A word in favor of sticking

Marco Ament recently wrote something I have thought so many times over the years: If I learn today that my neighbors have political views that my “side” considers unacceptable and unforgivable, should I be able to have dinner at their house, shovel their snow, or even greet them outside? … Maybe we were better off before we knew everyone’s hot takes on everything It also reminds me of this passage from Wendell Berry’s The Need to Be Whole. (I haven’t read the book yet. I’ve come across this passage in a few places online.) There has been a good deal of talk of the way political division has been intensified perhaps mainly by social media, so that people need to deal little or not at all with the others who are politically unlike themselves. Such exclusiveness, it seems to me, is possible only in large towns and cities. In my own rural community, oriented to the very small town of Port Royal, it is not possible. This is not to Port Royal’s credit, but is a matter only of the size and…