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Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity?
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10 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
If you tell someone that a policy they "support" isn't aligned with their partisan identity, it is much more often the case that their feelings of support towards that policy will decline than it is likely that their feelings of support towards their party will.
This is actually one of the biggest topics in political science right now, and there's an increasingly large amount of data backing it up. Lilliana Mason has an excellent book on the topic that's extremely well researched if you're interested.
It's a neat website, but frankly, it ignores a lot of what actually drives people to align with one ideology or another. Long story short, views on specific issues matter a lot less than we'd all like to believe.
Liliana Mason has an excellent that's extremely well researched and backed up with loads of data on this subject. Link if you're interested.
> I also have plenty of acquaintances and friends where we actually agree on a lot of issues when we sit down to talk about it, even though we are on different sides of the political spectrum. It's quite unfortunate that it has come down to red vs blue.
This doesn't surprise me at all. You should check out Uncivil Agreement if you haven't already. We humans have always been wired for group identity — the internet has just put that dynamic on steroids.
For the book readers (or like me, listeners) out there, Uncivil Agreement by Liliana Mason might be right up your alley.
So this is 5 years old now, but Pew Research found that that the Democrats moved further left that Republicans moved right.
Now a lot has changed in 5 years. It is arguable that our (American) politics have become more divided. At it is possible that the right has moved more from the average voter/citiizen in that time. The problem that poster has, is that you have define what is the center. And every year that changes.
An excellent book on the subject is Uncivil Agreement by Liliana Mason. Which discusses the decline of shared space and activities of republicans and democrats. The effect that has because you are less likely know or be exposed to the opposite view point, you think it is more extreme. Here is an interview with the author.
I can't find my saved article, which purported to show that the left is less exposed to view points of the right, but do recall that as well.
Lastly, I would like to point out that I am trying to be normative (non-judgemental) versus subjective (making a value judgement) in my arguments.
Lilliana Mason is the go to citation for this.
Here is one of her papers on the subject: http://www.mari-odu.org/academics/2017su_leadership/workspace/uploads/polarization.pdf
And I highly recommend her book: https://www.amazon.com/Uncivil-Agreement-Politics-Became-Identity/dp/022652454X
Here's another good paper on it: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034
I also generally recommend Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. The moral foundations framework in the book is a bit meh, but the general principle of how emotions and group identities guide our opinions is very good.
Paywalls aren't the pressing problem — even if all the finest journalism was free for everybody, people would still flock to whatever sources confirm their deeply held belief. Or in other words…
It's not a problem of supply, its a problem of demand.
Its not that people are being assaulted by misinformation (not exclusively anyway); people seek it out to make sense of the world. We've built our identities on our political tribe and as we've seen over the past couple years, losing one's job and the risk of death are insufficient to pry the true believers from them.
I don't believe we can overcome tribal-based beliefs unless we build a better tribe for people to want to belong to. I think three values such a tribe would need to signal are:
- How to keep our nation strong
- How to attack the problem, not each other, and
- How to not get lied to
In the US, our government grinds to a halt if the 2+ sides are actively obstructing and undoing each other's accomplishments because neither can abide a "win" by the other side. And if a house divided cannot stand, we're in serious danger of falling down. Nobody wants that but our enemies. So we need to pull together to remain strong.
But its neither realistic that people will just drop their progressive, liberal, libertarian, conservative values just to "get along." Nor should they. A diversity of thoughts and perspectives is the way to examine all facets of a problem. So long as we are attacking the problem, not each other.
And to do that, we need to understand the world around us for what it is. This means overcoming the perfect storm of the bad experiences, personal fears, and cognitive biases we're not even aware are happening in our minds. And then learning to identify media that seeks to escalate conflict and cater to our worst impulses. None of us — left, center, right — is immune to disinformation because it is a human condition, brought on by our cognitive biases. All you need is a cherished belief and that's exactly where you're vulnerable to fall for bullshit.
I think the best way this can be accomplished is if we all paired up with a person with whom we disagree with strongly — but still love, even if its a strained relationship. I'm thinking family and friends here. We need someone to disagree with because we are shit at recognizing our own blind spots — but that is the thing our partner would do for us, and vice-versa.
This isn't something that can be done with a fact-laden post on social media. It requires time, effort and persistence. I liken it to losing weight. Nobody can do it for you. It's difficult. And slow. And you're going to fail and need to get back on the right track. But if you've got someone at your side going through it with you, you're more likely to make it. And you're probably not going to make that kind of effort for a stranger — you'll probably only do that for someone you care about.
Recommended reading:
It's not differences on issues that drives the polarity, it's partisan politics as identity. Read: Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason on the phenomena.
Most people are closer to the center than the extremes politically, and on issues aren't that far apart. It's when those issues become part of partisan politics that the disagreement and polarization happens.
If you actually read the article, it explains what it means by "conservative movement." The article is basically a review of the book Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason.
Eric Levitz wrote "Political tribalism is bad. But government by and for the rich is worse." "In the real world, the conservative movement — and the economic elites that it serves — have an interest in perpetuating both social polarization, and the unresponsive governance that it produces." And it ends by basically saying that "tribalism may be a threat to democracy", but the 1% is a bigger threat. I'm reminded of the quote "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
Eric Levitz wrote "An overwhelming, bipartisan majority of the American public wants their government to raise taxes on the wealthy, create jobs for the unemployed, expand access to subsidized health care, and prevent corporations from poisoning their air and water. The conservative movement wants Uncle Sam to do none of those things." So rather than the poor & the working class & middle class focusing on the rich, the rich (via superPACs, "think tanks", etc) can divide & conquer the 99%, pitting them against each other, seeing each other as the enemy, instead of focusing their ire at the 1% at the top. The article even mentions "The Koch Network plans to spend $400 million electing its preferred Congress this November; corporate America is poised to spend upwards of $2 billion lobbying it next year."
Milton Friedman, who said the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits, & the Koch brothers, who basically oppose all taxes, are essentially the founders of the modern "conservative" movement. The 1% "conservatives" (who basically just want to "conserve" all their money by hoarding it & avoiding taxes like how Donald Trump avoided paying $500 million in taxes through fraud).
Did you read the article? It's basically a review of the book Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason.
Eric Levitz wrote "Political tribalism is bad. But government by and for the rich is worse." "In the real world, the conservative movement — and the economic elites that it serves — have an interest in perpetuating both social polarization, and the unresponsive governance that it produces." And it ends by basically saying that "tribalism may be a threat to democracy", but the 1% is a bigger threat. I'm reminded of the quote "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." So rather than the poor & the working class & middle class focusing on the rich, the rich (via superPACs, "think tanks", etc) can divide & conquer the 99%, pitting them against each other, seeing each other as the enemy, instead of focusing their ire at the 1% at the top. The article even mentions "The Koch Network plans to spend $400 million electing its preferred Congress this November; corporate America is poised to spend upwards of $2 billion lobbying it next year."
In 1970, conservative Milton Friedman said "there is one and only one social responsibility of business -- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits." That's what publicly traded corporations, & Wall Street, & the big banks, & the Republican Party believes today. And people have argued that corporations are compelled to behave like psychopaths ("the callous disregard for the feelings of other people, the incapacity to maintain human relationships, the reckless disregard for the safety of others, continual lying to deceive for profit, the incapacity to experience guilt, and the failure to conform to social norms and respect the law.") That also describes Donald Trump (along with the at least 20% of CEOs who are psychopaths).
In 1980, Ed Clark ran for president as part of the Libertarian Party, with David Koch as his running mate. David Koch didn't want influence in the Libertarian Party, & he ran as VP to get around campaign finance laws. David Koch wrote "Vice Presidential candidates of a party are not subject to the $1,000 spending limit to which the rest of the American public is. They can contribute whatever they please. So my proposal is basically as simple as this: As the Vice Presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party I will contribute several hundred thousand dollars to the Presidential campaign committee in order to ensure that our ideas and our Presidential nominee receive as much media exposure as possible." David Koch eventually contributed $2.1 million, which was over half of the campaign budget. David Koch wrote "My objective is simply to promote a philosophy I am deeply committed to" (greed & lack of empathy basically). The Libertarian Party platform in 1980 that Ed Clark & David Koch ran on, included all kinds of radical ideas (supposedly in the name of "liberty", like abolishing the FDA, the EPA, the Postal Service, Medicare, Social Security).
As of 2018, David Koch had $50.7 billion, tied for the 12th richest person in the world with his brother Charles Koch. It was the Koch brothers who helped Republicans gain control of the House in 2010, it was the Koch brothers who helped Republicans gain control of the Senate in 2014, & the Koch brothers helped Republicans gain control of the White House in 2016.
Milton Friedman, who said the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits, & the Koch brothers, who basically oppose all taxes, are essentially the founders of the modern "conservative" movement. Eric Levitz wrote "An overwhelming, bipartisan majority of the American public wants their government to raise taxes on the wealthy, create jobs for the unemployed, expand access to subsidized health care, and prevent corporations from poisoning their air and water. The conservative movement wants Uncle Sam to do none of those things." But the 1% "conservatives" rely on "culture war" "wedge issues" (in part refined by Karl Rove, who worked for Big Tobacco company Philip Morris in the 90s) to suggest there is always two sides to every issue ("cigarettes cause lung cancer!", "well my grandma smokes & she doesn't have lung cancer"), ("man-made greenhouse gases cause climate change!", "well some of the predictions by climate scientists have been wrong!"). Gaslighting sows seeds of doubt in a targeted person or group. It also feeds denialism. And the Republican Party today is largely the party of denialism (denialism that man-made climate change poses a 95% risk of human extinction, denialism that their taxcuts won't actually "pay for themselves" through economic growth, denialism that Donald Trump really just said that insane thing on Twitter, etc).
Half of the population doesn't agree with the radical Koch brothers agenda, but the Koch brothers (& Donald Trump) are basically psychopaths, who rely on useful idiots to enact their agenda. How do you garner useful idiots? Richard Nixon's top domestic aide John Ehrlichman summarized Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign as "We'll go after the racists" (as in, corner the racist vote). Which is also the Southern strategy that Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater used in 1964, to turn white Southerners (who were traditionally Democrat) into Republicans. The article says "it remains the case that the GOP, and its associated institutions, have spent much of the past half-century actively trying to polarize the electorate along racial lines, and mobilize the Christian right through appeals to its most paranoid, millenarian instincts." In the 2016 election, every US state which was formerly part of the Confederate States of America, except Virginia, voted for Donald Trump.
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