Comment by taurath

> Which is a good thing. It's how it always was. You surrounded yourself with lots of different people with varying opinions. It's how you learned things. It was called being an adult.

Right and wrong. I don't think a ton of young people in the 60s were hanging around with people who voted for Nixon. But its true that in a world where (all the white people) go to the same bar, there's a social pressure to meld and focus on common understanding.

The divergence between the 2 ends of the wedge issues is as large right now as it was in the 1800s. The reason we are not literally having skirmishes across state lines is because we are more geographically mixed now (cities vs rural).

Its not a maturity thing anymore - its that we're actual enemies of each other, and not just at the wedge issues anymore. We have similarities like "shops at Target" and "wants their family to do well" but that doesn't prevent open conflict. Ideologically we are actually, really divided, and fundamentalism is the coin of the realm.