People dividing themselves into two groups

Has there ever been a democratic society (i.e. not on the path to dictatorship) that did not find some way to divide itself into two big groups?

Of course, the "two groups" may be split 60/40 or even 70/30, but things seldom get to the point of 80/20 (in fact I'd like to know about any such cases in history that did not lead to fascism).

I don't know, but just remember that there are 10 types of people in life. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Ba-dum-tsh.

Is it possible that the reason people usually find themselves divided into two major groups is that democratic voting usually doesn't allow for shades of gray? I mean, it usually comes down to a yes or no, so a lot of people will find themselves bundled into a group based on that.

I'll be honest, I have no idea. My knowledge of politics is sketchy.

edited 7th May '11 1:19:45 AM by DanEile

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

And C programmers, who start counting from 0.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Or more likely, it's "do you think X is a good idea?" but that's more First Past The Post.

Fight smart, not fair.

Before the electoral reforms Italian politics was subdivided in three (or five, depending on how you count them) groups:

• A "centrist" group, with a big main party (with lots and lots and lots of internal currents) and a number of smaller, allied parties;
• A "right" group, which was split between fascism sympathizers and saner conservative groups;*
  ^{These two subgroups did not get along very much, of course...}
• A "left" group, containing the Communist party, the Socialist party and a number of smaller ones.

What usually happened was that the centrists group won and formed a coalition with relatively "centrism-friendly" groups on the left or on the right depending on how the election had gone. Then the government's policy was decided as a compromise between the interests of all participants to the coalition. People grumbled a lot, of course, but things tended to get done and — as far as I remember — most decisions were relatively sane.

Our current election system, instead, was designed with the stated idea to encourage a "winner takes all" mentality and the formation of only two main parties. I am not a fan of the idea, myself — not only this encourages hostility between citizens with different political beliefs, but now we have two main parties which seem both more interested in messing with their "opponent" than in doing the stuff that they believe it would be good to do.

edited 7th May '11 2:09:36 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Because the two group mentality fits perfectly with our concepts of "good" and "evil", where you are good, and your opponents are instantly evil. Put in a third option and the narrative falls apart because now ambiguity, insecurity, and indecisiveness will come into play like Belle Époque Europe.

It's one or the other. It gets rid of decision making through arbitrary means. And that provides people safety in knowing that their choice is ALWAYS the good choice.

The good guys always win because everybody believes themselves to be on the good side.

The binary thinking is one of the worst mistakes people make. It makes us forget about how many opportunities we have. Sometimes we need to Take the Third Option - or the foruth, or the fifth one. I think individualism is the way - people should know themselves, improve themselves and be themselves. If we think of ourselves only as members of certain groups, we'll loose our identity and just follow the leaders (or the society). Unfortunatelly, it requires courage and, you know, having a brain. Most of people have none of them.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

It's because in a democratic system you need a majority to pass a vote. With 3 or more parties, nothing will get done unless two of them join together, bringing it back to a 2 party system. For example, in the US there are serious divisions between the "Liberal" and "Blue Dog" Democrats and between the "GOP" and "Tea Party" Republicans, but neither will split over them because both know that they couldn't get anything done that way.

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Because you always have friends and enemies.

Most of them. The "Reps vs. Dems" dichotomy is a wholly American institution.

But in most Western democracies there is a "left"/"right" divide, no matter how many parties are actually involved. This dichotomy is not as rigid as the American two party system and is broken up sometimes (especially in the smaller administrative units: provinces, states, municipalities etc), but in general there are those two camps opposing each other.

Love truth, but pardon error. - Voltaire

Democracy is more likely to self-immolate after only a couple hundred years. America needs a monarchy, and not a figurehead like the english.

@Alpha Tucanae: Italy is not a good example of a leathy democracy.

I feel that Canada isn't too dvided at all, evidenced by the recent election: there were people who moved from the Conservative part to the NDP, a pretty left wing party bordering on socialist.

edited 8th May '11 1:29:53 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

^^ We've found another one! (Gotta wonder where you were when everyone was ganging up on him, though . . .)

By definition, when humans divide, they must divide into two or more groups. "Division" is meaningless if you have a single, solid mass. My impression is that the majority of posters in this forum like the idea of maintaining cultural uniqueness, so the more relevant issue might be how to keep disparate cultures from fighting over those differences.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

"Has there ever been a democratic society (i.e. not on the path to dictatorship) that did not find some way to divide itself into two big groups?"

Canada. There are several parties of importance. The big two (federally) are Conservative and Liberal, but there's also the NDP (who are strongest in the Western provinces) and the Bloc Quebecois (a Quebec-only party). All four typically influence politics. And in the current election, it looks like NDP will be the official opposition (2nd most popular party, which has some decision-making power).

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Switzerland has like 5-6 major parties which all have relatively stable support.

"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."

@Erock (assuming that you mean me):

I think that this is a little too harsh, to say the least. My country has some problems, obviously. Serious ones, too, although it seems to me — and I have lived in Northern Europe for quite a few years now — that the other Western countries I have visited have, overall, comparable amounts of different issues.

But it is certainly fully democratic. Sorry if I sound harsh too, but do you know anything about Italy except what you may have gleaned through a handful of random newspaper articles?

In any case, the situation I was describing is not even the current one, as I said. I just gave it as an example of a democratic society in which the political scene was not divided in two main groups, but rather in three (or five) ones.

edited 8th May '11 11:46:01 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.