The Big Sort is the way people divide themselves in order to find similar opinions. We move to neighborhoods where the people are like us, or go to church with people who believe that exact same things we do. This is reflected in politics too, we vote for the people who say the things we want to hear, regardless of their political views. One thing I’ve noticed in Durango is that most of the families I know who own ranches or farms outside of Durango have Republican views. In fact, now that I think about it, I think most of the people who live far out of town seem to have views more on the Republican side. Animas is mostly liberal kids and liberal viewpoints, which is why a lot of Republican families are hesitant about sending their kids here, and why lots of liberal and democrat kids attend. My friend group is a little mixed because everyone is different extremes and has different viewpoints. I’ve noticed my parents really only interact with people who have similar views to themselves, and will actually make fun of people who have different political views (not my Mom).
This conversation about the Big Sort has reminded me of my sophomore Op-ed, which I wrote about the filter bubbles of the internet. The internet has created custom algorithms for each individual that presents certain sources and not others. Two people googling the exact same thing would get totally different lists of sources, and one person might not even be able to find the other sources. This means that it’s really hard to get a balanced diet of information when so many things are working against us. If democratically inclined citizens are only receiving positive democratic news and negative republican news (in other words what they probably want to hear) then we can’t be making well-rounded and informed choices. For a democracy to truly function smoothly the voting citizens need to learn about both sides in an unbiased way so they can make choices based on political views and actions, rather than based on prejudices against the other party.
This conversation about the Big Sort has reminded me of my sophomore Op-ed, which I wrote about the filter bubbles of the internet. The internet has created custom algorithms for each individual that presents certain sources and not others. Two people googling the exact same thing would get totally different lists of sources, and one person might not even be able to find the other sources. This means that it’s really hard to get a balanced diet of information when so many things are working against us. If democratically inclined citizens are only receiving positive democratic news and negative republican news (in other words what they probably want to hear) then we can’t be making well-rounded and informed choices. For a democracy to truly function smoothly the voting citizens need to learn about both sides in an unbiased way so they can make choices based on political views and actions, rather than based on prejudices against the other party.