Fixed vs. Fluid: a theory of political polarization

[Rev. Rye]

I saw this in my Pocket recommendations earlier today, and I figured I may as well share it:

“Of the many factors that make up your worldview, one is more fundamental than any other in determining which side of the divide you gravitate toward: your perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our most primal instinct, after all, so it’s only logical that people’s level of fearfulness informs their outlook on life.”

That’s political scientists Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler, writing in their book Prius or Pickup, which marshals a massive trove of survey data and experimental evidence to argue that the roots of our political divides run so deep that they make us almost incomprehensible to one another. Our political divisions, they say, aren’t about policy disagreements, or even demographics. They’re about something more ancient in how we view the world.

The full article is here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...therington

Any thoughts? Well, here's mine: I'm not sure I see that our political sides actually disagree deep down on whether or not the world is dangerous. What I see is that the Right sees danger coming from without, and the Left sees it coming from within. The left may argue that the danger is more socially constructed than inherent in life (although given how deep seated the power structures that cause oppression are, this distinction may be more theoretical than practical), but that doesn't really mean they don't think the world is dangerous. After all, without the underlying current of how dangerous the world is, then why the fuck do the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements exist and why do they get so much support from the Left and not the Right? Their main purpose is to raise people's consciousness about the dangers black people and women expose themselves to simply because they're black or female in a society with a lot of (conscious or otherwise) racism and sexism. (This could still stand, but only if they were fundamentally conservative movements that allied with liberals because they're more into the concerns of people who aren't white guys, and I'm not sure how many people would agree with that proposition.) I suppose the left is more likely to believe that the world can become a safe place, but becoming and being aren't the same thing. The question of fixed vs. fluid worldviews makes sense, but to connect it to a question of how safe the world is makes no sense when you're corresponding them to two political parties that both believe in a world that's unsafe.

Also, I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I honestly don't buy the assumption that, if the world is a dangerous place, a war of all against all, then putting all the power in the hands of a few people is the best way to control them; after all, history is replete with examples of people who've been given all the power and used it to make everything worse. Seriously, look at the leaders of any country and you'll find at least one (Hell, looking at Russia's leaders, it might be harder to find someone who didn't; well, maybe Gorbachev.) And looking at America, you don't need to look further than the one we've got.