Eros has a strong sense of "we" that is often misunderstood in a dualistic world. "We" is used by groups either as a defense of their "against-ness," signifying a superiority and elitism, or, it is eschewed by liberals as being antithetical to an agenda of inclusion. The former occurs as a barrier; the latter a lack of boundary. The issue is that with identity we become rigid and without, we not only lack potency but meaning. The proper response to the rigidity and righteousness of identity is not "all things to all people," but a clear, boundaried world that we can identify with and discover who we are inside of.
Commitment to our collective is vital for growth. That is a boundary. It is vital for interaction in the human realm to have distinct boundaries, otherwise we lose potency. At the same time, when that boundary becomes a barrier—when identification becomes an identity—we have gone too far. It is a classic left/right argument, and what we are seeking is the dynamic sweet spot of "we" that lies in between.
The reason we is so vital is that it breeds a sense of abundance and safety. There is a basic moral intuition in each of us that arises in the face of those we consider our own. The shared sense of being a part-of creates the container we can grow inside of. The left's tendency to go global without developing a boundaried relationship first with self, then with community, then with region, is a kind of boundary-bypass where we merely avoid developing an ever-expanding sense of we.
That well-developed sense of "we" becomes increasingly more inviting because it has developed the strength to hold the capacity for loyalty, protection, and accountability. This is a vital aspect of health that in fact increases our humanitarian tendencies. The sense of wealth and security that comes from healthy boundaries provides a solid foundation that motivates people to invest in the welfare of others. To lack this does not make us open; it makes us impotent.
To lack this fundamental and immediate root of identification of "home"—to have it lack boundaries and get watered down or muddied— makes it so people lack the guiding hand of a culture that would allow for a depth of accountable exchange, a necessary element in developing people into political adults. There is a clear sign when the right has gone too far—we end up with a supremacy that uses their advantage to harm others. When the left goes too far, we have competition for rights with no responsibility. The fundamentals of being accountable to a system are not taught.
We end up with teacup citizens who have high self-esteem and no actual contribution. They are fragile and break at criticism or real-world difficulty. They are incapable of showing up in difficult times with anything other than their opinions and, because they have refused identification and are not accountable, move on to the next in order to get what they consider theirs.
We create a culture that lacks the resilience to build its own happiness and the people within wind up treating the community as their servant, demanding it delivers their happiness or they will move on to the next community, culture, or country. It is important for the leftist side to understand that trying too hard to make the people of our culture happy actually fails to make them happy. The key is to develop a society where the society does not do too much for the citizens, lest they fail to take on adulthood and end up in chronic tumescence, feeling adrift, anxious, and confused without knowing how to find their own way out of it.
A culture must include systems where people have to do hard work and make genuine contributions in order to get rewards for the benefit of the people of that society, rather than offer praise and rewards simply for existing. The hard work keeps a culture from narcissism and self-importance. Yes, we are accountable to a system that we draw benefit from. Without this, happiness becomes a right, and we are robbed of the skill to develop that happiness and access to collective eudaimonia, where we live our life in connection with others doing a great thing.
We have replaced this with the rights of being broken together. We have half of the equation right: identification with others. But the reason we come together is misguided.
On the other hand, to get too-boundaried as a culture creates insular systems that prevent the inflow and crossbreeding of ideas, interactions, and access to perspectives that would keep a system healthy and permeable. The system then grows rigid and myopic, losing out on the types of checks and balances that would prevent malignancies from forming. This culture produces members who believe themselves superior solely based on membership to the culture and thus feel entitled to take liberties rather than operating as a necessary but equal part of. The humility required for open-minded dialogue across class, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender decreases, until only the most similar associate with each other and whatever is other is cast as "enemy."
This form of barriered communication makes everything outside of it something to be guarded against and approached with suspicion. A polarization of us/them happens, which makes the member necessarily live in opposition to the non-member. This sole fact is at the foundation of all violence, all war. In a barriered culture, it is not only an "us and a them," it is us against them. They become foreign, unfamiliar, and thus, dangerous.
Because the membrane is not permeable, there is no way to understand what is perceived as outside of us, and so there must be a proactive defense set up rather than an open dialogue. The defense then creates a response of defense in the other—and soon, that is all that is interacting between that culture and the world.
The solution, then, is to develop a healthy "we."
