If you cast your mind around, the people who live next door or in the adjacent town have similar needs and aspirations and it is this commonality which binds us to strive to be accommodating to everyone except those who oppose what we value.
Politically we hear the concerns of people regarding the less well off coming from a certain kind of political affiliation. In the Conservative Club the conversation is more directed to the success of the individual. In the Labour Club, schemes to lend their support to sections of the community who are having a rough time is often normal.
This dichotomy between the clubs highlights a very discernible rift between members of the same society and one has to ask why, (except on the extremes) their views are so different.
People are the result of conditioning and ideology and it is no ones fault that a person holds a set of opinions very different to ones own. It can be frustrating but one man truth is another's fiction and actuality often lie somewhere between the two.
The sight of the trauma of thousands of people struggling to get into Europe, of whom we have a natural concern for their life and limb, is tempered with the thought of where you are going to put them and can we afford it. Compassion therefore is tempered with pragmatism.
Is it wrong to be pragmatic. It is equally stupid to shower your compassion, irrespective of the consequences.
These are the questions we struggle with. The differences, especially the cultural and religious observance, which will always cast its shadow over true harmony because there is no right way or wrong way only the conditioning of our upbringing.
If a man or a women believes it imperative to convert your way of thinking, one becomes wary of them. And whilst in a Secular world the give and take is more easy going, the quasi missionary fervour of some drives a wedge between us.
There is little attempt at "affiliation" or conciliation and the divisory effect can be ruinous.
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