The Emotional Decay of Liberalism: Trust, Polarization, and Affective Looping

Liberal political order relies on high social trust. Trust is crucial in societies with diverse religious and moral perspectives, and diversity characterizes liberal order. Tribalism pushes us to socialize with people with familiar beliefs but social trust helps us cooperate with strangers with strange ideas. With too much diversity, however, the perspectives of others can become incomprehensible. We cannot see how good faith reasoners arrive at conclusions at such variance from our own. Excessive viewpoint polarization imperils social trust. And so, it can jeopardize the liberal order that social trust makes possible. This essay outlines a social-emotional but rational process by which liberalism can collapse. Collapse arises from reinforcing processes of falling trust and rising viewpoint polarization. Karen Jones calls this process affective looping. Distrusting others leads us to interpret their behavior as untrustworthy. And this leads to further distrust and polarization – the basis for trust declines, and liberal order with it. The piece begins with an overview of the ideas of social and political trust. I then examine different forms of polarization. I then distinguish between affective and cognitive polarization. I argue that trust has related components, and these components interact. We judge whether others are trustworthy, but when we lack information, we fall back on heuristics. We then consult our emotional responses to others. Liberalism is vulnerable to emotional decay owing to challenges in reconciling diverse perspectives.