Best explanation that I'm aware of:
The 1950s were an intellectual monoculture born of 2 world wars, the great depression, and a huge consolidation in media outlets. First newspapers, and even the new Television-jobber were all, by 1950, controlled nationwide by very few players. Not only were we "all in this together", but there were also only 5 all-identical but for the capitalization, inbred opinions available in public. Everyone basically agreed. FDR-ish fascism was the way it was.
Alternate explanation:
Increased Segregation. Whereas the prior 200 years were all about people from different backgrounds, and of different opinions mixing together, and finding underlying humanity...Sometime after forced bussing, more well off folks started isolating themselves into entirely-like-minded communities. Some evidence suggests that the probability of a member of your zip code agreeing with you politically has increased from 50% in 1950 to something like 60% today. And neighborhoods are likely more so. My thought experiment is: what level of tolerance is generated if your next door neighbor with whom you barbecue on the weekends, and with whom your children play happily has a different politics than you? I assert that you learn to tolerate/respect those of different opinions than your ownI have a third explanation as well...that i don't hear often enough:
Strong fences make good neighbors. If I send my kids to a private school, and you send your kids to a private school...then we're both happy, and mostly happy to let one another educate our kids as we please. On the other hand, if we both educate our kids at a tax-supported public school, then our very different proclivities will lead to increased vitriol. This extends further. If the federal government participates in education decisions, then you and I, even though we live in different states, have reason to fight with one another. Contrarily, if I live in Texas and my sister lives in Portland, and Borepatch lives in Atlanta, and the states control their education entirely...then Borepatch's neighbors will have the public schools teach their kids that God made America, my public schools will teach that gun control means tight groups, and my sister's neighbors will have their schoolchildren offer incense and crystals to Gaia. And we'll all be happy. The more of life that governments control, and the larger the unit of governance that controls it, the less civility will prevail.
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12 comments:
Aretae,
I really like your "strong fences" argument -- I think this is why there is ultimately an alliance to be had with conservatives and libertarians. Yes, there are a few laws we'd rather have enforced nationally, but even with something like the protection of the unborn, we'll take federalism any day over the current mess. Note that while it isn't exactly the same thing, there is much that is in harmony between the Catholic idea of subsidiarity and federalism. Again, if Catholics can control the education of their young and at the State level ultimately pass laws protecting the unborn and the traditional definition of marriage, we'd be happy in our traditional States while the heathen congregate in Oregon and Vermont!
1. I doubt that a serious inquiry into 1800s politics could reasonably conclude that there was less 'vitriol' than now. Sometimes I long for the days when candidates would accuse each other of being cuckolds, half-breeds, etc., if only for the entertainment value. Meanwhile my strongest memories of, say, the Bush vs. Gore or Bush vs. Kerry debates all involve the (D) saying [insert big-spending money program here] and Bush saying "I agree, kinda, but [slight modification]".
2. That said, I find a vitriol-increase post-1950 far more plausible. I'd lean to your 'monoculture' explanation.
3. In part this monoculture was a symptom not merely of having won a war, or having 5 networks, etc., but more particularly, of a highly-stratified society: some rich/connected elites, and a lot of manufacturing workers. The manufacturing workers, to a first approximation, did not really participate in 'the culture' in the sense of constructing news narratives. The 'mono' cultural elite could push their culture unopposed.
4. So I would say that what has changed nowadays is mostly that we've all gotten wealthier, and that 'mono' now has more competition. A lot of those 'workers' are now middle- or upper-middle-class with all sorts of assets and things to protect, and outlets for their voices to be heard. This increases 'vitriol' because a faction previously silenced no longer is. Although since this has happened b/c the pool of 'haves' has become much bigger, this is still mostly a debate between & among factions of 'haves'.
5. If you take the above to heart one readily gets the conclusion that 'vitriol in politics' is probably, all else equal, a healthy thing.
6. The segregation explanation just seems like a symptom of my increased-wealth/workers join bourgeoisie explanation. Wealthy people can segregate themselves, send their kids to private schools etc. more easily than non-wealthy.
7. The strong-fences/large unit of governance explanation is superficially appealing, especially to those of conservative leaning who like the implication (big government causes vitriol), but I have my doubts. It seems a bit hard to make the argument that government 'controls' more of life or has more leeway than it did in FDR's 1930s, so shouldn't there have been more 'vitriol' then than now?
Rather, there may be something like academic politics going on ("Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.") More and more people have a lot to fight over, at tinier and tinier margins. Which - again - all else equal I think is probably a good thing not a bad thing.
Unfortunately for the strong fences line, I present to you, Mike Huben:
And just who invented this cockamamie "right" to homeschool? It's amazing how people simply assert rights without any legal or historical basis. It defies common sense that parents should be able to restrict children's experience to the indoctrination by the parents. Parents should not be allowed to deform the social and intellectual development of their children any more than they are allowed to physically deform their children.
Why should the attack on error stop at the home, when states could indoctrinate their students wrongly as well?
Alex,
I think Huben and company are losing. The homeschooling shift over the last 30 years has been phenomenal.
The ranks of the homeschoolers are too large at this point...and they're a highly concentrated interest group. Homeschoolers have time to be vocal and tend strongly to be a voting demographic. Opposing homeschooling in any state that isn't Super-blue (California, Massachussetts) seems unwise as a legislator.
(Just to be clear, I disagree with Mike Huben.)
Herz,
If conservatives would stop doing really really bad anti-federalist stuff like Terry Schiavo... then maybe we have room to talk. But they don't. Conservatives want their rules...Liberals want their rules...and Liberals are currently winning. The *only* reason conservatives are talking the libertarian line appears to be because it would be a net win for them: the ability to get *some* laws their way as opposed to none. While that might be cause for a temporary topical alliance, it's by no means cause for a strong alliance.
Alex,
I've been reading your comments for a while...I knew you disagreed.
RWCG,
If your responses here weren't so serious, they'd do just fine as full posts chez vous.
I like especially point 4,5.
I do think that government has more leeway now than it did in 1930...but I could probably be persuaded otherwise.
http://southsanfrancisco.patch.com/articles/do-parents-have-a-moral-obligation-to-send-their-kids-to-public-schools?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001
Even in a super-blue state, opposing homeschooling and private schooling is a serious loser. Look at the poll there by readers, who are likely at least 1 sigma shifted to the left.
Reason or someone like that did a little video last year arguing that there is no increase in vitriol -- amusing quotes from past centuries.
Your points all have merit, but I would add that politics is now mass entertainment, and shares the attributes of other mass entertainment. (Probably this is less of an innovation in the US as it has been here in Britain).
Re: leeway, yeah, I can go both ways sometimes. But it seems to me there was a time when the government was characterized by Big, Clunky, Intrusive things like running work farms to build massive projects like dams and such, interned certain citizens based on race, told farmers they couldn't grow stuff on their own land for personal use, rationing nylons and meat, putting socialist war dissenters in jail, busting unions, firing upon protesting veterans who wanted their pension, etc.
Nowadays, it's probably 'bigger' and 'more powerful' on paper, but somehow (at least from the POV of the average person - NOT talking about the cutting-edge margins) I have this sense that the big 'power' it wields is, in some important way...thinner. Like a pizza crust (for lack of a better metaphor), there is a neverending battle/tradeoff between 'bigness' and 'thinness', and it's not clear which will win out, though an optimist would say the thinness would prevail, and in my better moments I try to be an optimist...
I can't really substantiate any of that though, it's just a sense, and I could easily be convinced either way.
best
I think the "big government" explanation is right, but that is true only in the presence of actual democratic competition. FDR didn't have that; by taking the Democratic party from the old obstructionist "state's rights" party to a centralizing progressive party, he coopted the Republican's platform. Only gradually after WWII did Republicans and Democrats separate ideologically; the break was in the 60s but it took a while to sharpen. (Of course, it was the Democrats (southern ones) who opposed the Civil Rights Acts.)
So small government with 2+ parties can be restrained. So can big government with no parties, or one party. Big government with 2+ parties is a recipe for incivility. Democracy is warfare reduced to a headcount, so this should be no surprise. In fact it seems that the worst setup would be exactly two very equally powerful parties.
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