It is simply a fact that we live in a pluralistic society, and different viewpoints must find a way to contend without defeating one another.
Our society’s information environment steers the public to view conflicts as just a part of a bigger culture war, a battle of winner takes all in which there is only ever one right and one wrong, and where the only answer to any question is either “yes” or “no.” Such polarizing only hardens our hearts and coarsens our reason.
Balance between competing interests, not a war pitting one absolute against another, is a more sure way for our pluralistic democracy. Rights work best when sought and shared by everyone. And since we all live and breathe and move in the same public space, there is no acceptable alternative to working out our differences. A society in which everyone gets all they want is not a democracy but rather a Utopia, a word that literally means “nowhere.”