Kumbaya doesn't sell ad space.
But one thing has been clear: a country in which 50 percent of the population flat out hates the other 50 percent is not a country that can move forward with any sort of grace, dignity, and integrity. And that is exactly where the United States of America finds itself right now.
Wilber, Ken. Trump and a Post-Truth World (pp. vii-viii). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
The idea that the US is very polarized and one half of the country hates the other half is a lazy and superficial fake news story that engenders engagement with the media by viewers to generate advertising dollars. This depiction of conflict and animosity has people tsk, tsk, tsking and muttering “Ain’t it awful.
Politics has become entertainment and no longer is a vehicle for people working together to resolve mutual problems. If one digs deeper beneath the name calling and blame game, one finds that Americans agree on policy issues much more than they disagree.
Ken Wilber describes how the current political climate in the US is not the creation of Donald Trump and the MAGA adherents who support him. Rather, Trump and the MAGA phenomenon are the result, not the cause, of what Wilber, and others, call the “post truth” era. The post truth era is the result of postmodern thinking in which one person’s truth is as good as anyone else’s. The only thing that makes a difference in social cohesion is not agreement on truth and values but in power to enforce adherence to the official belief system to garner favors and avoid punishment.
The bumper sticker says, “Telling the truth to power does no good when power has no use for the truth.”
Whether power has any use for the truth, in the long run, is not relevant, because truth will always prevail sooner or later, come hell or high water, one way or the other. Things will all come out alright in the end. We just aren’t at the end yet.
The idea that the US is polarized 50 50 is fake news. Look beneath the service. We have much more that unites us than divides us. Kumbaya, though, doesn’t sell ad space.