“Say more,” I pleaded.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the us and them story. Sociologically, celebrating heritage and the heart of home is a beautiful thing.  Local diversity is what makes globalization so tantalizing. A both/and paradigm allows room for personal experience and collective wisdom. An us/them paradigm festers toxic rivalries, territorial churches, cult politics and abusive workplace environments. Being afraid of collective wisdom (being afraid of being wrong) elevates your personal experience to the border of self-worship. Those who dig in to “local (my way) is best” lack skills of humility, empathy and compromise. On the flip-side, those who only see community wisdom have a harder time appreciating the nuance of individual experience. It’s a weird catch-22: Globalization seems to promote both societal homogenization and cultural heterogenization.