In localized communities of yore there may have been more incentive to look beyond the tunnel vision of our personal narratives, because if we couldn’t navigate civil discourse with our co-workers, families, and neighbors, there was simply no one else around.

Today we are counting coup and reporting back to our rigidly defined tribes online. Rarely does it seem like we can escape the dichotomy gold mines. One team seeks to dominate or humiliate another and reports their victory back to their chosen camp, furthering a bias of confirmation, even if offline they find themselves celebrating utterly alone.

Where do we set our ideological benchmarks? What lines are too precious to cross when we might ordinarily seek a full prism of perspectives on a particular subject? When does integrative complexity shrink back to the binary, enforcing an “us vs them” or “our way or the highway” mentality?