The Divided State of America

 

I grew up in Silicon Valley and now live in a big East Coast city. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from an Ivy League school and have been a white-collar worker my whole professional life. I am, by any definition, a “coastal elite,” and as such I am in a bubble no matter how hard I try to break out of it. We lament the divided state of affairs in this country, a segregation that seems to increase in intensity as our algorithms feed us drastically different content customized to enrage us and further entrench our differences. 

Let me take a step back. Many of us don’t lament this division. We may give lip service to the need for unity. But we are unwilling to extend enough humanity to “the other side” to engage with them, learn from them, give honor to them. Why should we, goes this sentiment, when they are so ignorant and disrespectful; they deserve nothing from us, not our sympathy and not our time. It is enraging to be told to consort with and even give respect to and learn from others who actively desire to oppress us. It is horrifying to contemplate intimate discourse and circulation with those whose life views and life choices are so abhorrent.

And yet we are in fact a United States of America. "E pluribus unum," in the Latin, translated as "out of many, one." We have a shared destiny as a nation. We embrace that, unlike all other nations that are far more homogenous, we are a diverse people, in skin color and sexual orientation and life experience and political beliefs. Practically, there are public sector functions like safety and infrastructure and health that require that we work together as a singular body. Will we summon the will to behave as though we are all Americans, that we are all humans deserving of respect and voice? Will we crack open a sliver of daylight that allows for the possibility that others we disagree with are not as evil, dangerous, and derelict as we imagine them to be?

I’m not sure, politically or culturally, what is the path to such unity, especially given a growing unwillingness to even desire unity. What I want to use today’s post for is to speak to those like me who are coastal and urban. Suspend your reflex disdain for a second, and ask yourself if you are any of these categories of people (let's call that 5 points), or have anyone close to you in these categories (3 points), or even if you have peripheral connection in person or via social media (1 point) (much of this is informed by an actual “bubble” quiz by the libertarian think tank American Enterprise Institute, which confirmed for me that I’m pretty bubbly myself): 

1. Active military

2. Avowed atheist who does not participate in any religious activity

3. Black

4. Blue-collar worker

5. Evangelical Christian who regularly attends church

6. Formerly incarcerated

7. Full-time farmer

8. Full-time religious job

9. Gay

10. Hispanic

11. Intellectually disabled

12. Make less than $50,000 a year

13. Make more than $500,000 a year

14. No college education

15. Parent of 5 or more kids

16. Physically disabled

17. Registered Democrat who holds socially progressive views

18. Registered Republican who holds socially conservative views

19. Regularly hunt or fish

20. Regularly watch daytime talk shows or soap operas

21. Resident of a big city

22. Resident of a small town

23. Sex worker

24. Stay-at-home parent

25. Trans

The lower your score, the less contact you have with people very different from you. Which makes it easier, when you do have contact, to assume the worst or at least find them strange, backwards, or worse. I can’t say that the feeling is reciprocal, but I’m not surprised when it is, because absent contact with differing opinions we are inclined to find those opinions ignorant, evil, or dangerous. This is not good, especially as we are one country and one people that need to work together to get things done. Would that we had more contact and less disdain. 

It is worrisome to me that, not only do people not mix, but people don't want to mix, and perhaps even more worrisome that it isn't just because we disdain "the other side" but that we don't even want to be pleasantly surprised that they are actually smarter and kinder and deeper than we imagine, so invested are we in digging into our divisions. But what is America, if not a place where we are very different and yet choose to get along, work together, and even embrace and learn from one another. If there is hope for a future that moves in that direction, surely it rests with having some contact with others different from us, keeping an open mind and extending common human respect.