'The United States is in spiritual free-fall.'

“Someone told me recently that a commentator or some sort had said, 'The United States is in spiritual free-fall.' When people make such remarks, such appalling judgements, they never include themselves, their friends, those with whom they agree. They have drawn, as they say, a bright line between an us and a them.

Those on the other side of the line are assumed to be unworthy of respect or hearing, and are in fact to be regarded as a huge problem to the us who presume to judge them. This tedious pattern has repeated itself endlessly through human history and is, as I have said, the end of community and the beginning of tribalism.”

--- Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child

“The rich ruling class has used tribalism, a primitive caveman instinct, to their advantage since the beginning of time. They use it to divide and conquer us. They drive wedges between us peasants and make us fight each other, so we won’t rise up against our rulers and fight them.

You can observe the same old trick everywhere in America today. That doesn’t just happen all by itself. There are always voices instigating these fights.”

--- Oliver Markus Malloy