Hi Tomas, nicely written as always - with excellent graphics to illustrate your points.
However, I think it is worth bearing in mind that to call leftist parties "Progressive" is the second best branding strategy in political history. The best branding was for the Russian Bolsheviks (majority).
To make progress is to make change that people will come to see as positive. And perhaps when you look across countries and for a long time you can make a good case for "Progressive" parties making "progress" at least when taken as an aggregate. However, there are problems on the horizon just now.
Crime is at an all-time low - as an aggregate. However, it has seen a severe uptick in the last three years in numerous large American cities. Bari Weiss's podcast, Honestly, has an excellent, nuanced discussion of the intertwining issues. Taking account these intricacies most people would say that progressives tried some new things based on poor understanding and made life very dangerous for small parts of big cities. It is so dangerous in these places that the overall trend lines have changed direction.
Progressives have also decided that homelessness is largely a choice and that cities should accommodate the homeless rather than take measures to get them off the street. Now many cities have become dangerous due to lawless homeless encampments. Again referring to a Bari Weiss project, see this morning's post by Leighton Woodhouse on Common Sense. Many people who support Progressive parties have great compassion for "the least of these," which includes compassion for the soaring number of people dying of drug overdoses in urban homeless encampments where there is not only a lack of drug law enforcement, there is often municipal government material support for drug use.
So, I think there will be ebbs and flows. Perhaps the net effect of this will be a movement towards changing things - and, fair enough, no system is perfect and it makes sense to try to fix known flaws. However, it makes more sense to try out proposed changes slowly, carefully and with careful evaluation of their effects before there is wide implementation - including determining if positive effects came from the change or from the highly motivated team that executed the pilot project.
"Progressive" politicians have a long history of implementing their "good ideas," such as, say, communism, without any real-world evaluation. In the case of communism we may never know (within 100 million) how many people died from that effort.
Liberal/progressively minded people tend to have enough security in their lives to be able to afford the compassion for others they consider less fortunate. That there would be a disconnect between their imaginings and the realities of those they seek to "help" should come as no surprise. As you imply, paying attention to feedback loops should provide an antidote to some of these misconceptions.
Communism is a beautiful idea in the mind, without its history, and without the calcified ideology. All ideologies create fortresses that need defending, and defensive positioning is death to community (excepting your immediate tribe). Politics and religion are naturally inclined to ideology; curiosity and irony have no voice there.
Contemplative, well-meaning and thoughtful people often forget that 'story' trumps all those desirable qualities. The essence of good story-telling, the metaphors and images and analogies are the staring pool for what moves people. The 'age of reason' was a reaction to a few centuries of religious passion and the resulting carnage it produced. Interesting that "Enthusiasm" was considered a negative term in the 18th century. That story has currently largely lagged behind.
When media becomes ubiquitous and interactive, the hoped-for development of 'convivial community' is largely displaced by the 'identity' game and identity is 'story'. There are stories of compassion, but there are more powerful stories of fear, anger, indignation and victimization.
George, thanks for the thoughtful comments. I agree with most of your post. But agreement is boring. Here is a departure. You state that the Age of Reason was a reaction to a few centuries of religious passion.
Well, first the Age of Reason included a TON of religious thinking. Also, religious passion has been the norm. Muslims conquered most of the known world because of religious passion. Nero slaughtered Christians because of religious passion.
Today, as you rightly point out, there are different religious stories. For instance, if you believe that you are a different sex than your body then you should be able to mutilate your body, destroy your fertility and everyone else HAS TO AGREE WITH YOU.
We all have a religious impulse. We should be careful about replacing the old until we know the consequences of the new.
The history of religions creating and being victims is rather endless and denominationally insignificant. Even the Buddhists have proven sadly capable of these crimes.
Religious enthusiasm didn't of course disappear during the age of reason, it just got back-seated. By way of understanding our place in time through music, art and literature, the Romantic period which replaced the Age of Reason has a very different tenor, and I was Quite surprised to read that 'enthusiasm' could even begin to be considered a derogotory term. Gave me a moment of thought as I rather considered myself to be part of the 18th century thought pattern.
Here's a little close-in story regarding sex-change in adolescence; I had a nephew who is now a niece. His/her father, as a football star in high school, had prompted his only son to be much like him. His/her Catholic mother was equally oblivious (or effortfully ignoring) the evolving psychological situation in their child. When the breakpoint became too obvious to possibly ignore about age 13, they realized that the life and happiness of their child was more important than their imagined son and allowed him to be put on hormone treatments.
At four years old this boy, when observed from an open bathroom door was seen talking to himself asking his penis if it was still there? and when was it going to go away? One Christmas when his sister received an assortment of gender based presents and he got a few sporty masculine gifts, he went into his bedroom and cried because he wanted what his sister received. I will grant you that the implications of sex-change in adolescents is fraught territory and should never be taken lightly, but the information the parents received that brought them to acceptance of gender change was that suicide was one of the more likely results of resisting the change.
Sex and gender loom large, like positive/negative, posing as veritable truths, but biology has its own odd ways of connection and disconnection. In the case of this family the father had to give up his only son, and bear the burden of parental sadness for having struggled to make him like himself; his mother gave up some of her Catholic morality to probably save her child's life. What do you think?
We are caught in an exponential swirl of technological (and its resulting social) change. Adaptability is one of humankind's strong suits; but religions and other ideologies tend to create castles that need protecting. My interest is in finding spiritual fulfillment without building walls to protect.
my favorite quote; "our emotions are Paleolithic, our institutions Medieval and our technology God-like.
George, I am sorry for the pain that your family has gone through. Your note conveys some (assuredly not close to all) of the gut-wrenching trauma of the process to date. It sounds like your family made hard decisions based on the best advice they could get.
However, new information has come to light, some of it quite recently. First, the studies showing that medical alterations yielding an apparently different sex reduce mental health issues, especially suicide, have been reviewed and found wanting. Most critically, they did not follow their subjects long enough. Immediately after surgery and recovery the subjects were enthusiastic. But five years later their mental issues, including suicide rates, were just as bad as before.
Further, the consequences of surgical and hormonal alterations are better known today. All of the individuals who have genital surgeries lose fertility. They also lose the ability to reach orgasm. The hormonal therapies cause high rates of heart and circulatory problems such as strokes for those wanting to appear female. For those wanting to appear male, the testosterone causes a slew of serious problems and the less-serious problem of pattern baldness for many.
In a court case in the UK the primary clinic for caring for individuals presenting with gender dysphoria, the Tavistock gender clinic, lost its charter to do so. A key part of the court findings was this: Essentially all boys and girls presenting with gender dysphoria who were given puberty blockers eventually moved on to take opposite-sex hormones and (for many of them) surgical alterations. However, if "watchful waiting" was used about 80% would become comfortable with their bodies by early adulthood.
The same drugs used as puberty blockers are used for chemical castrations.
We do indeed have powerful technologies. The question is, do we have enough wisdom and humility to use them well?
As a person who left SF for many of the things you mention, I agree.
I might not have emphasized enough the very long-term timelines that I'm discussing here.
This is a pattern in Uncharted Territories. I try to avoid short-term trends, to focus on the epochal ones.
You bring an interesting additional point, which is there are 2 dimensions pretty independent from each other. One thing is conservatism-progressivism, the other one is intelligence-stupidity. You have 4 combinations there, and we've seen them all.
Nice text! I kind of had the idea in mind but giving it a name an data makes it a lot more concrete.
I have a doubt left. If there are countries where 80/90 percent of the population is in cities then right wings and conservatives shouldn't be a big contender with only 10/20 percent of the population (you would still have the correlation). In other words, if cities produce progressivism (whatever that is) then there is an explanation lacking for why a big percentage of the population in cities is still conservative
The rule of democracies like the US is that the voting split will always be close to 50-50. When it isn't, parties adapt their selling points, until they get past the other party. In other words, the Overton Window adapts for what's acceptable
That's why it's so important to highlight that this isn't binary, but gradual. It's not 80% urban 20% rural. It might be 30% inner city, 30% suburbs, 20% towns, and 20% rural. In that setup, the conservatives might have as core audiences towns and rural areas, while progressives will have inner cities. And the battleground will be suburbs. This, by the way, is exactly what's happening in the US: the battlegrounds is the suburbs.
A basic question. Why are all questions of this nature predicated on a 50/50 split? With millions of people, elections come down to razor edge percentage differences between winners and losers. Is there some rule of mathematics or natural selection that consistently mandates this result?
If you need a majority to govern, you need 50% of the vote to win. Nothing short of that will get you a win. So politicians will try to shape their policies in a way that they attract at least 50% of the vote. Since you can only have 2 parties with about 50% of the vote, a voting system that requires majorities to govern will become a 2-party system (Eg US).
In other countries, you don’t need 50% to win. For example, in spain, the president of the government is voted by the legislative body. So you can get a bunch of parties elected, and then the parties are the ones deciding who will become the head of the executive.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Technically Catholic said +/- what I wanted to say, and well said too! I'd just add Michael Schellenberger's book and essays about how the Left has "destroyed" American cities.
I think that political dynamics is dominated by two factors, a general trend and a tendency to oscillate. Whenever one side becomes a "natural monopoly" and dominates for a while, it becomes decadent enough (often by the dominance of its most extreme wing) that the public throws it in the trash, at least for a while.
Weiss and Woodhouse and Shellenberger see that happening in US urban crime and drug and housing policy. Many observers, perhaps led by the very impressive Roger Pielke Jr, see it happening in today's climate policy. And others see it happening in the empowerment of girls to demand gender-changing medical and surgical treatments. And several observers and elections see it happening in the intersection of education and critical theory etc.
I think you are spot on. There is a general trend towards ideas of equality and liberty, but overlying that is what you call oscillation, but my friends call "the pendulum" that swings from side to side. When it swings further away from the centre in one direction it has a tendency towards overcompensation in the other direction.
oscillate, a great term, the etymology says it's from the ocillum, a mask of Baccus, carved open- mouthed and hung as a charm in the vineyards where it was given to swinging in the wind.
Einstein once said something like 'man has always had to reinvent itself'; 'Fashion' is the rapid and trivial side of this spectrum.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Another refreshing splash from your boundless fountain of creativity -- much appreciated. I agree with your assertion that urbanization drives progressivism, and the corollary that increasing per capita wealth moves people to the left. Much of the world's population lives on the upward-sloping portion of your graphs, so internationally these trends will continue. Brazil's example is encouraging. But I wonder what you think about the implications at the leading edges. To me, the signals appear mixed.
First, a good sign. As your charts show, urbanization is leveling off in the US, Germany and other developed countries as well-educated and left-leaning people move out of blue cities into red territories. Remote work is only one driver. Here in Northern California, de-urbanization is in full swing because nobody raising kids makes enough money to buy a house in the Bay Area. Where are people moving? To non-urban Texas and other red areas where jobs are plentiful and nice houses on fair-sized pieces of property on the wildland interface are cheap. Will Texas turn purple any time soon? Haha-- no way. But look at other formerly Confederate states. Over time, re-homogenization is happening, and with it may come a moderation of differences in political points of view.
A more disturbing trend may be happening regarding increasing wealth. In the middle of the rising curve, wealth tends to turn people blue. However, at the extreme, entrepreneurial billionaires seem to be turning right. For every blue George Soros, there appears to be a few Peter Thiels. Now we have entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk, who Tim Church (creator of the brilliant blog Wait But Why -- I know you're a fan) once called "the raddest person in the world" retweeting hard-right conspiracy theories about the recent attack on Nancy Peliosi's husband. He seems bent on reopening Twitter to right-wing bloviators, probably including the former president. Even though he's taking Twitter private, thankfully he won't escape the moderating influence of his advertisers. Corporations seem to have developed consciences -- who'd have thought? I won't get into Rupert Murdoch, whom I think may disprove your theory that individuals don't determine history -- even 100 years from now, Western civilization will be irrevocably marked by his successful attempt to impose his political views on a vulnerable and unsuspecting -- and, remarkably, still unconscious -- viewership that eagerly laps up whatever his commentators choose to feed them. It's a solidly anti-progressive, anti-diverse, anti-democratic diet, and it's just as popular as Coke and fries.
I know you're thinking about where present-day trends may head in the future, particularly in leading-edge countries where free expression of ideas is still supported -- so far. Yes, I agree that in the long term, freedom will win out. In fact, there is an underground spiritual revolution already taking place that will power this cultural transition -- but that's a different discussion. In the meantime, there's some big, dark money working to reverse these positive trends.
I posted on this because I've been studying remote work, in fact. This is just the 3rd derivative of that work! The big principle behind the Remote Work series is that it breaks many trends we've been taking for granted. I wanted to understand which ones. And one of the reasons is what you highlight: We moved out of the Bay Area mainly because of costs.
I actually don't think Elon Musk is a die-hard republican. Nor Peter Thiel, for that matter.
Musk is reacting quite a lot against wokism, and also isn't a fan of brutal taxation (CA taxation is at the level of France, for his level of income). But he's the biggest force against climate change in the world, he's an ultra-progressive (as in, for progress!), and in general I think you'd see him defend minorities (but not wokism). He is quite dorky though, loves his dad jokes, and doesn't take many things seriously, sometimes to an extreme that we're not used to (the pedo guy, Pelosi's husband).
Thiel is a different beast. I am less acquainted with him, but the fact that he's gay and hypercontrarian should tell you something. Like Musk, I think both are hyperprogressive, but don't think progress should come from more state at this point.
But I do agree with your overarching point. Yes, urbanism's push towards progressivism is not the only force, and yes, in the short-term many other factors influence politics quite dramatically. Those are harder to grok, so I stay away from them unless I have something relevant to say!
I think we have to define what constitutes “progressivism.” There are some trends (spending above revenue) that are not sustainable and definitely are not “progress.” Social policies that undermine the nuclear family are similar, as are those that excuse crime and put citizens at risk. You could add policies that politicize education to the list of self-destructive “progressive” trends. Civilization depends upon strong families and societal cohesion that has often been helped by religious organizations. There are cities in the USA that your definition would say are maximally “progressive” and many of them are seeing a substantial outflow because some of their policies are making those cities less desirable places to live.
I think to be truly “progressive” policies need to be pro-citizen. Such policies help families stay together and build unity within the citizenry. Support for the next generation is essential to build an enduring society, and that should include an education system that informs and builds competence without political indoctrination. Also inherent in supporting the next generation is not leaving them with mountains of public debt.
I started with "left vs right", then had to change it, and I thought for a long time what the right term was. Most research used progressivism vs conservatism, so that's what I went for.
I also tried to avoid judgment about the trend. Progress is good, but not at all costs, and not everybody that manages in the name of progress is good or does a good job.
For example, I agree with the problems you highlight, and the poor solutions being thrown at this.
Yeah I could sense your struggle to find the right name for this, and Progressive/Conservative is as good as any I guess 🙂 The only thing I would say is that your article casts “Conservative” in a negative light as in anti-tolerance/ignorant or something like that, and I don’t think that is a fair characterization. I think the split is on what the ideologies emphasize as their “philosophical anchors.” I think the dichotomies are more like: individualism vs collectivism, capitalism vs socialism (economic mirror of the former), nuclear family is primary vs “the state as parent”, education as means to gain competence vs education as a means of social programming, financial prudence vs things like MMT etc. I think the overarching difference in all this is how much trust we put in “the state.” I think we can all agree we must entrust some power to the state and the question then is how much and in what areas of life. That is where conservatives and progressives differ I think.
My guess from what you say is that people disagree with what the term "progressive" means. I was not using it in the sense you outlay, which is I think an association to present-day left parties. And I don't think researchers were either. I used it to be much more specific: "progressives" want to change the rules, whereas "conservatives" want to keep them as is, or even go back to the past.
I want to believe this is what causes most of the disagreements. If not, I'd love to hear where I have shared a negative view on conservatives.
“When US Republicans are concerned about immigration, is that simple dog-whistling, or are they truly concerned about racial displacement? Because if they are, they should stop paying attention to that and start focusing on urbanization instead.”
This implies Republicans/conservatives are racists and conflates “immigration” with “open borders” and those two things are not the same. Racial replacement theory has to do with open borders not legal immigration, and I would argue that immigration policy is another area of difference. I think it would be fair to say that a conservative view of immigration is based on economics, as in is it economically beneficial to allow immigration at a point in time (booming economy) vs is it not beneficial (recession), whereas progressives/leftists might not have that opinion.
There is also the assumption that conservatives are concentrated in rural areas and are less educated, both of which I think are false premises. The US electoral system makes this hard to measure, NYC for example has a lot of conservatives but our winner take all election style means if your city is 40% conservative it is the same as if it is zero percent conservative when using red blue county maps like the researchers used.
I have a hard time parsing your comment, because I don't understand how my comment conflates immigration with open borders.
When I hear Republican rhetoric, I hear some economic displacement concerns, but I hear more crime concerns. The rapists comment and the caravan are two examples I can think of. And of course replacement. Do you think that is a misinterpretation?
I also have a hard time believing it's economic only, because (1) immigrants tend to go to urban regions, not rural ones, and (2) I've read a reasonable amount of research on the topic and in most ways you can look at the problem, immigration is positive for the economy (the only exceptions being very old sick people (who tend not to move), and the income of lower-income, low-skill workers).
I don't have an assumption that conservatives are concentrated in rural areas and are less educated. I provide data saying this is the case. You might disagree with the data, by telling me which pieces are wrong, and providing alternative ones. I'd be happy to look at it!
For example, you NY point is a good illustration: You can definitely tell how Democratic / Republican the vote is. That's what the bubble graph sows.
Hey Tomas I was referring to the quoted paragraph from your article:
“When US Republicans are concerned about immigration, is that simple dog-whistling, or are they truly concerned about racial displacement? Because if they are, they should stop paying attention to that and start focusing on urbanization instead.”
This says when Republicans are concerned about immigration and links this to “racial displacement.” Racial displacement has to do with open borders and not immigration, those are two separate things.
Immigration is what it has always been: the legal process (visas etc) by which foreigners enter the USA to live and work here. Open borders is a refusal to enforce immigration laws in the belief that an influx of foreigners will benefit a political agenda, usually a leftist agenda.
The article makes it seem that conservatism has some anti-immigrant bias which I don’t think is supported by the data. Many recent immigrants (Congresswoman Flores!) are conservatives.
It is fair to say conservatives are against open borders, and IMO everyone should be because that policy is anti-citizen. But I don’t think it is fair to say that they are anti-immigrant, which is really saying they are anti-immigration.
The question I am now asking is “is there something about urban living that leads people to in eat more power in the state and if so is there a good mechanism to correct this if it goes too far?”
The ROI of investments in infrastructure is proportional to the number of people using them. The # of ppl using them is proportional to density. So investing in infrastructure in urban areas is just a better investment of money than rural ones.
Having looked at all the comments there seems to be quite a lot of confusion about the political labels and what they mean. The meaning of the labels varies from country to country, but also within one country over time as has been pointed out. In the UK and Oz the parties of the left are still called Labour. Unions are still a core part of their base and social justice is still their main defining theme. The gap between left and right is narrower than in former times, but until recently the difference was still defined in a large part by “owners vs workers”. I suspect that the rural/city divide is a bit less noticeable than in the US because there are fewer truly rural people. Other parties (Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Greens/independents in Australia) have gained ground in both countries by appealing to wealthy suburbanites with social conscience.
Take out the politics and you are left with the difference between areas of high population density and those with lower density. I think it is useful to go back in time a wee bit to the start of urbanisation (see my post of Oct 20 in The Global Chessboard). To restate the point, domestication allowed increasing population density and this meant more within-city conflict between the different needs and wants of people. To manage this conflict social rules and structures had to develop including government. Successful systems were selected for because large numbers of unified people=power in conflict with other cities/nations. There has always been the internal conflict between the needs and wants of individuals and those of the tribe/society/nation/global community and the balance that works depends on the circumstances at the time. In good times there is more room for individual freedom, but in times of external threat differences have to be put aside for the common good. Social cohesion can be aided by unifying myths such as nationalism, religion or capitalism, but when their weaknesses are exposed the resulting disunity creates vulnerability for a society.
Those in high population density areas have to share space and other resources. This will inevitably lead to conflict and the natural reaction to conflict is fight or flight. Fighting is risky and flight/avoiding conflict isn’t always possible, so people have to get better at resolving conflict in non-physical ways. Conflict drives change and forces adaptation. People in cities become more used to change, their MAYA tolerance is higher. They also tend to have more experience of conflict and ways of resolving it. In the melting pot of the city they will be confronted with people who are different. Fear of people that are different is partly fear of the unknown which is a difficult fear to deal with. Once people see that those who look different still have some things in common, the sense of threat may be reduced.
When things are stable and going well, people on the whole won’t be pushing for change. To want change you also have to be aware that there might be a better way of doing things, so the more people from different backgrounds someone is exposed to, the more likely this becomes. Personalities vary (10/80/10) in their tolerance for change and a minority thrive on it. The desire for change also varies with age. The nature of adolescence means that young people are programmed to separate from their parents and to develop their own identity. This often manifests as rebellion against the ideas of their parents’ generation.
I haven’t seen much about conflict resolution in Uncharted Territories so I would be really interested in your thoughts on the subject if you haven’t already discussed it in one of the articles I haven’t yet read.
In this divided society looking for where the points of agreement might be and then to which parts of the picture you are willing to compromise on seems essential.
Would you consider those observing the Moslem world view among those who have in their efforts "helped"(societal cohesion)? I've known a few wonderfully devout people who leave nothing but blessings behind them. Then there are those who carry their religion as a defensive weapon. Which do we smile upon?
I'm a fiscal conservative, and much too practical and anti-idiology oriented to be a full-fledged liberal. I try to seek contrary ideas, but only from well-meaning people who have some understanding of integrity. That leaves out the bulk of the current representatives of the Republican Party.
Life in an evolving technological society is never going to be static. Graceful adaptation, touched with intelligent and observant compassion is the best we can hope for.
Massive agreement in compassion. As the meme says “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so be kind.” That is 💯 true and I try to remind myself of that fact.
Politics has devolved into wedge issues at the national level which is tragic. The main responsibility of Congress is to come up with a rational budget, a job they have consistently failed to do, and I have often wondered if they do not drag the public into debates over wedge issues to avoid accountability for that failure and ensure themselves far too lengthy political careers.
Loved this article of yours and it’s been percolating in the back of my mind since reading, thanks. There’s something quite comforting about the idea that as we get more densely clustered we tend to be more prosocial!
Also I read this paper today and I think Dr Evans is talking about the same thing you are - Increase in prosociality as pop density increases. Thought you might like to see it too, if you already have, yay, and here it is for others :)
The only thing I disagree with is the idea that urbanization will continue upward, especially in developed countries.
In underdeveloped countries, I think urbanization will continue for the rest of the century.
In developed countries, we might have reached peak urbanization (and much of this depends on how you define "urban").
Technology has changed how we work. Until the pandemic, the old ways of working were held in place by cultural norms. Those norms have now been shattered. I think we are seeing the beginning of deurbanization in the developed world.
You don't "need" to live in New York anymore to be part of the publishing/media/finance industries.
So long as you have an internet connect, you can live anywhere, and internet access is rural areas is only getting better, especially with new systems such as Starlink.
Many of the problems people have with urban life can all be solved by just moving to a rural area.
High housing prices? Move to a rural area.
High crime? Move to a rural area.
Fear of infectious diseases? Move to a rural area.
Food security? Move to a rural area.
Many urbanites now shop almost exclusively via Amazon Prime. You can get goods almost as quickly, now, if you live in a rural area.
Cultural events? First run movies are now streaming. You can watch Broadway shows and orchestral performances all online. Is it the same? No, but it is much cheaper and in many cases the quality is much better.
Birth rates are strongly correlated with urbanization. If birth rates are ever to increase, it will probably involve deurbanization.
The process of deurbanization is going to be the other size of the coin from 20th century urbanization. Technology is going to make it possible.
The reason cities exist, efficiency in labor and sharing information, has largely been replaced by the internet.
This process has just started and suspect it will play out over the next century.
The essential difference between urban and rural, based on my observations, has more to do with the place of modern institutions. Progressivism is a socio-political concept that is a product of modern institutional culture. The culture of institutions represent the class structure of Progressive ideology and is why it is compatible with modern cities.
As for rural communities, its culture is far more relational as there is not the available wealth to create a similar institutional social structure. There is a social hierarchy, but it doesn’t foster a Progressive purpose nearly so simply.
One other observation. It relates to how institutional structures tend toward centralized governance and relational network structures tend toward decentralized, distributed governance. I believe this is the real difference between urban and rural as you describe. The question is whether the urban phenomenon of Progressivism has within it the capacity to decentralize its message in order to appeal to rural voters.
Thank you. China is undergoing massive urbanisation. Your article suggests that this may further complicate the CCP's hold on power if this shifts the political landscape.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Here's a story with a bit of long term history. We life in a decidedly rural area of north central Washington state. My wife was on the school board and we had a child in middle school. There was a 6th grade program being used by the school which taught Central American pre-Columbian history, part of which involved enacting imagined Maya ritual of offerings to their God Chok. Great! was my thinking, get those middle schoolers off their butts and their hands and feet moving. Some of our (few) close neighbors (who had children our son's age and were his friends and playmates), objected strenuously to this process, claiming that it was "teaching religion in schools", and after a few non-productive meetings with the board, they hired a lawyer to come with them. That meeting sticks in my memory well, with this neighbor I know well in a highly emotional state, tears streaming down her face, quite shocked that the school would promote this kind of 'ritual'.
The use of that word, and the obvious emotional attachment for her to it left me dumbfounded. The other word she used several times was 'PAGAN'. The etymology of Pagan goes back to the late Roman period when Christianity was being absorbed by the urban Romans, but not yet accepted in the more rural areas; it meant country people, rustics. It actually began as a quasi-military term meaning 'incompetent soldier' which was adapted by cosmopolitan Christianized Romans to mean something like 'those not in the army of the Lord'.
I learned some things about 'ritual' and our cultural bonds connected to that concept. The ironies abound in this story, but irony is not a strong suit of the devout.
Like with rituals and pagans, I'm learning when I write my articles that people do have very widely different associations and interpretations of some words...
Living in NZ, the graphic from the 2020 election is misrepresentative of normal distribution. The current Labour govt roared to an unprecedented sole majority victory off the back of successful Covid elimination (at that point anyway). Recommend using data from the 2017 election that shows a more traditional spread. We use a mixed member proportional system. The Green Party who sits further left than labour won the CBD seat in our largest city. Literally the most left leaning party won the densest possible seat. The only electorate seat they won.
Also, we have an unusual situation where our rural areas are not poorer than many of our cities. Land is the best way to make wealth in NZ, as it is tax free capital gains. Our housing market is worth about $2 trillion, many folds larger than any other sector. The result is that farmers are the elite and wealthy, but still vote conservatively.
The graphic shows that National (Blue/right) won central, dense Auckland Suburbs, along with the less dense Waikato rural region. It shows Labour (Red/left) won everything else, rural or urban regardless. But 2017 shows the urban/rural split better
I was wondering this as I was writing the article.
This article jumped out of my brain as I'm working on a megaseries on urban development and remote work. So this is clearly one of the potential outcomes
It's a very interesting question. I've lived fifty years in a very rural and conservative county. Curiously, this county when I moved here was considered a 'bell-weather' for voting, but no more. That metaphorical ewe with the bell that the flock followed no longer resides here.
I would add that the self-certifying and ubiquitous nature of information technology, which I see as a formative impulse maker, will go with those remotees.
I'm in an eccentric zone, master's degree which I never levered for work, living 50 years rural after 20 yrs urban, worked with my hands most of my life (I always showered AFTER work), fiscal conservative, big fan of imagination and curiosity and observation from any and all perspectives...and willing, I hope, to be wrong. Your emailings are wonderful, your graphical displays are breathtaking. Thanks for this
George, I smiled when you said that you showered AFTER your work. When I worked with chemicals I made sure to wash my hands BEFORE I used the bathroom.
Showering before or after work is one of the more definite delineators of what you do. I guess if I worked at a habanero pepper processing plant I'd wash my hands before using the bathroom as well!
If there is such a move toward urbanization, and thus progressivism, why are we seeing waves of ultra-conservatives gain power over the last five years or so?
Worth thinking more about it. I think there's a lot of factors.
1. This is a very long-term trend. We can't judge this by what happens every year or every 4 years, but what happens every few decades.
2. In that regard, I think we can see a clear trend towards progressivism in Free World countries: much more tolerance for minorities, less religiousness, more tolerance for sex, for gender identity, more personal expression... One way to put it is in terms of the Overton window. I think it's clearly moving left over time.
3. As this happens, the rural and semi-rural areas become much angrier. It also turns out that they vote substantially more than people in urban areas. Both of these factors mean they will have overrepresentation.
4. Specifically in the US, the voting system benefits rural areas and gerrymandering so far benefits Republicans more.
5. The fact that it's a gradient also matters. In the US, a lot of these battles are at the fringes, in suburban areas.
6. Globally, many of the right-wing moves have not been in democracies. In France you might have more Le Pen, but Macron still won handily. Putin or Jinping didn't consult their populations, and control the media.
I find it interesting that, at least in the United States, younger demographics are trending more and more to "unaffiliated" both politically and religiously. I personally think this is positive. But what's concerning are those "angrier" voices are the ones becoming more and more extreme in their practices to the point of pushing those beliefs onto others, resorting to violence, and completely losing touch with reality. We can only hope they continue to shrink at a rate were they won't tear everything down as they go kicking and screaming.
The internet potentially is a countervailing force to progressivism via urbanization. Urbanism drives empathy through being smushed together with all your fellows, while the internet drives niches and othering.
My story is my only experience with gender change. The child is now 19 and seems pretty content with the process. The rocky territory of adolescence is a hell of a place to have to make those kinds of long term commitments for sure. I look to how we use language for an X-ray view of social trends and there’s probably no more wound up and packed place there than those that fall under the Sex category, from the use of gender itself to the expressions surrounding vulgarity.
Hi Tomas, nicely written as always - with excellent graphics to illustrate your points.
However, I think it is worth bearing in mind that to call leftist parties "Progressive" is the second best branding strategy in political history. The best branding was for the Russian Bolsheviks (majority).
To make progress is to make change that people will come to see as positive. And perhaps when you look across countries and for a long time you can make a good case for "Progressive" parties making "progress" at least when taken as an aggregate. However, there are problems on the horizon just now.
Crime is at an all-time low - as an aggregate. However, it has seen a severe uptick in the last three years in numerous large American cities. Bari Weiss's podcast, Honestly, has an excellent, nuanced discussion of the intertwining issues. Taking account these intricacies most people would say that progressives tried some new things based on poor understanding and made life very dangerous for small parts of big cities. It is so dangerous in these places that the overall trend lines have changed direction.
Progressives have also decided that homelessness is largely a choice and that cities should accommodate the homeless rather than take measures to get them off the street. Now many cities have become dangerous due to lawless homeless encampments. Again referring to a Bari Weiss project, see this morning's post by Leighton Woodhouse on Common Sense. Many people who support Progressive parties have great compassion for "the least of these," which includes compassion for the soaring number of people dying of drug overdoses in urban homeless encampments where there is not only a lack of drug law enforcement, there is often municipal government material support for drug use.
So, I think there will be ebbs and flows. Perhaps the net effect of this will be a movement towards changing things - and, fair enough, no system is perfect and it makes sense to try to fix known flaws. However, it makes more sense to try out proposed changes slowly, carefully and with careful evaluation of their effects before there is wide implementation - including determining if positive effects came from the change or from the highly motivated team that executed the pilot project.
"Progressive" politicians have a long history of implementing their "good ideas," such as, say, communism, without any real-world evaluation. In the case of communism we may never know (within 100 million) how many people died from that effort.
Liberal/progressively minded people tend to have enough security in their lives to be able to afford the compassion for others they consider less fortunate. That there would be a disconnect between their imaginings and the realities of those they seek to "help" should come as no surprise. As you imply, paying attention to feedback loops should provide an antidote to some of these misconceptions.
Communism is a beautiful idea in the mind, without its history, and without the calcified ideology. All ideologies create fortresses that need defending, and defensive positioning is death to community (excepting your immediate tribe). Politics and religion are naturally inclined to ideology; curiosity and irony have no voice there.
Contemplative, well-meaning and thoughtful people often forget that 'story' trumps all those desirable qualities. The essence of good story-telling, the metaphors and images and analogies are the staring pool for what moves people. The 'age of reason' was a reaction to a few centuries of religious passion and the resulting carnage it produced. Interesting that "Enthusiasm" was considered a negative term in the 18th century. That story has currently largely lagged behind.
When media becomes ubiquitous and interactive, the hoped-for development of 'convivial community' is largely displaced by the 'identity' game and identity is 'story'. There are stories of compassion, but there are more powerful stories of fear, anger, indignation and victimization.
George, thanks for the thoughtful comments. I agree with most of your post. But agreement is boring. Here is a departure. You state that the Age of Reason was a reaction to a few centuries of religious passion.
Well, first the Age of Reason included a TON of religious thinking. Also, religious passion has been the norm. Muslims conquered most of the known world because of religious passion. Nero slaughtered Christians because of religious passion.
Today, as you rightly point out, there are different religious stories. For instance, if you believe that you are a different sex than your body then you should be able to mutilate your body, destroy your fertility and everyone else HAS TO AGREE WITH YOU.
We all have a religious impulse. We should be careful about replacing the old until we know the consequences of the new.
The history of religions creating and being victims is rather endless and denominationally insignificant. Even the Buddhists have proven sadly capable of these crimes.
Religious enthusiasm didn't of course disappear during the age of reason, it just got back-seated. By way of understanding our place in time through music, art and literature, the Romantic period which replaced the Age of Reason has a very different tenor, and I was Quite surprised to read that 'enthusiasm' could even begin to be considered a derogotory term. Gave me a moment of thought as I rather considered myself to be part of the 18th century thought pattern.
Here's a little close-in story regarding sex-change in adolescence; I had a nephew who is now a niece. His/her father, as a football star in high school, had prompted his only son to be much like him. His/her Catholic mother was equally oblivious (or effortfully ignoring) the evolving psychological situation in their child. When the breakpoint became too obvious to possibly ignore about age 13, they realized that the life and happiness of their child was more important than their imagined son and allowed him to be put on hormone treatments.
At four years old this boy, when observed from an open bathroom door was seen talking to himself asking his penis if it was still there? and when was it going to go away? One Christmas when his sister received an assortment of gender based presents and he got a few sporty masculine gifts, he went into his bedroom and cried because he wanted what his sister received. I will grant you that the implications of sex-change in adolescents is fraught territory and should never be taken lightly, but the information the parents received that brought them to acceptance of gender change was that suicide was one of the more likely results of resisting the change.
Sex and gender loom large, like positive/negative, posing as veritable truths, but biology has its own odd ways of connection and disconnection. In the case of this family the father had to give up his only son, and bear the burden of parental sadness for having struggled to make him like himself; his mother gave up some of her Catholic morality to probably save her child's life. What do you think?
We are caught in an exponential swirl of technological (and its resulting social) change. Adaptability is one of humankind's strong suits; but religions and other ideologies tend to create castles that need protecting. My interest is in finding spiritual fulfillment without building walls to protect.
my favorite quote; "our emotions are Paleolithic, our institutions Medieval and our technology God-like.
Wow, I hadn't heard a personal account like this. Thanks for sharing.
George, I am sorry for the pain that your family has gone through. Your note conveys some (assuredly not close to all) of the gut-wrenching trauma of the process to date. It sounds like your family made hard decisions based on the best advice they could get.
However, new information has come to light, some of it quite recently. First, the studies showing that medical alterations yielding an apparently different sex reduce mental health issues, especially suicide, have been reviewed and found wanting. Most critically, they did not follow their subjects long enough. Immediately after surgery and recovery the subjects were enthusiastic. But five years later their mental issues, including suicide rates, were just as bad as before.
Further, the consequences of surgical and hormonal alterations are better known today. All of the individuals who have genital surgeries lose fertility. They also lose the ability to reach orgasm. The hormonal therapies cause high rates of heart and circulatory problems such as strokes for those wanting to appear female. For those wanting to appear male, the testosterone causes a slew of serious problems and the less-serious problem of pattern baldness for many.
In a court case in the UK the primary clinic for caring for individuals presenting with gender dysphoria, the Tavistock gender clinic, lost its charter to do so. A key part of the court findings was this: Essentially all boys and girls presenting with gender dysphoria who were given puberty blockers eventually moved on to take opposite-sex hormones and (for many of them) surgical alterations. However, if "watchful waiting" was used about 80% would become comfortable with their bodies by early adulthood.
The same drugs used as puberty blockers are used for chemical castrations.
We do indeed have powerful technologies. The question is, do we have enough wisdom and humility to use them well?
As a person who left SF for many of the things you mention, I agree.
I might not have emphasized enough the very long-term timelines that I'm discussing here.
This is a pattern in Uncharted Territories. I try to avoid short-term trends, to focus on the epochal ones.
You bring an interesting additional point, which is there are 2 dimensions pretty independent from each other. One thing is conservatism-progressivism, the other one is intelligence-stupidity. You have 4 combinations there, and we've seen them all.
Nice text! I kind of had the idea in mind but giving it a name an data makes it a lot more concrete.
I have a doubt left. If there are countries where 80/90 percent of the population is in cities then right wings and conservatives shouldn't be a big contender with only 10/20 percent of the population (you would still have the correlation). In other words, if cities produce progressivism (whatever that is) then there is an explanation lacking for why a big percentage of the population in cities is still conservative
The answer is that the Overton window changes.
The rule of democracies like the US is that the voting split will always be close to 50-50. When it isn't, parties adapt their selling points, until they get past the other party. In other words, the Overton Window adapts for what's acceptable
That's why it's so important to highlight that this isn't binary, but gradual. It's not 80% urban 20% rural. It might be 30% inner city, 30% suburbs, 20% towns, and 20% rural. In that setup, the conservatives might have as core audiences towns and rural areas, while progressives will have inner cities. And the battleground will be suburbs. This, by the way, is exactly what's happening in the US: the battlegrounds is the suburbs.
A basic question. Why are all questions of this nature predicated on a 50/50 split? With millions of people, elections come down to razor edge percentage differences between winners and losers. Is there some rule of mathematics or natural selection that consistently mandates this result?
It is driven by the rules of the game.
If you need a majority to govern, you need 50% of the vote to win. Nothing short of that will get you a win. So politicians will try to shape their policies in a way that they attract at least 50% of the vote. Since you can only have 2 parties with about 50% of the vote, a voting system that requires majorities to govern will become a 2-party system (Eg US).
In other countries, you don’t need 50% to win. For example, in spain, the president of the government is voted by the legislative body. So you can get a bunch of parties elected, and then the parties are the ones deciding who will become the head of the executive.
Technically Catholic said +/- what I wanted to say, and well said too! I'd just add Michael Schellenberger's book and essays about how the Left has "destroyed" American cities.
I think that political dynamics is dominated by two factors, a general trend and a tendency to oscillate. Whenever one side becomes a "natural monopoly" and dominates for a while, it becomes decadent enough (often by the dominance of its most extreme wing) that the public throws it in the trash, at least for a while.
Weiss and Woodhouse and Shellenberger see that happening in US urban crime and drug and housing policy. Many observers, perhaps led by the very impressive Roger Pielke Jr, see it happening in today's climate policy. And others see it happening in the empowerment of girls to demand gender-changing medical and surgical treatments. And several observers and elections see it happening in the intersection of education and critical theory etc.
I agree!
I think you are spot on. There is a general trend towards ideas of equality and liberty, but overlying that is what you call oscillation, but my friends call "the pendulum" that swings from side to side. When it swings further away from the centre in one direction it has a tendency towards overcompensation in the other direction.
oscillate, a great term, the etymology says it's from the ocillum, a mask of Baccus, carved open- mouthed and hung as a charm in the vineyards where it was given to swinging in the wind.
Einstein once said something like 'man has always had to reinvent itself'; 'Fashion' is the rapid and trivial side of this spectrum.
Another refreshing splash from your boundless fountain of creativity -- much appreciated. I agree with your assertion that urbanization drives progressivism, and the corollary that increasing per capita wealth moves people to the left. Much of the world's population lives on the upward-sloping portion of your graphs, so internationally these trends will continue. Brazil's example is encouraging. But I wonder what you think about the implications at the leading edges. To me, the signals appear mixed.
First, a good sign. As your charts show, urbanization is leveling off in the US, Germany and other developed countries as well-educated and left-leaning people move out of blue cities into red territories. Remote work is only one driver. Here in Northern California, de-urbanization is in full swing because nobody raising kids makes enough money to buy a house in the Bay Area. Where are people moving? To non-urban Texas and other red areas where jobs are plentiful and nice houses on fair-sized pieces of property on the wildland interface are cheap. Will Texas turn purple any time soon? Haha-- no way. But look at other formerly Confederate states. Over time, re-homogenization is happening, and with it may come a moderation of differences in political points of view.
A more disturbing trend may be happening regarding increasing wealth. In the middle of the rising curve, wealth tends to turn people blue. However, at the extreme, entrepreneurial billionaires seem to be turning right. For every blue George Soros, there appears to be a few Peter Thiels. Now we have entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk, who Tim Church (creator of the brilliant blog Wait But Why -- I know you're a fan) once called "the raddest person in the world" retweeting hard-right conspiracy theories about the recent attack on Nancy Peliosi's husband. He seems bent on reopening Twitter to right-wing bloviators, probably including the former president. Even though he's taking Twitter private, thankfully he won't escape the moderating influence of his advertisers. Corporations seem to have developed consciences -- who'd have thought? I won't get into Rupert Murdoch, whom I think may disprove your theory that individuals don't determine history -- even 100 years from now, Western civilization will be irrevocably marked by his successful attempt to impose his political views on a vulnerable and unsuspecting -- and, remarkably, still unconscious -- viewership that eagerly laps up whatever his commentators choose to feed them. It's a solidly anti-progressive, anti-diverse, anti-democratic diet, and it's just as popular as Coke and fries.
I know you're thinking about where present-day trends may head in the future, particularly in leading-edge countries where free expression of ideas is still supported -- so far. Yes, I agree that in the long term, freedom will win out. In fact, there is an underground spiritual revolution already taking place that will power this cultural transition -- but that's a different discussion. In the meantime, there's some big, dark money working to reverse these positive trends.
Thank you for your kind words!
I posted on this because I've been studying remote work, in fact. This is just the 3rd derivative of that work! The big principle behind the Remote Work series is that it breaks many trends we've been taking for granted. I wanted to understand which ones. And one of the reasons is what you highlight: We moved out of the Bay Area mainly because of costs.
I actually don't think Elon Musk is a die-hard republican. Nor Peter Thiel, for that matter.
Musk is reacting quite a lot against wokism, and also isn't a fan of brutal taxation (CA taxation is at the level of France, for his level of income). But he's the biggest force against climate change in the world, he's an ultra-progressive (as in, for progress!), and in general I think you'd see him defend minorities (but not wokism). He is quite dorky though, loves his dad jokes, and doesn't take many things seriously, sometimes to an extreme that we're not used to (the pedo guy, Pelosi's husband).
Thiel is a different beast. I am less acquainted with him, but the fact that he's gay and hypercontrarian should tell you something. Like Musk, I think both are hyperprogressive, but don't think progress should come from more state at this point.
But I do agree with your overarching point. Yes, urbanism's push towards progressivism is not the only force, and yes, in the short-term many other factors influence politics quite dramatically. Those are harder to grok, so I stay away from them unless I have something relevant to say!
I think we have to define what constitutes “progressivism.” There are some trends (spending above revenue) that are not sustainable and definitely are not “progress.” Social policies that undermine the nuclear family are similar, as are those that excuse crime and put citizens at risk. You could add policies that politicize education to the list of self-destructive “progressive” trends. Civilization depends upon strong families and societal cohesion that has often been helped by religious organizations. There are cities in the USA that your definition would say are maximally “progressive” and many of them are seeing a substantial outflow because some of their policies are making those cities less desirable places to live.
I think to be truly “progressive” policies need to be pro-citizen. Such policies help families stay together and build unity within the citizenry. Support for the next generation is essential to build an enduring society, and that should include an education system that informs and builds competence without political indoctrination. Also inherent in supporting the next generation is not leaving them with mountains of public debt.
I started with "left vs right", then had to change it, and I thought for a long time what the right term was. Most research used progressivism vs conservatism, so that's what I went for.
I also tried to avoid judgment about the trend. Progress is good, but not at all costs, and not everybody that manages in the name of progress is good or does a good job.
For example, I agree with the problems you highlight, and the poor solutions being thrown at this.
Yeah I could sense your struggle to find the right name for this, and Progressive/Conservative is as good as any I guess 🙂 The only thing I would say is that your article casts “Conservative” in a negative light as in anti-tolerance/ignorant or something like that, and I don’t think that is a fair characterization. I think the split is on what the ideologies emphasize as their “philosophical anchors.” I think the dichotomies are more like: individualism vs collectivism, capitalism vs socialism (economic mirror of the former), nuclear family is primary vs “the state as parent”, education as means to gain competence vs education as a means of social programming, financial prudence vs things like MMT etc. I think the overarching difference in all this is how much trust we put in “the state.” I think we can all agree we must entrust some power to the state and the question then is how much and in what areas of life. That is where conservatives and progressives differ I think.
Ah I see.
My guess from what you say is that people disagree with what the term "progressive" means. I was not using it in the sense you outlay, which is I think an association to present-day left parties. And I don't think researchers were either. I used it to be much more specific: "progressives" want to change the rules, whereas "conservatives" want to keep them as is, or even go back to the past.
I want to believe this is what causes most of the disagreements. If not, I'd love to hear where I have shared a negative view on conservatives.
Well there seems to be some bias for example
“When US Republicans are concerned about immigration, is that simple dog-whistling, or are they truly concerned about racial displacement? Because if they are, they should stop paying attention to that and start focusing on urbanization instead.”
This implies Republicans/conservatives are racists and conflates “immigration” with “open borders” and those two things are not the same. Racial replacement theory has to do with open borders not legal immigration, and I would argue that immigration policy is another area of difference. I think it would be fair to say that a conservative view of immigration is based on economics, as in is it economically beneficial to allow immigration at a point in time (booming economy) vs is it not beneficial (recession), whereas progressives/leftists might not have that opinion.
There is also the assumption that conservatives are concentrated in rural areas and are less educated, both of which I think are false premises. The US electoral system makes this hard to measure, NYC for example has a lot of conservatives but our winner take all election style means if your city is 40% conservative it is the same as if it is zero percent conservative when using red blue county maps like the researchers used.
Thank you for this.
In my mind, this was actually a recommendation.
I have a hard time parsing your comment, because I don't understand how my comment conflates immigration with open borders.
When I hear Republican rhetoric, I hear some economic displacement concerns, but I hear more crime concerns. The rapists comment and the caravan are two examples I can think of. And of course replacement. Do you think that is a misinterpretation?
I also have a hard time believing it's economic only, because (1) immigrants tend to go to urban regions, not rural ones, and (2) I've read a reasonable amount of research on the topic and in most ways you can look at the problem, immigration is positive for the economy (the only exceptions being very old sick people (who tend not to move), and the income of lower-income, low-skill workers).
I don't have an assumption that conservatives are concentrated in rural areas and are less educated. I provide data saying this is the case. You might disagree with the data, by telling me which pieces are wrong, and providing alternative ones. I'd be happy to look at it!
For example, you NY point is a good illustration: You can definitely tell how Democratic / Republican the vote is. That's what the bubble graph sows.
Hey Tomas I was referring to the quoted paragraph from your article:
“When US Republicans are concerned about immigration, is that simple dog-whistling, or are they truly concerned about racial displacement? Because if they are, they should stop paying attention to that and start focusing on urbanization instead.”
This says when Republicans are concerned about immigration and links this to “racial displacement.” Racial displacement has to do with open borders and not immigration, those are two separate things.
Immigration is what it has always been: the legal process (visas etc) by which foreigners enter the USA to live and work here. Open borders is a refusal to enforce immigration laws in the belief that an influx of foreigners will benefit a political agenda, usually a leftist agenda.
The article makes it seem that conservatism has some anti-immigrant bias which I don’t think is supported by the data. Many recent immigrants (Congresswoman Flores!) are conservatives.
It is fair to say conservatives are against open borders, and IMO everyone should be because that policy is anti-citizen. But I don’t think it is fair to say that they are anti-immigrant, which is really saying they are anti-immigration.
The question I am now asking is “is there something about urban living that leads people to in eat more power in the state and if so is there a good mechanism to correct this if it goes too far?”
The key word in your sentences has a typo and I don't know what you mean :/
oh thanks - “to invest more power”
Ah. Yes!
The ROI of investments in infrastructure is proportional to the number of people using them. The # of ppl using them is proportional to density. So investing in infrastructure in urban areas is just a better investment of money than rural ones.
Having looked at all the comments there seems to be quite a lot of confusion about the political labels and what they mean. The meaning of the labels varies from country to country, but also within one country over time as has been pointed out. In the UK and Oz the parties of the left are still called Labour. Unions are still a core part of their base and social justice is still their main defining theme. The gap between left and right is narrower than in former times, but until recently the difference was still defined in a large part by “owners vs workers”. I suspect that the rural/city divide is a bit less noticeable than in the US because there are fewer truly rural people. Other parties (Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Greens/independents in Australia) have gained ground in both countries by appealing to wealthy suburbanites with social conscience.
Take out the politics and you are left with the difference between areas of high population density and those with lower density. I think it is useful to go back in time a wee bit to the start of urbanisation (see my post of Oct 20 in The Global Chessboard). To restate the point, domestication allowed increasing population density and this meant more within-city conflict between the different needs and wants of people. To manage this conflict social rules and structures had to develop including government. Successful systems were selected for because large numbers of unified people=power in conflict with other cities/nations. There has always been the internal conflict between the needs and wants of individuals and those of the tribe/society/nation/global community and the balance that works depends on the circumstances at the time. In good times there is more room for individual freedom, but in times of external threat differences have to be put aside for the common good. Social cohesion can be aided by unifying myths such as nationalism, religion or capitalism, but when their weaknesses are exposed the resulting disunity creates vulnerability for a society.
Those in high population density areas have to share space and other resources. This will inevitably lead to conflict and the natural reaction to conflict is fight or flight. Fighting is risky and flight/avoiding conflict isn’t always possible, so people have to get better at resolving conflict in non-physical ways. Conflict drives change and forces adaptation. People in cities become more used to change, their MAYA tolerance is higher. They also tend to have more experience of conflict and ways of resolving it. In the melting pot of the city they will be confronted with people who are different. Fear of people that are different is partly fear of the unknown which is a difficult fear to deal with. Once people see that those who look different still have some things in common, the sense of threat may be reduced.
When things are stable and going well, people on the whole won’t be pushing for change. To want change you also have to be aware that there might be a better way of doing things, so the more people from different backgrounds someone is exposed to, the more likely this becomes. Personalities vary (10/80/10) in their tolerance for change and a minority thrive on it. The desire for change also varies with age. The nature of adolescence means that young people are programmed to separate from their parents and to develop their own identity. This often manifests as rebellion against the ideas of their parents’ generation.
I haven’t seen much about conflict resolution in Uncharted Territories so I would be really interested in your thoughts on the subject if you haven’t already discussed it in one of the articles I haven’t yet read.
I’ve been working for months on a project about the future of violence, which drives the types of conflicts people have.
I’ve talked about decision-making, which underpins conflict resolution, but isn’t quite it.
I’ll think more about it.
In this divided society looking for where the points of agreement might be and then to which parts of the picture you are willing to compromise on seems essential.
Would you consider those observing the Moslem world view among those who have in their efforts "helped"(societal cohesion)? I've known a few wonderfully devout people who leave nothing but blessings behind them. Then there are those who carry their religion as a defensive weapon. Which do we smile upon?
I'm a fiscal conservative, and much too practical and anti-idiology oriented to be a full-fledged liberal. I try to seek contrary ideas, but only from well-meaning people who have some understanding of integrity. That leaves out the bulk of the current representatives of the Republican Party.
Life in an evolving technological society is never going to be static. Graceful adaptation, touched with intelligent and observant compassion is the best we can hope for.
Massive agreement in compassion. As the meme says “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so be kind.” That is 💯 true and I try to remind myself of that fact.
Politics has devolved into wedge issues at the national level which is tragic. The main responsibility of Congress is to come up with a rational budget, a job they have consistently failed to do, and I have often wondered if they do not drag the public into debates over wedge issues to avoid accountability for that failure and ensure themselves far too lengthy political careers.
In México, the left is conservative and the right is progressive. So left and right make no sense anymore. The rest holds true.
Loved this article of yours and it’s been percolating in the back of my mind since reading, thanks. There’s something quite comforting about the idea that as we get more densely clustered we tend to be more prosocial!
Also I read this paper today and I think Dr Evans is talking about the same thing you are - Increase in prosociality as pop density increases. Thought you might like to see it too, if you already have, yay, and here it is for others :)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alice-Evans-6/publication/320921459_Cities_as_Catalysts_of_Gendered_Social_Change_Reflections_from_Zambia/links/5a02a9aaa6fdcc55a15f4867/Cities-as-Catalysts-of-Gendered-Social-Change-Reflections-from-Zambia.pdf
Ah fantastic, thanks Aimee! Just looked into it. I will quote this in my upcoming quarterly update!
I agree with almost everything you say.
The only thing I disagree with is the idea that urbanization will continue upward, especially in developed countries.
In underdeveloped countries, I think urbanization will continue for the rest of the century.
In developed countries, we might have reached peak urbanization (and much of this depends on how you define "urban").
Technology has changed how we work. Until the pandemic, the old ways of working were held in place by cultural norms. Those norms have now been shattered. I think we are seeing the beginning of deurbanization in the developed world.
You don't "need" to live in New York anymore to be part of the publishing/media/finance industries.
So long as you have an internet connect, you can live anywhere, and internet access is rural areas is only getting better, especially with new systems such as Starlink.
Many of the problems people have with urban life can all be solved by just moving to a rural area.
High housing prices? Move to a rural area.
High crime? Move to a rural area.
Fear of infectious diseases? Move to a rural area.
Food security? Move to a rural area.
Many urbanites now shop almost exclusively via Amazon Prime. You can get goods almost as quickly, now, if you live in a rural area.
Cultural events? First run movies are now streaming. You can watch Broadway shows and orchestral performances all online. Is it the same? No, but it is much cheaper and in many cases the quality is much better.
Birth rates are strongly correlated with urbanization. If birth rates are ever to increase, it will probably involve deurbanization.
The process of deurbanization is going to be the other size of the coin from 20th century urbanization. Technology is going to make it possible.
The reason cities exist, efficiency in labor and sharing information, has largely been replaced by the internet.
This process has just started and suspect it will play out over the next century.
You are spot on!
I agree with you.
I'm working on a series of articles that go deep on this topic!
The essential difference between urban and rural, based on my observations, has more to do with the place of modern institutions. Progressivism is a socio-political concept that is a product of modern institutional culture. The culture of institutions represent the class structure of Progressive ideology and is why it is compatible with modern cities.
As for rural communities, its culture is far more relational as there is not the available wealth to create a similar institutional social structure. There is a social hierarchy, but it doesn’t foster a Progressive purpose nearly so simply.
One other observation. It relates to how institutional structures tend toward centralized governance and relational network structures tend toward decentralized, distributed governance. I believe this is the real difference between urban and rural as you describe. The question is whether the urban phenomenon of Progressivism has within it the capacity to decentralize its message in order to appeal to rural voters.
Thank you. China is undergoing massive urbanisation. Your article suggests that this may further complicate the CCP's hold on power if this shifts the political landscape.
Indeed! It might be ok to control conservative rural people, but how do you do the same with hundreds of millions of people who want reform?
The CCP's bet is they can do this through nationalism. But how far can it take them?
Here's a story with a bit of long term history. We life in a decidedly rural area of north central Washington state. My wife was on the school board and we had a child in middle school. There was a 6th grade program being used by the school which taught Central American pre-Columbian history, part of which involved enacting imagined Maya ritual of offerings to their God Chok. Great! was my thinking, get those middle schoolers off their butts and their hands and feet moving. Some of our (few) close neighbors (who had children our son's age and were his friends and playmates), objected strenuously to this process, claiming that it was "teaching religion in schools", and after a few non-productive meetings with the board, they hired a lawyer to come with them. That meeting sticks in my memory well, with this neighbor I know well in a highly emotional state, tears streaming down her face, quite shocked that the school would promote this kind of 'ritual'.
The use of that word, and the obvious emotional attachment for her to it left me dumbfounded. The other word she used several times was 'PAGAN'. The etymology of Pagan goes back to the late Roman period when Christianity was being absorbed by the urban Romans, but not yet accepted in the more rural areas; it meant country people, rustics. It actually began as a quasi-military term meaning 'incompetent soldier' which was adapted by cosmopolitan Christianized Romans to mean something like 'those not in the army of the Lord'.
I learned some things about 'ritual' and our cultural bonds connected to that concept. The ironies abound in this story, but irony is not a strong suit of the devout.
Like with rituals and pagans, I'm learning when I write my articles that people do have very widely different associations and interpretations of some words...
Living in NZ, the graphic from the 2020 election is misrepresentative of normal distribution. The current Labour govt roared to an unprecedented sole majority victory off the back of successful Covid elimination (at that point anyway). Recommend using data from the 2017 election that shows a more traditional spread. We use a mixed member proportional system. The Green Party who sits further left than labour won the CBD seat in our largest city. Literally the most left leaning party won the densest possible seat. The only electorate seat they won.
Also, we have an unusual situation where our rural areas are not poorer than many of our cities. Land is the best way to make wealth in NZ, as it is tax free capital gains. Our housing market is worth about $2 trillion, many folds larger than any other sector. The result is that farmers are the elite and wealthy, but still vote conservatively.
Super interesting argument. It would support my hypothesis that the sorting mechanism is less important than the psychological one.
Thank you. So it sounds like 2020 was extreme but still representative, no? Since the most left party was elected in the densest area?
The graphic shows that National (Blue/right) won central, dense Auckland Suburbs, along with the less dense Waikato rural region. It shows Labour (Red/left) won everything else, rural or urban regardless. But 2017 shows the urban/rural split better
The USA has a rural urban divide
States with smaller population are more heavily rural
The political system gives 2 senators to each state giving smaller rural states more power per person
The move to on line business promotes some movement to less dense area
On line silo effect hardens attitudes
Will your urban effect fade as on line activity decentralizes location and opinion makers
I was wondering this as I was writing the article.
This article jumped out of my brain as I'm working on a megaseries on urban development and remote work. So this is clearly one of the potential outcomes
It's a very interesting question. I've lived fifty years in a very rural and conservative county. Curiously, this county when I moved here was considered a 'bell-weather' for voting, but no more. That metaphorical ewe with the bell that the flock followed no longer resides here.
I would add that the self-certifying and ubiquitous nature of information technology, which I see as a formative impulse maker, will go with those remotees.
Interesting experience, and I agree here that the remotees are a huge wild card
I'm in an eccentric zone, master's degree which I never levered for work, living 50 years rural after 20 yrs urban, worked with my hands most of my life (I always showered AFTER work), fiscal conservative, big fan of imagination and curiosity and observation from any and all perspectives...and willing, I hope, to be wrong. Your emailings are wonderful, your graphical displays are breathtaking. Thanks for this
George, I smiled when you said that you showered AFTER your work. When I worked with chemicals I made sure to wash my hands BEFORE I used the bathroom.
Showering before or after work is one of the more definite delineators of what you do. I guess if I worked at a habanero pepper processing plant I'd wash my hands before using the bathroom as well!
If there is such a move toward urbanization, and thus progressivism, why are we seeing waves of ultra-conservatives gain power over the last five years or so?
Key question, right?
Worth thinking more about it. I think there's a lot of factors.
1. This is a very long-term trend. We can't judge this by what happens every year or every 4 years, but what happens every few decades.
2. In that regard, I think we can see a clear trend towards progressivism in Free World countries: much more tolerance for minorities, less religiousness, more tolerance for sex, for gender identity, more personal expression... One way to put it is in terms of the Overton window. I think it's clearly moving left over time.
3. As this happens, the rural and semi-rural areas become much angrier. It also turns out that they vote substantially more than people in urban areas. Both of these factors mean they will have overrepresentation.
4. Specifically in the US, the voting system benefits rural areas and gerrymandering so far benefits Republicans more.
5. The fact that it's a gradient also matters. In the US, a lot of these battles are at the fringes, in suburban areas.
6. Globally, many of the right-wing moves have not been in democracies. In France you might have more Le Pen, but Macron still won handily. Putin or Jinping didn't consult their populations, and control the media.
WDYT?
I agree with these points.
I find it interesting that, at least in the United States, younger demographics are trending more and more to "unaffiliated" both politically and religiously. I personally think this is positive. But what's concerning are those "angrier" voices are the ones becoming more and more extreme in their practices to the point of pushing those beliefs onto others, resorting to violence, and completely losing touch with reality. We can only hope they continue to shrink at a rate were they won't tear everything down as they go kicking and screaming.
The internet potentially is a countervailing force to progressivism via urbanization. Urbanism drives empathy through being smushed together with all your fellows, while the internet drives niches and othering.
My story is my only experience with gender change. The child is now 19 and seems pretty content with the process. The rocky territory of adolescence is a hell of a place to have to make those kinds of long term commitments for sure. I look to how we use language for an X-ray view of social trends and there’s probably no more wound up and packed place there than those that fall under the Sex category, from the use of gender itself to the expressions surrounding vulgarity.
The source link after your second graph is not working, 404.