External enemies: Fighting and winning two world wars, followed by the Cold War, had an enormous unifying effect. […] Since 1989, we have had no unifying common enemy.

That this “unifying” did not apply to, for example (and among many others), African Americans, Japanese Americans, communists or other targets of McCarthyism/COINTELPRO/etc, is a simple narrative inconvenience. Similarly, the ongoing war in Afghanistan having lasted about 160% as long as the next longest war in US history (Vietnam) is a minor detail, because Americans are evidently divided on whether or not terrorism is bad. I encourage proponents of #ViewpointDiversity like Haidt to consider the ultimate taboo in America: maybe war is actually bad and us bombing people all over the world doesn’t have any beneficial effects at home or elsewhere. In fact, what if war — with its massive toll in lives, economic opportunity costs, the damage to public trust caused by propaganda used to gain temporary support, the erosion of valuing others lives that occurs when we know our government is constantly killing innocent people, etc — actually drives us apart?

The media: Newspapers in the early days of the republic were partisan and often quite nasty. But with the advent of television in the mid-twentieth century, America experienced something unusual: the media was a gigantic centripetal force. Americans got much of their news from three television networks, which were regulated and required to show political balance. [emphasis added] […] Now we are drowning in outrage stories, very high-quality outrage stories, often supported by horrifying video clips. Social media is turning out to be a gigantic centrifugal force.

While arguing for liberalism, Haidt identifies the regulation of TV news as a source of unity. But putting that aside, since there is no evidence presented for the existence of this golden era of media when outrage stories didn’t dominate the headlines, I’ll just assert with an equal amount of evidence that there has never been a period where outrage stories didn’t dominate headlines. The news is dumb as hell and always has been. The main difference with social media — and the part that I believe bothers Haidt — is that with social media the choice of which stories get to dominate is now (somewhat) crowd-sourced rather than chosen by (almost exclusively) wealthy, white, educated, male producers, editors, or anchors. “Horrifying video clips” have shown the public how our police actually behave in the real world. Would Haidt prefer the #BlackLivesMatter movement had never occurred? (More on this later.)

Immigration and diversity: This one is complicated and politically fraught. Let me be clear that I think immigration and diversity are good things, overall. The economists seem to agree that immigration brings large economic benefits. The complete dominance of America in Nobel prizes, music, and the arts, and now the technology sector, would not have happened if we had not been open to immigrants. But as a social psychologist, I must point out that immigration and diversity have many sociological effects, some of which are negative.

A perfect example of American exceptionalism: America ranks 16th in Nobel prizes per capita, with about 1/3 the rate of Sweden, 1/2 that of the UK, and behind Germany, Israel, Ireland, etc… but this amounts to “complete dominance” because, uh, USA! USA! I don’t know why this is supposed to be a good metric anyway, because it would only demonstrate that we are the happy (and lazy?) beneficiaries of brain drain. The rest of this section is a bit confusing since it argues that immigration and diversity have positives and negatives, and doesn’t conclude much about the net effect. I’m left unconvinced that they’re having any effect, or that the actual rates of immigration have any relation to the efficacy of scapegoating immigrants as a cynical political move- which I think is the far more relevant aspect of this question to unity/divisiveness.

The more radical Republican Party: […] personal relationships among legislators and their families in Washington had long been a massive centripetal force. […] […] the Democrats did some polarizing things, too. Fair enough. […]

Earlier in the lecture, in one of the few points that mentions data, Haidt cited increasing two-party polarization of the American (voting?) public since the 1990’s. He’s now discussing the parties themselves, without giving any kind of systematic account of evidence that the GOP has changed any more or any differently since the 90’s than the Dems, or even asking (never mind attempting to answer) any questions about the underlying reasons why any of the parties are changing in any directions, or whether there is any relationship between these party changes and the aforementioned increasing polarization of the public. Is there any causal relationship, and if so, in which direction? I am again unconvinced about the importance and even the characterization of this force of division. I would argue it’s the Democratic Party which has been moving aggressively away from working class advocacy to try to earn support from business interests and the upper middle class, and that the GOP is only reacting to their grab at the “center” by seeking to make up for lost Wall Street money with votes from the far right.

I’ll also point out the sort of comfortable, elite, liberal ideal of government as a body of philosopher kings who are all friends with each other despite disagreeing on whether or not children starving is something the government should do something about. That’s not important, really, what’s important is reaching a bipartisan consensus on who to bomb next to unite the republic. And perhaps most importantly of all, legislators should not interact with the public, lest they get any ideas from the majority who, because of human nature, do not support free speech.

The new identity politics of the Left: Jonathan Rauch offers a simple definition of identity politics: a “political mobilization organized around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or pecuniary interest.” Rauch then adds: “In America, this sort of mobilization is not new, unusual, un­American, illegitimate, nefarious, or particularly left­wing.” This definition makes it easy for us to identify two kinds of identity politics: the good kind is that which, in the long run, is a centripetal force. The bad kind is that which, in the long run, is a centrifugal force.

Quite an intellectual feat: to explain the new identity politics of the left, Haidt cites a “simple definition” from Rauch which, according to Rauch, is “not new […] or particularly leftwing.” Haidt then offers a classification rule which can only be used in retrospect and is essentially tautological: the good kind of identity politics is that which, in the long run, is good.

The audacity is still just beginning, because next Haidt uses Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of good identity politics which was focused on uniting. Rather than say anything about this myself, I would love nothing more than for Haidt to read the words of MLK: