A large part of the problem is our inherently monolithic culture, in a reality that is polarized. As you say, there are many shades of grey, but all the colors of the spectrum are between light and dark.

It goes to the core of Western culture; Monotheism.

Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. More the light shining through the film, than the images and narratives played out on it.

Remember democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The family as godhead.

To the Ancients, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god.

The Romans adopted a monotheistic sect as state religion around the time the Empire was rising from the ashes of the Republic. Basically validating The Big Guy Rules. Divine right of kings.

When the West went back to more populist forms of government, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics.

The conceptual problem is that ideals are not absolutes. There are lots of ideals; truth, beauty, platonic forms, etc. So assuming them to be absolute, as in universal and beyond question, creates a culture of endless conflict, as every tribal totem has to be viewed as all-encompassing, or it will be dismissed. From Wokism, to Wahabism.

The reality is that to culture, good and bad are some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, but in nature, it's the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental, the 1/0 of sentience.

Morality is certainly not an absolute, given how little there often is, but has to be learned the hard way. Karma. The Golden Rule. What goes round, comes round. Society cannot function without respect, responsibility and trust.

There will always be that tension between the anarchies of desire and the tyrannies of judgement, politically manifest as liberal and conservative. The energies driving us, versus the choices guiding us.

Even galaxies are energy radiating out, as structure coalesces in.

Yet in our monolithic culture, each side sees themselves on the road to nirvana, while the other side are misbegotten fools, if not actively evil. Yet it is those on both sides that feed the other side.

More yin and yang, than God Almighty.

There are multitudes of other factors, like World War 2 being the defining event of the modern world, making the military the only public works project everyone agrees to, rich and poor, all colors and creeds.