Cross-posted from Open Left.
Polarization is the great evil, the great scourge of our times. All our great authorities tell us so.
All our great authorities are wrong.
Polarization is not a great evil, so long as great evil lives in our land. This was a primary message of one of Martin Luther King's most famous writings, his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" [PDF].
Indeed, King himself was one of the most polarizing figures of American history, and his entire career consisted of polarizing public opinion, breaking down apathy and comfortable indifference in the face of great evils-racism, poverty and war. Those evils are still with us today, though in differing guises and proportions, and yet we not only hear repeated calls for unity, for rejecting polarization, we see King himself obscenely misrepresented as a harmless, Santa Claus-like figure of fuzzy-headed unity. It is hard to conceive of a greater insult to his memory.
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