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One thing that I see making the situation worse is the lack of common cause and identity. There was always party division, but the other side was still seen as

One thing that I see making the situation worse is the lack of common cause and identity. There was always party division, but the other side was still seen as your fellow Americans. Today, not only is there an opposing side, they are seen as an enemy that must be totally annihilated. If we continue down this road it's going to be disastrous because it's going to leave no room for dissent inside or outside politics. I'm not saying that Americans never disagreed, war'd with each other, etc. That's not the point. The point is that we're losing that belief in an American ideal that helps keep us together while we debate our issues. The more divided we are, the more we'll be ripe for the picking by those who never cared about America in the first place. It's not just TV and social media, but a belief that America should be a hodge podge of cultures united by nothing but an empty consumerist culture. It's pretty hard for things like forgiveness, giving the benefit of the doubt, and seeing each other as human beings to actually work in such a place when there are political interests that benefit by having those principles eliminated. A hostile, low trust society clicks more ragebait and gobbles more food to combat depression.

blackflame7000 7y ago
Everyone needs to stop being so hypocritical. If we all started practicing what we preach more often it would go a long way. We need more objectivity and the ability to consider ideas that run contrary to our beliefs without feeling insecure.
delecti 7y ago
How much camaraderie should someone really be expected to show for an opposing party that actively opposes their human rights and remove regulations protecting the environment? A hostile low-trust society might be justified for the time being, and likely was previously too.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  It can be justified, just as nearly anything can be justified under the right conditions. Whether present conditions, contrasting our current state with the state of the past, warrants such political lengths to divide people is questionable. Considering that they, like you, think they're right, you can at least grant other human beings the same dignity you wish to receive. Obviously, everything is subject to the situation but, from a big picture perspective, viewing yourself and others as fallible, as opposed to a Hollywood-esque fight between Good and Evil, is a greater exercise in humility. Like pulling the trigger on a gun, hostility and rejection should be a weapon reserved until there isn't an alternative. If you think there's no hope for a common understanding with Republicans(I think it's safe to assume that's whom you are referring to), then I guess all I have to say is that's kind of sad because I'm sure that you have family and friends who vote Republican(whether they tell you or not); why associate with them at all if you think a low-trust society is warranted? Think of it this way. A Republican might say: "How much comaraderie should one really be expected to show for an opposing party that actively opposes America as an individual nation, wants to impart an economic structure that's been disastrous in other parts of the world, embraces censorship, participated in proxy wars and knowingly murdered civilians with drones, uses minorities as political tools, hates white people, expanded the surveillance apparatus, and wants to take our guns away?" I know some imbecile is probably going to take that hypothetical quote as being my own position and attempt to argue every one of those points. Save your breath, whomever you are, because that's not at all what I'm claiming to believe. Whether they are actually right or wrong, they are Americans who, like you, care about the destiny of the country. That's where your camaraderie begins. If it ends there too, then too bad, but not having that common understanding is dangerous and useful to anyone who wants to control the masses.
  - delecti 7y ago
    My response to your comment can probably be summed up by asking if you're familiar with the paradox of tolerance [1]. I can be civil to people actively working to remove the rights and safety of people like myself, but I do not accept that they have earned my camaraderie. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
    - olooney 7y ago
      John Rawls provides a vocabulary for talking about these issues. In Rawls view, society consists of "reasonable citizens" who want to live in a society built on cooperation and are willing to abide by rules if necessary to do so. Each reasonable citizen has, as a matter of course, a "comprehensive doctrine" which is the full set of beliefs and opinions they hold on all kinds of things: if aliens exist, which TV shows are good, when it's OK to lie. Reasonable citizens can (and usually do) disagree about many aspects of their respective comprehensive doctrines; however, they can acknowledge an "overlapping consensus" formed from just those ideas that almost everyone in the society agrees upon. For example, Americans generally agree that it should be legal to watch TV. Now, an reasonable citizen can believe something very strongly (such as a specific conception God) while acknowledging that since a large number of of citizens of the same society do not hold the same belief, it is not part of the "overlapping consensus" of their society. This overlap consensus must form the foundation for any agreement. Rawls gives examples of things that should be part of the overlapping consensus for society to function, such as public standards of inquiry and public values. He proposes the following rule: > Citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards. All of that is just background. You can read a summary of Rawls on SEP[1], or his book A Theory of Justice.[2] Given all that, we can see how things might break down. In order: 1. A citizen may not be reasonable. Jeffery Dahmer would qualify. He does not want to live in a society with rules and justice: he wants to rape and eat people. 2. The citizens of a society may differ so much that their overlapping consensus is empty, or too small to serve as a foundation of anything. If all we agree on is that the sky is blue, but disagree on democracy vs. monarchy or which end of the egg to eat, then we will not be able to form a society. 3. We may agree on much, but not on those key topics like public standards of inquiry. If one person believes that matters of fact should be decided by a unanimous decision by a jury of peers, while the other believes that only confession under torture can be trusted, the two will have a difficult time agreeing on a legal system. When things do breakdown for one of the above reasons, "civil discourse" is not really possible. Other kinds of discourse are still possible, but these will be more like hostage negotiations or the arguments that precede a divorce than any kind of idealized notion of civil discourse. Which is to say, the tools required for understanding these conflicts are rhetoric, game theory, and psychology, and not political theory or ethics. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice
- tathougies 7y ago
  This comment is a walking caricature of the thing it's seeking to justify.
- booboolayla 7y ago
  We need more talk about "human obligations" instead of "human rights." How much camaraderie should the society really be expected to show for a political ideology that openly calls for weakening and ultimate destruction of society, wrapped in fake concerns for environment (true goal is to weaken the economy) or fake concerns for an ever increasing number of "minorities" in supposed need for protection (true goal here is to balkanize the society into countless splinter groups fighting each other).
- tamaharbor 7y ago
  Point proven.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- prepend 7y ago
  Lots. Don’t you have a racist uncle? While racist relatives are difficult to be around I think it teaches me to understand how I can love a person who has some really abhorrent beliefs. Similarly growing up with lots of siblings teaches you to live with someone you really fight with. So for me I can serve and love someone even if they want to remove regulations protecting the environment. I disagree strongly with them but still say hello in the grocery store and help them change a flat tire and buy popcorn when their kids go door to door.
cryoshon 7y ago
from shortly after our first civil war until relatively recently, we could say to ourselves and say that our hodgepodge of cultures were not mutually exclusive. coexistence with these other cultures was a benign fact of life, something that added a bit of color to the american panorama. while contacts between these cultures were not always comfortable for everyone, at a minimum the presupposition of good will and the realized expectations for a favorable standard of living smoothed over any faultlines without much effort. over time, however, the centrifugal forces holding america's cultures began to weaken. economic growth stagnated, and economic gains became concentrated. at the same time, social issues that may have enjoyed "agree to disagree" status became matters of moral imperative as a result of political stratagems seeking to generate firmer voting blocs. eventually, our cultures had little to distract themselves from the fact that coexistence meant the perpetuation of major injustices by their own standards. and so, we arrive at the present. our divisions are not reconcilable, nor is coexistence an option moving forward because coexistence requires subjugation of each culture's primary socioeconomic and moral directives. i would prefer a peaceful separation of the two major blocs in the US because that would allow each of the blocs to realize their desires without being held back by the other half. even if there is a major set of reforms which can precipitate revitalization of the american spirit, reconciliation will probably be impossible.
golf2 7y ago
Democracy is already fickle, just flood in immigrants until every vote comes to 50-50 and the establishment can bump it one way or the other easily.
swsieber 7y ago
Partisanship has dramatically increased in our lifetimes. BusinessInsider released a nice little video of an graph overtime of who voted with who in the U.S. House of Representatives. There used to be lots of people who voted together despite being in different parties. That's basically stopped: https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-rise-partisanship-congress-house-representatives-60-years-2016-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-rise-partisanship-...
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> The point is that we're losing that belief in an American ideal that helps keep us together while we debate our issues. The more divided we are, the more we'll be ripe for the picking by those who never cared about America in the first place. I'm not sure that either side cares about an America that includes "them". The right doesn't care about an America that includes people who want to change their genders or marry their same-sex partners. The left doesn't care about an America that includes people who want their religion to influence their politics, or who want to have guns be part of their culture.
- leereeves 7y ago
  I know people who married their same-sex partners and own guns. Not only can the two sides live together, they can live together in the same person. But for some reason, only the partisan bickering gets attention.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    The idea that "gun ownership" is the actual axis of contention between the "left" and "right" is pretty wrongheaded, though? I feel like both of you are drawing a straw man of both centrists and conservatives. Here's a better one: how many people do you know have a relationship that survives one partner wanting and abortion and one saying that abortion is murder?
    - leereeves 7y ago
      That's a strong division, but if you're nitpicking, that's not "the actual axis" between left and right either. There are a lot of pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans (almost 30%) [1], although once again the media makes it look strictly partisan. Perhaps the problem is that the media presents a distorted view of the world, crafted to serve their agenda and their advertisers. 1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choice-pro-life.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choic...
      - 7y ago
KirinDave 7y ago
> One thing that I see making the situation worse is the lack of common cause and identity. There was always party division, but the other side was still seen as your fellow Americans. Today, not only is there an opposing side, they are seen as an enemy that must be totally annihilated. If we continue down this road it's going to be disastrous because it's going to leave no room for dissent inside or outside politics. This is just ignorance talking. > I'm not saying that Americans never disagreed, war'd with each other, etc. That's not the point. The point is that we're losing that belief in an American ideal that helps keep us together while we debate our issues. The more divided we are, the more we'll be ripe for the picking by those who never cared about America in the first place. Yes, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, the ongoing South Revivalism, the Ludow Massacre, the failed Hearst Rebellion, the LA riots, and the Charlottestown demonstration kinda put a pin in the shiny red balloon of your idea. But also, books like White House Burning go into detail on quite how intense historical political conflict has been in this country. It is not a "new" state of affairs. It's just that there was an incredible wave of prosperity from WW2 right up to the 90s that so much of our country grew complacent on, so that the only real arguments were on foreign policy. I suppose also with the USSR disintegrating, America essentially never really recovered the idea of a true rival which it could convince itself justified political excess. Most of America is just not really able to accept the idea that China is that rival and the hypothetical Islamic Unified Super-Invasion never really happened. > It's not just TV and social media, but a belief that America should be a hodge podge of cultures united by nothing but an empty consumerist culture. People say this whole economic-and-trade-based-culture is empty and consumerist. And maybe it is. But the prior culture was essentially unchecked imperialism and a towering belief that freedom was only achievable at global scale via American intervention. Even if that meant short-term tyranny. So maybe the "we build shared infrastructure for survival, comfort and prosperity" isn't so bad after all. > It's pretty hard for things like forgiveness, giving the benefit of the doubt, and seeing each other as human beings to actually work in such a place when there are political interests that benefit by having those principles eliminated. Well if you'd like to see who gets to experience that I'd suggest you read any recent story about a white man raping a young woman. They certainly experience this in spades. Maybe you can work out how the do it. > A hostile, low trust society clicks more ragebait and gobbles more food to combat depression. Millennials eat less though on average. Snark aside, America has always been a land of thinly veiled violence in our rhetoric. You're not wrong that neoconservatism and neoliberalism have failed to establish a national identity, but that may be a sign of impending doom or a cause of real problems for real people. It may be because in an information society the entire concept of a national identity is dowdy and uncalled for.

blackflame7000 7y ago

Everyone needs to stop being so hypocritical. If we all started practicing what we preach more often it would go a long way. We need more objectivity and the ability to consider ideas that run contrary to our beliefs without feeling insecure.

delecti 7y ago

How much camaraderie should someone really be expected to show for an opposing party that actively opposes their human rights and remove regulations protecting the environment? A hostile low-trust society might be justified for the time being, and likely was previously too.

ravenstine 7y ago
It can be justified, just as nearly anything can be justified under the right conditions. Whether present conditions, contrasting our current state with the state of the past, warrants such political lengths to divide people is questionable. Considering that they, like you, think they're right, you can at least grant other human beings the same dignity you wish to receive. Obviously, everything is subject to the situation but, from a big picture perspective, viewing yourself and others as fallible, as opposed to a Hollywood-esque fight between Good and Evil, is a greater exercise in humility. Like pulling the trigger on a gun, hostility and rejection should be a weapon reserved until there isn't an alternative. If you think there's no hope for a common understanding with Republicans(I think it's safe to assume that's whom you are referring to), then I guess all I have to say is that's kind of sad because I'm sure that you have family and friends who vote Republican(whether they tell you or not); why associate with them at all if you think a low-trust society is warranted? Think of it this way. A Republican might say: "How much comaraderie should one really be expected to show for an opposing party that actively opposes America as an individual nation, wants to impart an economic structure that's been disastrous in other parts of the world, embraces censorship, participated in proxy wars and knowingly murdered civilians with drones, uses minorities as political tools, hates white people, expanded the surveillance apparatus, and wants to take our guns away?" I know some imbecile is probably going to take that hypothetical quote as being my own position and attempt to argue every one of those points. Save your breath, whomever you are, because that's not at all what I'm claiming to believe. Whether they are actually right or wrong, they are Americans who, like you, care about the destiny of the country. That's where your camaraderie begins. If it ends there too, then too bad, but not having that common understanding is dangerous and useful to anyone who wants to control the masses.
- delecti 7y ago
  My response to your comment can probably be summed up by asking if you're familiar with the paradox of tolerance [1]. I can be civil to people actively working to remove the rights and safety of people like myself, but I do not accept that they have earned my camaraderie. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - olooney 7y ago
    John Rawls provides a vocabulary for talking about these issues. In Rawls view, society consists of "reasonable citizens" who want to live in a society built on cooperation and are willing to abide by rules if necessary to do so. Each reasonable citizen has, as a matter of course, a "comprehensive doctrine" which is the full set of beliefs and opinions they hold on all kinds of things: if aliens exist, which TV shows are good, when it's OK to lie. Reasonable citizens can (and usually do) disagree about many aspects of their respective comprehensive doctrines; however, they can acknowledge an "overlapping consensus" formed from just those ideas that almost everyone in the society agrees upon. For example, Americans generally agree that it should be legal to watch TV. Now, an reasonable citizen can believe something very strongly (such as a specific conception God) while acknowledging that since a large number of of citizens of the same society do not hold the same belief, it is not part of the "overlapping consensus" of their society. This overlap consensus must form the foundation for any agreement. Rawls gives examples of things that should be part of the overlapping consensus for society to function, such as public standards of inquiry and public values. He proposes the following rule: > Citizens engaged in certain political activities have a duty of civility to be able to justify their decisions on fundamental political issues by reference only to public values and public standards. All of that is just background. You can read a summary of Rawls on SEP[1], or his book A Theory of Justice.[2] Given all that, we can see how things might break down. In order: 1. A citizen may not be reasonable. Jeffery Dahmer would qualify. He does not want to live in a society with rules and justice: he wants to rape and eat people. 2. The citizens of a society may differ so much that their overlapping consensus is empty, or too small to serve as a foundation of anything. If all we agree on is that the sky is blue, but disagree on democracy vs. monarchy or which end of the egg to eat, then we will not be able to form a society. 3. We may agree on much, but not on those key topics like public standards of inquiry. If one person believes that matters of fact should be decided by a unanimous decision by a jury of peers, while the other believes that only confession under torture can be trusted, the two will have a difficult time agreeing on a legal system. When things do breakdown for one of the above reasons, "civil discourse" is not really possible. Other kinds of discourse are still possible, but these will be more like hostage negotiations or the arguments that precede a divorce than any kind of idealized notion of civil discourse. Which is to say, the tools required for understanding these conflicts are rhetoric, game theory, and psychology, and not political theory or ethics. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/#ReaCit [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice
tathougies 7y ago
This comment is a walking caricature of the thing it's seeking to justify.
booboolayla 7y ago
We need more talk about "human obligations" instead of "human rights." How much camaraderie should the society really be expected to show for a political ideology that openly calls for weakening and ultimate destruction of society, wrapped in fake concerns for environment (true goal is to weaken the economy) or fake concerns for an ever increasing number of "minorities" in supposed need for protection (true goal here is to balkanize the society into countless splinter groups fighting each other).
tamaharbor 7y ago
Point proven.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
prepend 7y ago
Lots. Don’t you have a racist uncle? While racist relatives are difficult to be around I think it teaches me to understand how I can love a person who has some really abhorrent beliefs. Similarly growing up with lots of siblings teaches you to live with someone you really fight with. So for me I can serve and love someone even if they want to remove regulations protecting the environment. I disagree strongly with them but still say hello in the grocery store and help them change a flat tire and buy popcorn when their kids go door to door.

cryoshon 7y ago

from shortly after our first civil war until relatively recently, we could say to ourselves and say that our hodgepodge of cultures were not mutually exclusive. coexistence with these other cultures was a benign fact of life, something that added a bit of color to the american panorama. while contacts between these cultures were not always comfortable for everyone, at a minimum the presupposition of good will and the realized expectations for a favorable standard of living smoothed over any faultlines without much effort. over time, however, the centrifugal forces holding america's cultures began to weaken. economic growth stagnated, and economic gains became concentrated. at the same time, social issues that may have enjoyed "agree to disagree" status became matters of moral imperative as a result of political stratagems seeking to generate firmer voting blocs. eventually, our cultures had little to distract themselves from the fact that coexistence meant the perpetuation of major injustices by their own standards. and so, we arrive at the present. our divisions are not reconcilable, nor is coexistence an option moving forward because coexistence requires subjugation of each culture's primary socioeconomic and moral directives. i would prefer a peaceful separation of the two major blocs in the US because that would allow each of the blocs to realize their desires without being held back by the other half. even if there is a major set of reforms which can precipitate revitalization of the american spirit, reconciliation will probably be impossible.

golf2 7y ago

Democracy is already fickle, just flood in immigrants until every vote comes to 50-50 and the establishment can bump it one way or the other easily.

swsieber 7y ago

Partisanship has dramatically increased in our lifetimes. BusinessInsider released a nice little video of an graph overtime of who voted with who in the U.S. House of Representatives. There used to be lots of people who voted together despite being in different parties. That's basically stopped: https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-rise-partisanship-congress-house-representatives-60-years-2016-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-rise-partisanship-...

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

> The point is that we're losing that belief in an American ideal that helps keep us together while we debate our issues. The more divided we are, the more we'll be ripe for the picking by those who never cared about America in the first place. I'm not sure that either side cares about an America that includes "them". The right doesn't care about an America that includes people who want to change their genders or marry their same-sex partners. The left doesn't care about an America that includes people who want their religion to influence their politics, or who want to have guns be part of their culture.

leereeves 7y ago
I know people who married their same-sex partners and own guns. Not only can the two sides live together, they can live together in the same person. But for some reason, only the partisan bickering gets attention.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  The idea that "gun ownership" is the actual axis of contention between the "left" and "right" is pretty wrongheaded, though? I feel like both of you are drawing a straw man of both centrists and conservatives. Here's a better one: how many people do you know have a relationship that survives one partner wanting and abortion and one saying that abortion is murder?
  - leereeves 7y ago
    That's a strong division, but if you're nitpicking, that's not "the actual axis" between left and right either. There are a lot of pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans (almost 30%) [1], although once again the media makes it look strictly partisan. Perhaps the problem is that the media presents a distorted view of the world, crafted to serve their agenda and their advertisers. 1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choice-pro-life.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choic...
    - 7y ago

KirinDave 7y ago

> One thing that I see making the situation worse is the lack of common cause and identity. There was always party division, but the other side was still seen as your fellow Americans. Today, not only is there an opposing side, they are seen as an enemy that must be totally annihilated. If we continue down this road it's going to be disastrous because it's going to leave no room for dissent inside or outside politics. This is just ignorance talking. > I'm not saying that Americans never disagreed, war'd with each other, etc. That's not the point. The point is that we're losing that belief in an American ideal that helps keep us together while we debate our issues. The more divided we are, the more we'll be ripe for the picking by those who never cared about America in the first place. Yes, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, the ongoing South Revivalism, the Ludow Massacre, the failed Hearst Rebellion, the LA riots, and the Charlottestown demonstration kinda put a pin in the shiny red balloon of your idea. But also, books like White House Burning go into detail on quite how intense historical political conflict has been in this country. It is not a "new" state of affairs. It's just that there was an incredible wave of prosperity from WW2 right up to the 90s that so much of our country grew complacent on, so that the only real arguments were on foreign policy. I suppose also with the USSR disintegrating, America essentially never really recovered the idea of a true rival which it could convince itself justified political excess. Most of America is just not really able to accept the idea that China is that rival and the hypothetical Islamic Unified Super-Invasion never really happened. > It's not just TV and social media, but a belief that America should be a hodge podge of cultures united by nothing but an empty consumerist culture. People say this whole economic-and-trade-based-culture is empty and consumerist. And maybe it is. But the prior culture was essentially unchecked imperialism and a towering belief that freedom was only achievable at global scale via American intervention. Even if that meant short-term tyranny. So maybe the "we build shared infrastructure for survival, comfort and prosperity" isn't so bad after all. > It's pretty hard for things like forgiveness, giving the benefit of the doubt, and seeing each other as human beings to actually work in such a place when there are political interests that benefit by having those principles eliminated. Well if you'd like to see who gets to experience that I'd suggest you read any recent story about a white man raping a young woman. They certainly experience this in spades. Maybe you can work out how the do it. > A hostile, low trust society clicks more ragebait and gobbles more food to combat depression. Millennials eat less though on average. Snark aside, America has always been a land of thinly veiled violence in our rhetoric. You're not wrong that neoconservatism and neoliberalism have failed to establish a national identity, but that may be a sign of impending doom or a cause of real problems for real people. It may be because in an information society the entire concept of a national identity is dowdy and uncalled for.