The problem with rigid dualistic thinking — us or them, black or white, good or bad, my way or the highway — is that it leaves out everything except one’s own narrow point of view.

Like the blind men and the elephant, you think it’s like a snake, he thinks it’s like a tree, and she thinks it’s like a house. Without better sight, without actually taking in the entire creature, the blind men are never going to be able to agree about the elephant.

Unless today’s rampant partisanship is the last gasp of rigidly dualistic nationalism, we are in severe danger of being squashed by the elephant.

Remember how lovely the earth looked in those pictures taken from the moon? It wasn’t fractured into a million pieces. It was one thing, one whole thing.

Taking rigid nationalism this far into the 21st century puts that one whole thing at risk.