted in DPEmiXiom d Preedlnm, 1vlsl"mateMartel-s,p. 218.

53. Pivar*Pl~rilyCrusade, pp, 243-244, 54 Cited in Bristow! Vice and Vigilance,p. 38, 55. A critic& compa"son between the treatment of W and that of other diseases is made by T.Rosenburg in Microbes and M~raks:Tlze Strange Story of VD (NevvU0P.k:Viking Press, 1971f,p. 256. 56, Xlristow, Vice and VigiEa~ace, p. 1411. 57. Brmdt, No Magic BulEel; p. 12, 58. Tn. MO Magic Bullet, pp. 16-1 3, Brandt reaches no firm numerical conclusions, but he does suggest that a range of 10-20 percent of men would be more accurate. Rosenburg, in Micmbw and Morals, puts the figures even lower, at 3 or 4 percent,

59. Brmdt, NO Magic Bullel; p. 22. 60. Cited in ibid., p. 50.

61. Cited in U%En^rioand Freedman, InrimaleMatters, p. 206, 62. Boyer, Purity in h i n t #p. 26.

63, Dr. Prince Morrow, cited in Brandt, NQMagic Bullet, p. 19. 64, See the related discussions in R. Bayer, Private Act$ SOGME Const"qaence~: AIDS and $hePolitics ofpublic Heal& [NewYork Free Press, 1989),p, 182; S. Sontag, AfDS and Ilts Metaplzovs (NewYork: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 19891, p, 81; m d Brandt, No Ma@c Bulket. The last of these sources provides m extended discussion of Wodd War X and VU in chapters 2 and 3, 65, This phrase is taken from Pn-ivatc Acts# Social C~nse'qaencm,p. 15, Mrhere Bayer notes that the theory of public health often contrasts sharply with that of civil liberties. For a critique that makes a similar point from a leftist perspective (arguing that public hedth creates a fiction& ""pble"'), see A. Sears, ""AIDS and the Health of Nations: The Contradictions of Public HeaXth,'Xritical Sociology, f8:2 (Summer 199f), pp. 31-50, 66. Foucault, The History oflSexuali8 Vole1. 67. Consider; for example, the KKK's opposition to domestic violence, child molestation, and drunkenness directed against white Protestants (along with nonwhites, Jews, m d Galihalics), as noted in E. Pleck, Domestic r y r a n ~ y[New York-:Oxford Universiq Press, X 9871, pp. 109-1 10. Pleck also observes that issues of domestic vioXerrce have been pursued as strongly by the Right at various points in bistov as by feminists and the Left. 68. Tn this connection, see, for example, GusfieXd's S p b o l i c G r w d e , Pivar's Pun'q Crusade, Epstein's The Politics of Bomesridl~i:, m d Ehenreich's The Hearts ofMen (pp. 149-1 51 f . Of course, labeling something a ""EtispXaced"qmbol is not w i ~ o uits r own subjectiviv. Early intellectud critics, such as Gusfield, saw ternperance as ent&ling displaced symbols pertaining to status and ethnic conflicts, And fednist writers such as Epstein m d Ehrenreih stress the displacement of women's anger about their socid repression and status in the family by attackng alcohol and prostitution. 69. For discussions of the Progressive mentali~)see, for example, R. Inliebe, The St?w;t.clzfor Qrder 1877-1 920 (NewYork: Hill and Wang, 1967);G. Kolko, The Tlrl't~mpho f C o ~ s e ~ u a t k[Chicago: m Quadrange Books, f 967; m d J. Ehenreich, The AEnuistic fmargi12ation:A History af Social Mi'ot-k and Social _POEE'cyin the U,$, frthaca, N,Y:GorneU Universiq Press, 19851,

1. I? Berger and T. LuchaxmW~ze Social Construction ofReall"~ (Garden Cityr N.Y.: Doubleday*1966) built upon the socioloa-of-howledge perspective pioneered by KarI Mannheim. Other influences include ghenomenoloa, symbolic interactionism,and ethnomethodolom. 2. The sometimes probfematic relationship beit-vveen social constructionism and deconstructionisrn is explored in chapters 17-20 of J. HoXstein and G, Miller, Social C ~ ~ ~ ~ b r ~ ~ t(New i o y lYork i s m Aldine de Gruyter, 1993). eds., R~?considerir.lg 3- See ibid. for a lengthy discussion of the difference bemeen cantextual constructionists a d strict constructionists. 4. J. Best, ed., Images oflssues: Typifiing Contemporay Social Problems (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989). 5. H. Becker, The Qzbtsiders:Studies in the Sociology ofDeviarzcet2nd ed. (New York: Free Press, f 973). 6. J, Best, '"hetoric in Claims-Making: Constructing the Missing Children Problem," &SociatProblems, 34 (1987),pp, 101-1 21, and TfzreatenedCIzildren:The Social C O I I S ~ T U C of ~ I a' OMoral ~ Parzz'c (Chicago: Universiq of Chicago Press, 19901. 7. Nationd SafeQ Council, Accuent. F~etsf 19921,pp. 8- 1 1. 8, Ibid., p, 34, 9. Ibid., p. 51. 10, U.S. Environmentitl Protection Agency, Vehicle Related Air To+ricStudy (Wahington, D.C., April f 993). 11. Robert Eckles, New York Commissioner of Air Resources, cited in R, Buel, t)c?kld End: The A~ltolrzobilein Mms Transportation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 19721, pp. 60, 73, 12.FJ.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Vehicle Related Air Toxic Sttldy f Wahington, D.C., April f 993). 13. Duel, D e d End, f 4. Bristovv; Vice and Vigiilance,p. 128, 15. Benjamin Rzrsh, cited in B'EmBlio a d Freedman, Intimate Matters, p. 68, f 6, Bristow; Vice and Vigibnce, p. 134. 17. Ibid., p. 14018. Bristow?Vice and Vigilan@,p. 128, 19. Foucault, Histoy ojFSexualiq,Vol. 1, p. 28. 20. Maurice Bigelow, cited in D'Emilio and Freedman, lyldwzate n/laEeTs, pp. 206-207. 21. Bristow?ViceandVigilanm, pp. 146-147. 22. See, for example, S. Restivo, "Madern Science As a Social Problem," "~oeial Problems, 35:3 (19881, pp. 206225. 23. P, Jenkirrs, I~l-l'mtlfe Maf;k.ers:Moral Panics h Contc?mwravG?-eatBn"fain (NewVbrk: Alditrte de Gruyter, 2992). 24. Best, ""Rhetoricin Cl;2irns-Naking,'>. 117. 25. Ibid. 26. On the repression and firing of thousands of gays, lesbians, and others classified as sexud deviants by the government in the McGarthy period, see

D'EmiXlio and Freedman, Jntimatc?Matters, pp. 283-293; and l? Conrad and J. Schneider, DDetliance tend Medicalizatlo~a: Badngss t s Sickness [Philadelphia: Temple Universiq Press, 19921, p. 201. Qn the lids bef~reencommunism m d pornogaphy in the f 950s, see D%milio m d Preedzrrm, Intimate Matters, And on. the link bemeen McCarthyism and fears about rock music, jazz, and drugs, see H, Gray) ""Popular Music As a Social Problem: A Social History of Clalms Aggnst Popular Music," in Best, Xmages offssues,pp. 147-15 1. 27. See Holstein m d Miller, Recansidering Social Consrrucrianism. 28. C. Reinarman and H, Levine, 'Crack Attack: Potitics and Media in America's Latest Drug Scare,'' hBest, Images oflssues, pp. 115-13?, 29, S. Woolgw m d D Pawluch, ""Ontological alerqmmdering: The hatomy of Social Problems Explanations,'T~cialProblems, 32:3 [l 9851, pp. 214-227. 30, C. W. Mills, Tize Sociological Imagination (London: Ox-ford University Press, 19591, pp, 3-4. 31. See, for example, 11 Szasn, The Manufacture sfMadness (Newmrk: Harper & Row, 1970); 1, Xllich, Medical Nemesis (New York: Pantheon, 1976);N.Mittrie, The Rigjzt t.a Be Diflerent (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971);and M, Feucault, Madness and Ct'uilizatt'on(MewMrk Rmdorn House, f 9651, m d The Birth oftjze Clinic:An A;r-cl"cat;*oEsgyofMedical BrceptiiOn (NewYork: Pantheon, 1 973). 32, The work of Elliot Freidson on the sociology of medicine and the professions appeas to have been influential in bringing together severd strands of sociological. thinking in the 1970s. In particular, see The Profession of Medicitze (NewYork Hxper 8r Row, 1970) and Professional Dominance (Chicago:Aldine Press, 1970). 33. Conrad and Schneider's Deviance and Medicnlizatt"on is perhaps the clearest sociolo@c;.tltreatment of nzedicwlization. 34. Wdespread opposition to the medical model emerged in the f 970s m o n g feminists, gay actiGsts, and leftists as well as among social scientists who saw as central the established profemsions' ontotogical construction of certain b e h a ~ o r as pathologicd, (This Gategoy included not only homosexuali.1-ybut &so other forms of sexualiq m d aspects of women" lives ranging from premenstrud syndrome to postparturn depression.) However, although opposition to medicalization has taken on a ""rights" or civil libertarian frmework with respect to some forms of behavior, this opposition may be ambiguous given its potentid support of a more moraIistiellegal. social control over other behaviors. For example, some critics of the medicalization of alcoholism or addiction may want to see legal social control, m d mmy feminists have criticized the medicalization of domestic GoXence, preferring prison or arrest rather than a treatment model. 35, S. Cohen, ;F"bEkDevils and Moral hnics: The Creafion of fie nifods and Rockem (@dor%L: Blackwell, 1972),p. 28. 36, See, for example, S. HalI, with C. Critcher, 1:Jefferson, J. Cfarke, and B, Roberts, Policing the Crisis: Mug@ng# the State and Law and Qrder (New York: Holmes & Meier, 19788);N.Parton, "The Natural History of Child Abuse: A Study in Social Problem Definition," "Brisk Journal of Social Work, 9 [19";79),pp. 431-451, "Child Abuse, Social h g e q , and Welhre," BritlisJz Journal of Social Work, 11 ( 19811,pp, 39 1-4 14, and Tdze P~litiesofChi1d Abuse (London: Maerniil-

Xan, 1985);G, Pearson, M. GiIman, and S. McEiver, Y Q U P&OPEC? E ~ and Hemin (Ndershat: Gower; 2987); I. Taylo_r,"'Violence m d Video: For a Social Democratic Perspective," Contemporary Crises, 11 (198171, pp. 1017-1 28; and A. Vass, RTDS-A Pl~gueivc Us: A Social krspective f London: Venus Acadernica, 1986). 37. In the 1991and 1992 editions of The Readers Guide to krr'odical Literatccre, I located apprmimately 150 terms relating to devianw, unhealthy beha~or,and medicalized popular vocabulay. These terms did not appear in the 1970 and 19"i- eettians, Qfcourse, my such reGew is necessaily somewhat subjective;hence ma2her observer might question some sf the terms I selected or add terms not on my list. (For example, I erxcluded medical diseases unhown to me that someone else might recognize and argue to be socially constructed.) Incidentally the f 950s m d f 960s editions of the The Rmders Gtiide to Periodical Literatuz revealed no correspondingly large increase in the number of terms related to personal behaGor, whereas the New York Ernes index for the 1978s and 1980s did show a pardlel increase. 38.7. Kroker, cited in R. Michalowski, ""(efConstruction, Psstmodernism, m d Sacid Problems: Facts, Fiction, m d Fantasies at the 'End of History,"?n Holstein and Miller, eds., ReconsiderifzgSocial Corzstructionismm, p, 390, 39. See l2A.J. Waddingran, "Mugging as a Msrd Pdnic: A Question of Proportion," BritislzloumaE ofSocioEo0,317:2 (1986),especidtlly p. 258. 40. One issue I have not discussed at length here but that merits some mention is the fact that Soviet and other soeidist societies of the fvvenlLieth centuw, at least from the advent of Staginism on, adapted a very harsh and strict version of Puritanical temperance. Antonio Gramsci believed that the techniques of "F~rdism,'~ in vvErich he included Puritanism, vvere being adapted by the SoGets md, in the hmds of the working class, could lead to progress, In stressing the bourgeois origins sf temperance, I see no necessary contradiction in the SoGetstyle saatesbcceptance of a temperance ideoloa. Rather, they sinlply adapted the power strategies of Western capitdism and state authoriv to their own bureaucratic elites' needs m d ts their process of industrial accumulatian. In my view, &is is one of the many ways in which the Soviet-sqle states failed to move beyond capitalism as a structure and ideolow. 4 1. See M. Douglas a d A. InlEldavskry,Risk and Culture {Berkeley:Universify of Cdifornia Press, 19821, for a discussion sf taboos and potfution rituals in other societies m d an explanation of how externd events shape indigenous people's perceptions of their ruling elites. 42. M m Weber, cited in Gusfiefd, Symbol& Crusade, p. 28. 43. Cited in Foucault, The Bir& ofr;iw CCEinic, p. 34. 44. 'LVerner Sombart, cited in S, Ranulf, Moral Jndignatioa and Middle Class Pqchology (NewYork: Schocken Books, 195A.1,p. 41. 45. Gusfielld, Symbolic G r r ~ d pp. e ~ 5,8. 46. Of course, there was a period, particularly the Gilded Age (in lafe-nineteenth-century America), when some American capitalists exulted in their wedfh m d engaged in the 'ksnspicuous consumption" noted in Thorsteh Vebents famous work, The Theory ofthe Leisure CEas (New York: Viking, 1967 [orig, f 13991). h the f 980s, too, some well-known figures, such as Mdzlcolm E;orbes m d

Nancy Reagan, came close to adopting this style. But such instances were quickly land severely criticized in the media, whereupon mmy displws of wealth and greed ag&n became hidden, X wodd argue that the open appeal to Imzlry m d overconsumption has been rare in the histoq of h g l o - h e r i c m sociey, as compared Miith other societies, and is more co only conceded by the a f h ent, 47. As described later, there are additionill reasons as to why "hinging d a m the big guys" occurs. In any case, it is an extremely popular sport among the public to find moral fault with political m d other leaders in socieq. This aspect of temperance movements reflects a populist impulse. 48. For Foucault's description of how the Europeans lumped together a lwge percentage of the population (by means of what he called the 'Great Confinement'" and later separated them into categories, see his Madfiess and Civilization, In the 19nited States, the Boor Laws of the mid-nineteenth eenturgr similarly lumped together ""rggues, vagabonds, idle persons begging, persons using subtle crdts, jugging, unladui games or plays, feigning themselves to have howledge of physiognomy, pdmistry or pretending that they could tell destinies or fortunes, . . . common pipers, fiddlers, runaways, common drunkards, common night walkers, pilferers, wanton and lasci~suspersons, in speech, conduct or behaviour; common railers or brawlers, such as neglect their callings or employments, misspend what they earn a d do not provide for themselves and for the support of their f m a y , . . . land1 persons unfit to go at lmge m d under distraction" as digible for the houses of correction, (This Comecticut leg& statute is cited in A. Deutsch, The Mentally Ill in A~rzerlica[Garden City, PLY,: Doubleday;, 1949],p. 52.) Tnitidiy, the colonists and early American institutions hoped to diGde the "deseming" from the "undeseming" "or; but they never fully succeeded in separating the ""deseMng" groups (aged people, ~ d o w sand , orphans) from the "undesewing'knes until the passage of the Social SecurifgrAct in f 935. Then, find15 the ""deserving" poor were removed from local institutions such as the dlrrshause m d locd outdoor relief. See M. Katz, In the Shadow ofthe Poorho~~se (NewU0P.k:Basic Books, f 986) for a good historical aacount, 48. M. Foucault, P~werIKnowltedge:Setect-ed Interz~ieusand Other Writings 2 972- 77 (NewYork Pantheon, 1980),p, 15, 50. See, for example, D. Rothman, The Dimvery oftl2eAsylum (Boston:Utde, Brown, 19711,where E;oucault'es European view is reinforced by m explanation of how h e r i c a , from the Jacksonim period on, separated deviants through categorizalion. 51. Faucault, F"ower!Xif~~owi!edge~ p. 15. 52. Ibid., p, 41. 53. Of course, this strategy is not always effective, in that it works Miith some groups but not others. Many people, particularly youth, racial minorities, and the poom; resist such identifications by subverting them, and by rooting for the "bad guys." Artists, too, are frequently hard to control and may be disloyal to bourgeois norms, From rap songs to fiZrns (PtiEp Fiction comes to mind), there are cuXturaX representations that resist moralization and, hence, tend to enrage political leaders,

54, A, Gramsci, %;ltnricanism and Fordism," in Gramsci, SeEections frsm the Pn'ssn Mteb~oltrS(NewkiDrk: Internationd Publishers, f 9831, pp. 27-320. 55. Ibid., p. 302, 56. See ibid. Note, though, that Gramsci himself does not separate these func-

tions. 57'.Ibid., pp. 302-303. 58. Ibid,, pp. 304-305, 59. For an example of this argument from a conservative standpoint, see 7. Burnhm, Bad Habits: Drif3:rzkingISvlzsking T a k i ~ Drugs, g Gambling Sexaal nil&behavior, and Swaring in American History (New York: New York Universiw Press, 1993). Many leftist perspectives on sexudif3r (see D'E~rrilioa d Preedma, Intimate?Mauers; S, Seidmm, Embattled Eras: Sexciai! Politics and Ethics JYE Confempsraq~America [NewYork: Roulcledge, 19921; and J. Weeks, SexuaZiq and Its Bkcontentf [London: Routledge St Kegan Paul, 198511 emphasize the role of advertising and marketing in sexualizing the sociev. Aso on the Left, see D, Forbes, who, in Fake Fixes (fibany: SUNV Press, 1994))emphasizes capitdismb promotion of an 'kddietive paradigm" of relations that links drugs to other compulsions such as shopping, sports, m d consmhg. A recent Vokswagen ad readay illustrates how capitalist advertising can associate pleasure with health. A man is shown workng out at a mm, measuring out some cereal, m d engaging in other hedthy activities, while a voice-over states, "Yo.rreat rigbt," 'Tau work out," "Yak1 live right," "fipausef ""S where can you let loose?'' The rhetorical question is mswered lcly a change of scene in which the m m appears driving his W Jetta. 60. Douglas and Wildavsky, Risk ra~zdlCulture,pp. 7-8. 61. Ibid., g. 36. 62. Ibid., p, 47. 63. Ibid., p, 59. 64, D'Emilio and Freedman, tndwzate Matters, pp. 23-24. 65, See Gusfield, SjlmboEic Crusadeppp. 44-45; and 1. Blocker, American Ternpemnce Movements: C y c k ofReform (Boston:Wayne Publishers, 1989))p. 22. 66. For exampie, I have found in my work with rhe homeless and formerly homeless that subjects w r e very awaR of the popuiari~of 'kecovemy" "rgon among professianais and, indeed, often embraced this terminolaw as a status enhancer, In this connection, see B. Vt'agner, Checke&oard Square,. Cultiure arzd Resktancc?in a Homeless Communi@((Boulder,Colo,: VVestview Press, 19931. 67. See the related discussion in E, Bristow; Vice and Vigilance:Pun"p Movements in Britaii~zSince f 7Q0(Dublin: Gill and MacMilXan, 1977). 68. Ibid.; see dso Jenkins,Intimate nilartel-s. 69. This point is made in J, WaXkovvitz, 'Mde Vice and Female Virtue: Fen& nisrn m d the Politics of Prostitution in 19th Century Britain," in A. S~tovv;C. StanselX, and S, S. Thompson, eds., Powers of Dwire: The Polities of Sexcialiy (NewYork:Monthly Review Press, 19831, as well as in Xlristow, Vice andVigiEanct3, 70, M . Robinson, 'Turitans and Prigs," "Salmagundi, Special Issue (WinterSpring 19941,pp. 101-1 02, 71. See K, Roiphe, The nilarningz"lficn-:Sex, Fear, and Feminism (Boston: Little, Brom, 19941, p, 34. Roiphe, a men@-something author who has criticized aspects of current feminist actiGsm, h~ in turn been criticized by many feminists.

However, much of her book, if read as a critique of the exaggeration of the dangers of male predators, is at odds nei&er with the recent work of leftist feminists such as Ellen Willis and Lyme Segd {see Chapter 6 of the present volume) nor with that of the leftist British theorists of mord pmic noted emlier. I suspect &at much of the crigiciszn aimed at Roighe originates from the fact that she does not come out of the Left or the modern women's movement and thus seems to be t a n g a critic& tone toward the women's movement as an outsider, 72. See D'EmiIio and Freedman, tnti~rzateMatters; Snitaw, StanseXl, and Thompson, eds., I>swers ofDesl're; m d the esssiys in K. Peiss m d C. Si Pmsion and Power: Sexualiy in History [Philadelphia:Ternpile University Press, 1989).

1. S. Peelle, The L)iseasE"ngofAlrzerlica:Addiction Treatment Qut ofCon@ol(Mew Irork: Houghton Mifflin, 29891, p. 34. 2. Lesrer Grinspool, cited in C. Cddwell, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," American Spectamr' May 1992, p. 28, 3- L. Kantor; "Many Abstinence-Based Programs Are HarmfuX,'5n K, S ~ s h e r , Teenage Sexualip: Qpposiag Triewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19941, pp. 161-1 62. 4. For examples of liberal mti-tobacco rhetoric, see E. Goodmm, ""Smoking Acquires Conservative Chic," Boston Globe, Februa~y26, 1995, p, 75, and "Tobacco Lobby M&es an Offer," Portland Press Hemld, June 28, 1994, p. 9a; and A. Cackburn, 'The Other Drug War, W e r e Tobacco Firms Are the Pushers,'WalE Strestlouvnal, September 27,1990, p. AI 9, For an example of liberal anti-fat sentiment, see RaZph Nader's testimony an framurt-fersin H. kvenstein, Paradox of PIenw:A Social History ofEating in America [NewYork Oxford Universily Press, 19931, p, 171; &so note the phrase ""hart attack on a plate" "(referring to fettucine Alfredo), which was coined by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in 1994. The phrase 'deadly miasma of contagion and death" jis taken from S, Watney, "Photography and AXDS,'"n C. Squires, ed., The Critical Image: Essays on Contemporary Pl%oto@ap&{Seattle:Bay Press, 19901,p. 174. 5. For recent critical discussions of the cholesterol-ht issue, see J. Bennett m d T. Dihrenzo, Unhealtj~yCharities:Huardo~isdo Your Health arzd Wealth (New York: Basic Books, 19941, ch. 5; M, Stacey, Consunzed:Wzy Americans Love, Hale? and Fear Food (New k"ork: Simon and Sehuster, 1994); J. Brody, ''Low Fat Diet Might Add Only Months ta Ufetime, Study Says," Netu York Tir?zes,June 26, 1991, p. C5; m d J. Brodyp2 " A m r Look at the Effects of Eggs SuggestsThat Some Peaple G m Safefy Increme Their Consumption," New York Timcts, J m u q 1l, 1995, p. B7, For low correfafions bettveen high cholesterol and other dietarljr hazards, on the one hand, a d people who are not middle-aged men, on the other, see C, Tavris, The Mhmeasuue of Mrovnen (New York: Touchstone Books, 19921, pp. 102-1 03. See also Levenstein, F)aradox of Hen@ p. 208; and 'Medical Resewchers Say Hedth Advisories Go Too Far," New York Times, May 14,1995. 6, See Wagner, Checkerboard Sqzcare, Although the study was focused on a group of homeless people in only one city it involved intensive participatory re-

search over a long period of time. 1 argue against the idea that homelessness can be attributed to substmce use m d abuse; rather, my point is that substmce use can be an eflect of the situation of homelessness and poverty, 7. These slogms from Ma~1md"scampaign against early sex are cited in J. Gross, ""Sex Edrrcators for Young See New ViI-fue in Chastiq," New Er"orkEnzes, January 16, 1.994,pp. 2, 19. 8, Mthou* one can ague that the rationillistic, logical, and ""pwer over nature'yfaith is &so a masculille cultural trait, support for temperance measures has historically been high m a n g women-sometimes even hig;her than m a n g men. This support is probably best explained in terms of the cultural association between male violence and intemperant "formsof beha~or,particularly dcohol or drug use. One may also ague that white Protestant Caivinism, with its logical rationalism, differs shaply from the belief systems of the African-Americmm d indigenous American cultures, Whether it differs from the belief systems of other ethnic groups, such as Asians, is less clear, 9, Bennett, "Teaching Moral Values Can Reduce Chernicar3 Dependency;'' in C. Cozic and K. Swisher, eds., CIwrnltcat Depende~iley:Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19911, p. 235. (The quotation is excerpted from Bennett's book First iffzings[I9901,) f 0. ""Btding the Enemy Within,'Time, Mwch f 7,1986,pp. 52-53, 1I. M. Falco, ""DrugAbuse Is a Serious Problem," in K. S\lvisfier, ed., Drlkg Abuse: Opposing Vliewpohts (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, f 9941, p. 18. (The quotation is excerpted from Swisher" The Making ofa Drug-FreeAnzen"ca [New York: Random House, 19921.1 12. Robert DuPont, cited in Cozic a d Swisher, Chemical Depenckenq, p. 16, 13. T. Duster, "The Legislation of Mardity: Creating Drug Laws," in D. klly, ed,, Deviant G"ehaviiol;3rd ed. (NewYork St. Martink Press, f 9891, pp. 13-14, 1.4. Noted in E), AIexandez; Peacefit Measures: G a n d a W a y Out ofghe ""Mraron Dru:gsr'"oront s: Universiq of Toronto Press, 19901, p. 192. 15. R. Dennis, "The Economics of Legalizing Drugs," TheAtlarztic, November f 990, pp. 126-132. Demis indicates that three-quarters of d violations of drug laws involve marijuana, 16. See the article by Quayle in Atrzerkan Psycholag&t,cited in C. Reinarmm, U. Wddorf-,and S. Fvlurphy#"Coc&ne and the Workplace: Empiric& Findings and Nates on Scapegoating and Social Control in the Construction of a Public Problem," Research in Law, Deviance, and Social ContmE, 9 f 19871, pp, 16-17. 1.7.These figures are taken from Peele, The Diseasitzg sfA?rzerica,p, 25. 18. F? Stark, ""increased Regulation of Prescription Drugs Is Necessary," in Swisher, ed., Dru,g Abuse, p. 146, {Reprintedfrom Stark's article in USlA Tadax J d y 1991.) 19. See the citation of Netusweek's "Kids and Cocaine: An Epidemic Strikes Middle AmericaF'March. 1986) in I. Orcutt and J. B. Turner, ""Socking Numbers and Graphic Accounts: Quantified Images of Drug Problems in the Print Media)'' Social Problems, 402 ( 19931, pp, 2 90--206. 20.Ibid., p, 201. 21. For further information on anti-depressants, see l? Kramer, Liistening to Prozac (NewYork Penguin Books, f 993).

22. Gerald Klerman, cited in ibid., p. 274. See aXso p. 370. 23. Reinamm, Wddorf, and Murphy, ""6caine m d the Workplace," p 118. 24. Orcutt and Turne~;'"hocking Nrrmbers and Graphic Accounts," pppp. f 90-206. 25, Falco, "Drug Abuse Is a Serious Problem," p 9. 26. J, Hennin@eld sf the igu'ationaf Institute on Drug Abuse (NXDA), cited in Beele, The Disseasing of America#p, 163; originally reported in New York. Times, August 24,1969. 27. Afexmder$Peace&l Meas~lres,p, f 94. 28. This study was pedarmed by Arnold Trebach, president sf the Drug Policy Foundation. See A. Trebach m d K. Zeese, Drt~gProhibition and tJze anscience of Nations (Wahington, D.C.: Drug Policy Foundation, 1990). 29. S, Murphy m d M. Rosenbaum, ""MythsAbout Crack""(letter to the editor), New York Times, Febrznary 8, 1990, p. M8. 30. E. Nadelman, 'The Case for Legdization," in J. Inciardi, ed., The Drrkg Legislation illebade (Newbury Park, Calif;: Sage, 1991). 3 1. Dennis, 'The Economics of Legalizing Drugs,'". 128, 32. See Reinamm, Wdorf, m d Mwphy, ""Coc&ne m d the Workplace,') p. 8, The extremely high figures regarding ""last praducti~ty"are very suspect. M m y drug users begin taking drugs in m attempt to better tolerate their work environments and cope with busy schedules, One can argue that the absence of drugs may actually result in a loss of productivif3r Moreover; it would be absurd to assume that all absences, Late arrivdls to work, and ilfnesses among drug users are due ta drug use. 33. C. Faupel and C, Mlockass, '"rugs-Crime Connections: Elaborations from the Life Histories of Hard-Core Heroin Addicts,'*Social Problems, 34: 1 (19871, p. 57. 34, Study by PhilXipe Bourgeois, cited in L, Tiger, The Pursuit of Pleasure [Boston: Little, Brawn, 19921, p, l f 8, 35. S, Peele, ""ControlYourself;" Rmon 2 1 :9 (1990))pp. 23-24. 36. Ibid. 37, Jack Hemingfield, cited in A. Levine, "hericaUAddiction to Addictions)'' U.S. News and World Report, February. 5,1990, p, 62, 38. Evereft Kaop, cited in Klein, CigamttesAre Szrblima p. 10. 39. K. H. Ginzel fa University of Arkansas pharmacologist and toxicoIogist), "'Cigarette Smoking Is Hmmful,'"n Cazic m d Swisher; eds., CJzcrwzical Depende~zc&p. 59. (This article originally appeared in Priiiarill"es [Fall 19901, published by the h e r i c m Council on Science m d Heal&.) 40. See T. Sterlxzg, "Dubious Figtlres Cast a Cloud over hti-Tobacco Lobby," I/ancsuver Sun, September 2,1993, p. 26. For recent estimates a d state-by-state listings of smoking deaths, see "Mdne Makes Top 10 in Smoking Deaths," Portband Press Hemld, June 27,1994, p. 3A. 4 1. P Bergem;""Furtive Smokers-and m a t They Tell Us About h e r i c a , " Cornmevztary, June 1994, p, 23. 42. Douglas m d Wildavsky Risk and CuZt~dre,ch. 3. 43. Klein, CigarettesAm Sublime, p. 185, 44. C. Hitchens, "Smoke and Mirrors," VanivFair, October f 994, p. 90.

45. See, for example, 11 Hall, ""Soking of Cigarettes Seems to Be Becoming a Lower-Class Habit," Wt"lI StreetJournal, June 25, 1985, pp. X, 17. H& paints out that mmy young people and dnorities smoke only a few cigarettes a day, For inbrmation regarding people Who go back m d forth bemeen abstinence and heavy and light smoEng, see, for example, G, Marlatt, S. Curqfa d J. Gordon, '2% Longitudinal Analysis of Unaided Smoking Cessation," hurnal of Consulting and Clinical Pfycholoa, 56:5 119881, pp. 7 15-720. Axld far discussion of the connection between stress and smoking, see XClein, Cigarettes Are Sublime, pp,14. 46, The 33 percent death rate of smokers is cited in M, Straus, "New Theov and Old Canards About Family Violence Research,'"~cial ProbEe~rzs,38:2 119911, p, 184. Straus invokes this xgment-that we regad smoking as being a killer despite the fact that a ma)'oriy of people do not die from it-in support of the socieq-wide acceptance of d l correIational data. 47. W Kip Viscusi, cited in D, Vt'arsh, ""Cigarettesand Qther Risks of Modern Life,'-lii"oston Sanday Globe, November 22,1993. 48. C;inzel"sestimate of 10 percent is cited in '~igaretteSmoking Is Hxmfd," p, 58, whereas the 5 percent estimate is gii\ren by R, SobeX, an author with a less pronounced mti-smoking stmce, in m ewlier book entitled They Satis&: The Cigarette in American LVe (Garden City, N.V.: Anchor Books, X9"78). 49. N. Mcmirter; "'Computer Blows Out Smoking-Related Death Figures with No Red Human Facts," D&& News, October 18, 1992, p. 46. See also N. Mcmirter, ""ResearchersMay Be Bowing Smoke in Our Faces with 'New' Data on Tobacco,'WetroitNetvs arzd Free Press, August 29, 1993, p. 22; Sterling, "Dubisus Figures Cast a Cloud aver Anti-Tobacco LobbbUp, 26; and T. Sterling, W. Rosenbaum, a d J, Weidam, ""RiskAttribution and Tobacco-Related Deaths," American louv~alofEpidenziology$30:4 (1 $931, p. 457, 50. Mcmirter; ""ResearchersMay Be Blowing Smoke in Our Faces," p 22. 51. CaildwelX, ""Smske Gets in Your Eyes," pppp, 25-28. See dso Associated Press, "Teen Smokers1BBehavior Differs from nonsmoker^'^,"' I)ortkand Press Hemld, April 25, 1995, p. 5A. 52. D. Gaff? D- Henderson, m d E. h i c o , ""CigaetteSmoking in Schizophrenia: Relationship to Psychopatholoa and Medication Side ERects," American lour~zalofPsychiatryf 149:9 119922, pp*11.89-X 194. 53, Ibid.; see idso 'When Smok;ing Is Qkaylf'E)s_xhologyToda~r, SepternberlOctober 1983, p. 10. 54 Alexander Glassmm, cited in ibid. 55. These studies are cited in Peele, The Diseasiilzgoflmerlica, p, 49. 56. See Krmer, Lstening to Prozac, especially pp. 235-236,369, 57. In particular, see the chart entitled "The Effects of Nicotine," povided by John hderson of (he Wmhl'ngtonPosl; in P, Hilts, "FDA Panel Rules That Nicofine Is Addictive," New York Rmw,August 3, 1994, p. 1, See &so B. Farbes, False Fixes (Albany: SUNV Press, 19941, pp. 86, 185; Hitchens, 'smoke and Mirrors," pp, 90,95; and Kliein, CigarettesAre Sublime. 58, R. Siegal, ""T'sa Drive As Natural As Food or Sex," Los Atsgeles Tifrzes, March f 5, f 990, p. BT. 5%The phrase ""scaring the bejeezus" is talren from Mcmirter, '"esearchers May Be Blowing Smoke in Qw Faces," p, 22. The reference to altering the h a m of

cigarettes is ta the exploration by scientists and gavemment agencies of the gossibility ofgradudzlly reducing nieoline levels to wem smokers from h e a y use. See I? H2ts, ""Vsioxts of N a t i o n ~ d Withdraw;tl.," e N m Y ~ o Ti~nes, k April 27,1994, p. B7, 60. See C. Natbanson, Dalzgerous Pmsage: Tbze Social Contr~EofSexuaZi-t,3,in Womerz"sd01~cseencef Philadelphia: Temple Universiq Press, 19911, p. 25, 61. P)* Rhode, "dolescent Pregnancy and Public Paliq," in A. Lawson and P)* Rhode, eds,, TheP>oliticsofPreg~zarzq(New Haven: Yde UrriversiQ Press, 1993). 62. M. Males, ""Schoof Age Pregnanq: Why Hasn't Prevention Worked?" Ioournal sfSchool Health, 63:20 f 19931,p,429. 63, This quote by Ben Wattenberg, a consewatiw witer, originally appeared in the San Diego h i o n - Tribune and is cited in Swisher; ed., Teenage Sexuall'q, p. 96, 64. This quote by RonaXd Reagm, from the New York Times (March 9, 19833, is cited in Nathanson, Dangerous Pmsage, p, 61. 65. This quote by Democratic Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna ShaSaSa is cited in J. Stacey, "The New Family Values Crusaders,'TIze Nafrl"an,July 251August 1,1994, p. 120. 66, This quote by liberail columnist ELlen Goodman first appeared in ""Countering the Culture of Sex," Boston Globe, February f 6, 1995, p, f 9; emphasis added. 67. C. Tucker, "Restraint Best Taught by Peers,'TortZand Press Herald, April 30, 1994, p. 7A. 68. S, Fields, ""Fmily Breakdown Causes Teen Pregnm~~",'Yn Swisher, ed., Teenage Sexualil~i;p. 55. (This article was originally published under the title "Teenage Girls TragicallyThink Babies kVi1I Ease Their PIight,'"in Ivzsiglzt, June 1.5, 1992, 69. Natlranson, Dangerous Passage; M. Armle, The Psyclzology of Social Glms (London: Raudedge, f 994); C. G. Mascie-Taylor, Biosocial Aspects @Social C l m (Odord: Oxford lfniversilty Press, 1.990);and E. h u m a n , J. G;rgnon, R. Michael, m d S. Michaels, eds., The Social Organization of Sexualil~~: Sexual Practices in the United States (Chicago: Universiv of Chicago Press, 1994). 10. Nathmson, Dangersus Pasage$p. 35. 7'1. M. W. EdeXman, '"Reucing Teen Pregnancy Would Decrease Childhood Pavertyt5n C. Wekesser, ed., Arnerica"sCI.Fildren: Opposing Viewpsi~zts(San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19911, pp. 149-156, {This chapter was reprinted from Edelrnan's book Families in Peril: An Agenda fir Social Cltzange [Cambridge, Press, f 987j.) Mass.: Hwvard Universi-f_gr 72. Data from the AXan Guttrnacher Institute cited in J. RosoE, "For Most l JUIy 13, Teens, C h a s t i ~Isn't a Cbaice'"(letter to the editor), W ~ lSmetjournal, 1994, p. 12. 13. See, for exmple, L. Dash, "When Children Wrrt Children," "ciev, 2'7 (Julylhgust 19901, pp. 17-20, In addition, note the studies performed by Arline Geronomius et al., summarized in A, Cockburn, "Beat the Devil," The Nata"on, Februamy 28, 1994, p. 259, and "Beeat the Devil," TheNation, April 25, 1994, p. 549, 74. Fields, "Family Breakdom Causes Teen Pregnancyt'>. 55. 15, Tuckelt; ""RestraintBest Tau&btby Peers," p 7TA. 76, C. L, Alien, ""E-ceducingTeen Pregnancy Would Not Decrease Childhood Pover@,'"n Wekesser; ed., Arnerica"f!~ildrcz1.2, pp. f 62-1 64.

77. See N. Farber, "The Significance of Race and Class in Marital Decisions h o n g Unmaried Adolescent Mothers,'3ociaE ProbEgms, 3 2 :1 f 19901,pp, 51-63, Frzrberbeq interesting study indicates that when middie-class girls do have children, their own families often encourage them nod t's m a r y $a phenomenon that greatly irritates moralists, Mmy dddle-class (and wrMng-class] parents assume that their children are not ready for commitment, and that marriage as well as childrearing will pa"E.ventthem from returning to school or purstring career options. Yet Farber found that, compared to their affluent counterparts, poor girls were more often raising kids "out-of-wedlock'" because they tacked suitable mde partners (e.g., because the fathers vvere in jail, had been abusive, had committed rape, or had denied paterniq). 78, Again, refer to the Geronomius et al. studies strrnmarized in Cockburn, "'Beat the L>e*,'Tebruwy 28,1994, p. 259, m d April 25,1994, p. 549. See &so D Rhode, 'Rdolescent Pregnancy and Public PoXicy," in Lawson and Rhode, eds,, The PoEitics ofPregnanq; 6, Brindis, "ntecedents and Consequences:The Need for Diverse Strategies in Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention," in Lawson and Rhode, eds., The Politics of Premancy; Nathanson, Dangemus Pmsage; and B. Leadbetter's review of The Young, Poor and P r p a n t : The Psychology of Teenage Mottzerbod, by Judith Musick, in Social Service Review, 69:2 (1 $951, pp. 370--374. 19. Males, ""School Age Pregnancyt"p 429. 80. See E Furstenberg, J, Gunn, and S. Morgan, 'RdoIescent Mothers and Their Children in Later Life," F~miEyPlanning Perspectiua, 19 (JdyfAugust f 9871, pp. 142-151. 81. These studies are cited in Cockburn, '"eat the DevjiX,'Tebruargr 28,1994, p. 259, and April 25, 1994, p. 549, See also D, Rhode, "Adolescent Pregnancy and Public Paliq'Yn Lawson and Rhode, eds., The F"olitics of Pregnanv; Brindis, "htecedents m d Consequences: The Need for Diverse Strategies in Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention"; and AXlen, ""ReducingTeen Pregnancy Wuld Not Decrease Childhood Poverw" 82. Brirzdis, %ntecedents and Consequences: The Need for Diverse Strate@es in Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention." 83.1. Shapiro, "Teenage Sex: Just Say Wait,"W.S. News and World Report; July 26, 1.993,p. 57, 84. Gross, '"ex Educators for Young See Newvirtue in Chastity;"p. 1, 85. In part, European attitudes represent the greater acceptance and availabiliq of contraception as well as the greater acceptance of sex education. In some countries, the more accepted role of sex seems to have resulted in ilower rates of teen pregnancy; for example, according to data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, very low teen pregnancy rates are recorded in Denmark m d Sweden, (h1988, for example, the rate in Denmak was 9 pregnmcies per 1,000 women and in Sweden, 11 per 1,000, compared with 53 per 1,000 in. the United States and 2 Q e r 1,000 in the United Kingdom.) 86. W, Bennett a d E. Koop, 'statement on AIDS Education,'' "jointly =leased on January30, 198%cited in Nathanson, Dangerous Passage, pp. 64-65. 87. A. NaveUo, X'PIIDS Is a Serious Problem for Women," address presented to the National Conference on Mromen and HPV Infection on December 13, 1990;

reprinted in M. Xliskup and K. S ~ s h e reds*, , AIDS: apposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, f 9921, p. 35. 88, Sontag, Aids arzd Its Metaphors, p. 18. 89. "The New Sexual Leprosy," Time, July 28, 1980, p. 16. 90, Rosenberg, Micmbes and iMflmls,p. 1X. 91, Douglas and VViXdavsb, Risk aizd Culture, pp. 28-31. 92. Watney, ""Potograpk-ry and AIDS," p 174, 93. S. Murray and K-. Payne, "Medical Policy Without Scientific EGderrce: The Prarniscuip Paradigm m d AIDS," Calgorn ia S~oeiolo@s;d f Whter / Summer 19881, pp. 16-17'. 94. The survey on which this information is based, perfarmed in 1984 by McKusick et d.,is cited in ibid., pp. 27-35, For other critiques of AIDS moralism, see D. r?tltmm,N D S in the Mind ~fizwzerica(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday*f 986); and M, Cddweitl, "The Literature of AIDS," Dissent, 31 (19901, pp. 342-347, See dso Bayer, Private Acts, Social Consquenca. Thou* an advocate of more interventionist public heaith measures, Bayer does not dispute the lack of proof that HTV was spread in bathhouses; but he does seem to support their closing as a symbolic measure. 95, See the related discussion in V Jenness, ""Fom Sex to Sin to Sex as Wrk: COYOTE and the Reorganization of Prostitution as a Social Problem,'Y~ocliGal Problgms, 37:3 11990), pp. 403-420. 96. For a good discussion of how the major media shifted from treating AIDS as a "gay probtedkr ""deviant probled30 projecting a ""vvidespreado u t b r e e among heterosexuals, see E. Albert, "AIDS and the Press: The Creation and Transformation of a Social Problem," in Best, ed,, Images ufksues, pp. 39-54, 97, J. Seale, "How to Turn a Disease into W,"New Scientist, iss~leno. 1461 (19851,pp. 38-4 1. 98, C. CoXe and H. Denny, ""tt'suaXizing Deviance in Past-Reagan America: Magic Johson, AIDS, m d the Promiscuaus World of Prsfessiond Spofl,'Triticat Sociology,20:3 (19941, pp. 133-134. 99. A. Hurnrn and E Kunreuther, ""The Invisible Epidemic: Teenagers and AIDS," %ckl E"oliicy,21:4 (19911, pp. 40-47. 100. Dr. b r e n Hein, director of Montefiare Hospital" adolescent AIDS program in New York, cited in S, Nelson, ""CondomUse W i l Help Prevent AIDS," in Biskup and S ~ s h e reds,, , AZDS: apposing Vliewpoipzts, p. 121. (Nelson's article was reprinted from Glamour magaine, Februwy 1992). 101. E. Maticka-Tyndafe, ""Social Construction of HW Transmission and Prevention Among Heterosexud mung Adutts,'"~odl Pmblems, 39:3 f f 9921, pp. 238-249. 102. Ibid., p. 246. 103,A. Brmdt, 'RIDS and Metaphor," "citll Resmrch, 55 f 19881,p. 429, 104. Far medical data on heterosexual transmission of AIDS, see, for example, N. Padian et al., 'MRi%aIe-to-Female Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus," Ilctuvnal of the American Medical Association, 6 (19871, p, 784; and N. Heast m d S. IIuZley, '"revventing the Heterosexual Spread of r?iIL)SPp"oournaEof the American Medical Association, 259 (1 9881, pp. 2428-2430.

105. See Lauman, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels, eds., The Social Organization of Sgxualiv: Sexual Practi;@esin ttze Cmi-ted States, pp, 18-19, 173-74, 225, 392, See &so B, Haney, ""BacHashEmerging over Risk of ATDS," Mai~zz'rzeSunday April f 7 , 1994, pp. A 1,A6. Tele~zzwz, 106, See Laumim, Gagnon, Miehael, and Michaels, eds., The Social Org~nizat h n oJ1Sexzaall"ty:Sexzaal Practice in the Ujzited Sta~es,p. 343. The data presented here are based on male-to-kmale transmission (the reverse would lower the odds greatly) through vaginal intercourse, assuming a 10 percent condom failure rate per exposure. Other data suggest even lower transmission rates: In paxticular, see Badian et al., "Male-to-FemdeTransmission of Human Immunodeficiency V-irusfl-d Heairst and Hufleyp"heventing the Heterosexual Spread of AIDS.'' f 01. h u m m , Gagnon, Michael, m d Michaels, eds., Tdze Social Organization ofSex14alz"p:Sexual Praitices in the Uniited S;latci"s,ppp.173-174, 108. R.. Nixon, "Zero Tolerance for Dmgs Can Reduce Chemical Dependency" in Cozic and Swisher, ects,, Chemical Dependency, pp,231. (This chapter was Reprinted fram Nixon's book liz the Arena: A Memoir ofVictczr3 Defeat and Re-

newal!19901.) 109, J. Sobrm, ""School Curricula Should Not Provide Homosexual Propaganda," h inwisher; ed., Teenage SexuaEilyt: p. f 90. (Sobra" sticle was reprinted from Human L(@Review, F& 1992.1 f 10. G. N&as, cited in Gozic artd Swisher, eds., C!?emicaEDepeadenq, p, 16. I. 11, H, Fingarette, ""AfcoholismX s Not a Disease," in Inozic and Svvisher, eds.,

CI;~etrzicaEDependency, p. 102. (FingaretteS article was reprinted from the San Diego U n i o ~January , 29, 1989.) X should note that, although the comment quoted here has vaXidity for many problem drinkers, it does not differentiate those who have experienced serious physict-tl withdrawal associated with the most serious forms of alcoholism and drug addiction fram those for vvhom physicd addiction is less provable. 1 12, Peele, The DifsemtngofAmerica, p. 50. f 13. Nelson, ""CondomUse Will Help Prevent AIDS," p f f 8. I.14. See R, Blendon, K, Donelan, and R. Knox, 'Tubbc Opinion and AIDS: Lessons from the Second Decade,""urnal of the American Meda"calAssociation, 2Ei7:7 ($9921, pp. 982-986. athough hysteria did occasionally grip the public, opinion survep generdly show that concern about AIDS was not only relatively realistic but dsa strongest m o n g those most at risk. 115. For example, Undersecretary of Health and Hurnm SeMces John Bowen and scientist Srephen Jay Gould predicted that AIDS would ""dwarf the Black Plague" and kill off one-quarter of the wrldQeople, Athough such claims w r e presumably well-meaning, the mpirical evidence to suppart them have been difficdt to come by Sontag, among others (as discussed in Chapter 61, has cited a particular American fascination witb. apocalyptic thinking of this sort. (Seeher NDS and 1gs Metczphors,) 116. New York rimes sportswiter Robert UpsFe, 'What Price Fitness?" New L"o& Times Magaziat3, E;ebruw f 6, f 986; cited in Levenstein, Paradox ofPlenv, p. 241. f 17. Goodrr~m,""Counteringthe Culture of Sex."

118. H. Piper, '"Light-Up Time," Baltimore Sun, March 20,1994, p. 24. 119, Dash, " W e n Children Vt'ant Children," p. 17, 120. The Denver sttrdy is cited in Fields, ""Fmily Breakdom Causes Teen Pregnancy," p. 554. And the Atlaxlta study is cited in D, Besharov, "hproved Education Could Reduce Teen Pregnancy," in Swisher, Teenage Sexualiq, p. 110 f reprinted from T l ~American e Enterprise, March/April 1993). f 21. T. Levin, "Boys Are More Comfortable with Sex Thm Girls Are, Survey Finds," New York Times, May 18, 1994, p,A.20. f 22. Nathmson, Dangerslas Pmsage, p. 62; origin& emphasis. 123, Edvvin Lernert, cited in Gasfield, Symbolic Crusade,p, 26. 124. Historians and sociologists often dichotornize ""p&ticalW "resistance from what many view as self-destructive behaviors (e.g., aXcohoXismf among the poor and others, Such a dichotomy is di%cult to argue cogently, however. HistoriedX~ the ""crowd""ram the storming of the Bastille to the 3 960s ghetto riots in America] often does include people who are inebriated or otherwise discreditable. Sometimes these may well be the folks who throw the first rocks; at other times, they d g b t be t-he ones who nobly stand up to powerful armed forces, Without wishing to g l a r e the excessive use of alcohol m d other substmces, I note the crucid contradiction bemeerr the Left5 efforts to improve the behaviar of poor m d working-class people, on the one hand, and its tendency to urge the same groups to engage in social unrest, on the o&er, Of course, socid unrest itself may flow from anger and outrage, which are usually bottled up when socid control w r k s effectively but which dcohol and other substances tend to bring out, Tn the face of increasing efforts to render America a tatally administered s o c i e ~ (see Chapter "Q),one wanders, should these efforts ever succeed, whether social unrest of the type the Left has traditionally supported (strikes, riots, militant prot estsf wouid occur. 125, Bein, Gigaretles Are Sublime, p. 86. 125. Xbid., especiitlly pp. 14,117. 127. Xbid,, pp. 189, 201, For example, the proportion of female smokers is highest in the Nordic countries m d lowest in Spain m d Portugd. And during the last two decades in the United States, the number offemale smokers has begun to catch up with that of male smokers after histaricdly trailing far behind, f 28. Piper, ""tight-Up 24.

1. See B. Ehrenreich, Fear of Fallzlfzg: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (New York: Pantheon, 19891, pp. 75-78. The present chapter is generdly indebted to this semind work. 2. Margaret Mead, cited in ibid., p. 75, 3. Ehrenreich, Rar o f F a l l i ~p.~ ,15. 4. p. 83, 5. Ibid., p. 14, 6, Xbid., p. 229, 7, The issue of other classesbtrpport for temperance is important, a d X do not completely agree vvith, those who suggest that only the mliddlte class ernbraces the New Temperance, Indeed, the support of ather classes, particularly

the working class, i s key to a number of temperance issues. For example, as noted in Chapter 3, the "mob'"in the nineteenth century did at times use charges of scandd to attack elites, The position of the working class is more mbiguous today, On the one h a d , lacking the cultud power and sense of style of the ddldle class, it tends to be chmgeb with "culturd lag,'knd on issues such as cigarette smoEng m d food tastes, cIass cues continue to sepamte the middle from the working class. On the other hand, there is a long history of working-class respectability, particnlarly among skiled workers, This tendency, in combination with the often canservative social attitudes associated with the American working class fpartieu1mly m o n g same ethnic m d religious groups), sometimes leads to attacks on those charged weth'"eviance," regarding drug taking or sexual behavior, for example. Nevertheless, the waking class raely has been able to initiate new tastes and status cues, For example, even though mti-drug attitudes are quire common in blue-collar neighborhoods, the drug war is still more accurately described as having originated in decisions by elites and the middle class. 8. J, Burdam, B& Habits: Drinking, Snzoking %king Drzrgs, Garnblifzg Sexual Misbelzavior, and S~ueari~zg in,American History f New York New Yark University Press, 19931, p. 5. 9. See 7. GusfieXd, Symbolic C r w d e : Statw P~liticsand the American Temperance Movement (Urbma, 111,:Universiq of Illinois Press, 1963). 10. Burnham, Bad Habits, p. 9, f l. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade, 12. Mrnost all data on the heavy and consistent use of substmces (drugs,dcahol, tobacco), on youthful sexuality, even on poor diet and obesit3P; and crime and aggression, reflect a disproportionate representation of the poor and ethnic minorities, In this connection, see d s o Notes 111,24,25,41,52,and 53. f 3. See especidly Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade. 14. For further discussion of the effects of Prohibition on the various social clmses, see especially A. Sinclair, Pmhibitisn: Tlze Era sjFExcess [Boston: Litde, Brow, 1962);and I. Blocker, Americarz Temperarzce n/rovenzents:Cycles of-Refornz Boston: mayne Publishers, 1989). 15. For a good historical account, see H. Levenstein, P>Crrdox~ f P l e r z ~ :SoA cial History sf Eatitzg in A~rzerlica(NewYork: Oxford Ifniversiw Press, 19931, pp. 28-29. 16. The influence ofworld Wars I and I1 on cigarette consumption is discussed in R. Klein, CigarettesAr-e Srlblime {Durhm,N.C.: Duke tfniversiv Press, 1993); R. Sobel, They Scz~sh:The Ci"galic3aein American Llife (Garden City; N.V.: Anchor Books, 19"i");R. Troyer m d G. MmMe, Cigarettes: The Battle suer Smoking (New Brzlns\nrick, N.J.: Rutgers Universify Press, 1983); and S. V\ragner, Cigareue Courzfry: IZ"obaccs h Americala H i s t ~ and y mlitics (New York: Praeger, 1971).In Bad Habits (pp. 61, 731, Burnham argues that alcohol consumption and sexual habits, as vvell as smoking habits, converged during and a&erWarfdWar11. 17. For a discussion of differences among class approaches to h a d and exercise, see Levenstein, firadox afPlent;v;p. 86. For related information concerning smoking, including the decline in smoking m o n g the prokssional classes that

began in the late 1940s, see H. Diehil, Tobacco and Your Health: The Smokiilzg Controulrrsy (NewYork McGraw-Hill, f 969))pp. 128- 229, 18. See, b r example, H. Becker, The Outsiders: Sd~~dies in the Socr'ology of Deviance, 2nd ed. (NewYork: Free Press, 19733);H. W Morgm, Drt~gsin Avneric-ct:A Social Histo:ory 2 800-1980 (Syacuse, N ,K: Syracuse 19nbersiT Press, 1981); and P)* Musto, The American Disease: The Origins of Narwtic ConIZtr~l(New Haven: Yde University Press, 19731, 19. See especial@E. Freedman, "WncontroXXed Desires': The Response to the Sexual Psychopath, 1920-1 960"';and 1. DfEErnilio,""TheHornasexual Menace: The PoXitics of Sexuallity in Cold War America," in K. Peiss and C. Simmons, Pmsian and Zl)ower: Sexualily in History (Pltiladelyhia:Temple Universiv Press, 1989). 20. Jerry Fdwell, cited in Ehrenreich, Fear ofl"alling, p. 268, 22. R. Larkin and D. Foss, "'Lexicon of Folk-Etynloitog_tim in S, Sayres, A. Stephmson, S. Aronovvitz, a d E Jameson, eds., The tiOs Without Apoloa (Minneapolis: Universiw of Minnesota Press, 19841, p, 360; origin& emphasis 22. Ehrenreich, Fear ofFa,Elngpp. 61, 23. Midge Decter, cited in ibid., p. "I. 24. I m relying here on available data about dcohol consumption, illicit drug use, rates of cigarette smoking, food habits, teen pregnanw, and sexual partnering. fa]Regarding drugs: In the 1960s,when the "wne in, turn on, m d drop out" mmtra was being widely publicized, experts noted ""re recent spread of narcotics a d hallucinogenic drugs into the middle and upper classes of America and Europe"; but they idso cited data showing that only marijuana had obt&ned high rates of usage among middle-class youth, and that middle-class students had only minim& involvement with ""bdYVdrugsas ""cwared to [the pattern of drug usage in] the ghetto areas sf large cities." [For a sense of what drug expert opinion was at this time, see the papers in D. Mdikn, ed,, Social D&abiEiq:Alcoholism, L>rt,tgAddiction, Crime and Social D i s a d v a n t w [New York: New York Universiq Press, 19731.1 In addition, Tames Inciadi, a noted drug researcher, cites an extensive 1969 NewVbrrEr study of xraxotic use "whose results w r e some of the highest correlatian coefficients ever encountered in sacid science researcW among poverq, unemployment, illegitimacy, welfare assistance, '"delinquency," and use of drugs f 7. Tnciardi, The MPar 01% Drugs: Herok, Cocaine, Crime and Public PfoEilry [Pido Alto, Cdif.: Mayfield Publishing, 19861, p. 162). (b) Regarding sexuaIit3p: Research indicated that rates of early sexud intercourse and number of sex partners vmieb by social class in the direction of more temperant behavior in the higher classes, at Xeast until the 19"10s (see,for example, M. Weinberg m d 6. Willims, ""Sxual EmbaurgeoismenIZ Social Class m d Sexual Activity: 1938-1970," Amen"can SaeioEagieal Review, 45 119801, pp. 3348). Of course, these conclusions are generdizations, inasmuch as the patterns of democratizationw r e different in each area mentioned. It cert~nlybegan to appear to people-most especidly wethdrugs and sexualiw-that the middle cilass young w r e leading the way towxd intemperace and hedonism. Part of the difficulty here, in addition to the obvious problem of obtaining ""gad'?ata about personal habits that have been stigmatized, is the tendency to mistake experimental and visible manifestations of drug use and sexual abandon for long-term patterns. In retrospect, it appears that the highly visible drug

use and sexual behavior of middle-class '"baby boomers" was time-limited for mast, whereas data on long-term use of drugs m d alcohol, m d wen on eclrly sexzlaliy and number of sexud partners, indicate that these behaviors are still mare common below the middle-elms level. 25. (a) Regarding drugs: See the NIDA data indicating that drug use in all classes peaked in the late 1970s (National Institute on Drug Abuse, Drug me, Drinking and Smoking: liJaeional Survey b u l l s ,@OM E-rfigizSchool, College arzd Young Adult F)spuk;ltiorzs f 9751988 [Rock~lle,Md.: NlfDA, 19891) and certainly reached higher levels m o n g middle-class youth in this period &m in eadier ones (b) Regarding sexuality: Many reports indicate the reality of a cross-class sexud revolution (see, for example, R. hvin a d A. L e ~ n""Sxud , Pleasure: The Surprising Preferences of 100,000Women," Redbook, September 1975; and h u man, Gagnon, Michael, m d Michaels, eds., The Social Organization ofifexaali@ Sexual Prmctl'ces fsz eke United Stales, especidly pp. 199-200, 542, (G) Regarding food: Research indicates that dietary norms converged to the greatest extent in the 2950s and 1960s but, after the recession of 19'73,began to diverge ag&n (Levenstein, F"'aradoxof Plenty; p, 222). 26, These data are cited in K, Buliter, "The Great Boomer Bust," Mother Jon@s$ June 1989,p. 35. 27. L. Rubin, Families stz the Fault Line [NewYork: Haper Callins, 19941, p, 32. 28. See, for exmple, B. Bluestone and B. Harrison, The Deindustricalizationof America (New York: Basic Books, 1982); M. Harringtorr, Tize New American Pover~(NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winstan, 1984);K. Rle Grace (New York: Free Press, 1988); and W. f. Wilson, The Truly Disdvantaged ty of Chicago Press, 1987). Great Boomer Bust,'"p. 33, 31. Ibid., p, 32.

32. Ibid., pp. 35-36, 33. Ehrenreich, Fear ofFallng?pp. 225226, 34. foseph Caiifmo, cited in Bayer, PP'i~ate Acts, Social Consckquences,p, f 4. 35, It shod$ be noted that the 1980s were not without civil ri&ts victories that limited how far corporate power could go. By the late 1980s,despite gro.tpving concern about employer-mandaledAIDS testing, the gay movement and its allies had succeeded in hdtirrg its spread; and Congress had successfufly restricted the use of polygaph tests. Even the 1980s legislation protecting unp&d materniq leave has significance here, given p r e ~ o u semployer firings and demotions of pregnmf employees, 36. 'TanVou Pass the JobTiest?"Newslueek, May 5,1986, pp. 46-53. 37. Ehrenreich, Fear ofFaEliag, p. 220, 38. Ibid. 3%Ibid., p. 229. 40. See Wilson, The Tru& Bisdvant~ged. 41, For an excellent general discussion of the correlations m o n g gender, income, m d ~ o l e n c m e d aggression, see the works of J m e s Messerschmidt: CapiF"atriarcl.lx and Crime (Totom, N.J.: R an m d I,ittleEeld, 19861, and tal&?~, MascuEinifi~sand Cn'me (Totowa, N.J.: Roman a d Littlefield, f 9931. Sirnilwly,

Peele, in The Disming ofAnzerka?summarizes mmy studies linking dcohollism, drugs, m d heay cigarene smoioing with men, low income, unemployment, and urrderemploymem In this comection, see &so L), C&&=, F"robEemI3rinkel.s ($m Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 19";7);D. Cahdm m d R. Room, Problem Drinking Among American ;iLTer-~ (New BrmsLvick, N,J .: Rutgers Center for Mcohol Studies, 1974);G. ValXiant, The Natural History ofAlcoholis'sm (Cmlaridge,Mass.: Hamad University. Press, 1983);R. C r m , I. Helzer, a d 1, Antlaony, "Level of Education a d Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in Adutthood: A Further Inquiry,'3mericnn Journal of l>ublicHe~ll-iz, 83:6 (19931, pp. 830-8313; md K. Thompson, "Gender m d Adolescent Drinking Problems: The Ef;fectssf BccupationaI Structure,"Social Problen~, 36: 1 [1989),pp, 30-47.For resemch on dgwette smoking and class, gender, m d income, see T. Hall, '"mokng of Cigaettes Seems to Be Becoming a Lower-Class Habit," Wall Stregt Journal, June 25, 1985; m d J. Pierce, M. Fiore, 'I: Novotny, E. Hatziandreu, and R. Uavis, "Trends in Cigarette SmoMng in the United States," Jo~~r~zal ofthe Amerkan Medical Association, 26I:I (1 9891, p. 58. Finally for internafiond perspectives on these issues, see C. 6. Mascie-Taylor, BiosocialAspects of Social Glms (Odord:Oxford University Press, Z990),p. 124; and M,Arele, The Psyc h s l o ofS'ochl ~ Class (London:Routledge, 19941,p, 11,268, 42, See the discussion sf this phrase in E. Pleck, Donzestk Tyranny (Paewmrk: Odord Universiv Press, 198T),especially chapter 3. 43. E, Maticka-'Tyndale, ""Social Construction of HIV Transmission and Prevention Among Heterosexud mung Adults," Social Problems, 39:3 119921, pp. 238-249. 44. See ibid.; and Pteck, Donzestk Tyanny 45. See M, Roiphe, Tlze Morning Aper: Sex) Fear, arzd Feml'nism {Boston:Little, Brom, 19941,especially pp, 77-84" According to Roiphe, much of the anxieq an campus that expresses itself through the date rape m d smual harassment movements is regective of class and race anxieq. Certainly when movements focus on transients m d off-cmpus visitors to places like Columbia, Yde, the Univessify of Chicago, and other uiversides near slum areas, they are open to this charge. 46.1. Best, "Rhetoric in Claims-Making: Cctnstrucfing the Missing Children Problem,'"ocial Proble~rzs,34 (1 987); 7. Best, Tkreatened Children: The Social Construction ofa MraE E"tt~zic{Chicago: 19niversi"cyof Chicago Press, 1990); R Jenkins, irntinzate Matters: Moral lPklnics in Contemp~mryGreat Britain (New York: adine de Gruyter, 1992). 411. Ehrenreieh, Fear ofFalling, ch. I. 48. Wilson, The Duly Disadualatagec;l; D. Massey m d N. Denton, Amen'can Apar~heid(Cabridge, Mass,: Hmard Universiq Press, 1993). 49. Of cawse, I don't mean to imply that mayors of other cities beset by disorders have ever approved of them; but few oficids prior to the late 197Os had ever so unmitigatingly attacked poor people as lacking legitimate grievances as did the previously liberal Ed Koch in 19'77. 50. Ebrerrreieh, Fear ofFaEling, pp. 249-250. 51. Ibid., p, 186. 52. It has become fashionable in the last tMra decades to deny this, and there are some good reasons to be cautious. Fund-raisers m d social s e r ~ c agencies e

seek to secure more support by characterizing a variety of ills as 'krossing class lines,') and the positive result has been to diminish stigma m d discrimination based on race and class. Qf course, I m also aware ofthe liber&,sometimes radical, arguments often made against the use of officid statistics regading stigmatized behavioc It is true that middle-class people are sometimes in a position to hide their 'deviance"; and, on some issues, probably induding illicit drugs and child abuse, the poor are the most policed social class and, hence, more subject to officiai reports of ""dGance,'" 1 suggest, however, that this agument has been greaZfy exaggerated, for two main reasons (see D, Wagner, ""The Universalization of Social Problems: Does Eveqrhing 'Cut Across Class Lines'?" "per presented at the a m u d meeting of the Eastern Sociologicar3 Society, Boston, Mar& 30, 1996). First, some major social problems are h a d to keep hidden or disguised. In particular; mwder, or serious injury and disf gurement, rarely escape the notice of police, health officials, and social agencies. For example, in 1988, the year in which the Joel Steinberg ease in NewYork became well known, Mat Hentoff (""lIt a Crime to Do Nothing?" Village Voice, November 22, 1888, p. 281 reported that while the news devoted page after page to the Steinbergs, 103 chitdren ( 2 a week) died from d in lower-clws and ghetto parental abuse and neglect in New York Civ, nearly X neighborhoods, Granted, charges of neglect are correlated with higher levels of scrutiny of poor families; but it is hard to believe &at afauent people are Mllling their children, or their wives, husbmds, fathers, or mothers, m d somehow bribing police or media not to report such incidents. Second, a considerable body of data collection is now based on seIf-reporting. Thougl~haw perfect, data of this type provide relatively reliable restrlts in &at they avoid the previously mentioned pitfalls of of"ficia1records. For example, NIDA, which mnually performs sumr)ys on substance use, has found since the 1870s (with exceptions here and there) that drug, alcohol, and cigarette use m o n g youth (iparticulmlyh e a y and long-term use) is correlated with low education and self-assessment of low prospects for further education, both of which, in turn, are correlated with social class, The issue of crime provides mother case in point: Not only do self-reports reveal that poor people commit more criminal acts than middle-class people, but, as 6. Kleck has found, when subjects are asked about their own actions, poor people actuilrly underreport their actions compared to middle-class people (Kleck, cited in Ellrule, The Psyc h o l o of ~ Social Clms, p. 250). For related discussions of teen pregnancy and class, see C. Nathanson, Dangerous Passage: Ilize Social ConrmE ofS"iexuall"qh WomenSAdolescence [Philadelphia: Temple UniversiEq Press, 1991);f, RosoIFl; 'Tor Most Teens, Chastity Isn't a Choice" [(letterto the editor), Wall S~reetjournaE,July 13, f 994; M. W Edelmm, ""Reducing Teen Pregnimcy Wuld Decrease Chilaood PovervIwh C. Wekesser, ed., A?rzerica"sGhildren: Opposing Vieupsin& (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 199I); L. Bash, " W e n Ckidren Want Children," "~aciep,27 (July/August 1990); N. Farber, 'The Significance of Race and Class in Marital Decisions Among 1Jnmarried Adolescent Mothers," "~scial Problenzs, 37:f (1980); and M. Males, ""SchooX Age Pregnancy: M y Hasn't Prevention Mrorked?" Journal of School Health, 63: I0 f 1993).

See dso the data concerning nonmaritaf sexual beExaGor in T. Kemper, Social Structure and Tesrosrerone f New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990). Memper notes &at, among men under forty in particular, the number of sexual partners is inversely proportional to lwel of social class. In ad&tion, according to statisticd studies performed at the Batrelle Human Affairs Research Center, black males tend to have more sexual partners than white males (cited in E Chideya, Don"relieve [he Hype [NewYork: Plume, 19951, p. 30). These hdings tend to support the earlier work byweinberg and Willistms on sexudity and class f ""Sxual Embourgeoisment? Socid Class and Sexual Activity: f 938-1970'" as well as the cross-national data in ArmXe (The Psychology of Social Class) and Mascie-Taylsr (Biosodal Aspects ofSoeial C l m ). Regarding correlations of diet a d exercise Mi.ith education and race, see Center for Disease Control, ""Prevalence of Selected Risk Factors for Chronic Disease by Education Level in Racidf Ethnic Groups-United States 199 l -92,'"orbidip and Mortality Weekly Report, 43:38 (December 8, 1994),pp. 894-898. For information on international studies of this issue, see Argle, The P>s;lrclzolowcfSocial Cims, pp. 193-1 94; Mascie-Taylor;Biosocial Aspects of Social Clms, p p 130-1 3 1; R. Wanson, Clms and Healtbz (London: Tavistock, 19861, p. 15; m d kvenstein, Paradox ofPlen8 pp, 244-245. For cross-nationd data on crime, see J, Braithwaite, InequalE'~~~: Crime, alad Public Poliq (London: Rouaedge, 1979) as well as T. Chiricos's review of sixtythree studies on the reiatifiorrship of crime and unemplopent in ""Ratesof Grime and Unemployment: hAnaX_ysisof Aggregate Reseaeh Evidence,'' "citll Robi'erns, 34:2 [f 9871, pp. 187-21 2, For goad suxnmaries of crime rates as correlated and with age, gender, and class, see Messerschmidt's Capimlism, ic"atn"a~/z;v, Crime and Mascra Eivzigitw and Clrime. Good r e ~ e w of s child abuse and class issues c m be found in C. Kruttschnitt, I. McLeod, and M. Darnfelld, "The Economic EnGranment of Child Abuse," Social Problems, 4l:2 f1994),pp. 299-314; R, Gelles and M. Srraus, Ivltimate Violgnce: The Defirziticle S t ~ ~ of d ythe Gclluw and Consequences of Abuse irz the American FamilJI"[New Yak Sirnon m d Schuster, 1988);L. Pelton, "Child Abuse and Neglect: The Nfyrh of Cl~sfessness,"in inL,Pelton, ed., The Social Contexl of Child Abuse and Nqlect (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1981f ; and B. McPJeiji, ""Pverq Causes Child Abuse," in K. Koster and K. Swisher, Child Abuse: Oppos(San Diega: Greenhaven Press, 1894),p. 93. ing VliQtupoi~ts ary of data on income, occupation, m d wiklpartner abuse, see Messerschmidt, Mwculivzities and Crime, pp, 148-1 50, A recent CDG study also confirms class and age diEerences m o n g women involved in domestic violence; see ""Study Suggests 6 Percent of Pregnant W m e n Are Battered," New York Tinges, Mach 4, 1994, p. AI2. Findly) .for historicd data on the relationship bem e n social dass and wife abuse (as well as that belev~eenchild abuse and chsd sexud abuse), see the chart on page 1'74 of L, Gardon, Heroes of TfzeirQwn Lives (NewYork: Vking Press, 1988). 53. For a good discussion of how and why socid class might structure persand beha~or,see hwle, Td~ePsychology ofSociaZ Cltass.Afss usebl are the &Scussions of how male socialization structures aggression and ""deviance" in Messerschmidt, Capimdism,Pat-riarck23 and Cn'me and M m c u l i ~ i t i aand Cn"me.

54, See J. D'Emilio and E, Freedman, intimate Matters: A History ofsexuality in America (NewYork: Harper and Row 19881, pp. wi, 6-8,3 f,35; S, Mintz m d S. Mellogg, Domestic Ket~olutiar~s: A Social Histoy of American Family Life (New York: Free Press, f 4881, particulwly ch, 4. 55. B. Schneider and J, Smith, elms DiRerences arzd Sex Roles in Anzen"canKinskip and Family Structure {(EnglewodCliffs: Pwrrtice-Hall, 19"1), cited in Burnham, Bad Habit$ p. 183, 56, Ibid. 57. See Wagner, C!%eckerboardSqaart3, pmticularly pp. 43-44 as well as chs, 3 and 7. 58.1: Hirschi, The Causes of DeEinqaency [Berkeley: Universiq of California Press, 1969). 59. Kernper; Social Structure and Testostgrone,pp.75.

f . See, for exmple, E Piven m d R. Cloward, WhyAmericans Don't Vote (New York: Pantheon, 1989). Note, howeve6 that widespread commentary on low

voter turnout far nationd elections obscures the fact of even lower turnout for state and local elections-which in turn are kequently critical in terms of the issues under discussion. For example, a host of ordinances on such issues as tobacco smoking, underage drinking, &U& driving, m d condom distribution in the schools, to name just a few, are implemented at the level of state or local policy not nation& policy; 2. For reasons already touched upon-namely, the historic& association of alcohol with male violence, m d the cultural association of "'prorniscuiq" with men in lnlestern socieq-it is not clear that a majority of women office holders would necessarily hold different views on temperance issues [though they might on issues of teen pregnancy or female sexuality),The most supportable generalizations would be those pertaining to social class, age, and race and ethniciv 3- On aspects of the '"ersond is politicall,'' seeW Xlreines, Gonzmunity and Organization in fie hJew Left: 1962- 1968: Tdze Great Re$dsal mew York: Praeger, 1982); S. Evans, Brsontal Politics: The Roots oJlWonzenk Liberation in the Civil Rights Mouement alad the New L& (NewYork: Knopf, 1979);and A. Echols, Darr'szgt . Be ~ Bad: Rdical Feminllsrrz if2 America l967-1975 (Minneapofis:Universiq of Minnesota Press, 1989). 4 . JeanTeppermm, cited in Echols, Ban"ng to Be Bad, p. 222. 5. Ti-Grace Atkinson, cited in S, Seidman, Emban-EEd Eras: Sexual PoIitics and EtIzies in ConlevrzporaryAnzerica (NewVok Routledge, 19921, p. 79, S. EchoXs, Darieg to Be Bad, p. 17, Many leftist and feminist obsemers insist that this phrase has been misinterpreted by many later activists. But 1 would suggest that the ambiguiw is built into the paradigm. This is not ta say that at1 actions do not have political overtones a d rmifications; however; the paint of the phrase is that personill politics {as opposed to the older leftist tradition of structural poligcs) would be liberatow At my rate, evidence about the success of personill politics is at best decidedly mixed.

7. Jerxy"Falvvell, cited in E. Jorstead, The New CI;~risticzn Right f 981-88 [Lewiston, N.U.: Edward Mellen Press, 19871, pp. 31-32. 8. R, Viguerie, The New RI'E;zt:W e k R e d y to Lead (F&s Church, Va,: Viguerie Gompmy 19801,p, 186. 9, Jorstead, TheNew Chrktian RI'E;zt1981-88,p. 80; emphasis added. 1.0. Excellent accounts of the development sf "'crimeF'and ""dugs'ks sacidly constructed political strategies can be found in W. Chamialiss, ""Bolicing the Ghetto Underclass: The Politics sf Law and Law Enforcement,"Social Problenzs, 4 1:2 f 1994); and K. Beckett, ""Stting the Public Agenda: Street Grilrre' m d Drug Abuse in American PoXities,'3~acE"al Probke~rzs,415 (19941, pp. 425446. f l. See C>, Snovvball, Contirluip and Change in tlze Rlzemric of the niloral Majon"q (NewVbrrk: Praegem; 1991), pp. 50-51, 12. Paul Myrich, cited in D'E~~ilio a d Preedlrrm, Intimate Matters, p, 348; and in Viguerie, The New Right; p. 152, 1.3.Both surveys are cited in C. WiIc~x,Gad"sw&iors: The Christian RigIzt in TZuerztietfzCentury Anzerica (Baltimore: lohns Hopkins Press, 19921, p. 212, Qf course, much depends on how survey questions are asked, and a case can be made that the public was sli&tly more liberal t h m these two surveys suggest. 14. See ibid. for a discussion sf the significance of the Carter campaign's successfd egorts to bring ""born ag&nPTChristiansto the polls. Ironicaliy, these voters later s w n g to the Republican Party. 15. Ed Rollins, cited in Jorstead, Tl2e New ChristianRight 2981-88, p, 144. 16, B, Ehrenreich, The Hearts of-Meipz (Garden Civ, N.Y:h c h o r Books, 19831, pp. 149-XSX* 17. Snowball, ContinuiiS,and Cfzangein the Rlzemric ofthe MraE Majon"~, pp. 23, 162. f 8. Both quotations are cited in R. Stengel, ""Sex Busters,'Timc;?,Jdy 21, 1986, p. 17* f 9. Both quotations are cited in M. Biskup a d K, Swisher, eds., AIDS: Qpposiszg Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19921, where the Sobran piece has been reprinted under the tide?"'AIDS 1s a Mord Issue" @p. 47-54) m d the Feder and Kerrison piece, under the title "Condom f i e Will Not Help Prevent AIDS" (pp.124-1 29). 20. See, for example, the review of sexad issues and the Left in A, Snitow C, StanselX, and S, S. Thamgson, eds,, Powers of Desire: The Politics c?fSexualit~, f New York Monthly Review Press, f 9831, pp. 19-2 l. 2 1. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, cited in S, Ranulf, Mral Indig~zationand Middle e l m P S Y C ~ O E O( N~ ~ WUOL-~:Sch~ckenB ~ Q ~ ~S9, ~ i 4p, 1 ,189. 22. The Victorian assmptions of Marx and Eragels embedded in their attack on capitaiism are discussed in Snitawl Stansell, m d Thornpson, eds., I>swel"sof Besire: The E"oli~icsof SexuaEiy, pp. 13-1 6. 23. E. Bristsw, Vice and Vigilance: F w r i q Movements in Britain Since 1700 (Urrblrz: Gill and MacMillan, 19771, pp. 4041. 24. Ranulf;M m l Ilzdignatiopz and MI"ddteClms Psychsbgy p, 187. 25, Ibid., pp. 188-190. 26, A content analysis of MotIzer fines magwine betvveen 1976 and 1.980 reveals a lwge n u b e r of mticles relevant to the New Tempermce. See, far exam-

ple, M. Jacobson,"The Deadly m i t e Powder" (July19781,on the dangers of sdt; G. Blair, " m y Dick Cm't Stop Smoking'"ffanu;uly 1979),one of four wricles on the dangers oT smoking; ""TheyBlight Up Your Life" "une 1978 'Tmsnines"") on artificid li˚ H. Drummond, '%"Ad Poison for Freshness m d Flaor" "prrll 197;7),on food additives; ""O,IU.irtgon Salt'' "ay 197"7Tmontlinesw")H. D r m mond, ""Epires: Born, Bred, Dead of Lead" (June 19771, on cigarette smoking and lead; the f d y 1977 ""Fontlines" on galic and heart disease; and D, Romimo, ""Eating Our Hearts Out" (June Z980), s n food. Two anti-prescription-drug articles a e f. Bernmd9 '7'~ust m a t the Doctor Ordered" {(FebruqlMmch1976) m d H. Drummond's i B o m So Lang, Feels Like Valium to me'7July 1977). In H. Drurnmond"~"'Crowing Old Absurd" "ay 19801, smoking, eating fatq foods, taking prescription drrtgs, and watching television are all condemned. Qn pornography, see L. Shaipiro, "Violence: The Mast Obscene Fantasy'! [December 1977) and U. English, "The Politics of Porn" "pra 1980). Findly, the benefits of homeopathic medieine are described in S. Craig, "Take Two Arsenic Pills and Cdl Me in the Morning" "ay 1976);and of eating tofu*in "Tofrz" august 19763, 27. T da not mean to "pick sn'%otherJones magaine, 1 believe other l e f t - ~ n g publications such as Tbze Natio~,In These Times, and Tjze Guardian have treated these issues in much the same way. The glossy appearance and higher price of Mocl.Eer]ongssuggested a more dfluent audience. In addition, The Guardian Tollowed a harder Left line at the time. Buuhougfi. the New Age and temperant concerns of the Left c m e a bit ewlier to MotF~erJonathan to, say Tbze Guardian, my anillysis suggests that by the 1980s most leiFlzisf a d liberd papers had taken up similar positions on the issues under discussion, 28. J, Van Men, ""Eting It! From Here to 2001," Rampar&, May 1972, p. 26, 28. G. Blair, "Why Dick Can%Stop Smoking,"Motherlones, 4 (January 5979f, p. 32.

30. E. Goodman, 'Tobacco Lobby Makes an Offer," P ~ r t h n dPress Hgrald, June 28, 1994. 31. J, Gusfield, SpboEz'e erwade: Statm E"OEZ'ticsand t/zeAmerlcwrz Temperance Movement [Urbana, Ill.: Universiv of Illhois Press, 19631, p. 97. The basic problem with asserting &at the temperance message is conducive to anti-capitalist perspectives is that it shifts concern from the mordiq of profit and eeonomie organization to the qualiy or mordiq of the products maxlufactured. 32. See the January. 1979 issue of Mi;rtherlr;lnl?s,cited in Blair, "myDick Can? Stop Smoking," ppPP. 3&35; "Kicking Mr. Butts" &(editarid),The Nationr June 20, 1994,p. 854; and M, Ebrahim and C, Lewis, ''Will Mrashington Kick Tobacco?" The hltktio~,April 25, 1994, pp. 555-557. 33. C. Hitchens, ""Smoke and Mirrors," Vani2J/Fair,October 1994, p. 95. 34. Ibid. 35. Susan B r o w d l e r , cited in J.Wdkowitz, 'Mde Vice and Femde Virtue," in Snitoy StanseXl, and Thomgsan, eds., h w r s of Desire: The Politics ofSexuality, p. 420. 36, E. Willis, No M r e Nice? GirES: C01.1nterculturaIEssays (Hanover, T4,F-T. Ws: leym Universily Press, f 9921, p, 262. 37. See Echols, Dari~ag$0Be Bd;Willis, '"adica1 Feminism and Feminist Radicalking," hS. Sayres, A. Stepfrmsorr,S, Aronowitz, and E Jmeson,eds., T l ~ 60s e

WithoutApobgy (Minneapotis:Universiw of Minnesota Press, 1.984);B. Elzrenreich, E. Hess, m d C. Jacobs, Re-Making Love: The Rwzhization of Sex fGwden City, N.X: Arrchor Books, 1986); L. Tiefer, Sex Is Not a Natural Act?and OfIzerEssays (Boulder, Galo.: W e s ~ e wPress, 1995); L. Segal, Is the Future Femaile? Troubled TIzotkgizts on Contemporary Feminrlsm {NewYork: Bedrick, 2988); a d Snitow, Stansell,and Thompson, eds., F"owersofDesire: TIze Politics oflSexuali@ 38, Kale MiUet, cited in Seidman, Eml?atlded Eros, p. 46, 3%Ehrenreich, Hess, and facobs, Re-Making Love, pp.71. 40. Ibid., pp. 192-1 93. See also Echols, Darl"r2.gt s Be B&, p. 43; m d Segal, Is llze Future Female? p. 76. 4 1. See Echols, Daring t s Be Bad, p, 4. 42. Segal, Is [heFuturg Female? p. 46. 43, For farther discussion of the emergence of rape as m issue, see Echols, Ban"ng to Be Bad, p. 193, On the emergence of battered w m e n as iirn issue, see Pleck, Donzestl'c Tyranny 44, Andrea Dworkrz, cited in Seidmaxl, Embattled Eros, p. 106, 45. Susan Brommiller, cited in A. Echols, "The Feminism sf Uin and Yan,'"n Snitow! Stansell, m d Thompson, eds., Powrs ofDesl';rt;:Tj2.ehkitics ofSexuaU@ p. 442. 46, Sheila feffreys, cited in P, JeMns, Intimate Matters: Moral Panics in Cont.emporary Great Britain (MewYork: AIdine de Graytern; 1992), p. 58. 47. See, far exmple, the critique by A. Hollibaugh m d C. Moraga, " m a t Weke Roiliing Around in Bed With: Sexad Silences in Feminism," h Snitow, StanseU, and Thompson, eds., h w r s ofDesire: The PolitE'cs ofsfiexwaliq pp. 394-405, 48. Sheaa Jeffreys, cited in fenkins, lnft"mateIkrwtters, p. 109, O f course, 1 understand the feminist argument that policing of male aggression and violence we&errs patriarchd authoriq. But the question is, C m policing be considered "radicalPp"?t seems to me that two assumptions are being made here: first, that pafriarchd authoriq is mbodied in each male even in the lowest classes, md, second, that only feminists or radicals will struggle ag&rzst maIe violence, even thou&, hist~ricdly~ others fincltl&ng conservatives) have often been involved in s l ~ campaigns, h 1n short, 1am not questionhg the desirabili~of these c m paigns per se so much as the characterization of the campaigns as having to do with "radied" or ""pogressive" "politics, 49. E. Willis, ""Villainsand Victims,'3~almag~lndi, Specid Issue (Winter-Spring f 9941, p. TT. 56. E. Willis, ""Xjst Horizons: Is the VVomen's Movement Pro-Sex?"in Willis, No More Nice Girls, p. 9. 52. E, Willis, "Tomrds a Feminist Sexrral Revolution," Social Text. (1983); reprinted in WUis, M More Nice Cirk, p. 30. 52. X n IntimafeMatlers, fenkins discusses at lengeh the degree to which police forces and conservative potitieians in the U.K. have supported militant feminist rhetoric ag&rast certain chsses of perpetrators, such as child abusers and satanists, to advance their own agenda. In Dolrzestic ;fyranny (e.g., pp, 10, 1921, Ppoleck m&es a silnilw point about domestic ~ o l e n c elegislation in the: United States. Also, for an early critique sf how the battered women's movement bec m e less radical md, hence, more approving of state control, see G. Suflivm,

"The Co-optation sf Alternative SerGces:The Battered Women's Movement as a Case Study," Catalyst, l 4 f 19821,p. 41. 53. Echols, '"The Feminism ofYin andVn," p 455; emphasis in oli.lginal, 5 4 Snitow! Stmsell, and Thompson, eds., Powers ofDesire: TI2cr hlitics ofsexualz"ppp. 419, 55. Manifesto sf the Gay ActiGsts Alliance, cited in T. Marotta, The Politics c?f HomosexmEE'v(Boston: Houghton Mimin, 198X), p. 144. 56.Seidman, Embagled Erosf p. 156, 57. D. Altman, Homssckxualization ofAmen"ca [New h r k : St. Mar"rns Press, 1982). 58. J. Weeks, SexuaZiv and Ifs Discontmts (London: Roudedge (51. Kegan Paul, 19851, p. 198. 59. S. Johnston, ""Onthe Fire Brigade: M y Ljiberdism Won? Stop the hti-Gay Capaiig~ng of the Riglht," CGricwE Socioloa, 20:3 (19941, p. 5. A guiding principle of liberalism is that, given the strength of conservatism, radical. agendas must be watered down, Yet gay rights may iliust-rateliberalism's own failure to interpret public sentiment correctly. It is possible that a broadly libertarian approach to sexuali@n~ightwork more effectively in some re@onsof the country than a narrowly prescribed ""minori~ only'hfights approach. For example, heterosexuds and bisexuds are rarely given a direct stake in referenda or other campaigns; for the most part, they have been citlled on to support the gay rights agenda out of m &truistic concern for the "Other." 60, Weeks, Sexualfly arzd Its Discorztent~~ p. 48. 61. Marotta, The PoEizics ~fHonzosexuall'~ p. 18. 62. See, for exmple, S. Murray and K, Payne, "Medical Policy Without Scientific Evidence: The Promlscuitgr Paradigm and AIRS," Calgomia Socl"alclglt;st f Winter ltiiummer 19881, pp. 28-30. 63, On Kramer, see, for example, M. Cddwell, "The Literature of AIDS," DisSOslant; 3vff 9901, p. 344; m d on Gallen, see, for example, R. Bayer, Prz"uateAcf;f, cial Gorzsl?querzm:HDS and the Politics of Public Health (New York: Free Press, f 9891, p. 24. 64, D. Allman, MDS in the Mind of America (Garden City, NN,U,:Doubleday, 1986),p, 160. See dso Seidman, Embattld Eras, pp. 1.73-1"1. Both the gay and lesbian movement and the women" movement seem to be fertge ground for the recovew movements generally, but this issue is beyond our present scope, 65, R. Padgug, ""GayHero, Gay Villain: HomosexudiQ and the Social Construction of AIDS," in in. Peiss and C. Simmons, Pmsion and &wet.: SexuaUty izz History (Philadeipfia:Temple tiniversifg"Press, 19891, pp. 30&305. 66, Seidman, Embattled Eros, p. 161. 67. h n Lmders, cited in W Ghapkis, "Freriks, Fairies, m d Fat Ladies: A Right to Discriminate,"Critical Socioloa, 20:3 (19941, p. 152, 68. L. Tiger, The Putlcuit ofPlemure (Boston: Little, Brom, 1.9921,pp. 21-22. 69. Elnrenreich, Hess, and Jacobs, Re-Making Love, p. 207; origin&emphasis. 70. This phrase is taken from Weeks, Sexualiv and Its Discontents, p. 41. I 1. Tiger, The P~irsuiaof PIeaure; Ehrenreich, Re-Maki~zgLove. 72, M, Douglas and A, Wildavsb, Rllsk and Culture (BerkeXey: University of Galifc~miaPress, 19821,p. 52.

73. See, for example, the related quotes in Weks, Sexualiy and Its Disconfen& pp. 4-42; m d in Echols, "The Feminism of fiin m d Yan," p 442. '74, Seet for example, S. Chapman, ""Real a d False Solutions for Teen Bregn;tncyt"Conservative Cf%ronicle, October 2,199 L ; reprinted in K. Swisher, Teenage Sexualizy: Opposing Viewpoiintcc;(San Diego: Greehaven Press, 19941, p. 205. See also M, lie\ritsky, 'Trogress in the International War Aeinst Illicit Drugs," ".S. Bepartnzent ofstate Dispatch; reprinted in K. Swisher, ed., Dr~kgilbtcse:Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19941,p, 74.It is true, however, that of &l the ""behavior wars," m a n g prohibi"rions have xoused the most dissent from the Right*ln this connection, see, for example, F! Berger, ""Furtive Smokers-md m a t They Tell Us About h e r i c a , " Cornnzenrnl-y, June 1994; and E King, ""l "dther Smoke Than Kiss,'WationabReview, J d y9,1990, pp. 32-36, 15, This issue is discussed later in the chapter. 1 have in mind the Right" attack on liberals and other activists whose support for condoms or nonmaritd sex has been reduced to the plea that "they're going to do it anway" statements. There is some consistency to the Ri@tk tempenmce lo@c:If the paradigm of moral perfectionism can be applied in one area of human life, why not in others? lret same on the Left deem sexualify to be m immutable imperative but wodd never take this position with respect to substance use or aggressive "tzhaGor. 16. For liberd praise of his mti-tobacco pasition, see, for exmple, R. Troyer, "The Swprising Restrrgence of the Smoking Problem," in J. Best, ed,, Images ofIssues: Typifiing Contemporary Social Problems [New York: Aldine de Gruyter; 19891, p. 161; and Ebrahim and Lewis, "Will Washington Kick Tobacco?" pp. 555-556, For praise of his AIDS poliq from acti.rrists, see, for example, D'EmiXio and Freedman, Intimate Iklattgm, p. 35'7; and Bayem; Pn"uafeActs, Social Consequence, p, 1 63. 17. See Altman, AIDS in the Mind ofAmerica, especidly pp, 13, 19, 134, 1 66-1 67'. 18. Criticism of these apocalyptic predictions about AIDS often c m e from the politic& Ri&t in the United States in response to the development of a leftist AIDS activism. See, for exmple, M. Fumento, The Myth ojFHer'erosexual N D S mewYork: Basic Books, 1990);a d Fumento, %"AIDS Is Not a Serious Problem for

Heterosexuais,'"n Xliskup and Swisher, eds., AIDS: Qppasing trietup~ints,pp. 24-31, However, others, including critics on the Left, have registemd this objection as well, and to an increasing degree as the disease has failed to live up to initial predictions not only of a mass heterosexud "outbre;tk'"but of its development into "'an equal opportunity disease." Objections to the apocalyptic rhetoric of AIDS activism can be found, for exmple, in Altman, AIDS in f-he Mind of Anzen"ca, and S, Sontag, MDS arzd Its Maphors (Mew York: Farrar, Sfraus, and Giroux, 19891,m d , more recently, in D. Kirp, "AIDS in Our Time, Part 1, Mter the Band Stopped Plagring," Tlze Meion, J d y 4, 2994, ACT/ UP'S picketing in the late 1980s of people like Miehael Fumento and columnist Joe Queenan, of magazines a d newspapers like Forbes, Cosmopolt;carz,and the New York Tinzes, a d of institutions Iike the N.Y.C. Department of Health (aXI of which were charged with underrating the AIDS epidemic or lowering the estimates of the number of peapie afflicted) vvilX, I believe, go down in histow as one of the stranger and more q~ntessentiallyArrrericm Rir~tionswith apacdypti~fl-ti&ng.

Notes

210

Of course, different sides of the political spectrum emphasized AIDS for different reasons. On the Right, the constant danger of AIDS served as an object lesson about promiscuity, gay sex, and drugs. On the Left,the effort was aimed at undermining the associationof gays with the disease by claiming that “everyone is at risk for AIDS”: and, perhaps just as important, liberals have been provided with an easy way to express their “politicalcorrectness”(e.g., by wearing red ribbons) without actually having to do anything to alter the social structure.As with the Left‘s anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol, or anti-domestic violence campaigns, this “politicalcorrectness”in turn has facilitated an ostensible popular cause. (Who, after all, would be “for”AIDS?)Yet what has the wearing of red ribbons accomplished in the way of left-wing ideological or political transformations? 79. Douglas and Wildavsky, Risk and Culture. 80. This is not to say that pleasure is never politicized in a positive way M O examples come to mind: the opposition to alcohol prohibition in nineteenthand early-twentieth-centuryAmerica, and the labor strikes and demonstrations in various countries (particularly those in Eastern Europe) over rations of meat and tobacco. Generally, however, these have been defensive battles against proposals to cut out pleasures already expected, and against the cutting out of goods (such as meat) that were recognized as part of the social wage. In this sense, the products were not viewed as simply frivolous pleasures.

CHAPTER 7 1. From R. Nixon’s book In the Arena, excerpted in C. Cozic and K. Swisher, eds., Chemical Dependency:Opposing Viewpoints (SanDiego: Greenhaven Press, 19911,p. 232. 2. Margaret Thatcher, cited in J. Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 19851,p. 18. 3. Joseph Conlin, cited in B. Christensen, “Single-Parent Households Harm Children,” in C. Wekesser, ed., America’s Children: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 19911, p. 246. 4. Sayres et al., eds., The 60s WithoutApology (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1984).p. 8. 5. Cited in ”Worker Drug Test Provoking Debate,” New York Times, May 3, 1986, p. 32. 6. E. Willis, “The Drug War: Hell No, I Won’t Go,”in E. Willis, ed., No More Nice Girls:CounterculturalEssays (Hanover,N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1992),p. 252. 7. See C. Reinarman, D. Waldorf, and S. Murphy, “Cocaineand the Workplace: Empirical Findings and Notes on Scapegoating and Social Control in the Construction of a Public Problem,”Research in Law, Deviance, and Social Control, 9 (1987);and C. Reinarman and H. Levine, “Crack Attack Politics and Media in America’s Latest Drug Scare,”in 1. Best, ed., Images oflssues: wpifiing Contemporarysocial Problems (NewYorkAldine de Gruyter, 19891,pp. 129-130. 8. S. Yurick, “The Other Side,”in Sayres et al., eds., The 60s WithoutApology, p. 308; emphasis added.

9, Theodor Adorno, cited in B. Agger, 'The Problem with Social Problems: From Social Constructionism to Crificd Theomp' in J. Holstein and G. Miller; eds., Reconsseri~zgSocial Constructionism {NewYork: Aldine de Gruyter, 19931, p. 287. 10. A. Trebaeh, ""Wlky Not Decrhinnlize?" New Fferspective Quar~erk(Summer 19891;reprinted in Cozic and S ~ s h e reds., , Chemical Depen&n~*p. 152. I l. Cited in D. Forbes, False Fixes (Albany:SUNU Press, 19941, p. 96, 12. In, particular, see S. Peele, The Ds'seming ofAmerlica: Ad&ictra"snTreatment Qut ofConrf-I-oZ(NewYork Houghton Mimin, 19891, pp. 69-73. 13. This is a major theme of M, Stacey's Covzsu~rsled:m y Americalzs Love, Hate, and Fear Food (NewYork Sirnon and Schuster; 1994). f 4. Seew Chambliss, "Po[Lishgthe Ghetto Undercllass: The Bolidcs of Law and Law Enforcement," Social Problems, 41:2 (1994); m d K, Beckett, ""String the Public Agenda: street Crimeknd Drug Abuse in h e r i c a n Politics,'' %cr'aE Probi'erns,41 :3 (1 9943. 15. A. Gouidner, For Sociology {NewYork: Basic, 1973);cited in Weeks, Sexuality and Its Dimntents, p, 2 1 1.


The war on drags . . . the campaigns against smoking cigarettes . . . v-chips to control what children watch s n W ,, , censoring the lnternet and CaIGn Klein jean ads . . . bipartisan lectures about the dangers of teen sex, . . constat wani n g ~about food and fat . . . aX1 are examples of what David Mragner terms the "NewTemperance." Althou* the obsession with persona1 behaGor in America over the last two decades has shzply reversed the liberatsq trend of the f 960s a d early f 970s, TfzeNew Tgmperarzce argues that this behavior pardlels rather closely the nineteenth centuq m d early twentie.r%rcentury social. movements such as the Temperance, Socid Puriv, and Vice and Vigilance movements. The New Tetnperancc?questions the constant mantra in the media and in political debates about the dangers of person& behavior and chdlenges America's love affair with repression. Dra\Pvingon historical, sociologicd, and philosophical sources, the author xgues the New Temperance is a stratem serving state and dominant social class interests as weII as a popular social movement that develops consensual coalitions between traditiondly identified elements of the Right and Left. Uavid Vt'agner is associate prokssor of social work and s o c i o l o ~at the University of Southern Maine, File is the author of two preGous books including CFzeckerboard Square (WestlriewPress, 1.9931, which won the 1993G, Wright Mills award. He is associate editor of Flyiw Horset a literary journal for poor peopile, Human Services m d a d editorid board member of TJze Journal ofir"ro@t;?ssl"ve TheJournal aflr"overy.


Abortion, 86, 123, 135, 138, 140, 142, 143-144,145,152,155,158,162, 164 ""Achieved" versus "'ascribed" "slatus, 16-17,121 Addms, J., 23,28 Addiction paradigm, 45,46,47,56, 72-73,75-78181,95,96-98,14T, 148,150,185(n34), 1881n59) and ""c=a~k,'72~ ?3,76-78,83 a d ""denid,""98 Adorno, T*, I73 Advertising, 49,5&57,64-65, f 0 L, f 05, 1X 1,148,188Cn59) A-fricm-hericans, 20,27-28,32,63, 117, f 29, 232, 190(n8),203(n52) m d deindustridization, f f 7, 125, 128 and drug war, 2,17'5-X"l, I "l"i"f3) a d teen pregnancy, 85-89,99,129, 132 Age and tempermce, 8,6&65,70,18, 97,101,131, 136, 140, 151, 165, 187(n53),203(n52),204(n2) and voting, 136,165 Age of Cansent laws, 16,24,25,26, 1013, 245 Agne-~r, S., 114,141 AIDS, See HIVlAIUS Allan Guttmacher Institute, 86, 194(n85) Allcohal abstainers, 15,50-51,83, f f 0, f f 2 treatment, 57,61,97 use, 2-3,5-6,8, 18-21,48,51,54, 56,635, 638,70,7X, 74,75,78,83, 100,106,108,109,1f 0-1 f 2, 1f 5,

122, 131, 132, 145, 146, 14'7, 149, 150, 175,180(n14),196(n111f, 193n1241, I98fn12fP 199Cn231, 201(n41),202 (n52) See ako Temperance Movement r?tlcoholicshonymous, 60-61,9"7 Alcoholism, 2,9,33,45,411,48,54-55, 60-62,75,91,96, 121, 130, 149, 175,1781n14),185(n34ft 196(nI11f,IST(n124),20l fn41) AlXen, C. L,, 87 Almshouses, 52,183n48) Aleman, D., 15"r158,161,163 American Cancer Socieq, 82 b e r i e a n Psychiatric hsaciation, 45 And the Band Played Qaz (ShiXtsf,91, 159 Anslingem;H. J,, 37 hthony, SS,B., 22,24 Anfi-Cigarette Leagues, 5, 17-21 Anti-depressant drugs, 111,7'6,83 Anfi-Sdoon League, 20 Anti-ti-ietnamWar movement, I4,65, 113,141 Arrhur (fiImf,104 A Tkozlsand C I Q W ~ (film), S, 13 At&nson, T. G,, 138 'Xt risk""youth, 8,'75 Attention deficit disordem;45,463 Baby boomers, 9, 11, 13, Cil, 103, 113, 117'-1X9,128,140,147', 1"1-77'2, 200Cn23) Barry M,, 3 Bat-Ada, J., 156 Becker, H., 37 Beckert, K,, 115

Bennett, W, 113,83,89 Bensan m d Hedges ads, 101 Berger, E, 79 Berger, I? and Lucbslrm, 11,36, 184(nf) Best, l., 36,37,42, 12'7 Bigelaw, M,, 40 Birth control, 23,85-86,99-100,106, 123,145,153,164,194(n85) BXack Death, 91 Blackwell, E., 22, 182(n45) Bob, Caml, Ted, and Alice, (Mm), 14 Bogwt, H., 102 Born-ag&n Christians (and New Right), I$O,E42,205(w21$) Bourgeois, If?, 77-78 Boyer*E?, 22-23 Boy Scouts, 22,40 Branch D a ~ d i a ncult, 173,174 Brandt, A,, 29-30,94,183(n57) Bristow, E,, 26--27,29 Brawn, R. M,, 154 Brovwrdlfer, S., 151, 153 Buckley, W, 140 Burnham, J,, 108,109,18861-359), Z98(nI 6) Bush, G., 80,88, f 43, f 75 Business and temperance, 3,8,1'7, 20,21,5&51,53-56,58,66, f 05, 119,120-123,147-151,171, 200(n35) Butlep; K-, 118 Cdifmo, J., 79, 122 CdXen, M*, 150 Capitalism m d temperance, 49-57, 58-59,64---55)10&5,1 0L 112, 145,148-15 1, f 86(n40), 186--E87(n45ft188(n59) Cat.ler$J., 117,143,205fn14) CBS Et~en ing News, 97 Censorship, 3, 18,22-24, 154-1 55) 182(n39) Center for Disease Control, 91 Chamberl~n,W., 93 Chambliss,W, 1'75

C h a s t i and ~ chastiv pledges, 18,22, 2&28,30,90, 138, 140, 144, 181( d 8 ) CMd abuse. Sec?Domestic violence CkIdren's Befense Fund, 86 Cholesterol. See Diet and food Christiani-t-y,55, 60,96, 136, See also Protestantism and Roman Calhalics Christian Voice, 142 "Cigaette fiend,'919--.20,20-21, f 01, 109 Gigmetre smoking, and cancer, 72,78-83,101 and correlational data, "1-83 demogaghiss, 6,8,2&21,47,56, 63,65,70, "J, 118,80,82,101, 109, 110, l 1f,112,136i,l80-181 fnlS), 192 (n45),198(nn 6,162,199(n231, 201(n4l), 202 (n52) and emphysema, 78, '79 epidernialom, 7%83 and fire-related deaths, 79-80 m d h e m disease, 72,79,81,82 and menld iHness, 10,71,82-83 Civil Liberties Union, 171 Civil Ri&ts Act, 121 Civil rights movement, 14,lG-17,65, 85, f 13, f 28, f 73 'Clairnsmakers," 37-40,42,62 Clintan, H., 63,172 Clinlon,W., 3,80, 149, 156, 161, 171, 172 Cocaine, 43,74,75,76__78,83.See also Crack cocaine ""Codependency,"l, 44, 75 Coercive vel..sus assimilitative tempermce, f 08-1 10, 120, 180(n14) Cohen, S,, 45 Cote, C, a d Dennlr, H., 92-93 Communism, 137,140,145,170,172, 173,18S(n25),186(n40) Communist Par@ (USA),170 Comparable w r t h , 34, 152 Comstock,A., 22,182(n451

Camstack Act, 23, 109 "'comstsckery,fv22 Condoms, 68,93,94--95,99,163,164, 119(n18),f 96(n106),209fn75) Conlin, J,, 168 Canrad, F? and Schneider, J., 44, 185(n33) Cansewatism, 3,4,5, 11, 18,22,23,24, 25,32,56,68, '73,84,88,96, 100, 110, 113, 116, 130, 133, 137, 139-24cftf46,f50, 155, f 62,163, 164, 165, 170, 172, 177{nll), 119(n18),f 132(n36),188(n59), 207(nn 48,521,209(n74f Cansumer Movement, 58,142,147 Corporaf e domsizing, 116, 119 "Corporate raiders,'" 16 "'Corporate responsibifi~,"l51 Carrelational data, 69,72,79-83, 85-89,192[rri16) Counterculture, 13-14,113-115, 116, 137,140,144,147,151,158,162, 168,173 Crack cocaine, 32,43,47,72,23,74, 76-78,83,175 Crime, 4,6, 15,21,52-53,52, 116, 129 as political issue, 43,48, Gi2-63, 129, 140, 141, 146, 153, 156, 161, 164, 175-176,205(nl0) demographics of, 86, 126, 131, 198(nl2),2001n4 l), 202-203 (n52) Crime Bill, 156 Culfurd Feminism, 146,152,153-157, 162 "'Cultureof pover@,'"8,115,129 ""6klture wars," 7, 179(n18) Daley, M., 154

Dangernu Passage, f Na&mson), 85 DARE, 59 Dash, L., 99 Dare mpe, See Rape "Deadbeat dads,'?X$Ft, 156,163 Efebs, E., 20 Deconstructisnism, 36

Deep Throat (film), 14 DYEmaio, J. and Freeman, E., 22'26, 60,179(nI), 188(n53) Deindustrializatiorr, f f 6-1 19, f 25, 128,147 Democratic ParQ, 3,80, 115, 141-142, 143,162,171,172 'Qeviant" kbeha~or(theov), 9,15--16, 3"7,44-48,5f-53,57-58,96, 130-1 34, 1"i"8(n17f,18Fi(n33), 186(n3"i",202(n521,203(n53) Devif in Miss lanes {film),14 Diet and Food fat and chotesterol, 1,4,5,7,54,57, 58,68,69, "1,48,121,146,164, 189fn5) food industry; 57,148,144 food mordism, 4,58,59, 121, 146, 148,150 obesiq, 56,59, 121, 114, 115, 1981n12) Disabiliv ri&ts movement, 16 Displaced symbols, 32-33, 183(n68) Divorce, 82,83,88, 123, 230, 142, 143, 145 Dix, D,, 46 Dodge, W., 22 Dolan, T., 141 Dale, R., 172 Domestic violence, 1,4,24,34,47,62, 85,88, 126, 131, 132, 137, 138, 143, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, l64,183(n67), 185Cn3.151, 203(n52),207 (st52) 'Qon't ask, don? tell" "policy; 17 Douglas, M. andwilditsky, A,, 5F59, 8Q,91,162,164,186(n41) Drugs demographics, 6,8, 10, 14,37, 47, 74,109, f 12, f 14, f 16, 126, 131, 132,136,140, 1791n3),198(nn7, 121, 199-200(nn 24,251, 201-202 1114 1) drug IegisXation, 2, 16,37,39,74, 115,141,147, 174 drug testing, 2,8,122, 130, 135, 171

drug treatment, 57,9"i"137 drug war, 2-3,8, 19,21,32,43,59, 64,68,72, 73-78, 1 120, 122, 127, 130,135, 162, 163, 167, 168, 171, 172,173, 177Ca3), 190(n14f, 198(n"l, 205(rx 101 prescription dmgs, 71,74,75,146, 148. See allso Anti-depressants m d violence, T2,7&7"j7 78, 133 " " f q s "versus 'kets," 15,220, 1X0 Dugas, G., 91 U u b n t , R,, 74 Duster, 11,8 Uworkrz, A,, 153

E w Rider (film), 13 Eating disorders, 45,47,60 Echols, A., 139, 152, 156 EdeXmm, M. W, 86 Elzrenreich, B., 6, 13, 103, 105, 106, 113,114,118,124-f 25, f 28,129, 143,151-152,161, 162, 178(n16), 183[n68), 197[nX] Electoral demographics, 136-1 37,157, 162,204Cn1) Employee assistance programs, 122 English, D., 152 Environmentd movement, 58,59, 122,142, 14'7 Environment& Protection Agency (US), 38-39 Equd Ri&ts Amendment, 141,153 Ethnicity and behaGor, 65,85, 109, 110,111, 198{n12] and temperance, 6,8,20,2'7,30,33, 64,74, 100, 109, 1831n681, 190(n8),198(n7),2Q4(n2) "Ethnic minorif~r" model of organizing, 16, 158 Eugenics, 27,30 Fabian Socidists, 18,22 Falco, M,, 76-77 "Fallen women," 24-25) 31-32,33, 84. See aZso Prostitutes, Prostitution Falwe11, J., 113,139, 142, 144

'Tamily values,'3,1 X, 137,140-144 Faupel, C., m d kllockms, C., 72" Feder, D, and Kerrison, R,, 144 Female-headed households, 3,84, 117,125 Femde workforce participation, 65, 124-126 Feminism. Sec!Cultural feminism, ""Po-sex" kminism, Women" movement F e m i ~ s tAgainst s Censorship Today (FACT), 155 Fingaette, H., 97, 196(nll 1) Fitness and exercise, 5,7,57, 111, 112, 119,120,121,125, 198(n17), 203(n52) Fonda, J., 1112 Food m d Drug Adlrri~straf ion, 98 Ford, G., 141 ""FdismJP34-56,1861n40) Foreman, M., 14 Forest Cump (am), 168 Foucault, M., 6, 15,31,40,44,47, 50, 51-53,54,55,58,6Q, 61, 101, 123, 171,173, 178(n17),179(n1), 183n48) Frankfurt School, 173 FranHin, B., 108,110 French Revolution, 50, 104, 145, 168 Fundamentalists and the New Right, 5,22,62,68,96, 140, 142, 143 Gmbling, 50,52, 108, 109, l 10, 139 Garcia, j,,1 G q Aeti.rristsAlliance, 16, 157 Gay and lesbian movement, 11,14, 16, 30,44, 113,135,136,137,144, 146,147,153,154,15'7-161,162, 180(nll), 185Cn34),200(n35), 208(n64),209-210(n"i""i"f Gay bathhouses, 92,156,159, 195(n9.4) Gay men" hedth crisis, 159 G q rights, 16-1 7,45, 114, 135, 137, 138, 140, 142, 15'7, 160, 161, 162, 164, 180(n13),18S(rx34), 208tn59)

Gender roles, 57,101 108,124-126, 137,142,143,151,153 essentidisf views, 131, 153, 154 Geronomius,A., 137,138 Gltded Age, 32,186-187(n45) Gilder, G., 162 Glnsburg, A,, l 72 Ginzel, K. H., 81 Glassmm, A,, 83 GoXdmm, E,, 20 Goldwater, B., 141 Goodman, E,, 3,148 Goddner; A,, 1'76 G r a s c i , A,, 4453-56, 121, 169, Z86fn401, 188(nfiG) Gmtifieation, deferred, 2 04-105, 111, 120-1 23 "'Great Barbecue," 32 Great Depression, 21,42,65,112,116, 170,176 Great Socieq, 144 Grinspool, L., 61 Gusfield, J., 15, 18,50-51, 108, 149, 1;78Cx115),180(n14f,181(n271, 183Cn68)

Hitchins, C., 150 HTVlMDS, '7,22,24,30,38,45,68,'72, 88,89-95,96, 144, 151, 156,157, l60,161,163,1M, 168 and acdvism, 59,92,94, 163, 209-2 10tnn "178) and civil liberties, 30, 159,183(n65), 195(n94f infectivitry,93,9695, f 95196fnn 104107) m d media, 139,92 and "multiple parmers," 72,89-95, 144, 15%16O, l68,210(n78) and predictions, 29,94,98, 163, 195(n46f,196(nn114-115)) 209-2 1 0(n78) prevention, 24,9"1---4,164---165 testing, 30,92, f 7 1,20Q(n35) Haffman, A,, 14 Homeless people m d homelessness, 16,47,48,"7,116,11"7 1118,133, 188tn661, 189-1 90(n6) Homosexuadi.ty.See Gay and Lesbian movement, Gay rights, Lesbianism, Queer theo~y

H~masexua Eizatio~zofAmerica, The Hallucinogens, 74,15,16,199(n24) Harm reduction strategies, 83 Harington, M., f 28 Harrison Act (19141, 109 Hart, G,, 1,51,62,171, 1'72 Hatch, Q,, 163 Hate crimes, 34,46,48,146, 153 Hawkes,E., 98,99 Hayden, T., 172 Her-rZ.t'hcare cost control, 58,122 Heafthism, 4,11,145,146,150-151, 178(n12) Hearts oJ"Men(Ehrenreich),143 Hellnsley, L,, 63 Hert~ngfield, l,, 78 Herain, 74, "I,V 7118,83, , 112,174 Herpes, 89-90 Heterosexuali~,44,115, 146, 151, 154, 2013(n59),209-2 10fn7T) HilX, A,, 63 Hirschi, T., 133

(atman),157-158 Haover, J. E., 1 X2 House U n - h e r i c m Activities Cornittee (X-IUAC),170,171 Howe, J. W., 23,1132fn45) Ht~dson,R., 92 Humm, A. m d Kunreuther, E, 93 Ht~ssein,S., 36 Ideolog (temperanceas), 4-5,6, 10, 15, 18,48--66,79,106,119,130 "IHe@timacyfp"84,85, 106, l 12, 130, 151 IHich, I., 44, 118(n12),f 135fn31) Immigration and fears, 6, 18,21,27, 30,33,51,91,TQ9,169-170 and anti-immigrant laws, 21,27,33, 111,16%170 Incest, 145,152,154 Indians, h e r i c a n , 2,5, 100, 132 Internet, 3, 155

Jeffreys,S., 154

Je"rJ" f film), f 60 Jedins, P, 4142, 45-46,127, 203n52j Jewsand (anti-aleohoIjtemperance, 20,60 m d voting, 140,142 Jim Crow Laws, 32 Johnson,J., 27 Jahnson,M., 92-93 Johnstorr,S., 158- 159 Janes, E,, 40 Tones, M. H., 146 '"ludgmentd Dupe," %,65,72-73, 95-101,IfiO "JunkFood," 4, f 48. See ailfs Diet and food Kant, X., 40 Kmror; L,, 67 KelXogg, H., 5, 178(nl4f,182(n45) Kesey, K,, I 4 f i a l i k d i , A,, 173-1 74 King, R., I 73,174 &kin, C,, 3 Klein, R., 11&118,100--101,180-181 (nn 21,251 IUermm, G., 76 Koch, E., f 29,201(n49) Koop, E., 89, 149, 163 Koresh, D,, I73 Kramer, L,, 159 Ku Klux Kian, 31,183(n67)

162, 165, I"?"i"(Ilf, I"i"[nI8), 183(n67),188fn59),1139fn711, 197(n124),204(n6),209(n74) in f 930s and 1 9 4 0 ~ 112,131,170, ~ 172 in1970s and 1980s, I X , 34,135, 137,15&139,146-161,162, 185(n34),206(~27), 209210fn77j See also New Left Lernert, E,, 101, 184fnl) Lesbianism, 115,152,154.See ako Gay and lesbian movement, Gay rights, Queer theory Liberalism, 2,3,4,6, 11,22,24,31,33, 63, 65,68,74, 84,88,96, 100, 116, 12%-129,130,535,136,137,141, 142, 144, 146, 147, 150, 152,155, 156,158,159,161,3632-2 63, 16&165,1"i", 1"7T(n11),f "79(nf131, 189fn4),2021~52)~ 206(n27), 208(n59j,209(nn "I,761, 2101n78) fife expectancy, 69,"70,71,79,137,88 "Liksqle illness,"339, 58 Lawell, J. S,, 22,23 Loy&"ryOath, 170-1 72. See also McGarthyism LSD. See haflucinogerrs Luther, M., 49 MacKinaon, C,, 153

Mad magazine, 13 Madonna, 98,99 Malthus,'F., 85

Man in tlze Grey FEanrzel Suit {Wilson), Labor (and temperance), 20,54-56, 121,122,123 Landeres,A., 161 h E n , R. and Foss, D, 113 Lawence, D. H., 28 Lawrence, Rev, W, 30 Learning disabilities,46, 127 Leaq, Tat14 k f t , 4,s-6, "7, 11,21,34,48,56,65, I X9,122,136,137,144--146,Ifi6,

13 Mann Act f 1910)) 25,227 Mantle, M., 1 Marcuse, H,, 158 Marijuana, 37,68,72,74,75,76,112, 114, 127, 141, 142, 14T,190(n15), 199(n23) Marijuana Tax Act (1937),37 Marsfta, T,, 159 ""MarriageabiXifypool,'' 1125

Marxist parties, 144, 145 Massey! D. and Denton, N., f 28 Masturbation, 3, 10,24,25,28,29, 31-32,40-41,42,9O Madcka-Tyndale, E,, 94, 126 Mattachine Sociem 159 McCarthyism and McCarthy period, 11,42,112,170,171,172, 184-1 85(n26) McGovern, G., 172 McMurphy, I? I. fchwacter),f 4 Mead, M,, 104 Media and "deviarrce,'9,6, 10,45,46, 4'7,53,70,92-93,96,9&99, 116, 160, 1"i"8(n1V),186(n37) a d drugs, 73,75,71,168,175 and HWIAIIDS, 89-98,82-93,158, 195(n96) and risk, 1, 10,36,46, 70,81,88, 159 m d sex, M-65,84,8%90,92-93, 98-99,101, 114,146,152,159, 182(n39) a d socid unrest, 169,172-173 Medicalization, 6, 1"1444-$.,96,913, 158,17t?r(nn12,17), 1851nn 33, 34),186(n37) "Medical model,'24, 185(n34) Meese Commission (report on pornagaphy), 144,155 MentaI Flygierne Movement, 46 Menfd itillness, 16, I?, 45,4&"?, 52,75, 187(n48) and smoking, "I,82-83 '"lifiasma," 91 Middle class, mxielrfa m d status, 6,9,33,50,66, 87,105,119-130, 1"i"[n15), 198(n7) a d downward nnobifi~,Ci, 10,33, 103,107,109,113-1 14, f 16-f 30 radicalism, 32-34,112-115, 139, 147,149, 15l,15";7 a d respectabdify; 6,14,15, 18, Cil, 63,89,103--133,139,146, 15&157,f59,161, f98(n7) social movements, 5-6,11, 15, 11-18,32-34,5&51,63,108-1 f 0,

113-1 15,126,131,134,139,147, 16z 178(n15) Millet, K-, 151 Mills, C. W., 43-44 Missing children problem, 9,237, 127 Monogay, 11, 14, 55, 56,89,90,93, 108, 114, 115, 132, 136, 138,144, 15f,157,159,160,161 ""Moralentrepreneurs,'37,43,44 Mord Majoriq, 142,143-144 "Moral Panic," 6,26,42,44--48,89, 112,121,128,178fnLT)) 18&189(n71) Morgan, I. F";, 22 Morgan, R,, 153 Mormons, 21,142,163 Morphine, 8,14, If O Morrow, F?, 28,29,30 Motkzel-lona (magazine), 146-141, 149,177(nlI f ,205-206(nn 26-27) Mothers Ag&nst D 14'7 "Multiplepartner" "sex or '~pxrorniseui~," 3,5,7, 10, 18,28, 56,64,70, "12,84,89-95, 105, 110, 112, 115, 116, 130, 136, 142, 144, 145,154,158-1 60,163,164,168, 19%200(nn 24-25), 203(n52), 204fn2),210(n"18) Murray, S, and Payne, K,, 91 Music, rap lyrics 32,89 rock hrrolf 32,64,T2,112,113,155, 163, 185fn26) Mader, R., 39,58, 189fn4) Nathanson, C,, 85,100 Nation, The fmagmine),149, 1V(n1 11, 206In27) National Conservative Political Action Committee, 142 Nationai f nstitute on Drug Abuse INXDA), 74,78,200fn25), 202(n52) Mationd Organization for Women (NOW), 152 National Safety Council, 38

Nelson, S,, 97-98 PdewDeal, 116,141,170 New Left, 14,44, 115, 116, 135, 137-138,141,144,145, f47, 156,158,162,268-169,113, 1"i"[rxl j Newman, K., 117-1 X8 New Right, 3,15,63-64,96, 116,120, 130,135,137,139,140-144,151, 154,158,162,163,164t16fiI 167 N e m u e k : (magazine], 75, "76,122 Nkon,R,,66,96, 216, 1.51, 144, 168 ""NoMore Nice Girlsf"forgmizaf ion), 155 Norpilant, 3 Novello, A., 89

Qne Flew Qver the CuckooS Nest- [play, m o ~ e )X,4 Opium, "I,76,109,110, LT4 Orcuet, J, and Turner, l,, 75,76 Qrganizatisn Man (Whythe), 13 O m l l , G,, 173 Otlzer Atnerica, The (Harringtonf, 128 '"out-of-wedlock" births, 3,84-89, 129,19$(n77) Pachood, R,, Padgug, R., 160 Palmer Raids, 21,169,171 Parents' Music Resource Genter, 155 Parke, Davis and Co., 74 Pamell, C,, 51 Partnership for a Drug-Free Anrerlca, 67" PATCB strike, 117 Patriarchy, 138,151, 153,154, 156, 207(n48) Pax Anrerlcana, 56,118,130 Pedopltilia,46,47,62, 127 Peele, N.V,, 110 Peele, S,, 8,8, 68,"/, 47,201(n41j 'Termissiireness,"" 103,114-1 16, 14l, 2 62,168,169 ""Prssnd is political,'%4, 135, 137-140,171,204(nn 3,6)

'Tharmacologiical. CaX~nism,'"l?e "Pharmo-economicdeterminism,'76 P>rziladeEphia(film), 137 PhGlips, H., 141 Phalips, W, 23 Piper, H., 101 Playbcry Imagmixze), 13 'Toliticd correctness,'?, 57,63, 120, 123,138-239,210(n78) 'Tolitied lestaimism," 154 Pollution m d Defilement, 57-59, 63-64,80,186(n41) Polygraph testing, 122,200(n35) Poor people, and temperance, 6,8,10,20,23,32, 51-3,61, 63,64,65,70,71,73,74, 80,85,86,87,888,89,89, 101, 104, 109,112,130-134,179(n3], 181(n21),187(n53),190fn61, 194fn7n,197(n124],198{n12), 199(n24),20 1. (n411, 202-203(n52) m d voting, 136, 165 See also Social class Pornography, 3 , s )7,114,23,56,63,64, 71, 209, 112, 115, 116, 120, 126, 127, 1139,14Q,145,142,143,146, 148,149, 353,154-155,156,159, 162, 164,1"1$,182(n36),185(n25) Powerlhawledge, 52,53 &WYS ofDesire (Snitawet al.), 156 Power stratea' 6,51-53,58,59,60-61, 64-66,68,108,123,171, 1781n171, 18S(n40) ""Premature" death, 38,772 Productivity arguments, 38,50,54,56, 73,77, 291(n32f Profumo scandal, 62 Progressive Era/Movement, 9,18-34, 1 20, 183(n69) Prohibition, 5, 11,19,20,21,32,33,34, 42,64,65,108,109,110-111,112, 137,169, 176,181fnn212,271, 198Cnl4) Prohibition Party, 19 ""Promisctliy." See 'Mdtiple partner" sex

" P r ~ m i ~paradigm" c ~ i ~ (as explmagon for AIDS), 9 1,95 ""Promise XCeepers,'22, 181(n28) "'Pro-sex" "mininism, f 52, f 55,156 Prostitutes and prostitution, 5, 16, 24-28,29,31-33, 62,80,42, 101, 109, 110, 231, 139, 245, 156, 159, I64,183(n68). See aka "Fallen womenp" Protestant Evangelicalism, 15,6l-62, 140,143 Protestantism, 15, 17, 18,20,22,29, 33,50,51,60, 61,62,f08, f 10, 112,140, 182(n45),190(n8) Prozac. SeeAnti-depressant drugs Public hedth as ideolof~11,22-31, 69-"7, '2%) 90,93,15O, 183CnGi5) Public versus private spheres, 59, 138 Pwificatian ritual, 47,6&61, 62 Puritanism (English),28, 50,54, 104 Qtrayle, B., 74-75, 172 Queer theory, 158 Race and beExaGor, 65,84,85-86,132, ll9(n3), 190(n8),192(n45), 194(xx"/j, 198(n12jP202-203(n52) m d temperance, 6,18,20,27-8,30, 32,37,61, 64,74,91,112, 126, 128)132,18";7n53),2011n451, 202-203 (n52),204(n2) and underclass, 6,41, 117,128,128 a d voting, 20, 136 Racism, 17,26,27-28,30,32, 123, 132, 138,169 Rap X,yries,See Music Rape, 25,47,48,62,63,64, 126, 138, 143, 145, 152, 2 54, 164, 174, 201 (nits) Ratchet, Nurse (character], 14 Readers Guide to F)c?~iodir=aE Literaturep 46, 186(n37) Reagan, R., 88,117,142,143,163 Recession of 1973-l 974, f 0, f 16, 200(xx25)

Recovev See SeXf-help groups ""Regl:lernentation,"" 24 Reieh, R,, 80 Reinermm, C., 76,7'7, f911n32) Reinerman, C. a d Levine, El., 43 Re-IZrakitq Love (Ehrerrreich et aX.1, 155-152,161 Religious reGvdism, 49,59,60, 108, 140-144 Republican Pare, 3,13,66,80, 1 15, 141-144,167, 1172,20Ei(n14) Resistance, cdtural, 64-65, 99, 100-101,122,129,132,171,176, 1871n531, 197(n124) Rich, A,, 153 Risk, constrzncfion of?4-5, 10,28-29, 31,35,3"i"40,47,557--59,68-"i"3, 80,431,95,162, 164,186fnitl) Robertson, F";, 144 Robinsan, M., 63 RockefelIex; N.,142 Rock 'nn" roll. S&? Music Roe versw Wade decision, 141,143 Roiphe, K,, 63,126, f 13&189(n71), 201(n45) Role models, 99,174 RoUins, E., 143 Roman Cathatics and (anti-dcohoIj tempermce, 20,50,60 and voting blocs, 140,142, 143 Roosevclft, 11,27,28,30,33 Rosenberg, T., 90,1831nn 55,571 Rubin, L,, 117 Rush, B,, 40 Russian Revolution, 145,169 Rydem;Inif98,99 Safe sex, 59,70,94,126 Sdvation Army, 22 SANMEC program, 8 1. See also '"mokiirzg-related"" deaths Satanism, 46, 127, 156, 164,20T(n52) Saturd~y Night Fever (tilmf,125 Schneider, D, and Smith, J., 132 Science and moraliq, 40,42,50, 69-73? 79,85,88,8%95

Schoot prayer, 142,143, 178Cn18) Secondary smoke, 5,6,46,63,130 Second Great Awakening, 60 Segai, L,, 152,189(n71) Segregation, raeid and class, 128 Seidman, S., 157,161, 188Cn59) Self-helpgroups, 2,59,60-61,9691, 160 Sex education, 22,228-31,68,T2,96, 164-165, 1"1(n18), 194(n85) abstinence consensus, 28-31, TO, 90,164 m dAIDS, 22, T2,90, f 64- 165 ""Sared Chaste" sex education, 67 Sex Information and Education C o ~ c i(SXECUSf, I 68,99-I00 Sexism, 152,153, 154 Sexual abuse, 4 9 , 18,24,46,47,62, 115,127,137, 138,152,I56, 168, 203f n52) Sexud addetion, 445, 160 Sexual hxassment, 24,122,126,153, 20 11 ~ 4 5 ) Sexud orientation, 16-1 7,1157-1 58, 180(lnll) Sexud revolution, 1 1,14,56,84, 89-90,96, f 14, f 16,f23,f38,f41, 143,144,152,157-158,179(n3), 200(n25) Sexudk trarrsmitted diseases, 10, 18, 28-31,54,69,12,90,91, 94, 130. See alsoVenereal disease Shaw, G, B., 22 Shilts, R., 91,922, 159 Shulman, A., 152 "Sick role," 48 SiegaX, R., 83 Simpson, I., 142 Sinelair, A., 68 Sin@@ pwent households, 3,85,86 EiOs WiE;kzoutApolow,The (Sayres et d.), 169 Smith,W K-, 126 Smoking cessation, 1?1,83,192(n45) "Smoking-relafe8"" deazhs, 10,69,72, "1-83

Snowball, D*,143-144 Sobran, I., 96, f 44 Social class m d alcohol, 6, f5,20,47,48,5f, 56, 70,100,106,108-112,126,131, 132, 1"18(n15), 197(n124),198Cnn 12, 161, 199-200(n24f,201(n41), 202(nS2) m d cigmette smoking, 6,20-2 1, 47,56,58, Gi3,65, 70,BQ,82, 83, f 01, f 06, f 08, f 09-1 10, 111-1 12,119,120,121,126,131, 132,180-18 t (11211, f 92(n45), 19fd-199tnn7,16, 17,232, 201 (n411,202(n52) and ""deviance," m,30,447,48, 51-53,51?-58,62, "1,86,104,111, 113,114,119-120,130-134, 1"1(n32,187[nn 48,50),198(rx7), 202(n52),203(n53) and diet, 109, 111, f 12, 131, 189(n5), 198(nn6, 12, 11),200(&5), 203(n52) m d drugs, 6 8 , 14,47,58,65, TO, 74,106,109, 114, 131, 134, 1"19fn3),198(nn6, 121, 199-200(nn 24,25),201(n41), 202(n522 m d mental illness, 48,52 and teen parenting, "1,84-89, 10&107,114,129,131,132, 194(n7Tf,202 (n52) m d tempermce, 6,8, 10, f 5, 11-18, 20,25,27,28,29,31-34,56,63, 64,170, "i" "1, 74,82,84,85,87, 89,94,100,101,104-134,136, 139,156,157, 161,165,167, lT8(nl5), 18S(n40f,197-198(nn 124, G), E99(n232,204(n2) 210Cn8O) and voting, 20, 136, 16.5 See also Status mxkers a d cues Socid class reproduction, 10,105107, 114,120--130 Socid constructionism, 6, 10,3548, 184frm1-2) f,

Social control, 4,8,4, 1X , 31-34,44, 45,49,5 L-53,60, 61,62,65, If 1, 122, 123, 130, 133, 145, 156, 163, 111,113-1 76,185(n34), 197(nl24) Social Democratic parties, 145 Social Gospel, 60,62 Social Hygiene Movement, 5,18,22, 28-3 1,40,92 Socialist Party, 22,169 Socidist societies mci temperance, 49, 56,186(In40) Socidist heories, f 49-1 50. See ailfs unism, Marfist parties Social movr?ment,temperance as, 4,6, 9,31-34,49,59--64,108,126,X31, 134,140-.161,178(n12) Socid norms, 2,6, 10, 13-14, 17, f 13, 31,33,$4-48,49-53,52,60--65, 103-1 15,121-1 27, f 30-134,138, 145,167,171,172 Socid PuriQ Movement, 5,18,22, 23,24-28,40,62-63,84,89,92, 108,140, 142,143,154, 155, 181(n29) Social Settlement Movement, 22 Socid unrest, periods 06 1l, l8,33,53, 60, 107, 109, 113, 122, 137, 145, 167-1 73, f 97(n124j Sodomy laws, 16,40,144 Sombart, W., 50 Sontag, S,, 89, 196(n114),209(n77) ""Southern Stratem," 141 Soviet Union, 145, 186(n40) Speech codes, campus, 63,126 Stdin, J., 145 Stdking taws, 146, 156 Stmton, E. C., 24 Stark, I?, 15 Status makers m d cues, 6, 10, 15, 32-33,50-51,54,61,65,94,99, 103-1 34, 1"/8(n15), 183Cn682, 198(n7) Strawberry, D,, 89 Stress and c~ass,88, 126, 131- L32 and drugs, 78

and smoking, 118,81,83, 192(n45) Substance substimtion, 7 1, 83 Substance use. See partkular

substance Sullivan, L,, 80 Sunday, Rev, B., 21 Surgeon GenenlIkeport {on smoking), 19,8l, 98 "'Syphilophobiiilf'29,90 Szasz, T,, 44 Teen pregnancy; 3,4, 7, 15, 38, 54, 57, 8&89,96,99-100, 106-107, f 14, 129, 131, 142, 164, 194(nn77,885), 199fn24),202(n52) and Mrican-Americans, 8689,129, 132 m d correlation& data, 85-89 and gangs, 85,86-87 m d longitudinal studies, 88-89 and poverv, 8589, 129,130,131, 194fn77),202(n23) and school dropouts, 85,8&-89 Teen sexudiq, 1, 3,5,6,7, 18,26, 84-89,99-100,10&707,131,132, 163,164-1 65, 7 84(n85) Tele~sion,53, 56, 60, 72,96,98, 114, 146,148,150 m d violence, 1, 4, 7,7I, 116, 121, 151,163 Temperance Movement (ag&nst alcohol), 5-45, 11, 15, 17-22, 23, 25,27,31-34,40,42,50-51,53, 60,62, 64,68, '73, 101, 108, 131, 143,149,155,167, 178(nn 13,151, 180fnn12,141, 181(nn24,271, 183(n682,23 Q(n80) Teppermm, I., 138 Thatcher, M., 168 Thomas, C., 62,63, 126 Tigez; L., 161, 162 Time (magazine),89-90 Tobacco industy, 6,59,64,14&151, 163,165 Travelersxd Socieq) 28 Trebach, A,, 173

Tucker, C., 8'7 Twelve-step groups, Sec?Self-help groups "Qpification," 39,42,72 "Underclass," 6, 10,32,811,115,117, 127,128,129,162 Unemploment, 88, 1X 6,125-1 263,132, 201(n41),203Cn52f Universalization sf problems, 6,522, TO, 71,135-86,92,109-f f 0,114, 202Cn52) "Upscale" versus ""dwnscde" maker, 119,121 Utah, 21 '6v-chips,'s3 Venereal diseases, 5,24,28-31,54,65, BQ,183(nn55,64f. See abs Sexudfy transmitted diseases Vice and Vigilance Societies, 5, 18, 22-24,25,18 1(n29) Vie f nam war veteras, 78 Viguerie, R., 140,141, 142 Viscusi, W K., 8 1 Voltaire, 40 Voting. Scre Electoral demographics, Socid class Waddixzgon, I? A, j,, 48 "Wages for Hausework," M, 152 Wallace, G., 1I4,141 War on Drugs. See Drugs War on Boverly, 130 Watney; S*,41 an,H., 80 Webb, S. and B., 22, 145 Weber, M., 50,51,54,113 Weeks, I., 158,159,162,1881n59) Welfme benefits, 3,32,88, 130, 152, 161-162

'dqpedencqf;" 88,120,129 m d teen pxents, 84,138 Wellness, employee programs, 122 Westmorelmd, Gen*W., 9 Weyrich, P, 141,142 m i t e Cross Movement, 25,40 ""Wlniteflight," "7-128 "White Slavesy,'", 24,25,2&2"130, 62 WiXXard, E, 22,28,182(n45) Wglis, E., 151, 152, 155, 1'71, 189(n71) Wilson, l,, 125, 128 Winfrey) Q., 46 Vt'obblies (X.Ww), 20, 169 MrQrnenAe;ainst Pornography (WAP), 154, 156,182(n36f MrQrnenand temperance, 23,31, 101, 125-126,143, 180(n12),f 133(n68), 190(n8>,204 Cn2) Women's Christian Temperance Union {WCTU), 18, 20,22,24, 28, 182(n45) Vt'omen"s~fovernent (second wave), 11, 14, 16,23,24,44, 106, 113,115, 126,135,136,13"7 1138-139,140, 141,143,144,146,147,153-157, l58,159,162,1'73,182(n36), 185(n34f,189(n41),207-208(nn 52,64) Mrarnen's Suffrage Movement (first wave), f 8,22,24,25,33, 182[n45) Vt'oodstock, 168 Work ethic, 1.1, 13,14,50, f f 3, f f 6, 161 Mrarking Girl [film), 124-1 25 Vt'orfd W a X, 21,30, 169, 183Cn64) MrQrXdwars, 65, 111, 1$ 8 11~6) Yixlger and Cutler, 142 YMCA, 22,4O, 182(n45f Vurick, S., 172

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