Our Pluralistic Democracy Under Threat

 

This Atlantic piece about social isolation (and this X commentary from the poster where I first saw the piece) really resonated with me, and reminded me of a blog post I'd written two years ago about America being a "pluralistic democracy." 

It may be a wonky and obscure term, but it's a really important concept about our amazing country. We're diverse! And we don't govern by fiat! We are truly unique in the world and in history for this reason, or at least purport to be. Which is why it is so worrisome that this core characteristic, that we first revolted over to create and have since then spent 250 years safeguarding, seems to be unraveling right before our eyes.

Surely it is not a coincidence that at the same time we are becoming more socially isolated, we are becoming less tolerant of those who have different opinions than us. Since time immemorial, we have had opinions, held them closely, and fought for them. But we lived cheek to jowl with those who were different from us, so we learned to see them as human beings even if we vehemently disagreed with them. We may even have kept our minds open enough to learn from them. We certainly found common ground with them, if not on the dividing issues themselves than on other shared traits and values. That's what kid soccer sidelines, PTA meetings, and neighborhood fireworks shows are for.

For a variety of reasons, we have chosen to sequester ourselves from those differences. We have our own group chats, social media platforms, and news sources. We may consume the same entertainment but do so increasingly from the comfort of our own homes rather than in shared spaces. When we do go out, the segregation usually remains, even if we are not conscious of our contribution to making our spaces less inviting for people different than us. 

And let's not get started on more structural and therefore more engrained segregations. Where we live, where we send our kids to school, where we work and worship and shop - all of these have been influenced by a desire to be with those like us and away from those unlike us. In the process, we not only lose the positive influence of being around those different from us, but we are more likely to look down on and think the worst of those different from us.

Let me repeat: This is bad for America! As much as you want our country to be your way, I hope you want our country to ever be a place that is both diverse and free. By definition, that means we have to live together somehow, cobbling together a democratic process in which we voice our opinions, hash things out in the town square, elect our leaders, and hope for the best, all while treating our fellow human with respect and expecting the same back from them.

Maybe even, along the way, we'll become friends or at least amiable neighbors with those whose positions are opposite ours. Indeed, that is part of what is beautiful about our country, not that we are the same but that we are different and yet together. "Out of many, one" is practically our national motto.

As we come up on 250 years into this great experiment, I worry that our social isolation and our rejection of contact with those we disagree with are becoming a self-reinforcing wall that hinders our togetherness. What will it take to break that wall and, without relinquishing the beliefs we hold dear, find common humanity and shared contact with others around us?