Jeffrey Frankel/Project Syndicate.
CAMBRIDGE – The political fallout from Mitt Romney’s characterization of
47% of the American electorate as “victims” who are “dependent on
government” and refuse to take “personal responsibility” for their lives
demonstrates anew that cultural generalizations, particularly in
politics, are usually dangerous. In fact, Romney appears to have
categorized a large segment of his party’s own voters as supporters of
President Barack Obama.
As a
rule, one should judge people on their merits, not on the supposed
attributes of the racial, socioeconomic, or geographic groups to which
they belong. Yet statistical relationships sometimes are so strong that
it is worth pondering their significance.
In
the United States, a distinction is frequently drawn between citizens
of “red states,” which usually vote for the Republican Party, and those
of “blue states” – concentrated in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and
the Pacific coast – which usually vote for the Democratic Party.
The
unspoken truth is that, compared to “blue-staters,” those who live in
red states exhibit less responsibility, on average, in their personal
behavior: they are less physically fit, less careful in their sexual
behavior, more prone to inflict harm on themselves and others through
smoking and drinking, and more likely to receive federal subsidies.
