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I just love this article, “What if We’ve All Been Primed?” written by Tom Nokkola and taken from his blog, tomnikkola.com.  It provides some really good insight on why we form cultural tribes and how the COVID-19 saga has put this process on steroids.  It also challenges us to break free from this by questioning some commonly accepted beliefs.

The main premise is something called behavioral priming, which leads us to think in specific ways that pit us against one another.  Behavioral priming, Nokkola says:

“is the ability to influence someone’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors without them knowing about it, through exposing them to a previous stimulus.  For example, repeating the phrase, “Stay home. Stay safe.” could be…