Dealing with political polarization: the Zemmour case, and its enabling environment.

Reading a little during week-ends, on non-work-related issues, to stay current. One thing that struck me is the divisiveness of the political rhetoric in the French coming Presidential elections.

As some of you who have taken my courses know, I view leadership’s role as bringing a community together and moving it forward on a shared vision.

I also think that one existential risk for societies is its fragmentation in tribes, where each would create a common enemy to close ranks.

This social construction of the enemy is a danger to our democracies, built on a culture of debate in the public sphere.

Whilst we may disagree on values, we all want to create public value and promote the common good.

The leveraging of emotions, such as fear, or nostalgia of an idealized past, to score political points is to me dangerous.

Identity politics, based on the exclusion of “the Other”, or the denying of its humanity, is to me a strong concern.

The fragile thread of our societies, always tempted by centrifugal forces, needs to be constantly re-woven.

It is a difficult balancing act.

Polemists made a career out of inciting violence, and fear. We have to be mindful of the power we give them, when we grant them a pulpit.

Besides, while indignation is necessary as we reaffirm democratic values, the risk is that such polemists would play victims.

They also tend to suck out the air out of the debate, forcing other actors to position themselves vis-à-vis them.

We have seen this dynamic many times in the last decade, in what we assumed were strong and resilient democracies.

Coming from a different perspective, Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics (2019) is helpful to frame the emerging phenomenon at play, that of the recurring hijacking of conservative parties by libertarians. This is new in Europe, and we are ill-equipped to deal with this.

I will quote him, although I see many limitations in his approach:

“Which political language do you speak? Of course, your own views are carefully nuanced, and you would never limit yourself to speaking in a limited language. So, think of one of your favorite political commentators, an insightful individual with whom you generally agree. Which of the following statements would that commentator most likely make?

(P): My heroes are people who have stood up for the underprivileged. The people I cannot stand are the people who are indifferent to the oppression of women, minorities, and the poor.

(C): My heroes are people who have stood up for Western values. The people I cannot stand are the people who are indifferent to the assault on the moral virtues and traditions that are the foundation for our civilization.

(L): My heroes are people who have stood up for individual rights. The people I cannot stand are the people who are indifferent to government taking away people’s ability to make their own choices. (…)

I call this the three-axes model of political communication. A progressive will communicate along the oppressor-oppressed axis, (…).?A conservative will communicate along the civilization-barbarism axis (…).?A libertarian will communicate along the liberty-coercion axis (…).

What I am saying is that when we communicate about issues, we tend to fall back on one of the three axes. By doing so, we engage in political tribalism. We signal to members of our tribe that we agree with them, and we enhance our status in the tribe. However, even though it appears that we are arguing against people from other tribes, those people pay no heed to what we say. It is as if we are speaking a foreign language.”

We have to be mindful that political polarization is fueled by social media echo chambers, big data and the mass customization of political communication to trigger issues, and a diminishing willingness to engage in debate based on reason, evidence, and respect for other people’s values.

This new sociotechnological system has profound implications for the resilience of our democracies. When I teach digital change, I refer to the ethics of technology and its implications.

The reading of Robert Mandel’s Global Data Shock: Strategic Ambiguity, Deception, and Surprise in an Age of Information Overload (2019) shows also the role of information overload in our attempt to look for simple information that confirms our prior beliefs.

This is the same point made by James March’s The Ambiguities of Experience (2010), as he writes:

“Humans have limited capabilities to store and recall history. They are sensitive to reconstructed memories that serve current beliefs and desires. They have limited capabilities for analysis, a limitation that makes them sensitive to the framing that is given to experience.”

This combination of individual and group level decision biases, an enabling technological environment, a media economy that provides polemists with ample air time (an easy way out of analysis, if you ask me), our propensity to tribalism, and a lack of inclusive, shared vision is to me an existential threat to our democracies.

All in all, a good week-end. Stay safe.