Breaking the Chain: Moving Beyond Division and Exploitation
Due to a difficult childhood, I’ve struggled with mental health my whole life. In my teens and twenties I drank a lot of alcohol and experimented with drugs to escape my pain. To get those drugs, I spent a lot of time with people I normally would not approve of or associate with. I’m in my late thirties now and have a happy family home — illegal drugs are in the distant past for me, but I still carry the weight of having relationships with criminals and the toll those experiences have taken on me.
In my last two articles, I dug into the complexities of political and social divides. In one, I reflected on what I got wrong about Trump voters, and in the other, I examined the cost of conservatism to modern society. Both pieces highlighted how deep and tangled these divisions go — but there’s another layer to this conversation that we need to address: how personal struggles, social neglect, and survival instincts often lead people down destructive paths. And how, in many cases, these struggles aren’t just about ideology — they’re about survival and identity.
In this follow-up, I want to explore how these personal and societal dynamics feed into each other, creating a feedback loop that drives both exploitation and division. It’s not just a political issue; it’s a human one.
When we talk about people turning to harmful ideologies or criminal behaviour, we often focus on the outcomes, not the conditions that make these behaviours so common. We blame people for the choices they make, but we don’t always look at the systems that shape those choices. From my own experiences, particularly with drug dealers, I’ve seen two different ways of dealing with hardship: sometimes they turn to self-improvement and resilience, while at other times, often driven by desperation, resort to crime or extreme beliefs.
It’s easy to write off someone who engages in criminal behaviour as “bad” or “morally corrupt,” but it’s more complicated than that. The truth is, many people who end up in these situations are just trying to survive in a world that’s stacked against them. And often, they don’t have the same opportunities for advancement as others. For someone who feels powerless and trapped due to circumstances like poverty or discrimination, turning to criminality or extreme beliefs can feel like their only option.
In my own life, I took a different route. I worked hard, taught myself new skills, and built a reputation as someone who’s dependable and capable. But it wasn’t easy, and I know that not everyone has the same resources, the same support systems, or the same opportunities to make that choice.
Those who do turn to crime — whether it’s dealing drugs, or stealing — often come from places where they’ve been ignored, left behind, or made to feel like they don’t matter. And for them, power becomes something they take, even if it’s through exploitation or manipulation of people who trust them.
In my experience with drug dealers, what I saw wasn’t just a desire to make money. It was about control. These people didn’t just want to sell drugs — they wanted to exert influence, to force others into agreeing with their views. In their world, ideologies like anti-vax beliefs, flat earth theories, or racist and misogynistic rhetoric weren’t just opinions — they were weapons used to maintain power over people who had no choice but to listen.
For these individuals, embracing these extreme beliefs wasn’t about having a well-thought-out worldview. It was about feeling superior, about carving out a space where they were in control. And control, for them, often came through making others feel small, vulnerable, or indebted. They’d use the power imbalance in relationships to push their views on others — whether you liked it or not.
For someone like me, a progressive, this kind of manipulation can be especially harmful. As someone who’s often emotional, creative, or driven by a desire for connection and understanding, it can be easy to fall prey to someone else’s need for power. When you’re emotionally vulnerable, when you don’t feel heard by the wider world, the last thing you want is to be taken advantage of. But that’s what often happens in these situations.
This isn’t just about bad individuals or bad decisions — it’s a reflection of a larger system that leaves people with few options. When you feel powerless, it’s easy to fall into destructive behaviours or extreme ideologies that promise a sense of control, even if that control is illusory and ultimately harmful.
So how do we break this cycle of exploitation and division?
It starts with looking at the root causes of these behaviors. It’s not enough to just blame someone for their beliefs or actions. We need to understand what drives them to those beliefs and actions. In many cases, these behaviours are products of a system that has failed to support people emotionally, mentally, and socially. If the system doesn’t provide people with the tools they need to thrive — whether through education, mental health support, or economic opportunities — then it’s no surprise that they’ll resort to other means of survival.
This isn’t just about individual choices — it’s about a collective failure to address the real issues. We need to create systems that help people develop resilience in healthy ways, that offer support rather than leaving people to fend for themselves. We need to focus on healing, not just condemning.
For those of us on the progressive side, this means recognizing the humanity of those who seem lost to extreme ideologies. Instead of demonizing them, we should focus on the factors that led them there. How can we build a society that helps people heal, rather than further fragmenting us into us vs. them?
The divide between right and left isn’t just a political one — it’s a societal and personal one. The real challenge is not to argue over who’s right or wrong, but to understand the forces that shape people’s choices. To break the cycle of division and exploitation, we need to address the deep-rooted issues that drive people to extreme and dangerous behaviours in the first place.
It’s not going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But if we start with empathy, with a genuine understanding of why people turn to these extremes, we can begin to heal these divides. We can create a society that supports resilience, not just survival. One where power isn’t taken by force, but shared through understanding and community.
The true end to division isn’t just to become tolerant of one another — it’s to build something better. Something that gives everyone, no matter their background or circumstances, the chance to thrive without turning to harmful ideologies or destructive behaviours. To paraphrase the great Alejandro Jodorowsky, we need to build a society “where healthy human relationships are valued more highly than technological advances corrupted by an excess of science and a total lack of consciousness”.
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