Suppose political polarization is a good thing
I was beginning to feel like polarization was this terrible thing that must be stopped and yet it manages to get worse. I was feeling as if we were driving off a cliff and then it hit me: “what if polarization is somehow good?”
If so, we should come to terms with it. Yes, the Democrats are bad. Yes, the Republicans are bad. And of course, neither side makes any kind of coherent sense. But the question is: if people were better, would things be any different? What if no?
If we see both parties as natural products of democracy, then we wouldn’t take their disagreements as determinations of moral virtue, but as necessary balancing forces. If the public saw politics this way, they wouldn’t see hot-button issues about abortion and gun rights as markers on the virtues of their party. Instead, we’d see people organize primarily to gain majority, not moral virtue.
Ranked choice voting won’t solve the binary nature of democracy. You’d get coalitions, and at the highest level you’d get two. This isn’t an argument against ranked choice. It could help make the coldness of political reality more apparent. But if this doesn’t work, then is it because the opposing side really is evil?
Both sides in American politics see politics in moral terms. This could be a fault of the public. It could also be because the other side really is morally bankrupt. Justin Murphy quoted a philosopher and the statement stuck with me: the good naturally attract the good and the bad attract the bad. This means that any democratic system that starts with many political parties, all debating mundane issues, will iterate into one side representing the good and one side that representing evil.
It’s also possible that the media incentives naturally drum up this polarization. Say the average person doesn’t care about politics. If you have a centralized news media, the average person may not care, but people on either the left or right in the democracy would care. Suppose there are 3 major news outlets.
Each outlet wants to have the largest audience. Ok, that’s not exactly true. The company “wants” (regardless of the intentions of the CEO and its employees) to make money. With many businesses, including media, most of their profits come from a minority of their audience. They want a loyal audience, not just a large one. Because of the internet, traditional moats are gone. Distribution is table stakes, and printing presses are obsolete. If an earthquake goes off, people on Twitter are quick to tweet about it. It’s much easier for people to know what happened: where was the earthquake, who won the political race, etc. The media companies have to compete on narrative. Their job is to explain the “why” better than anybody else.
Now comes the next twist. Which explanations are most likely to be profitable? They could try pessimism, optimism, pro-tech, social justice, etc. It has to be politics. You get a roughly 50% audience, which is not great, but you can make up for it by turning up the outrage and getting people glued to the screen to watch more ads.
The incentive to tell the truth has its rewards far into the future. Sure, truth would help everyone in the long run, but who would sign up for this? Suppose a good person decided to work for a good news company. They write accurate news, which doesn’t attract readers. Their coworker writes slightly more sensationalist news and gets more views. Rinse and repeat and you see sensationalist writers rise through the ranks. Ok, now suppose the media CEO saw this trend and stopped if before it got out of control. Great, but another company pops up to serve people the content people crave. The media company investors vote to have the good news CEO fired. I don’t see how any of this plays out in favor of truth.
The way out.
Some solutions I can think of:
Have a common enemy. China?
A greater goal. Mars?
Non-solutions:
Location
Ethnicity
Religion