That's the new book by Cass Sunstein and the subtitle is How Like Minds Unite and Divide. I am a fan of Cass Sunstein and I hope they confirm him for OIRA, but I am not persuaded by the main thesis of this book.
I take the main point to be that polarization is increasing and in a bad way. Sunstein offers plenty of good evidence that when people discuss a problem together, they tend to polarize if they disagreed in the first place. But this does not mean polarization is increasing in absolute terms. You can find poll-based public opinion diagrams which point in either direction, but viewing the problem in general and longer-run terms, here are a few offsetting forces:
1. Most of the time people aren't talking with others about controversial problems. During these "cooling off periods" their polarization might well decrease. It's not a one-way ratchet effect.
2. The population is aging in many countries. Even if you believe in the notion of "crochety old men," they are tame crochety old men.
3. Highly polarizing ideologies, such as communism and Nazism, have been on the decline. Maybe jihadism is on the rise but even that is not clear.
4. Wealth and commerce soften morals.
5. Public reactions to the financial crisis have been quite low-key for the most part.
6. Obama goes out of his way to adopt a non-polarizing style (no matter what you think of his policies) and it brings him considerable popularity. That suggests a demand for non-polarization, or at least the perception thereof. In many countries politicians have an incentive to straddle the median and bring outlying groups closer to the center, for purposes of governance and re-election.
Polarization is highly visible in certain segments of the media, including the web. But I am not convinced that increasing polarization is occurring or is a major problem, once we adjust for what one might call "perennial stupidity."
Even Bush in 2000 sought a non-polarizing style. Compassionate conservatism. I think people do think the median voter is likely to value moderation for it’s own sake. But I do think that people are being sorted into their own echo chambers as far as media consumption goes. Also the internet allows you to affiliate with people who don’t think your beliefs are crazy even if your beliefs are crazy. I think polarizing is sort of true but I think it is sort of mitigated by splintering. People developing more bespoke ideologies and opinions. Many of these ideologies will be more extreme than either pole but on the whole but I think the necessity of building coalitions will make people function as though they aren’t particularly polarized.
The experiments Sunstein cites are not persuasive for the overall claim.
It is true that you can manipulate groups into stating more extreme views than they would have in other circumstances.
But like many framing effects, it is unclear what this amounts to. What happens to these people’s views when they are out of the framing effect, for example? When do people leave like minded groups – when the views start to become extreme?
The experiments are interesting, but much more would have to be done to support the overall thesis.
It’s very premature to say that Obama is non-polarizing, he’s barely coming out of the honeymoon period at the start of his administration. As an earlier poster pointed out, Bush in his first hundred days was hardly the polarizing figure he later became (apart from the controversy over the extremely close 2000 election and how it was resolved, which caused lingering bitterness among the losing side).
There’s a natural human tendency to close ranks after a hard-fought decision-making process and go along with the new guy even if you didn’t vote for him. All the more so if there is a severe crisis (consider Bush’s poll numbers in the immediate aftermath of 9/11).
Obama has, however, started displaying a few calculated outbursts of populism (on AIG, on Chrysler). Fighting over a shrinking economic pie tends to become a zero-sum game, which may mean favoring some groups (eg, the UAW) and demonizing others (eg, hedge funds) as a prelude to sticking them with losses. Going forward we will see less of the smooth candidate and more of the bruising Chicago politician.
FDR was certainly a highly polarizing figure, at least until the country closed ranks in the face of the gathering storm across the oceans. Dealing with a similar economic crisis, it is pretty unrealistic to expect that Obama will turn out to be anything different.
On number 1, the relevant question is whether people spend most of their time talking about politics, the relevant question is whether people are talking MORE about politics now.
Voter turnout has certainly been improving for the last 10 or so years at least.
5. Public reactions to the financial crisis have been quite low-key for the most part.
Mexican folks react in the streets by chanting and waving Mexican flag (http://24ahead.com/images/immrally2007.jpg), white folks react in a voting booth.
Polarization is a problem but in many instances we get around it by cominig to watered down solutions, whether it be about local land use decisions, federal policies, or international negotiations. This does not mean that polarization goes away. When possible, especially at the local level, people deal with their polarization by moving.
“FDR was certainly a highly polarizing figure, at least until the country closed ranks in the face of the gathering storm across the oceans. Dealing with a similar economic crisis, it is pretty unrealistic to expect that Obama will turn out to be anything different.”
Posted by: anonymous
What was FDR’s share of the popular vote in 1936, when voters first had a chance to judge how well he had performed? IIRC, it was ~3rd in the history of US presidential elections. FDR was *very* uniting; there was just a tiny minority who hated his guts.
The FDR voters were united by the cash FDR was giving them, which he’d stolen from those who hated him.
“What was FDR’s share of the popular vote in 1936, when voters first had a chance to judge how well he had performed? IIRC, it was ~3rd in the history of US presidential elections. FDR was *very* uniting; there was just a tiny minority who hated his guts.”
Appointing a would be internet censoring thug to a position of power is quite polarizing. Being a “fan” of a self-declared internet censoring wannabee is not admirable.
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