We said nothing, and then they came for us

Now politics has been imported into every part of life, which robs life of moral and aesthetic values, and reduces it to tribal fighting and shifting values depending on what suits 'our side'. The communications architecture is evolving to exacerbate that by destroying the disinterested public square.

In his seminal paper on the Law of Group Polarisation Cass Sunstein explains that in groups that tend in a particular direction there is a tendency for their views to become more extreme after discussing an issue without dissenting voices. This applies to any group, from a knitting circle to judges on the High Court of Australia.

So silos are likely to produce vicious cycles, making sectarianism much worse. The Woke claim to be the peacemakers, but their actions increase the degree of hate in society.

When we look at other periods of sectarianism, the war is often a precondition of the peace. Until people are confronted with how badly things can be they have no interest in making the compromises that mean we can get on together. Perhaps we can eventually get to a Westphalian peace and set ourselves up for another 470 years of improvement. Or perhaps the Chinese and Russians will take advantage of the moment and eat us up.

Or just maybe Spotify will be the high-water mark and we'll pull back before doing ourselves serious harm.

Whichever, even on the most benign scenario, it looks like it's going to be hell for quite a while.