When neighbors become strangers
Understanding cultural polarization in the systems we share
Last week, I came across an article about a library board meeting in Hartland, Michigan, where the board president proposed placing warning labels on books with LGBTQ+ themes and relocating them to adult-only sections. What struck me wasn’t the policy itself; we should all be able to share our perspectives on issues that matter to us. Rather, I was struck by how quickly meetings like this continue to devolve. A conversation about library policies had become a battleground over fundamental questions of identity, belonging, and whose values matter most.
The story felt familiar, and it should. Fifty-one years ago this month, the Kanawha County Board of Education sparked a chapter of the nation’s culture wars over new multicultural textbooks (Kanawha County Textbook Controversy). When I entered sixth grade that fall, I remember crossing protest lines to get to school, watching adults shout at each other over what we should be allowed to read. The voices on those old board meeting recordings make me tense, even knowing how it all ended. Some of those voices belonged to community leaders, others to the mothers of my school friends.
I was old enough to understand the basics of the arguments I was hearing, yet I recall wondering why people were trying to control what I read. I wondered why disagreements in our community had transformed into something resembling the actual warfare I saw on television.
We continue to live in a time where neighbors inhabit different realities entirely. Cultural polarization periodically moves beyond political bickering into something more fundamental, affecting how we vote, educate, worship, parent, and even interpret basic facts. This fragmentation extends beyond ideology and personal values, encompassing the emergent properties of the systems we inhabit. And while we talk about the ‘culture wars’ today like they’re something new, what I believe we’re seeing is systems that are themselves fraying under the weight of their own contradictions.
When systems manufacture division
In my work on systems and identity, I’ve returned often to one foundational truth: systems produce the results they are designed to produce. If our institutions are manufacturing distrust, fragmentation, and mutual suspicion, then we must confront the design of those systems rather than simply blaming the behavior of those within them.
Consider what happened in both Kanawha County in 1974 and Hartland today. It’s tempting to treat these conflicts as the personal failings of bad-faith actors refusing to compromise. But from a systems view, they’re more accurately seen as predictable results of multiple reinforcing loops. Electoral systems reward extremity over moderation. Media platforms thrive on outrage because controversy drives engagement. Cultural scripts sort people into opposing camps before substantive conversation even begins.
We reproduce these systems through our daily actions, assumptions, and language1. When we stop questioning how systems shape behavior, we become unconscious actors in scripts we didn’t write but have memorized through repetition. You already know these: the family dinner where politics becomes forbidden territory, the workplace where certain topics are deemed too sensitive for discussion, the community meeting where people self-segregate by viewpoint. These aren't just individual choices we’re making. They are systemic adaptations to a culture that has forgotten how to hold tension without fracturing.
My high school friend, Trey Kay, is the host of the Us & Them podcast and has spent more than a decade exploring these cultural divides. In reflecting on the Kanawha County textbook wars, he observes how “when we really listen to each other, there are ways to see fresh perspectives and sometimes even come to new conclusions. Yet, when we’re in the middle of a values battle, it’s pretty scary, because we just don’t know how things will end2.” This uncertainty, I believe, is what drives us toward the false comfort of sides.
The seductive pull of certainty
When uncertainty rises, we cling to whatever offers clarity. Group identity becomes that lifeline, whether through political party, cultural affiliation, or faith tradition. These identities provide structure in a world that increasingly feels chaotic. I’ve experienced this pull myself, noticing how I sometimes reach for ideological shortcuts when complexity feels overwhelming.
The problem isn’t identity itself but what happens when the systems around us transform identity into rigid allegiance. Our self-esteem becomes tethered to the groups we belong to3. When these groups are perceived as under attack, psychological defense mechanisms kick in. Loyalty becomes moral obligation. Dissent within the group feels like betrayal. The opposing side transforms from fellow citizens with different views into existential threats.
Alice Moore, the Kanawha County school board member who sparked the 1974 textbook controversy, believed deeply that she was protecting children from harmful ideas4. Mike Wenger, who supported the multicultural textbooks, believed equally deeply that children needed to understand the full reality of the world they’d inherit5. Both were driven by genuine care for young people, yet they found themselves on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide due to tribal loyalty.
This calcification of identity plays out in families where holiday conversations become minefields. It surfaces in workplaces where diversity of thought gets conflated with political alignment. It fractures communities where shared projects become impossible because of assumed ideological divisions. We lose the capacity to see each other as complex humans navigating difficult questions, and instead perceive representatives of threatening worldviews.
Americans now dislike their political opponents more than they like their own side6. The tribal identity becomes primary, overriding other connections and considerations. Policy positions matter less than perceived loyalty. Compromise feels like surrender rather than collaboration.
When stories stop overlapping
We don’t just disagree on opinions anymore; we disagree on the meaning of events themselves. A school curriculum becomes a battle over whose values matter. A public health measure becomes a test of fundamental beliefs about freedom and authority. A Supreme Court decision becomes proof of either justice served or democracy under siege.
We make sense of ourselves through internalized and evolving stories7. These stories are shaped not only by personal experience but by the communities, media, and systems surrounding us. They direct our choices and actions just as much as they explain our lives.
In polarized systems, these dominant narratives grow oppositional. One group’s redemption story becomes another’s tragedy. One group’s vision for progress becomes another’s fear of cultural annihilation. What’s changed is not that humans disagree, because we always have. What’s changed is that our systems have evolved to the point where they no longer reward collective meaning-making.
We’ve lost what I think of as narrative overlap, or those shared reference points that allow us to argue productively because we’re operating from some common understanding of reality. In 1974, both sides in Kanawha County at least agreed that education mattered and that children’s welfare was paramount. Today, we often can’t even agree on basic facts about what’s happening, let alone what it means.
The institutional bridge crisis
For generations, public institutions served as bridges between people with different experiences and viewpoints. Schools, faith communities, unions, newspapers, libraries, and civic organizations created space for diverse people to encounter one another under common rules and shared purposes. They offered the networks of relationships that make collective action possible8.
Today, many of those institutions are struggling or absent altogether. Institutional trust has eroded across nearly every demographic and sector9. When people no longer trust shared systems, they begin to trust only their immediate tribe. This creates a vacuum that gets filled by charismatic influencers, algorithmic echo chambers, or ideologically pure subcultures that offer belonging in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Sound familiar?
The loss of these bridging institutions means we lose practice in navigating difference. The skills of democratic engagement, the skills of listening across disagreement, finding common ground, and compromising without abandoning core values, atrophy from disuse. What used to be everyday disagreements now feels existential because we’ve lost the containers that help us hold conflict constructively.
Kay notes that our education system’s emphasis on local control means “each of the nation’s nearly 13,600 school districts tackles these debates independently10.” While this preserves community autonomy, it also means we’re constantly relitigating the same fundamental questions without building broader consensus or shared frameworks for resolution.
The human cost of fracture
The effects of this polarization extend far beyond politics into the intimate spaces of our daily lives. Political stress is affecting mental health, with people reporting anxiety, depression, and relationship strain tied to political divisions11. We have all heard of or experienced families fracturing along ideological lines or friendships ending over social media posts. We are seeing communities split apart over issues that previous generations might have debated without destroying relationships.
Children are growing up in this environment, absorbing lessons about human nature and difference that will shape how they engage with conflict for the rest of their lives. They’re learning that people who disagree with their families are not just wrong but dangerous. This is no longer about current political disputes, but instead about whether we’re raising a generation capable of democratic participation and collaborative problem-solving.
I think about my own experience as a sixth grader crossing protest lines during the textbook wars. What I learned wasn’t about the specific books or policies being debated, but about how adults could become so consumed by their differences that they forgot their shared humanity. This lesson has stayed with me for more than fifty years.
Small systems, big patterns
While polarization plays out on the national stage, it’s in the smaller systems where we feel its daily impact. Family systems once could hold different viewpoints, but now seem to fracture along ideological lines. The workplace dynamics I’ve studied show teams struggling to maintain cohesion when political identities become primary identifiers. Community organizations can be divided because their shared purpose becomes overshadowed by partisan sorting.
These micro-level breakdowns create ripple effects that extend far beyond their immediate context. When we can’t navigate difference in our families, we lose practice for navigating it in our democracy. When workplaces become ideologically homogeneous, we lose opportunities to build relationships across difference. The personal becomes political in ways that make healing require attention to both individual and systemic levels.
Kay observes that “as the culture wars play out in our public schools, these debates can really undermine confidence12.” But I wonder if the reverse is also true: whether our broader loss of confidence in institutions makes us more likely to turn schools into battlegrounds for deeper cultural anxieties.
Designed for disconnection
If systems produce their outcomes by design, then we must ask: What kind of design encourages this level of division? Many of our modern systems, especially those mediated by technology, are optimized for engagement rather than relationship. We’ve all heard that social media algorithms reward content that provokes strong emotional responses because that drives user interaction. We can see that many news media prioritize speed and intensity over nuance because it captures attention in a crowded information landscape. We have also watched electoral systems incentivize mobilizing the base rather than building broad coalitions because that’s what wins elections under current rules.
But design can be changed. We have models of systems that work differently. Deliberative democracy processes bring diverse groups together for structured conversation about complex issues. Restorative justice practices prioritize healing relationships over punishment. Participatory budgeting creates shared ownership of difficult decisions by involving community members in resource allocation. These approaches aren’t perfect solutions, but they point toward different possibilities. I think of these as systems designed for connection rather than division.
If systems produce their outcomes by design, then we must ask: What kind of design encourages this level of division?
Kay’s approach in Us & Them podcast demonstrates another possibility: creating spaces where people can encounter different perspectives without immediately having to choose sides. His work suggests that when we move beyond the “us versus them” framing, we often discover more complexity and nuance than our polarized discourse allows.
Reflections on the Journey
Writing this piece has forced me to confront something uncomfortable: how much I, too, have been shaped by these polarizing systems. I’ve caught myself collapsing complexity into convenient categories, nodding along with perspectives that confirm my existing beliefs, pulling away from the discomfort of genuine difference.
But I also see a possibility emerging from this awareness. Every conversation where I’ve chosen curiosity over certainty, every meeting where I’ve helped create space for multiple perspectives, every moment where I’ve resisted the system’s pull toward oversimplification, and I’d like to believe that these small acts matter. I see them as interventions in systems that would otherwise continue to reproduce division.
Kay reminds me that “it’s so easy in today’s climate to create an ‘us versus them’ atmosphere13.” But he also suggests that when we really listen to each other, fresh perspectives become possible. This gives me hope, because it means polarization is not destiny, instead, it’s a choice we make in how we design our conversations, our institutions, and our communities.
The work ahead for all of us is about creating systems that help us disagree more constructively, not about eliminating disagreement, or pretending our differences don’t matter. This requires each of us, in whatever systems we inhabit, to remember that the person across from us is not our enemy but our neighbor, trying to make sense of a complicated world.
Polarization didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t be undone quickly. But every time we design a conversation, a meeting, or even a family dinner with space for the full humanity of others, we’re resisting the system’s momentum toward fracture. We’re practicing a different way of being together. A way that recognizes our capacity to navigate difference isn't just a nice ideal but essential for our survival as a democracy and as a species capable of solving complex problems collectively.
Maybe that’s where hope lives: not in the elimination of conflict, but in the patient work of learning to disagree better. And maybe, just maybe, it starts with each of us choosing curiosity over certainty, one conversation at a time.
Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, 1st pbk. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
Trey Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago: Reflecting On A Pivotal Kanawha County Board Of Education Meeting,” West Virginia Public Broadcasting (blog), June 27, 2024, https://wvpublic.org/us-them-remembrance-50-years-ago-reflecting-on-a-pivotal-kanawha-county-board-of-education-meeting/.
H. Tajfel and J. C. Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Inter-Group Conflict.,” in The Social Psychology of Inter-Group Relations., ed. W. G. Austin and S. Worchel (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1979), 33–47.
Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago.”
Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago.”
Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (Chicago (Ill.): University of Chicago Press, 2018).
Dan P. McAdams, “The Psychology of Life Stories,” Review of General Psychology 5, no. 2 (2001): 100–122, https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100.
James S. Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” American Journal of Sociology 94, no. 1 (1988): S95–120, https://doi.org/10.1086/228943.
Daniel Kreiss, Regina G. Lawrence, and Shannon C. McGregor, “In Their Own Words: Political Practitioner Accounts of Candidates, Audiences, Affordances, Genres, and Timing in Strategic Social Media Use.,” Political Communication 35, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 8–31, https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1334727.
Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago.”
Kevin B. Smith, “Politics Is Making Us Sick: The Negative Impact of Political Engagement on Public Health during the Trump Administration.,” PLoS ONE 17, no. 1 (January 14, 2022): 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262022.
Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago.”
Kay, “Us & Them Remembrance — 50 Years Ago.”
I’ve opened my eyes and mind more to curiosity. In my family of origin certainty was rewarded, so obviously that’s embedded deep within me. As I contemplate ankle surgery of course certainty matters in that context, but even still there are 4 different options my surgeon gave me to correct the problem. Even in something as “concrete” as medicine there’s a degree of curiosity. May we become more curious.
Well written as usual my friend.