I've spent a lot of time thinking about the conflicts that took place during lockdown.

No doubt some of it came out of straight tribal politics, but the culture wars/old school left-right ideological divides also interplayed with our emotional needs in interesting ways...

Everyone wants to help. To feel a part of history, to feel connected, to feel a sense of meaning, to feel less powerless.

But there are themes in culture wars that took "helping" in very different directions... https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/A_Paradise_Built_in_Hell.html?id=JB-MDQAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

Ideas around individualism, exceptionalism and masculinity overlapped with a focus on "exceptional" (rich) individuals who dissented loudly; and so many steely arguments in favour of letting people die, as if hard-nosed manly rationality *demanded* it.

The point here isn't to say that they are bad and dumb, but an attempt to explain *why*. If your view of the world comes from Ayn Rand, that greatness comes from individual effort, dragging the world of ants forward through the force of their individual greatness, then...

...the idea that great things can be achieved by collective effort - by many people doing many small things every single day - is pure heresy. It is difficult to believe it can be powerful, or even that it can be possible.

And moreover, in a world where this happens - where great things are accomplished by everyone - where does this leave them? How can you be great, be exceptional, or even be an individual, in this world? Are they relegated to being ants?

The same sense of meaning and identity that some of us felt from lockdown - from seeing ideas around the collective being made manifest - led to quite opposite feelings for others. And the sense of resentment about us being "sheep".