Whether you attend to the internet, watch television, or read newspapers, it is clear there is considerable political and cultural polarization across Canada and the United States. Many people have become more involved in opposing one another than in finding ways to work together to address common problems.
The Pew Research Center reports that “Americans have rarely been as polarized as they are today.” It observes, for example, “the increasingly stark disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on the economy, racial justice, climate change, law enforcement, international engagement and a long list of other issues.” In Canada, though the political polarization is somewhat less, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports that there has become a definite increase in “affective polarization.” “It is no surprise that partisans of all stripes rate their own party higher than they rate other parties. But the love of their own party does not seem to be increasing over time. What has changed is how partisans feel about the other parties.” In an article entitled “Is Canada Broken?” Sarmishta Subramanian writes about the gap between voters’ heads and hearts that applies across North America. “Polarization is more often a politics of feeling than of fact, and the lack of an ideological basis doesn’t make polarization any less real; it just suggests voters are driven less by the issues than they are by loyalty to their parties and acrimony toward others’—hardly a cheering trend. The elites may have polarized faster, and more substantively, but electorates are following.”
The anthropologist Philip Salzman reports “Political polarization in both the United States and Canada seems to increase every year. Those on the left appear to move ever farther to the left; while those on the right find less and less in common with their fellow citizens. The political rhetoric has, in fact, escalated to a toxic level.” “A recent Abacus survey found one in four Canadians ‘hate’ their political opponents. ‘People are . . . absolutely convinced that they’re right and everybody else is absolutely wrong. . . . The middle is the scariest place to be in Canadian politics,’ the Star’s Susan Delacourt said recently on CBC Radio, following heated exchanges in Parliament over pipelines. In the United States, "Supporters of Biden and Donald Trump believe the differences between them are about more than just politics and policies. A month before the election, roughly eight-in-ten registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values, and roughly nine-in-ten – again in both camps – worried that a victory by the other would lead to 'lasting harm' to the United States.”
This increase in polarization, or phrased another, the growing distrust of others not aligned with one's own perspective, has an important impact on how we govern ourselves. In a famous book, Making Democracy Work, Robert Putnam compared how north/central Italy and south Italy evolved through time. In the feudal, hierarchical system of southern Italy, there was a comparatively low standard of living. In north/central part of Italy, more "horizontal" communities existed - based on more democratic forms of government - that had higher standards of living. Putnam’s point is that to have the advantages of these more "horizontal" communities with their democratic forms of government, neighbors need to be able to trust one another. Trust of neighbors is based on reciprocal relations and exchanges through time, Putnam argues. Neighbors feel they can rely on one another. Putnam refers to this trust as social capital. He sees it as involving forms of social organization that foster networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. He continues:
life is easier in a community blessed with a substantial stock of social capital. In the first place, networks of civic engagement foster sturdy norms of generalized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust. Such networks facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations, and thus allow dilemmas of collective action to be resolved. When economic and political negotiation is embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentives for opportunism are reduced. At the same time, networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration, which can serve as a cultural template for future collaboration. Finally, dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, developing the "I" into the "we," or (in the language of rational-choice theorists) enhancing the participants' "taste" for collective benefits.
In brief, the continued polarization that prevails across North America has an important result. It reduces our sense of trust in each other and, hence, our ability to function together as effective democracies.
Ruth Benedict famously suggested that “the purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.” At its best, anthropology seeks to understand and appreciate human differences around the world. It does not seek to polarize differences into right and wrong, positive and negative. Instead, it seeks to bridge differences by understanding the contexts within which they operate. Anthropology seeks to do more than categorize group differences – American vs. Samoan or Canadian versus Japanese, for example. It seeks to understand the contexts that shape these differences and, in better understanding them, to value them. Anthropology, in brief, seeks to soften the polarizations by people of differing perspectives by understanding them in deeper and more sutle ways that bring appreciation of them.
That is the reason for this assignment in your anthropology class. It relates to softening the polarization that pervades North America. Ultimately, it relates to supporting our democratic orientations that make our forms of government possible.
Given the frequent polarization between “us” and “them” in many countries, the anthropological effort to communicate across differences is more vital today than ever. Rather than trying to make everyone the same, anthropology fosters cohesive communities – not because everyone in the community thinks of behaves alike, but because they appreciate their differences with one another and have learned to work together on projects of shared interest despite their differences. (For additional information on civil conversations, students might refer to this link.)
Students are challenged to apply this anthropological skill to the heated disputes today surrounding race relations and policing. This involves:
1. CONDUCTING FIELDWORK: Just as you might do if you were an anthropologist studying a group half a world away living a different way of life, this project encourages you to understand the perspectives of those who disagree with you on race relations and policing.
a. Can you understand why they disagree with you? Can you find common ground with those who hold different views than you?
2. UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURAL CONTEXTS THAT SHAPE PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOR: The data on opinion formation (see below) suggest that people’s opinions are often formed within groups. It is not necessarily a rational process.
a. Try to understand why people, in a group possessing different views than you regarding race relations and policing, hold the views they do? To what degree do these views reflect certain group values?
3. A CONTINUING ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRADITION STRESSES HUMAN CONFLICT CAN OFTEN BE SOFTENED BY APPRECIATING THE CONTEXTS THAT SHAPE DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES:
a. It is critical to recognize that your letter cannot simply be a rational, intellectual argument defending your own position. As the background readings make clear, you need to consider the other group’s perspectives emotionally as well as intellectually in framing your letter.
Your assignment focuses on coming to terms with the polarization that exists across North America in respect to race relations and policing.
1. Read any two articles from media sources listed below that take an opposing perspective from yours on race relations and policing. If you lean left on these matters, read articles from media sources that lean right and vice-versa.
2. You will be required to write to a person or group from the opposing perspective that holds a particular view that you disagree with and that you would like to discuss the issue with. You can decide on which perspective you would like to write you letter about from reading the media listed below.
3. You will then write a letter to a fellow student whose views differ from yours on race relations and policing.
Before you do, you will be required to list the point of disagreement that you are focusing on in your letter that you wish to find common ground on with the individual who disagrees with you.
In addition you will have to list which tools (from the list presented below) you will use to soften the polarization between the two of you in seeking common ground that will act as a basis for addressing the problem together.
Since we live in democracies in North America, mobilizing for change means you need to bring together people of diverse interests. How might you frame your letter to draw another student, and others like them, toward addressing a common problem that concerns both of you. What is that problem you decide to focus on?
What solution to the problem do you think you might work on together?
The fundamental differences between left-wing and right-wing ideologies center around the rights of individuals vs. the power of the government. Left-wing beliefs are liberal in that they believe society is best served with an expanded role for the government. People on the right believe that the best outcome for society is achieved when individual rights and civil liberties are paramount and the role — and especially the power — of the government is minimized.
Left Wing Core Beliefs: Minority rights, economic equality, gun control, environmental protection, expanded educational opportunity, social nets for those who need them.
Right Wing Core Beliefs: Limited Government at the national or federal level. Local governments should have the most control over decisions affecting local population. Individual freedom and personal property rights.
Relevant Links:
Ideological Placement of Each Source’s Audience
Relevant Links:
Pew Research Center: Race, immigration, discriminationPew Research Center: Race and discrimination, opinions about immigrants and Islam
Relevant Links:
Republicans more likely than Democrats to have confidence in police
POSSIBLE WAYS TO SOFTEN POLARIZATIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE
- Facts don't convince people in political arguments. Here's what does by Stephanie Pappas
How can Americans come together, given what seems to be growing political contention and deep divides? New research suggests the answer can be found in stories, not statistics. People respect those they disagree with more when their position comes from a place of personal experience, not facts and figures, finds a new series of experiments published Monday (Jan. 25) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is especially true when the personal stories are rooted in experiences of harm or vulnerability.
"In moral disagreements, experiences seem truer than facts," said Kurt Gray, a psychologist and director of the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at the University of North Carolina . . . Gray and his colleagues focused on how facts versus experiences affected people's perceptions of their opponent's rationality and their respect for that opponent. Over 15 separate experiments, they found that, although people think they respect opponents who present facts, they actually have more respect for opponents who share personal stories . . .
Then, the researchers explored the idea that perhaps some people's experiences seemed more trustworthy than others. First, they asked 508 participants to read fact- or experience-based arguments from people who agreed and disagreed with them on guns. The results showed that people doubted political facts presented by their opponents far more than facts presented by someone they agreed with. There was not nearly as large of a gap in doubt, however, between experiences presented by opponents and experiences presented by someone on the participant's side.
Ultimately, people can always come up with a way to doubt or discount facts, Gray said, but personal experiences are harder to argue away. "It's just so hard to doubt when someone tells you, 'Look, this terrible thing happened to me,'" he said.
2. Arguing Politics with Friends? One Word Makes a Difference:
New study offers insight into political conflict with friends, family & others – Psychology TodayA soon-to-be-released study which will be published in the European Journal of Social Psychology offers an interesting, new perspective on this question. Yale University’s John Bargh, along with his colleagues, Jaime Napier, Julie Huang, and Andy Vonasch, found that a desire to feel safe is the motor that drives many political beliefs. And that making someone feel safe can actually change his or her political opinions.
Volunteers who participated in the study were divided into two groups and told to imagine a situation in which they had one of two superpowers. One group was told to imagine that they could fly on their own (without machinery). The other was to imagine that they could be completely physically safe. The group who pictured themselves flying felt more vulnerable, and when they then responded to questions about their political beliefs (determined by questions asked before and after the exercise), those who had expressed more conservative beliefs stayed attached to their conservative point of view, and those with more liberal attitudes moved closer to a conservative perspective. On the other hand, those who felt safer — that is, those in the group that imagined being completely physically safe — became more closely aligned with a more liberal position.
These findings matched earlier studies by Professor Bargh and his colleagues. In one nationwide study, participants were first reminded about the threat of the flu virus and then asked questions that measured their attitudes toward immigration. Then participants were asked whether or not they had gotten a flu shot. Those who had not gotten a flu shot were more negative about immigration. Conversely, those who had already gotten vaccinated expressed more positive attitudes about immigration.
The researchers posit that a sense of safety leads to a more liberal or tolerant feeling about immigration, while a sense of potential threat leads to a more conservative or negative feeling about immigration. Even more powerful, in yet another study, simply having participants use a hand sanitizer during one flu epidemic made them more tolerant of immigrants.
One of the interesting aspects of these studies is that there was no actual reassurance taking place, but instead a simple action, either imagined or real, that led to a sense of security and a shift in political thinking.
The implications seem fairly straightforward: acknowledging the role of safety in everyone’s political position might help you have a more reasonable political discussion with those who disagree with you.
3. Why We Are Poles Apart on Issues [on heated political issues] by Dan Kahan
Positions on climate change have come to signify the kind of person one is. People whose beliefs are at odds with those of the people with whom they share their basic cultural commitments risk being labelled as weird and obnoxious in the eyes of those on whom they depend for social and financial support. So, if the cost of having a [particular] view that does not conform with the scientific consensus is zero, and the cost of having a view that is at odds with members of one’s cultural community can be high, what is a rational person to do? In that situation, it is perfectly sensible for individuals to be guided by modes of reasoning that connect their beliefs to ones that predominate in their group . . .
People acquire their scientific knowledge by consulting others who share their values and whom they therefore trust and understand. Usually, this strategy works just fine. We live in a science communication environment richly stocked with accessible, consequential facts. As a result, groups with different values routinely converge on the best evidence for, say, the value of adding fluoride to water, or the harmlessness of mobile-phone radiation. The trouble starts when this communication environment fills up with toxic partisan meanings — ones that effectively announce that ‘if you are one of us, believe this? Otherwise, we’ll know you are one of them’. In that situation, ordinary individuals’ lives will go better if their perceptions of societal risk conform with those of their group.
4. How to Talk to People Who Disagree with You Politically – Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin
It can be challenging to talk to people who disagree with you politically. In this study, the Center for Media Engagement interviewed people who live in communities with a mix of political beliefs to glean their best strategies for talking to those with whom they disagree. The results offer five main approaches to talking across political differences.
a. Focus on the people, not the politics
b. Find common ground
c. Stick to the facts and avoid confrontation
d. Be an advocate, rather than an opponent
e. Pick your battlesThe study also revealed suggestions for putting these five strategies into action. We have outlined these approaches in the Key Findings.
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