✨What's happening at Alt Pink?
🎯A brand new 8 month essays column titled "Upon Reflection" by Saniya (Nikki) Sharma. This column talks about everything that is a cool conflict - right from the chickoo in your fridge to the grenade dropped from airspace.
Upon Reflection
This week I have been giving thought to polarisation.
I always believed that reason and rationale could avoid polarisation. Because polarisation is, in effect, an opinion. And opinions can and should change with facts.
But I have realised that there is a difference between can, should, and would. Opinions can change, should change, and would ideally change — but…
That “but” continues to polarise society, politics, and personal life.
It is remarkable how political our personal lives have become. When young girls tell me these days that they have no interest in politics, I advise them to educate themselves on it — at least as neutral observers. Because everything is political today. From which biscuits come into our homes, to whose name goes into a will, to which project receives government funding — politics has no real escape. There can be an escape, there should be an escape, and people would ideally escape — but…
That “but” keeps politics relevant.
When we combine politics and polarisation, we find a rather potent combination — one we must educate ourselves about if we are to navigate it, whether as participants or observers. Because, well, even ships need a lighthouse when navigating the ocean. And we are humans whose intellect and capacity now stand at the edge of being matched — or even replaced — by AI.
Political polarisation today is less about disagreement over policy and more about identity alignment. When political affiliation becomes fused with identity, criticism of ideas begins to feel like criticism of the self. This psychological fusion explains why debates escalate so quickly, and why compromises can feel like betrayal.
Around the world, elections and public discourse increasingly reflect moral framing rather than policy nuance. The deeper the identification, the stronger the in-group loyalty — and the harsher the judgement of the out-group. Polarisation is further reinforced by media ecosystems that reward certainty and punish ambiguity.
The psychological cost is a kind of collective rigidity: people stop evaluating information independently and instead ask, “Is this ours?” Sustainable conflict resolution, then, requires the creation of super-ordinate identities — shared goals that transcend factional labels. Without that reframing, political conflict remains existential rather than negotiable.
So, in light of all that, I have been wondering — does identity discourse require an appreciation of dissociative reasoning? One that first asks us to evaluate conflict through a neutral lens, to define it clearly, before articulating its impact on identity and polity?
To understand the conflict, we may first have to step outside who we are within it.
🔍 What's Next?
The essays will be be published twice a month. We will keep you updated about other stories.
