I’m curious how much of the decline stems from tribalistic moralization, and the rise of the cultural meme that all beliefs must support one tribe or another, and any belief associated with the other tribe leads inevitably to all the harm that the other tribe is (you believe) responsible for.
Good question. It’s hard to tell exactly, but there’s lots of evidence that the rise in “affective polarization” (dislike of the other side) is linked to “partisan sorting” (or “ideological sorting”)—the fact that people within political parties increasingly agree on more and more things, and also socially interact with each other more. Lilliana Mason has some good work on this (and Ezra Klein got a lot of his opinions in his book on this from her).
This paper raises some doubts about the link between the two, though. It’s hard to know!
I’m curious how much of the decline stems from tribalistic moralization, and the rise of the cultural meme that all beliefs must support one tribe or another, and any belief associated with the other tribe leads inevitably to all the harm that the other tribe is (you believe) responsible for.
Good question. It’s hard to tell exactly, but there’s lots of evidence that the rise in “affective polarization” (dislike of the other side) is linked to “partisan sorting” (or “ideological sorting”)—the fact that people within political parties increasingly agree on more and more things, and also socially interact with each other more. Lilliana Mason has some good work on this (and Ezra Klein got a lot of his opinions in his book on this from her).
This paper raises some doubts about the link between the two, though. It’s hard to know!