Hochschild’s research focus is less on what actually happened to the people she meets than their deep stories: their “narrative[s] as felt,” or the story that they believe to be true about themselves and their society. She believes that learning this deep story can help explain the Great Paradox and the increasing disconnect between the American left and right. Working with deep stories allows people to build empathy by imagining the world from others’ perspectives, and Hochschild offers the image of waiting in line for the American Dream as her Tea Party acquaintances’ deep story.
Deep Story Quotes in Strangers in Their Own Land
The Strangers in Their Own Land quotes below are all either spoken by Deep Story or refer to Deep Story. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Preface
Quotes
As a sociologist I had a keen interest in how life feels to people on the right—that is, in the emotion that underlies politics. To understand their emotions, I had to imagine myself into their shoes. Trying this, I came upon their “deep story,” a narrative as felt.
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Chapter 9
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You are a stranger in your own land. You do not recognize yourself in how others see you. It is a struggle to feel seen and honored. And to feel honored you have to feel—and feel seen as—moving forward. But through no fault of your own, and in ways that are hidden, you are moving backward.
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Chapter 11
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Jackie's lesson ran counter to the deep story; one shouldn't wish too much for what seems like the next step toward the American Dream. That was grabbing. On the other hand, she had struggled hard emotionally not to grab for it.
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Chapter 13
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The “federal government” filled a mental space in Mike's mind—and the minds of all those on the right I came to know—associated with a financial sinkhole.
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Deep Story Term Timeline in Strangers in Their Own Land
The timeline below shows where the term Deep Story appears in Strangers in Their Own Land. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4 – The Candidates
Hochschild feels that she is “backing into the deep story ” by noticing what that story excludes. She is clearly not yet “over the empathy...
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Chapter 8 – The Pulpit and the Press: “The Topic Doesn’t Come Up”
...people like the sick child; she suggests that she has begun “backing into” the woman’s deep story .
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...Louisianans hate the whole federal government, Hochschild argues that she has to delve into people’s deep stories .
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Chapter 9 – The Deep Story
Behind the stories she is hearing, Hochschild sees a deep story . A deep story is a “feels-as-if story” rather than a story about facts or...
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Hochschild likens this deep story to waiting in line for the American Dream that lies just over a hill on...
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Hochschild sees this deep story as a “response to a real squeeze,” namely the tension between the ideal of progress...
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Gender also plays a key role in the Tea Party’s deep story —every woman Hochschild interviewed had needed to work at some point in their lives, but...
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...government—even Lee Sherman still holds stock in PPG. Finally, Hochschild wonders what kind of “ deep story self” sustains the Tea Party’s “extraordinary determination” to fight the government on the market’s behalf.
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Chapter 10 – The Team Player: Loyalty Above All
Hochschild notices “how the deep story makes sense” for Janice, as someone who has “made it out of the structural squeeze”...
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Chapter 14 – The Fires of History: The 1860s and the 1960s
...unique threads in the Tea Party’s political program as a distinct response to the conservative deep story and argues that understanding them requires examining the South in the 1860s and the 1960s....
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...would have made them seem chauvinistic. But they felt they had “lived through one long deep story of being shoved back in line,” even as their economic opportunities dwindle. They “were beginning...
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The core of this newfound honor “was pride in the self of the deep story ,” the self that had made enormous sacrifices to survive and care for large Southern...
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Chapter 15 – Strangers No Longer: The Power of Promise
...marginalized, and they suffered a “demographic decline” relative to the rest of the country. The deep story also set the stage for Trump’s rising popularity: Louisiana conservatives felt like “a besieged minority,”...
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...liberal feeling rules that so frustrated his supporters. Ultimately, far-right conservatives felt both that “the deep story was true” and that liberals denied the deep story, telling them that their resentment was...
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Chapter 16 – “They Say There Are Beautiful Trees”
...lives, in part through its sovereign wealth fund. She explains that progressives “have their own deep story , one parallel to yours, one they feel you may misunderstand.” Liberals are “fiercely proud”...
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Afterword to the Paperback Edition
...“felt the book was a fair portrait” and particularly agreed with her picture of the deep story . Others outlined “postelection impasses with loved ones” and felt estranged from their former families...
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...up self-segregating by income. This class status, Hochschild argues, blocks them from understanding Southern whites’ deep story . She concludes that class “loom[s] large” over political polarization in America today.
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Hochschild asks why, according to her interviewees’ deep story , the line for the American Dream has “stalled or moved back.” Whereas Louisianans who...
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