quillette | Understanding American politics has become increasingly confusing as
the old party labels have lost much of their meaning. A simplistic Left
vs. Right worldview no longer captures the complexity of what’s going
on. As the authors of the October 2017 “Pew Survey of American Political
Typologies” write,
“[I]n a political landscape increasingly fractured by partisanship, the
divisions within the Republican and Democratic coalitions may be as
important a factor in American politics as the divisions between them.”
To understand our politics, we need to understand the cultural values
that drive it. The integral cultural map developed by philosopher Ken
Wilber identifies nine global cultural value systems
including the archaic (survival), tribal (shaman), warrior (warlords
and gangs), traditional (fundamentalist faith in God), modern (democracy
and capitalism), and postmodern (world-centric pluralism). When
combined with Pew’s voter typologies, Wilber’s cultural levels offer a
new map of America’s political landscape.
Of Wilber’s nine global value systems, the Traditional, Modern, and
Postmodern categories are most useful to understanding our moment.
Traditional culture values disciplined adherence to assigned gender and
social roles: men are providers and heads of households, marriage is
between one man and one woman, and the institutions of the military, law
enforcement, and the clergy are all highly respected. Historically,
traditional cultures were monarchies or states ruled by “strongmen.”
Modern culture superseded traditional systems in the West during the
Enlightenment, and values rationality, democracy, meritocracy,
capitalism, and science. Individual rights, free speech, and free
markets harness an entrepreneurial spirit to solve problems.
Postmodern culture offers a borderless, geocentric political view
that values pluralism. It challenges a pro-American narrative by
focusing on the horrors of American history, including the exploitation
of Native Americans, slavery, and persistent inequality
disproportionately affecting historically disadvantaged groups. Those
left behind by modernity and progress now seek recognition, restoration,
and retribution via a politics of protest, and show little interest in
building political organizations or institutions. We are currently
living in a postmodern political moment of disruption, best described by author Helen Pluckrose in her Areo essay “How French Intellectuals Ruined the West: Postmodernism and its Impact, Explained”:
If we see modernity as the tearing down of structures of power including feudalism, the Church, patriarchy, and Empire, postmodernists are attempting to continue it, but their targets are now science, reason, humanism and liberalism. Consequently, the roots of postmodernism are inherently political and revolutionary, albeit in a destructive or, as they would term it, deconstructive way.
When we overlay Pew’s data with Wilber’s Value levels, six cultural
political categories emerge: Traditional Left and Right, Modern Left and
Right, and Postmodern Left and Right.
