Our polarized and fragmented political worlds

Over the decades, I have gotten used to editors rejecting my commentaries.  The latest is merely that--the latest.  Disappointing, yes.  But, to use the words of the current President, it is what it is!

One of the rejections was about the polarized political environment and television "news" channels catering to their audience.  A first version of this was rejected back during my California years.  A decade into my Oregon years, I wrote again about it in 2012, and yet again it was rejected.

Re-reading the piece, well, I stand by it ;)

I concluded there,"We have no choice but to get used to the reality that most Americans—and the rest of the world, too—will increasingly live in polarized and fragmented political worlds."

That was in 2012.  Well before tRump!  Over the past four years, the fragmentation has become severe.

I have always hated living and thinking in a bubble.  This is why I used to read the WSJ, even if I cursed it most of the time.  I engaged with Republicans and have even shared many meals with them.  But, that was all prior to the summer of 2016.

I terribly miss that pre-2016 world, and I know that it will never come back.  After all, the tRump voters have made it clear, to borrow from Taylor Swift, that they are "gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate."

Here it is for you to read my rejected 2012 commentary:
************************

When I was new to this country, C-Span fascinated me for its uniqueness—it provided politics in the raw without filters of any kind, and offered me multiple perspectives that I could not have ever otherwise followed.  It even seemed rather quaint that the channel would list separate phone numbers for Republican and Democratic viewers to call in with their comments and questions.

At C-Span and in the real world, the old days at least held out a possibility of conversations across political or religious lines and about the issues of the day, both profound and trivial. 

Now, as much as the common water cooler has been replaced by individualized water bottles, news sources and discussion forums have also become customized.  Thus, it is now easy to remain within our own narrowly defined identities, whatever they might be and, thereby, shut ourselves from anything that does not correspond to our views of the world.

Professor Cass Sunstein wrote about this rapidly emerging trend back in 2001—eons ago in the modern digital timelines!  Sunstein wrote then that one of the vices of the exponentially expanding modern communications involved “the risk of fragmentation, as the increased power of individual choice allows people to sort themselves into innumerable homogeneous groups, which often results in amplifying their preexisting views.”

Empirical evidence confirms this.  In a research paper, Shanto Iyengar of Stanford and Kyu Hahn of UCLA note that “although an infinite variety of information is available, individuals may well limit their exposure to news or sources that they expect to find agreeable. Over time, this behavior is likely to become habituated so that users turn to their preferred sources automatically no matter what the subject matter.”

Fragmentation in the news media will then be a logical outcome in such an information world.

As a matter of fact, this is already the case in India.  .

In the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the two main political parties are represented through their leaders Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi.  Interestingly enough, they both also own stakes in two television cable channels.  The channel “JayaTV” is aligned with Jayalalitha, while “SunTV” is pro-Karunanidhi.   

These channels offer the usual entertainment staples of dramas and movies.   The political slant of the two channels becomes obvious during the regional news programs.  When Jayalalitha is in power, SunTV is forever critical of the government, and the roles reverse when the political fortunes shift! 

It is equally fascinating that the audience is also fully aware that the news from these two television channels is not unbiased.  Thus, news items that are highly critical or laudatory are then appropriately scaled by the viewers!

It appears that this model is being rapidly adopted by other political leaders and parties across India.  In Gujarat, for instance:

Weeks before Gujarat gets into poll mode, the state BJP is set to launch its own TV channel called ‘Namo Gujarat’, eponymously named after CM Narendra Modi.

Perhaps then all we need is a similar sort of full-disclosure of political affiliations from “news” organizations in America. Those who are upset with Fox News and MSNBC will, I am confident, be ok with them if these and similar media outlets stopped pretending that they offer objective and balanced news and analysis and, instead, came out of the news closet and revealed their true political colors.

As Sunstein argued years ago, such fragmentation might not advance the cause of healthy democratic participation.  Instead of having constructive conversations where differences are articulated, we then end up with “shoutfests” where the objective is not to listen to differing views but to drown out the opposing voices. 

But then, as the old saying goes, the genie is, unfortunately, out of the bottle!  We have no choice but to get used to the reality that most Americans—and the rest of the world, too—will increasingly live in polarized and fragmented political worlds. 

Will an ideal citizenry elect Trump as President?

No chocolates this term.
No thank-you card.
No wedding invite.

Yet, the term is a huge success.

On his own, a student who is usually very quiet, said that he realized that the course was not merely about the content.  It was, as he put it, "to learn skills to determine many of the ideas we must know."  Once they have the skills, they can then go about learning whatever they want to learn about.  I was nearly overcome with emotion when I heard him articulate that.

Every term I tell students, over and over again, that they should not think of coming to my classes--or even attending the university--in order to gain information.  "All the information is out there" I tell them.  The educated person will know how to interpret that information and make meaning out of it.

This becomes increasingly important with every passing minute, given the rate at which we are producing information.  And, of course, important for a healthy democracy as well.  But, do the people have the skills to work with the information in order to be the ideal citizenry that Plato and Jefferson imagined?

The problem of course is that having more information available, even more accurate information, isn’t what is required by the ideal. What is required is that people actually know and understand that information, and there are reasons to think we are no closer to an informed citizenry understood in that way than we ever have been. Indeed, we might be further away.

I, too, worry that "we might be further away."  And that is not merely because of the unstoppable fascist in contemporary American politics.  It is from what I observe in the university, which is consistent with what the author notes:

One reason for thinking so is that searching the Internet can get you to information that would back up almost any claim of fact, no matter how unfounded. It is both the world’s best fact-checker and the world’s best bias confirmer — often at the same time. Group polarization on the Internet is a fact of digital life. Liberals “friend” liberals and share liberal-leaning media stories and opinions with them; conservatives friend conservatives, and do the same.
And the flow of digital information is just as prone to manipulation as its content

Faculty, students, neighbors, it doesn't matter where I look, more than always people seem to prefer their comfortable echo chambers.  How can that be possible in this information age, you ask?  The internet "is both the world’s best fact-checker and the world’s best bias confirmer — often at the same time."  It is simply awful.

Anyway, why the worry that we might be further away from the ideal citizenry?  The author, who is "a professor of philosophy and the director of the Humanities Institute’s Public Discourse Project at the University of Connecticut," offers two reasons, and both appeal to me:

First, as Jason Stanley and others have emphasized recently, appeals to ideals can be used to undermine those very ideals. People on both the left and the right tell one another that “the information is right there; people just aren’t paying attention to the facts (Google it!).” The very availability of information can make us think that the ideal of the informed citizen is more realized than it is — and that, in turn, can actually undermine the ideal, making us less informed, simply because we think we know all we need to know already.

What a strange behavior, right?

The second reason is even more worrisome:

Second, the danger is that increasing recognition of the fact that Googling can get you wherever you want to go can make us deeply cynical about the ideal of an informed citizenry — for the simple reason that what counts as an “informed” citizen is a matter of dispute. We no longer disagree just over values. Nor do we disagree just over the facts. We disagree over whose source — whose fountain of facts — is the right one.
And once disagreement reaches that far down, the daylight of reason seems very far away indeed.

Recognizing these, I design the assignments carefully.  Because, I could otherwise easily end up legitimizing crazy sources out there.  Like the ones that deny climate change. Or the ones that question natural selection and evolution.  Or how higher education has been reduced to a ponzi scheme.  Oh, wait, the ponzi scheme is for real--but, not in my classes though, as that quiet student demonstrated.

The compartmentalized and polarized worlds in which we live

When I was new to this country, C-Span fascinated me for its uniqueness—it provided politics in the raw without filters of any kind, and offered me multiple perspectives that I could not have ever otherwise followed.  It even seemed rather quaint that the channel would list separate phone numbers for Republican and Democratic viewers to call in with their comments and questions.

Whether it was from C-Span or from other sources, the old days at least held out a possibility of conversations across political or religious lines and about the issues of the day, both profound and trivial. 

However, just as the common water cooler has been replaced by individualized water bottles, news sources and discussion forums have also become customized.  Thus, it is now easy to remain within our own narrowly defined identities, whatever they might be and, thereby, shut ourselves from anything that does not correspond to our views of the world.

Professor Cass Sunstein wrote about this rapidly emerging trend back in 2001—eons ago in the modern digital timelines!  Sunstein, currently the Director of the office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote then that one of the vices of the exponentially expanding modern communications involved “the risk of fragmentation, as the increased power of individual choice allows people to sort themselves into innumerable homogeneous groups, which often results in amplifying their preexisting views.”

Empirical evidence confirms this.  In a recent research paper, Shanto Iyengar of Stanford and Kyu Hahn of UCLA note that “although an infinite variety of information is available, individuals may well limit their exposure to news or sources that they expect to find agreeable. Over time, this behavior is likely to become habituated so that users turn to their preferred sources automatically no matter what the subject matter.”

Therefore, if at all, I am surprised that it has taken this long to loudly recognize that modern communication technologies that feed us with more news than we could possibly digest, have also made it remarkably easy for us to choose our own filters. 

Fragmentation in the news media will then be a logical outcome in such an information world.  As a matter of fact, this is already the case in the part of India that I visited last summer, and there does not appear to be a great deal of concern over it either.

In the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the two main political parties are represented through their leaders Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi.  Interestingly enough, they both also own stakes in two television cable channels.  The channel “JayaTV” is aligned with Jayalalitha, while “SunTV” is pro-Karunanidhi.  These channels offer the usual entertainment staples of dramas and movies.  But, it is during the regional news programs that their political slant becomes obvious.  Because Karunanidhi is in power now, JayaTV is forever critical of the government, and the roles reverse when the political fortunes shift!

It was equally fascinating that the audience is also fully aware that the news from these two television channels is not unbiased.  Thus, news items that are highly critical or laudatory are then appropriately scaled by the viewers!

Perhaps then all we need in America is a similar sort of full-disclosure of political affiliations from “news” organizations in America. 

Now, as Sunstein argued eight years ago, such fragmentation might not advance the cause of healthy democratic participation.  Instead of having constructive conversations where differences are articulated, we then end up with “shoutfests” where the objective is not to listen to differing views but to drown out the opposing voices. 

But then, as the old saying goes, the genie is, unfortunately, out of the bottle!  We have no choice but to get used to the reality that, thanks to technological wonders, most Americans—and the rest of the world, too—will increasingly live in polarized and fragmented political worlds.

If only Faux Noose would add a permanent full-disclosure of sorts, then it can easily preclude the kind of satire it provokes and receives from the Daily Show :)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

and then follow it up with Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Terror Bunker 5200
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Cable TV News: quote of the day

Using [cable TV news] as a gauge of how divided we are is like using the National Hockey League to estimate the level of violence in America

Great point, Steve Chapman.
He adds:

According to a 2008 survey by the National Opinion Research Center, when you give them more options—extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, or extremely conservative—you find that the largest ideological group is moderates, with 37.3 percent compared to 34.5 percent for the three conservative groups combined.
Add up the moderates and those who are only slightly liberal or slightly conservative and those who don't know—those clustered in the middle of the road—and you've got about two-thirds of the citizenry. As political scientists Morris Fiorina of Stanford's Hoover Institution and Samuel Abrams of Harvard put it, "the American electorate in 2008 is much better described as centrist than polarized."
Moreover, they note in a forthcoming paper, the public is not getting more polarized. "In terms of their ideological orientations," they note, "the American electorate looks about the same as it did when Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Republican Jerry Ford in the not very polarized 1976 election"—Carter being conservative by Democratic standards and Ford moderate by GOP standards of the day.

Ideological Melting Pot, v. the Postmodern Salad Bowl

I am a member of a small group of people from India who switched careers after doing an undergraduate degree in electrical or electronics engineering. Sometimes other fields too. While I am not sure what the reasons for the rest are, in my case it was a simple one: when I was in high school, it was a given that the smart kids went on to engineering or medicine, and the rest went somewhere else. Well, that is what we were brainwashed into thinking, and how wise can a 17-year old be anyway!

Here is another such example (though I am not sure if the guy was born in India, or here in the US) Shankar Vedantam is a national correspondent writing about science and human behavior for the Washington Post. Vedantam has a master's degree in journalism from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering. BTW, the name sounds very much like a Tamil name--I wonder about the degrees of separation between him and me :-)
Vedantam notes that:

About two in three Americans say they prefer to live around people belonging to different races, religions and income groups. In reality, however, survey research shows that people are increasingly clustering together among those who are just like themselves, especially on the one attribute that ties the others together -- political affiliation.

Nearly half of all Americans live in "landslide counties" where Democrats or Republicans regularly win in a rout. In the 2008 election, 48 percent of the votes for president were cast in counties where President-elect Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won by more than 20 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Center.

The clustering of Democrats in Democratic areas and Republicans in Republican areas has been intensifying for at least three decades: In 1976, only about a quarter of all Americans lived in landslide counties. In 1992, a little more than a third of America was landslide country.

As I read this, I was thinking that it sounded more like Bill Bishop's arguments that I have blogged about before. Sure enough, later Vedantam quotes Bishop:

"These are the kinds of differences that are political in America today," Bishop and Cushing said in an e-mail they composed together. "People don't see themselves as members of demographic groups -- a white working-class man, an educated woman. Like the woman in California who described herself to us as an 'ocean-oriented person,' Americans define themselves by their interests: the bands they listen to, the foods they eat, the sports they follow, the spiritual beliefs they adopt."

Political polarization, according to this explanation, is a consumer phenomenon: You like Cheerios; I like Wheaties. Americans have lots of choices -- you can live in a cul-de-sac surrounded by fellow Mormons, or in a gay enclave, or in a neighborhood where yoga studios outnumber fast-food outlets.

I bet the Public Choice people are thrilled every time they see such arguments.

I like Vedantam's concluding remarks:

The yoga people simply can't stand what the lawn-chemical people represent, and vice versa. This might explain why, despite all of Obama's calls for an America that is larger than its differences, political polarization at the county level intensified between 2004 and 2008.