Us Vs Them Part 2
Here is the continuation:
And here are some good exercpts:
History is littered with the corpses of great empires and economies that were toppled when their people got distracted from their shared identity and goals, and gave in to internal culture wars that weakened their countries to the point of eventual collapse or conquest.
...the hard core authoritarians among [the right wingers]-- the intransigent 12-15% -- can never be reasoned with. They have always been among us; and they always will be. But -- and here's the point of this week's essay -- we have not always allowed their paranoia to run the show.
In this [Us versus Them] view, the world is seen in polarities: black/white, right/wrong, male/female, either/or. Humans are driven by competition and conflict; life is a zero-sum game in which survival depends on your ability to seize control over a piece of a finite pie. Winners matter, and deserve to dominate. Losers deserve whatever happens to them; and winners cannot be bothered to care.
Us versus Them exists because it's a useful and adaptive worldview in a few limited circumstances. It's the natural logic of war and revolution -- and also of political elections, class and race conflicts, and fundamentalist religion and holy warriors.
But, as we've seen, this winners-and-losers logic can corrode the foundations of a civilization if we allow it to dominate every aspect of our lives, or stay stuck in it too long. It's useful in short doses, but extremely toxic in the long run.
The biggest danger of Us-versus-Them is that it makes it almost impossible for cultures to invest in the common good, let alone plan coherently for the future. When people are in this mode, ideology and fear carry every decision. Those who want to discuss other worldviews or see a wider range of possibilities are considered traitors; and this forecloses almost all creative responses to problems.
The [alternative] archetype might be called "Challenge and Response." In this view, problems aren't seen as evidence of evil; and they're not framed in terms of victory or defeat. At best, they're character-building opportunities for personal growth or gain; at worst, they're just a natural part of life that must be responded to with wisdom and ingenuity.
There is no Them. There's just Us, and We have a situation on our hands that We need to figure out how to handle.
Challenge-and-response thinking is the natural logic of extended families and towns of all sizes. It's the basic habit of mind for a wide range of professions -- medicine, agriculture, engineering, management, and all the creative arts. You can't blame a virus, blight, gravity, or the behavior of markets on an evil Other -- and it's a waste of resources to try.
In these cultures, your level of status and prestige depends at least as much on your proven reliability as a wise and effective problem-solver as it does on how much of the pie you control. (Furthermore: owning more of the pie increases both your ability and your obligation to solve problems.) This is the world most progressives would far prefer to live in.
On a grander scale, solving problems and recovering from great challenges together builds up the internal levels of mutual trust and confidence within a society, which in turn fosters ambitious and well-considered future planning and encourages large investments in the common good.
Both of these major storylines feature largely in American history -- and both are accessible (and usually operating simultaneously, with one dominating) at any given time. We've slipped back and forth often as history demanded different things from us. Breaking a frontier and building a farm is a Challenge-and-Response endeavor. Starting a revolution against a distant king -- or fighting a Cold War -- is Us-versus-Them.
However, over the grand sweep of our history, America has drawn strength from its persistent preference for the logic of challenge and response. And looking back, it's easy to see how our historical commitment to this confident, trusting, open-minded worldview had a lot to do with our eventual rise to power.
The open-ended, inclusive communal problem-solving style of challenge-and-response cultures is inherently progressive -- and deeply ingrained in the American character.
When we vet candidates, this should be one of the major traits we look for. If we want a challenge-and-response culture, we need to elect people who operate naturally in that mode. If we elect people who play a mean game of Us-versus-Them, we'll have nobody but ourselves to blame when their worst authoritarian impulses kick in, and our politics curdle back into fear and division.
The difference is not in the specific problems we face; it's in the logic and processes we choose when we set about solving them.
And here are some good exercpts:
History is littered with the corpses of great empires and economies that were toppled when their people got distracted from their shared identity and goals, and gave in to internal culture wars that weakened their countries to the point of eventual collapse or conquest.
...the hard core authoritarians among [the right wingers]-- the intransigent 12-15% -- can never be reasoned with. They have always been among us; and they always will be. But -- and here's the point of this week's essay -- we have not always allowed their paranoia to run the show.
In this [Us versus Them] view, the world is seen in polarities: black/white, right/wrong, male/female, either/or. Humans are driven by competition and conflict; life is a zero-sum game in which survival depends on your ability to seize control over a piece of a finite pie. Winners matter, and deserve to dominate. Losers deserve whatever happens to them; and winners cannot be bothered to care.
Us versus Them exists because it's a useful and adaptive worldview in a few limited circumstances. It's the natural logic of war and revolution -- and also of political elections, class and race conflicts, and fundamentalist religion and holy warriors.
But, as we've seen, this winners-and-losers logic can corrode the foundations of a civilization if we allow it to dominate every aspect of our lives, or stay stuck in it too long. It's useful in short doses, but extremely toxic in the long run.
The biggest danger of Us-versus-Them is that it makes it almost impossible for cultures to invest in the common good, let alone plan coherently for the future. When people are in this mode, ideology and fear carry every decision. Those who want to discuss other worldviews or see a wider range of possibilities are considered traitors; and this forecloses almost all creative responses to problems.
The [alternative] archetype might be called "Challenge and Response." In this view, problems aren't seen as evidence of evil; and they're not framed in terms of victory or defeat. At best, they're character-building opportunities for personal growth or gain; at worst, they're just a natural part of life that must be responded to with wisdom and ingenuity.
There is no Them. There's just Us, and We have a situation on our hands that We need to figure out how to handle.
Challenge-and-response thinking is the natural logic of extended families and towns of all sizes. It's the basic habit of mind for a wide range of professions -- medicine, agriculture, engineering, management, and all the creative arts. You can't blame a virus, blight, gravity, or the behavior of markets on an evil Other -- and it's a waste of resources to try.
In these cultures, your level of status and prestige depends at least as much on your proven reliability as a wise and effective problem-solver as it does on how much of the pie you control. (Furthermore: owning more of the pie increases both your ability and your obligation to solve problems.) This is the world most progressives would far prefer to live in.
On a grander scale, solving problems and recovering from great challenges together builds up the internal levels of mutual trust and confidence within a society, which in turn fosters ambitious and well-considered future planning and encourages large investments in the common good.
Both of these major storylines feature largely in American history -- and both are accessible (and usually operating simultaneously, with one dominating) at any given time. We've slipped back and forth often as history demanded different things from us. Breaking a frontier and building a farm is a Challenge-and-Response endeavor. Starting a revolution against a distant king -- or fighting a Cold War -- is Us-versus-Them.
However, over the grand sweep of our history, America has drawn strength from its persistent preference for the logic of challenge and response. And looking back, it's easy to see how our historical commitment to this confident, trusting, open-minded worldview had a lot to do with our eventual rise to power.
The open-ended, inclusive communal problem-solving style of challenge-and-response cultures is inherently progressive -- and deeply ingrained in the American character.
When we vet candidates, this should be one of the major traits we look for. If we want a challenge-and-response culture, we need to elect people who operate naturally in that mode. If we elect people who play a mean game of Us-versus-Them, we'll have nobody but ourselves to blame when their worst authoritarian impulses kick in, and our politics curdle back into fear and division.
The difference is not in the specific problems we face; it's in the logic and processes we choose when we set about solving them.