For almost 250 years, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has been a widely used resource for defining, interpreting, and properly using written and spoken words in our society.
In 1996, Merriam-Webster introduced Merriam-Webster Online, a subscription-based website with unlimited access to the complete text of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.
This online dictionary has 470,000 words and regularly logs 100 million pageviews monthly.
In doing so, it has become especially useful for those who follow American thinking and voting behavior.
Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, has noted, “We’ve had dictionaries of English for 420 years, and it’s only been in the last 20 years or so that we’ve actually known which words people look up.”
In other words, now we can track, analyze, and prioritize the words of greatest interest to Americans and the words of their greatest concern.
Since 2020, the Merriam Webster website word tracking has shown the most frequently researched words in recent years were authentic, gaslighting, vaccine, and pandemic.
As 2024 winds down, the number one word for this year is … polarization.
As Merriam-Webster editor Sokolowski observes, polarization always means division, but it is an extremely specific kind of division. It can and does extend beyond politics. For example, polarization can occur with opinions about music styles, tech trends, food, and sports teams.
I agree that polarization occurs in countless areas of life beyond politics, but the impact on our society in those other areas are trivial when compared to polarization in the political arena.
Well before the 2024 presidential election was held, American voters had strongly held opinions that each of the candidates from both major political parties were flawed and even an existential threat to democracy.
An Associated Press (AP) Vote Cast survey of more than 120,000 voters showed that about eighty percent of Kamala Harris supporters were very or somewhat concerned that Donald Trump’s positions on current and emerging public policy issues were too extreme.
The survey results also showed that about seventy percent of Donald Trump voters were very or somewhat concerned that Kamala Harris’ positions on current and emerging public policy issues were too extreme.
So far, the election results have done little to change those strongly held opinions.
I suggest the election results have generated even more political polarization.
With that in mind, and consistent with their mission, Chesapeake Forum, an Easton based not- for- profit academy for lifelong learning recently hosted a program to provide attendees more information about this timely and important topic.
Attendees learned about and discussed research done by Harvard professor Robert Putnam. That research led to Putnam’s essay — Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital followed his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
As a program attendee, I found this program to be most enlightening but also somewhat depressing.
The good news is we also learned about a more positive book by Putnam – Better Together.
Better Together has been and continues to be a catalyst for the launch of initiatives in large and small communities across America. All share a common goal of developing and executing programs to help restore social capital, increase civil discourse, and reduce political polarization in our society.
One reviewer of both books on Amazon’s website wrote – “Bowling Alone made people think, Better Together will make them act.”
Chesapeake Forum has done both by continuing the synergy of their fall program with regular get togethers. The goals are to encourage more people in our community to think about the negative impact polarization has on our community as well as finding ways to help increase activities that rebuild social capital, increase civil discourse, and reduce political polarization.
There is no shortage of ideas that have worked well elsewhere. That said, the Eastern Shore has a unique history and culture. Accordingly, some ideas from other places may work well here, some may not work at all here, and some will work well here but only with changes.
The most important key to success going forward is involvement by a wide range of community leaders and citizens to collaborate on the evaluation of the most viable strategies to rebuild social capital, increase civil discourse and political polarization reduction strategies in our area.
The adage is true that people will be most likely to support change efforts if they have an opportunity to be involved in the development and implementation of those strategies.
More details on such opportunities will be available beginning early next year.
Starting right now, YOU can be involved in this endeavor by going to Chesapeake Forum‘s website — chesapeakeforum.org, clicking on the contact us tab at the top of the page and then complete leaving a message with your contact information so they can keep you informed.
All questions, comments, and suggestions are also welcomed and appreciated.
David Reel is a public affairs and public relations consultant in Easton.
Reed Fawell3 says
Lighten up, we’re going to be fine. The age of authorization is over and from here on out, we will increasingly find ourselves in a golden age, at least for the next four years.
Deirdre LaMotte says
The grotesque wealth concentration we have — and which will worsen with Trump. How many are in his proposed Cabinet? The 12 richest Americans recently surpassed $2 trillion in wealth. Yes, 12 people. So we’re a society now of a handful oligarchs and millions of serfs. We’re in darkness.
Biden has been “the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history,” protecting pensions, defending unions, creating good jobs, and unapologetically wielding the power of the presidency on behalf of working people. And yet millions of the beneficiaries of his actions voted against him — and thus themselves. Ignorance has no bounds.
So I am assuming your “golden age” is to ensure your
fabulous wealth is not taxed. Charming.
Oh, and as Plato predicted, Tyranny follows democracy. How pleased the GOP must be. Poor deluded people….
Reed Fawell 3 says
Plato is right. You are wrong to quote him here as regards America. It’s a republic. Nor is America a “nation of serfs” as you claim. But yes, “Ignorance has no bounds,” including as regards serfs in Russia. In plain fact America’s middle and lower middle classes are in revolt against the policies of their government over the last four years as evidenced by results of last election.
Reed Fawell 3 says
The age of polarization is over. So lighten up. We are entering a golden age.
Kent Robertson says
Thank you, David.
I long for the days when people LISTENED to each other, presented their own arguments in a rational way, without personal attacks and vitriole. When we could discuss concerns we all shared and still be friendly, or at least civil with each other. As soon as someone feels he/she or his/her ideas attacked, all real communication stops. Defensiveness and revenge rule the day.
When we listened and acknowledged the opposing views, and our “opponents” did likewise, we found common ground and came up with solutions everyone could live with.
One problem is the polarization of the Press, and the different sets of “facts” we come to believe if we only expose ourselves to one side of any story. People want validation, and all too often we look for affirmation instead of information.
I would love to see a series of debates on each the salient issues of the day, with panels of experts on both sides presenting their views, answering questions, and encouraging lively but civil debate aimed at finding solutions we all can live with.
In the end, we all want the same things: good schools, good economy, safe environment, personal freedom, etc.
Let’s not forget that.
Reed Fawell 3 says
Kent’s comment is an excellent one. It is often said that to argue well and truly one’s position, one must fully comprehend and appreciate the positions held by one’s opponents, and why. A corollary to that point of wisdom is that one must hold in one head all sides of an argument, however contrary each side may seemed to the other sides. Only then do we truly know what we are talking about, and what are the truths of the matter, or get a close as humanly possible to those truths within the matter.
We have just now passed through the crux of a period of mass hysteria, rightly deemed as unduly ruled by the temporary insanity of mobs. Here, in this particular instance, we dodged a bullet as the most recent federal election to date has worked wonders, a great antidote to the temporary insanity of the various hubs of the elites’ grasp on political power. Because that grasp as so often happens, was corrupt, the transfer of power now should pop a bubble, returning us to some semblance of normality, and renewal, given the obvious fact that America remains a great and irreplaceable nation in today’s world, as it has been so often in the past since its founding.
Reed Fawell 3 says
For support of these views, see two just published articles in today’s (Dec. 18th) Wall Street Journal.
Healthcare Stupefies the U.S. by Holman Jenkins Jr.: AS regards questions PBS interviewer refused to ask:
“Americans in the highest tax bracket essentially shift 50% of the cost of their medical consumption to fellow taxpayers. Doesn’t this contribute to inefficient spending?”
“In the U.K., the government both decides what care is “needed” and pays for it. Yet six million patients have been waiting an average of 14 weeks for “needed” care. Some 234,900 have been waiting a year, and 34,000 at least two years. Why do you say this approach is the solution?”
“Host Joy Reid recently described a Russian government-controlled propaganda show as the equivalent of CBS’s “60 Minutes” because it mocked Trump appointees in the same terms MSNBC wished to mock them. It fell to her guest, former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, to try to put the segment back on the rails by saying that while it may be useful to criticize Trump appointees, it’s unwise to treat Putin propaganda as an objective source.”
“Last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a survey finding a decline over 12 years in adult-population functional intelligence in most of its 31 surveyed members, including in the U.S. You can always question such comparisons. But the 12 year period coincided with the rise of social media. It coincided with the turn of traditional media toward the immature, polarized and neurotic emotional response known to psychologists as splitting, or black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking. How does a citizen go about honing his grasp of the
world’s complexities, ambiguities and contradictions except through consumption of media? It seems entirely plausible, then, if our journalism is stupider, it will soon be evident that the public is also becoming stupider.
AND also see Higher Education Is in Trouble by William A. Galston:
Higher education in the U.S. faces a crisis: Its credibility is under attack. The public is increasingly skeptical of university trained experts and the test-score-based meritocracy that dominates America’s upper middle class.
In a mass democracy, the public accepts elite privilege only when it benefits average citizens. But the 21st century has brought a litany of elite failures: inaccurate intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, regulatory failures that permitted the Great Recession, mismanage-
ment of the pandemic leading to unnecessary deaths and devastating losses for small businesses and students, and the worst inflation since the early 1980s. It’s no wonder much of the public rejects elitism. In retrospect, the populist revolt was inevitable. …”