I didn’t expect a tidy answer. I got something better: a real argument, spread across a comment thread on social media and a parallel conversation on Substack, in which dozens of readers posed their perspectives.
In inviting the conversation, I said at the outset that my Substack isn’t meant to occupy the political center. It’s meant to occupy the center of the conversation: a place where hard questions get examined rather than dodged. Judged by that standard, folks delivered.
What follows is my attempt to distill the strongest arguments into something more useful than a comment thread: a map of where thoughtful people actually stand — and where they still can’t agree.
Read the entire commentary on Substack In The Center Lane With Herb Paine →
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In the midst of all the current social and political disruption, commentator Herb Paine takes a step back and reflect on how we shifted from an age of aspirations to an era of polarization.
