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Us vs Them? It Doesn’t Have to Be.
It’s no secret that we have and are becoming a more divided people by the day. With every societal challenge and looming crises, we seem to construct more walls than bridges between us.
Republicans versus democrats, conservatives versus liberals, black versus white, rednecks versus the elite, rich vs poor, Ford versus Chevy, Trump versus, well, everyone else :-), We have forgotten the basic rules of kindergarten which is to be nice to others, share and don’t hit.
So how and why did we get here and what can we do about it?
Politicians, expert sources, mainstream media, not-so-mainstream media have become trumpeters of their, biased at the very least or extreme and harmful ideologies at worst, agendas. We back our side and become parroters of whatever they feed us and we happily consume. Social media has then become an arena akin to back alley dog fights. The only objective seems to be winning at all costs and damn the consequences. We often don’t see the fallout of our words as we lob our fiery darts across our keyboards into the hearts of “them”. The social media universe can be cold and faceless. It’s easy to attack your perceived enemy when they aren’t in front of you. It’s much more difficult to hate on someone and tell them to go hell when they’re across the table from one another.
