This episode explores how our natural pull towards tribalism and echo chambers fuels the dangerous polarization we see everywhere. We get trapped in certainty and division, forgetting that we are adults responsible for building a world for our children. Choosing the middle ground is not about weakness but about stepping back, questioning our assumptions, and breaking free from the noise. It is a call to embrace nuance, calm, and connection so we can protect what truly matters and create a future worth inheriting.
Here is a transcript of this audiologue...
So at some point I’m just gonna have to press record.Welcome to Same Same.This audio log is about exploring the beauty of mediocrity, curbing our enthusiasm, and my own attempt at becoming more non-dualistic myself.And for a reason.The reason is for the sake of loving our children.It’s for the severely neglected collective purpose to have a world where differences can live together.To set some context, I want to list out a few very unoriginal thoughts, just to state the background first.I think we are all exposed to polarized, extreme views as the new normal.We’re more divided, more opinionated, and hardcore, all of us even proud of it.But is it true?I’d say we’re not as divided, and not as different as we see it portrayed in social media, in politics, economics, and religion.The opposite is also true.Just like art imitates life and then life imitates art, we are all being pushed to the edges, to the extremes.A friend of mine went for a run the other morning in London, and he was struck with the London that he experienced when he’s actually in London when compared to the London that he sees on his social media pages.So let’s unpack this a little bit.Social media, it may not be causal, but it sure is amplifying any possible extreme view or views.Our feeds are designed to hook us, to keep our eyeballs glued.And we know why this works.There’s the drama, provocative statements, hook lines, clickbait, conspiracy theories, and wild ideas or experiments.And all of these work way better to drive engagement than boring old sane content.The social platforms we use don’t give a flying hoot about what becomes of us.What matters to them is engagement time and the resulting profits from selling our profiles to hundreds or even thousands of marketing syndicates.Again, nothing new there.They know how their deeply embedded behavioural science is driving us to depression, isolation, and even suicidal ideation.And yet they march on.In 2025 the average person spends two hours and 17 minutes a day on social media.For women between the ages of 18 and 29, it’s nearly three and a half hours a day.That comes to 66 hours a month.So we can b***h about Zuckerberg’s billions, his bunkers, and his yacht, but we are the ones working for him every month for a whole week and a half.Again, nothing new.We are the product, nothing new.So that’s social.But political views are also pushing to the extremes.The left is going more left.The right is going more right.And blame is always put on the other side without any sense of self reflection.It’s pure vitriol.There’s borderline hate and disgust for the other side.It changes our faces.We see it arise in the tone of our own voices.I think it’s safe to say that decorum has left the building altogether.Economically, there is a dripping desperation all round.Rising national debt, inflation, the depreciation of the currencies, with the dumping of more money on the system.All while that money just makes a beeline for the super rich anyway.And it’s not just theoretical macroeconomic ideas.People feel it.We can buy less with the same money.We see job losses and layoffs, and it affects more families month on month.It’s real.The middle class feels taxed to exhaustion as they tune into the news every night to hear about more taxes invented, which need to be used to pay for crumbling infrastructure.Historically, economic pressure paves the way for revolution and makes people more likely to accept extreme solutions being pitched to them as oversimplified naming and blaming by opportunistic politicians.So economics meet extremism.And then there’s religion.Faith is seeing a reported resurgence.It’s even called revival.We see an increase in fundamentalism, but it’s often more social, political than the work of the Holy Spirit.Christian nationalism is growing and unaccounted for.Apocalyptic talk and discussions about the Rapture are becoming more frequent.Faith movements are increasingly becoming seduced to insisting on their own subcultural expression as the only way to live.So Christian nationalism is not revival, regardless who led the worship.I think socially, politically, economically, and religiously we are all being pushed to the fringes.This is not a new story.It has happened before.But the combination of these forces creates powerful echo chambers that just serve to pull us even further apart.As I said, nothing original yet.I have five thoughts on this.First, I don’t think we investigate enough why we have the views we have, and with a tone that we have them.Like what is this view solving in my life?How is it defining my identity in a way that I somehow feel safer for having it?And why am I so attracted to the certainty of my point of view?In some chats with friends and family, I’ve realized how any one of us could be drawn into an affection for leaders that are strong and have strong views because they may have had a weak father as a child.Or someone could be a certainty addict because they suffered severe instability as a child.So there are reasons why we love what we love, and say what we say, and think what we think.My second thought is that we don’t think just about how much we are seducible by external validation.We don’t think about how we are rewarded for having our views, how we’re not only paid in money, even though some people are paid directly or indirectly in real money for having their views.We’re also paid in honour, in applause, or extended dignity.It can even be true of someone standing up with a public testimony, claiming to not be ashamed of Christ, but they profit from a career and or an identity as a Christian.It serves them well.So it’s not only a stand against the darkness, it’s also a profitable and positive feedback loop from our own echo chambers congratulating our bravery for taking a stance.My third thought is that the extremism problem is more about the direction of travel than the viewpoints themselves.There’s truth and beauty in views on the left and on the right.Same for traditionalism, progressivism, capitalism, socialism, faith or non-faith.There are very valid and good viewpoints in each of these systems of thought.And we should have thoughts.We all have the right to have a starting point.But the issue is the direction of travel.How the left is going even more left, and the right is going even more right, just to use the political example, with an increasing demonization and dehumanization of the other side.So my argument is that every view is a path.It’s never static.In every path, whichever one you’re on, there will come a line, a moment.It shows up suddenly and very unexpected.Maybe you’ve crossed the line already, but the line represents a change.When you arrive at the line, you maybe come into new information or one of your key assumptions gets smashed.Could it be a disillusionment with either the motive of a leader or people in the group, or the underlying theology of the group, or the philosophy of the echo chamber we find ourselves in, or maybe it’s just unintended consequences that come into full view, of this view extremifying, and we realize the consequences?It could even be a realization, at reaching this proverbial line, that the path you’re on is in fact not your path, but one that was handed down to you.It’s someone else’s path.My point is that we all walk up to the line.Before the line, we were bought in, committed, unquestioning.We went flat out.It was just more of the same.But then suddenly something breaks.And beyond the line, beyond that realization, we just simply cannot continue with the same passion or conviction or conscience.So we have at least two choices at this line.Not to sound binary, but the first thing that we can do is to just turn a blind eye, to double down, to become wilfully ignorant.If I was gonna quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we might think the cost is too high.The losses feel too great.Surely my side isn’t that wrong.We can’t possibly speak up about the new realisation and still have the same benefits we had before.So it’s like something dies inside, but we march on and act like we didn’t stumble over a truth.Or we can take a second option.This is the route of Hegel.When met with a contradiction, we come to a new resolution, where we face the consequences, even though it comes with a great loss, and it always comes at a great loss.My fourth thought is that the real enemy may not be the opposite view, the left or the right, or the transgender or the socialist or the capitalist or the traditionalist or the deconstructionist.Maybe the real enemy is the one that is stirring your anger.So why are we so forgiving to those agents of anger?For example, the technofeudalists profiting from our anger, politicians weaponizing our anger, or the reckless cherry picking YouTubers editing our anger.It seems to me there are people laughing over whiskies about the easy money they can make out of manipulating all of us en masse.We’re being played.And maybe we are not being played by our self named culprits, but the quietly self enriching marionette masters dictating our opinions by cannibalizing our thought lives and telling us what to think.My fifth thought is that words have consequences.Words are never just words.Violent words beget violent actions.It takes one thousand mindless thoughts to distil into ten unexamined conclusions, turning into one regrettable action that breaks the world or breaks a relationship.We absolutely have to watch our own mind diets, killing our graces so that we can rather calm the hell down, but before we act out from our downloaded fears.I know, I know, you’re listening and thinking to yourself, well, this is true for others, not for me.I can see people getting it wrong, on the left of me and the right of me, but somehow we all still feel like we are the lone sane voice in the world.This is where I think a regular audit could be valuable, answering a few questions honestly might actually reveal that we ourselves have started slipping into a little bit more extremism.So I propose a dirty dozen list of questions.One, have you become more argumentative lately, more domineering in conversation?Two, do you dismiss other points of view quickly, harshly, swiftly?Three, have you found yourself craving a dramatic, systemic change regardless of the costs, even if it means systemic upheaval?Four, are there groups that you blame more than before for all of your grievances?Five, have you dabbled in conspiracy theory that paints enemies targeting your specific group?Six, have you noticed a growing distance between you and close friends or family, even if it’s ever so slightly?Seven, do you find your empathy slipping away, you less affected by the pain or hurt or the denying of other people’s identity or right in this world to just be human, and somehow you don’t feel any empathy for them anymore, or even just less empathy?Eight, are you hearing more talk in your own speech of war, of battle, of standing up, of taking a stand, of fighting?Nine, have you slipped into childish name calling?Ten, are you losing concern for those outside of your echo chamber?Maybe this is a repeat of a previous question.Eleven, is your reputation built around the extremity of your views, like have you made money directly or indirectly?And lastly, have your debating skills lost nuance?So by thinking through these questions, we can just raise our own awareness.It’s not to shame but to understand whether we’re beginning to embark on the Zeitgeist of polarization journey.So let’s define the middle, the grey, and I hope to do it in a way that inspires and invites every average Joe to take the resistance to where it matters.The middle is a place where you don’t have to change your tribe when you change your mind.The middle is where we practice suspending endless certainty for at least a little bit of curiosity.Curiosity matters because when we lose it, we lose so much more.It’s the desire to understand more than to merely be understood.So in the middle we learn to live with offensive counter truths instead of locking ourselves into comforting half truths.We all do this.We cherry pick the pieces we like and serve up narratives we love.I’m actually amazed at my brain’s ability to do mental gymnastics to make a view fit with my pre-existing preferences, reverse engineering irrational decisions to make them appear like they were birthed out of pure sane reason.The middle, though, holds contradiction without rushing to solve it.It’s okay to sit with not knowing.I think it’s even a sign of a more developed mind to hold tension and contradiction without forcing resolution.Also nothing new there.But I want to be clear what the middle is not.The middle is not neutrality.It’s not Switzerland, it’s not watering down your views, it’s not avoiding conflict.For me, the middle is being willing to engage, but truly engage, without always having to solve or get everyone to agree.The extremes, on the other hand, is where we avoid conflict because we refuse to engage meaningfully.And let me make a comment on the rise of using debate as a tool, because really, just let us be honest: all of the debating is having no effect.Everyone just bunks down harder in debate, using debate to self define, maybe become the hottest soundbite rockstar.If anything, I think we should go back to the original intent of a good debate, which is to be given a point of view to defend, which forces us to think deeply about the opinion we’re defending, especially those not our own.How much better would Charlie Kirk’s work have been if anyone anywhere ever took the microphone, like walked up to the microphone and said, “Why don’t we just take opposite sides? I want to hear you articulate my view and I will try to articulate yours, so that I can see whether you feel my point of view, understand my point of view.”So I think debate has become meaningless because it’s about winning the sound bite.It’s about techniques like name calling, reductionism, redirection, not listening to understand, and never giving straight replies.This to me is intellectual laziness, and history reveals the heavy cost of living this way.More polarization, dehumanization, and societal fracture.These concepts are not just abstract isms; they shape real lives now, here, there, everywhere.They rip us apart as community, as family, as nations.And I think we’re losing a lot with all this self definition.A couple of days ago, I watched Scott Galloway’s talk called ‘Do We Love Our Children.’I cannot recommend it enough because the question is not just what world we want for our children, it’s about what world are we gonna show them with the way that we build it.Means and ends are inseparable.The means, the way we choose to fight while we are fighting for our beliefs, the way that we treat our opponents, the way that we argue, legislate, and organize— all of these lessons will be what we pass down.So if we use fear, guilt, shame, or force to shape the future, we teach our children that division and radicalism and exclusion are acceptable tools, a means to an end.If we weaponize ideas, attack others, or push for victory at any cost, we are modelling how to break a world, hoping to arrive at our ideals.The end we desire, the kind of society or faith or politics or religion, religious acceptance that we hope for, cannot be built on foundations of hatred, dehumanization, or silence.I think how we go about shaping tomorrow matters just as much as what tomorrow should look like when it’s defined.If we lose sight of the means, we risk breaking the very world our children will inherit, a world where we all will have to live in.And that’s why choosing how we fight, how we love, how we lose, how we listen is so crucial.I think it’s the truest legacy we can leave for our kids.So yes, to Scott Galloway’s question: do we love our children?But why are we so drawn to extremes?Why do we keep running to the edges?Why do we fall for these narratives, and why is the middle so hard to hold?I can think of a few deep human needs, and you might have way better suggestions.But one: I think we all want to be exceptional.We want to stand out in the crowd, and so the short bus to standing out is radicalism, to be radical, to be loud, to shout, to dominate.Two: I think we all want to feel young, strong, and powerful, because youth is glorified in our culture, in our advertising, in our movies, even in our careers.Adolescence is the shortcut to feeling youthful, and so we adopt adolescent behaviours, we mistake being young for being immature, and then we start adopting normalized styles of engaging with others, like the name calling I mentioned.Three: I think we all want to be significant, so we fake certainty to look powerful.It’s a little bit like Leonardo DiCaprio’s line in the movie ‘Catch Me If You Can,’ where he writes to his con artist dad and he says, “Dad, you always told me an honest man has nothing to fear, so I’m doing my best not to look afraid.”Four: I think we rush to groups and group think, for the applause, for the ease of thinking.The applause in the echo chamber is simply incredible.People tell us how proud they are of us for taking a stand, how brave they think we are.So it’s real.Five: I think we love simplicity, or oversimplified views, because they make us feel safe and certain, so we have certainty addictions.The middle is just not simple.It holds truth in tension, and holding truth in tension is hard.So what can we do about all this?Quite a lot actually.I think we can start with growing our self awareness, dare to discover our own willful ignorance, ask ourselves questions like: where have I doubled down on something at the cost of my own conscience or without considering the cost to others, the pain to others, the oppression of others?And then try to understand why we hold the views we hold.How does it relate to how we grew up or what we fear?And take an honest audit of our own social media feeds and the inputs that we have, the conversations we have.I think we absolutely have to stop believing that we are not heavily influenced by our algorithms, as if we are somehow above it. Secondly, I think we can also become aware not just of things inside of ourselves but in our echo chambers.What echo chambers am I part of?Like political, religious, social communities.Who is in my circle, and how do I punish those outside of my circle or ignore them or walk around them, never allow myself exposure to them?Think deeply about our own echo chambers.What are we getting wrong, what are we neglecting, what are we cherry picking?How can we engage with those that have critique about our echo chamber instead of just chasing them away?And then thirdly, I think we can make a conscious decision to love what we don’t understand.It’s way easier to love the familiar— you know, the comforting stories, people who think like us, they look like us, they dress like us, they joke like us, they believe like us, they live like us.But with the tiniest bit of effort we can actually realize just how much we have in common with people very unlike ourselves: the rugby player hanging out with someone in the National Ballet and exploring the riches of the two different worlds and still finding out how they are same same.You know, the Russians love their children too.The Palestinians also dream of just having a home, the home we have.The gay man also wishes to just rest his head against his partner’s chest in public without any prejudice or walk hand in hand.And fourthly, to take Stephen Covey’s idea of the circle of power, where he talks about three circles.The smallest circle is the one of power.The second, a wider circle, is one of influence.And the widest circle, the biggest one, is the circle of concern.I think our social media algorithms are pushing us to the outer circle, the circle of concern, and it’s like stacking up all of our concerns where we have no say and we can do very little about it.So we end up just with more and more frustration.I mean we get so upset about American politics when we don’t live there, don’t vote there, and don’t have any direct influence.I’m a South African with a German passport living in the UK, and yet here where I live in Cambridge, Donald Trump is a point of conversation at many coffee shop tables.Sure, America sneezes and the world catches a cold, and sure, their decisions and their politics will affect us directly.But the key is to move closer to our own circles of power, and to act peacefully and moderately in our circles of power.Things like we can vote with our wallets, our little decisions.We can choose to shop at local businesses over international giants.We could support a friend who’s starting a new business over supporting a global giant.We can extend dignity to the poor man in moments that others don’t see just because they’re part of our community.We are them and they are us.We could lean into perspectives outside of our comfort zone.Read a little bit wider.Read a little bit wider if you’re white, lean into a little bit of blackness.If you’re progressive, lean a little bit into traditionalism.There’s so much we can do to affect change in our circles of power.Then fifth, I think we can actively get away from frictionless living and reintroduce friction in our lives.I think this is important because we’ve drifted into extremism through frictionless passive consumption and a lack of questioning ideas.So this could be an active form of peaceful resistance, just by accepting more friction in our lives.When I lived in Berlin, I think it was 2015, 2016, there was an open event where Syrian refugees told their stories in public.There were one thousand or two thousand people there, and this one particular man stood up and spoke in beautiful English to tell his story.He had to walk more than two thousand kilometres with his child on his back.His shoes wore out quite quickly on that journey, and he couldn’t get new ones.His body got broken in ways that he still suffers to this day and probably will for the rest of his life.He talked about how they got so hungry that they ate sand to still their hunger, how he would hold his wife at night in their tent, crying of despair.All of it was moving, but the thing that really got to me was when he mentioned how he was a thriving medical practitioner, a doctor in Syria, with a beautiful practice and a beautiful home, with esteem, with education, with social network and with beautiful streets.His eyes welled up with tears when he was talking about the beauty of his street and the trees and the birds and the sound of playing children from a kindergarten down the street.But one day, his practice and his home got flattened in a bombing raid, and now he’s entering a country as a refugee.When you listen to a story like that, it becomes impossible as a human to simply not love the foreigner.
So, my conclusion is that the middle is disappearing fast, and I think it is worthy of a calm resistance.I don’t think we need more fighters on the edges.I don’t think we need more people that are radically, radically standing up for edge cases.We’re all passengers on a beautiful spaceship called Earth and we have way more in common than our echo chambers make us believe.I think we can dial down the fear without losing our opinions.I think we can cherry pick when we need to be severe with our tongues, and I think we can do better.I think we can love our children more, because at the end of the day, we’re all same same.So let’s go amplify the grey.Thanks for listening.
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