The Hazards of Belief Polarization

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that

Ten years ago or so, I started to feel like things were changing within the Center for Court Innovation (now the Center for Justice Innovation). I knew the place exceptionally well — I had been with the organization since it started and, at that time, I had served as its executive director for more than a decade. (I would ultimately step down in 2020 after 18 years at the helm.)

Around about 2014-2015, I began to notice that there were a number of staffers at the Center who were skeptical of the organization’s goal of working within the justice system to implement reforms that sought to reduce both crime and incarceration. These staffers were frustrated with the idea of partnering with government agencies like the police, prosecutors, and the courts, and eager to reinvent (or dismantle!) the justice system wholesale.

At first I thought that the presence of these staffers was a byproduct of the Center’s growth — the organization had hundreds of employees at that point and I no longer had a direct role in hiring or supervising a great many of them. But, as the ranks of internal skeptics grew, it occurred to me that what the Center was experiencing was a generational divide. Younger people were coming into the agency ideologically pre-loaded in a way that their predecessors were not. Many of them had been assigned to read The New Jim Crow in school and had participated in Black Lives Matter protests. They saw criminal justice primarily through a racial justice lens, which seemed to demand a more radical change agenda. By the time I left the Center in 2020, I had come to feel that I was out of step with the bulk of the organization.

My experience at the Center for Court Innovation came rushing back to me when I read Robert Talisse’s short, provocative book of political philosophy, Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side.

Talisse, a professor at Vanderbilt University, is primarily concerned with what he calls “the democrat’s dilemma.” Talisse thinks there is a real possibility of American democracy collapsing, but not because some of us are inherently bad people who are instinctively authoritarian. Rather, he believes that “democracy can break down even when every citizen is an active, sincere, and conscientious participant.”

According to Talisse, people are generally attracted to politics because they are pursuing a vision of justice. That sounds like a good thing, but it has some negative unintended consequences. The more passionate you are about pursuing justice, the more likely you are to view your political adversaries not just as opponents to be beaten at the ballot box but as threats to democracy that must be neutralized. Thus: “Engaged citizenship makes democracy work but also can erode the common ground that makes democracy possible.” That’s the democrat’s dilemma in a nutshell.

Talisse’s ultimate goal is to get us to see that respecting our political adversaries is in our own long-term best interests. Like Stanford professor Morris Fiorina, Talisse does not believe that Americans have become ideologically polarized; indeed, he thinks that the ideological divide in American politics has probably decreased in recent decades. Unfortunately, the way that people feel about their political opponents has intensified — Republicans are now reporting much higher levels of dislike for Democrats than they used to (and vice versa).

Talisse argues that the force behind this is belief polarization. According to Talisse:

Belief polarization is the phenomenon by which interactions among like-minded people tend to result in each person adopting more radical versions of their shared views. It is the force by which engagement with like-minded others transforms us into more extreme versions of ourselves…When we surround ourselves only with others who reinforce our ideas, we tend not only to become more confident in the correctness of those ideas, but also to adopt more radical or exaggerated formulations of them.

Talisse makes the case that, as groups experience belief polarization, they become more homogenous and more conformist. Instead of searching for potential allies, like-minded groups tend to hunt for heretics. Non-compliant members are marginalized and eventually expelled, leaving only the hard-liners behind.

We often think of the quest for justice as a virtuous circle, with positive ripple effects extending out in unexpected directions as we seek to build a better world. But Talisse presents a horrific, funhouse mirror version of this dynamic, arguing that a dedication to justice can backfire horribly and lead to belief polarization:

Our exposure to belief polarization…encourages attitudes and dispositions that ultimately render us less efficacious political actors. Further, belief polarization erodes our democratic capacities. As it progresses, we become less capable of regarding those with whom we disagree as our equals. It additionally causes us to overinflate the significance of disagreements among our allies. When belief polarization is pronounced we are left unable to cooperate on civil terms with anyone who isn’t just like us. Our political endeavors lose their democratic cast; in seeking to prevail over our opponents, we attempt to impose what we regard as justice on our fellow citizens. Accordingly, a deeper irony looms: our zeal for justice can transform us into exactly what our worst enemies say we are.

I am writing this on the day after former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. I don’t know yet how this event will be metabolized by our body politic. My hope is that all sides will see it as an urgent warning that we need to turn down the temperature of American politics before further political violence erupts.

Talisse argues that engagement with our political adversaries is crucial to this process: “We need to sustain democracy with our enemies if we are to sustain democracy with our friends…In the absence of engagement with political opponents, belief polarization turns inward. It shifts toward our coalitions, sowing divisions within them that easily escalate into fractures.”

Talisse concludes with a call to individual change, encouraging his readers to manage belief polarization within themselves. Those of us who play a role in governing or supporting nonprofits and other kinds of organizations should take up this challenge, not only for ourselves but for the sake of our institutions.

One small positive step would be to have our organizations explicitly signal that there are no ideological litmus tests for employment. A brief review of nonprofit websites reveals that almost every organization asserts that they are equal opportunity employers, affirming their intention not to discriminate based on race, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, and other identity categories. But precious few actively encourage people across the political spectrum to apply for employment. If Talisse is correct, this would not only make for more effective organizations but a better political culture for all of us.

A quick programming note: In recent months, I have been busy conducting interviews for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation with a broad range of experts on the topic of political polarization. Edited transcripts from these interviews will start being released this coming week. Look for them on the Guggenheim Foundation website and at The Fulcrum.