Is "The Great Experiment" in Peril? Will Diversity Be Its Downfall?
Today's political discourse is riven with concern about the fate of liberal democracy in Western nations. In this context, Yascha Mounk's book investigates the challenges of diversity.
If the great experiment [liberal democracy] is to be truly successful, it must offer a realistic account of human nature and be honest about the injustices of the past. But it must also be unapologetically sanguine about the possibility that members of different groups can pull together to build fair and thriving democracies whose members share a sense of common purpose.
The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure by Yascha Mounk is a brief argument for maintaining and strengthening the system of liberal democracy in increasingly diverse (in ethnic, religious, and ideological dimensions) Western countries, especially the United States. Mounk's book has a tripartite structure. First, he describes the challenges that face diverse societies then responds to the questions that these challenges provoke. Finally, he concludes with some reasons for optimism and policy prescriptions. Mounk's writing is accessible though maybe too simplistic. Nonetheless, he succinctly provides a traditional center-left position on liberal governance with some idiosyncratic heterodoxies mixed in. These philosophical divergences include Mounk's foundational view of human nature, which is admittedly Hobbesian, his acknowledgement of the stickiness of identitarian/tribal psychology, and his rejection of the "demography is destiny" hypothesis. These idiosyncrasies make the work more interesting because for any reader versed in college-level political philosophy the work will largely feel like well-organized platitudes.
Mounk charges headlong into the controversial question at the center of his book, deflating the progressive piety that “diversity is our strength.” He points out the historical record is actually quite dour about the relationship between diversity and social tranquility - differences tend to drive conflict not harmony and prosperity. And differences tend to materialize even over seemingly trivial things, and there are plenty of real sources of difference. Mounk asserts that humans have an inherent tendency toward “groupishness” or tribalism, outlining the research that has gone into fleshing out this psychological and social tendency. Moreover, he extends the importance of this point by arguing that the group identities that divide us aren’t insignificant. Religion, race, class, and political identity are real differences that can’t be wished away or flippantly dismissed. The default trajectory for diverse democratic societies will be toward fragmentation and conflict. Unlike centralized power structures, liberal democracies have to be creative to manage this challenge, proactively using policy and civic institutions to knit people together across pre-existing divides. Economic growth is of special importance as it reduces the temperature of inter-group conflict because the stakes appear and are less zero-sum.
My favorite part of Mounk’s book is the chapter dedicated to debunking the John Judis and Ruy Teixeira “demography is destiny” hypothesis. This is the idea that as the United States becomes a majority minority country, it will largely become a near one-party state, especially at the federal level, because minority groups tend to vote as a bloc for Democrats. This theory was especially in vogue after the Obama victories in ‘08 and ‘12, but has fallen dramatically out-of-favor since then. So out-of-favor that Judis and Teixeira have recanted and subsequently been somewhat alienated from of progressive politics. Mounk highlights some of the issues flaws in the hypothesis, including the slipperiness of racial identity (many mixed race individuals identify and behave like the historical white majority), the rapid assimilation rates of immigrants, and racial depolarization and the realignment of political constituencies (minorities are splintering and shifting support to Republicans in some regions of the country). If one were to only read one chapter of this book, I suggest this one.
It is admirable that Mounk challenges misleading nostrums and avoids useless moralizing, choosing instead to focus sociologically on the tangible threats to social continuity and prosperity. There are times where his analysis is superficial and limited by his own political perspective, but his approach is decidedly more palatable and accessible to a broader audience than the approach I would prefer. However, I am not sure I can recommend this book unreservedly, especially for readers short on time or not interested in reading on the same topic from different perspectives. I say this because The Great Experiment fits neatly at the replacement-level into the ongoing public discourse concerning the fate of liberalism and the challenge of diversity. In other words, there are a lot of competing options of similar or better quality. It is an incredibly competitive publishing space with many provocative and erudite options: Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Works by Deidre McCloskey, Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg, The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson, Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama, etc. Relative to the works just listed, this book benefits from being designed for a broader (more popular) audience. Don't let the long bibliography and notes section convince you otherwise. Generally, these notes do also serve as a satisfactory reference for digging deeper into the issues Mounk raises, which I would recommend to any curious readers.
Despite the clarity and accessibility, The Great Experiment suffers a bit from an uneven tone and unnecessary passages that try to add personal color, such as Mounk’s anecdotes about attending soccer matches. These weaknesses detract from the gravity of work and make some of the claims seem irresolute, ambivalent, or thoughtlessly optimistic. This with the fact that much of the work contains predictably center-left liberal arguments or recycles the works of others, underscores that this work could probably be boiled down to a long-form essay. But of course, the economic incentives militate against that route. I can’t blame Mounk for wanting to be read. Though keep in mind, near clones of Mounk's perspective are easy to access across numerous platforms, including his own, Persuasion.
There are of course some silly policy prescriptions in the book. I don’t hold this against it as this is a common feature of books like The Great Experiment. So common in fact, that Mounk himself acknowledges it, embarking on a brief meta-commentary about this issue and coining the phrase “The Chapter 10 Problem,” which is quickly entering the cognoscenti’s vernacular. It’s unfortunate that editors can’t be dissuaded from ditching the need for initiatives and prescriptions in sociopolitical works. Sometimes defining the problems and describing phenomena is enough. I have other political, philosophical, and descriptive quibbles with Mounk’s book, but these aren't things that should get in the way of reading and enjoying it so they’re not worth noting. Ultimately, The Great Experiment makes for a decent read, especially for a high school or college level student with little prior background in political philosophy, but anyone with a general interests in civics will find some interesting passages here too. Mounk, himself a left-of-center commentator, deserves credit for having the courage to acknowledge the challenge of diversity and the limits of the universalist liberal worldview.
Interviews with Yascha Mounk: