In the introduction to his book The Many Altars of Modernity, the late religious philosopher Peter Berger noted that one person walking down a few blocks on New York’s emblematic 5th Avenue would pass by more people than his ancestors would have encountered during the entirety of their lifetime. As a consequence, he states, pluralism has become a daily practice of humankind whose majority nowadays lives in cities.

From the antiquities onwards, the city serves as a locus for diversity. However, from Babylon to Gotham, the city is mostly seen in a negative light, as a place of crime and opaqueness. Until this very day, metropolises such as New York, London or Berlin are seen by many as frightening and as a challenge for an alleged cultural and ethnic hegemony, which hold vital consequences for the acceptance and the functioning of democracy.

British journalist and commentator David Goodhart describes a widening gap between those who live in cities and those who don’t in his book The Road to Somewhere. “Somewheres” are in his view people with a traditional mindset, living in the countryside, whereas “anywheres" are those populating the cities. Through their social status, mostly defined through higher education and income, they are seen as unattached to county and nation and therefore in opposition to the somewheres. They are reviled as “globalists” or “liberal elites”. In turn, the somewheres often rebuke cosmopolitanism, a pluralist and inclusive view of the other. “Make America Great Again” is the war cry of this group in the United States. In the Brexit-ridden United Kingdom, a statement by then prime minister Theresa May became emblematic of the confrontation of values regarding pluralism and cosmopolitanism: “If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.” She tried to ridicule the ancient theory of empathy.

In the campaigns leading up to Brexit in June 2016 and the election of Donald Trump in November of the same year, analysts found an increasing rhetoric pertaining to this city-countryside, anywhere-somewhere-divide. To add on this, Stanford politics scientist Francis Fukuyama, said in a speech at a conference we both attended that the common denominator between people who voted for Brexit and for Trump was “population density.” In places with fewer populations, where people were not exposed to pluralism on a daily basis, they voted in favor of the isolationist message, claiming that “hordes” of others were threatening the borders of an otherwise safe community.

In cities however where people are in daily proximity to “the others”, such messages did not catch on. For example, in 2007, a plebiscite in Switzerland aimed to ban minarets of mosques. The initiative was welcomed (and the plebiscite won) in the countryside whereas cities such as Bern and Zürich rebuked the plan. The right-extremist “Alternative for Deutschland” party in Germany is the most popular in regions of the country with the lowest proportion of foreigners.

All this evidence proves Berger’s point, that the exposure to variety (another description for pluralism) can impregnate against racial and cultural prejudices and hate. Pluralism comes in many forms and shapes. In the United States an increasing number of liberal Jews marry non-Jewish spouses, which as a consequence leads to discussion in the community about pastoral counseling in this new situation. The growing acceptance of LGBTQIA+ identities in society has forced religious institutions such as the Catholic Church to rethink its stance on the topic.

The challenge for democracies lies in not succumbing to the populist divisive claim of “us versus them”, countryside versus city. In the US-series 30 Rock, show writer Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and corporate manager Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) cross the country in search for a new cast member for their comedy show TGS. Jack wants to find a new star that reflects what to him is “real America.” Liz counters with “All America is real America.” The writer of 30 Rock (also Tina Fey) makes that dialogue one of the many illuminating scenes in the seven season show.  

However, this “All America is real America” stance should go both ways and make liberals reflect on their understandings about “fly over-America”, meaning all the states that are not coastal and therefore often prejudged and dismissed as religious-extremist, gun-loving backwaters.

Pluralism as reflected in different ways of life in the city and the countryside, in the choices people make for their lives, in the rebuttal of an alleged cultural or ethnic superiority of one group of citizens over the other, is a vital component of today’s democracy. Therefore, any attack of the pluralist fabric of a democratic society needs to be taken very seriously.