cultural polarity

“Only the experience of sharing a common human world with others who look at it from different perspectives,” she wrote, “can enable us to see reality in the round and to develop a shared common sense.”

So what if the great aspiration we might begin to hold in and for our distressingly hyper-polarized communities is not to see the conflicts “solved”? What if the calling is to hone our skills — and there are definable, teachable skills — at being present to conflict in a way that is life-giving?

Disadvantaged white people are not erased by discussions of disadvantages facing people of color, just as brain cancer is not erased by talking about breast cancer. They are two different issues with two different treatments, and they require two different conversations.

Every culture falls on the spectrum from tight to loose: from highly structured and normative to loosely held and evolving. When a culture veers too far in one direction, there is often a reaction in the opposite direction.

Podhorzer told me this regional variation is “only surprising to the extent you believe that age explains almost everything about voters’ partisanship. But if you understand that the neighborhood you grew up in, the parents you have, the schools you went to, and the general politics that you are introduced into is a big factor, it shouldn’t be surp