The Bubble Wars

Here's the current landscape of personal relations between the left-wing and right-wing in the United States. We now live in a super polarized world. On one side is the ultra conservative group, housed in a bubble that wants no change from the idealized days of the past. In a separate bubble, about the same size, is the ultra liberal crowd (AKA the PC Police) that wants much of what has been the norm to be the abnormal. Oh, and anyone in the middle outside of those two giant bubbles is just ignored rather than shunned. They have a little voice.

It's odd how far humans here have separated from each other. Everything today seems political. People don't "dare not talk about politics" when at a social engagement anymore. They talk because only those in the same bubble are invited to the social engagement. People who challenge anything in the bubble are unwelcome. To utter a dissenting word in  the bubble is equivalent to middle age heresy. We want comfort in our bubbles, they say, not reason and alternative perspectives. That's why liberals live in "liberal states" (like California and New York) and conservatives live in "conservative states" (like Utah and Texas).

And now, instead of disagreeing with someone from the other side who happens to live in the other bubble, the bubble demonizes that outsider.  The right bubble will call the dissenter "evil", while the left labels their dissenters "racists". It's always easy to invent labels to characterize one from outside the bubble. Otherwise, one would be required to use his or her intellect and reason in a discussion. Each bubble wants orthodoxy rather than truth.

In today's polarized world self expression now becomes the primary way that people engage in politics. They don't vote much, probably because each bubble is so uninformed about the reality of the election they defer to the default bubble explanation. Instead of being an informed voting constituency, the bubbles produce plenty of residents who, because of so much distrust with politics and other world views, prefer protest and boycotts. They protest anything not in alignment with the bubble agenda. No matter that the protests more often than not defy reason. They even use those inane computer and phone "apps" to organize their protest and boycotts, turning them into social events that peter out into nothing but a sustained ignorance of reality. That's because the act of protest or boycott is what is important to the bubblers, not the cause they claim to support. Just look at Face book and some of the other time wasting platforms to verify this. You'll find protests and boycotts of much unworthy of a protest or boycott.

The two bubbles even divide companies and consumer products into them and us bodies. The left bubble, for example, adores Hollywood and hates Chick Fil A. The right thinks Wal mart is sacred and same sex marriage an abomination.  In America, we do not live among people with diverse political opinions anymore. The middle is just shunned. We don't read the same news.  Sometimes, we don't even deal with the same set of facts. We cannot bond over television or entertainers because for the most part we are not watching the same shows or entertainers.  We cannot bond over shared interests because we don't share any. When we come across someone who disagrees with us, we un friend them on dopey Face book or whatever insulated social media platform fits our bubble.

Sadly, the bubbles are moving further and further away from each other in the United States. When humans spend time with an ideologically opposing person or just someone with a different take on life, they  discover that they have other things in common, and those other things reduce the distance that the bubble ideology creates. But now the bubbles have now locked themselves in and don't share anymore. And that is making life more stressful and less pleasant for everyone.