This intellectual malady is named after Pauline Kael, for over 20 years the film critic of the New Yorker magazine. In 1972, after Richard Nixon swept to reelection in one of the biggest landslides in American history, she reportedly (though perhaps apocryphally) said:
“How can he have won? Nobody I know voted for him.”
Over the years, the syndrome has mainly been used by conservatives to describe what they believe to be liberal tunnel vision. But Kael’s fundamental error — to mistake the views of our own social group for that of American society at large — can be found on the left and the right. Many conservatives do not merely believe that the views of liberals on, for instance, the importance of universal health care to be wrong; they find such views to be, quite literally, incomprehensible. Many liberals feel the same way about conservative attitudes toward, for instance, the imperative of lower tax rates. Confronting an opinion with which we disagree, our first question all-too-often is not “How can you be so wrong?” or even “When did you get so stupid?” but “What planet are you from?”
The truth is that our individual social groups diverge — perhaps substantially — from a cross section of the American population. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, it is hard to see how we can avoid it. We cannot arrange our lives to meet a theoretical demographic distribution. Imagine the domestic consequences if we did:
“How’s that guest list for Friday night coming, dear?”
“Pretty well. But we’re still short a First Amendment absolutist.”
We humans are highly social animals that spend much of our time with those who share our interests and values. Academics dine with other academics; business executives dine with other business executives. Religious and secular people alike hang out with others of their persuasion. And, needless to say, you don’t often find sales clerks partying with trust-fund babies.
Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that we give up our strongest convictions and most deeply-held values. There is nothing duller and more dispiriting than an individual who possesses neither. Nor am I proposing that we forgo opportunities for a frank exchange of opinion with those who disagree with us. There is nothing quite as invigorating as a good argument — and the more passionate, the better. (Full disclosure: I come from a long line of loud, opinionated people.) But we should always remember that it is the worst sort of vanity to assume that everyone does or should think as we do. And we should be even more careful of letting political or ideological differences stop us from making and keeping friends. Life is too short and friendship too precious for us to do so.
My advice to conservatives and liberals alike: do your best to avoid the Pauline Kael Syndrome.
Oh, and try to get out a little more.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.