> The polity was fractured like this before TV and radio.
But it wasn't felt.
Before TV and radio, the main method of communication was print and conversation, so that a random person picked out of a population might come in contact with only a few political or cultural opinions in a given day. This continued into the age of TV and radio because only a few such opinions were permitted by those controlling the broadcasts.
Now that people might easily come into conflict culturally or politically hundreds of times a day, the real diversity of opinion across a large population is apparent to a given member of that population, in a way that it wasn't before, even if we assume that the differences were really there.
That constant conflict is a few clicks away at any moment leads many people to internalize that they are constantly fighting for their ability to hold their political beliefs and perform their culture, and/or to shut out most large differences to the extent they can, while conforming themselves to minor differences.
The only people who experienced this kind of constant churn in the past were travelers, and mostly only while traveling. We are all travelers now.
You can have all those with just two sides. The difference now is that the attempt to corral all views into two main camps is breaking down, revealing the chaos of the actual landscape of opinions.
But it wasn't felt.
Before TV and radio, the main method of communication was print and conversation, so that a random person picked out of a population might come in contact with only a few political or cultural opinions in a given day. This continued into the age of TV and radio because only a few such opinions were permitted by those controlling the broadcasts.
Now that people might easily come into conflict culturally or politically hundreds of times a day, the real diversity of opinion across a large population is apparent to a given member of that population, in a way that it wasn't before, even if we assume that the differences were really there.
That constant conflict is a few clicks away at any moment leads many people to internalize that they are constantly fighting for their ability to hold their political beliefs and perform their culture, and/or to shut out most large differences to the extent they can, while conforming themselves to minor differences.
The only people who experienced this kind of constant churn in the past were travelers, and mostly only while traveling. We are all travelers now.