On the Human Capacity for “Us vs. Them”

It’s just another day and down the hall I can hear a bit of the usual one-sided political debate going on. The type of back and forth that consists of multiple people with similar views getting angry, or at least highly antagonistic, at hypothetical people of a certain belief system, for whom they create responses. “Can you believe the [insert politically-affiliated-group]’s actually say that? They actually think [blank] isn’t racist. But if you flip it around, if we had a [blank] that would be racist,” and then comes the hypothetical response, “if a [member of politically-affiliated-group] heard me say that, they would call me a racist.” Curiously, the hypothetical people always seem to lose these debates.

While commenting on racial tensions may be above my pay grade, musing on this capacity of “Us vs. Them” is not – at least I hope. By “Us vs. Them” I am referring to the way in which we as a society, or a species, really like grouping people into “Us” and “Them.” Liberals vs. Conservatives, Republicans vs. Democrats, Atheists vs. Religious People, Vegans vs. Everyone Else, Intellectuals vs. “plebeians”, and even coffee people vs. those that prefer tea.

Without conflict there is no story.

Maybe we do this because we evolved to, the “Us” being our tribe in the African Savanna and the “Them” being rival hunter-gatherer tribes, or maybe we do this because it makes us feel sane, or, maybe we do this because it makes us feel accepted. Maybe it’s one of these reasons and maybe it’s all three, but what I think we can say without a doubt is that we do, do this. Humans, for some reason, love conflict. This shouldn’t be a hard realization to come to. Just look at how popular T.V. and movies are. Film school (and screenwriting books) will tell you that conflict is film. Without conflict there is no story, and without story there is no movie, at least no movie that anyone wants to watch.

I realized this once after finishing a marathon of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Once the “The Return of the King” reached its denouement, (spoiler alert for the folks living under a rock – and kudos for making it work) Sauron’s eye dissipating and The Ring being destroyed, I had a strange feeling not of relief, but of sadness. A sadness that said, “well it sucks that it’s all over, now middle earth will be pretty boring.” Backing out a bit, with some self-reflection, I quickly realized this was faulty, first-world thinking. Surely I didn’t wish our world was ruled by an evil witch king who sees with a giant eye made of flame, but for a moment I did. For a second a world without this witch king seemed too boring, after all what’s life without fearing for it?

After coming to my senses, I inevitably felt gratitude that I didn’t have to worry about dark lords or Nazgûl, but still there was this feeling that I wished it wasn’t all over. While conflict may not be the exact same thing as “Us vs. Them”, it’s pretty damn close. Conflict only exists with a “Them”, even if that “Them” is ourselves. If high school English class taught me anything, it was the man v. man, man v. nature, etc., etc. thing. But enough about literary “conflict”, let’s go back to the African Savanna.

Probably, this tribe mentally is why we tend to like sports so much.

I think perhaps a big part of the motivation for “Us. Vs. Them” is that it makes us feel sane to agree with other people. The neurotic person only knows he’s not crazy if he can use other people as a barometer. “Oh, you have anxiety about a jet engine dropping out of the sky and killing you Donnie Darko style too? Sweet. I’m not the only one.” If we don’t have other people to agree with, we can’t then tell ourselves that we are in fact “normal”, and we if aren’t “normal” maybe we’ll be ostracized by the tribe, and if we’re ostracized by the tribe, maybe we won’t get to eat, and if we can’t eat then we’ll surely die. Neurosis without someone to “ground” it, can get scary, which is why counseling is so helpful. Probably, this tribe mentally is why we tend to like sports so much.

Professional sports are obviously very popular, but maybe we as a society have become so conditioned to “team” thinking that we let this carry over into other parts of our lives. Everyone’s heard stories about disgruntled fans beating the sh*t out of a fan from the other team after an upsetting game, but what about the people that literally try to kill others simply for belonging to the other political “team.” Obviously this is a problem. Democracy isn’t binary. When compromises can’t be made, government comes to a halt, and when governments won’t compromise simply because the people they have to compromise with are “Them”, social progress stops in it’s tracks. We’re above this, and we don’t have to submit to this kind of blindly irrational way of acting.

People tend to bond when discussing common dislikes.

Another way from which “Us vs. Them” stems, is the way in which it makes us feel accepted to dislike the same things as other people. This probably goes back to the tribe as well, as one could imagine we would engage in shameless “shit-talking” the other tribes on the savanna with our fellow tribe members around the hearth of the village fire. This is an obvious form of social bonding. People tend to bond fairly well when discussing common dislikes, maybe even more than discussing things they like.

This apparently lead to the birth of Hater, a dating app that matches people based on their dislikes. It asks its users to rate their feelings about a topic, with responses ranging from “Love” to “Hate”, then matches people based on those responses. The creator of the app, Brendan Alper, apparently came up with idea after reading a study about how people form closer bonds with those that dislike the same things as them. One can only guess as to the reason for this. Maybe it’s a bit more revealing to the subconscious of a person, and for that reason maybe it feels more honest and open. Perhaps this makes us feel that we are getting to know the “true” person, when they reveal to us their dislikes. It has apparently been shown that vulnerability and honesty leads to deeper human connection, maybe showing others our dislikes is a way of being open and vulnerable. American “politeness”, at least in my experience, seems to shy away from dislikes in fear of appearing rude, so perhaps connecting on dislikes feels more authentic and less “polite.”

Us vs. Them sometimes take an even darker turn. When we group people into “Us” and “Them”, as we often do in war. It suddenly makes it okay for “Us” to kill “Them” without any regard for their human lives. When we can label a country or race as evil, our fight against them is now a battle of good versus evil. No longer are they people whose lives should be regarded as valuable, but simply evil beings like the goblins or orcs in Lord of the Ring that can be killed ad arbitrium – which is roughly the sentiment many people had for people from the middle east after 9/11. Did anyone really feel sad when that orc was killed at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring?

Resist the urge to practice “Us vs. Them.”

So we know that we’re really good into grouping people into “Us” and “Them” groups, but what can we do about this? It’s pretty simple. At risk of sounding cliche, be “mindful” of it. When you find yourself becoming irrationally wrapped up in something simply because a different group than yours feels a certain way, note it and act rationally. This is the only way to move past it. Think about it, and then think about how you would be thinking if you didn’t have that “team” bias. As the stoics did, whenever we get tied up in irrational anger, we can take a deep breath and a couple seconds to gather our thoughts, but whatever you do, resist the urge to practice “Us vs. Them.”

 

Us and them

And after all we’re only ordinary men

-Pink Floyd