There was once a time, not far too long ago, when friends & acquaintances & even strangers could have discourse on a variety of subjects and they could also pleasantly disagree. We were drawn to each other through our commonalities and our humanity. We enjoyed each others’ company, laughing and grieving and debating, and breaking bread together.

But something has changed in recent years. We all know it. We all feel it. People are more readily being categorized and divided and even discarded by some others based upon variables that do not represent our shared humanity.

People are being judged without any of the benefit of being understood.

Judgement is superficial and riddled with hypocrisies. Relationships of decades can be crushed in a moment over the smallest of things, and perspectives can take immediate & complete 180 degree shifts. I’ve seen people nearly twist themselves in knots trying to justify a new-found belief that a day earlier was not even considered nor valued.

Are these REAL divisions between people being made with critical thought? Or are these divisions simply made of unconscious knee-jerk reflexes through the power of propaganda? Self-serving divisions that are meant to send public messages to people OUTSIDE the immediate relationship more than to the relationship itself? Are these divisions REVERSIBLE or are we to expect that the divisions we see every day will not only remain but will likely grow greater and more unjustifiably hypocritical over time?

I have no answers. It’s easy to see how propaganda, distributed widely via media and social media, has affected the overall human public discourse…and not for the better. The spread of media was hoped to bring people closer & humanity kinder, yet what we actually see is discourse that has severely declined in quality, has led to crudeness, inhumanity, and – at times – even significant violence.