Is this divide crossable?

A meditation on worldviews

A recent conversation between NY Times columnist Ezra Klein and journalist James Pogue got me thinking about worldviews: how ill-equipped our communications systems are in accommodating conflicting ideologies, and how social media has weaponized them in order to transform politics.

After their conversation, I turned my attention to Pogue’s 2022 Vanity Fair article on JD Vance, Curtis Yarvin, and Blake Masters. Two passages reminded me that everything we’re experiencing at this moment is years, decades, even generations in the making.

The first is from Pogue’s conversation with Yarvin, a man who has heavily influenced rightwing thinking for years.

The way conservatives can actually win in America, [Yarvin] has argued, is for a Caesar-like figure to take power back from this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarchical regime run like a start-up. As early as 2012, [Yarvin] proposed the acronym RAGE—Retire All Government Employees—as a shorthand for a first step in the overthrow of the American “regime.”

This puts the whiplash at organizations and agencies like USAID, the CIA, the Department of Education, HHS, and others into context. But why would this regime—one that, Pogue makes clear, is about liberal institutions and not a “deep state”—need to be torn asunder?

Power.

Yarvin has also heavily influenced Vance, who makes this prescient prediction that seems lifted right from the pages of Project 2025:

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” [Vance] said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

“And when the courts stop you,” [Vance] went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

What I found most instructive from the conversation is Pogue’s explanation of the competing frameworks—worldviews—for reality between left and right in America, how media ecosystems played a role in leveling the playing field, then tipping the scale in a rightward direction. The above worldviews have been firmly embedded in conservative media for years, fueled by social media networks like Twitter.

No one has a monopoly on reality. I might, and do, disagree with other worldviews, but mine isn’t “right” by default. No one owns that right, which makes everything happening right now (and arguably, always) a fight. As Pogue points out, people left of center, from liberals to leftists, haven’t always understood the game being played.

Perhaps it’s time we do.

The design

Let me amend my prior statement: plenty of people have long understood what happens when white grievance politics dominates a culture. What I’m arguing here is for cultivating an ability to have a conversation and step outside, however briefly, one framework to understand another, not suggest a framework shouldn’t be dismantled or another fought for, which is where I’ll end up.

Our worldview is shaped by our environment. We can’t detach ourselves from the social conditions in which we grew up. This includes our parents, siblings, and peer groups, but also the physicality of our surroundings. And, importantly, it involves an acknowledgement of our animal nature.

This is part of what distinguishes the right and left divide: the left tends to be more aspirational in nature, which, while driving us into a future we’d like to see created, sometimes blinds us to the very substance of our DNA. Meanwhile, the right tends to romanticize and champion a past that likely never existed, and recreates myths about gender and power dynamics that are more fantasy than reality.

We don’t have to love where we come from, ancestrally or hereditarily. But we have to recognize that what we wish was reality isn’t necessarily supported by evidence, biologically or socially. Aspiration is useless without a foundation. The right glorifies an invented foundation while the left dismisses the real one.

Traditionally, a worldview would be shared with those in your immediate environment. You might disagree with what caused that peal of thunder last night, but everyone heard it. You can probably see where this is going. Social media has completely disoriented us from the conditions of other environments, and allowed assumptions to dictate reality.

Tragically, the way our communications networks are designed, the people with the worst assumptions often get boosted the most. This is by design of those worst people.

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The divide

At one point in the conversation, Klein considers the general contours of the left and right divide by contemplating one of the main forms of modern media: podcasts. He makes it clear that he’s working through his thoughts on this topic, so this isn’t the final place that he’ll likely land on the topic. What he’s hinting at warrants consideration.

One intellectual difference between the left and the right that has felt very salient to me over the past couple of years is that the right is very interested in an old idea, something you used to read much more about. It's all over classical texts of human formation: how do you flourish into a man or a woman and pursue a certain sort of excellence?

The left is interested in something connected more to Original Sin, but it's a little bit about purging, it's about moving away from being what your base nature would make you and becoming enlightened. It's a remaking of the self away from your impulses, away from implicit bias, implicit discrimination.

There were very big podcasts on the left in this period, like Maintenance Phase, that are very hostile to most self-improvement cultures. I've actually thought this is a much bigger division line in our politics that you look at what we call the Bro podcast—that's a pretty big world, but they're very self-improvement focused and the left is very therapeutic focused: process out the the emotions.

Of course, there’s an overlap between self-improvement and therapeutic spaces. Still, it reminds me of something I’ve long thought defines the left-right divide: individualism versus collectivism, which also aren’t binaries. Heuristics are always a little messy because they’re shortcuts.

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I want to unpack what I think Klein is tugging on here, from my own perspective. I started podcasting 10 years ago because one day I was listening to Joe Rogan, and he commented that a microphone and an internet connection are cheap and anyone can do it. By this point, I’d been interviewing people for 20+ years as a journalist, so I bought a microphone.At the time I consumed a lot of what is now dubbed bro podcasts. I didn’t always agree with the hosts, but I also worked in the fitness industry for nearly two decades, and self-improvement was important to me. It still is, just not in the same way.

A conception of the idealized man (or woman), inspired by very loose readings of evolutionary biology, is prominent in these spaces. In fact, the man who popularized the term “alpha male,” Frans de Waal, once stated that the right completely misinterpreted his anthropological field work—this dates back to the Reagan era. De Waal knew that alpha males are, first and foremost, master negotiators. They only occasionally have to display sheer physical power. Most of their actual power comes from their ability to understand what benefits the group, the collective.

Republicans, and by extension the bro podcast world that generally tracks right, has placed the focus on the strong man, the individual. Yes, he has a social role, but it’s expressed as him first becoming an island, then applying the strength and skills he solely acquires to the group, which is not how power works. Or: it’s how dictatorial power works, at least in the minds of people who believe you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps—a physical and social impossibility.

This is how the bro podcast world (and more recently, MAHA) is linked to body fascism: the longstanding myth that only a strong body can lead a strong state. Inevitably, in that process, the weak are selected out of the group.

Turn to nature to understand this mindset. Not the sanitized version presented in most nature specials, but feeds like Nature is Metal, which doesn’t turn the camera away when things get ugly. Mothers across species make Sophies Choices all the time, seemingly emotionless. Pick up the scruffy runt from the nest and toss him to his death. Leave the weak cub behind if he can’t keep up. More resources for the ones who can.

This is one of my frustrations with the left, and people in general: we grew out of that violent, survival-based, anything goes reality. It’s not like there’s no precedent for this mentality. But does that mean we have to abide by those rules now? Not at all.

That’s what evolution entails, and we are not in a position where we have to fight for every meal, at least those of us who can afford not to. (This administration is on track to tip that scale heavily in the wrong direction.) We now have enough resources available to take care of every human at some basic level, if we so chose—but those with the most resources grimace at the notion.

My worldview suggests evolving out of that fear- and violence-based mindset by evening out the social playing field. It is not shared by many on the right, and likely a fair amount of the left. Base emotions are seductive even when unnecessary.

In the case Klein presents, there’s a worldview shaped by the notion that we’re owed something, which is why grievance politics play so well on the right—especially, in America, white grievance politics. This strongman view, this survive at all costs worldview, is considered our literal birthright as men and these people over here—their conception of the left—are stopping us from achieving it with their wokeness and trans rights and DEI policies.

I’m not addressing women here because the strongman view is often reductive and misogynistic. I’m guessing most women have personally experienced this attitude at some point in their lives, or often.

I’m not implying anyone involved in self-improvement is all or any of these things. The context is a worldview shaped in part on Twitter and conservative media being elevated to the White House. Still, I want to mention one other aspect that I see in people like Elon Musk that’s indicative of this culture, of this worldview: there’s never enough.

Self-improvement never leads to satisfaction; something is always being worked on. Likewise, some billionaires are never satisfied with the amount of money and power they have; there’s always more to be had. This is a dangerous mindset, one that’s a hallmark of individualism, because who or what they destroy in the process isn’t of concern. The focus is entirely on feeding their insatiable desires.

Now, for a parallel example on the left. I don’t believe it’s nearly as socially destructive or personally harmful, but it has fed into the binaries discussed in this conversation, and it rhymes with how worldviews shape reality—how we perceive our worldview is the one that must be right.

It’s not only the worldview, but how we attempt to foist it upon the collective. Pogue makes this clear:

I think broadly speaking it's not even just a leftist project; liberalism is to some degree an idea of: we got to a point where we almost thought we can reduce harms as a societal project, almost to a Millenarian extent. The left really did feel like men can just be better; we can suddenly have a societal conversation and suddenly men are going to behave in ways where in the workplace we no longer have interpersonal sexual issues, and we can reshape people into some forms that actually just fit into collective structures well, and then policing the bounds of their behavior when they don't fit into those collective structures.

There’s been a lot of discussion about the crisis with young men. Conflicting remedies, from Richard Reeves to Andrew Tate, have been offered. What will work for each man is another discussion, but Pogue is right that policing without offering anything to replace their behavior—or, importantly, giving them a sense of purpose and meaning—will push them to the Tate side of things, especially when what Reeves recommends is a rethinking of legislation and educational practices. Jordan Peterson wasn’t the first thinker to ever suggest to stand up straight and make your bed, but for some groups of men it was the right message at the right time, and we can’t discount that.

Using Klein’s heuristic about therapeutic spaces, there have been many times when I’ve come across people who can’t see beyond their own anecdotes. For example, I recently posted a thread by an air traffic controller shortly after the horrific crash in DC. The writer was diagnosed as autistic later in life, and was able to trace this back to a lot of the bullying he experienced earlier on. It was a very personal, sweet message by someone who was ultimately ripping Trump’s asshole for blaming DEI for the plane crash.

The post received 1,500 likes and a lot of positive comments, signaling that it landed for a number of people. Yet a few took that opportunity to talk about how much they hate this or that, or nitpicked over small assertions the man didn’t even make. This inability to stay within the bounds of a conversation is a true annoyance, and—why it matters to this conversation—it’s been weaponized against otherwise well-intentioned people.

Here’s another: I sometimes wear a shirt that says pork roll, egg, and cheese (the state sandwich of New Jersey) in some of my videos. My wife bought it for me because she thought it was funny, and I love it. Yet every time I wear it, no matter the topic of the video, a few vegans rage against me. I don’t even eat that sandwich anymore, as pork roll isn’t a thing on the west coast, it’s more of a nostalgia thing.

This form of moral grandstanding becomes easy ammunition for those with other worldviews. I’m not suggesting conversations around the topic shouldn’t be expressed, but when they come out of left field, it’s easy to understand the frustration some people feel.

This isn’t confined to the left, just as self-improvement isn’t confined to the right. Twitter has its own tone and context policing. But it is something that, five years into the Conspirituality project, I’ve seen happen over and again on the left.

These are ultimately minor points. But the right weaponizes the left’s myopic activism, to great success. They excel at finding one transgender person and running their video through their networks to make it seem as if it represents every liberal and leftist. And the left hasn’t been able to return fire in the same way, which is in part a question of media networks, but also one of coalition building.

Democracy is a negotiation, and there’s a risk of alienating potential allies when you stick to your anecdotes too firmly. Coalition building is especially relevant right now, given that it’s obvious one party has no interest in democracy at all, and part of their strength is derived from in-fighting occurring by what should be an opposition party.

The path ahead

How does any of this get solved? I don’t think it’s going to happen online, perhaps ever. It’s just not how these networks are built. Being on the left right now means trying different strategies. One thing that’s for damn sure is the Democratic party is not living up to this moment. I don’t even know what world they’re inhabiting, but get Chuck Schumer the fuck out of the way of any camera. While I generally like Hakim Jeffries, saying a god will take care of it in the end is just about the most disappointing deflection I can imagine from people we need to fight like hell right now.

I’ve been a lot more critical of the right because I don’t share their worldview. I also believe the power they’ve attained now is an existential threat that will, if unchecked, decimate all but small number of people regardless of your current political leanings.

I always believe there’s room for improvement; I just don’t think fawning over past ideals that likely never existed serves us any good. And if such improvements denigrate others or hold other people back, it’s a nonstarter. That’s a worldview that should be grappled with and overcome.

But for years I’ve worried about the sorts of purity tests that can alienate people and dissuade potential allies. When hatred is a currency, it’s easy to rally around; progress is a different story. The left is going to have to continually grapple with this, which is tough given we’re a more diverse coalition.

After listening to Klein and Pogue, here’s what I’m left working on:

• To clearly define my worldview and continually adjust it as I learn more.

• To recognize my worldview is not shared, and so be clear about that in my communications.

• To fight like hell against anyone who believes they’re owed more than someone else by virtue of their mere existence. That’s a worldview that will never be compatible with my own, and I’m fine with that.