Maybe Don’t Talk About Community Violence in Terms of Division

May 27, 2025

Now that I have actual plans in the field of gender studies, it has became impossible for me to not encounter lengthy, cliche, and verbose Chinese articles (which unfortunately remind me of one of my secret projects currently on a may or may not never-ending hiatus) that drones on about how violent communities can be. Almost paradoxically, they sometimes circle back to the supposed solution of a better community that is definitely, trust me, different which is definitely the solution. I have to admit that the underlying reason is probably how I don’t have any similar experiences, but I find it hard to believe that someone would be inspired in terms of conflict resolution by a hundred-page anecdote, except the possibly hundred people who are involved in the story, where the circumstances arguably fall more and more towards the unfortunate direction towards the end.

They also always talk about a division in the community.

⊕In terms more native to the context of this article, 社群分裂.

This has always occurred to me as a strange choice, but as I think about it more and more, the word “division” might actually be misleading.

The word sounds of an excuse. The words “division” and “polarization” has became arguably overused because almost everyone agrees when someone says that (insert place or context) has became too polarized or extreme. While being actually quite useful in dinner-table politics, this statement is becoming less and less meaningful as less and less people talk about what the actual poles are and why they are purportedly so extreme, according to everyone. While admitting that some basic values are intractable, it is unreasonable to give up on persuasion, narration, or activism when there is a surprising large number of things people with drastically different fundamental values can agree on. One should not get to accuse others of tribalism when they are sidestepping their own disclosure of competing interests.

The word sounds of a distraction. If someone claims that the community is divided, it seems reasonable to guess that they have picked a side. But this guess is based on a huge heap of assumptions, for example, that one or more person agrees with them, that two or more sides exist, and that there is an ideological line dividing the community at all. We should not let these assumptions hijack our thoughts, especially when a community as a whole can be destructive and even self-destructive. Communities are not always constructive, and worse, even if we force ourselves to see otherwise united communities as divided parts, there might not even be a part that could be considered a net positive.

The word sounds of an accusation. There are certainly scenarios where this claim is useful or even essential in driving change within the community. However, it is also often a oversimplified mental image of community that assumes unity is good, diversity is troublesome, and differences are grounds for war. I often find myself forget to think about important questions like whether the division is recognized in the community, whether people are aware of the reason for the division, or whether anyone except the one making the claim would even phrase it as a division at all. There is not a perfect definition of community as far as I am aware, but the collective yet individually realized identity is often more important than a criterion or creed coined by the one with the loudest voice.

It is not a sin to point out division. However, the less someone talks about the division-defining problem, the beliefs of community members, and the collective narration of identity in the community, the more we should ask ourselves whether the recognition of division would push things forward. Perhaps, what is passing as constructive advice is actually an excuse, a distraction or an accusation in disguise.

This is a short-short article in a series of short-short opinion pieces. Ideas are of my own except when they are not.