Over at Connecticut Local Politics Genghis has posted in interesting discussion about centrists and moderate in response to a piece by Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake. I wrote a comment on CLP, but it turned out to be pretty long, and I thought I’d post it here as well.

While I greatly respect Genghis for running this site and for his efforts to get people to interact across ideological borders, I end up here from a different perspective.

First, I think the quote, “People who are engaged political junkies tend to have strong opinions and they want to interact online with others who are like minded” is pretty accurate. I think it goes beyond left and right. It includes the center and people who might be better described as existing off a simple left-center-right continuum.

It also exists beyond the realm of politics. Sociologists talk about homophily, or the tendency of people to group with other people that are similar. For an interesting take on this, I would encourage you to read An Epidemic of Homophily

In its most virulent form, we see people from close-knit social networks personally attack anyone who criticizes a member of their network. It often feels to me as if that dynamic occurs here too often.

Many people are suggesting the political homophily leads to extremism. It seems to me that this is really just a particular form of the problem with monocultures. For those not acquainted with the problem of monocultures, I would encourage you to think about the Irish potato famine. The Irish potato crop lacked diversity, or hybrid vigor, making it susceptible to being wiped out by a virus. Personally, I think that political discourse that doesn’t promote a diversity of opinions runs into similar dangers.

This was, to me, an important part of I believe both Lamont and Schlesinger’s messages. We need a more vigorous political discourse. We need politicians that will engage in that discourse. I think if people are going to honor the contributions of Ned Lamont (or Alan Schlesinger), it should include being willing and eager to have an open discourse with people of differing opinions.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about bridging social capital and bonding social capital, which Robert Putnam does a great job of describing in his book Bowling Alone. However, this has turned into a much longer comment that it should be, so let me simply sum things up. People do tend to gather with others who are like-minded. It isn’t an issue of left-center-right; it is human nature. However, if we wish to make our country a better place, we need to rise about these simple tendencies and embrace a site like this where left, center and right, ideally, can interact respectfully and learn from one another.