I Think It's Not a Cosmopolitan Divide, but a New Fundamental Orientation

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We rate how left or right an institution is by it is on some of these cultural questions. She would think the younger eras would be more left wing, whereas now we have an older america. There tends to be a conservatism that emerges on how things get done in complicated systems. And i think that one of the de stabilizing tensions of American politics right now is that the right feels like they are losing on culture,. and the left feels like it is losing on which is what it cares about most. It's time for a round of overrated verses underrated. Are you game? I'm game.

In his new book, Ezra Klein argues that polarization in America has become centered on partisan political identities, which has subsumed virtually every form of identity, be it where we live, what team we root for, the church we attend, or any other. This stacked form of polarization thus carries much more weight and is activated by a wider range of conflicts than before.

But is polarization really such a pressing concern? If it’s all merged into one form of identity politics then aren’t we just polarizing more efficiently? Over what percentage of GDP are we more polarized today versus in the past?

Tyler posed these questions to Ezra and more, including thoughts on Silicon Valley’s intellectual culture, his disagreement with Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, the limits of telecommuting, how becoming a father made him less conservative, his post-kid production function, why Manhattan is overrated, the “cosmic embarrassment” of California’s governance, why he loved Marriage Story, the future of the BBC and PBS, what he learned in Pakistan, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded December 27th, 2019 Other ways to connect

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