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What Explains Our Polarized Tastes?
Political polarization is no mystery and nothing new, nor is it anything I worry about. Opposing politicians used to beat one another half to death with canes in the Senate, and that was before 3% of the population died in a savage war against fellow countrymen. So until we see THAT level of division, I don’t fret much.
But what is more inexplicable is the conservative and liberal divergence over the non-political. Why is it in our everyday lives that we have such wildly different but predictable interests outside of the political realm? And not just that, but just by seeing an individual or asking him what he likes to do, prefers to eat, or usually wears, you can guess with about 90% certainty how he thinks about political and social issues.
Take clothing. If you see a young man wearing Converse shoes, skinny jeans, and horn-rimmed glasses, you’d probably guess correctly that he’s a liberal. And see the same aged guy in ripped boot cut jeans, a flannel shirt, and a baseball cap, he probably leans conservative. And would it surprise you if he drove a 4×4?
And drinks? Find me a man drinking a mocha latte with whip cream and drinking bottled water at work, and I’ll show you a guy with a fading Obama-Biden bumper sticker on his Prius.
Political leanings affect food choices it well it seems. I feel pretty lonely in the organic section of the store. Without being an FBI profiler, I can feel pretty sure that the wiry, high-pitched voice fellow picking out kale chips and almond milk didn’t campaign for Romney.
Music is no different. I get into a car with a guy playing insufferable pop country and another car blaring Bob Marley, it is almost depressingly easy to guess what they believe about gay marriage or carbon emissions.
I don’t know if there is some accepted sociological reason for this. In a previous thread recently, I called it the “collective unconscious” decision-making where we gravitate towards the habits and interests of people most closely within our “tribe.”
It’s depressing to a certain extent, that most of us are really that predictable. I’m no different. Oh sure, I like the occasional vegan salad and frou-frou drink at Starbucks, but there’s no mistaking me for a liberal with my Glock t-shirt, gas-guzzling truck, gun rack, and Clark Kent-esque closet full of identical clothes (jeans and button downs).
As much as I despise the implications of the phrase, maybe there is some truth in the totalitarian saying that “Everything is political.”
Published in General, Politics
@Count Grecula- “What has become increasingly clear is that most people’s politics are emotion based and not really fact based. Or more properly the result of a desire to fit in socially. There is a style and an image people like to see themselves fit into and the rest is mostly rationalization”
As far as I recall, the sociologist David Riesman once roughly said that people who lack strong core convictions tend to be what he called ‘other-directed.’ A more contemporary term might be a ‘trendy.’ So the decline of religious and patriotic beliefs may explain much of this.
@Eustace C Scrubb-“I believe religion has entered politics in a greater way than any time since the abolition movement. Many on the left have left traditional religions and have adopted progressive policies as their religious core beliefs. There leftist beliefs are what assure them they are good people. Whereas there is a group of those on the right who still place their faith in traditional religion, but believe that policies of the left threaten their religious freedom and practice. These issues make politics very personal.”
Yes, I think you nailed it. E.g., Anna Wintour, the subject of ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ is notorious for her shabby treatment of her employees. Yet in her own mind she likely regards herself as a fine human being because she’s lefty and held fundraisers for Obama.
Of necessity, I am a chameleon. I don’t define myself by my appearance, so I am flexible so as to fit in as needed.
This is a basic functional requirement for observant Jews who do business with people who cannot be seen doing business with Jews.
Someone earlier on the thread suggested “Conflict of Visions” by Thomas Sowell. Let me add a reading suggestion: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion [Jonathan Haidt]
I think the grouping trends you’re describing make perfect sense. Liberals, like adolescents, naturally gravitate toward the new. The value of a particular choice or activity is not inherent in the activity itself, but is derived from the fact that it is perceived to be either transgressive or progressive — that it represents a step forward and away from what was done in the past.
The appeal of ironic beards and skinny jeans among twenty-somethings is surely — surely — nothing more than the fact that older people think they’re unusual. It’s the same reason many in my generation were somehow convinced that hammer pants and mullets were inherently and timelessly cool. And now we see that we were fools — or at least being fooled. This explains why every person feels the same mix of horror and embarrassment when they see an old yearbook photo. It’s not because they looked ugly. It’s because they looked gullible.
It makes perfect sense that conservatives would be less susceptible to the pressures of rapidly changing fashions. But if we ever find a trend that we genuinely enjoy, irrespective of any social pressure to do so, we’ll latch onto it just like anyone else.
Here are my outlier credentials: My favorite sport is soccer.
I just love the game. Love to play it and watch it. I was introduced to it largely because it was trendy, but I’ll continue to follow it when the hipsters move on to cricket or professional disc golf. I agree that it’s annoying that people jump on a bandwagon simply because it seems counter-cultural. But that shouldn’t stop conservatives from doing things we actually enjoy.
Or look at the marketing campaigns of Coke and Pepsi. Coke sells itself a great deal on tradition, while Pepsi is the “choice of a new generation.”
Which is funny since they are both products of the late nineteenth century, created several years apart.
But if we ever find a trend that we genuinely enjoy, irrespective of any social pressure to do so, we’ll latch onto it just like anyone else.
and then we and that trend will be demonized.
It would be interesting if there were a survey that correlates political and cola preferences. It does seem that most of the conservatives I know prefer Coke. And that was before Pepsi came out with a new logo that was easy to confuse with the Obama 2008 campaign logo.
Thanks for the tip! I went to the podcast here and it was a blast… I’ll keep my eye out for the next one.