‘Tragedy is that kind of action in which human beings are shown in contest with the horror of indistinction, facing a world which threatens to collapse.’ So wrote Michael Neill, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland and Shakespeare scholar and editor. This is one of many quotations surfacing from the millpond of memory in the wake of my final university exams. As with so many things Shakespeare, Neill’s astute comment resonates in the modern context of international dialogue dominated by self-determining demagogues who subject the electorate to ever more divisive rhetoric and split communities into feuding factions. In such a caustic environment, the bonds between colleagues, neighbours, and friends are stretched and even the elasticity of familial ties is tried. A miscalculated remark or frustration vented is sometimes all it takes to ignite indignation and separation. Times are tough and amid climate turmoil, pinched public services, and the ubiquitous B-word, who hasn’t at one point or another imagined themselves a tragic hero doing battle within the Babel din of public discourse?

For those seeking to mediate or negotiate, this battle is harder than ever. Every aspect of modern life has been neatly divided into opposing camps that can be played against one another to the benefit of invested elites. Whether you’re on the left or right, country bumpkin or urbane cosmopolitan, Apple or Android: our differences are exploited and actively encouraged so that we fall into clear-cut categories whose decisions can be pre-empted. These days it’s nigh-on impossible to occupy the middle ground as political, social, and consumerist agendas are calculated on the assumption that if you are of one persuasion then you necessarily must also think X, Y, and, of course, Z. As individuals, we buy into these preconceptions, rarely stopping to question whether we really do fit the profiles foisted upon us from high. And in an environment where any reasoned, fact-based contradiction of the dominant dogma can be dismissed as a “difference of opinion”, objective reality gives way to a fantasy world of fake news and alternative facts.

The papers paint a two-tone society devoid of nuance where we must all identify with one antagonistic party or the other. Politicians preach to allies or enemies who are supposed to be cast from diametrically opposite moulds. And the whole fanfare is relayed to us via social media whose governing algorithms accentuate more extreme content, rather than direct us towards an open space for reasoned deliberation. When we understand that these sites capitalise on the reactions of its users by selling this data to advertisers, it isn’t hard to understand why moderate, pacific discussion is secondary to polemic and controversy. As advertisers realised long ago: angry people click more. Pouring oil on the turbulent tides of public debate simply isn’t in their interest. Meanwhile the calm voice of reflection is drowned out by browbeating ideologues.

Amid such chaos, any attempt to mitigate differences and agree on a course of action that may not be perfect but is better for all concerned seems doomed from the outset. “What’s the point in trying?” we may well ask. Tune in to LBC at any given hour and you can hear points of view seemingly impossible to reconcile, fanatical mantra recited with unwavering conviction. It’s hardly constructive. But in spite of the deafening clamour that pulls the inquiring individual from one pole to the other, we should remember that it is in fact at the personal level that we can resolve this unholy row. It’s not that we must all agree in order to move forward; discord is what defines the individual from the crowd. The problem is the fervour with which opinions are held and the point blank refusal to entertain or even hear any deviation from them. Like broken records the tabloids shout their toxic refrains ad infinitum, as if they speak for all. But we are not the tabloids.

Perhaps it’s asking too much to expect figures of public prominence or national news outlets to have the humility to retract views so ardently expressed. Once entrenched in their bastions of self-promoting sophistry, it can be very hard to clamber down. But for the majority of us who don’t have a national pedestal from which to transmit our two cents worth, it’s the uncomfortable, discordant conversations we have between ourselves that coax us from the binary dicta broadcast by the media. These clashes of opinion take place in the local arena, be it work, home, or just down the local. Heated and impassioned though they may become, these encounters are the vital tête-à-têtes that chip away at preconceptions and steer us towards some sort of compromise. Without them we might all end up Lear-esque caricatures bellowing into oblivion. As with each passing day the scales tip towards the tragic, the middle path might be the only way out of this drama.