Tribalism in politics

We tend to think of political divisions primarily as “secular”—for example, in the US, even when one major political party becomes associated with evangelical Christianity, some supporters of that party will not share those beliefs and members of the opposition party may reject religion altogether (identifying as nonbelievers) or claim that religion should not influence politics. However, that limited understanding of religion is misleading: “Whereas the foundational metaphor for tribalism is kinship, the foundational metaphor for political sectarianism is religion, which evokes analogies focusing less on genetic relatedness than on strong faith in the moral correctness and superiority of one’s sect.” A recent Science article on political partisanship by social psychologist Eli Finkel (Northwestern University) and others analyzes our cultural divide in terms of opposing sectarian faiths. Mirroring the Protestant Reformation in Holland discussed in Chapter 2, the core ingredients of political sectarianism identified by the authors are: (1) “othering,” in the sense of exaggerating differences; (2) strong aversions to, even contempt for, those in the other group; and (3) moralization, as the other side is characterized as disgraceful or iniquitous due to belief in the moral superiority of one’s community. Despite “plentiful” common ground, the growing, mutual distrust nowadays in the US between Republicans and Democrats leads to a striking polarization. In a manner reflected in religious sectarianism, “Americans today are much more opposed to dating or marrying an opposing partisan; they are also wary of living near or working for one.” We can discern “radically different sectarian narratives about American society and politics.”

Like other analyses of the culture wars, the authors note that “as Americans have grown more receptive to consuming information slanted through a partisan lens, the media ecosystem has inflamed political sectarianism.” Like the analyses of the crisis of expertise by sociologists, the authors also recommend instilling into political debates: