An Australian reader named Michael Edmonds writes with an interesting question. He did worry a bit that he’d be considered anti-American for posing it, but hey — nothing good in life is without risk …
I live in Australia and I’m a regular reader of your site. I’m frequently surprised by the ideological battles that occur in the comments on your site (and others) on topics such as tax, healthcare, homosexuality, the financial bailout, European countries (socialists), religion, Palin, Obama, etc. On almost any topic, there are extreme opposing viewpoints. Why does the U.S. have so many ideological extremists?
My impression may be explained by one of the following:
1) The U.S. may be no different from other Western democracies, but I don’t notice it in Australia or other places.
2) It may be that the people who comment on websites are not representative of the population, so my view is wrong due to sampling error.
3) The centrist views are drowned out by the clamor of the extremists.
4) The ideological extremists may make a bigger impression on me and I forget about the centrists, leading me to think that there are more extremists than there actually are.
I tend to discount option one because we have many of the same debates in Australia, but I rarely witness the same fervor in debates. I suspect option two is also an inadequate explanation because it is easy to observe ideological extremism in other media. At this point, I can’t discount option three, and option four is a possible (although I think incorrect) explanation.
This leaves me with my impression that the U.S. produces far more ideological extremists than other Western democracies. Do you have any thoughts on why this may be the case or why I may be mistaken?
I think there’s validity to Nos. two and four, but if I had to give one answer, I’d say that it boils down to incentives.
If you are the kind of person who wants his or her voice to be heard (as most of us are), there’s little incentive to playing things down the middle, for then your voice won’t be heard. Voicing an ideological extreme, therefore — whether or not it’s truly how you feel — is an exercise of narcissism, for you’ll stand out in a crowd. And considering how costly other forms of narcissism can be, spouting a super-ideological viewpoint in fact comes pretty cheap.
I also think that Michael is witnessing a spike in ideological chatter due to a long and heated presidential election. In this country especially, elections often come to resemble a slightly elevated form of Color War, wherein everyone’s a partisan, and the thrusts and parries are so predetermined as to be nearly comical. It is especially irksome to hear “average voters” in media interviews who parrot, nearly word-for-word, the political parties’ talking points.
If I am even a little bit right on this last point, then Michael (and all the rest of us) can expect to see the ideological fever fade a bit in the coming days — unless, of course, the election result is contested, and drags on for a few more months …
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I think there’s merit to point 2 and the proximity to the election, but I think to some extent the presence of prominent voices on both sides exacerbates the situation in the US – there aren’t Al Frankens and Rush Limbaughs in other countries in the same way as the US. This is partly because of the suspension of the Fairness Doctrine but also probably because of the size of the US market, which allows those figures to make a good living because even if a fraction of the population is willing to listen to their radio shows / read their books etc. they can still make it.
In other countries, politicians are the only ones making arguments for their side, and they have stopped doing so in ideological terms, which fails to provide figureheads for those who would otherwise jump on board. In some ways, I think the way the US is today is the way more countries were in the past, when ideological arguments rather than petty differences in government programs were debated by the citizenry at large.
I blame the media’s assignment of “red” and “blue” to the political parties. It seems like the attribution of political ideologies to these colors can be traced to the death of political moderates. Correlation, causation, whatever….
If Stephen is correct that expressing an extreme opinion reveals a desire for your voice to be heard, then this would mean that people in the US want their voices to be heard more than people from other nations
I don’t think this is true though. I tend to agree with reason #2 (sampling error) because my hunch is that the readers of this blog are NOT 100% representative of the US population. My impression is that most of the readers here are far more educated and sophisticated that the average citizen of the US (or any other country for that matter).
I would also propose another reason for this observed polarity of the opinions: could it be that some of them are actually voiced by non-US nationals? I am sure the admins of this site can provide some interesting statistics in the way of % readers per country and % commenting readers per country
You are completely wrong. There are NO ideological extreme EVER in the comment section of this website.
That was meant to be ironically.
I can’t say if American is more or less partisan than all other western democracies (things got pretty heated in France with Sarcozy and many places frequently erupt in riots (France again), but I do believe that America has a national value of speaking ones mind and the right to be heard. There is also the tradition of the adversarial process in our legal system with each side vigorously presenting their case to a jury.
Message boards tend to represent an adversarial process as opposed to a real discussion or debate (which works best in person). The jury is the non-participating reader (who may be persuadable) and advocates on either side of the issue seek to both be herd and to boil down their arguments to their most clear and concise essences (else they lose the jury’s interest”).
Another reason to consider, many posters are like Michael Edmonds and do not live in the US. That would indicate that the comments brings in people with extremist views from around the world. This would explain why he does not frequently see this behavior except in the comments section.
I’m more interested in the state of the discussions in Australia. I think of Australia as being somewhat homogeneous in culture, but surely there are heated discussions over (1) treatment of Aborigines and (2) the rising number of Asian immigrants, if not many other subjects.
Also, I perceive Australia as culturally more “cowboy” like; that is, self-sufficient, laconic, not looking to government as a curer of society’s ills. For example, people with ranches are expected to fight their own wildfires without reliance on “professionals.” Can’t imagine that attitude taking hold here. So perhaps with a strong self-sufficiency ethic, there’s not as much argument over the role of government.
Finally, don’t forget America was founded by “religious nuts.” The (mostly) tolerant but clamoring religious sects are still echoing 200 years later.
I’m in Canada, and like the 1st commenter appears to be suggesting, I think that the 2 party system in the US is the cause of that.