Why American is Polarized (and Conservatives can't win)

[Jade Fox]

This Philip Slater article illuminates something I've been thinking throughout the last five years, with it's supposed massive shift to the political Right in this country. Specifically, the changes Conservatives find so disturbing are inevitable, and their desperate attempt to turn back the hands of time is doomed to failure, in spite of seeming success in the present.



http://www.philipslater.com/index.htm

WHY AMERICA IS POLARIZED

Political analysts have been impressed lately by the polarization of the American public between "reds" and "blues". Eighty percent of our population has declared itself impervious to persuasion. Why has this happened? Why have political positions hardened while the pragmatic center has shrunk?

While the media speak of the new importance of 'moral values', as if this were some recent fashion trend that had just burst upon the scene, this 'red/blue' division is rooted in major historical changes--changes that are welcomed by half of our nation, appalling to the other half. Furthermore, this division is not simply an American phenomenon, but a global one, rooted in the most revolutionary cultural shift in the history of our species.

Consider these seemingly unrelated events:

In 1996 business writer E. E. Lawler found that 80% of all the companies he studied had some form of participatory management.

In 1996, for the first time, there were more visits by Americans to alternative practitioners than to traditional Western physicians.

In 2001 scientists began to consider the possibility that the "laws" of nature might not be immutable.

In 2002 lawyers argued that chimpanzees should be accorded legal status as persons.

In 2004, for the first time, more women than men applied to medical school, while women made up a majority of first-year law students and outnumbered male college students 56% to 44%.

In 2004, gay marriages became legal in Massachusetts.

All of these events would have been inconceivable fifty years ago. During this time we've seen social change taking place at a rate unprecedented in the history of the planet. And while many of the changes have had widespread popular support, they have also--especially when combined with the unrelenting pace of technological innovation--stressed our adaptive capacities. We've not only had to adjust to computers and email and cell phones, but also to the changing roles of women and minorities, the "sexual revolution", the decline of the nuclear family, the growth of the global economy, the ecological movement, and so on.

[marmar]

1. No doubt.

I have NEVER seen this country as polarized as it is now. And you better believe all this massive social change is extremely threatening to conservatives - a very homogenous group. That's why they're fighting like Barbarians against all of it.

[bemildred]

2. Very true.

It's no accident that 35 years on the wingnuts are still obsessed with the Hippies and the Vietnam anti-war crowd.

[Jade Fox]

3. They are more that obsessed with Hippies, etc......

so many of the baby-boomer Neocons are obviously still nursing jealous anger over that which they were not part of in the 1960s.

[izzie]

4. I think we are in the middle of a revolution but----

it is hard to see because we are in it. It is like the industrial revolutions which took years. From the time the WW2 started or WW1 ended the whole of society, world wide has been in on this change and it goes on. If you recall from history these same things happened during the industrial rev. right down to terrorist and police clubbing union people and child labor much like things are happening to day. I am sure it will all happen but I am also sure we will fight about it. The secular part will be really bad. Just some person thinking.

[Atman]

5. This is actually part of the PNAC'ers theory, you know

I don't know it is in their infamous manifesto, but I heard this discussion on NPR or somesuch, around the beginning of the "war." They say that the social changes coming are going to be massive and inevitable, and that like all great shifts in society, there will be a concurrent amount of great pain and suffering. It isn't something anyone welcomes or wants, but it is inevitable.

The real trouble is, I think, that they have no plans to mitigate the impact of the societal changes, or to help anyone cope. Instead, they seem to want to deny it, apparently in the hopes of supressing panic and malais. Who knows exactly, but anyone who doesn't see a bad moon rising hasn't been paying attention!

[SnowGoose]

6. Another way "we're" winning...

and I put "we" in quotations, because the other side (conservatives) are also deriving the benefits, so I guess you could say "they're" winning too.

And that is that the boundaries of the debate are shifting.

When my grandmother(s) were born (pre 1920) women couldn't vote in federal elections in the US. I'm going to pause to let that sink in...

Women were denied the right to vote *by law*... because, you know... they were women... and stuff. Conservatives fought the liberals on this tooth and nail. But by now, the very notion of denying women the right to vote seems alien to us, and no serious political groups would suggest going back.

The boundaries have shifted. They will not shift back, and that is just one example.

I have no doubt that human societies are on a path to a more enlightened (read liberal) structure, in the long run. It's the short-run that can be confusing sometimes.

The real question for me is what the environment will be like by the time we get a clue.

[bemildred]

7. Yes.

If you've been watching long enough, it's clear the reactionaries are losing, as they always do in the long run. But your last question is much more worrisome. The lack of competent and ethical political leadership has resulted in humans doing little better than locusts in managing their relationship to the ecosphere.

[dsc]

8. true enough

but more amazing is that if your parent's (I am presuming both porn pre 64) were African American they couldn't have voted even then. The amount of change in a historically speaking small space of time is mindboggling.

[Jade Fox]

10. Excellent point....

about Conservatives benefiting too. That's something that really riles me when I hear them claiming the world would be great with no Liberals in it. Conservatives would still be living in caves if some Liberal hadn't thought up huts (after all, if God wanted us to live in huts, he would have provided them, no?).

I also worry about the environment.

[ixion]

9. gee, why should we be polarized... I mean, * is a UNITER

right? :sarcasm:

[yurbud]

11. are you saying the trend toward alternative medicine is good?

that's more like a step backward toward superstition, and it's being encouraged by insurance companies. (It's cheaper to pay the snake oil salesman and let you die that pay for real treatment).

[WhiteTara]

12. anabolic medicine is not the end all

and things like antibiotic resistant virus and infections are a direct result. Both have their place.

[yurbud]

16. that picture and your name make a powerful argument.

[WhiteTara]

17. for what?

[yurbud]

18. anything you say (it was a joke)

[WhiteTara]

19. great...let's end the war

then we will laugh and laugh and laugh. :hi:

[Jade Fox]

14. Um....

I know two people who have survived nearly two decades being HIV positive who use "alternative medicine" exclusively.

As for things like Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, they have proved effective for thousands of years.

[woo me with science]

21. Agree. And it's related to the dumbing down of education.

People no longer are taught to think critically, and they don't have a clue about the scientific method. Woo woo claims sound great when you haven't been given the tools to evaluate them.

[lakemonster11]

13. This is a great article.

The stuff about cooperation vs. competition reminds me strongly of the book Looking Backwards, written in the 1800s about a man who travels forward in time to the year 2000. He describes an idyllic society based on cooperation instead of competition. It's the first book I've read in a while that really got into my head and changed the way I think about the world.

[bemildred]

15. The trouble is that cooperative societies don't need a "unitary executive"

so all the wannabe "leaders" and assorted bigshots-in-waiting hate the idea of cooperative societies. That said, a bit of comptetition doesn't hurt, it's the balance that matters.

[Jade Fox]

20. Kick

[Shelor]

22. recommended