Who Shares My Values?
By Ralph Keyes In recent elections politicians from both parties have assured voters that they share their values. In the last presidential race, George Bush repeatedly warned voters that John Kerry didn’t share their values. Kerry denied the charge, repeating ad nauseam that he did indeed share voters’ values.
Value-sharing has become an important demarcation point across the entire social spectrum. It’s not just a matter of electoral politics. At Antioch College, my alma mater, students, faculty, and administrators alike are recruited on the basis that they “share our values.” The result is a highly charged progressive-alternative atmosphere with little room for genuine debate, let alone empathy for unapproved points of view. This atmosphere characterizes many another campus. That’s one reason why the rise of education — thought to be a broadening, civilizing influence — has actually made for increasingly bitter political fissures. As columnist David Brooks has called to our attention, the better educated the voter, the less likely he or she is to split a ticket. Those with college degrees are more rigidly ideological than counterparts who didn’t go beyond high school.
Even high school — the best opportunity most Americans have to be among a cross-section of other Americans — is less and less diverse. The rise of magnet and charter schools enhances this trend. Military service, another occasion when drafted men were among other men from many walks of life has given way to a professional armed force which involves a small fraction of self-selected, relatively homogenous soldiers.
As a result, more and more Americans grow up in settings where they have fewer and fewer opportunities to get to know those unlike themselves. Developers trumpet “lifestyle communities” in which diversity gives way to common interests, outlooks, and values. Websites appeal to ever more narrow constituencies. So do magazines, radio stations, and cable channels. American society as a whole is increasingly segmented on such lines. There is less and less need to rub elbows with those who have different views. That’s the way we like it. The appeal to “values.” therefore, is part of a broader social cleavage along lines of income, taste, and world outlook. It reflects a growing neo-tribal tendency to huddle in enclaves of “us,” of “our kind,” for protection against “them.”
The question seldom considered is why so many Americans feel such a strong need to associate primarily, if not exclusively, with their own kind. What inner needs are being met here? My own hunch is that as ties of ethnicity and geography weaken we look for other ways to bond. Many of those who are hungry for a sense of community find it among those who we think “share our values,” in special-interest groups especially. These groups continually butt heads. The greater their conflict, the more unbreachable becomes the gulf between them. Republican strategist Richard Viguerie says it is far easier to organize voters on the basis of what they’re against than what they’re for. This in turn reinforces both the sense of belonging and the tendency to polarize on a fissure of “values.” That term is a misnomer, however, a euphemism for lots of other polarizing factors. When hearing the word “values” in a political context, don’t think morality, or ethics, or even good character. Think lifestyle, interests, and whether one drives a Prius or a Hummer. That’s where the fissures really lie.
May 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
The result is a highly charged progressive-alternative atmosphere with little room for genuine debate, let alone empathy for unapproved points of view. This atmosphere characterizes many another campus. That’s one reason why the rise of education – thought to be a broadening, civilizing influence – has actually made for increasingly bitter political fissures.
Yes, very good point. My husband and I are high school graduates, well, he’s a ninth grade drop-out who got his GED in his forties (finally!) and we live in a working class neighborhood in the beautiful and politically liberal city of Portland.
I have noticed that despite the degrees and academic accomplishments of some of my acquaintances they remain somewhat closed-minded to less liberal points of view. As if those who do not agree with their politics are ignorant, unenlightened souls who are disconnected from the Real Truth.
(actually, I have earned two degrees: middle school and high school…:-) )
May 28th, 2007 at 11:03 am
at ralph’s blog he said:
Pam. I’ve noticed that my friends who didn’t go to college are sometimes more avid readers than those who did. They didn’t get that passion extinguished by the demands of academia.
A very good friend of mine who is a strong, analytical thinker tells me that it took years to recover her love for books after her four years at school. Reading became a chore; books had to be read lightening fast and then gutted and dissected, debated rather than enjoyed. She graduated about a decade ago and has recently found her way back to literature. Time, and distance…her family moved to China which added fuel to her renewed appetite for books. It was my absolute pleasure to collect a media bag of books to ship to her a couple of months ago.
(Interestingly enough, when I announced to her my desire to pursue a writing career, she preached at me with fierce gusto in an attempt to persuade me to go to college. “It’ll make you a better writer,†she said. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know. But I do know that I am not meant for higher education. And the voice I have comes from who I am, not from credentials. Btw, I did enroll in a 2-year online writing course which I will be finished with in three weeks!!!)
June 19th, 2007 at 5:41 am
This should make for a good discussion, but where and when?
My mentor Daniel Wright, who founded the alternative community of Padanaram, called it “learning to live with the spectrum” — the art of learning to live with people of all beliefs and lifestyles.
He also wrote about the drive to bond, which is so overlooked. “The greatest generation” learned to bond through the difficulties of the depression and WWII, and the bonding cut across all lines of race and class. Now we are drifting back again, hopefully not all the way back to the ethnic hatreds of the rest of the world.
But I don’t know. Rarely in any public setting will people speak of their private beliefs. It leaves them too exposed, too uncomfortable. For real belief must be a living entity, constantly changing, watered, fed — and it’s happening unconsciously for most. When you bring that up out of the unconscious — as war does, for instance — you get immediate conflict. Really none of us knows what we truly believe, and that’s the essence of it. It’s the unknown. Speak of your belief and it changes.
Speak of what you THINK you believe and it’s already a dead letter, and this is the reason for the deadness of most of our public discourse and politics, and the increasing divisions and intolerance.