Most people don’t cause problems, but we aren’t the ones solving them either.

While extremist thinkers wake up in the morning and say, “How do I advance my cause?” Most of us wake up and ask ourselves, “What can I have for breakfast?”

But every day we stand on the sidelines is another day the small percentage of loud, extreme voices dominate our personal, professional, and civic lives.

People with different views increasingly perceive one another as “the problem” when, in fact, our partnership is the solution.

Being afraid of people and ideas that challenge us, and believing we are further apart on issues than we really are, makes conflict inevitable and problem-solving impossible.

This “us vs. them” dichotomy is reinforced to us by mainstream media and social media companies whose business models can operate on fear and sensationalism.

Social media is particularly pernicious for three reasons:

1. its algorithms enforce binary divides by isolating groups into bubbles in which their feeds are filled with views that affirm existing beliefs rather than inform original ideas;
2. its bite-sized content, built for decreasing attention spans, spreads information at surface level, denying media consumers the opportunity to ‘go deep’ on issues by exploring their nuances and complexities;
3. contentious, even false information tends to drive clicks and travel furthest, awarding outsized influence to extreme positions that fuel polarisation, misinformation and hate.

Power-hungry politicians have long manipulated divisive narratives to their advantage. Ruling through division is an effective means by which politicians can stay in control without having to serve the interests of a unified supporter base.

Politicians are also incentivized to pander to the most extreme members of their party, whose political activism and higher voter participation in primaries award them more control over party agendas. The more extremely politicians behave, the more the media rewards them, further fueling their radical stances.

Around the world, division and conflict are on the rise. Extremist groups and figures increasingly stoke fear of “the other” to rule through division.

When these forces take hold in one region, they spread rapidly to others.