We shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred

From Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

I am afraid that is something of the dynamic we are experiencing right now. 80-90% of Americans live perfectly satisfied lives in their communities and among one another, rich and poor, old and young, black and white, male and female. At the margin, there are policy issues, differences of opinion and differences in manners. But most people politely ignore the marginal issues and look for their common ground. At least, that's what I see and what some of the data supports.

At the far margins though, those at polar opposites of the ideological spectrum, the 10-20% who are emotionally impassioned believers, the effort is not to find common ground, extend goodwill or seek common respect. For the 10-20% who are emotionally impassioned, the desire is to draw lines, build walls, exclude, ostracize, tribalize, divide. I don't need to listen to you because you are a fellow citizen with a range of experiences, wealth of knowledge, and opinions. I don't need to listen to you because we diverge on one critical issue and on that basis, I am empowered to castigate, exclude, destroy. That is what seems to be the shared norm at the far extreme of both ends of the spectrum.

What is different now is not that the extremes differ from one another or from the great center. That has always been true. I hypothesize that what feels different now is due to one extreme now being dominant in a few key sectors. If academia, entertainment, media were all dominated by people with views of the center, I speculate that there would little sense of apocalyptic times. Instead, academia, entertainment and media are all substantially dominated by some of the most extreme voices of one end of the spectrum. It rubs the great center the wrong way and panics the convinced percentage on the other end of the spectrum that the end-times are on us and every routine, normal election cycle, represents a potential extinction event.

Fortunately, human systems tend to be self-correcting and these apocalyptic visions will pass. Regrettably the self-correcting mechanisms may grind fine but they grind slow.