What really divides us?

I love sports, and as most of you know, I’m an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan. The fact that I love baseball in particular gives me an instant connection to any other fan and gives us plenty of fun things to talk about. What’s fascinating, in fact, is that even if someone is a fan of a rival team (Cubs, for instance), our different loyalties don’t really divide us. Instead, our common passion unites us. We joke about hating each other, but it’s almost always just that: a joke.

Something similar is true of discussing movies with other people. If I discover someone else really enjoys movies and has seen a lot of them, I can instantly have hours of conversation about this most modern art medium. Even if we disagree passionately about particular movies, our common interest in the subject keeps bonds us more than it divides us. And unless I’m very mistaken, this same phenomenon is true of discussing books and food and cars and music and many other things.

So why isn’t it this way in politics? Why do rival political views so easily divide rather than unite those who cherish them? It’s because we’re a democracy. And in a democracy like ours, having political power means that persuading our fellow man becomes vital, almost a matter of warfare. And since democracy is a kind of proxy for warfare (we vote at each other rather than shooting at each other), this isn’t all that surprising.

But what if we didn’t have that political power? I wonder whether political discussions wouldn’t be more like sports talk if we had, say, a monarchy? Perhaps even religious disagreement, thus depoliticized, would become more amicable. And in spite of the obvious risks of finding a trustworthy monarch, wouldn’t diminished social fragmentation also be one of the unobvious rewards?

In the end, is it really disagreement that makes us enemies…or is it the power at stake in the disagreement? And although monarchy probably isn’t the answer, could limited government be?