on the uses of diversity (2)

or: the entry in which I reveal my political cards (not that it should be a surprise to anyone)

The Economist recently published an article on political segregation. More and more Americans are choosing to live in areas where their political beliefs are in line with everyone else’s:

For example, someone who works in Washington, DC, but wants to live in a suburb can commute either from Maryland or northern Virginia. Both states have equally leafy streets and good schools. But Virginia has plenty of conservative neighbourhoods with megachurches and Bushites you've heard of living on your block. In the posh suburbs of Maryland, by contrast, Republicans are as rare as unkempt lawns and yard signs proclaim that war is not the answer but Barack Obama might be.

At a bookshop in Bethesda (one of those posh Maryland suburbs), Steven Balis, a retired lawyer with wild grey hair and a scruffy T-shirt, looks up from his New York Times. He says he is a Democrat because of “the absence of alternatives”. He comes from a family of secular Jews who supported the New Deal. He holds “positive notions of what government actions can accomplish”. Asked why he moved to Maryland rather than Virginia, he jokes that the far side of the river is “Confederate territory”. Asked if he has hard-core social-conservative acquaintances, he answers simply: “No.”

In the back of my mind, I’ve been wondering for quite some time: do I currently support Barack Obama because I really do believe he’s the best choice for president? Or is it because almost everyone else around me also does (I’m surrounded by liberals :P)? There’s still many months until election time, so there’s time to assess thoroughly and decide. If I end up doing what everyone else is doing, I hope it’s not from following the herd. And if I do decide differently, I hope I’ll have the courage not to hide it from others, because I am worried about what they think of me.*

It’s a pity that there isn’t more contact and dialogue between people of different political preferences. It’s easy to become silo-ed in our own bubbles, comfortably feeling smug with our political opinions, and writing off those who different opinions as stupid/elitist/ignorant/absurd etc… If we are to find some viable solutions to the problems that we are facing, ones that will actually be implemented in Congress and not just dreamed about, we do need to be actively trying to dialogue with and understand others’ opinions. Instead of just writing off another's opinion as wrong, it’s good to ask: What are their assumptions? (As Nick has written about in his blog). And if those assumptions are different, we can ask: why are they different? how can we work through our differences? and how can we continue to respect them in light of their different beliefs?

All this is much harder when we socially separate ourselves from those who have different political preferences from us. Living as neighbors, colleagues or friends, humanizes those “liberals” or “conservatives” or “anarchists” or “socialists”. It becomes much harder to label them and see them under the stereotype of their political preferences.** It puts us in a position where we must at the very least interact with them, instead of having all our knowledge of them be mediated through the internet and the evening news.

The Economist article continues on the dangers of lack of diversity:

There is a danger in this. Studies suggest that when a group is ideologically homogeneous, its members tend to grow more extreme. Even clever, fair-minded people are not immune. Cass Sunstein and David Schkade, two academics, found that Republican-appointed judges vote more conservatively when sitting on a panel with other Republicans than when sitting with Democrats. Democratic judges become more liberal when on the bench with fellow Democrats.

“We now live in a giant feedback loop,” says Mr Bishop, “hearing our own thoughts about what's right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear and the neighbourhoods we live in.”

Voters in landslide districts tend to elect more extreme members of Congress. Moderates who might otherwise run for office decide not to. Debates turn into shouting matches. Bitterly partisan lawmakers cannot reach the necessary consensus to fix long-term problems such as the tottering pensions and health-care systems.

America, says Mr Bishop, is splitting into “balkanised communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible.” He has a point. Republicans who never meet Democrats tend to assume that Democrats believe more extreme things than they really do, and vice versa. This contributes to the nasty tone of many political campaigns.

Interestingly enough:
The more educated Americans become, the more insular they are. Better-educated people tend to be richer, so they have more choice about where they live. And they are more mobile.



* It’s also still up in the air whether or not I will be able to vote in this historical election. I’m still in the process of applying for US citizenship. My civics exam is next week, and if I pass, I’m not sure when I will be sworn in. I haven’t voted before in my life, and so there’s a certain excitement in me about this upcoming election. I think in the past, I’ve taken voting too lightly, or ignored elections altogether, because it was something that I couldn’t be part of. But now, I might actually be part of this so-called democratic system, and I feel this growing sense of investment and care that I haven’t felt before.
** It’s ironic how “liberals” who are so sensitive about intolerance and racism, are rather quick to make generalizing comments about “conservatives”.