The Case for a Return to "Pluralism"
Re-thinking America's ideological tug-of-war. We are pulling the wrong rope.
In the face of a polarized nation “pluralism” would like to have a word.
What is pluralism
Pluralism is the notion of peaceful coexistence within a society that accepts a wide range of ideas, interests, and beliefs while agreeing to disagree and seeking win-wins for mutual common interest.
The Latin root of pluralism is pluribus, as in “e pluribus unum”—America’s country motto since 1782. Translating to “out of many, one,” our country motto is explicit in asserting we are, in our most basic form, a collection of independent groups. At its origin, each of America’s original 13 colonies forged an alliance to lock in both independent autonomy and the mutual benefits of collective scale—the whole therein becoming stronger than the sum of its parts.
Almost 250 years later, however, modern America has gone adrift from its plural origins and has become two warring golems locked in an unproductive ideological tug-of-war—each side convinced that whoever yells the loudest and pulls the hardest will “unite” the country by convincing the other that their side is right. This is a trap.
A way out of the trap
Neither are we truly, nor should we aspire to become the United States. United implies agreement and alignment. Rather, we should aspire to execute the original plan and craft a nation that tolerates (even embraces) a lot more divergence in ideas and ways of life and a lot less judgment of each other.
In a plural society citizens are free to retain their own beliefs, agree to disagree, and relieve themselves of the duty to convince others they are wrong. Once we drop the ideological tug-of-war rope that pulls left and right, we can much more easily pursue mutually beneficial opportunities that stem from overlapping common interests. Letting go is the escape from the toy finger trap which traps us ever tighter the harder we pull.
To be very clear, this is not about compromising on values or positions with those we disagree with. It’s rather a fundamental orientation switch. When looking at the Venn diagram of overlap across groups, it means rather than fight about what we don’t agree on, to instead lean into what we do.
Once free from the fight, we can shift from today’s scarcity mind-set and zero-sum game politics that holds us back, to an abundance mindset open to creating value through win-win solutions for our common interests.
This is the promise of pluralism whose historical disciples include a star-studded list of thinkers that includes Plato, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, just to name a few.
Pluralism: A motivation for Bridge Grades
A more plural America is at the heart of the motivation behind the project to build Bridge Grades.
Bridge Grades is a non-ideological report card for politicians. Using 3rd party data, we grade politicians on their abilities to collaborate and build consensus solutions for the common interests of multiple parties. In aggregating data from multiple non-partisan 3rd party sources, Bridge Grade is like Rotten Tomatoes for politicians. Bridge Grades measure not “what” a politician thinks, but rather “how” the politician behaves. Independent of red or blue, Bridge Grades sorts bridgers from dividers.
By bringing transparency to how collaborative or divisive a legislator is in their governing behaviors, we aim to change political incentives away from loyal partisan gamesmanship, and toward more coalition-based governance where ideological opposites come together to write laws that are in the public’s common interest.
At Bridge Grades, we use data to sort the bridgers from dividers, so that the public can begin to systematically re-elect bridgers and throw out dividers to change the composition and culture within politics incrementally over time.
Because the more collaborative and less divisive our political leaders are, the more win-wins we can find for our (plural) mutual benefit.
