3 ms·

I see very little ink given to your last point, which is the most important. Trust has collapsed. Unaddressed that can’t help but lead to either totalitarianism

• dctoedt 3y ago
  > Trust has collapsed. Agreed — and each side thinks it has good reason not to trust the other. (One side is right about that.)
  • api 3y ago
    The trust collapse came first, the hyper-polarization came second. Trust collapsed in the mainstream following the Iraq War, bank bailouts, etc. in the 2000s. The problem really goes all the way back to Vietnam, Watergate, the credible suspicion around the JFK and MLK assassinations that was never addressed, etc. Things really started to go off the rails in the 1960s but it took until the 2000s for the bottom to fall out. Trump is just an opportunistic grifter taking advantage of this.
  • rayiner 3y ago
    Both sides are correct not to trust each other. If you were an anthropologist studying the differences in moral philosophy and religion of various groups of Americans 1,000 years in the future you’d call the present conflicts different religious sects. These debates about e.g. the nature of gender and when you can kill your offspring, are religious in nature. Islamic sects that are at war with each other have less fundamental doctrinal disagreements. On top of that, the factions have fundamentally divergent views about issues that are weighty in a multi-ethnic country: the nature and desirability of diversity, and multi-culturalism. Overlaid on that is a divergence in economic interests between regions that benefit from globalism/the knowledge economy, and regions that are left behind by those changes. Groups that diverge on fundamental values can’t trust each other. Historically, it just doesn’t work. When such divergences emerge around the world, they almost always result in political schisms.
    • dctoedt 3y ago
      > When such divergences emerge around the world, they almost always result in political schisms. In the U.S., we have a group (or collection of groups) that believes it has a divine mission to impose its fundamental values on everyone else, and that lying and cheating are justified in the service of that mission. Speaking for myself and a lot of others, that's a valid basis for us to mistrust that group. But what valid basis does that group of zealots have for mistrusting the rest of us? One might reasonably suspect that it's merely that we won't knuckle under to how they think everyone should live their lives — in which case, why should we treat their ukases any differently than those of, say, Iranian ayatollahs?
      • rayiner 3y ago
        > In the U.S., we have a group (or collection of groups) that believes it has a divine mission to impose its fundamental values on everyone else, and that lying and cheating are justified in the service of that mission. Speaking for myself and a lot of others, that's a valid basis for us to mistrust that group. But what valid basis does that group of zealots have for mistrusting the rest of us? There is no such thing as neutrality as to values, where "you do what you want and I do what I want." A society is a collective effort and necessarily reflects some set of values. A society built on individual choice and self-determination as core values ends up looking like San Francisco or New York City. You can't create Tokyo or Mayberry with those values. Government can't paper over differences in people's perception of what's a good life or what kind of society they want to live in, because ultimately it's the government's job to make those things happen. And secularists are just as zealous about their core values as evangelical Christians are about theirs. Values that are important in the Muslim country where I come from, for example, are undermined every day in the secular blue state where I live. > why should we treat their ukases any differently than those of, say, Iranian ayatollahs? That is how you treat them, and you don't hide it well at all, and that's why they don't trust you.
        • dctoedt 3y ago
          > A society built on individual choice and self-determination as core values ends up looking like San Francisco or New York City. You can't create Tokyo or Mayberry with those values. Leaving aside that Mayberry is a fantasy, SF and NYC look pretty good compared to, say, Dhaka or Tehran, and they stack up reasonably well against Tokyo. Plus: You're focusing on a snapshot, when in fact it's a movie — I'd venture that the individualist-but-cooperative mindset is considerably more adaptive over the long term. > Values that are important in the Muslim country where I come from, for example, are undermined every day in the secular blue state where I live. So? The reverse is also true: Values that are important to people like me are undermined every day in that same country; does that mean we should change our values? Saying "yes, you should change your values because theirs are just better" is pretty presumptuous, no? > That is how you treat them, and you don't hide it well at all, and that's why they don't trust you. You haven't answered my question: Why should we privilege the dictates of "Christian" fundamentalists over those of Islamic fundamentalists — and why should we privilege either over our own values? If Alice doesn't trust Bob merely because Bob insists on having his own values and prefers not to live according to Alice's, then that's Alice's problem — and if Alice tries to force Bob to adopt her values, then she should expect, let's just say, vigorous opposition.