Greetings as Revolutionary Acts: Reclaiming Humanity in a Partisan Age

The 24^th of June, 2026

We find ourselves in an exceptionally partisan time. Although the system is such that it purports to aspire to social unity, the reality is in fact becoming increasingly less so. Not exclusively due to this societal polarization, but also as an extension of an increasingly broader embracing of superficiality since the advent of the internet era, most people (not many, but really most) do not even bother to entertain any other opinions anymore than those that align with the ideology of their respective camps. The only reading they do ever engage in that may potentially confront them with other opinions, is carried out in order to simply pick out a few key words from any given text written by an unknown individual, to use these to instantly slot that other person in such or such a camp. There is almost no listening to other voices than within their ‘accepted’ ideological circles. 
People on the left of that spectrum love to claim that this intense polarization began when a certain political leader they love to hate came to power, but it in fact began years earlier, when their own woke ideology (which, much as its champions like to pretend the opposite to be true, is not the shared opinion of every person in their ideological camp) took centre stage and began its tyrannical ideological bullying and history rewriting.

Let it be abundantly clear that I side with neither the left nor the right, nor am I a centrist. On certain points I agree with the left however, on others with the right, and on yet others I sit in the middle. In fact I am very much against any form of ideological partisanism, of not listening to people with other opinions. I actually firmly believe, without figuratively pulling down one’s pants and sticking one’s buttocks in the air as an invitation, in treating my fellow human with respect. That is not simply theoretical, but implies what are in fact mostly very simple, very ‘normal’, acts, such as respectfully hearing out other people, or greeting a person one passes in the countryside (which used to be the norm, but post-lockdowns stopped being one); it is a silent revolutionary act in fact, a visible rejection of the dehumanizing disregard of fellow humans that has become the norm now.
With respect to politics, I am actually dead set against it, period. All sides are absolutely equally partisan, absolutely equally deaf to any other opinions than their ‘acceptable’ one, and absolutely equally liable to descend into manipulative ploys and sneaky backstabbing to gain or maintain power. At any given moment, a significant chunk of the populace is not even represented, and the pendulum just swings back and forth from one extreme to the other. This only pretends to be democratic and representing the people, but it is in all truth the furthest possible thing from it.

All these holders of extremist thoughts (because, yes, on both outer ends of the spectrum, they equally are) are led to believe that they can achieve wisdom by ingesting as much of their own ideological position’s teachings as possible, that their camp alone has exclusive access to all universal truth. Actually, this is just an accruement of very one-sided knowledge. Wisdom can only (and there is absolutely no exception to this) be achieved by carefully considering and hearing out all opinions from every side of every coin. Wisdom inevitably ends up in greyer spheres, and cannot, simply cannot arise out of black and white thinking.

Instead of all withdrawing into our respective camps and defending ourselves against all others, that is, if one purports to embrace societal cohesion, let us respect and hear out each other. Otherwise, let us embrace a ‘pillarized’ society, consisting of numerous independent ideological camps, with government serving only to protect the whole. Either way, respect is absolutely essential to keeping a society from falling apart.