Vox has a Voxy type piece up explaining all the ways that psychology and neurology make us act politically. In particular, it explain why partisanship is so high. Of course, these psychological insights were true 40 years ago, and we didn't have this level of partisanship. What has happened is that partisanship has reinforced existing social divisions. We've taken these positions and multiplied and amplified them to the point where they are all we hear.
I had a very interesting discussion with a friend on Twitter yesterday (yes, I know). We are both left of center, I would guess - not having surveyed her - that she's further to the left than I am. We are arguing over the Starbucks incident in Philly, and whether the corporate apology went far enough. To me, there is a section of the anti-corporate left who have always hated Starbucks because it represents a corporate behemoth that came in and drove their local, eclectic coffee joint out of business. The fact that most of the country never had that cool, eclectic coffee joint to begin with is irrelevant. Starbucks is bad.
The events in Philly represented to me the bigotry of the store manager who wouldn't let the two men sit and wait for their business associate and even more the totalistic reponse of the police who insisted on arresting the two men despite all evidence that they were doing nothing wrong. What I didn't see was a Starbucks' policy to harrass African Americans out of their stores. The reason I see this, is because my bias is to look at how institutions and individuals act in concert and in opposition. I was more heartened by the outrage of the white customers than I was upset by the initial milquetoast apology from Starbucks. The CEO later gave a much more compelling apology, but if you were already loaded to take on Starbucks, it really didn't matter. If you rooted the problem in the store manager and the cops, you had two options: go along with the outrage against Starbucks or say, "Wait a minute, why are we focused on a corporation with thousands of locations?"
When I pushed back against this, it really pissed my friend off (my language was too glib in one place). Because we knew each other well 25 years ago and have rekindled that friendship, we were able to work it out. I explained my position; she explained hers. We agreed on some points and likely still disagree on some minor points of emphasis. Because we agreed that what happened to those two men was enraging, we had common ground to work things out.
This dynamic exists very, very rarely, as the Vox article states. It is almost impossible to convince someone on the other side of an argument that they are wrong. The most tiresome argument on the internet is the continuing battle between the Sanders and Clinton camps. They aren't convincing anyone, but they are never going to let it go, even though it is largely irrelevant to the future of liberal politics, as it is rooted in the personalities of two 70+ year old politicians. (Their policies weren't all that different.)
The lack of objectivity means that a million conspiracies and pet theories bloom. The problem is that our entire system of government is based on the idea that reasoned deliberation can produce working majorities to solve social, economic and governmental problems. The article suggests that this is likely near impossible. Certainly it is in the climate of fear and anger that we currently live in.
Fear and partisanship are literally tearing the fabric of American democracy apart. Another ridiculous thing I saw in Twitter was a guy (who writes for Vox!) saying that it was racist to use the term "tribalism" against Native Americans. Yet tribalism, a retreat into a cohesive in-group, is exactly what is happening. We have gone from a nation to a series of tribes.
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