A Tyranny of True Believers
There is an interesting development taking place in the United States; voluntary segregation. Not of races, but of income and, more importantly, liberals on the one hand, and conservatives on the other. Those who share the same views and the same values are clustering together.
Although this development is logical - after all, people enjoy communicating with those who agree with their own views - it is nonetheless potentially dangerous. When people cluster together, if people only communicate with others who share the same values and views, they will become increasingly more extreme and less tolerant towards those who disagree.
Liberals will become more liberal and more dismissive of conservatives and vice versa. The result will undoubtedly be that the culture war will increase in passion and severity.
"Those who share the same views and the same values are clustering together."
But hasn’t this always been the case everywhere?
I mean, it’s pretty unlikely you’re hanging out in the coffeehouses and sharing a joint with socialists and atheists.
Well, Tom, most of my friends are liberals, most of my family are conservatives, and my colleagues are a surprisingly mixed bag (for academia). So perhaps exceptions are possible in daily life.
But as I write today in a different post, the blogosphere has uniquely powerful tools for requiring and enforcing separatism and repetition of ideological scripts. The “tyranny of linking” makes it so that anyone who dissents from mandatory ideological scripts (100% controlled by extremists) gets selected out and quickly made invisible.
I don’t know if this is limited to certain parts of the country, but I still notice a healthy mix around here. And I’m in one of the bluest states in the nation.
As is happening now indeed.