The demise of the familiar, but not intimate, relationship?

[August]

A very interesting article from the Washington Post about the possible reasons behind the polarization of America.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ook-next-door/

If we want to understand why the nation has become so polarized, we need to examine what's happened to the social ties that shape the way we each understand the world. The spirit of compromise that so many Americans long to reclaim was grounded in an everyday sense of mutual understanding. But the element of American community life that de Tocqueville identified as the cornerstone of compromise — the way in which power flowed from the bottom up rather than the top down — has more recently come undone.