Why Both Conservatives and Progressives Are Out of Touch With Mainstream Americans

On the chart above, the 110 values surveyed (defined in the book) are plotted according to where they fall on the 2-by-2 grid. The values that have become significantly more important to Americans since 1992 are shown in bold. An acceptance of violence as inevitable, persuasive and cathartic (multiple questions were asked to get at the different aspects of this value, and the different aspects of all the values surveyed) showed the greatest increase of any of the 110 values. There has been a commensurate drop in the proportion of respondents holding many of the values that both conservatives and progressives hold dear (those in the upper left quadrant).

The book contains an interesting perspective on the Lakoffian ‘frames’ of progressives and conservatives. The conservative frame sees the values in the single vertical dimension depicted in the above chart — those at the top are highly valued, while those at the bottom are despised and often ascribed (incorrectly) to liberals. Likewise, the progressive frame sees the values in the single horizontal dimension depicted in the above chart — those at the left are highly valued, while those at the right are abhorred and often ascribed (incorrectly) to conservatives. Since the prevailing trend of values is towards the lower right, both conservatives and progressives, through their different, one-dimensional frames, see ‘America going to Hell’ — moving away from their cherished values. They’re both right, and both wrong.

Adams has accumulated an exhaustive set of data from detailed interviews with thousands of Americans over twelve years. The book explains how he digs for the underlying values, not the surface manifestations of them, and looks for significant trends and demographic differences. His findings will be controversial: Not only does he find a growing proportion of Americans disengaged, disenchanted, and fatalistic, but this small plurality is especially pronounced in young Americans of all stripes, races, regions and economic backgrounds, and is growing among older Americans. Here’s where the average American, by the most significant demographics, now places his/her values on this grid (arrows show the directional trend, where known):

As reported in his earlier book, US values are not only very different (fire and ice) from those of Canadians and Europeans (excepting the British) but diverging. The recent trend of voting Americans (towards the upper right quadrant) has favoured the conservatives, but it is dwarfed by the contrary, and more marked, fuck-it-all nihilism of the larger group of non-voting Americans, who, despite being repeatedly told the 2004 election was the most important in a generation, mostly remained indifferent to both parties’ pleas and warnings. The age and gender breakdown, shown in red dots above, suggests the trend is accelerating and is especially prevalent among young Americans — good reason for both conservatives and progressives to be very worried. The regional breakdown is interesting — the East and West coasts are far apart, with New Englanders’ values closely aligned to Canadians’, and Pacific coasters (as always) trend-setting the growing alienation and disenchantment of the nation.

Adams’ counter-intuitive assessment — that liberals and conservatives are closer in values to each other than either group is to non-voting Americans, is backed up by a lot of intriguing data in the book — such as the fact that church attendance of Americans has remained essentially unchanged for a half-century, and that independent polls consistently show that Americans have grown much more suspicious of, and indifferent to the plight of, their fellow citizens, a trend that started long before 9/11.

In the latter part of the book, Adams surprisingly seems to write off this angry and disengaged plurality and instead focuses on how progressives and conservatives can broaden their appeal among the voters who are still paying attention. Maybe my idealism is getting the better of me, but it seems to me it would be worthwhile for Adams, and for those who would rescue the disengaged from their political indifference, to delve further into what lies behind the fatalism, ostentatious consumption, thrill-seeking, and anomie (and, considering the threats of global warming, the end of oil, and overpopulation, especially what Adams calls ‘ecological fatalism’ — the widely-held view among the disengaged that the environment is beyond saving) — and fix it before it starts to tear the country’s social fabric apart. I am a little too young to remember the last wave of disengaged youth (in the 1950s, rebel without a cause years), but that might be a place to start. Youth disengagement has, on many occasions in human history, been a precursor to especially brutal exhibitions of civil and international violence. America may well be, as Adams says, “perpetually exceptional”, but when what makes it exceptional is intellectual, psychological, and emotional withdrawal on a massive scale, that sounds to me like cause for alarm. There’s a generation gap larger and more perplexing than anything we’ve seen in a half-century, and book or two in this line of investigation for someone.

Note on the graphics: I have reversed the left and right-hand labels, and positions of all segments and values on these graphics accordingly, from those shown in the book, to bring them into conformity with the accepted liberal-libertarian/ conservative-authoritarian minus/plus 2-by-2 orientation, which for some reason Adams chooses to flip. I’vedone this solely to make the graphics more intuitive.