https://librarytechnology.org/library/1642

In his 1999 “Bowling Alone”, Robert Putnam documented the widespread decline of “community” in America since the second world war. In his 2015 “Our Kids” he breaks down the data showing that the “professional class” has mostly survived, maintaining the institutions and benefits of community, while the “working class” has lost community attachment, support and equal opportunity. He recommends that we invest in child-care and pre-K services to support “our kids”.

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (2015)

Francis Fukuyama shot to fame in the 1990’s when he proclaimed the “end of history”.  Mixed capitalism and representative democracy had permanently won the global war of ideologies against fascism, communism and totalitarianism!  His most recent book outlines the history and core content of “classic liberal” representative democracy and the threats to our political community from the left and right. 

Liberalism and Its Discontents – Francis Fukuyama 2022

Why We’re Polarized 2020

Moral Foundations Theory of Politics

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion – 2012 (Part 1)

The Righteous Mind – Part 2

Let’s turn to history through John Meacham’s book “The Soul of America”.  The historian provides a half-dozen mini histories to place our current political and cultural conflicts into context and provide hope that “the better angels of our nature” can once again prevail.  Like Teddy Roosevelt, he emphasizes our need to make widespread political participation a top priority.

The Soul of America – Jon Meachem (2018)

The Road to Character – 2015

Summary

Humans seem to have always contrasted the individual and the community, left and right. Today, in the United States, we lean too far towards the secular, scientific, materialistic, capitalist, individualistic end, in my view.

The Reagan/Thatcher revolution of neo-liberalism promoted individualistic, libertarian, liberty-obsessed capitalism as the supreme value and virtue, leaving other religious and community values behind. Many in the fundamentalist Christian wing of the party embraced the complementary individualist “prosperity gospel”. Other Christians; Pentecostals, Catholics, and main-line Protestants; struggled with a flat, thin, earthly, deterministic, commercial only world view.

The progressive world has largely embraced the misleading “science versus religion” perspective and mostly concluded that science has won, and religion is irrelevant. A purely scientific world has no room for non-scientific dimensions, objects or perspectives. Atheism, agnosticism and relativism reign supreme. Global community might be accepted or embraced.

The World is Not Atomistic, Deterministic, Materialistic

The philosophical secular humanists moved on to socialism/Marxism and then to existentialism and then to postmodernism, adopting a “value free”, but community-based world view. Oppressed communities, (race, gender, disability, religion, feeling, ethnicity) are the fundamental components of a just world. Otherwise, there is no objective reality or values.

It seems to me that we have simply not found a good way to integrate the needs of the individual and the community. Community clearly exists at the local, state, nation and global level. Community clearly exists in the social, political and religious dimensions.

Jonathan Haidt contrasts traditional and “modern” societies. Stereotypical modern societies are WEIRD: western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic. They tend to subsist on a “thin” individualistic-only morality of care and fairness, leaving religion and community behind. This purely individualistic basis for morality is insufficient to support a good life, in my view.

Consider the purely “secular states” in Turkey, China or communist Russia. Too thin. The political state is insufficient as the only basis for community and the religious, eternal, infinite, natural, mystical, mythical, spiritual dimension.

Consider the modern “social welfare” states in Western Europe. Organized religion fills a small role, space and influence. It is replaced by community membership at the neighborhood level, in professions, in political, social and athletic groups, in voluntary cooperatives, in family societies, in local historical societies. Perhaps, minimally adequate.

Is a variety of voluntary, limited liability, communities adequate for the “good life”? Intuitively, I think not. We humans can tolerate some uncertainty, but we long for a “North Star”. Certainty would be best, of course, but clear direction would be “good enough”.

Moving back to current, practical terms. What do we do about the Trump based far-right, reactionary, populist, ruling wing of the Republican Party? It believes that it is right and worthy of imposing its own values on the rest of American society.

The Main Street, Wall Street, international, New England, WASP factions of the Republican Party could collaborate to retake control of their conservative party.

The Democrats could clarify their views, policies and practices to make clear that the remaining “independent” or “centrist” individuals would be welcomed and happy in a “center-left” Democratic Party that is not merely a front for socialism.

The politically interested class could actively campaign to change the rules of the game. New fundraising rules that survive Supreme Court challenges. Different voting rules that favor centrists. Filtering groups that restrict extremists. Neutral voting rules and district drawing groups. Increased power for political parties to emphasize central results.

I don’t have a “silver bullet” solution. But I know that our current political polarization is destructive and that we can do better.