Splitting

Humans carve the world cleanly in two when they feel threatened. There’s a right and a wrong, a good and an evil, an us and a them. In normal times, this behavior is most obvious in people with serious depression or borderline personality disorder. Psychologists call it “splitting.”

These days, we see a lot of splitting by all kinds of people, from students to senators. In times of high anxiety, each new conflict gets framed this way, a galactic struggle against a dark lord. Complexity is intolerable; ambivalence is cowardly…

This op-ed was published in the Washington Post on Jan. 4, 2024.