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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (52335)	10/19/2006 7:02:26 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 90947

"which requires other skills beyond just leadership" What would these skills that are not subsumed under the aegis of leadership be?? Recognizing what is possible, planning, organization, determination, strategy, and more. These may or may not be considered to be subsumed under the aegis of leadership. Leadership may be considered the ability to get people to follow you, but you might get a lot of people following you and still fail to get your way. Yes fear is not the same as respect" I agree that some effective leaders are more feared than respected but it was not what I intended in discussing the unification abilities of great leaders and their ability to unite people on a common ground and to transcend differences. Yes but some leaders, even if feared, are also greatly respected. The leaders I mentioned where clearly feared, but that doesn't mean they where ineffective at uniting large numbers of people behind them and not just people who thought "I better join up or they will harm me". "we are more partisan now" Why do you think that is?? I believe I suggested it had somewhat to do with affluence Affluence could have something to do with it, as does the lesser degree of external threat. When we have more wealth (and also more national power) we have less need to "all hang together" in order to avoid "hanging separately" or just having a miserable existence. We don't have as large of shared national threat to bring us together (Al Qaeda is no Nazi army, or Imperial Japanese fleet), or massive shared suffering to bring us together. and the INTENTIONAL cultivation of difference in order to realize self interest related to attaining power. That's both a cause and a symptom of the more partisan climate. What are your ideas for the causes of this polarization? I think you have a point with the two you mention. Another factor might be that partisanship is not unusual in our history or in human history. The 40s and the 50s in the US where probably much less partisan than normal. We might be seeing more a return to the norm rather than an exceptional deviation from it. Also in the post war period there was more of a consensus on certain big issues. The consensus was far from perfect but on many issues you might have had 70/30 or 80/20 instead of today's 50/50 to 60/40. There were exceptions (the early civil rights battles) but many of them went across parties as much as they where between parties, and so didn't tremendously increase partisanship. Another factor is that some of the more culturally conservative voters (esp. in the South) felt attached to the Democratic party, and it took a long time for them to drift away, while some relatively liberal voters felt an association with the Republicans. You had more "liberal Republicans" and "conservative Democrats", which reduced the harshness of the inter party fights. Now both parties are less mixed. A lot of former "conservative democrats" and "liberal Republicans" have switched parties. Another reason is that the "rally around the government in times of war" and the "lets all stand together in times of war" factors has been reduced. This is related to the earlier ideas about how we are more powerful and less at risk, but it also has to do with the fact that fewer people are involved in the actual fighting of the war. Also the fact that we are involved in an unpopular war in Iraq increases the partisanship. And to an extent is might be an escalating tit for tat. One side acts increases the harshness and partisanship just a little, the other side returns with a slight escalation, and over the years things eventually become much more partisan and polarized.