Who is the cause of society’s polarization? All of us.
James Cartmill, of Veterans for Peace, holds an
American flag upside down, to indicate distress during a Nov. 24
demonstration in Oakland, Calif., following a decision by a Missouri
grand jury not to indict a white Ferguson police officer in the Aug. 9
fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis
suburb. (CNS photo/Elijah Nouvelage, Reuters)
I
am writing this from Saint Louis University, where I am taking part in a
lecture series celebrating the 200th anniversary of this great
institution. My topic is Pope Francis, U.S. politics and polarization, a
subject I am often called upon to discuss. I think in five years I have
taken part in at least a dozen panels, all of which were asking, “What
are the causes of polarization?”
Yet in contemporary politics, the question is not “What is the cause of polarization?” The question is “Who is the cause of polarization?” And the answer is: You are. You are the cause of polarization. And I am. Together, we are the causes of polarization. Unless we are willing to admit that, then the situation will only get worse. For polarization is not something that is happening to us but something we are causing. And the temptation to think that you or I are not complicit in it and that the fault lies entirely with someone else is actually what polarization is.
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Yet in contemporary politics, the question is not “What is the cause of polarization?” The question is “Who is the cause of polarization?” And the answer is: You are. You are the cause of polarization. And I am. Together, we are the causes of polarization. Unless we are willing to admit that, then the situation will only get worse. For polarization is not something that is happening to us but something we are causing. And the temptation to think that you or I are not complicit in it and that the fault lies entirely with someone else is actually what polarization is.
Read more
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