The Bonds We Share

We all tend to impute and overgeneralize the faults of the individual members of a group we disfavor upon all the members of that group. We tend to ascribe all the virtues of the individuals of the groups, to which we belong, to ourselves and the group as a whole. Further exacerbating this disconnect and tendency toward polarization, we mistakenly think that our lives are so distinct and ingeniously unique that we view it as miraculous the similarities we may share with those we desire to associate. We thereby create this aura of the miraculous between us and the bond we think we share – thus the advent of exceptionalism. Here in America, we have made it into a religion.

Loren M. Lambert © April 6, 2012