Rampell on the next generation
Catherine Rampell, a writer for the Washington Post, has an interesting column in the today's op-ed section titled "Raising a Political Bigot":
Right now, Generation Y has the chance to escape the curse of staunch political labeling. Surveys have shown young people today disproportionately self-identify as political "independents"; an April poll from the Harvard Institute of Politics, for example, found a plurality of Americans ages 18 to 24 consider themselves "independent." This may be because we don't fit neatly into traditional party thinking. We treat our politics the way we treat our music and our clothes (and often our religion): as good consumer-citizens, we mix and match. It's a political supermarket. As a New York Times-CBS-MTV survey demonstrated in June, we lean left on many issues, such as gay rights and health-care coverage. But most of us also support many traditionally Republican positions, such as limiting or banning abortion and staying relatively optimistic about the Iraq war. Our political beliefs, like our music, aren't bundled the way our elders' are. You older types buy into albums and political platforms; we prefer hit singles.
It's not necessarily that we're centrist. We're just eclectic. [Washington Post]
I think Rampell's op-ed makes some very important points (though I would argue that the poll question about Iraq, which found that 51% of 18-to-29-year-old's believe that the US is "very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq" compared to 45% of all adults, should be taken with a grain of salt, given the vagueness of the term "success").
During the last couple of years, I've come to view the two-party system itself as the real culprit behind many of our problems (including the war in Iraq and the re-election of Bush). The fact that there are only two real choices creates, and continuously feeds, the absurd binary political climate we live in - where candidates and voters are seen as being either "for" or "against" any number of complicated issues. This is especially true with the hot-button "culture war" issues, like abortion, gay marriage, guns, and immigration . . . which are all nuanced issues with complicated legal backgrounds.
For example, I'm pretty open-minded about gay people and gay rights - but I've shocked and infuriated close friends before by arguing that gay rights activists are making a legal and strategic mistake when they argue that their movement is closely analogous to the civil rights movement of the 60's. Does that mean I hate gay people, or think that a gay person is any less of an American citizen than anyone else? No, it just means that my point of view does not jibe with the liberal orthodoxy - and in a less binary political climate, that wouldn't be misinterpreted as some kind of evidence that I am completely "against" gay rights or gay marriage, or hostile to gay people. (Note that I'm not the only sympathetic person who thinks it is a bad idea to make that analogy; just the other day, Obama responded to a similar question by saying "I’m always very cautious about getting into comparisons of victimology," and noting that the issues are different.)
No matter how much one disagrees with someone else on one of these issues, any realistic person should at least be able to understand where the other side is coming from. And at this point, we don't have an excuse for not understanding where both sides are coming from, because, as Rampell suggests, we can thank the current political establishment for relentlessly exposing us to the orthodox stances on each side.
Finally, I love Rampell's comment that "[i]t's not necessarily that we're centrist. We're just eclectic." This is similar to my usage of the word "moderate" in the name of this website. I've never claimed to be the guy sitting at the exact 50-yard line of the American political universe on every issue - I mostly mean that I'm pragmatic, willing to listen to a variety of viewpoints, interested in understanding why people think the way they do, and sick of a climate where ideological and political lines hold us back from making progress.
"Raising a Political Bigot" [Washington Post]
Right now, Generation Y has the chance to escape the curse of staunch political labeling. Surveys have shown young people today disproportionately self-identify as political "independents"; an April poll from the Harvard Institute of Politics, for example, found a plurality of Americans ages 18 to 24 consider themselves "independent." This may be because we don't fit neatly into traditional party thinking. We treat our politics the way we treat our music and our clothes (and often our religion): as good consumer-citizens, we mix and match. It's a political supermarket. As a New York Times-CBS-MTV survey demonstrated in June, we lean left on many issues, such as gay rights and health-care coverage. But most of us also support many traditionally Republican positions, such as limiting or banning abortion and staying relatively optimistic about the Iraq war. Our political beliefs, like our music, aren't bundled the way our elders' are. You older types buy into albums and political platforms; we prefer hit singles.
It's not necessarily that we're centrist. We're just eclectic. [Washington Post]
I think Rampell's op-ed makes some very important points (though I would argue that the poll question about Iraq, which found that 51% of 18-to-29-year-old's believe that the US is "very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq" compared to 45% of all adults, should be taken with a grain of salt, given the vagueness of the term "success").
During the last couple of years, I've come to view the two-party system itself as the real culprit behind many of our problems (including the war in Iraq and the re-election of Bush). The fact that there are only two real choices creates, and continuously feeds, the absurd binary political climate we live in - where candidates and voters are seen as being either "for" or "against" any number of complicated issues. This is especially true with the hot-button "culture war" issues, like abortion, gay marriage, guns, and immigration . . . which are all nuanced issues with complicated legal backgrounds.
For example, I'm pretty open-minded about gay people and gay rights - but I've shocked and infuriated close friends before by arguing that gay rights activists are making a legal and strategic mistake when they argue that their movement is closely analogous to the civil rights movement of the 60's. Does that mean I hate gay people, or think that a gay person is any less of an American citizen than anyone else? No, it just means that my point of view does not jibe with the liberal orthodoxy - and in a less binary political climate, that wouldn't be misinterpreted as some kind of evidence that I am completely "against" gay rights or gay marriage, or hostile to gay people. (Note that I'm not the only sympathetic person who thinks it is a bad idea to make that analogy; just the other day, Obama responded to a similar question by saying "I’m always very cautious about getting into comparisons of victimology," and noting that the issues are different.)
No matter how much one disagrees with someone else on one of these issues, any realistic person should at least be able to understand where the other side is coming from. And at this point, we don't have an excuse for not understanding where both sides are coming from, because, as Rampell suggests, we can thank the current political establishment for relentlessly exposing us to the orthodox stances on each side.
Finally, I love Rampell's comment that "[i]t's not necessarily that we're centrist. We're just eclectic." This is similar to my usage of the word "moderate" in the name of this website. I've never claimed to be the guy sitting at the exact 50-yard line of the American political universe on every issue - I mostly mean that I'm pragmatic, willing to listen to a variety of viewpoints, interested in understanding why people think the way they do, and sick of a climate where ideological and political lines hold us back from making progress.
"Raising a Political Bigot" [Washington Post]
posted at 11:46:00 AM | permalink
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