Born This Way

The new weird science of hardwired political identity

by Sasha Issenberg for New York magazine

http://nymag.com/news/features/liberals-conservatives-2012-4/

 Writing about a trend in a way of thinking is not colorful. This feature deals with a trend in social science: the focus on biological determinism in our political identity. It’s a challenge and Issenberg did a good job. She writes in a “conversational” tone. Eventhough there is little description and no scene at all, the story is still enjoyable.

 It starts with an anecdote, a 2008 race for senate and how pollsters came up with new ideas on how to campaign, inspired by scientific researchs on political identity. This is a good way to get into the topic. The fourth paragraph is a nut graf. It links this particular anecdote with the growing assumption in science that political identity can be explained by genetics. I thought it was well done, you know where the story is going.

She connects the article to current events. 2012 was a good time to publish this story because it was an election year. The article goes back and forth between scientific research and how it can affect the 2012 campaign and election. You don’t get lost in statistics, she always reminds you of the point of the article with a sentence at the end of a paragraph.

 She quotes a lot of experts, she did a lot of research on different recent scientific publications. She explains the main points of these publications to the reader. She makes it very accessible for someone who is not a scientist. She is very concrete. For example, she describes how a study shows that the decoration of a student’s room shows if he’s a liberal or a conservative. The reader can relate to this.

 It is interesting because she takes this trend, gives a sense to it, makes it accessible for the reader and then raises questions.

 Judging from the comments on the website, I think people did not understand the goal of the article. The point of her article is to show the trend, and ask what kind of impact it has on the campaign and the voters. That doesn’t mean that she thinks biological determinism is the answer for political identity. Actually I think she’s very careful in her word choice.