I suppose it is difficult to overemphasize how important communication is, and how strikingly absent it is in American culture.
We are creating increasingly insulated subcultures, and even economic classes, whose modes of living and ideologizing of reality are radically separated from each other.
Class is especially important, and the effects of class conflict are beginning to outweigh many traditional lines of division and cultural separation. Some would argue that this has always been the case, and it is true to an extent. One of Marx's central arguments was that the processes of capitalism necessarily created separate classes of entirely different interests, and that these interests were irreconcilable and even at a fatal tension, whose antagonisms would eventually destroy the system they were a part of. Owners want to own, and often own more, among other motivations, while the proletariat want to mainly live and consume, among other motivations.
And by golly, it looks like the man was right as rain! To put it simply anyways. Now we are left with these various social strata in a state of catastrophic failure of communication, gnashing against one another as the panic spreads.
But where there's separation, there is always the potential for reconciliation. You can see glimpses of unity embedded within the myriad symbols constructed across cultures and even subcultures. You can study religions, philosophies, rationalist toolsets, art movements and whatever else from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, Africa, etc.. So long as you take into consideration the surrounding context, whether cultural, historical, environmental, etc., you can translate all of these expressions and understand them within the context of a shared human condition.
One key task is to get past the "I can do it on my own" mindset that characterized so much of the political and philosophical movements of the modern era. A brand new ideology that proposes to solve everything may look shiny and compelling in the mind's eye, especially when the situation is dire, but then there is always the case that not everyone will see the world in the same way, though they share the same basic experiences. It is a difficult thing to remember to do, as simple as it is, but it helps to try to listen as much as one orates.
