What holds us together — and how do we strengthen it?

Extremism — whether from the right, the left, or religiously motivated — was not treated as an abstract phenomenon but as a lived social reality. The discussion made clear that extremism is many-layered, reaching from verbal provocation to actual violence. People who are susceptible to it find, in algorithmically generated echo chambers, a setting that affirms and welcomes them.

Discontent and hatred are the ground it grows in — democratic structures are misused strategically to widen networks.

What holds our society together, and how can that be strengthened? The discussion concluded that cohesion does not arise by itself. It needs shared pictures of the future, values that are lived, and real participation. Many people currently experience a growing uncertainty that produces fear, withdrawal and polarisation.

Trust does not come from appeals, but from concrete experiences of being able to rely on one another.

The third set of questions was the most structural of the evening: how are the burdens of social change distributed? Concrete examples — the gender pay gap, homelessness, unequal access to education — made visible that change is never neutral. It hits some harder than others. At the same time, economic and climatic developments are inseparable.

Climate change and economic change are two sides of one challenge — ignoring either does not solve the other.