Right on! I’ve met a lot of radical progressives who seemed to be concerned with polarization and yet refused to let my more conservative classmates speak. I think this sheds some light on how they’re thinking, still blaming the Republicans for everything.
At the same time, people burned by the left can easily swing just as far right. I’m working now on finding ways we can let out that anger without turning it into protest signs. I can see how it ended up that way for some. In school, I didn’t have anyone to could talk to, so online forums were a necessary evil in finding someone who got me. But I like to try and be mindful about how I use them. I’m getting better at always ending my pieces with a “don’t just pin the blame on the other side, instead, do this practical thing for yourself” type conclusion.
Thanks for sharing, Margo. I think it is kind of mind-boggling how easy it is for us to form such different narratives about the same world. Almost every day lately that point hits home to me. The world is so complex, with so many points of data. You might like watching this video in this post, which I was reminded of when writing this: https://kevindorst.substack.com/p/ideological-bayesians. A way to make the case that the complexity of the world requires us to arrive at some sort of simplification, which helps explain why we can build very different narratives.
And then, I think related to what you observe, once you blame "the other side" it becomes easier to not look for or care about one's own or one's group's contributions to the conflict/toxicity; to just not even think about it being a factor.
Wonderful reflection! The last paragraph made me think of Richard Rohr’s term “sacred criticism” where we do speak out but with love and awareness of our interconnection. I learned a lot reading this and find your writing full of love and insight. Thank you very much. I look forward to reading more of it.
It’s been awhile, but I’m happy to find this piece that offers important “food for thought”!
I appreciate your continued diligence in the research and writing that you continue to do in hopes of helping us to give thought to things we don’t always consider.
I continue to believe that the attitude and approach the Democrats chose to INITIATE and hold strong to is the ROOT of what brought us to the DEEP DIVISIONS we have (and in some unfortunate cases, continue to) experienced.
I say this, not out of a continued desire to “hold on” to hurts of the past, but rather in hopes that this “failed experiment” (if “experiment” was what it was, as I can come to no other conclusion to help make sense of the unprecedented behavior of one political group toward another) will be REMEMBERED for the massive FAILURE it was. This is easily evidenced by the major shift AGAINST the Democrat Party, many FAITHFULS literally leaving the party and FINALLY the open and (from my perspective) well-deserved CRITICISM it EARNED.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” (or something to that effect 😊)
I hold no animosity and also don’t believe that Republicans are FREE of SIN. They, too, hold a degree of responsibility for complaint’s and dissatisfaction from Democrats.
BUT, the degree to which the Democrats were willing to go, openly encouraging DIVISION and ABANDONMENT of life-long relationships between Families, Friends and Associates, should NEVER BE FORGOTTEN for the evil it wrought.
Sadly, I began to hear stories of Republicans “following suite”, which was greatly disappointing. The initial shock of these totally UNEXPECTED and deeply PREJUDICIAL tactics wore off and many began to respond in kind. BUT, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”.
I GREATLY Respect and Applaud your efforts toward helping us to better understand where and how things “went wrong”, but I also, as a previously fairly tepid participant and follower of our American Politics, feel strongly that the Democrat Party holds a GREATER RESPONSIBILITY for the UGLY (and unprecedented) DIVISIONS that I witnessed in my lifetime.
They “planted the seeds and nurtured its growth” from the outset.
The Democrat Party will forever carry that DISTINCTION in my personal assessment of this heart-breaking period in our history and I pray that we will NEVER FORGET this HARD-LEARNED Lesson.
I believe in forgiveness on ALL sides, but forgiving does not exclude REMEMBERING so as to AVOID makING the same GRAVE mistake twice.
PLEASE, continue this important work, Zach. I have no doubt that it is VERY helpful in Educating and Enlightening those of us who enjoy your work. 😊 And “ripples” CAN make a difference!
Thanks for the comments, Rita. I was thinking of you (and others I've talked to in the past few months) when I wrote that piece. I do hope you will consider the core fact that it is simply easy for us to see the "other side" as the more toxic ones; the ones who have caused the toxicity. For example, I myself have personally experienced many examples of pro-Trump people acting in toxic ways to me and people I know; ways that I feel are manifestations of the more mean and toxic ways that Trump himself behaves. For example, an old friend of mine who spoke in rude and toxic ways about me and my wife and said insensitive things about immigrants just to seemingly get a rise out of us. Or the other acquaintance who seemed mainly intent on trying to trigger us by using harsh, toxic words about "those Mexicans". I could go on, and that's just examples from my personal life, leaving aside all the toxic things people have said about liberals and Democrats over the years, even preceding Trump era. Whether we can agree on where the blame lies or not isn't the point, I hope you can see: the point is that it's just extremely easy for liberals/Democrats/anti-Trump conservatives to see things completely opposite from you: that it is Trump and Republicans who have created very toxic dynamics.
The truth is, of course, that many people have contributed to the toxicity; that is, after all, how serious conflict always works. But my only point is that we should have more empathy and compassion for others, in being aware of just how easy it is for us to build entirely different narratives of grievance and blame.
I agree with re: censuring by progressives - I could see this divisiveness begin to happen in the early 2000’s when I was trying to get a book published and the comments from USA academics were so foreign and hostile (I had been previously living in the UK for a while) that I wondered what kind of country I had returned to. Then around 2007-2009, there was such hostility from the left regarding religious people that I switched from being a life long Democrat to the Republican Party. My sister and brother-in-law have since refused to talk to me. Then around 2015, when Trump announced he was running, I got cancelled from my profession as a knit wear designer as I innocently designed hats for Hillary, Trump or ‘NEITHER’, but the fact that I did Trump enraged people. The censure hasn’t stopped. When people in my circle (white upper class urban) find out I am a Republican, i get dropped as a friend and have just been ignored. For almost 25 years, the left has been fierce in my world.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience, for which I feel sadness and deep empathy for you. 💔
I can say that my experience, while very hurtful and disillusioning, doesn’t hold a candle to those of you who have had your livelihoods threatened and adversely affected solely on the basis of your “politics”.
I believe that this is one of the outstanding reasons I have felt so negatively toward Democrats.
It is one thing to choose your politics over your (supposed) friendships, but when you start messing with someone’s “livelihood “, in turn their ability to make a living based on the talents and abilities they have to offer, you have now (in my humble opinion) ventured into territory that makes a visible statement about the CHARACTER of someone willing to stoop so low.
I found it (sincerely) shocking, deeply disturbing and disappointing behavior. Having “respect” for someone choosing to participate in this kind of behavior would be highly difficult and unlikely.
I can find no reason nor justification for this kind of behavior, one human being to another, Democrat or Republican.
I respect and appreciate your willingness and strength to live out your convictions. I hope this finds you, now, in a much better space.
Respect can’t “pay the bills”, but you definitely have mine❣️
I find myself advancing a ... perhaps parallel ... idea, which is the constant reminder that 'democrat' and 'republican' are made-up social groupings. They are by definition coalitional and contingent. The Democratic/Republican Party, as in, the literal party members who run the party apparatuses as well as those holding elected office under those party designations - these are already amorphous institutions that cannot quite be said to have internally consistent ideologies, organizational approaches, &c. Let alone to assign any conformity to the 45?% of voting Americans that each party touts as affirmative members/reliable voters.
I mean, examine the Republican party over the past twenty years. Talk about a radical shift in organizing strategy! Even though the party purports to be a consistent entity and the people who reliably vote for it purport to be voting for the same things they always voted for.
So yes, asymmetrical, precisely, I agree the liberal 'theory of mind' fails to account for conservative behaviors and vice versa. But it's important to add that this 'theory of mind' fails not so much because liberals behave one way or conservatives another, but because the respective theories of mind are giant stories that we tell one another, and no such story can accurately explain the behaviors of all aspects of a political coalition, let alone account for individual motivations.
I think that all these labels (conservative, liberal, the right, the left) are illusory, and just refer to tribes (roughly the Democrat/Republican tribes, or the pro-Trump, anti-Trump tribes). If you'd like to learn more about the "myth of left and right", check out this: https://behavior-podcast.com/is-the-left-right-spectrum-concept-a-matrix-like-illusion/
Forgive me if you have other writings that touch on this but I wonder how effectively you could model polarization as a society-wide shift from “mistake theory” (our opponents are like us, but wrong about key points, and their wrong initials rationally lead them to wrong conclusions; we should seek to bring them over to our side by agreement) to “conflict theory” (our opponents are fundamentally different from us and there is nothing to do to bridge the gap other than impose our desires on them). It seems like the effects of that sort of mental shift would look like polarization.
I don’t think we’re anywhere near this in our current culture, but an honest conflict theory understanding doesn’t strike me as fundamentally evil. It would definitely require a change in how Americans perceive ourselves, though. There may not be anything evil about saying “an election is a proxy for a battle where all sides show off how many they can muster in support of their ideals, and then the winner of an election has won a conflict and will now impose its will on the losers” but as cultured today I doubt many would want to think of themselves in the manner of the victor.
Even if that appears to be how a group that wins power in an election actually behaves…
I find myself dreaming of your interest for more civil and respectful political dialog.
I don't think it is feasible though.
The reason is that the political machines, mostly the Democrat side, have adopted negative branding and character assassination as their primary campaign strategy.
The people are fed a constant stream of other side denigration. I use the example of Pepsi putting out an ad campaign claiming Coke is made with slave labor and toxic ingredients, the company manufacturing emits tons of greenhouse gas, and the CEO is a racist, mysogynist p-grabber and a fascist Nazi. And that is repeated on every media feed.
And what? Coke fans are supposed to take the high road while Coke market share crashes… because human phycology is such that the public ingests and repeats negative media.
But you do realize, though, that many people perceive all the toxicity as coming from the right, especially from Trump? I don't expect you to agree with that, and I don't agree with it (I see us caught in a self-reinforcing cycle of contempt, even as both sides are quite different in how they contribute to that) but my point is that it's very easy for people on both "sides" to form a narrative where all the toxicity (or the bulk of it) comes from the "other side." E.g., one can point to long-running things from the past, like Rush Limbaugh (and similar people's) extremely pessimistic and insulting things aimed at liberals; one can point to demonizing language (literally) on the part of Religious Right figures; one can point to the many toxic, insulting, conflict-amplifying things Trump and people who behave like him have said (even Trump supporters I know have told me they think he's a big conflict-amplifier). One can point to many anecdotes all around us; me, personally, have been insulted by former friends who have, IMO, absorbed Trump's toxic ways of behaving. One former friend told me he'd basically fight me and others in the streets if Trump were impeached; another acquaintance seemed to purposefully try to trigger my wife and I by saying mean, insulting things about immigrants.
These and the many other stories one can filter for I hope show you that it's simply easy to build different narratives. You have your narrative (which I think is too lopsided and not taking into account Republican-side contributions) and liberals/anti-Trump people have their narratives (many of which I see as not taking into account liberal-side contributions, some of which you mention). But regardless of who's right, the point is that I think there is value to getting more people to examine the ease with which we build opposed narratives and see harm and threat differently, depending on what we focus on. It's just the eternal cycle of conflict; there is nothing unusual about what we're going through, even as we like to think we're somehow unusual and unique, and that the tale of conflict is somehow different for us and this time "it's all their fault."
Right on! I’ve met a lot of radical progressives who seemed to be concerned with polarization and yet refused to let my more conservative classmates speak. I think this sheds some light on how they’re thinking, still blaming the Republicans for everything.
At the same time, people burned by the left can easily swing just as far right. I’m working now on finding ways we can let out that anger without turning it into protest signs. I can see how it ended up that way for some. In school, I didn’t have anyone to could talk to, so online forums were a necessary evil in finding someone who got me. But I like to try and be mindful about how I use them. I’m getting better at always ending my pieces with a “don’t just pin the blame on the other side, instead, do this practical thing for yourself” type conclusion.
Thanks for sharing, Margo. I think it is kind of mind-boggling how easy it is for us to form such different narratives about the same world. Almost every day lately that point hits home to me. The world is so complex, with so many points of data. You might like watching this video in this post, which I was reminded of when writing this: https://kevindorst.substack.com/p/ideological-bayesians. A way to make the case that the complexity of the world requires us to arrive at some sort of simplification, which helps explain why we can build very different narratives.
And then, I think related to what you observe, once you blame "the other side" it becomes easier to not look for or care about one's own or one's group's contributions to the conflict/toxicity; to just not even think about it being a factor.
Wonderful reflection! The last paragraph made me think of Richard Rohr’s term “sacred criticism” where we do speak out but with love and awareness of our interconnection. I learned a lot reading this and find your writing full of love and insight. Thank you very much. I look forward to reading more of it.
Thank you, Kaira! It means a lot, for real. I haven't heard of Richard Rohr; looking him up now!
This notion that our instincts lead us to counterproductive actions is a super useful one.
Not just in conflicts but in lots of other ways too!
Zach,
It’s been awhile, but I’m happy to find this piece that offers important “food for thought”!
I appreciate your continued diligence in the research and writing that you continue to do in hopes of helping us to give thought to things we don’t always consider.
I continue to believe that the attitude and approach the Democrats chose to INITIATE and hold strong to is the ROOT of what brought us to the DEEP DIVISIONS we have (and in some unfortunate cases, continue to) experienced.
I say this, not out of a continued desire to “hold on” to hurts of the past, but rather in hopes that this “failed experiment” (if “experiment” was what it was, as I can come to no other conclusion to help make sense of the unprecedented behavior of one political group toward another) will be REMEMBERED for the massive FAILURE it was. This is easily evidenced by the major shift AGAINST the Democrat Party, many FAITHFULS literally leaving the party and FINALLY the open and (from my perspective) well-deserved CRITICISM it EARNED.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” (or something to that effect 😊)
I hold no animosity and also don’t believe that Republicans are FREE of SIN. They, too, hold a degree of responsibility for complaint’s and dissatisfaction from Democrats.
BUT, the degree to which the Democrats were willing to go, openly encouraging DIVISION and ABANDONMENT of life-long relationships between Families, Friends and Associates, should NEVER BE FORGOTTEN for the evil it wrought.
Sadly, I began to hear stories of Republicans “following suite”, which was greatly disappointing. The initial shock of these totally UNEXPECTED and deeply PREJUDICIAL tactics wore off and many began to respond in kind. BUT, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”.
I GREATLY Respect and Applaud your efforts toward helping us to better understand where and how things “went wrong”, but I also, as a previously fairly tepid participant and follower of our American Politics, feel strongly that the Democrat Party holds a GREATER RESPONSIBILITY for the UGLY (and unprecedented) DIVISIONS that I witnessed in my lifetime.
They “planted the seeds and nurtured its growth” from the outset.
The Democrat Party will forever carry that DISTINCTION in my personal assessment of this heart-breaking period in our history and I pray that we will NEVER FORGET this HARD-LEARNED Lesson.
I believe in forgiveness on ALL sides, but forgiving does not exclude REMEMBERING so as to AVOID makING the same GRAVE mistake twice.
PLEASE, continue this important work, Zach. I have no doubt that it is VERY helpful in Educating and Enlightening those of us who enjoy your work. 😊 And “ripples” CAN make a difference!
Thanks for the comments, Rita. I was thinking of you (and others I've talked to in the past few months) when I wrote that piece. I do hope you will consider the core fact that it is simply easy for us to see the "other side" as the more toxic ones; the ones who have caused the toxicity. For example, I myself have personally experienced many examples of pro-Trump people acting in toxic ways to me and people I know; ways that I feel are manifestations of the more mean and toxic ways that Trump himself behaves. For example, an old friend of mine who spoke in rude and toxic ways about me and my wife and said insensitive things about immigrants just to seemingly get a rise out of us. Or the other acquaintance who seemed mainly intent on trying to trigger us by using harsh, toxic words about "those Mexicans". I could go on, and that's just examples from my personal life, leaving aside all the toxic things people have said about liberals and Democrats over the years, even preceding Trump era. Whether we can agree on where the blame lies or not isn't the point, I hope you can see: the point is that it's just extremely easy for liberals/Democrats/anti-Trump conservatives to see things completely opposite from you: that it is Trump and Republicans who have created very toxic dynamics.
The truth is, of course, that many people have contributed to the toxicity; that is, after all, how serious conflict always works. But my only point is that we should have more empathy and compassion for others, in being aware of just how easy it is for us to build entirely different narratives of grievance and blame.
I agree with re: censuring by progressives - I could see this divisiveness begin to happen in the early 2000’s when I was trying to get a book published and the comments from USA academics were so foreign and hostile (I had been previously living in the UK for a while) that I wondered what kind of country I had returned to. Then around 2007-2009, there was such hostility from the left regarding religious people that I switched from being a life long Democrat to the Republican Party. My sister and brother-in-law have since refused to talk to me. Then around 2015, when Trump announced he was running, I got cancelled from my profession as a knit wear designer as I innocently designed hats for Hillary, Trump or ‘NEITHER’, but the fact that I did Trump enraged people. The censure hasn’t stopped. When people in my circle (white upper class urban) find out I am a Republican, i get dropped as a friend and have just been ignored. For almost 25 years, the left has been fierce in my world.
CC,
Thank you for sharing your personal experience, for which I feel sadness and deep empathy for you. 💔
I can say that my experience, while very hurtful and disillusioning, doesn’t hold a candle to those of you who have had your livelihoods threatened and adversely affected solely on the basis of your “politics”.
I believe that this is one of the outstanding reasons I have felt so negatively toward Democrats.
It is one thing to choose your politics over your (supposed) friendships, but when you start messing with someone’s “livelihood “, in turn their ability to make a living based on the talents and abilities they have to offer, you have now (in my humble opinion) ventured into territory that makes a visible statement about the CHARACTER of someone willing to stoop so low.
I found it (sincerely) shocking, deeply disturbing and disappointing behavior. Having “respect” for someone choosing to participate in this kind of behavior would be highly difficult and unlikely.
I can find no reason nor justification for this kind of behavior, one human being to another, Democrat or Republican.
I respect and appreciate your willingness and strength to live out your convictions. I hope this finds you, now, in a much better space.
Respect can’t “pay the bills”, but you definitely have mine❣️
I find myself advancing a ... perhaps parallel ... idea, which is the constant reminder that 'democrat' and 'republican' are made-up social groupings. They are by definition coalitional and contingent. The Democratic/Republican Party, as in, the literal party members who run the party apparatuses as well as those holding elected office under those party designations - these are already amorphous institutions that cannot quite be said to have internally consistent ideologies, organizational approaches, &c. Let alone to assign any conformity to the 45?% of voting Americans that each party touts as affirmative members/reliable voters.
I mean, examine the Republican party over the past twenty years. Talk about a radical shift in organizing strategy! Even though the party purports to be a consistent entity and the people who reliably vote for it purport to be voting for the same things they always voted for.
So yes, asymmetrical, precisely, I agree the liberal 'theory of mind' fails to account for conservative behaviors and vice versa. But it's important to add that this 'theory of mind' fails not so much because liberals behave one way or conservatives another, but because the respective theories of mind are giant stories that we tell one another, and no such story can accurately explain the behaviors of all aspects of a political coalition, let alone account for individual motivations.
I think that all these labels (conservative, liberal, the right, the left) are illusory, and just refer to tribes (roughly the Democrat/Republican tribes, or the pro-Trump, anti-Trump tribes). If you'd like to learn more about the "myth of left and right", check out this: https://behavior-podcast.com/is-the-left-right-spectrum-concept-a-matrix-like-illusion/
Forgive me if you have other writings that touch on this but I wonder how effectively you could model polarization as a society-wide shift from “mistake theory” (our opponents are like us, but wrong about key points, and their wrong initials rationally lead them to wrong conclusions; we should seek to bring them over to our side by agreement) to “conflict theory” (our opponents are fundamentally different from us and there is nothing to do to bridge the gap other than impose our desires on them). It seems like the effects of that sort of mental shift would look like polarization.
I don’t think we’re anywhere near this in our current culture, but an honest conflict theory understanding doesn’t strike me as fundamentally evil. It would definitely require a change in how Americans perceive ourselves, though. There may not be anything evil about saying “an election is a proxy for a battle where all sides show off how many they can muster in support of their ideals, and then the winner of an election has won a conflict and will now impose its will on the losers” but as cultured today I doubt many would want to think of themselves in the manner of the victor.
Even if that appears to be how a group that wins power in an election actually behaves…
I haven't though much in terms of those specific concepts/theories, but I agree that polarization/conflict results in more people thinking in war-like zero sum ways (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/03/why-are-we-so-divided-zero-sum-thinking-is-part-of-it/). I'll maybe have to read more about 'mistake theory' and 'conflict theory'. If you want a free ebook of my Defusing American Anger ebook (www.american-anger.com), let me know, I'll happily send you it.
I find myself dreaming of your interest for more civil and respectful political dialog.
I don't think it is feasible though.
The reason is that the political machines, mostly the Democrat side, have adopted negative branding and character assassination as their primary campaign strategy.
The people are fed a constant stream of other side denigration. I use the example of Pepsi putting out an ad campaign claiming Coke is made with slave labor and toxic ingredients, the company manufacturing emits tons of greenhouse gas, and the CEO is a racist, mysogynist p-grabber and a fascist Nazi. And that is repeated on every media feed.
And what? Coke fans are supposed to take the high road while Coke market share crashes… because human phycology is such that the public ingests and repeats negative media.
But you do realize, though, that many people perceive all the toxicity as coming from the right, especially from Trump? I don't expect you to agree with that, and I don't agree with it (I see us caught in a self-reinforcing cycle of contempt, even as both sides are quite different in how they contribute to that) but my point is that it's very easy for people on both "sides" to form a narrative where all the toxicity (or the bulk of it) comes from the "other side." E.g., one can point to long-running things from the past, like Rush Limbaugh (and similar people's) extremely pessimistic and insulting things aimed at liberals; one can point to demonizing language (literally) on the part of Religious Right figures; one can point to the many toxic, insulting, conflict-amplifying things Trump and people who behave like him have said (even Trump supporters I know have told me they think he's a big conflict-amplifier). One can point to many anecdotes all around us; me, personally, have been insulted by former friends who have, IMO, absorbed Trump's toxic ways of behaving. One former friend told me he'd basically fight me and others in the streets if Trump were impeached; another acquaintance seemed to purposefully try to trigger my wife and I by saying mean, insulting things about immigrants.
These and the many other stories one can filter for I hope show you that it's simply easy to build different narratives. You have your narrative (which I think is too lopsided and not taking into account Republican-side contributions) and liberals/anti-Trump people have their narratives (many of which I see as not taking into account liberal-side contributions, some of which you mention). But regardless of who's right, the point is that I think there is value to getting more people to examine the ease with which we build opposed narratives and see harm and threat differently, depending on what we focus on. It's just the eternal cycle of conflict; there is nothing unusual about what we're going through, even as we like to think we're somehow unusual and unique, and that the tale of conflict is somehow different for us and this time "it's all their fault."