"What if we begin to feel our primary allegiance is toward people who share our race or our religion or our interests, rather than toward the people who share our country and our city? What if we go to the PTA or the planning board meeting and discover a bunch of strangers we despise and disdain?"
"What if we begin to feel our primary allegiance is toward people who share our race or our religion or our interests, rather than toward the people who share our country and our city? What if we go to the PTA or the planning board meeting and discover a bunch of strangers we despise and disdain?"
This has already happened. We had a President specifically elected to fuck with the people Republicans distain and fear. Maybe the "normies" in the middle wake up and react to that and this ends up being a blip but I don't really see strong evidence of that within my personal relationships or from nationwide indicators like voting patterns.
Let's not blame tech either. It's a convenient scapegoat as usual but while it has contributed to an environment where distain and hostility is possible by accelerating cultural change and sorting it didn't force people to walk that path.
New cultural ideas and practices are always evolving. You can decide to accommodate new people and ideas and move forward or you can react with anger at the audacity and fear losing control. Many people are choosing the latter and have been for some time. That only forces the people they shun and attack to seek shelter in non-geographical communities. Before social media that was done by moving to a city big enough that you could find a community that would be accepting. That community tended to be ideological because the experience of being forced out was what most people shared. Social media provides a new, easier way of doing all that which accelerates the process but it was always there.
The key to reconciling the geographic and ideological communities is to get the geographic ones to be more tolerant. People prefer meatspace if they feel they belong.
"What if we begin to feel our primary allegiance is toward people who share our race or our religion or our interests, rather than toward the people who share our country and our city? What if we go to the PTA or the planning board meeting and discover a bunch of strangers we despise and disdain?"
This has already happened. We had a President specifically elected to fuck with the people Republicans distain and fear. Maybe the "normies" in the middle wake up and react to that and this ends up being a blip but I don't really see strong evidence of that within my personal relationships or from nationwide indicators like voting patterns.
Let's not blame tech either. It's a convenient scapegoat as usual but while it has contributed to an environment where distain and hostility is possible by accelerating cultural change and sorting it didn't force people to walk that path.
New cultural ideas and practices are always evolving. You can decide to accommodate new people and ideas and move forward or you can react with anger at the audacity and fear losing control. Many people are choosing the latter and have been for some time. That only forces the people they shun and attack to seek shelter in non-geographical communities. Before social media that was done by moving to a city big enough that you could find a community that would be accepting. That community tended to be ideological because the experience of being forced out was what most people shared. Social media provides a new, easier way of doing all that which accelerates the process but it was always there.
The key to reconciling the geographic and ideological communities is to get the geographic ones to be more tolerant. People prefer meatspace if they feel they belong.