The sense of unity which permeated our national life after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, lasted, by some estimates, roughly two months, which is about 59 days longer than it has in the current crisis.

The country is now polarizing around the question of whether continued societal lockdown is necessary to prevent an even larger medical crisis, and the competing sense that trying to sustain the unsustainable is doing more harm than good. The poles are aligned generally – but not exclusively – along political lines.

Conservatives, who place their trust in individuals and private institutions, tend to argue that people and businesses can be trusted to resume their lives with a few precautions, and that the long-term social and economic consequences of a prolonged government-mandated shutdown are starting to outstrip the medical benefits. Liberals, who place their trust in government and collectivist hegemony, are generally more comfortable with a statist approach and authoritarian edicts.

This divide has boiled over in recent days with protests of various forms sprouting up around the country, including in Denver and Grand Junction, opposing the continued imposition of solitary confinement as offensive to inalienable rights and freedoms, equatable to fascism, and appealing for the removal of the government boot from the throat of the economy. On the other hand, one finds increased sneering and derision leveled at those who question, and in some cases openly flout, the new conventional wisdom of enforced social distancing, mask-wearing, and other new standards as selfish and uninformed rubes who would willingly fill mass graves in exchange for their right to get a haircut.

If anything is flourishing at this time, it is the art of vilification.

Earlier in the crisis government officials – from mayors, to governors, to the president – deserved, and generally received, some latitude. The word “unprecedented” is being used almost like a comma nowadays, but it’s true that there was not much in the way of a playbook for responding to this particular threat. For the most part, government officials based their reactions on worst-case scenarios and the fear of what would happen if they guessed wrong, erring therefore on the side of extreme caution. And they could hardly be blamed for that.

Now, as the situation evolves and the picture becomes a little less opaque every day, criticism is both more prevalent and more warranted. The measures employed have evidently worked as initially intended – the infection rate flattened sufficiently to avert an inundation of the hospital system – but it is just as obvious that there were some clear instances of government going too far. The arrest of a father playing with his daughter in Brighton made national headlines, as did Michigan Gov. Whitmer’s absurd excesses.

There is now the brewing question of how, and how-quickly, to re-open society. It is interesting to see the divergence of reporting, especially at the national level, between the proposals of, for instance, Colorado and Georgia. Both are among states that are beginning the process, and while there are differences in the respective approaches, they are not wide enough to justify the painting we have seen of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as a reckless troglodyte, a charge Gov. Jared Polis has managed to avoid, mostly by being a member of the right party.

Differences in approach, incidentally, are a good thing; when we look back on this in the months and years ahead, we will digest the various avenues taken. Was Sweden’s approach the better one? Germany’s? South Dakota’s? Those analyses, too, will be undoubtedly colored by one’s prevailing ideology, which is unfortunate because objective exegesis would be valuable in organizing a blueprint for responding to any future similar occurrence.

My own view of things is that the initial explanation for lockdown was valid – flatten the curve to alleviate strain on the health system, which could otherwise reach levels of existential threat. Having done that, we have bought sufficient time and accumulated enough data that now even a statistically significant increase in cases would not overload the system, therefore it is necessary now to prioritize other considerations, the economy, debt, etc.

For the time being, a proposition: may we concede that the actions taken by government, even those ultimately proven to be unwise or unnecessarily authoritarian, were done so with good intentions, and not malicious or evil aims? And in return that those who place a real value on individual liberties and economic life are not a bunch of misanthropes callously indifferent to other people’s lives? Fair enough?

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.