Political Psychology - How Well Does Jonathan Hat's Moral Foundations Theory Explain Polarization?

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It's the common view that white women have much more cultural influence to day than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Is that possibly one reason why political polarization has gone up? Unmarried women tend to vote strongly toward the left, and married women, again, white women, tend to be more conservative. That's a big split that you don't quite see the same split in the voting behavior of white men.

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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