To understand modern political polarization, you have to go back 53 years.
Specifically to March 8, 1971
Have you ever wondered how political polarization got to the point where disagreement feels hostile and impossible to navigate? After all, it’s not like arguments about politics are new. For those of us who’ve been around for a while (I’m 51), it sure feels different than it used to.
Answers to the question of what’s changed often include things like social media, the effects of cable news and partisan programming, cultural changes like geographic sorting, as well as political changes like the rise of partisan media.
While all of these factors likely play a role, each one falls short when it comes to explaining the “how” or the “why” of our current circumstances. But, there's one factor that sheds light on both.
On March 8, 1971, SCOTUS came to a unanimous decision on Griggs v. Duke Power Co., thereby establishing that discrimination could exist without discriminatory intent (i.e., disparate impact). As understandable as this decision was given the timing and nature of Duke Power’s actions, it inadvertently created the conditions for what I have called "The Certainty Trap." The removal of the consideration of intent, and the way that decision affected our moral sensibilities more generally, blurred the line between what ought to be and what is in a way that made good faith disagreement impossible.
Here’s how this works.
We start with the widely held value that racial, sex, and other forms of discrimination are morally wrong and that we think the world should have less of it.
The Griggs decision said that disparities prove the existence of discrimination *without* intent. In other words, the decision collapsed the distinction between is and ought, making the existence of disparities a moral imperative to eliminate them.
(Note: While the SCOTUS decision was made with a carve out for disparate impact for "business necessity," the underlying moral principle has no mechanism for such an exception.)
This collapse—the removal of intent—created a direct bridge from "disparities exist" to a "moral wrong has occurred," making questioning those disparities the moral equivalent of supporting discrimination.
Let me be clear. I'm not necessarily saying the Griggs’s decision was wrong. I am also not necessarily saying it was right. I'm saying that, once discrimination was formally separated from intent, the modern incarnation of political polarization was a fait accompli.
And I'm saying that this pattern repeats across time and space any time a society treats intent as irrelevant—regardless of how noble the original goals or how horrific the moral trigger. It helps explain current political trends, both inside and outside of the US. [More to come in a paper that’s currently in progress…]
Learn more about my work here and check out The Certainty Trap book here. Thank you!
I think to understand today's political polarization, and the emphasis on equity and disparities rather than intent and equality, you have to go back further--to Brown v. Board of Education. That's when Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP amassed data to show that segregated schools hurt black children, and argued that the doctrine of separate but equal was wrong without needing to show any intent to harm black people--the harmful effects were sufficient. In any legal system, the first step toward justice is equality by prohibiting de jure discrimination. The second step toward justice is equity by prohibiting de facto discrimination--that's what the Griggs ruling did, and Griggs was right. But it's very hard to argue that political polarization was invented in 1971 when we had many worse forms of political polarization during the 1960s. It's also questionable that political polarization is such a terrible thing if we had far less polarization during the repressive eras of Jim Crow and McCarthyism.
As I understand it, the key flaw in the decision is that the mere existence of disparity is prima facie evidence of discrimination. In other words, given a disparity, the default assumption is "discrimination". (And now, to defend yourself, you have to prove you weren't discriminating -- you have to prove a negative. Guilty until proven innocent.)
Why is this troubling? As Thomas Sowell covers at length, disparate outcomes are the norm, not the exception. There are *many* reasons for disparate outcomes; this decision *always* puts discrimination at the top of the list.
Disparity in Nobel Prizes massively favors Jews. Jewish conspiracy, or some other reason? Disparity in the NBA massively favors blacks. Discrimination against whites, or some other reason? Go read "The Triple Package"; it's filled with examples of how cultural differences often lead to disparate outcomes.
And yes, people who even try to have good-faith discussions which question this assumption are often demonized with the "r" word.