The dangers of the politics of values

Clearly, the US is now deeply divided in electoral terms. An arch of blue (Democratic) states in the east, north, and west spans a huge red (Republican) area in the middle and the south. More than that, the divisions are reproduced at the local level. Gerrymandering—the drawing of electoral boundaries to benefit a particular political party—is no longer necessary. People actually tend to move to areas in which a majority of others share their values, whether Republican or Democratic.

What exactly are these values? They have to do, or so we hear, with ‘‘God, guns, and gays’’. Religion plays a part in them, including the literal truth of the Bible when it comes to the story of creation. The possession of a gun is the ultimate test of individualism, and using guns in wars is not abhorrent. Gays and other ‘‘modern’’ practices are rejected as self-indulgent.

Is all this an American phenomenon, or are there similar trends elsewhere? One answer is that as an American phenomenon, the politics of values may command a majority now, but it is by no means general. Europe and other parts of the world are equally divided. Personality undoubtedly matters, and beneath overt political differences, there may also be issues of values that have not yet come to the fore. But traditional political differences based on disagreement over fundamental values play a diminishing part in elections.

For example, PM Tony Blair, the next major leader to face an election, plays the personality card and talks about policies, but he represents above all, a set of middle-class values. When he speaks of ‘‘modernisation’’ or of ‘‘bringing things into the 21st century’’, he manages to suggest a strange but appealing mixture of change and stability. This has left the Conservative opposition without an effective response. Even questions like tax cuts and stricter asylum rules do not quite hit the value chords that the Republican Party in the US has managed to touch.

The picture is similar in Germany, where the overt influence of value politics is even smaller. The German debate is still largely a policy debate. Yet, underneath the common battlegrounds of political debate in Britain and Germany and elsewhere in Europe, value clashes are lurking. Parties fight for those who can be made ‘‘to feel good about themselves’’, but they may not fully realise that this is only partly a matter of policy.

Religion is not likely to become a major factor in European politics; opinion polls show that religious observance marks one of the few major differences between Americans and Europeans. Guns also have a different place in the European mind; it is their absence that most Europeans regard as important. A pacifist streak of values is also unmistakable in Europe. But the issue of political correctness (‘gays’) plays a so-far underrated part in Europe too.

Most importantly, Europe itself divides Europeans, as the ‘‘national question’’ arises in each European state. It is an issue of values, inspired by fear. People want to know where they belong, and in the process they turn against the US and towards Europe, or against Europe and toward their country.

This, at any rate, is the main risk that democratic countries face, for the politics of values is a dangerous development. It reintroduces fundamental divisions in societies whose greatest democratic achievement was precisely to banish fundamentalism from politics. Enlightened public debate must be a dispute about policies contained by a community of values. Insisting on this is therefore a primary objective of the politics of freedom.

The writer, a former European Commissioner from Germany, is a member of British House of Lords. Project Syndicate