I don't think empathy has anything to do with it, and I think that both-sidesing is one of the biggest challenges we face.
The trend that I see as most damaging is denialism as a mainstream philosophy. Denialism leads to distrust and fuels libertarinism, which, by it's very design, is a philosophy of decohesion.
The beginnings of my education on denial came from people fighting one of the largest denialist projects in history, but the strategies across all forms of denial are very similar. It's worth studying in-depth:
The trend that I see as most damaging is denialism as a mainstream philosophy. Denialism leads to distrust and fuels libertarinism, which, by it's very design, is a philosophy of decohesion.
The beginnings of my education on denial came from people fighting one of the largest denialist projects in history, but the strategies across all forms of denial are very similar. It's worth studying in-depth:
https://www.nizkor.org