Monochromatic

Someone hasn't been paying attention until recently, it seems.

The fact that this bumper sticker is in black and white is, of course, quite intentional. It's intended to represent the starkness of the perceived divide and the stakes involved. Which made it feel theatrical to me. Of course there are differences in moral thought that manifest themselves through politics. The fight for same-sex marriage should have made that much abundantly clear. But someone suddenly finds themselves on the disadvantaged side of the politics of it all, and so they go out and buy a bumper sticker. Just to let people know how upset they are.

There have always been differences in how people viewed morality in the United States. The question has been how willing they were to conclude that the rightness of their thought gave them the right to impose their moral sentiments on other people (presuming, of course, that they see it as an imposition). And that's been a variable. Whether or not the value of that variable is high enough to erupt in widespread violence is doubtful, even though there are always people who feel that the best way to bend the arc of history towards justice is to soften it with blood. Sometimes their own, but generally that of other people. As a former co-worker of mine put it: "If you're not willing to force other people to do what you think is right, I question your commitment to your ethics."

In that sense, I would think that we're fortunate that for much of our history, many people's commitment to their ethics has been lax. Because the alternative rarely ends well for anyone, really.

Although perhaps I should say that people in general are fortunate in that those people who disagree with them tend to be more committed to their interests than their ethics. And people's interests tend to include work with, or at least not working against, people near them.

And that's really the concern one would have about the sentiment expressed on this bumper sticker; that someone is telegraphing that they're close to deciding that cooperation with those with whom they disagree is no longer in their interests, because the stakes are rising, and the costs of cooperation along with them.

People have been making noises about things reaching a tipping point for some time now, some out of fear and others to make those they disagree with afraid. But people deciding that fighting is better than cooperating is a very real risk, and the more that people on different sides of the disconnect feel that they aren't receiving what they're entitled to, and those other people are to blame, the greater the chance of things going sideways rises.