How does the political and cultural polarization today compare to that in the 1960s?

I was a teenager in the late 1960s, and I was paying rapt attention to what was going on. So I speak from that perspective.

1. The most bitterly polarizing issue was the Vietnam War. From 1965-1968, the most bitter division among political office-holders was Democrat against Democrat. President Johnson and his supporters defended the war. Senator Fulbright and other leading Democrats in Congress opposed it.

2. When Richard Nixon became President and continued the war, with expanded bombing, the issue became more clearly partisan, with Democrats opposed. But a lot of the public pressure to end the war slowly eased, because Nixon drew down the number of troops, ended the draft, and ultimately signed a peace agreement.

3. Culturally, the hippies were a big phenomenon in the late 1960s. They contrasted with working-class youth, who were known as “greasers” because of the product that young working-class men wore in their short hair. But by the mid-1970s, there was no more divide between hippies and greasers. Guys of every social background had long hair, along with those mutton-chop sideburns and thick mustaches so emblematic of the decade. And the hippies grew up, took showers, and got jobs. So I would say that by about 1975 American culture was more blended than separated. And of course back then everyone saw the same movies, watched the same TV shows, and had the same news sources.

4. Today, I would say that there is nothing as politically divisive as the Vietnam War. There is no enduring political issue per se. Like Seinfeld, politics these days is a show about nothing.

5. Instead, what we see now is plenty of political rage, directed against particular individuals or particular groups. The actual issues that attract attention are relatively minor incidents that get magnified in the media. Gone are the common sources of information, so that many people seem to live in bubbles in which those who disagree appear to be demons.

6. Today, the cultural divide is much starker. Social classes have much less interaction with one another, and this reinforces the tendency to demonize others.

On net, I believe that this is a more dangerous time than the 1960s. I suspect that many people would like to see the divisions healed. But the path that led to healing of the divides of the 1960s is not available today. We will have to find a different path.

He writes,

So although the scandal revealed by last week’s arrests involves college admissions, it has touched a nerve not because of a widespread desire to get into Yale but because of a widespread perception that the people who go there think they can get away with anything. It isn’t aggravating because it’s a betrayal of the principles of meritocracy but because it is an example of the practice of it. That’s not a problem that can be addressed through more fair and open college admissions. It is a problem that would need to be addressed through more constraints on the behavior of American elites

Read the whole piece. I think that this is a point worth dwelling upon.

Levin sees today’s elites as un-moored from traditional institutional sources of accountability. I would put it this way:

–They don’t like working for a profit, which would enable consumers to hold them accountable. Instead, by working for government or in the non-profit sector, they can self-validate the worth of their jobs.

–They disdain traditional religions. Instead, they invent their own norms in relation to race, gender, the environment, etc. They proceed to punish as heretics those who fail to Keep up with these rapidly-evolving norms.

–They don’t belong to organizations in their local community. Instead, they live dissociated from their neighbors, if not walled off from them completely. Their spirit of generosity is limited to the use of other people’s money.

He writes,

I am concerned with the public’s temper rather than the policy trimmings of the elites. And the public never takes yes for an answer. Does anyone suppose that OWS protesters were satisfied with regulations ordained from the top of the political establishment? Or that Black Lives Matter militants have been mollified by police reforms, any more than Tea Partiers were by the sequester?

Protests triumph or peter out – but the public is never satisfied. I can’t think of a single instance of an insurgency disbanding because of policy concessions.

The post is nominally a response to Noah Smith’s critique, but it is a wide-ranging discourse on human nature and our current condition.

I would claim that the anti-war movement of my youth was able to take yes for an answer. That is, when the Vietnam War ended, the protest movement ended as well.

In fact, a standard view of the 1960’s and 1970’s is that over time the radicals and protesters became “co-opted” and joined the elites. Some people expect history to repeat itself. Gurri himself writes,

The generation of elites that was young when industrial giants roamed the earth is now failing, literally and physically. Its enjoyment of the large corner offices within the pyramid will soon go the way of all flesh. Many expressions of extreme political despair coming from the elites can be ascribed to a panic of mortality. Young people are displacing old. The latter have had their day. Of the young, an analyst should say as little as possible, other than to wish them the best of luck.

We have seen on the left a meme of “pass the baton” to the younger generation. Perhaps that is sometimes the right thing to do. But when I hear the strains of “Tomorrow belongs to me” coming from today’s smug anti-capitalist social justice activists, I believe that one must put up some resistance.