The 2017 Crack-Up and Our Inability to Understand Others

Needless to say the past year or two have been...to provide a gross understatement...interesting.  While the Hat Trick hasn't said a lot about the current state of our politics, the fact that we are in such a chaotic time is troubling and reminds me of stories I hear from my parents, grandparents and family about the unrest in Detroit during the summer of 1967.

There is such terrible unrest, both in the forms of physical confrontations, but also in the form of cyber unrest.  Just take a look at some of the angry exchanges on Twitter and Facebook to see what I mean.  And while many individuals take the intellectually easy way out in blaming the election of Donald Trump for all of this unrest, that isn't terribly honest.  The election of Trump is the symptom of the challenges we are experiencing.  The Presidential Election of 2016 was the worst election in a lifetime, with both candidates, in the Hat Trick's opinion, having tremendous issues.

One reason the Hat Trick can see for these challenges is how we have created silos where we only associate with those who we agree with and live and work in areas that are similar politically.  Progressives and liberals gravitating to urban areas on the East and West Coasts, conservatives tending to be in more rural areas in the middle of the county.  And with that comes the disdain in which each side sees the other in our culture and political wars.  Another troubling issue that has developed and will continue to exacerbate our problems is how younger generations are entering young adulthood without any capacity to understand the perspective of people that they do not agree with.

In the August 11, 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Columbia humanities professor Dr. Mark Lilla wrote about this phenomenon in an essay titled "The Liberal Crack-Up."  In the essay, Dr. Lilla writes about modern liberalism, as a liberal himself, and how modern liberals have caused their own demise by adopting a viewpoint that "political activity must have some authentic meaning for the self, making compromise seem like a self-betrayal."  Dr. Lilla also writes about the significant change in the identity of liberals and progressives.  Starting in the 1960s, we saw a shift in the foundation of Democratic Party politics from union halls to college campuses.  Lilla also notes:  "As a teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they are engaged in politics as an X, concerned about other Xs and those issues touching on X-ness. And they are less and less comfortable with debate."  To this end, take a look at Twitter feeds and note that closed-off minds of many so-called progressives when challenged by ideas that are different from their own.  In many, many cases this level of being uncomfortable with debate expands into attacks against the other poster instead of addressing the point being discussed.  

While this essay is one examples of the problems on the liberal side, it is most certainly not a one-way street.  Conservatives have their own significant issues, including supporting a President that appeals to the worst attributes of a disgruntled society with real concerns.  But it's very important to note that just blaming "Trump and Conservatives" is an intellectually lazy response to the real problems we are facing as a country and a society.