A lot of people are talking today about polarization.  To my mind this is just a modern world for an old concept—namely extremism. At least they go together if they are not the same.

Former American President, Bill Clinton mad a very important point about extremism:

“We are getting siloed in the TV shows we watch, the web sites we look at. America has come far: we are less racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-religious of specific religions, than we used to be. We have one remaining bigotry left, we don’t want to be around anyone who disagrees with us.”

I think we are living in an age of extremism. Surely it was not the first. Nor likely not the last. It keeps coming back. Why is that? What is the attraction of extremism, or polarization.  The harms are so visible. It seems like we must see it and must understand the evils of extremism. Yet we don’t. At least we don’t see it clearly enough or we would not permit it to come back.

This is what I want to explore. I have posted about it before. I have been thinking about it for quite a while, but it came back to me sharply recently as a result of a course Christiane and I signed up for at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, of all places. It was the third course we took for adults. Each a short course was about 6 weeks 1 day per week. Not taxing, but very interesting.

Our leader, lecturer, and facilitator, was Will Braun, who is an editor for a Mennonite magazine and he exemplified a person who tried to avoid the extremes. He was kind and gentle and thoughtful.  All traits I wish I had more of than I do.  I could learn a lot from him.

I want to share my reflections on the subject of extremism/polarization from this course and other readings I have done in the past. I have mulled over some things. I have meandered through the idea of polarization and will try to share what I have learned.