OPINION

Why we fight more

There are three major reasons why our politics have become so nasty and even violent--one political, one cultural, and one technological.

The political reason is the unbridled growth of government. As government grows it inevitably means the politicization of more and more parts of everyday life; politics and public policy become more important because they affect more things.

As economist Walter Williams has pointed out, the primary difference between the private and public sectors is that the former involves largely a non-zero-sum game and the latter a zero-sum game. In a free society, if I prefer Beefeater Gin and you prefer Bombay, my preference and purchase of Beefeater doesn't affect your preference and purchase of Bombay. We can pursue our interests without jeopardizing the ability of others to do the same.

Alas, just about everything government does divides people by favoring some at the expense of others--if it provides income support to party X, that money has to come from party Y; if an executive branch agency issues yet another regulation, it helps (and is supported) by some and hurts (and is therefore opposed by) others.

Our politics have become bitter because our society is more politically polarized, but it is more polarized in large part because an overly activist government by definition divides people and produces more political conflict. Election outcomes have potentially more dangerous consequences because so much more is at stake. Either "we" win and are in control, or "they" do and are.

The idea that government should be kept small and do only those things that are absolutely necessary for it to do, that it should provide only "public goods" that all can partake in and benefit from, is thus not just conducive to individual freedom and the preservation of civil society (that private sphere of life distinct from the public) but also crucial to preserving societal harmony by preventing the kind of vicious polarization we are now witnessing.

The second factor, cultural in nature and closely related to the first, is what Jonah Goldberg has called the increasing "lifestylization" of politics. In his words, "Disagreements become insults when politics becomes a statement about who you are."

At the heart of this argument is the notion that, as the personal becomes the political, with the private sphere increasingly encroached upon and eroded by the public, politics becomes the primary form of personal meaning and identity; we sort ourselves into hostile tribes that reflect not just political differences but differences in the way we live and see the world, to the point of eventually migrating to and settling into our own cultural/lifestyle bubbles with like-minded folks.

We even watch different news programs designed to appeal to those in our tribe and thereby confirm our biases and alleged virtue and the wickedness of those who disagree with us.

This increasing centrality of politics as a form of identity is relatively new in American life--when I was growing up the grown-ups didn't talk much or care much about politics, and certainly didn't allow whether one voted for Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey to affect where they lived or their friendships.

It is also almost certainly a consequence of the decline of organized religion as an indispensable element of civil society: even those of us more likely found on a golf course than a church pew on a typical Sunday morning can acknowledge that, as religion fades as a form of identity and belief, something else has to fill the resulting vacuum, and all too often these days that something else becomes politics.

Along with the growth of government and the decline of a shared sense of community, including religious belief that once provided a more exalted sense of purpose and meaning, our polarization has been magnified in its outward manifestations by technological change.

Even a few decades ago, it was hard to provoke a political argument; it had to occur mostly face-to-face and there probably wasn't much to be gained from starting one with your bartender or hairdresser, let alone the fellow who lived next door. You could always write a letter to the editor complaining about this or that, but that took time and there was no guarantee it would get published. That was about it.

But with the arrival of the Internet, social media, and Twitter, all that has changed--we now live in an age where the most hysterical, politicized and obliviously ignorant among us are encouraged to instantly form opinions about things they know nothing about and then fill our public discourse with venom and vitriol, made all the more unconstrained because of the cloak of anonymity.

Such technological innovations discourage thought and reflection in favor of raw emotions and ill-informed passions, but they are less the cause of our polarization than reflexive conduits for its most virulent expression. The loss of civility and the dumbing down of our political culture proceed in tandem.

The hunch is that we are not as a people anywhere nearly as divided as we seem; that there remains a significant reservoir of good will and social cohesion among us.

Alas, the tone of our politics is increasingly set by those who seek to divide us and profit from conflict and hate.

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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial on 06/26/2017

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