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As the 2026 election season unfolds, Americans are once again being asked to evaluate the direction of the country. Primary elections will keep the country busy this summer through September, followed by the general election campaign leading up to November 3. While voters will undoubtedly weigh issues such as the economy and rising costs of living, concerns about the strength and future of American democracy remain a recurring theme, particularly among younger voters.
As trust in government institutions is declining, many Americans are also experiencing strain in their personal relationships due to political and ideological differences. For example, one study found that 37 percent of Americans have experienced a “political breakup,” losing relationships because of political differences.
We are experiencing a period of deep polarization. For many people, it feels as though every disagreement carries enormous stakes. The news cycle, social media algorithms, and our increasingly fragmented communities often reinforce the sense that those who disagree with us are not simply mistaken, but dangerous.
We may not be there yet, but a society in which everyone sees everyone else as an adversary begins to resemble the world Thomas Hobbes famously described as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The seventeenth-century political philosopher believed only a strong centralized authority could restrain human conflict. History has shown that Hobbes’ totalitarian solution isn’t the answer.
Instead of assuming, as Hobbes did, a veneer theory of humanity – that civilization merely suppresses our naturally selfish and violent tendencies – we should understand our current crisis not as a failure of strong institutions, but rather as a decline of prosociality. The solution, then, would be to cultivate those innate capacities that make shared life possible and relationships strong enough to withstand disagreement without collapsing into hostility.
The benefit of civil society
Without healthy forms of civil society – families, IRL friendships, and the countless relationships that connect us in everyday life – there are fewer places where people can learn how to disagree while remaining connected. Every social challenge gets pushed into politics, where disagreement is turned into a public battle with something to win or lose.
It is no wonder that people are losing trust in governmental institutions. Political leaders are not fundamentally different from the rest of us. If we struggle to listen, remain curious, and maintain relationships across disagreement, we should not be surprised when our institutions struggle as well. The challenge is not simply political. It is social and human.
Cultivating love and compassion as an ethical and social orientation would allow people to see others not merely as ideological opponents or political obstacles, but rather as fellow human beings whose lives, fears, hopes, and values matter, even when we profoundly disagree with them.
Love and compassion as an antidote to ideological thinking
Political psychologist Leor Zmigrod argues that ideologies share two essential features. First, they are doctrinal. They provide a rigid framework that establishes what is true, what is good, and who belongs. Second, they are relational. They create insiders through shared symbols, rituals, language, and identity markers, and they leave others outside of the moral community.
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This helps explain why political disagreement today feels so emotionally charged. People are not simply defending positions. They are defending identities, communities, and ways of understanding the world.
Once someone is seen as an outsider, it becomes easier to dismiss, fear, or dehumanize them. A recent study found that participants consistently treated members of opposing parties worse, regardless of party affiliation. More strikingly, participants often viewed this unequal treatment as morally justified.
Ideology provides clear answers, yet social challenges are never that clear-cut. Values frequently come into tension with one another, and reasonable people can disagree about how to balance them. Recognizing this complexity does not require abandoning conviction or accepting every view as equally valid. It simply means acknowledging the differing priorities, experiences, fears, and hopes that people have, rather than assuming people are irrational or acting in bad faith. Seen this way, disagreement becomes less of a battle and more of an opportunity to learn.
From social contract to social connection
This shift requires a different way of relating to one another in society. Modern political thought often begins with self-interest. Consider philosopher John Rawls’ famous thought experiment, the “veil of ignorance.” He asks us to imagine designing society without knowing what position we ourselves will occupy within it. Because we could end up rich or poor, privileged or vulnerable, we would create fair rules that protect everyone.
Rawls’ theory is very self-interested. We care about justice and fairness because we might be affected. We set up a society that treats others well, because we want to be treated well ourselves. When people disagree with what we believe is right and good, we see their view as a challenge to our beliefs and to our potential position in society.
The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas offers a very different starting point. For Levinas, ethics begins not with a self-interested contract but with a face-to-face encounter with another person. When we genuinely see another human being, we encounter their vulnerability, mortality, uniqueness, and dignity. We recognize that their life matters independently of what they can do for us. Our responsibility to another person is not based on reciprocity but stems from their own humanity.
The distinction between these two starting points is profound. In a contract-based society, I care about you because caring about you protects me. In a relationship-based society, I care about you because you are another human being. The latter allows people to disagree while remaining connected. It restores the possibility of having a civil society.
Practicing loving curiosity
Polarization thrives when people assume others are acting in bad faith. Love pushes back against this by encouraging curiosity. Rather than making assumptions about why people believe what they do, curiosity invites us to ask questions. We seek to understand how others came to hold their beliefs, what experiences shaped them, and what values are at stake for them. Love reminds us that the person across the aisle is not merely a political or ideological opponent, but a human being.
Love as ethical and social orientation will not eliminate political conflict or resolve every moral disagreement, but it can transform how we engage them and with each other.
