Alignment

It has probably always been the case that seeking respite from the endless surge of unhinged political stupidity feels futile, exasperating, and frightening. Watching poorly understood belief systems grind on, reproducing themselves through humanity as distributed patterns of alignment within the communicative field rather than arising from deliberate, individual choice, is unsettling. The fear comes from a simple observation: the vast majority of partisan political positions are held not because they are reasoned through, but because they function as a team sport of tribal difference. People copy, mirror, and mimic what those around them are doing, and the validation or justification for these beliefs, along with all their downstream behavioural consequences, is almost always retrospective.

Grievances can be real and are often worth listening to, but grievance is not the same thing as rationale, strategy, or purpose. Most people do not seem to know, or much care, why they hold the positions they do beyond performative alignment with a cause. That said, some ways of thinking and living are more closely aligned with human well-being, the nurturing of nature and culture, and the conditions for humanistic growth. Notice how almost every harsh, angry, bitter, or aggressive ideological frame reliably concentrates benefit in the hands of a small minority while endlessly representing that gain as collective. People are gullible.