IF the first month of this new year is anything to go by, the world is going to be as starkly divided in 2016 as it has ever been.
It seems you either want to know "Jerry Hall, what first attracted you to billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch?", or you're wondering if the 84-year-old has been studying some sort of Jedi mind control techniques to convince the statuesque Texan model 25 years his junior to marry him.
You either regard Northern Ireland's nurses as ministering angels living below the poverty line or ungrateful whingers living it up on the taxpayers' dime.
Striking junior doctors in England are either overpaid Flash Harrys, larging it up on expensive ski holidays in between dossy shifts, or last defenders of the NHS against a rapacious right-wing government.
These are the more prosaic examples of the push to extremes that seem to characterise our world today.
No sooner has something happened than it becomes fair game for opposing ideologies to attach their own myths and remake it in their image.
This has been most striking in Cologne in Germany, where an apparently choreographed series of attacks saw more than 500 women sexually assaulted or robbed on New Year's Eve.
Details of similar attacks in Hamburg and some other German cities have since emerged.
It took a while for the reports to surface, because, it appears, some among the authorities were concerned about the fact that those responsible were foreign nationals.
The fear was that, with Germany having welcomed 1.1 million refugees fleeing war and persecution into the country last year to a somewhat mixed reception, these incidents might provoke a backlash against those now making their home there and the government which invited them in.
That fear has not proven itself to be unfounded.
Thousands of far-right protesters have taken to the streets, blaming the influx of refugees for the attacks.
Left-wing protesters have also taken to the streets in counter-demonstrations.
The inevitable violence has ensued.
The Cologne attacks have proved a lightning rod for competing ideologies. Literally. Among the voices that could be heard at the Cologne demonstration were the incongruous Luton tones of former English Defence League leader 'Tommy Robinson'.
He had hotfooted it the whole way to Germany to warn citizens: "They're coming over here, raping our women...", seemingly intent on creating some sort of Anglo-German accord for the 21st century.
It has been the lead story for days on the 'Daily Mail' - not a publication usually known for its comprehensive coverage of sex crimes committed in the jurisdiction of our continental neighbours.
Before long, right-wing commentators were cautioning us that we "ignore the immigrant threat at our peril" - a warning as unhelpful as the left's arguably well-meaning attempts to hush it up.
It has all been as predictable as it is bizarre. Everything and anything can be grist to your mill when you can only see the world through the prism of your own ideology (or, if I was to be really unkind, prejudice).
It doesn't actually deal with the very real problems that are happening out there in the real world, beyond cant and ivory towers.
There are people dying to flee death and they need asylum. They should be given what help they can by those capable of giving it.
There are also people sexually assaulting women. That is a crime and they should be caught, tried and punished.
As a certain Russian meerkat would say, "Simples".
These two realities can co-exist.
In the same way junior doctors can earn more than you and go on nice holidays but have valid concerns over planned changes to working hours.
Oh yeah, and nurses don't have to be queuing up at food banks to be entitled to a pay rise to take them to parity with their colleagues in Britain.
As for Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch, I'm no fan of right-wing press barons, but I for one hope those two crazy kids make it work.
b.archer@irishnews.com
BimpeIN
