Previously, I worried about the cost of liberalism in reduced fertility. It’s time for a second major cost of liberalism: reduced social cohesion. 1. The Need for Loyalty Humans are selfish social animals. This means that, unlike the case of bees or ants, our cooperation is always in danger of degenerating into conflict, because each of us is genetically programmed to pursue our own interests, often at the expense of others. Moreover, even when our
The far right and far left (which corresponds to "right and left" politically) of the charts go UP for the U.S., and DOWN for Canada. Most sports are a competition between TWO different parties because it's the most exciting to watch, and the two parties in the U.S. have made it very easy for many Americans to see things in black and white because one naturally wants to root for one team over the other. Olympics or X Games or Oscar parties full of people hooting and hollering at the TV seem few and far between compared to Superbowl parties. The multiple competitors make it harder for us to become tribal. We are much less likely to hear "Skier X slaughtered all the others!" than "Team A totally killed team B!" in Basketball, etc.
Would social media really be as nasty if there were six political parties instead of two? I don't think so. All the Canadians I follow tend to comment more on U.S. politics than Canadian! Same for Australians, and people in the U.K. Not to say that parliamentary democracies are great on everything (I tend towards market anarchism), but I think that form of government is set up in such a way as to minimize polarization where ours is set up to MAXIMIZE it.
Liberal societies respond to incentives and the incentives put into place by the two party system and the presidency are incentivizing us to eat each other alive.
For division to be a cost of liberalism, we would need evidence that illiberal societies lack this problem or suffer it to a lesser degree. Some people seem to think this is true, but I am not sure they can supply convincing evidence. Certainly, problems we might include under the label of division have varied from time to time and place to place, but I am skeptical that a strong correlation between robust measures of liberalism and division could be found.
I can think of some tempting alternative hypotheses for the source of division. Modernity or size and scale of society come immediately to mind.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe scholars have found a strong empirical phenomenon. The motivation for the idea that liberalism breeds division might be honest reporting of empirical fact, or it might be self-serving rhetoric coming from those who advocate illiberal policies. But I fail to see how illiberalism can genuinely cure such an ill, other than via brutal suppression, which can sometimes backfire. It hardly seems an improvement to move from a society with spontaneous divisiveness to one where divisiveness is formalized and institutionalized. It is not clear that one can successfully cultivate a sentiment merely by suppressing the alternatives. We might even be tempted to include within liberalism any voluntary means of cultivating sentiment other than coercion. This might provide the basis for an a priori argument against the divisiveness of liberalism.
I think it’s simply the fact that humans didn’t evolve to be in big tribes. It’s one thing to be cordial while meandering around a supermarket together. It’s a whole other thing when one group’s leaders end up winning the latest round of king of the hill and start dictating to incompatible people from on high.
People don’t empathize with people outside their monkey sphere either. At least, they have to try harder to do that. Humans have a physiological response in the meat robot when someone close to them is hurt, wronged, etc… They don’t have anywhere near the same response for people they don’t know at all. That makes it hard for people to sacrifice or to work together on issues.
We go along with our friend group's choice for dinner because we value the friendships. When there’s a relationship there, the game becomes an iterative prisoners dilemma where cooperation is more likely. When you never see the person, don’t know the person, and don’t actually care about the person… It’s a one shot prisoners dilemma and that’s -never- going to work out.
Most people don't actually “care” about strangers. They say they do but we know the meat robot response is not the same as, say, when a loved one has something bad happen. There is a spectrum to giving a crap and the further from the person a thing is, the less crap is given.
Basically, good fences make good neighbors. If people can’t get along without some small group of people wearing the bossy pants… I think societies might need to get smaller again. Or the “leaders” need to stop “leading” so much. Which is the opposite of what is happening now.
I think society was always less united and more divided then people think: and liberalism is just very good at showing that we are less united then we think.
(I still think liberalism is superior overall to the other options)
Let me explain:
Essentially, liberalism...
1: leads to free speech and stronger media. People seek out information they want to hear, and people want to have their feelings and worldview validated, thus leading to entrenched opinions.
2: encourages individualism over sacrificing oneself for society.
This leads to increased attention to individual suffering, and less tolerance for pain or hardships. This encourages the media and individuals to seek out various injustices to get mad about, regardless of how much of an injustice they actually are
3: leads to a greater awareness of the differences in us, via several mechanisms behind it.
One is that as we get richer, people can fulfill strange preferences, which has a change to offend particular people.
One clear example of this is furries. Im a furry, and as the internet and economy has improved, furries have gone from a sorta marginalized group to a (tiny) united minority. As the economy progresses, furries can have more leisure time, and more money to pursue their interests. These interests are unusual and offensive to a number of conservatives, who then act up politically.
The interest for furry subculture was always there to one degree or another, but liberalism and wealth makes it actually visible to the majority.
4: more people can spend their career on information creation, spreading, and advocating. This strengthens their opinions, and their opinion and vibe affects other people.
5: less censorship and oppression lets everyone see the differences that always existed.
"You know the liberal solution: “The solution to bad speech is more speech.” I.e., we just need to have people constantly debunking the lies of the extremists."
That's so 1990. The 2024 "liberal solution to bad speech" is cancelling with "hate speech" and "disinformation" laws and rules, with state enforcement (where that's possible) and media and private sector enforcement (everywhere).
I don't think division is as related to liberalism as fertility. I've thought about this a lot in the past couple years. I think the main or at least the biggest cause of division in the U.S. is the two party system, and the presidency. If you look at political polarization in Canada, for instance, the charts are pretty astounding compared to the U.S. https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ab-2021-canada-us-comp-draft-3-dec-20-for-website.pdf?sfvrsn=f85952b8_0
The far right and far left (which corresponds to "right and left" politically) of the charts go UP for the U.S., and DOWN for Canada. Most sports are a competition between TWO different parties because it's the most exciting to watch, and the two parties in the U.S. have made it very easy for many Americans to see things in black and white because one naturally wants to root for one team over the other. Olympics or X Games or Oscar parties full of people hooting and hollering at the TV seem few and far between compared to Superbowl parties. The multiple competitors make it harder for us to become tribal. We are much less likely to hear "Skier X slaughtered all the others!" than "Team A totally killed team B!" in Basketball, etc.
Would social media really be as nasty if there were six political parties instead of two? I don't think so. All the Canadians I follow tend to comment more on U.S. politics than Canadian! Same for Australians, and people in the U.K. Not to say that parliamentary democracies are great on everything (I tend towards market anarchism), but I think that form of government is set up in such a way as to minimize polarization where ours is set up to MAXIMIZE it.
Liberal societies respond to incentives and the incentives put into place by the two party system and the presidency are incentivizing us to eat each other alive.
"What I have seen is attacks motivated by resentment and aimed at provoking shame or resentment in Americans."
Or it's simpler than that. Maybe it's just good old-fashioned status-seeking.
For division to be a cost of liberalism, we would need evidence that illiberal societies lack this problem or suffer it to a lesser degree. Some people seem to think this is true, but I am not sure they can supply convincing evidence. Certainly, problems we might include under the label of division have varied from time to time and place to place, but I am skeptical that a strong correlation between robust measures of liberalism and division could be found.
I can think of some tempting alternative hypotheses for the source of division. Modernity or size and scale of society come immediately to mind.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe scholars have found a strong empirical phenomenon. The motivation for the idea that liberalism breeds division might be honest reporting of empirical fact, or it might be self-serving rhetoric coming from those who advocate illiberal policies. But I fail to see how illiberalism can genuinely cure such an ill, other than via brutal suppression, which can sometimes backfire. It hardly seems an improvement to move from a society with spontaneous divisiveness to one where divisiveness is formalized and institutionalized. It is not clear that one can successfully cultivate a sentiment merely by suppressing the alternatives. We might even be tempted to include within liberalism any voluntary means of cultivating sentiment other than coercion. This might provide the basis for an a priori argument against the divisiveness of liberalism.
I’ve thought about this a lot.
I think it’s simply the fact that humans didn’t evolve to be in big tribes. It’s one thing to be cordial while meandering around a supermarket together. It’s a whole other thing when one group’s leaders end up winning the latest round of king of the hill and start dictating to incompatible people from on high.
People don’t empathize with people outside their monkey sphere either. At least, they have to try harder to do that. Humans have a physiological response in the meat robot when someone close to them is hurt, wronged, etc… They don’t have anywhere near the same response for people they don’t know at all. That makes it hard for people to sacrifice or to work together on issues.
We go along with our friend group's choice for dinner because we value the friendships. When there’s a relationship there, the game becomes an iterative prisoners dilemma where cooperation is more likely. When you never see the person, don’t know the person, and don’t actually care about the person… It’s a one shot prisoners dilemma and that’s -never- going to work out.
Most people don't actually “care” about strangers. They say they do but we know the meat robot response is not the same as, say, when a loved one has something bad happen. There is a spectrum to giving a crap and the further from the person a thing is, the less crap is given.
Basically, good fences make good neighbors. If people can’t get along without some small group of people wearing the bossy pants… I think societies might need to get smaller again. Or the “leaders” need to stop “leading” so much. Which is the opposite of what is happening now.
Some thoughts from a swedish person:
I think society was always less united and more divided then people think: and liberalism is just very good at showing that we are less united then we think.
(I still think liberalism is superior overall to the other options)
Let me explain:
Essentially, liberalism...
1: leads to free speech and stronger media. People seek out information they want to hear, and people want to have their feelings and worldview validated, thus leading to entrenched opinions.
2: encourages individualism over sacrificing oneself for society.
This leads to increased attention to individual suffering, and less tolerance for pain or hardships. This encourages the media and individuals to seek out various injustices to get mad about, regardless of how much of an injustice they actually are
3: leads to a greater awareness of the differences in us, via several mechanisms behind it.
One is that as we get richer, people can fulfill strange preferences, which has a change to offend particular people.
One clear example of this is furries. Im a furry, and as the internet and economy has improved, furries have gone from a sorta marginalized group to a (tiny) united minority. As the economy progresses, furries can have more leisure time, and more money to pursue their interests. These interests are unusual and offensive to a number of conservatives, who then act up politically.
The interest for furry subculture was always there to one degree or another, but liberalism and wealth makes it actually visible to the majority.
4: more people can spend their career on information creation, spreading, and advocating. This strengthens their opinions, and their opinion and vibe affects other people.
5: less censorship and oppression lets everyone see the differences that always existed.
"You know the liberal solution: “The solution to bad speech is more speech.” I.e., we just need to have people constantly debunking the lies of the extremists."
That's so 1990. The 2024 "liberal solution to bad speech" is cancelling with "hate speech" and "disinformation" laws and rules, with state enforcement (where that's possible) and media and private sector enforcement (everywhere).