Here are some interesting philosophical quotes that describe our modern era. Can you relate?
"We have built a country," Bishop writes, "where everyone can choose neighbors(and church and news shows) most compatible with his or her lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this segregation by way of life: pockets of like-minded citizens have become so ideologically inbred that we don't know, can't understand, and can barely conceive of 'those people' who live just a few miles away."
Bishop argues that this clustering of like with like accelerated in the tumult of the 1960s when, unmoored from the organizations and traditions that had guided their choices about how to live, Americans grew anxious and disorientated--and reflexively sought comfort in the familiar, cocooning themselves in communities of people like themselves . . .
Does this balkanization matter? Bishop argues convincingly that it does . . .
"Mix company moderates; like-minded company polarizes. Heterogeneous communities restrain group excesses; homogeneous communities march toward the extremes."
From "Subdivided We Fall" New York Times Book Review by Scott Stossel
Review of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, by Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing
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1 comments:
Chris,
This is a very interesting concept;clustering of like-minded people certainly adds to the polerization of un-likes. What was also interesting in the 60ies, people moved away from their families & roots thinking that their families were "the problem" so that they did not have a good support system and therefore sought others like themselves as Bishop says. The U.S. has always been called "the melting pot" but are we really? Only when we can walk in another's shoes can we begin to understand them. Not too many people are willing to do that today, clinging to the safety of their "clan" in an uncertain world.
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