Polarized elites

By lex

Posted on February 15, 2006

Pepperdine University professor John Q. Wilson has a long, but important article upon the WSJ today. In it he takes a scholarly look back through history’s lens to note that some element of political polarization has been fundamental to the country since its birth, while admitting that things today have taken a turn very much for the worse.

In part he blames a core refinement of the political parties into something approaching philosophical monoliths – especially around the hot-button issues of the culture wars. He also attributes the rise in elite polarization to the increased competitiveness of a mass media forced to target segments, rather than centers of the population, as well as an increasingly educated (and therefore politically aware) populace.

The “So what?” paragraph rings the bell for me:

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex