The Death of Dialogue
I’ve noticed a troubling shift.
In politics, in our relationships, even in our faith.
We’ve drifted into separate camps.
Instead of talking with each other, we talk past each other.
We follow media that reinforces our worldview.
We share articles written for our side.
Our feeds become echo chambers, fine-tuned to keep us convinced we’re right.
And now, even the government has shut down.
Not just over policy, but over political maneuvering.
It mirrors the same fracture we feel everywhere.
A system that’s lost its ability to talk, to compromise, to listen.
But history tells a different story.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas stood on the same stage for hours, facing sharp disagreement on the defining moral issue of their time.
They didn’t solve everything, but they listened. They answered.
The audience had a chance to hear both sides.
Two honest men with different convictions.
Not attacking.
Just speaking with clarity and conviction.
That feels almost unthinkable now.
Here’s the truth. We’ll never agree on everything,
but most of us aren’t as far apart as we’ve been told.
The loudest extremes get the spotlight, but they don’t represent most of us.
We take the most radical voices from the other side and assume they speak for everyone.
But they don’t.
\Most of us just want to live in peace, raise our families, and make things a little better than we found them.
Authentic dialogue doesn’t erase our differences.
But it reminds us there’s a person behind every position.
And that person is worth listening to.
Every war in history began, in part, with the death of discourse.
The real danger isn’t left or right.
It’s the breaking of the bond that holds us together.
We can’t wait for politicians or pundits to fix this.
The only way back is to make the choice ourselves.
To sit down.
Speak honestly.
Listen like it matters.
Because when dialogue dies, so does ‘us’.
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