Big Government and Small Society

The Democratic Party suffered a historic drubbing a couple weeks ago. However, one of the things with which several left leaning commentators publically consoled themselves was that demographics are in their favor. The parts of the electorate which tend to vote for Democrats are growing, while those who tends to vote for Republicans are shrinking. Progressives like to focus on the examples of this they feel proud of: the non-white percentage of the US population is growing, and non-whites tend to vote Democratic. Young people also lean more heavily progressive on a variety of issues than previous generations did at the same age.

From a progressive point of view this sounds pretty good: progressivism will succeed in the end because it is supported by young and diverse people, while conservatism will die out because it is supported by old white people -- and no one like them anyway, did they?

I'd like to propose an alternate reading of the data: Progressive policies are more widely supported by those who are isolated within society and thus forced to rely on their relationship with the State for support rather than their relationships with family, friends, church, etc. However, the number of people who are living such a socially isolated experience is growing, and with it is growing support for progressive policies.

Democracy Corps and the Women's Voices, Women Vote Action Fund (two progressive advocacy groups) put out a report just prior to the election this year in which they talked about the need of the Democratic Party to reach out to and excite voters in the "Rising American Electorate" or RAE. The RAE consists of unamarried women, non-whites(who have lower marriage rates than whites) and young people (who marry less and marry later than earlier generations.)

And while organizations sucxh as Women's Voices, Women Vote Action fund are naturally most interested in the voting preferences of single women, polls which distinguish voting preferences of married vs. unmarried men show that while there is a 37% gap in party preference between unmarried women and married women, there is a 29% marriage gap for men as well, with unmarried men slighly favoring Democrats and married men strongly favoring Republicans. (This example is from April this year.)

For those who consider the family to be a thing of the past, this may be just fine. But for anyone who considers the family to be a basic building block of society, the fact that support for progressivism is expanding only as a result of the breakdown of other relationships than that between individual and state should be concerning. It also opens an obvious question: Do people come to support an all-consuming relationship between individual and state because other social institutions have already broken down for them, for some unrelated reason, and they have nowhere else to turn for support, or is it the growth of a state which leads to the breakdown of other social relationships, as the guarantee that one can be supported at some minimal level as an individual makes other personal relationships unnecessary?

Memoirs of a Facebooking Man

[with all due apology to Siegfried Sassoon]

For quite some time I held aloof from Facebook, considering it the domain of those who couldn't live without reading updates on what their friends were eating for lunch or what music was playing on distant people's iPods, but in the end I succumbed.  There were people I wanted to keep in touch with who were on, and in the end it proved to be a good way to provide distant friends and family with the sort of "here's a cute kid picture from today" or "listen to what the girls said" kind of news which doesn't fit at all within our editorial mandate for the blog and seems to inconsequential to actively mail to people.  Somehow the fact that one can, in a few moments, provide some photo or anecdote to everyone of one's acquaintance, but leave them to see it only if they look for it, provides a similar experience to being in more regular personal contact.  One knows what people are up to and it allows a sort of inconsequential chit-chat which a relationship maintained over intentional communications such as phone calls and emails generally lacks and yet which frequent person contact usually includes.

In this sense, I've found Facebook surprisingly useful, and it's allowed me to remain far more connected with distant friends and family than would otherwise be the case.

And yet, it doesn't take long on Facebook to realize that "social networking" lacks one of the most basic elements which allows social interaction to be harmonious. On Facebook, links and status updates posted to one's wall are visible to everyone in one's network.  Which, of course, runs counter to the most basic rule of having more than two friends in the world: you don't talk about everything with everyone. 

This is a problem that plagues more than just the frat boy who pauses to consider whether the "Here's me and the guys when were were so drunk we couldn't find either our pants or the sorority house" would offend his fiance's mother.  Unless you have somehow managed to attain a network of friends and family who are all in near harmony in regards to their beliefs and opinions, you must either stick to the most bland of "Stopped to have lunch at a great deli.  Look at this pastrami sandwich!" updates which will offend no one other than your college friend who is now a militant vegetarian and animal rights activist, or else at times post things which offend others. 

For instance, because I tend not to discuss religious or political issues at work except with people I know and trust very well, I've made it an absolute rule never to be connected with any work acquaintances on Facebook.  Yet even so, one is likely to read the political jokes Cousin Melchior thinks amusing about how all people in your political party suffer from sexual dysfunction, and which he couldn't help sharing because surely none of his friends would think otherwise, view the video of a cat being torn apart by mad beavers which your old college roommate thought was hilarious, and see the article which Aunt Mildred believes everyone should read on the importance of sterilization in a crowded world.

None of these people, in all likelihood, would have brought these topics up with you individually, or perhaps even at a social gathering in which you were present. They're think of "their friends", whoever that group of people is whom they are most used to addressing such things to. And yet, in the process, they send these things out to an array of other friends and relations whose reactions are likely to be very much other than what they intend.

This kind of accidental exposure is the sort of thing which makes one feel like being more ideologically and culturally selective about whom one is acquainted with. The old college friend whom it's interesting to catch up with, or the cousin's new husband who was so hilarious at last Thanksgiving, suddenly becomes someone you'll feel much more ill disposed towards next time you meet him (if you won't avoid him entirely) when you find out that he holds your deeply held religious, moral or political beliefs in contempt -- or merely that he has an offensive sense of humor. And while there's a smug satisfaction to thinking, "Well, at least I know now what he's really like." Acquiring the knowledge necessary to like people less is not necessarily a desirable thing. In many cases, it may be better not to know about the elements of one's friends' lives which one would find dislike-able.

The unfiltered nature of social networking online quickly makes on realize how much one filters social interactions in real life, and how much social cohesion relies on not sharing everything you're thinking with everyone you know.