Are There Two Americas? (Current Controversies), edited by Caleb Bissinger

This is the kind of book that particularly irritates me, not necessarily because of the fact that it is about controversial subjects, but because the book is itself an example of the fake diversity that leftists pride themselves on that evades true diversity of thought and opinion. To be sure, there are different opinions explored here about the level of division within the United States that was revealed to the left in 2016, but all of them are explored by leftist voices, thus avoiding any sort of thought about what people in the middle or on the right have to think about the divisions within the United States. This avoids a real discussion of what is at stake, because whatever the varying opinions from the writers here, all of them share a basic adherence to leftist worldviews that is bogus and mistaken, thus preventing them from properly observing social trends or offering meaningful and worthwhile solutions to problems because of the fundamental worldview error that all of the voices in the book share. Had the book at least explored the divide between red and blue America while also showcasing the genuine breadth of analysis that exists between the right and left, there might have been at least some chance at coming to a reasonable view of what divides us and what potentially unites us, but the persistent political bias of the voices heard here prevents that from happening. This book manages to simultaneously lament echo chambers while also representing one, and is a major missed opportunity.

This book is around 180 pages and is divided into four chapters that look at different questions and provide various progressive views on those questions, which straddle the range of acceptable disagreement within the leftist camp (ignoring, of course, moderate to right-of-center views). The book begins with a foreword and introduction which promote the need to discuss controversial topics and explore diverse views to better inform critical thinking. After that the book explores four aspects of divided contemporary America. First, a variety of authors discuss the extent to which historical and geographical factors sowed the seeds for a divided contemporary America, with most agreeing and a couple of people claiming that more unites us than divides us. Second, authors discuss the extent to which popular culture has the power to unite Americans, which strangely and superficially focuses on baseball (in particular Jackie Robinson) and the mass culture of television and movies. Third, authors discuss whether national tragedies bring the country together or not, which again falters because it largely focuses on poor statistical reasoning regarding criminal justice as well as the largely forgotten Orlando massacre with its LGBTQ+ virtue signaling. Fourth, various leftist voices discuss whether or not the 2016 election damaged America beyond repair, again failing to come to any worthwhile insight because they approach it from the wrong view. The book then concludes with various leftist organizations one can contact, a bibliography, and an index.

Although the entire book is pretty much a failure as far as dealing with the controversy of the divided America is, most notably because only one side’s voices are represented, all blue voices without exception, there is at least enough difference between the voices that a few relative voices of sanity can be found among the general inanity of what is provided. Those voices which quote “The New Jim Crow” as if it is an authoritative view of justice get low marks, and those who urge on their fellow leftists the thought experiment of trying to see life from the point of view of someone whose views are right-of-center get points for at least trying to see things someone else’s way, which if it is a small step towards coming to reasonable and correct views, is at least a step in the right direction. What is a bigger problem than the individual writers included in this book is the fact that publishers and editors apparently thought that this exercise represented real diversity of opinion, which suggests the sort of echo chamber in which our would-be intellectual elites reside, in that no one apparently thought it necessary to find, gather, and deal with genuinely conservative or traditional voices that might have told them what was really going on and which would have undermined the facile similarities that thinkers have in viewing the supposed unity of Americans on a fondness for leftist-written late night “comedy” shows and a desire for fifteen minutes of fame. But perhaps a genuine look at the stark divisions that exist would have been too depressing, and so we get this ersatz diversity instead.