We live in an age that talks a great deal about diversity, and there are good reasons to do so. Differences exist, they broaden our view, and they are part of any free society.
But recognising differences does not oblige us to turn them, always, into the centre of the story.
Sometimes it seems we see the label first and the person carrying it afterwards. Ideology, origin, religion, profession, generation, identity, class. All of that can say something about someone. It never says everything.
Perhaps it is worth reversing the order: the person first; the differences after.
Not to erase them or to ask that we all think alike. A plural society needs disagreement and different perspectives. But disagreement is more liveable when there is a prior ground beneath it: recognising the other as someone with the same dignity, the same basic vulnerability, and a human experience that, in many important things, is quite like our own.
Before ideologies there are needs. Before many identities there is a person who wants to belong, to be respected, to care for those they love, and to find some way of living with meaning. Afterwards come important differences, sometimes deep ones, that we will have to discuss.
Equality does not consist of pretending we are equal in everything. It consists of our differences not cancelling what we share.
Perhaps that is a good starting point for living together: the identity of being a person as the base, diversity as a reality, and the common good as a shared task.