A while back, I listened to Ben Sasse’s excellent book Them: Why We Hate Each Other – and How to Heal, and I wanted to highly recommend it as an careful and thoughtful look at some of the forces which keep dividing our culture, and what we might do to improve the situation. As Sasse notes, we seem headed more and more towards a type of tribalism, where we blame our problems on whatever group(s) or political parties we’re not a part of. While Sasse is a Christian, this book is not written from an explicitly Christian perspective and instead takes a look at contemporary American culture in a way which should connect with anyone, of whatever political persuasion. In that respect, it’s like his previous book, The Vanishing American Adult – a good read for anyone, and something every American ought to consider.

Really, the whole book is worth reading and carefully considering, but I want to highlight just a few of the issues he highlights that are more and more dividing us into “us” versus “them”:

  • Loss of physical communities: Families have less time together, are less likely to sit down for meals together, have fewer friends over, and even are less integrated by way of things like high school sports. Building a pool, he notes, used to mean getting together to build a community pool; now it means building one in our back yard
  • Greater transience in our relationships: People move between jobs more frequently than in times past, and even relocate between cities and across the country more frequently. We have fewer long-term relationships and deep friendships, and are less integrated into our communities, meaning that we’re far less likely to have close relationships with people very different from us unless we choose those relationships. In general, relationships are declining – both with friends and with our communities.
  • Changes in the workplace: The lack of community and relationships tempts us to give ourselves over to work in search of meaning, but the workplace has also been dramatically changing. People now change jobs on average every 4 years; poverty is growing, and marriage less common, with divorce far less common. Tech upheavals have made jobs more portable, but also more transient and made people more mobile (I’d add COVID is likely further accelerating this trend) further degrading relationships. People tend to be either rooted or mobile, and the rooted percentage is shrinking.
  • The rise of “antitribes”: Modern media, especially in the internet age, rewards engagement – even if that engagement is negative. Controversial positions generate engagement, pushing people to the extremes. Nothing unites people, he notes, better than hatred of a common enemy. So our platforms benefit from bringing “our” group together in hatred of “them”, our enemy. Yes, we might be isolated and alone sitting at home watching TV or social media cut off from community – but we can feel united with our virtual community in raging against whatever the topic of the day is. He singles out the example of Sean Hannity on Fox, whose format basically consisted of explaining something he’s mad about, then giving some quotes, anecdotes and info to highlight why he’s mad about it, with no attempt to be fair and unbiased. He used this as an example, noting there are similar issues on both sides of the political aisle. This is made worse by algorithms, such as automated tools which can rewrite headlines (or even parts of “news” stories) to see what will get the most clicks and maximize engagement. Essentially, we’re teaching computers to make us upset.

What should we do about all of this? Part of Sasse’s answer is to re-engage in our communities – get involved with the real people around us, care about them, care for them, and begin to recognize that even if they are part of a different tribe, they’re not our enemies. Or to put it in more Biblical terms – we are all sinners in need of a savior, no matter what political party or region we hail from.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and felt it helped me get a much better sense of how we’ve become so divided and why each party or faction seems so convinced all our problems originate from the other side. It’s an interesting, educational, and even entertaining read. I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a read, or listening to it in audiobook form, which is what I did.