Arguments in mirror are closer than they appear

Thesis: People actually disagree on very few axioms, but they tend to exacerbate ideological gulfs by pretending that each individual disagreement is a separate axiom when it really boils down to one overarching principle.

Now this sounds like a very abstract concept, but that's what examples are for. For instance, take the Jon Gruden stuff. The only pertinent thing here is that someone said objectionable things at some point in the past. But this concept is directly applicable to Confederate monuments, Kevin Hart and the Oscars, the Rolling Stones and Brown Sugar, and a whole slew of other things. You can say that each of these things are a discrete disagreement, but really what you generally have is one group of people saying "there's a statute of limitations here about past conduct, and I don't really care" and another group saying "this stuff is immoral and we have to root it out." You can say that each of these separate instances is a discrete axiom or point of contention, but really there's only one disagreement: the duration of the statute of limitations beyond which we shouldn't care about offensive stuff. You're really closer than you think to the people with whom you disagree; change the one axiom, and they're going to agree with you across the board.

I can already hear people saying "kellycriterion, we already know this is only one axiom, and that's why we call it 'cancel culture.'" My reply is that while it has a name, it seems that people are generally down in the trenches on each individual issue rather than trying to come up with common sense principles about what the overarching rule is.

I'm keenly interested in what your thoughts are on this concept, and perhaps you can suggest additional concepts of broad disputes that people may say are discrete instances, but really boil down to one main principle. Cheers