Aliens in Their Own Land
Newman, William J.
Political poll-takers have asked the American people many questions in their years of investigation, but seldom have they tried to find out what the American people think about politics in its...
...the voters reacted to him simply and directly by saying they didn't like his voice, that there was something about his eyes, that they didn't like his tough ugly looks, or the fact that he was fat, that he looked crooked, that he looked "icky," etc...
...What does it signify to discover the opinion of a citizen on issue X or politician Y if the citizen's general view of politics is that neither issues nor politicians matter since they are crooked, useless, and and a lot...
...More important, he is, so to speak, actively alienated because he k-nows he is alien and is sore about it...
...Do they believe that politicians are honest or dishonest...
...Is alienation typical of state and national elections...
...As aliens in their own land —is it their own land?—they simply have no basis for rational judgment except for one rational judgment— that the pols...
...Professor Levin also poses a devastating question for the liberal concept of government and democracy, the idea, it should be recalled, that men act rationally in making political decisions...
...His slogan was, "End Power Politics...
...of other unprintable things...
...The "citizen" may not be an immigrant but he is an alien, literally alien, because he is, or thinks he is, divorced from the political life of the city...
...the electorate's view of the candidate's personality was the main determinant, and the most significant factor in deciding how people would judge personality was their vision of Boston as run by the pols., for the pols., and their desire to strike back at an outstanding representative of the pols...
...SUCH Is BOSTON politics...
...Is what is true of Boston true of other cities...
...They do not because, as this book shows, dwellers of Boston are people who are out-of-touch with those who rule them...
...He was, even down to his name, a perfect target...
...Therefore, the liberal vision of a citizenry thinking about political problems is replaced by the ugly reality—and it is ugly, just as ugly as the city it comes from—of aliens reacting blindly and furiously and instinctively against those who have had them...
...These questions are significant just because they are simple, because they reflect the way people think or react to politics and because it is from such fundamental reactions that their specific attitudes emerge...
...It turns out that the citizens of Boston—admittedly a discouraged and tired lot—are not only convinced that politicians are crooked but that politics is totally hopeless...
...But like any good book, The Alienated Voter raises more questions than it settles...
...Thus to the question of what did you like least about Powers...
...Do they in Boston...
...Political poll-takers have asked the American people many questions in their years of investigation, but seldom have they tried to find out what the American people think about politics in its everyday form...
...THE MATERIAL in this book demonstrating the thesis of alienation is fascinating as illustrative of the verbal graffiti of city life...
...the answers ranged from a belief that he was tied-up with unsavory elements, a disapproval of his association with too many important people, a dislike of his campaign because it was too big, to a general but undefined antagonism towards his personality...
...It demonstrates concretely and soberly that politics for those who live in cities is what is done to them...
...It leads nowhere except back to alienation...
...Do they believe that today's politics is good or bad...
...Levin's The Alienated Voter is an important book which transcends the narrow confines of its subject...
...Collins, not as naive as he looked, zeroed in...
...These strangers react to politics simply...
...More important were the instinctive responses to Powers...
...Therefore he actively fears and scorns politicians and politics...
...he looked like a politician, he had all the powers that be on his side and he spent a great deal of money...
...But the analysis of the attitudes of the voters to the election showed that they were not voting for Collins, but against Powers and all that he represented...
...are what everyone knows they are...
...In short, issues, as Levin shows, were of small importance...
...The vote was a simple expression of the desire of the electorate to get even with the "pols...
...But it is not just that he has no sense of participation...
...Professor Murray Levin's The Alienated Voter studies the reactions of Boston voters to the mayoralty campaign of 1959 and the results are shocking and even lurid...
...Is alienation the result of the facts of American politics today or a condition of man in a mass society, regardless of the state of politics...
...Simply put, the voters were voting their disgust with politicians...
...The result is alienation on a colossal scale...
...Their main aim, given their assumption that politics is dirty, is to avoid being gypped...
...Do they believe that it works and that it is useful...
...The truth may be unpalatable, but one political scientist has now taken his IBM cards in hand and shuffled them to ask such questions...
...Professor Levin indicates that it is...
...Powers was an important politician...
...In the 1959 mayoralty campaign Senator John Powers was assumed to be the victor before the election and yet was roundly defeated by a relative unknown, John F. Collins...
...But, and this is the most astounding and important fact of all, even fewer of those who voted for Collins thought he would be a better mayor than those who voted for Powers...
...But the trouble with that rational judgment is that it is a dead end judgment...
Vol. 8 • April 1961 • No. 2
