POLITICS & CULTURE
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Political movements have always contained frustration. But increasingly, they are being powered by resentment. In the past, political tribes gathered mainly around policy goals. Now many gather around something else: a shared desire for retribution. When a person or group feels they have been wronged...

I was asked on a podcast recently: “What is the #1 reason for dialogue friction?" My answer was not “different opinions” or “differing narratives” as prevalant as they are. It was lack of psychological safety. In a media landscape where news platforms increasingly disciple people into anger and reactivity, many can sense that it is no longer safe to speak. I’ve done enough culture work to know that people are exhausted and fearful of... people. There are sound, clear-minded,

If you are arguing about what happened between Renée Good and ICE, you are having the wrong conversation. And we are very good at having the wrong conversation in this country. These moments are not informing us. They are forming us.

To put it frankly: We have run out of time.

My hot take is this: We've all fallen short of the virtue lines that we toe. Yet, we still try to hold others to that invisible line in the sand that we rarely fully attain ourselves. Expecting them to value the things we value with perfect adherance. An expectation they never once agreed to meet.

We live in a time when disagreement can feel dangerous—when the culture around us seems to grow more violent, and our values lie in very different places. Even our words no longer mean the same things to one another. For some, words themselves are violent—and therefore seen as deserving of physical violence in return. But if that’s true, does it break the very contract of dialogue? How do we move forward when simply trying to understand one another feels unsafe?