The Politics of Contempt: When Belonging Becomes Blindness

"The sorting we do to ourselves and to one another is, at best, unintentional and reflexive. At worst, it is stereotyping that dehumanizes. The paradox is that we all love the readymade filing system. It’s so handy when we want to quickly characterize people. But, yet we resent it when we’re the ones getting filed away." — Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness

Over the past 15 years, American political life has become increasingly shaped by insulation, caricature, and contempt. The Right has been pulled further right, the Left further left, and many people now only know the other side through media portrayals, social media outrage, and ideological shorthand rather than actual, neighborly relationships.

In Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown covers how, 17 years ago, we were already "self-sorting" into echo chambers where groupthink and isolation flourished. Inside those spaces, assumptions are confirmed, enemies are simplified, and righteous anger is reinforced. We begin to believe that we are not merely seeing part of reality, but the judges of reality itself.

This blinds us from ourselves, and that blindness has consequences.

The Architecture of Echo Chambers

We become less interested in solutions and more interested in being right. Eventually, being right is not enough. We want power. Then, even power is not enough. We want the other side, someone, to pay for it.

It is no sociological or psychological secret that people sometimes want a pound of flesh. People may not say it openly, but people often reveal it in their reactions. When harm comes to those we see as members of the opposing group, we find it hard to respond with sadness or moral seriousness. Sometimes we feel satisfaction. Sometimes we call it justice. Sometimes we imagine the universe has finally punished the people who deserved it.

That is the danger: Not disagreement, not conviction, and not moral clarity. The danger is when another group’s suffering begins to feel deserved.

This is how righteousness becomes cruelty, and justice injustice.

Once we see ourselves as the good people, we become vulnerable to believing that those outside our group are not merely wrong, but defective, dangerous, corrupt, or less fully human. Dehumanization rarely announces itself as dehumanization. It usually arrives disguised as discernment, courage, or moral clarity.

But the deeper problem is not politics alone. It's belonging.

An Old Human Need For Tribes

Human beings need groups. We want family, community, identity, purpose, and shared meaning. That desire is human and not a weakness. It is part of our survival and early development. For most of human history, those who did not belong did not last long. Alone, we are vulnerable. Together, we became capable of protection, cooperation, culture, and thriving.

But belonging always creates a boundary. To say “we” is also to imply “they.” That boundary can be healthy. A group can be organized around shared values, clear objectives, mutual responsibility, and common purpose. But when a group begins defining itself primarily by superiority and opposition to outsiders, belonging becomes dangerous.

Healthy belonging preserves differentiation. Unhealthy belonging demands fusion.

In healthy belonging, you can remain part of the group while still asking questions. You can challenge assumptions. You can hold complexity. You can belong without surrendering your values or your conscience. In unhealthy belonging, questions become betrayal. Dissent becomes exile. Complexity becomes weakness. The need to prove loyalty becomes stronger than the commitment to truth.

That is the raw material of mobs.

At the same time, the answer is not radical individualism. We are not healthier when our egos must remain inflated to hide the insecurities in our shadows. Belonging to nothing and no one is not the point: belonging to ourselves is.

Social isolation carries its own costs. Many people today are overconnected and underbelonged, surrounded by digital contact but starved for real community and authenticity. Social media offers the illusion of belonging without the obligations or risks of a relationship. It gives us affirmation without accountability, connection without depth, and outrage without responsibility. And it has spent the last two decades reshaping our cognitive habits.

So the question is not whether we should belong or stand alone. In truth, we already do both. The question is what kind of belonging allows us to remain fully human.

"The community secures its own peace by uniting against a single victim, finding a false righteousness in collective condemnation." — René Girard, The Scapegoat

Differentiation vs. Fusion

Healthy belonging preserves differentiation; unhealthy belonging demands fusion. Healthy individuality preserves responsibility; unhealthy individuality refuses obligation.

This distinction matters because polarization is not only bad for democracy, but it is also bad for the people living inside the democracy. When citizens become locked in mutual contempt, we lose the capacity to solve shared problems. Housing, homelessness, education, healthcare, infrastructure, addiction, loneliness, and economic instability do not disappear because we are busy hating one another. They simply go unresolved.

And whether by design or by incentive, this division benefits powerful interests. A divided public is easier to distract, easier to manipulate, and easier to sell to. It does not require a grand conspiracy. It only requires systems that profit from outrage, fear, and identity threat.

The way forward is not to abandon belonging, but to mature it.

We need groups rooted in values rather than enemies. We need communities that allow disagreement without exile. We need movements disciplined enough to pursue justice without dehumanization. And we need individuals strong enough to belong without surrendering conscience.

Because when belonging becomes blindness, democracy suffers. But when belonging is joined with humility, responsibility, and moral discipline, it can help us build a society worthy of the values we claim to defend.

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”   — Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness