As society has grown more complicated, too many among us have become ever more simple-minded.

On a daily basis, we scream at each other in absolutist terms. This or that candidate is the salvation or evil incarnate. A policy proposal is deemed brilliant or deviously underhanded. A news report is regarded as the latest gospel or utterly fake.

Everything is stark black or bright white. We have become addicted to life in vivid relief without subtlety or modulation. In the process, the decibel level is often regarded as more important than the underlying reasoning. Whether on the left or right, issues are taken to illogical extremes. Anyone who dares to argue that we take five steps in a given direction is drowned out by those who want to take 10. The group that suggests 10 steps is rendered mute by those pushing for 20.

With respect to public policy, this results in an all-or-nothing country. Both sides of the aisle more and more resemble a poker player who goes all-in on every hand no matter how strong or weak his cards.

Let’s look at what this propensity for adamant, unbending thinking means for some issues du jour.

It should be possible to talk about a sordid, endless history of mistreatment of blacks and other minorities at the hands of too many police officers without chanting, “All cops are bastards.”

Similarly, advocates would have far more credibility and impact in making the case for meaningful, significant reforms to police practice, including the hand-off of some functions to other entities, if they could refrain from taking it to the absurd extreme of wholesale “defunding” or even “disbanding” of police departments. As if we can just will away the need for law enforcement.

We ought to be able to insist, correctly, that “Black Lives Matter” without being precluded from also talking about topics some would put off-limits including problems of family structure and internal violence in too many black communities.

As well as being able to maintain that we are still a good distance from a colorblind nation, but that the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. remains the aspiration.

In the ongoing battle with COVID, instead of rationally questioning the efficacy of masks in the outdoors, too many critics profess any requirements for masks, regardless of the setting, to be akin to tyranny. The hyperbole came naturally; it is an American specialty these days. But it only weakened their case.

The growing tendency to deal in absolutes and disdain nuance or moderation is a mark of laziness. Deeper thinking, judgment and discernment require the exercise of brain cells. It’s harder work.

This ingrained proclivity is now evident on issue after issue. When most positions are staked at the poles, the end result is further polarization.

Not content to vigorously pursue energy efficiency and a transition to renewables, true-believers propose a blanket, total ban on fracking.

On the right, instead of making the case for stepped-up border enforcement, they have the country spending precious resources on a medieval wall. While America’s role in welcoming refugees has withered to a count this year of virtually zero.

At the same time, on the left, the loudest voices argue for what is essentially a policy of open borders with no regard to sovereignty. Further, many view any suggestion that immigrants have some duty of assimilation to be oppressive.

In discussing the growing and dangerous wealth disparity in this country, one side entertains ideas that border on the confiscatory while the other side greets any suggestion, no matter how tepid, with the “socialism” slur. Bluster all around as little changes and the divide grows only larger.

On the front lines of education, one contingent fights for expanded charters and choice while too often turning a deaf ear to the very real financial needs of many schools while their opposites would have you believe that it is all about money and that the obvious disparity in teacher quality and the sight of low-income parents standing in line to provide their child with a better option should be of no mind.

On the ultimately divisive issue of abortion rights, the most unwavering pro-choicers insist that a fully viable nine-month fetus has no more rights than at conception while the most steadfast pro-lifers contend that a zygote in a test tube has all the rights of a newborn baby.

On and on it goes almost regardless of the topic. Those we hear from most often and fancy themselves leaders on this side or that take ever more extreme, unyielding stands.

To feed the 24-hour noise machine and our own sluggish instincts, the rhetoric ratchets up and the gap widens while any enlightenment recedes.

Citizenship was not made to be easy. Adulting is hard.

The challenges of this age are multi-faceted and complex. Easy answers are most often no answers at all. Those preaching such simplicity are seldom worth your time. Solutions are not likely to be found in partisan corners but in the civic square among people willing to think more deeply, renounce escalating sound bites, and listen to those of a different vantage point and mindset. And who are able, no matter how heretical it might seem, to find common ground or at least narrow the differences.

Our political culture currently rewards absolutes and penalizes nuance. This call is to turn those incentives upside down.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. His column appears regularly on Sundays in ColoradoPolitics. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann