Severance and the divided American self

Sixty days into Donald Trump’s second term, as Americans watched the haunting finale of Apple TV’s Severance, we glimpsed more than fictional horror—we saw a chilling reflection of our own fractured nation. From the cosmic vantage point famously offered by Carl Sagan, Earth is a fragile, pale blue dot upon which all human triumphs and tragedies unfold together. Yet on this shared planetary home, America is splitting into two separate consciousnesses—conservative and liberal—each increasingly alienated, incomprehensible, and distrustful of the other.

Like the employees of Lumon Industries forcibly divided against themselves, our country risks succumbing to a self-inflicted societal severance, an existential rupture that could permanently unravel the collective bonds essential to our shared culture, national identity, and capacity to flourish.

In the fictional corridors of Lumon, the severance procedure surgically divides employees’ consciousness into distinct halves: an “innie,” who knows only work, and an “outie,” who lives solely beyond office walls. Each half is denied knowledge of the other’s experiences, motivations, and struggles—two identities locked within a single human life, disconnected and disoriented. This unsettling premise offers profound philosophical insights into the nature of identity and autonomy and strikingly mirrors the stark political and cultural bifurcation defining American society.

Today, America's collective identity fractures into competing realities, each reinforced by curated media ecosystems and divergent value systems. Just as Lumon's severed employees share one body but experience isolated realities, conservatives and liberals share a society but inhabit profoundly separate mental universes. Communication becomes nearly impossible when facts themselves succumb to ideological interpretation—a phenomenon researchers from RAND Corporation aptly term "truth decay," wherein objective reality dissolves under waves of misinformation and propaganda. Like astronauts experiencing the overview effect—that profound shift in awareness from seeing Earth as a whole planet without political boundaries—we desperately need to recapture this integrated perspective in our political discourse. Without this broader view, history teaches that societies losing shared truths risk instability, undermining democratic principles and civic cohesion.

A tangible division

This societal severance isn't merely metaphorical—it's neurologically measurable. Research from neuroscientist Jay Van Bavel demonstrates that political tribalism activates the same brain regions associated with personal identity and threat response. A 2020 study published in Science Advances revealed that when presented with identical information framed differently, participants' neural activity showed dramatically different patterns based on their political affiliation, essentially processing the same facts in fundamentally different ways. Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center documents how Americans increasingly report negative, fearful, and angry feelings toward the opposing party, with nearly 80% now having "just a few" or no friends from the other political party—creating neurological echo chambers that physically reshape our brains over time.

The Lumon scenario resonates powerfully in our current political context. Under Trump’s increasingly autocratic governance, decisions once subject to vigorous public debate now frequently unfold beyond public scrutiny. Immigration enforcement policies quietly enacted out of public view—separating families, disregarding human dignity, and eroding rights without accountability—mirror Lumon’s opaque managerial decisions. Equally troubling is the executive branch’s unilateral dismantling of essential federal institutions, including the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Education, bypassing meaningful congressional oversight entirely. Most worrisome for global stability, the administration's unexpected severing of essential diplomatic relationships—NATO, the EU, Canada, and Mexico—represents an unprecedented reversal of nearly a century of American foreign policy, undertaken without consulting Congress. This sudden shift elevates existential and geopolitical risks, destabilizing international relationships, weakening critical cooperation on climate and AI, and emboldening authoritarian regimes. Left unchecked, such actions could reshape the global order profoundly and detrimentally for decades to come.

A deeper human dilemma

Yet beneath these troubling realities lies a deeper existential dilemma. Severance vividly illustrates humanity’s fundamental yearning for wholeness and integration. Humans are not meant to live divided from themselves—psychologically or socially. Severed from internal dialogue, individuals lose moral coherence and agency. Similarly, severed societies lose cohesion, stability, and resilience. History repeatedly demonstrates that rigid ideological divisions risk societal stagnation, conflict, and even collapse.

But humanity possesses remarkable adaptability and moral courage, having repeatedly transcended tribalism and ideology to advance dignity and progress. The existential challenge posed by our political severance demands similar imagination and bravery. Rather than surrendering to paralysis, we must actively pursue integration—not sacrificing values, but recognizing our common humanity.

In America, political moderation embodies not weak compromise but a thoughtful, principled embrace of balance quietly championed by many citizens. Consider immigration: moderates insist on rigorous border security to protect communities while simultaneously advocating humane, transparent, and accessible pathways to citizenship that honor immigrants’ dignity and their essential contributions to society. Regarding human rights, moderates uphold an inclusive America fiercely protecting freedoms for all law-abiding citizens, including LGBTQ individuals and women whose healthcare decisions must remain private matters between themselves and their doctors, free from governmental mandates. Equally, moderation embraces pluralism, passionately defending freedom of faith while unequivocally preserving the separation of church and state, ensuring civic life remains neutral, fair, and inclusive for everyone.

Historically, America has celebrated diversity unified by common aspirations—beautifully articulated in the national motto e pluribus unum, out of many, one. Today’s ideological severance threatens this ideal, compromising America’s role as a beacon of inclusive democracy. Yet America’s civic spirit endures, driven by individuals committed to a common humanity despite political divisions. Lumon’s rebellious workers, courageously fighting oppressive control, exemplify precisely the spirit America must reclaim.

An existential crossroads

Indeed, the climactic rebellion of Severance season two offers both warning and inspiration. Mark Scout and his colleagues risk everything to reclaim their divided identities, recognizing that forced division—psychological or political—is ultimately unsustainable. Their struggle underscores humanity’s profound vulnerability when identity and agency fracture, yet highlights our resilience and moral awakening. Americans face a similar critical juncture, holding vulnerability and strength, limitation and ingenuity, despair and hope simultaneously.

Carl Sagan once poetically described Earth as a “pale blue dot”—a tiny stage where all human dramas unfold together. Our divisions appear trivial when viewed from this cosmic perspective. Yet trivial as they may seem cosmically, their consequences for humanity’s future are profound and potentially irreversible.

We stand at an existential crossroads, confronting the dangers of ideological severance. Continued political polarization threatens to permanently fracture America's democratic identity and diminish our global capacity to address existential threats like climate change, artificial intelligence governance, and geopolitical instability. Without immediate, courageous, and sustained collective action to embrace moderation and integration, we risk permanently losing the ideals that define our shared humanity, consigning future generations to a fragmented, unstable world defined by division, conflict, and diminished potential. The alarm bell is ringing; we must awaken now, or risk losing ourselves forever.

In response to this existential challenge, healing our severed society requires us to move beyond abstract concern into concrete, community-based action. We can begin by implementing a "3-3-3" approach to bridge divides: Commit to engaging with three news sources outside your political comfort zone each week; regularly participate in three community activities where diverse viewpoints naturally converge (local volunteer work, community gardens, neighborhood associations); and cultivate three meaningful relationships with people whose political views differ from yours, focusing first on shared humanity rather than ideological differences.

Organizations like the Better Arguments Project offer evidence-based frameworks for productive disagreement, teaching skills that research shows reduce polarization while increasing civic engagement. These frameworks provide structured ways to practice the very skills our divided society has lost—active listening, intellectual humility, and evidence-based reasoning.

The path toward integration isn't easy, but it begins with each of us cultivating the secular habits of mind—empiricism, rationalism, and open inquiry—that enable us to recognize that democracy thrives not on agreement but on our capacity to reason together as whole, integrated citizens rather than severed political fragments. With these habits as our foundation, we can become advocates for structural changes that promote integration: support ranked-choice voting initiatives in your community, which research demonstrates reduces polarized campaigning, and champion media literacy programs in schools that teach critical thinking rather than ideological alignment.

On our shared pale blue dot, our future depends not on our differences, but on our collective capacity to see ourselves whole again.