Us vs. Them

Some time ago, I blogged about common flaws in logic. It has occurred to me since then that I missed the 'Us vs. Them' mentality. Some of that gets blown out of proportion by the media, for example, the 'Red State vs. Blue State' debate. In all actuality, if you look at the actual voting totals for each state from the last two elections, most states were fairly evenly split, with only a few thousand votes tipping the state one way or the other. It isn't that any one state is predominantly Republican or Democratic, most states have a pretty good mix.

I'm not sure if Ross Perot suffered from an 'Us vs. Them' mentality when he made his famous verbal gaffe in 1992, but it definitely sounded that way, and he certainly created an 'Us vs. Them' mentality in his audience.

To some extent, I think that it's human nature. During Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the 'Us' was the common people or Iraq, and the 'Them' was the ruling party--particularly Saddam himself. Now that Saddam has been deposed and executed, there is a new 'Us and Them'--the Sunnis and the Shiites (and to some extent, the Kurds).

Here in the United States, we have had conflicts between the haves and the have-nots, blacks and whites, Jews and Gentiles... The latest, though, seems to be 'Us' that have been here since before 1950, and 'Them' that have not. There seems to be a particular prejudice against Mexicans and Muslims. Of course, most Americans can't tell a Mexican from a Brazilian, or an Arab from a Jew. Newsweek online has four different articles (one, two, three, and four) dealing with the attitude of Americans towards Muslims. One thing that seems clear is that most Americans didn't really pay much attention to Muslim immigration prior to 9-11; another is that we, as a nation, have become suspicious of all Muslims since. IMHO, the Muslims that have immigrated to this country in recent years have, for the most part, been trying to get away from crazies like Saddam and Osama. There have obviously been a few who came specifically for no good, but those would seem to be the exception, rather than the rule. I have heard some talk that the Muslims living in the United States 'scare' people, simply because (the reasoning goes) they must know who the terrorists are, and warned no one. I think the terrorists are smarter than that. They have a pretty good idea that Muslims that have taken up permanent residence in the US like it here (or, at least, they did before 9-11), and that they are here to get away from terrorism. The terrorists aren't going to take any chances by letting on to the American Muslims what their plans are. There's this about it, though, if American Muslims continue to be treated as though they don't belong, or as if they are somehow responsible for the tragedies that have been perpetrated by others flying the same flag of religion, it will make it much easier for them to empathize with the terrorists, and possibly become embittered enough to join the ranks of Al Qaeda or some other collection of nuts.

Would you want to be held responsible for the Crusades? I think most of us realize now that the motivation behind the Crusades was, at best, questionable (and a lot of us think that 'questionable' gives them too much credit). How about the Spanish Inquisition?

Can't we all just play nice? If you are only willing to be friends with people that you agree with 100% on every single political, religious, and social detail, you are going to have a very small circle of friends (I'm guessing you could count them on your thumbs. On one hand). There are always going to be disagreements. In some cases, you may feel that your friends have let you down. You may feel that your society has set you up. But for any given individual, you should be able to find some point of agreement. Once you find something you agree on, then work from there. It may be that the things that you feel most strongly about are the things that the two of you disagree most strongly about, but if you try, you can probably gain some understanding as to why that individual feels the way they do, and you may even learn to respect their opinion, even if you don't agree with it. Somewhere down the road, we have to work out our differences, or we are all going to make a very long trip in a very crowded handbasket.