The "Religiofication" of Politics and Economics posted on Reddit several months ago looked into Ernest Renan's late 19th century notion that left-wing socialism was the coming religion of the Asian land mass "and that being a secular religion it would lead to a religiofication of politics and economics" worldwide. Renan proved to be correct, of course, as an extreme version of socialism -- communism -- came to dominate politics from the middle of Germany east all the way to the shores of the Pacific by 1950.
But over the last 35 -- and especially the last 12 -- years, we've seen an obvious swing in the opposite direction from the same starting point west all the way to California's coastal valleys. The authors of new research at Chicago's Northwestern University may well have explained why. In "Why Are U.S. Parties So Polarized? A 'Satisficing' Dynamical Model," in SIAM Review, Vol. 62, No. 3, September 2020, Vicky Chuqiao Yang, Daniel M. Abrams, Georgia Kernell and Adilson E. Motter assert that "U.S. political parties are becoming increasingly polarized due to their quest for voters -- not because voters themselves are becoming more extremist."
(See the media article in today's Science Daily and the abstract of the research paper.)
Nevertheless, it's probably evident to 90% of the people who populate this sub on a regular basis that evangelical, fundamentalist Xtianity has PRE-conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, socialized, habituated and normalized the minds of millions to the very ideological extremism that makes it so easy for them to buy into the pretty obvious manipulations of one major US political party that is now far more radicalized than it was before 1990.
What a far smaller number here may see is the rapidly increasing reciprocal reactivity between the two major parties that has radicalized the other party... even though the vast majority of its registered members assert they are "NOT Xtians," and many claim to be agnostics, atheists or affiliated with other non-Abrahamic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.
IMO, this is because those of so-called "conservative" sway are not the only ones who have been conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, socialized, habituated and normalized to belief and following the pronouncements of others in perceived "authority."
I've seen plenty of research that demonstrates that those of the so-called "liberal" sway are only marginally less inclined to be "believers" in what they have been told vs. "lookers, listeners, feelers and sensors" determining what IS -- vs. what is NOT -- with their eyes, ears and senses in general.
Resources
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Smith, A.: Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity; New York: Oxford U. Press, 2002.
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Sutton, M.: Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America; Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 2009.
Yang, V. C.; et al: Why Are U.S. Parties So Polarized? A 'Satisficing' Dynamical Model," in SIAM Review, Vol. 62, No. 3, September 2020.
I used to think left and right were wings of the same bird, doing a bad dance together but have since changed my mind, I know which side stands for human rights and which one doesn't. I do see theocracy as a danger for America and very soon too.
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