I explore in my book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, that too often today, we reduce people to one aspect of who they are. We define them by their worst trait or mistake—something they said or did, which they probably regret, but which, thanks to the internet and social media, has been immortalized and widely circulated.
It is time that we start “unbundling” people.
Our current culture views the world and people through a cheapened simplicity. Everything, and everyone, is either right or wrong, good or evil. We define people based on one thing they’ve done or said, sometimes even if it occurred years or decades ago, and “cancel” them for it. This view of the world and people is reductive, essentializing, and degrading to the diversity and beauty of the human personality.
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