Can We Be Critical Of One Side Without Joining The Other?

I need to believe we can

Roger Waters and David Gilmour play a game of risk together in the middle of a vast battlefield, cyberpunk, sleek, neon — by DALL·E

It is distressing to see our need for the opposition to affirm our position. It appears we need someone to play against before we even begin to conceive the game we want to play. The us/them dichotomy is everywhere and far more pernicious than we can imagine. Even when we claim to oppose division, we often do it by leaning on it.

Us And Them is one of my favourite songs in one of the best albums of all time. While Roger Waters did not write it, he was very much part of the Pink Floyd that created and released it. Incidentally, a friend of mine happens to be Ukrainian and a long-time fan of the English band. I shuddered after reading Mr Waters’ comments on the Russian invasion of my friend’s country, imagining how much it would hurt me if one of my heroes expressed such a lack of insight into the suffering of my people. However, he seemed most indifferent, claiming the views weren’t any less inaccurate than others the musician had expressed in the past about other topics.

I had almost stopped thinking about the matter when I came across an article that shed light on recent research on the value of Pink Floyd’s catalogue having decreased following the views of one of its former frontmen. Perusing the article’s comments, those who expressed disregard or…