Americans think that they are more conservative than in the past, but in fact they have become more liberal in the last 8 years according to this
article in the Economist and the YouGov poll on which it is based. (full results available at the Economist)
The evidence in this article leads to a theory: people think they are getting more conservative but reply to issues with ever more liberal positions.
They give liberal answers to policy issues, but think they are not "liberal".
I can explain that.
First, people don't vote for policy issues. I might want to say this 10 or 50 more times because it's important. People don't vote for policy issues. People don't vote based on policy. Policy is not the thing on which people vote. Voting, policies on, people not, are going to do.
This up in only the latest I've seen in a series of such results. Even conventional wisdom has always held that the bigger the voter turnout, the more Democratic the vote. Polls routinely show that people have liberal positions if you try to measure the policy positions directly. It is widely believed that our conservative nation is really a liberal one. Various reasons are given, including political engagement, but this analysis begins to show alternate explanations.
People vote their identity, they vote for the ideas that are supposed to generate policies. If the actual policies don't match up... one, people don't really notice... policy is wonk stuff, they want to judge the ideas. And two, if they notice, there are a lot of reasons to give slack... maybe it's the liberal's fault, maybe they are just simple mistakes made while trying to create good policy... who do you trust to try again and get is better, those you disagree with or those whose ideas you think you share?
What we need is mythology. The kind of mythology you can write yourself. This is because mythology as I'm talking about it consists of great thematic paintings, and is the source of ideas just as ideas are the source of policy.
Tell stories, simplify, use themes, use broad terms of history, where are we now, where have we been, tell stories that are guesses about how things will change. Define the heroes, warriors? Artists? Philosophers? The Hard Working Woman?
PS: Eddie Izzard's contribution to our mythos according to me is part two of this idea, which I submitted earlier today. (note: please don't recommend that diary as right now only Maryscott has recommended it... and that is a special status I'd prefer not be disturbed). It's mostly Izzard quotes on World History and mass murdering fuckheads.
PPS: If you think mythology is the opposite of truth, I think you don't understand mythology. It's about broad stories which are true in the underlying themes they present. And btw, science has it's own mythology.