Exploring the limits and boundaries between cultural practices and political values in contemporary Finland

ABSTRACT

Cultural practices are indisputably socially stratified. At the same time, they are also connected to political values. Existing research has indicated that these two are linked, often pointing to the direction of a negative relation between more conservative attitudes and cultural capital. The aim of this paper is to examine how political values and cultural practices are intertwined in our era of ‘new politics’, in which cultural and social values have an increasing importance. Our paper disentangles this question in the light of qualitative interview data. Our empirical context is Finland, which has been found to have largely similar cultural and political differentiation than other Western societies. Our analysis identifies four different articulations showing how the cultural and the political intertwine.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural practices
• cultural stratification
• lifestyles
• political values
• symbolic boundaries
• morality

1. Introduction

This article explores the highly debated intertwining between cultural practices and politics using qualitative evidence from Finland. The study addresses a key discussion in the field of cultural sociology: the increasing importance of expanding the study of lifestyle differences and cultural practices to include moral, ethical and political values and attitudes.

According to the traditional Bourdieusian image of cultural stratification, highbrow cultural practices correlate with high status and, eventually, power (Bennett et al., 2009; Bourdieu, 1984; DiMaggio & Useem, 1978). This theory has been contested almost since its very beginning, with the most important and well-established critiques arguing that eclectic and tolerant cultural practices have become new emblems of good taste and status (Peterson & Kern, 1996), that national contexts play a key role in shaping cultural stratification (Katz-Gerro, 2002) and that socio-economic and moral boundaries may be much more important than cultural ones (Lamont, 1992).

Although politics, political values and attitudes are increasingly being studied side by side with cultural practices (Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008; Chan, 2019; DellaPosta et al., 2015; Purhonen & Heikkilä, 2017; Sivonen & Purhonen, 2021), there is still a striking lack of research on the exact details of the relationship between cultural practices and political values. By cultural practices, we here refer to the Bourdieusian tripartition of cultural taste, knowledge and participation, and by political values, we refer to party preferences and the larger values associated to politics. In this article, we contribute to this lack by asking, based on qualitative evidence from Finland, the following question: How do political values intertwine with cultural practices in articulations on lifestyles?

To answer this question, we rely on Michele Lamont’s influential work on symbolic boundaries. Symbolic boundaries are conceptual lines for categorising and demarcating different social groups (Lamont, 1992, 2000; Lamont & Molnár, 2002). Lamont (1992) differentiated between three types of symbolic boundaries: cultural (based on education, manners, and cultural practices), socio-economic (based on wealth and professional success) and moral (based on honesty, solidarity, consideration for others and so on). While Lamont argued that each type of symbolic boundary could work as a status symbol of its own, subsequent scholars have criticised this idea of boundaries as a ‘zero sum game’ and suggested that boundaries are often entangled (Jarness, 2017). From the point of view of this paper, the interesting argument is that moral boundaries would have a special role in being not only entangled with cultural and socio-economic boundaries, but that they could also reinforce them (Jarness, 2017; Vassenden & Jonvik, 2021). Lamont argues that boundaries are used to distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to include or exclude certain groups, cultural objects, practices, lifestyles and people (Lamont & Molnár, 2002, p. 168; Mijs et al., 2016) – we argue that moral boundaries, as ‘distinctions that people draw between more and less worthy individuals’ (Lamont et al., 1996, p. 32) come very close to political values. Studying boundaries and their intertwinedness with politics is particularly important now that sociocultural issues are gaining significance in political debate with the rise of right-wing populism in Western nations.

This article is organised as follows: First, we present a brief review of the relevant sociological research. Then, we introduce our interview data and analytical strategy. Third, in the Results section, we use our interview data to analyse the intertwinedness of the political and the cultural. Finally, our main findings are discussed in the last section.

2. Cultural practices and political values

Cultural practices are socially stratified (Bourdieu, 1984): they are homologous with social hierarchies, which is why they always signal power. Cultural practices operate through the ‘socially innocent language of likes and dislikes’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 239) to create symbolic differentiation that separates ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ cultural practices. Bourdieu argued that the cultural practices of the ruling classes are legitimate, which means that highbrow culture – such as going to the opera or ballet, listening to classical music or reading books – is automatically legitimate. Bourdieu assumed that different social classes have varying amounts of resources, which he conceptualised as economic, cultural and social capital (Bourdieu, 1986). He held that the various capitals are interchangeable: economic capital can be converted into cultural capital by, for instance, purchasing a ticket to the opera; cultural capital can be converted into social capital by knowing how to talk or to behave in certain situations; and social capital can be converted into economic capital by being able to navigate the labour market (see Reeves & de Vries, 2019).

Recently, researchers have attempted to expand the study of culture and cultural practices by incorporating other areas of lifestyle into the study of cultural stratification. The political realm is a good example of this trend (Purhonen & Heikkilä, 2017), as scholars have argued that political divisions are radically intruding into other areas of life, including taste and cultural practices (Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008; DellaPosta, 2020; DellaPosta et al., 2015). Daniel DellaPosta has argued that while there is no consensus of how polarisation should be measured, it could be understood as ‘an oil spill that spreads from its source to gradually taint more and more previously “apolitical” attitudes, opinions, and preferences’ (DellaPosta, 2020, p. 508). Therefore, it can be argued that a wide range of consumer habits, from mundane practices to bigger lifestyle choices, is becoming increasingly politised. In this vein, the sociology of culture has increasingly started looking at morality (closely related to political attitudes), recognised as a crucial element for understanding cultural stratification and lifestyle differentiation (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Lamont, 1992, 2000).

The oil spill argument is closely connected to the claim that we are witnessing a drift from traditional affiliation-oriented party politics (Weber, 1946), mainly based on redistribution and class voting, towards ‘new politics’ (Flanagan & Lee, 2003; Harrits et al., 2010), where post-material values increase in significance, and lifestyle differences are contested in politics (Giddens, 1991). While the definitions for concepts of ‘old’ and ‘new’ politics have been defined in many ways, the main divide in ‘old’ politics is the economic left-right dimension, and in the ‘new’ politics the socio-cultural dimension. One effort to capture ‘new politics’ has involved paying more attention to the so-called GAL/TAN dimension (green/alternative/libertarian, traditional/authoritarian/nationalist), originally coined by Hooghe et al. (2002), and often used to illustrate people’s sociocultural political orientations to supplement the traditional, more socioeconomical left–right scale. In this article, we understand ‘new politics’ as ‘a changing political agenda, pointing out how contested issues relate less to economic interests of different classes and more to value differences or differences in lifestyles’ (Harrits et al., 2010, p. 2). Leaning on Harrits et al. (2010), by ‘old left’ we refer to left-wing views on economic and redistribution issues such as support for economic equality or workers’ rights, and by ‘old right’ to right-wing views on economic and redistribution issues, such as individual freedom and limited state intervention, while the ‘new left’ includes leftist value views, for example egalitarian views on globalisation and gender roles, and the ‘new right’ more right-wing value views, such as nationalism and authoritarianism. In general, Western politics are said to be undergoing a ‘socio-cultural turn’, whereby different socio-cultural issues, such as climate change, minority rights, racism and immigration, are gaining importance in politics, and becoming equally important to socioeconomic matters and redistribution (Borg et al., 2020). This tendency is also related to ‘identity politics’, a process through which different identity-based groups (e.g. ethnic, religious and gender) strive for visibility, calling for recognition in politics and public debate.

At the same time, the concept of ‘class identity’ is claimed to be fading away, even though lifestyles, identities and values are clearly ‘classed’ and linked to social status (Bennett et al., 2009; De Keere, 2018; Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Savage et al., 2015; Skeggs, 1997). In fact, it seems that the ‘new politics’ are just as class based as the ‘old politics’, which makes Bourdieusian analysis of the volume and composition of capitals relevant to ‘new politics’ (Harrits et al., 2010). Previous research has identified a strong link between social and political differentiation, also related to class (Cvetičanin & Popescu, 2011; Flemmen & Haakestad, 2018; Jarness et al., 2019). The typical direction is that liberal political attitudes are connected to active cultural participation and high cultural capital, whereas conservative attitudes point to lower cultural capital. Liberal and conservative attitudes have been measured for instance as stands towards sexual minorities, gender roles or immigration, liberal attitudes being more positive or tolerant towards these. Cultural capital, or the lack of it, has also been linked to ‘unnatural’ voting behaviour: contrary to their interests, working classes with little cultural capital and conservative attitudes are likelier to vote for right-wing parties, while those with more cultural capital and progressive values tend to vote for left-leaning parties (Achterberg & Houtman, 2006).

Previous research has shown, for instance, that American art museum visitors are more liberal than non-visitors (DiMaggio, 1996), that cultural omnivores tend to be less conservative in their social and political attitudes than those with narrower cultural practices (Chan, 2019), that a preference for realistic art (in contrast to abstract art) predict support for Brexit in the UK and that the effect of this preference is comparable to that of education (Carl et al., 2019), that people who identify as economically underprivileged also feel a cultural distance towards dominant groups in society (Gidron & Hall, 2017), that socio-political views are linked to visual arts appreciation, as people with more liberal values exhibit more modern, abstract taste in art (van Eijck, 2012), and that in post-socialist societies, in which social capital plays a crucial role as a special form of ‘political social capital’, those with the highest amount of economic, cultural and social capitals are more liberal than others (Cvetičanin & Popescu, 2011). In addition, the practice of ‘political consumerism’ (Stolle & Micheletti, 2013), whereby consumption is used to express political opinions, is more common among those who identify as belonging to the left on a left–right scale (Copeland & Boulianne, 2022).

These connections between culture, political attitudes and values have also been studied in societies more comparable to our case. For example, in Norway, moral boundaries were evident in lower-class interviewees’ talk; when boundaries were drawn downwards, they were more compatible with right-wing populist views than with socio-democratic views (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019). Interviews conducted in a Norwegian elite upper-secondary school showed that students with rich cultural capital had a distinctive taste regarding, for instance, fashion, which highlighted the moral-political aspects of dressing (Pedersen et al., 2018). In Finland, cultural practices and political values have also been studied together, with conservative political attitudes being linked to a taste for a heavy, meat-based diet and a dislike of highbrow musical genres (Purhonen & Heikkilä, 2017) as well as lower cultural participation compared to those with more liberal attitudes (Sivonen & Purhonen, 2021). In conclusion, the relationship between cultural capital and political attitudes is similar across various empirical studies: cultural capital seems to be primarily linked to liberal political attitudes, while conservative attitudes entail the lowest amounts of cultural capital.

Recent decades have witnessed ample debates about the possibility that faced with downward mobility and cultural stigmatisation, people low on the social ladder could use moral boundaries as an alternative currency in situations of low economic and cultural resources (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Lamont, 2000). Lamont (2018, p. 424) stated that ‘neoliberal scripts feed growing recognition gaps’; in our current neoliberal society, particularly the lower classes and other vulnerable groups perceive themselves as incapable of fulfilling the ideals of self-management and self-reliance. Thus, for the lower classes, moral boundaries can be a way of gaining appreciation. Blended moral and aesthetic judgements can also be used to evaluate individuals’ cultural standing and self-worth, reproducing social inequalities, especially in contemporary meritocratic societies (Kuipers et al., 2019).

According to recent scholarship, moral boundaries increasingly include new kinds of ethical concerns that touch upon issues such as green or ethical consumption and consumerism. One example of this debate is the concept of ‘eco-habitus’, which is typically associated with high levels of cultural capital and is thus an important way of signalling high status and the ability to make ethical consumption choices (Carfagna et al., 2014; Kennedy et al., 2019). While especially ‘green’ consumption operates as a distinction marker and social status signal, it still might not be intentional but a result from a social position (Elliott, 2013). The ability to draw these kinds of ethical boundaries is also socially stratified: for instance, Kennedy and Horne (2020) found that in the US, reducing environmental impact was understood as morally significant more among liberals than conservatives and that only people with economical resources were interpreted as acting morally.

However, how political values and cultural practices are combined in peoples’ daily lives remains an open question. This article aims to provide empirical answers to this question by using a qualitative approach. We argue that a qualitative approach enables a close examination of the intertwining of cultural practices and political valuations. More specifically, although a quantitative approach reveals statistically significant associations, a qualitative approach allows for distinguishing subtle references, nuances, motivations and attitudes (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Thus, an individual-level qualitative approach can illuminate the connections between the cultural and the political in ways that are difficult or even impossible for quantitative macro-level approaches.

3. Data and methods

Our study consisted of 28 qualitative in-depth interviews. The interviewees had previously answered a nationally representative survey, Culture and Leisure in Finland 2018, and were asked whether they would be willing to participate in a follow-up interview. Interviewees were selected based on their answers to the survey, with the idea of including different age, gender, geographical location, educational level and socioeconomical status groups in the sample. All interviews were conducted between January 2019 and May 2020; most interviews were conducted in person, but several refusals and the COVID-19 pandemic led to 12 of the 28 interviews being conducted over the telephone. On average, the interviews lasted one hour each. The interviewees were asked broadly about their lifestyles and cultural practices, loosely following a survey template they had previously filled in. At the end of the interview, the participants were also asked about their civic activity, party preferences and the values they associated with the political party that they preferred. The interviewees’ names and other personal information are anonymised.

We used qualitative content analysis to investigate the relationship between cultural practices and political values, leaning on Michele Lamont’s influential work on symbolic boundaries (Lamont, 1992, 2000; Lamont & Molnár, 2002). Lamont (1992) identified three kinds of boundaries: cultural, socioeconomical and moral. Cultural boundaries are drawn based on things such as cultural tastes, participation and knowledge, education, cosmopolitanism and refinement. Socioeconomical boundaries are based on material goods, wealth, income, assets, occupational prestige, social status or power. Finally, moral boundaries involve moral character, suitable manners and perceptions of the qualities of a good person (Lamont, 1992). We agree with Jarness and Flemmen (2019, p. 8) that symbolic boundaries in interviewees’ speech are often far from clear or cannot be easily broken down into distinct categories or ‘pure boundaries’ – instead, boundaries are often blurry, intertwined and even inseparable.

In our analysis, each interview was first read as a whole to understand an interviewee’s cultural orientation (cultural practices as in cultural taste, knowledge and participation) and political orientation (political values and party preference). Then, we searched for and categorised the salient symbolic boundaries drawn by the interviewees. We identified cultural, socioeconomical and moral boundaries (keeping in mind the intertwinedness of different boundaries) and considered their directions. Our aim was to identify articulations in which political values overlapped with cultural practices. Finally, the interviews were thematically grouped according to similar ways of speaking about cultural practices and political valuations.

In previous qualitative studies examining symbolic boundaries, the interviews have often been collected from specific social groups, such as white upper-middle-class males (Lamont, 1992), the working class (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019) or the middle classes (Jarness, 2017). In our case, the interviewees were selected from a pool of respondents based on a nationally representative survey, with the idea of covering as many different social profiles with various cultural and political resources as possible.

4. The intertwining of culture and politics

As explained earlier, the interviewees’ political orientation was roughly assessed based on their descriptions of the values they attributed to their preferred political parties. Using the interview data, we identified the following distinction patterns: support for the economic left (old left) versus the economic right (old right) and support for liberal and progressive values (new left) versus conservative and authoritarian values (new right). Predictably, people associated voting for economically leftist parties with values such as social equality, environmental matters and ‘being on the side of the weaker’, whereas economically right-leaning parties were associated with the values of economic independence, freedom, individualism and entrepreneurship.

The interviewees had very different life situations, living in different areas and possessing varying resources, so it is only natural that their lifestyles and political attitudes were also divergent. In the interviews, the main articulations combining people’s cultural practices and political valuations were the following: (1) ‘highbrow left’, (2) ‘highbrow right’ (both associated with the middle/upper-middle classes), (3) ‘narrow right (associated with the lower-middle/popular classes)’ and (4) ‘morality as the vehicle for cultural practices’ (less associated with a particular class than the other articulations). We will now examine these combinations in detail.

4.1. Highbrow left

The first articulation involved the classical combination of liberally inclined political ideologies and a belief in the supremacy of highbrow culture mixed with openness and tolerance – in short, a combination of highbrow culture and political attitudes from both new and old left, thus combining ideas about both economic and identity-related equality. A good example of this articulation comes from Matti, a 70-something-year-old man who used to be a manual worker in the cultural sector and who has several artist friends. His wooden house, located in an area known for its bohemian lifestyle, is full of poetry books and paintings by celebrated Finnish artists. He is a fervent voter of the traditional left, and while he mentions not being rich, he clearly knows his place in both cultural and political terms, saying, ‘I am extremely happy with these living standards and this life in general, but it definitely stays in the middle layer because, higher from that, it’s entirely different people, entirely different thoughts.’

Another pertinent example of this articulation is Kaarina, a woman in her 70s with little economical capital, vast cultural capital and a palette of traditional highbrow tastes and practices. Kaarina, who has a university degree and is retired from a career in the cultural field, is extremely active in highbrow culture, such as going to the theatre and opera and reading classical literature; she even refuses to invite the interviewer to her home because it is so full of books and prefers to meet at a public library, where she is preparing for the local poetry association’s meeting. Kaarina emphasises the general value of highbrow culture, associating herself with it: ‘I am like, where are all our European movies? We sat in the cinema archive our whole youth after coming to study in Helsinki and saw all the classics.’

In addition to simply contemplating highbrow culture, the first articulation draws strong downward boundaries to groups perceived as politically and/or socioeconomically different. For instance, Kaarina herself openly draws downward boundaries towards commercial culture (‘only money money money. That’s why. Everything cannot be bought with money. That’s how it is’) and conservative and populist politics (‘I cannot understand this thing with the True Finns and these populists and this anti-immigration’). Furthermore, she emphasises the values of education and refinement (‘I have always appreciated the mastery of literature’). In similar tones, Sauli, a university researcher in his forties, explicitly links ‘lowbrow’ cultural taste and the populist party True Finns but at the same time dissociates himself from such boundary-drawing in a reflective way:

Think of the True Finns and their values and taste … It makes you think. You easily think their taste would represent something lower. (…) I would like not to fall into doing that because it’s annoying. That’s how you build your bubble. (Sauli, 40+ male)

In this spirit, the first articulation emphasises tolerance and the significance of learning. A good example is Olavi, a highly educated fifty-something man working in a managerial position and living in a spacious seaside flat. Olavi values the importance of knowing other cultures and languages, so much so that he wanted his children ‘to know a different culture’, so the whole family extensively travelled to two different European countries and learned their languages. Later, Olavi bought a summer cottage and a flat in one of them. He explained this choice to the interviewer as follows:

Maybe I have this kind of education and lifestyle and environment, maybe more like bourgeois, middle-class, kind of culturally liberal … . (Olavi, 50+ male)

The first articulation was most common among interviewees from the middle and upper-middle classes, particularly those with high cultural capital. These participants often matched the profile that Bourdieu defined as the ‘dominated fraction of the dominant class’ (Bourdieu, 1984) – professionals close to education, culture and the media. Moreover, this articulation involved a combination of a highbrow cultural orientation and tolerant political values. The interviewees who had adopted this articulation exhibited an ‘aesthetic disposition’ emphasising high culture and openness, which helped them relate to culture in a ‘disinterested’ and seemingly natural way (Bourdieu, 1984). In this articulation, political values underscored openness and civility, and downward boundaries, both cultural and moral, were drawn towards phenomena such as the populist True Finns, considered vulgar and intolerant, and dubious, undeserved economic success, or ‘easy money’.

4.2. Highbrow right

The second articulation was a combination of both highbrow and popular cultural practices and ideologies of liberal conservatism with an emphasis on the economic, or instrumental, value of culture – in sum, attitudes pointing to the ‘old right’. A good example of this articulation comes from Kristiina, a well-off middle-aged woman who works in a high professional position. Due to her partner’s work, which took the family to different expatriate locations over several years, Kristiina has spent long periods of time abroad; this cosmopolitanism was visible, for instance, in her home decoration (‘we dragged some of it along with us from Central Europe’) and food preferences (traditional Finnish food with a ‘spicy twist’, couscous and smoothies). She belongs to a group of ladies who regularly visit the theatre together. Regarding politics, Kristiina ferociously defends economically liberal values (‘if someone is more hard-working than the other … He deserves it. He does not have to pay 55% of taxes for that. (…) We should let people succeed, and if they succeed, they should not be punished for it.’) and connects them directly to her cultural tastes – for instance, praising the highly commercially successful rap artist Cheek:

Yeah, he [Cheek] is not very much liked because I think a certain kind of bragging does not belong to Finnish culture. Driving an expensive car and so forth. Dressing in a way in which you see the brand in the shirt, well, that’s not considered a good thing. But I consider incredibly brave a person who is courageous enough to do that kind of thing in this society, or in the cultural circles. Yes, that’s it. I think it’s a good thing. (Kristiina, 50+ female)

Another stellar example of the second articulation is Kyllikki, a pensioner in her 60s with plenty of cultural goodwill: she takes her grandchildren to classical music concerts (‘you have to transfer them some of this enthusiasm for classical music’), visits highly highbrow art exhibitions and has been going to the Savonlinna opera festival for over 20 years in a row. She is an active member of her religious community and does charity work, such as helping immigrants. Her idea of ‘good taste’ is based on bildung and respect (‘this kind of basic civilisation, I don’t like for instance rude language (…) I like civilised use of language, I like respect for others’). At the same time, her political ideology echoes that of Kristiina’s: she is a fervent believer in entrepreneurship and does not adhere to the leftist values of ‘just giving, only giving to people, you got to have something in exchange for all that giving’.

Another example of a wide cultural orientation combined with an economic focus and conservatism comes from Jan, a busy sports enthusiast in his 50s working in a managerial position in the financial sector and living in a wealthy neighbourhood in the capital region. Jan is extremely hurried, and he answers the phone in his car while waiting for his children, who engage in many time-consuming hobbies. There, he explains his multiple cultural activities, which include elements from both highbrow and popular culture. His culturally very active parents forced him to play the piano throughout his childhood (‘I don’t know whether that’s of any use, but it’s a fun skill’). Highbrow activities, such as going to the theatre, are more social than properly cultural commitments (‘my mom is a fervent theatregoer, she goes to the theatre all the time, so now and then she organises something that we have joined as a bigger group’). Jan likes boating, golf and tennis. When asked more directly about politics, he describes how traditional values are close to him:

To be completely honest, I am pretty conservative, even if I try to be somewhat modern. This kind of “family, fatherland, home,” while I don’t take them as seriously as some others, I can’t deny that they would not have a certain value for me.

The second articulation differs from the first in how culture is perceived and linked to political values. Whereas the first articulation emphasises openness and an ‘art for art’s sake’ attitude, the second articulation links its wide-ranging cultural practices to values such as traditionalism and economic interest, as exemplified by a certain instrumental attitude towards culture characterised by an easy interchange between economic, social and cultural capital – for instance, through theatre visits with friends and family or uncritical assessments of commercially successful artists. In other words, the second articulation willingly embraces the idea of the interchangeability of capitals (Bourdieu, 1986) and considers it a resource in itself. This fits well with liberal-conservative political values inclined towards traditionalism, individual liberty, personal responsibility and so on.

4.3. Narrow right

The third articulation combined a popular yet relatively narrow cultural orientation with conservative political values belonging to realm of the new right. In practice, this usually meant a combination of low cultural capital, low levels of participation in highbrow cultural activities, a suspicion towards new and exotic cultural practices and politically conservative attitudes. A good example is Reetta, a 40-something nurse living in an individual house in a small town together with her children and blue-collar husband, who is sleeping in the living room at the time of the interview. Reetta has popular tastes and is sceptical of foreign food cultures. For instance, she describes sushi as repulsive and makes fun of what chopsticks could be used for:

This algae sheet, it has something so disgusting, it’s seafood and it’s kind of slimy and kind of leathery (…) you feel like swallowing a leech, it stays in your mouth and turns around there, I cannot see it as a proper food dish (…) last time I went past a Japanese restaurant, I thought, hey, chopsticks, I guess I can use a fork and knife for eating, so I guess I could use the chopsticks for crocheting them a placemat for the food table. (Reetta, 40+ female)

Following a similar line of argumentation, Reetta enjoys figurative art and dislikes modern or abstract art, which she sees as ‘a ball and a couple of lines’. This preference for keeping things ‘like they have always been’ can be seen, for example, in Reetta’s critical attitude towards what she considers mainstream liberal child-rearing practices: ‘I’m pretty much an old-school person … I like traditions and old-school style, learning one’s lesson by doing and having that same attitude with the children.’

Frequently, the third articulation entailed narratives of modesty. A good example of this attitude is Kirsi, a busy and highly educated woman who works in an accounting firm and lives in a suburb in Northern Finland. Kirsi distances herself from both upper-class lifestyles (‘no enormous property’) and the lower classes (‘low-paid jobs, or even unemployment’), considering herself to be middle class (‘we drive a middle-class car and dress middle-class clothes’). She claims to have very little free time, and her cultural practices are mainly centred on her children. She mentions last having read books when studying at the university; regarding TV and music, she mainly consumes a narrow selection of Finnish popular favourites. She is not interested in civic participation and voted for the populist party True Finns in the last elections (‘Perhaps that was a kind of a statement towards immigration politics this year. I guess many other people did the same’.)

In terms of how cultural practices and political values merge in the third articulation, which was common among interviewees from the middle and popular classes, the combination of narrow popular cultural practices and political attitudes signals traditionalism as well as bitterness and a lack of tolerance. The upward boundaries – for instance, against ‘snobbish and therefore disgusting’ foods – are cultural and moral at the same time. This combination can be said to entail an anti-establishment or anti-elite politico-moral mindset, skilfully mobilised by many populist parties across Europe. Furthermore, this articulation includes strategies of displaying moral skills and worth in situations of low cultural, social and economic resources (Harrits & Pedersen, 2019; Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Lamont, 2000).

4.4. Morality as the vehicle for cultural practices

The articulations described above mirrored the predictable ‘matches’ between political orientations and lifestyles, reflecting the Bourdieusian idea of homologies across fields. The fourth articulation, however, differed from this tendency, revealing a distinct way of combining the political and the cultural realms. In this articulation, culture and politics were linked through morality and what the interviewees understood as morally right. Here, lifestyle choices and cultural practices were described as moral, in line with the literature on the importance of morality as a new means of distinction (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019). We found that morality was linked to cultural practices in two ways: first, via social solidarity and second, via ethical ideals, such as ecological sustainability, values that are political by definition. Importantly, in the fourth articulation morality is used as a reason or justification for cultural practices. In other words, it is used in a reflective way as legitimisation of ones’ practices – if some practise is morally valuable, it is also culturally valuable. In addition, in the fourth articulation the hierarchy between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ cultural practices seem to lose importance compared to the first three articulations, and it isn’t as clearly related to class. While the fourth articulation is not is not clearly connected to a specific political stance, it is still closer to old and new left than old and new right.

The first subtype of the fourth articulation, social solidarity was linked to cultural practices most clearly by interviewees associated with left-leaning political parties and with at least moderately liberal values. A good example is Helinä, a woman in her 50s living on a modest disability pension in a small rural town. Even with her limited economic resources, Helinä travels a lot and is very active in producing culture herself – for instance, by writing poems. She has recently developed an ‘acquired taste’ for sushi, which she gets from the local store and enjoys with her daughter. Helinä has inherited her political views from her parents, who were politically active (‘it has always been clear to me that I am on the side of the little people’), and has participated in local politics as a candidate for a left-wing party.

Another pertinent example is Vuokko, a proud working-class woman in her 70s who has participated widely in different kinds of cultures and who has been highly active in various associations, in particular trade unions, her whole life. She finds this valuable and important:

I like to do things for the common good. (…) Right now, this climate thing is pretty important to me. Then human rights and that kind of thing, I don’t tolerate any bit of hate speech, I am … very angry about that.

Her views on culture embrace similar values of tolerance and inclusion, which becomes very apparent when she explains why it is impossible to define good taste: ‘For one person it’s something, and for the next person it’s something else (…) even though you don’t agree, in my opinion you have to respect it.’ These excerpts have echoes of the ‘Good Samaritan’ moral ideal type found in Norwegian working class (Skarpenes, 2021).

In the fourth articulation, when asked how they would define good taste, many respondents answered using concepts such as openness and equality. For example, Niina, a highly educated woman in her 40s living in a large city, describes good taste as ‘open-mindedness, the bravery to (…) see things in a different manner’. Helinä, whom we met earlier, defines good and bad taste in the following way, underlining that drawing harsh boundaries against others is in fact also dubious:

Racism is bad taste. And good taste is giving everyone a chance. Each person should be assessed according to their own deeds, not according to anything else. For me at least, all people depart from the same line, and through their own actions they indicate whether I am above or beneath them. (Helinä, 50+ female)

This connection between social solidarity and openness in cultural practices could be encountered in unpredictable profiles across the social space. For instance, Seppo, a 50-something man who has worked in a factory and in forestry and agriculture, is an active member of the populist True Finns party. He thinks, for instance, that ‘borders equal love’ and that Finns should be prioritised in terms of public benefits. Seppo’s cultural practices entail wide tolerance – for instance, he reads the press from all over the world to stay informed and heavily criticises people who are not ready to change their opinions (‘Nowadays people have their eyes and ears wide shut, they won’t receive any new information or change their opinions very easily’). He has started listening to Hebrew music after being inspired by an Israeli Facebook friend and even translates the lyrics using Google Translate. In the survey, Seppo ticked the option of not identifying with any class because he is a fervent believer in equality:

I think that all people are equal, whatever their colour or size or height. Any measure you use, they are all equal in the end. (…) No one has any privileges. No one is better than the other. (…) It’s the same heaven for both cleaners and engineers.

The second subtype of the fourth articulation was a combination of morality and cultural practices involved ethical ideals, such as ecological sustainability, a very political topic in itself. These more concrete ethical ideals were connected with cultural practices most often adopted by middle-aged and younger interviewees with at least some cultural capital and education, somewhat mirroring finding in existing literature on phenomena such as ethical eating and the ‘eco-habitus’, which are associated with high amounts of cultural capital (Carfagna et al., 2014; Kennedy et al., 2019). For example, the aforementioned Sauli is worried about conspicuous consumption and the world left for future generations, expressing an interest in acquiring new knowledge about climate change and sustainability; recently, he has read many books on the matter. He also links eating habits and sustainability at a general level: ‘There were again articles about beef and shrimps and that kind of stuff. About their ecological burden. (…) I think becoming interested in food is ecological in itself. That also produces well-being and health.’ The many questions surrounding eating were mentioned in other interviews as well – for example, Ilmari, a 20-something student, has actively reduced his consumption of red meat: ‘That was kind of an ethical thing, I have not renounced it, but I have eaten much less of it these days. So, during normal weekdays, in practice I eat very little red meat.’

In Niina’s interview talk about her life both social solidarity and ecological sustainability are salient. She describes herself as a ‘reformer’, has green views and is worried about growing inequalities. Niina’s views and political values go hand in hand with her cultural practices. She is a member of a nature conservation association, a parents’ association and a civic movement for nature conservation and neighbourhood well-being. Niina also likes to decorate her home with second-hand furniture and laments having a car. When asked about preferred movies, Niina mentions liking two films with a minority perspective that she values:

Niina:

(…) I like dramas that deal with, that handle something, a certain question; something that has stuck in my mind is, for instance, Moonlight.

I:

Ah, I remember, yes.

Niina:

… which had this kind of minority perspective. And then I went to see this movie, Roma.

I:

By this Mexican director?

Niina:

Yes. It had this artistic talent, this picturesqueness that I liked, and then on the other hand the picture of the times, and maybe it was the fact that they chose this minority representative as the leading actor. (Niina, 40+ female)

To summarise, in the fourth articulation, morality enters cultural practices in the following two ways: as the traditional form of combining social solidarity or morality with open-mindedness regarding cultural practices, or as the more modern form of combining ethical and social sustainability with ‘sustainable’ cultural practices. In both ways, morality enters the justifications for cultural practices and concentrates on a certain improvement of the self in relation to society.

Moreover, in the four different articulations, the intertwining of the cultural and the political mostly occurred seamlessly, but this was not always the case. In fact, many interviewees described situations in which boundaries and political values clashed in a way that left them feeling uneasy, uncomfortable or somehow awkward. One explanation for this could be related to habitus clivé (Friedman, 2016), whereby an individual feels internally torn between the previous and the current habitus due to social mobility. Some interviewees expressed how crossings of cultural boundaries and colliding sets of values caused tension in their personal relationships, for example in opinions on parenting styles (cf. Lareau, 2011). This type of clashing appeared for example when the previously presented Niina described her relationship. She told how she was exposed to different cultural events when she was young and how that affected her values positively, while she portrayed her husband’s family as culturally passive and dismissive towards her attempts to study more and to have a more open-minded attitude towards both culture and politics – which she describes almost like a moral obligation for understanding the world better. These lacunae further demonstrate that the collision of the cultural and the political can create contradictions for example in relationships or even identity, which merits examination in future studies.

5. Concluding discussion

In this article, we have examined the intertwining of political values and cultural practices using interview data from Finland. In our analysis, we applied Lamont’s (1992) notion of symbolic boundaries and asked, How do political values intertwine with cultural practices in lifestyle articulations? We found that political values are an inseparable part of cultural practices and lifestyles, and that both ‘old’ and ‘new’ politics are important parts of them. More specifically, we identified the following four articulations in which political values meet cultural practices: (1) ‘highbrow left’, (2) ‘highbrow right’, (3) ‘narrow right’ and (4) ‘morality as the vehicle for cultural practices’.

In the interviews, political values and cultural practices as well as their intertwining often emerge effortlessly, without respondents challenging or even recognising them. More specifically, the first three articulations contained rather conventional and coherent combinations of political values and cultural practices. Often, the way in which the political and the cultural seem to intertwine was due to the interviewees’ backgrounds: both political values and cultural practices were inherited from their families and transmitted through their (probably socially stratified) social circles. However, the fourth articulation was more centred on morality, and it has on one hand emphasis on social solidarity and on the other hand on ecological sustainability. The fourth articulation is less straightforward, and it departs from the clear matches between political and cultural divides found in the other articulations, also making it harder to analyse. The way in which politics, morality and cultural practices are entangled here requires future research still.

The symbolic boundary approach was a suitable method for examining the intertwining of the cultural and the political. Our interviewees drew many kinds of boundaries to symbolically demarcate themselves from others. However, such boundary-drawing was rarely strong, strict or absolute; rather, most of the interviewees were conciliatory and respectful of different cultural practices, attitudes and ways of life. In the interview setting, most of our interviewees were or wanted to present themselves as tolerant. Whether this is a sign of a relatively egalitarian society or a by-product of the interview setting remains an open question (see Heikkilä & Katainen, 2021).

As always in qualitative research, some interviewees were more talkative and open about their lives, while others were more reserved or even reluctant to be interviewed. We interpreted this as evidence of different skills in focused talk (Silva & Wright, 2005): middle-class and upper-middle-class individuals were clearly more willing to be interviewed than persons from the lower classes, who often expressed reluctance to discuss culture and drew moral boundaries against the interview situation itself (Heikkilä & Katainen, 2021). Some interviewees may have considered political opinions too sensitive a topic to discuss in the interview setting or appeared somewhat indifferent to politics (see Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008).

Our main contribution is to the research interested in the ties between political values and cultural practices and on discussions on the moral turn in cultural sociology. Recent studies have argued that morality helps unprivileged groups to make up for their lack of different capitals (Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Lamont, 2000) and that moral distinctions can reinforce existing socioeconomical hierarchies (Harrits & Pedersen, 2019). In our data, underprivileged classes used morality to strengthen their sense of self-worth and compensate for their lack of capitals (Harrits & Pedersen, 2019; Heikkilä, 2022; Jarness & Flemmen, 2019; Lamont, 2000) – this was particularly apparent in the third articulation, in which upward moral and cultural boundaries functioned as a counterforce to ‘elitist’ cultural and political values. At the same time, the fourth articulation showed that moral distinctions can also appear without a direct connection to class; instead, this articulation values cultural practices that are perceived as morally righteous. We can only speculate that in the future in our world of green transition, climate change and globalised inequality many cultural practices will be more and more clearly loaded with political values.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland under grant number 309181 and by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 870691.