Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics? (opens in new tab)

If it really was population density, it would be easy to discuss politics in urban NYC and very difficult/ rare in rural Wyoming. I don’t think that’s really the case.

I suspect politics are more discussed in forums where there is more “psychological safety” where the consequence of saying a thing that others disagree with doesn’t cause a rift in the relationship (as evidenced by the “it’s hard enough for a parent to make friends” statement).

The reason we can’t discuss politics is because we don’t practice. The widespread saying “don’t discuss politics or religion [in X context]” means that we have fewer places to discuss it, so we get less practice to do it. We are less practiced so it is brittle. If we practiced more, we would be more resilient.

Discussions about politics and religion are rife with conflation of opinion with fact, true fact with false fact, claim with evidence.

Most good faith differences on politics boil down to differing values and priorities. Having a discussion about those directly, rather than through the lens of the broken US political parties / election system is usually more productive in avoiding the screaming / emotions.

Then again, you could argue that the premise is flawed and we talk about politics too much…

Many years ago my then girlfriend now wife and I were finishing the trip through France. We wound up in the port city of Rouen up north, with the plan to drop off the car near train station, rent a room for a night and take the train to Paris. Unbeknown to us there was some sort of student strike and ALL hotel rooms everywhere were sold out. We found some sort of skanky hostel in a really iffy part of town, not at all the place where we'd usually stay. After dinner near lovely Rouen cathedral memorialized by Monet we got lost on the way back to that iffy area of town. We hailed a young woman walking right ahead of us who was first a bit startled but then helped us find a way in excellent english. We complimented her on her language skills and she said she learned it in America, she was quite proud of it. We asked - where did she go in America? She says - Wyoming! - with a large beaming smile. Why Wyoming of all things we asked (a reasonable question, mind you, considering other more exciting places we have in USA). Her response - "NO PEOPLE!" - and gestured around, alluding that in Europe you are surrounded by people or places the people have been for millenia. She spent a year working on a dude ranch herding cattle there. Definitely if you don't want people you shall find it somewhere in Wyoming.

For a lot of people in the US, politics has become very personal. I believe that some policy decisions have become a direct threat to my health and I can try to discuss those policies calmly but I'm not good at covering my aggravation.

I'd say that everyone has gotten increasingly disdainful of the 'other side'. I know I have - I'm not proud of it but I'm also not a good actor. I was in a message group recently and someone said something that (in my opinion) was so stupid and ill-informed that it was all I could do to sit on my fingers. If we'd been speaking in person, I'm not sure what I would have done but I certainly wouldn't have managed a polite response.

Speaking as an Indian, what's really going on is that everyone in India has lost hope in their political decisions actually impacting their lives in ways that they wish. So politics is a pretty low-stakes discussion in India, like sports teams.

In America we haven't quite lost hope yet.

edit: to be clear, politics does impact lives in India, but it does so in ways that are quite disconnected from individuals' political actions.

I’m an immigrant from Eastern Europe who moved to the US decades ago. Eastern Europeans are direct - you speak your mind, so there are no assumptions or miss-understandings. Families live close to where they were born in sparser areas and relationships matter, but there is also forgiveness.

I have friends who come from Welsh and Swiss backgrounds and would have layers of internal inhibition before saying something out of fear of embarrassment or multitude of other concerns. A lot of time that leads to them assuming and assumptions can be wrong. They do a lot less verbal or video contact with family members, almost intentionally so, but would still get together in person (broader context i suspect). A lot of relationships on that side degrade quickly when contact is not made for a while - assumptions upon assumptions of offense or who knows what seems to erode the relationship. So when you meet again it’s almost like you have to earn the friendship again.

Politics in this country involves those two mixes of people and waaaay more. The cultural spread, the political spectrum spread, forms a matrix too big to navigate in 99.9 % of conversations The in-person interactions are not long enough to peel all layers of the political onion and the relationship trust onion before you get to the core that you both agree on. Instead there are often unsaid assumptions, experiences, trauma that won’t fit in a tweet and if they do, nobody has time to read it. The more complicated things get and the lower the attention span, the harder it is to invest time and get a favorable relationship outcome if you discuss politics, so you’re better off not even trying.

It's enough to think for a couple of seconds to realize it has nothing to do with population density, otherwise you could freely discuss politics in less populated areas of the States.

The real reason is that politics, and especially the two party system in most Western countries, is based on polarization, e.g. blaming the other party for all the evil of the world.

It's not some abstract "politics". For left-leaning, it's about freedom for women to decide about their own body, about respect towards minorities and people coming from other countries, just to name a few. For right-leaning, it's about protecting families, cultivating the tradition, prosperity of the country, the right to defend oneself etc. Politics became almost a new religion.

The ability to discuss politics in a group is likely correlated with social capital. Research indicates that modern populations in urban areas have realized a reduction in social capital from prior generations. My grandparents knew a vast amount of people in their neighborhood, in which most attended the same church. Today, in the same neighborhood, anyone is lucky if they know a few neighbors. Often, that isn't the case and virtually no original families remain. Other research implies that the regions with most social capital highly correlate to sparsely populated metros and regions, but not all sparsely populated regions. Rat research indicates that increased population density leads to dysfunctional social behavior.

My personal observation is twofold. First, spontaneous political discussion in the West is considered to be impolite in conversation for valid reasons. The first is the fact that social reactions are unpredictable and, in a casual social situation, rightly the emphasis should be on maintenance of the situation for everyone. To prioritize one's impulse to need to have a political conversation is impolite because it risks the group as well as potentially infringes on the right of others to not be regularly subject to spontaneous (or not) conversations that people frequently get emotional over. Group harmony as well as the individual's right to peace in public are prioritized.

Second, lifelong exposure to propaganda has trained individuals to have highly emotional reactions to those who disagree with them. The political environment in the West is not psychologically designed for casual public political conversation. Everyone knows multiple individuals who simply cannot abide, at least for long, anyone on the other side of the isle. Propaganda's long time goal has been to encourage mental illness to be viral, and it has widely succeeded.

An acceptable public political conversation looks more like one over methods to reach a pre-agreed upon goal. These still happen, however often low value. But many people who need to have a political conversation want the other type: a cross-isle argument over objectives. Which are even more low value, and much more likely to end poorly.

This is silly:

“In my hometown in India, everyone talks about politics all the time. And most of us don’t agree with one another. But that’s okay. I can even tease other people about our political disagreements and it doesn’t get in the way of friendships. Why isn’t that the case here in the US?”

Because when you're in a homogenous in-group you can discuss politics and get annoyed, or heated, and shake hands and go home.

When you're not in an in-group, one side is discussing non-ideal solutions, and the other side wants to destroy you. And then you have to figure out how to convince a friend that their political ideology might kill you.

I think this guy misses something pretty significant.

Many Americans have professional business relationships with people whom they vehemently oppose politically.

Politics is simply bad for business.

I don't often discuss politics with my niece; we've actually had physical altercations before. But I mustered some courage and brought this up to her, and she had the following to say:

"The two party system forces people who advocate for issue X to also have to advocate for Y and Z, when they may really only care about X. Another factor; the decay of respect of and audiences for traiditional mass media, and the rise of personal "bubble" media such as social media has also forced mass communications to be more personal if one wants to reach people, and various political forces are adapting to the new landscape."

I'm not sure if population density has any effect on political discussions more than discussions in general.

"mimetic violence," explains it. an ironic result of the success of the melting pot, whereby in a culture where people were sufficiently different and their identities distant, one's success didn't come at the expense of another's. there is no resolution to that today. the conflict is so fierce because the stakes are so small, and it's because we've been told we are the same, homogenous and undifferentiated, with nothing left but a power struggle.

we don't discuss politics because there isn't much left to discuss. I take some responsibility for it because I thought being tolerant of (and silent about) views i disagreed with was part of a social contract around respect for boundaries and reciprocity, but that worldview isn't equipped to deal with people who are actuated by malice and malevolence. Now, I listen to some people talk politics, but mainly I'm just finding some enjoyment in what we will look back on as "the good old days," appreciating some peace where i can find it, and hoping it all goes another way before we're all drawn-in to the terrible work being set out for us.

American politics is extremely wrapped up in identity and always has been. That means that having an opinion which someone disagrees with isn’t just an opinion they disagree with; in their mind it may be perceived as an opinion about who and what they or their loved ones are, and what should be done to or about them. Maybe I’m presuming here, but something tells me it’s not really like that in the gentleman’s hometown from the article. In America, people who disagree about politics feel like (or are) actual enemies, not fellow countrymen. We also do often place a lot of value on few precious friendships that we’re willing to mutually set aside the fighting and defensiveness for, and for the sake of getting along. I’m not sure that’s hard to explain or understand, and I’m not sure it has so much to do with density.

In the US at least, parties started sorting their policies on certain issues in the 1960s:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Ezra Klein goes into the (US) history of this in his book:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized

It also has a few chapters on how humans seem to have built-in tribe/clan mechanism (us/them, in/out-group).

I’ve long maintained that what the USA really needs is a good opponent again.

Everyone wants to be on a winning team, and with the lack of a good opponent it’s turned into Republicans vs Democrats with no common ground.

At least up until the 1990s there was always a common opponent (the English, the Spanish, the Prussians/Germans, the Soviets). So while Americans had different views, they could at least focus on defeating the enemy together.

Now there is no more enemy, and they turn on each other. I guess old habit are hard to break.

I know I have superiors that I know disagree with me politically. Nothing good can come from them knowing that I disagree with them on fundamental assumptions about the universe.

This part of American culture is probably because of religious pluralism. At work, you don't want workers arguing over religion. You also don't want members of your church being converted to other religious sects at work. Then that gets applied to politics as well, which is useful to keep workers from talking about political things which might lead to discussions of unionization (and similar to guidelines from employers not to talk about salaries).

I think it's wealth and well-being.

The easier your life becomes, the more you live in the world of ideas and abstractions. When you and most people around you need to toil daily to stay afloat, it puts things in perspective. There's also a shared bond of work and survival which can smooth things over.

Politics being prominent in your life is a luxury. Even if the stakes are high for you personally, most people worldwide don't have the time and energy to dwell on that.

I. This is a well written, engaging article, thanks for sharing. I absolutely agree that the thesis is true to an extent, though I would phrase it more broadly (perhaps "American culture is unusually individualistic" or "American local social communities are being replaced by online parasocial ones"). I don't see any reason to suspect that politics is taboo in Mongolia, or frequently debated in China!

II. A huge part of this is just "the instigator is discussing relationships largely not based in work". You can't be fired from your apartment building or your family for being a little rude, but you can and will be fired from your job for causing even slight unrest. Applies to work friends across the world, I would imagine, and I'm guessing a recent immigrant has a higher ratio of those in his new home than his old one.

III. The belief that politics are "abstract" is, itself, a controversial political stance. Imagine for the sake of argument that a small group of people start controlling huge portions of the economy and using it to knowingly and intentionally harm others for fleeting personal gains.

Perhaps you could think of the villains in Don't Look Up letting the apocalypse happen over pride, or, for the conservatives among us, the villains in Atlas Shrugged who cultivate poverty and inequity as a lever for maintaining their power. Hopefully we can all agree that those situations wouldn't be ones of polite disagreement? To make it even more stark, imagine what you would say if one of your friends or family came out as an open Nazi -- it would be immoral to laugh off engagement in literal genocide as a personality quirk, IMO.

IV. "In which a parent pretends he has time to write" is downright adorable and extremely relatable, even for someone who will likely never have children. Godspeed George, may you have many only-slightly-stilted team dinners in Austin ahead of you

I think the answer is “don’t generalize based on your sample size of 8 people”. I talk about politics at work all the time. It’s totally fine. I actually disagree with the majority view but we talk about it rationally and make jokes.

Fragility of human relationships, not population density.

Vilification of ideas is the reason why people can’t discuss politics in the United States.

Reality is that if you have normal common religious beliefs in this country, people on the left will quickly paint you as some sort of evil intolerant person, when most religious people are nice decent people.

Just because they disagree with your lifestyle doesn't make them evil. Why people can’t tolerate basic disagreement is beyond me.

It's because every election the political parties figure out how to up the stakes to get people to care about voting. Now if someone gets voted it's "literally life or death" (it super isn't). Everyone could use a dose of "no treason" by Lysander spooner. Then maybe we can care little enough to have actual conversations.

> I think that in America, political beliefs and violence are more closely entwined than in other parts of the world. I’d be a bit worried about getting punched if I got too deep into politics with someone who disagreed with me

Jamie, pull up that clip of Taiwanese legislators getting into a fist fight in Congress.

I don't discuss politics with coworkers because I have to work with them and I want to be friendly. I can't be friends with someone that questions the basic human rights of my existence as a gay person, so I'd rather not know.

No, it's because most Americans know nothing about actual issues and treat politics as a team sport. So there's as much point in talking about it with other people as there is talking about the Mets vs the Yankees or whatever.

If the author knew a little more about India he might have questioned whether Vinay’s political discussions in India are easy and open when Vinay converses with Sikhs and Muslims, or to what extent Vijay can do that at all.

Isn't this better explained by the US's atrocious two-party system that has over the years hyper-polarized politics (multiplied 10x further by social media?)? I can remember 10 years ago it was much easier to discuss controversial politics with a stranger in person that you disagreed with. What I am saying is the situation right now in India insofar as discussing politics with anyone comfortably used to exist in America a decade ago.

India doesn't have a 2 party system (I don't think?). If you look at the seats in parliament there is much more of a rainbow which suggests it is more democratic than the US. Maybe it will eventually evolve into a 2 party equilibrium as more people vote only for bigger parties they think stand a chance, rather than for ones they actually believe in (practically mathematically guaranteed to happen if India's political system has no defence against the spoiler effect). But that shift will take time. If I am right India will eventually be hyper-polarized like the US after it "2-party-crystallizes."

If there were only 2 viable political parties in India right now where votes were split near 50-50 each election cycle and each party viewed the other as a huge threat and amplified how terrible the other is on social media 24/7 I think we'd see cultural norms shift in India and people would start to become more quiet on politics. Population density I don't think would be that key a factor.

Likewise, if the US had multiple political parties all represented in parliament and there just wouldn't be as much political hyper-polarization and without 2 parties tribalistically fighting winner-takes-all style it is much easier to have cultural norms that you can talk controversial political stuff

I find it bizarre how many people are still discussing American politics as if there remain two sensible and balanced political parties in play. Unfortunately, we do not have that anymore. We have a coalition liberal/conservative Democratic party and a far-right Republican party that has driven straight off a cliff. One of the candidates for president is a vile, stupid, deeply corrupt rapist who literally tried to overturn the last election and now wants to be “dictator for a day,” while his closest allies[1] are radical ethno-nationalists who want to install an authoritarian state with 19th century cultural trimmings. Every other word these people speak is an unambiguous lie in service of riling up their base and accruing power. Candidates like McCain and Palin are but a blip in the rear view mirror.

At this point, I only have the energy to gawk in horror at the unfolding situation: discussing the minutiae of policy feels almost comical when the very soul of the country is at stake. Never could I imagine how much blatantly obvious evil could be laundered through the intrinsic balance fallacy of a two-party system.

[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-says-project-2025-auth...

I've spent the last two years working for a global company with people from all corners of the globe. I've spent many hours talking to them, sometimes on the subject of politics and religion. I must say, it's been so refreshing, especially after coming from Google. I particularly enjoy talking to individuals from communist or post-communist countries, which have been demonized in the U.S., to say the least. Not that I'm pro-communist by any means, but just listening to people's stories from these countries really drives home the point of how similar we all are.

The best part is that the company culture seems to promote these open discussions. I'm not deathly afraid to voice an opinion for fear of HR hunting me down. I wish U.S. companies were like this.

(Note) I'm not suggesting I spend much of my time on this activity. It mainly occurs at meetups or scheduled coffee chats.

For me it's been fear of impacting friendships. I have some friends who have very different political views than myself, although I consider myself a centrist.

Some of my friends are no longer on speaking terms with each other because there identity is not just wrapped up in their political beliefs but also in opposition of the other side.

It's a sad state of affairs and a fairly recent one, in my opinion.

I don't remember political disagreements being such a big deal before the rise of Trump.

During the Trump Clinton election he changed the game and politics became more about insulting and denigrating your opposition.

It doesn't seem to me that people can't, rather they won't. One invoked reason is they want to avoid conflict but what about "not caring"?.

Yeah yeah, politics affects all and we should be involved but reality is your vote makes little difference in choosing one party or the other. And the other even more nasty problem is that either party you choose you end up with the same politics. Ever increasing taxes, ever increasing debt, ever increasing benefits for the politicians.

Learned helplessness is a thing. How much of it is behind "people don't discuss politics"?

It isn't population density, since we used to discuss politics all the time until 2016. Family get togethers, work events, just friend hangouts, all of them would have active discussions and arguments surrounding politics. The Trump era changed all that. I don't know about India, but I think social media is what changed everything, and how it changed everything is more complex than many people think.

There are so many factors to it. The non-stop nature, the echo chamber effect, how it allows you to hear the thoughts of people you never would have heard before, but also, and maybe this is a big difference with India, that insane effort from Russia and China (and others) to maliciously engage with our social media with the sole goal of disruption of our culture and nation.

I'm in my 50s, and there was plenty of political discussion before 2016, much like the person from India in the OP describes. We used to have a close friend in our friend group and we would regularly tease each other over political issues, but also listen, and he was a staunt Obama-hater and subscribed to birther conspiracies. Two years into Trump and we stopped being friends, and I haven't talked to him since 2018.

Disagreements can be healthy. But everything you say somehow ends up getting used against you in a formal way. Somebody at work can misinterpret what you say and it can cost you your job. You have a political idea that some nutty Republican shares? Well you're basically Hitler now. Good luck with your career.

I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's related to our political discourse in society at large. Open up reddit, read some of the political commentary, and try not to vomit in your mouth. People don't engage with ideas, or each other. I can't tell you how often I see people respond with things they assume the other person thinks instead of just talking about what was said. People in this thread have mentioned how difficult it is to untangle beliefs, assumptions, etc and that's true. No, politics isn't about ideas, it's about group identity. A consequence of this is that the conversation can quickly become reactive and emotional. It's easy to get othered (and this can have severe consequences) and we're apparently very aware of how the other necessarily impacts our life in a negative way (via social media and the major news outlets).

Part of the problem is that we've normalized this degree of sensitivity. I also wouldn't be surprised if our news feeds were incentivized to spread divisive beliefs.

I think it’s part of the reason, but not the sole or main reason.

I blame American exceptionalism, and the idea of hyper individualism and excessive consumerism. Insulting any part of that “individualism” (ie, guns, housing, transportation, clothing choices, and even the car you drive) and suddenly you are persona non grata to that person.

Population density may be a factor but I don't think it's dominant.

Right now, as I see it, the biggest problem in American politics is that the American right has been taken over by a personality cult. This has in turn sparked a broader anti-cult movement that is left dominant but open to everyone. Somehow these two forces have almost equal valence within our electoral system but it feels almost impossible to talk across the divide. Unfortunately I think the anti-cult movement almost paradoxically strengthens the cult and the result is both sides digging deeper and deeper in.

The undecideds generally don't pay much attention and think that both sides are a little nutty and that elections should be about policy. They are frustrated that they are being forced to choose between two seemingly bad options. They also know that they will be harshly criticized for their choice by many no matter which they make. This is an extremely toxic dynamic and it is leading to increased radicalization on both sides but the scale of radicalization is significantly higher on the right.

Like any cult, the crazier the claims made by the leader, the stronger the hold they have on its members who have already sacrificed intellectual autonomy to the movement. To admit that they've been duped is psychologically devastating and could lead to the loss of community that they've made through the movement. So they get defensive and closed off to reason. And, of course, as a defense mechanism they must project their experience onto their opponents whom they assume must also be delusional. This is exacerbated by the fact that any large group of people will contain the full range of character types: crazy and sane, cruel and kind, smart and dumb, etc. But once you have a strong bias (which is encouraged by the cult leader), you will start seeing all the negative things almost exclusively in the other side and all the positive things in your camp.

It is almost impossible to reason with someone who is not open to an opposing viewpoint (even if they are otherwise intelligent) and it can be dangerous if there is a reasonable probability that the discussion can turn hostile. So many if not most people avoid those challenging conversations out of a reasonable sense of self-preservation. I would certainly not try and talk politics with anyone with a "FUCK $DEMOCRATIC_POLITICIAN" flag flying in their yard and, honestly, it's not really that hard to tell from a few minutes conversation if they might lean that way.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying that I am immune to cult like thinking. I certainly have been indoctrinated into problematic belief systems and still have some erroneously biased thought patterns.

People are complicated and they can be quite rational in one domain and irrational in another. Unfortunately, we seem far past the point of rationality in our political system. Nevertheless I have hope that we can get through this difficult period with a minimum of damage but that hope is irrational on my part.

Betteridge’s law of headlines

No.

Kurt Lewin is viewed by many as the father of social psychology [1], who made a name for himself particularly with studying the social dynamics that allowed the HOlocaust to happen, the psychology of obedience. What allowed otherwise ordinary people to go along with such horrors has been studied ever since.

I believe MAGA will be studied in similar terms for similar reasons for decades to come as researchers will seek to understand the mass psychosis and cognitive dissonance that made this possible.

What we have now goes beyond simple politics. We have a significant group in our society who is openly calling for inflicting violence on millions of people, be they immigrants, trans people, Muslims or whoever. I don't say this as hyperbole or as an intended political rant. These statements are objectively factual. If, say, you want to deport millions of people, that's a massive act of state violence, one where the logistics should be discussed but aren't. Why? Because it would involve internment camps (concentration camps, if you will) for millions of people. Is that not ringing any alarm bells for anyone?

The Holocaust isn't the only example where legitimate grievances were directed at a minority with horrific consequences. Even in the last century we've had the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Rape of Nanjing, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Aremenia, Yemen and even the Cultural Revolution, to name just a few.

There is no compromise position when it comes to industrialized violence against millions of people. We're not discussing how healthcare should be provided or how shchools should be funded or how we pay for the roads and bridges. Those things you should be able to discuss, But we're so far beyond that now.

[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4B9rmwvZwQN45rckdz...