“If you put people in a moral vacuum, they will seek to fill it with the closest thing at hand. Over the past several years, people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism. . . . . For people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy. It offers them a comprehensible moral landscape: The line between good and evil runs not down the middle of every human heart, but between groups. Life is a struggle between us, the forces of good, and them, the forces of evil.”
– David Brooks, writing in The Atlantic, “How America Got Mean“
“People who cannot fill the emptiness in the place marked ‘religion’ with something worthwhile will fill it with whatever is at hand.”
– Mamre, “The Right Solution”
HE