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The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (2008)

by Bill Bishop(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0618689354 (ISBN13: 9780618689354)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.I like the information in this book. I'm glad that someone collected these findings and presented them in a coherent way. However, like many nonfiction works, while any given chapter of the book reads well, somehow the book fails to achieve a good through line.If you've ever thought about how people surround themselves with online media and contacts that reinforce their own beliefs rather than expose them to new ones, you should read this book. Because it's so much worse than what you already know.This book is depressing. The book was published in 2008 and appears largely written in 2007. The author assembles all this information about the direction the world is heading. It's not a pretty picture. He doesn't like it. I don't like it. The dep... moreressive kicker: in the face of all the collected evidence, the author concludes with a flourish of wishful, denialist fancy: he found some young [read: stupid] college kids who value open-mindedness--maybe the country is going to change! Oh wait, here comes the depressive afterward (a reaction to the polling data post-2008 election); never mind, we're more divided than ever.We're screwed. Especially because things seem a whole lot worse than pre-Obama times.Final thought. There are a lot of little gems sprinkled throughout that evoke a sardonic laugh. Best example: among different groups of people who regularly converse, the height of ideological heterogeneity is a group of high school seniors; the group with the least is a group of graduate students. If you find this funny, give the book a read.I'ma gonna go read something fun now.
review 2: Fascinating look at the way we have separated ourselves from each other and formed echo chambers of sameness.He suggests a link between family-based morality (strict Father v. nurturant parent) and political affliation. "Republicans favored respect, obedience, good manners and being well-behaved. They were strict fathers. Democrats were nurturant parents." (p. 210). The preference between independence and respect for elders, obedience and self-reliance, curiosity and good manners, or considere and well behaved seems pre-reflective as if it were somehow a part of the natural order of life. Could political preference be more a matter of identity than reflection and life-experience?Also, if homogeneity is the natural evolution of community, what hope is there for our current society? It seems as if our best hope is an attack from some external threat that would minimize the internal difference.s less

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