The Great Experiment was a cool book I read and one of the many books I looked at after finishing The End of History and wanting to read more about politics and theory of governance and democracy. To be honest, after reading this book, which was very good, I remembered why I don't read too much of that genre. Far too little of this book was about specific, usable facts that I could log in my mental library, and so I found myself a little bored at points. But that said, Mounk is a really good writer with good ideas. It's just not my favorite genre unless there are some more good facts.
The social and political problem that this book addresses is how multiracial/multiethnic democracies can succeed when the forces of diverging identities threaten to tear them apart. I think that is probably one of the most important if not the number one issue facing the world right now. Mounk focuses on Europe and the United States, however, I'm not sure that Europe fits in this book. European states are based on the nations that formed them. While the EU should embrace multinational/multiethnic democracy, I'm not sure why France needs to have any definition except for the home of the French. On the other hand, the United States is defined by its diversity, and I think that it is unavoidable (and very beneficial) that we will always be a diverse country. I think it would have been more interesting to replace analysis of Europe with African countries that are dealing with way more diversity. And while I'm being critical, I'll say that at some points, Mounk says things like "diversity has turned out to be a stumbling block rather than a strength" for many societies. But he's completely misstating the problem. Diversity has not caused any significant problem for any society in history. Racism and intolerance are the problem! Diversity is an inescapable part of living on God's green Earth. Racism is an evil choice that dumb people make, and that choice is the stumbling block for democracies, not diversity.
Anyway, I think Mounk's book is a great defense for liberalism, and he makes great criticisms of what happens to societies that fracture on ethnic lines. Anarchy, writes Mounk, is not atomized in the way that Hobbes envisioned would occur on an individual level. Instead, it looks more like Afghanistan, fractured on a tribal and clan level, in which petty autocrats restrict the liberty of those beneath them. That is the true effect of total decentralization. Because some groups are always necessary, devolution leads to less individualism because it empowers local power-hungry individuals to take over instead of the disinterested, more central government that stays far away. Mounk makes a good point that minority groups don't just face oppression from outside their groups, but also from inside them. Individuals who face oppression from religious cults would be a good example of people in minority groups who need protection by the government from their own group.
Mounk relies on the research of Gordon W. Allport to find out how to create a more racially harmonious society. In one of Allport's studies, he found that 64% of whites who had worked with blacks performing high-skill tasks or in professional roles had a favorable opinion of them. But when blacks worked subordinate to whites, the number dropped to 5%. After additional studies, Allport devised four conditions that have to be met for greater exposure between groups to have a positive impact. There must be (1) equal status between the groups, (2) common goals, (3) intergroup cooperation, and (4) support from authorities and customs. I can't see a reason why this isn't true, and it shows a more nuanced picture of how simply putting two groups together doesn't necessarily cure racism without some more beneficial conditions.
Something that I've been thinking about for a long time that Mounk endorses is that citizens of different racial groups in one country need to share a common identity and an inclusive patriotism. Whereas nationalism is believing your country is better because you hate all the other countries, patriotism is the healthy belief that your country is better because you love your home. This means that we should not have government programs that are so race-conscious, and instead focus on class consciousness. Race-conscious policies create absurdities anyway. Like when the Small Business Administration emphasized giving loans to women and minority-owned businesses, a business owned by a black woman would benefit ... unless that black woman was married to a white man who owned a 50% stake in the company. Then, in theory she would not be as favored as if she were single. It would have prioritized money for Asian-owned businesses even when Asians generally out-earn whites. But the program was struck down.
Relations between groups should be governed by empathy, celebration of sharing rather than condemnation of "appropriation," and ultimately a focus on things other than racial and religious differences. Mounk cites interesting studies about how emphasizing demographic changes and racial differences poisons public discourse. Northwestern University professors Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Robinson read two texts to experiment participants: on described America's current racial makeup and the other described projections of the future majority minority makeup of the country. Those who read about the majority minority change were much more likely afterward to say it would bother them if their child married someone from a different ethnic background and had more negative feelings toward racial minorities. This certainly makes me think of the negative effects of Democratic Party leaders believing that "demography is destiny." In another study, UK political scientists Robert Ford and Anoulk Koostra asked a randomly selected group of white Britons to what extent they felt it was the government's duty to reduce wealth/income inequalities. Many respondents were enthusiastic. But they were not nearly as enthusiastic about reducing racial inequalities. The same trend followed when discussing university scholarships. Ironically, in a lot of political messaging today, I see class issues turned into racial issues, which makes solving them less popular. It would actually be more effective to turn racial issues into class issues because to some extent, everyone can imagine what it would be like to be poor, but no one imagines that they will switch races. This is born out in a Yale study that Mounk mentions (but doesn't say who the authors are), in which scientists asked American respondents their opinions on the minimum wage, cancellation of student loan debt, or more permissive zoning laws. When presented in a race-neutral way, most respondents supported the policies. But when presented with "racial justice framing," support decreased dramatically not just among whites, but among all racial and ethnic groups (although more moderately among black people).
In the last chapter of the book, Mounk proposes many solutions to our problems, but I'm not going to get into them here. Just know they are common sense ideas, and I suppose that means they will never come to pass.
Miscellaneous:
- Mounk envisions a country that is not a salad or a melting pot but a public park: open to everyone, with options for everyone, that creates a vibrant space for positive encounters between individuals and groups to get to know each other. I think that is a really good metaphor for what our country should be.
- Apparently the House of Representatives has something called the "Hastert Rule," an informal rule by which the Speaker of the House will not bring bills up for debate unless supported by a majority of his or her own members, which means many proposals that are popular with the majority of members overall don't get brought up since they're not popular with the majority of the majority party, which could be a minority.
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