Politics?

We think of the worst consequences of politics being corruption, nepotism, favoritism, prejudice and discrimination. And they are the things that bubble up in political circumstances.

But, it seems to me, that these are more predictably the kinds of things that come of a narrow view and a narrow experience of the world. People are uncomfortable with the new and the unfamiliar. They want to retreat into their own family, their own race, their own ethnicity, their own whatever. Hence all the negative behaviors noted above.

This is the human tribal instinct. Fear of loss. Fear of change. Fear.

In this world, the small town mentality no longer works. We all belong to a larger human community, whose value is becoming evident, even if slowly and with much resistance.