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This chapter examines how modernity created the bigot and how he tries to re-create the normality of prejudice. It argues that the institutions and beliefs that the bigot holds dear are opposed to modernity, whose origins date back to the European Enlightenment and the democratic revolutions lasting from 1688 to 1789. Modernity's new capitalist production process substitutes exploitation for the bigot's hatred. In addition, modernity's fostering of pluralism and individualism hurts the bigot's sensibility. The bigot deals with modernity as best he can, yet has never felt entirely comfortable in using science to support his prejudices. He is uncertain what to make of capitalism; the logic of capitalist accumulation baffles him. He endorses inequality and the idea of competition, but only when he is on top or, better, believes he is on top. This chapter also reflects on the character of the bigot in relation to the Other and his own identity.

This chapter examines how the bigot manipulates myths and mythological thinking to serve his material and existential purposes. It argues that myths appeal to the bigot because he can easily adapt them to his self-serving outlook, that he employs stereotypes and double standards to justify his actions, that he resorts to conspiracy fetishism as a substitute for analysis, and that he is always susceptible to fanaticism. It also explains how the bigot's conspiracy fetishism is fueled by paranoia and projection, allowing him to feel justified in doing himself what he believes that the target of his hatred is doing. Finally, the chapter describes how mythological thinking builds the scapegoat into the bigot's conceptual apparatus from the start, this scapegoat being a construct of his prejudice.

This chapter examines the roles played by the bigot as a righteous true believer, an insufferable elitist, and a resentful chauvinist. It explains how each role offers the bigot the comforts of conformity and an illusory sense of singularity, and argues that the particular rationality he chooses is intertwined with the particular role he plays. It also claims that all the roles played by the bigot buttress an “affirmative culture” supposedly superior to any other, giving him an entirely self-referential way of living in the world. The bigot employs homogenous stereotypes for making sense of both himself and the Other, but is naive when it comes to the myths that empower his prejudice. His roles turn him from a “nobody” into a “somebody.” The roles played by the bigot are not reducible to his bigotry, and each offers him a refuge from pluralism and the demands for democracy and social justice raised by the subaltern.

This chapter argues that the bigot today is defined by the practice of prejudice. It explains how the bigot's roles as a true believer, an insufferable elitist, and a resentful chauvinist provide him with legitimacy as he practices his craft today; how he camouflages his intentions in order to function in a global society that is becoming more and more complex; and how the culture industry, consumerism, and radical individualism both fascinate and unnerve him. It also considers the tools employed by the bigot to challenge critical narratives about the imperialist, racist, and exploitative elements of American history; the bigot's attitudes toward politics, particularly when it comes to conservatism; and how the Tea Party channeled the bigot's prejudices through its own deeply reactionary forms of moral cognition predicated on the use of traditional myths, stereotypes, and double standards. The chapter concludes by outlining ways to confront the bigot today and to contest bigotry without spawning new forms of it.

This book offers a phenomenological perspective on the bigot, whom it describes as someone whose prejudices tend to intersect in their ideological and political expressions. It explains why prejudice appeals to the bigot, how he chooses his targets, and what impulses are common to his worldview. As a prisoner of his prejudices, the book argues that the bigot validates himself by resorting to myths, stereotypes, and double standards. It examines the bigot's way of thinking about the world, the roles that he plays, and his political ambitions. To understand how bigotry works, the book combines the existential, psychological, sociological, and political elements that shape what Jean-Paul Sartre calls “the etiology of hatred”.

This book contextualizes the declaration “anything but country” and challenges both the conventional wisdom that renders the provincial white working class America's perpetual bigot class and the presentism—the static framing and historical forgetting—on which it depends. I examine working-class cultural repertoires, with particular focus on gender and sexuality, from a dual perspective drawing on Bourdieusian empirical research and on historical and critical analysis of American country music. Through these inquiries, I historicize the contemporary construction of the white working class as severe and intolerant in realms of gender and sexuality. I argue that the working-class homophobe is a construct with a specific history, and I chart its rise from the 1970s to the present.

Chapter 1, “Anything but Country” (along with parts of chapter 2), examines the dynamics of the dislike of country music and the prevalence, since about 1970, of representations of both country music and the white working class in terms of political conservatism and racial and sexual bigotry. The chapter analyzes several commonplace, contemporary cultural representations of a monolithic white working class driven by bigotry. These representations often use country music as proxy for the working-class bigot. I also highlight the professional middle class's role as the narrating class in America's knowledge economy, interpreting and narrating all levels of American life—including working-class existence—in academic, media, and other channels.

This chapter describes Esther Wheelwright’s stay in Québec, North America’s most impressively fortified city, which was surrounded by enormous earthworks and enclosed by thick stone walls and gates. There, Esther was accompanied by Father Jacques Bigot who helped her enroll in an Ursuline school. Due to Esther’s Euro-American origin Father Jacques brought her to the Château Saint-Louis to live with the governor and his family rather than transferring her immediately to the Ursuline convent. Her new Canadian hosts quickly shed Esther’ of her Wabanaki identity, and described her in contemporary documents as purely Anglaise (English). This distinction would make all the difference in her life among the Ursulines.

This chapter examines two significant stages in the scientific study of prejudice and intergroup relations as a resource for understanding bigotry. It illustrates the first, the post–World War II period, with Gordon W. Allport’s foundational The Nature of Prejudice (1954). The chapter explores the tension in Allport’s work between viewing the bigot as a distinct personality type and viewing prejudice and stereotypes as the outgrowth of ordinary cognitive processes. It analyzes other relevant features of Allport: the social contact hypothesis; the argument that “stateways” (antidiscrimination law) could change “folkways” by enlisting conscience to fight prejudice; and religion’s role in fostering but also condemning bigotry. The chapter explains how social scientists measured prejudice through people’s attitudes toward intermarriage. The second stage the chapter evaluates is study of implicit (or hidden) bias and unconscious cognition (“the bigot in your brain”). Such study maintains that people can recognize and fight those biases.