Polarization Quotes

“If riotous protests create rampant polarization, fear may create fear, fear of the others, and fear of oneself. In the end, it might kill healing feels, universal goodwill, and mutual understanding. (“Because the world has corona”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Society is on the road to the paradox of polarization and uniformity.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume III - Beta Your Life: Existence in a Disruptive World

“Information, misinformation, disinformation, and data: We might not know what to call it, but we certainly are drowning in it.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume I - Reframing and Navigating Disruption

“See the system. When you find yourself stuck in an oversimplified polarized conflict, a useful first step is to try to become more aware of the system as a whole: to provide more context to your understanding of the terrain in which the stakeholders are embedded, whether they are disputants, mediators, negotiators, lawyers, or other third parties. This can help you to see the forest and the trees; it is a critical step toward regaining some sense of accuracy, agency, possibility, and control in the situation.”
― Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts

“With the world hyperconnected through smartphones as extensions of our bodies, today it is possible to package, productize, and transmit information instantly at scale to the entire planet.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume I - Reframing and Navigating Disruption

“The issue is not merely one of false stories, incorrect facts, or even election campaigns and spin doctors: the social media algorithms themselves encourage false perceptions of the world. People click on the news they want to hear; Facebook, YouTube, and Google then show them more of whatever it is that they already favor, whether it is a certain brand of soap or a particular form of politics. The algorithms radicalize those who use them too. If you click on perfectly legitimate anti-immigration YouTube sites, for example, these can lead you quickly, in just a few more clicks, to white nationalist sites and then to violent xenophobic sites. Because they have been designed to keep you online, the algorithms also favor emotions, especially anger and fear. And because the sites are addictive, they affect people in ways they don't expect. Anger becomes a habit. Divisiveness becomes normal. Even if social media is not yet the primary news source for all Americans, it already helps shape how politicians and journalists interpret the world and portray it. Polarization has moved from the online world into reality.

The result is a hyper-partisanship that adds to the distrust of "normal" politics, "establishment" politicians, derided "experts," and "mainstream" institutions--including courts, police, civil servants--and no wonder. As polarization increases, the employees of the state are invariably portrayed as having been "captured" by their opponents. It is not an accident that the Law and Justice Party in Poland, the Brexiteers in Britain, and the Trump administration in the United States have launched verbal assaults on civil servants and professional diplomats. It is not an accident that judges and courts are now the object of criticism, scrutiny, and anger in so many other places too. There can be no neutrality in a polarized world because there can be no nonpartisan or apolitical institutions.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“This doesn't mean we can or should return to an analog past: there was a lot that was wrong with the old media world, and there is much that is right about the new: political movements, online forums, and new ideas that wouldn't exist without it. But all these changes--from the fragmentation of the public sphere to the absence of a center ground, from the rise of partisanship to the waning influence of respected neutral institutions--do seem to bother people who have difficulty with complexity and cacophony. Even if we weren't living through a period of rapid demographic change, even if the economy were not in turmoil, even if there were no health crisis, it is still the case that the splintering of the center right and the center left, the rise in some countries of separatist movements, the growth in angry rhetoric, the proliferation of extremist and racist voices that had been marginalized for half a century would persuade a chunk of voters to vote for someone who promises a new and more orderly order.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“The similarities between both of these groups were striking and should be clear to anyone who reads this book. Both groups were and are defined primarily by an unshakable belief in the inhumanity of their enemies on the other side; the Christians seldom distinguished between Islamic terrorism and, say, Al Gore–style environmentalism, while the Truthers easily believed that reporters for the Washington Post, the president, and the front-line operators of NORAD were equally capable of murdering masses of ordinary New York financial-sector employees. Abandoned by the political center, both groups ascribed unblinkingly to a militant, us-against-them worldview, where only their own could be trusted. What made them distinctly American was that, while actually the victims of an obvious, unhidden conspiracy of corrupt political power, they chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary”
― Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire

“No voter wants to believe he doesn’t really matter, so he buys into the idea that there are two substantively different parties frantically competing for his attention, the ideological fate of the country hanging on his decision every few years. It flatters the average citizen to think that way. The reality is that the dominant characteristic of our political system is the unchanging nature of the political consensus—while the two parties agree about most all of the important things, they disagree violently about the inconsequential stuff, providing the fodder and the drama for an endless political “struggle” that plays itself out in entertaining fashion every couple of years.”
― Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire

“The polarities of personality often present as victim and oppressor, the haves and the have nots, rights and wrongs, and other seemingly persistent divisions in our society. These polarities are not the source of this tension, but when we relate with the polarities through a reactionary state of operation, we can easily divide ourselves along those lines. Us and them. The familiar and the other.

When we don't own our own wholeness, when we identity too much with something other than our core worth, we collapse into one pole, as in being with or against others. This othering process is myopic, in that it doesn't take into account that our own wholeness is dependent on reclaiming the alternate pole, the person we think we are not, the "other" within us.

When we are able to relate with each pole from a place of responsiveness, where we stand in recognition of our own innate wholeness, the experience of polarity can be one of expansion, flow, contrast and generative transformation, rather than division.

Once we reckon with the paradox of how the perceived other is both distinct, and a direct reflection of us, then we see ourselves in that mirror. We see everyone and everything as reflecting an aspect of ourself that we get to reclaim.

Those we might have judged become guideposts for our own liberation. Our triggers become welcomed signs that we have rejected something inside us.

The idea that you are either with us or against us is a limiting lens that perpetuates humanity's suffering. The recognition that you are us, that everyone is us, allows our self-love to humanize others into belonging.”
― Gareth Gwyn, You Are Us: How to Build Bridges in a Polarized World

“...political orientations are natural dispositions that have been molded by evolutionary forces. Taken together, those deeply ingrained poitiacl orientations form what could be called "The Universal Political Animal".”
― Avi Tuschman, Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us

“...political orientations are natural dispositions that have been molded by evolutionary forces. Taken together, those deeply ingrained poitical orientations form what could be called "The Universal Political Animal".”
― Avi Tuschman, Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us

“In situations of polarization and heightened anxiety, people tend to regard their own fears as authentic and those of their opponents as manipulated.”
― Christopher Clark, Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849

“War and terrorism not only perpetuate the rift between the two peoples, they polarize sentiment in such a way as to strengthen the determination of each to survive at any cost.”
― Irene L. Gendzier

“A tweak here and there and the video was being viewed by twenty million people worldwide. He surprised even himself by
how easy it was to make people do things by controlling online content.”
― Peter Clifford Nichols

“A “bubble culture” develops whereby corporate types associate with other corporate types in corporate suburbs. The artists flee to their own enclaves. This process culminates in the self-imposed ghetto, a system whereby suburbs are defined and characterised by the people who live there.”
― Joshua Krook, Us vs Them: A Case for Social Empathy

“I can pay one half of the working class, to kill the other half.”
― Jay Gould

“People concerned about worst-case scenarios — like threats to democracy, authoritarian actions, high levels of political violence, or civil war-like scenarios — should want to reduce toxic polarization in America because that's how we’ll make those things less likely.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“Polarization becomes a serious and dangerous problem when many people have very negative views of people on the “other side” — not just disagreeing but hating and fearing them. When high levels of contempt and fear are involved, this is what’s referred to as toxic polarization (and by other names, like psychological polarization, affective polarization, and pernicious polarization). In countries that are toxically polarized, it’s common for people to call their political opponents “horrible” and “evil,” and use other dehumanizing language. High levels of contempt and fear lead to the behaviors that can tear countries apart.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“A simplified way to think of toxic polarization is as a feedback loop of animosity. One group’s animosity creates more animosity in the other group, which in turn creates more animosity in the first group, and so on. As more and more insults and threats are produced, both groups view the other group as more immoral and dangerous, which makes more people speak in contemptuous and insulting ways. As each group’s views of the “other side” get more and more pessimistic, contempt and fear grow.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“Insults and threats are the raw materials of our contempt and fear; they’re what we use to build our stories of the other side’s badness. And as conflict progresses, that can start to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because we see the other side as dehumanizing and threatening us, we in turn can justify dehumanizing them. Some people on both sides start to become the hateful, threatening people the other side imagines they are.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“When talking about polarization, many people will try to assign blame to various groups: “It’s the media,” “It’s politicians trying to get power,” “It’s the political party machines manipulating us,” “It’s the rich trying to divide us,” “It’s the colleges.” And there are valid points to be made about how various organizations and systems and institutions amplify the effects of polarization — but it’s also true that those systems and organizations are made up of people. The same dynamics that can make individual people become polarized can make groups of people and organizations become polarized.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“When liberals confidently arrive at highly pessimistic narratives about what drives conservatives’ behavior, it will arouse conservatives' anger and amplify the toxicity of our divides.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“Human conflict is not like chess, where each side has the same exact pieces and follows the exact same rules. Human groups are messy. Human groups can have very different traits, motivations, and methods of engagement.

Another way to put this is that human groups in conflict are asymmetrical: they don’t match up exactly.

When in conflict, people on both sides will try to compare the groups, often in order to build a case for why “the other side is much worse.” But the asymmetrical aspects of the two groups means that they’ll often be making bad and biased comparisons.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“If you’re someone fighting for fair and just outcomes (however you define that), if you fight in a way that amplifies political animosity, you may end up helping create a world that is less fair and less just. This is why it’s important to pursue one’s political aims in depolarizing, de-escalating, and persuasive ways. And this is entirely possible: You can work toward any political goal while avoiding dehumanizing and insulting your political opponents, and while speaking in persuasive, respectful ways.”
― Zachary Elwood, How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal's Guide to Toxic Polarization

“Within each public issue, the clearest division is between moderates and extremists. As such, the right third parties in a negotiation are moderates. They, more than extremists, are focused on building a better way of life (tomorrow), whereas most extremists are focused on tearing things down as a penalty for yesterday.”
― Stuart Diamond, Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World

“The divisions separating the parties have grown so sharp, and our politics so closely divided, that Congress has become dysfunctional. Along the way, the Supreme Court, an institution designed not to be political, has become our nation's most coveted political football.”
― Maxwell Stearns

“But as the digital revolution has created new forms of communal engagement, it has accelerated a rot within society. Digitalization has decimated local communities, and traditional affiliations have weakened as younger generations have shifted their lives online. Was this a Faustian bargain? We have gotten convenience and efficiency at the cost of losing civic engagement, intimacy, and authenticity. In this we again hear the echo of the poet Oliver Goldsmith: 'Wealth accumulates, and men decay.' Amid such dislocations, people are drawn to fringe online communities--or even reject modernity itself, turning away from liberal democracy, economic growth, and technological progress.”
― Fareed Zakaria

“If we can do a bit better tomorrow, we will be doing much, much better than we have ever done before.”
― Ezra Klein, Why We're Polarized

“As for the killings, they were the usual, meaning they were not to be belaboured, not because they were nothing but because they were enormous, also so numerous that rapidly there became no time for them. Every so often, however, an event would occur so beyond-the-pale that everyone - "this side of the road", "that side of the road", "over the water" and "over the border" - couldn't help but be stopped in their tracks. A renouncer-attrocity would send you reeling with "God o God o God. How can I have a view that helped on this action?" which would be the case until you'd forget, which would happen when the other side went and did one of their awful things. Again this was reeling and spinning. It was revenge and counter-revenge. It was joining peace movements, showing commitment to cross-community discussions, to those all-inclusive marches, to true, good citizenship - until the point it was suspected that these peace movements and goodwill and true, good citizenship were being infiltrated by one faction or the other faction. So then you'd leave the movements, drop hope, abandon potential solutions and drift back to the view that was always familiar, dependable, inevitable.”
― Anna Burns, Milkman