United States Politics in 2008
Wednesday, 8. October 2008, 00:57:19
I was listening to a Talk of the Nation podcast from NPR today, and they were talking about an interesting idea. As we all know, Politics often seems to end up with the inexplicable occuring on the national stage. Partially it's the system, I think there have been many discussions pointing out the problems with our Electoral system. But there's another problem, and it's not "the system".
The big problem is identified in "The Big Sort" and elsewhere online as well. It's simply that people like hanging out with like minded people. We like other people like us. And it's not really an amazing insight at all - why wouldn't you want to hang out with people who like the same hobbies, books, games, TV shows et cetera... More obviously, what would you do with a group who was into something that you cannot stand or at best find terminally booring?
The problem of course is slightly more subtle. I can offer an anectadote. I don't listen to the radio. I can't stand the ads or the runs of music I hate. So I listen to podcasts or CDs. This leaves me with an interesting problem though. When I've gotten tired of a band, or there's a dry spell in podcast topics I care about, how do I find out about a new band?
To take this back around to politics, if you're hanging out with people who agree with you politically, and are going online to the sites that you agree with, you end up in a similar echo chamber. So, first, you don't know alternate points of view (and I'm not talking the two major parties. Many people have never heard of Ron Paul, or only know Ralf Nader as the person who lost Gore the election). So you have two or poentially only one worldview you can see issues through. You never get to critically evaulate your positions, and you never even know some positions exist.
Then you end up being forced to pick one of the two parties, and take the bad with the good. You may end up taking a position on Abortion that you don't like for a position on the economy you think is the most important. You end up picking a "Team".
The final endgame is you end up not understanding why people might pick another team. And then how can you ever find political common ground when you can't comprehend why people are following a different team.
The big problem is identified in "The Big Sort" and elsewhere online as well. It's simply that people like hanging out with like minded people. We like other people like us. And it's not really an amazing insight at all - why wouldn't you want to hang out with people who like the same hobbies, books, games, TV shows et cetera... More obviously, what would you do with a group who was into something that you cannot stand or at best find terminally booring?
The problem of course is slightly more subtle. I can offer an anectadote. I don't listen to the radio. I can't stand the ads or the runs of music I hate. So I listen to podcasts or CDs. This leaves me with an interesting problem though. When I've gotten tired of a band, or there's a dry spell in podcast topics I care about, how do I find out about a new band?
To take this back around to politics, if you're hanging out with people who agree with you politically, and are going online to the sites that you agree with, you end up in a similar echo chamber. So, first, you don't know alternate points of view (and I'm not talking the two major parties. Many people have never heard of Ron Paul, or only know Ralf Nader as the person who lost Gore the election). So you have two or poentially only one worldview you can see issues through. You never get to critically evaulate your positions, and you never even know some positions exist.
Then you end up being forced to pick one of the two parties, and take the bad with the good. You may end up taking a position on Abortion that you don't like for a position on the economy you think is the most important. You end up picking a "Team".
The final endgame is you end up not understanding why people might pick another team. And then how can you ever find political common ground when you can't comprehend why people are following a different team.
WIDGETIZE