I'm taking a few liberties by answering Anticipatory Retaliation's comment here, rather than in the comments section. But it's my blog, so I can do what I like. Here are a few modest thoughts on the regional aspect of the soul of the nation: its "true center."
Well, strictly speaking I'm mixing my "central tendancies." The 50th percentile rank is associated with the median, rather than the mean. The median is supposed to be less influenced by outliers, so it's a more "robust" decription of the ideological center, on the left/right dimenionsion. And you're raising the issue of whether "local centers" are moving closer to the natonal center, or farther away. (Something like that, anyway.) After all, the over all society may be more devisive even though the center stays the same. But my main point is that the primary axis of the American Ideology isn't left/right, it's liberal/illiberal. And in some sense the strength of the nation is that it can, therefore, tolerate rather large ideological divisions in other (lesser) dimensions.
I think if I remember my Lipset correctly things were moving closer to a national consensus prior to 2001, which means essentially that we're paying more attention to the real axis of American Ideology, and less to the European superimposition that derives conspicuously from the French Revolution. I'm not sure about what's happened since, although I suspect we're on the same course. There is certainly increased polarization, but it remains to be seen whether that's regional and whether the polarization is more than superficial.
Daniel Elazar concieved of American Ideology in somewhat different terms than Lipset. He saw it as three bands of political culture, moving from North to Middle to South. The North was "Moralistic,' believing that the role of government was essential in creating a good society (influence of the Puritans, etc.). The Middle was "Individualistic," essentially believing that the government's role had to be minimal, and that it plays only a small role in the lives of people. The South is "Traditionalistic" and tends to defer to "ascriptive" hierarchies based on family and lineage.
So everything started out in these three bands, before the Westward Expansion, but became somewhat intermingled as things moved westward, resulting in pockets of "pure types" as well as local cultures that are variations and mixtures of two or more of the "basic three." Elezar's classic thesis is called the "American Mosaic." He even had a highly detailed map, down to the village level.
This is useful, but I think one has to maintain awareness of the overall unity of belief, or what Lipset called the "American Ideology." It's basically Lockeanism with some Religious Sectarianism thrown in. And my sense is that the consensus is growing, rather than shrinking, in spite of the present polarization. More importanty, the Republicans seem to embody it more than the Democrats at the moment, possibly because they were never really on the "right" in the first place. The whole American Experiment is "leftist" in the sense that it's implicit and sometimes explicit goal is equality of opportunity, or a "level playing field." No so-called "leftist" society has ever done any better than the US at achieving this goal.
Posted by Demosophist at January 22, 2004 07:04 PM | TrackBack