In 1742 the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, “Parties from principle, especially abstract speculative principle, are known only to modern times, and are, perhaps, the most extraordinary and unaccountable phenomenon that has appeared in human affairs.”
Hume's observation is a useful insight into the kinds of division and polarization that characterize the American political landscape today.
Like America's founders after him, Hume was interested in how political factions operate. He observed that factions in the modern era had started behaving in ideological ways. Ideology, or “abstract speculative principle” in his vernacular, had become a powerful force in human associations, fueling the passions in ways that more mundane reasons for forming associations did not.
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