I am assuming here that you are talking about the last decade or so. I agree that there is currently a growing climate of division in western societies, and it is remarkable that the same issues are being transported simultaneously from USA to UK to OZ to NZ to Italy, France, Spain, Germany etc. which should already be a red flag. But I think it is important to understand where this climate comes from. If we blame other regular people in society for it, we participate in the division and we are the useful idiots of those who need to foster division. It is quite clear to me that this climate of divisiveness is being created by those who are in a position to steer public debate, that is people with money, and therefore access to think tanks, media, including legacy and social media, social influencers, celebrities, politicians etc. People who are capable of creating a buzz around predetermined issues with the specific goal of creating division.
Why do these people need to create division? Because they are under threat of losing their status and power by the current conjoncture whereby the entire western world is entering into economic recession after decades of decadence in many areas, driven by the greed of the actual, real decision makers (not the politicians who are merely servants of the real power centers). When this happens, the elites are afraid that the populace might unite to voice their common legitimate grievances, so the elites must keep people as divided as possible.
How do they create division? I think the best example here is ‘wokeness’. Take a legitimate issue such as racism or feminism, stretch it to such an extent that it borders on absurdity and then fire fierce debate on the matter on all the screens people’s eyeballs are locked onto. What you get is on one side people correctly arguing that these issues are legitimate ones to talk about and on the other side people correctly arguing that the debate has been rendered absurd. Thus people enter in bitter arguments, pointing fingers (it’s the fault of liberals! No, you don’t understand, it’s the fault of conservatives!) at each other, not capable of understanding that they are engaging in a pre-programmed behavior.
Liberals, just like conservatives, are victims of the campaign to sow division. The solution imho is to refrain from pointing fingers at our fellow citizens and instead understand who is fostering the division and why.
To me the real question here is: is such a statement soothing the division or is it fostering it?