This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author’s own. LundaEkonomerna maintains a politically neutral stance.
In the US, Democrats leave Congress during the President’s State of the Union address. In the UK, Reform polls highest of them all, feeding off of controversies and conspiracy theories. In Poland, PiS long weaponized disappointment into nationalism. In Bangladesh, the exiled president Sheikh Hasina is gaining new traction. In Brazil, far-right Bolsonaro serves time in jail while leftist Lula da Silva steers the country’s course. In Sweden, 40% of young men vote for the far-right Sweden Democrats, while 70% of young women vote red-green. All around the world, the gap between voters, and people, is steadily growing. All around the world, debates are turning into fights, and polarization is soaring.
Political polarization is usually seen as one of today’s big worries. Everything from Trump’s success in the U.S. to Orban’s in Hungary is often connected to the growing differences between thoughts, opinions, and people. As the U.S. holds congressional hearings of Mark Zuckerberg regarding his allowance of fake news, as party leaders in Sweden fight over who stronger condemns the harsh climate of the public debate (formed by themselves, of course), it becomes clear that polarization, in and of itself, has grown to be the phenomenon regarded as the big issue of our time.
But how do you fight polarization? How do you unite a nation? How do you tell people to not be angry with the world, or with each other?
It is the problem troubling politicians, voters and scholars all over the world. However, no matter how much energy is put into researching it, the outcome stays the same: polarization is the cause of a majority of our struggles, and needs to be combated. How? That part remains unclear.
Polarization is not only a problem – it is a consequence. Chasing the solution to polarization, thus means chasing the solution to an unsolvable issue. And as the chase leads you nowhere, you are instead left apathetic amongst your struggles. When you are unable to act toward a solution, you do not act at all. The pursuit, grand in theory, becomes a part of the polarization’s true fault: No real problems are dealt with.
Sweden has strong public service and high trust in officials – the best possible conditions for preventing polarization. Still, the country is far from able to combat controversial or polarizing views and voices. Zuckerberg and Musk could gladly become socialists, or anarchists; they could impose rigorous content moderation and fact-checking, or rather fully let it go. It would not affect the reality that propaganda is all around. In a globalized and digitalized world, opinions will clash. Voters will be mad at each other, gaps will widen. But polarization is no sole voter’s fault. No voter must promise to not be angry with one’s opponents. We are human. We disagree.
Contradicting opinions are impossible to combat. Polarization is instead the result of fully contradicting world views, and world goals. We no longer disagree on the way forward, but rather on where we are going at all. Disagreement of this scale is not a problem existing by itself. It is not created in a vacuum. Thus, polarization can never be either. They are one and the same, and simply a result of huge dissatisfaction among voters. When things are not working in the way people are expecting, discontent grows. Whether it is the failing welfare system in Sweden, the inflation in the U.S., or the stagnation of development in Argentina, it fuels contempt and disagreement. Everyone is looking for a solution, and not everyone will find the same one.
Polarization, in and of itself, might have its own consequences, but this does not make it a stand-alone problem. Although it might be fueled by powers not directly linked to quality of life, the reason that it was ever born in the first place is. Chasing the solution by looking elsewhere – towards fake news, AI, protests or social media – is, simply put, a hopeless task. Polarization is both a consequence and a cause. And as with most problems, the only way to attack it is at its source – combating the decline in quality of life, disappointing welfare systems, and growing class divisions. When academics and politicians instead focus their energy towards the polarization itself, development is paused. The chase turns us away from actual problems. It wastes our energy, and up for grabs for any entity ready to tackle it, we leave a society where checks and balances are overrun, reforms reversed, and quality of life declining.
When I am blamed for voicing my disagreement, and discontent, with other’s opinions, I am once again reminded by the true consequence of polarization: distraction. Disagreements do not cause polarization, they are polarization. Instead, failed societies do. By letting consequences distract us from causes, we are failing the systems we once worked so hard to build. No matter what goal we actually are working towards, the solution to polarization is moving forward. It is bettering the everyday reality people are facing today. By simply moving somewhere, the direction will soon become clear. But instead, we are stuck here. Standing still. Instead, I am stuck watching my prime minister and opposition leader cuss each other out over debating techniques, while my CSN-debt is increasing faster than for any other generation and my dentist appointments have suddenly become impossible to afford. Instead, I watch, in horror, as voters’ and scholars’ focus on polarization has made apathy the only thing everyone seems to have in common.
