Us and them<\/p>\n
Posted by Simon Parke, 26 February 2015, 5.47am<\/p>\n
To borrow the language of the British Psychological Study<\/em>, (BPS) our \u2018ingroups and outgroups\u2019 are significant.<\/p>\n They determine what we think of people and how we treat them \u2026 though it wasn\u2019t always like this.<\/p>\n I was talking with Mark Godson over coffee in a large shopping mall on the south coast – and the ever-topical issue of a \u2018Them\/Us\u2019 mentality arose.<\/p>\n Where does it come from in the human being? It\u2019s a magnificent truth that we\u2019re born without prejudice – with an entirely open mind towards the world.<\/p>\n It\u2019s less magnificent \u2013 but perhaps necessary – that prejudice then takes root, as we try to make sense of, and survive in, a conflicted world.<\/p>\n When small, we\u2019re too vulnerable and insecure to hold this mystery, and so guided by the adults around us, we dumb-down reality and develop demons and angels \u2013 or stereotypes, as they\u2019re sometimes called.<\/p>\n \u2018This tendency evolved because it gave our ancestors an adaptive advantage,\u2019 said Mark Godson. \u2018 Being able to decide quickly which group a person belonged to may have had survival value, since this enabled people to distinguish between friends and enemies.\u2019<\/p>\n The down side of this survival technique is that stereotypes breed prejudice: if you love the one you\u2019re with, the one you\u2019re with may encourage you to hate the one you\u2019re not with.<\/p>\n In this system, your sense of identity depends on these groups, on who you\u2019re with and who you\u2019re against – so you need clear water between the two\u2026between your ingroups and outgroups.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re wondering which is which, it\u2019s quite simple: any group you belong to is your ingroup and any group you don\u2019t belong to is your outgroup \u2013 and you will treat the two differently, this goes without saying.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll not be surprised that the BPS<\/em> observes people generally have a lower opinion of outgroup members and a higher opinion of members of their own group.<\/p>\n And their next finding will shock even less: people who identify strongly with a particular group are more likely to be prejudiced against people in competing outgroups.<\/p>\n The conversation has touched on dark and dangerous things, but strangely, I came away from our coffee feeling happier, better able to carry on.<\/p>\n As Mark reminded me, this systems analysis helps people understand why some humans project shit onto them; and also, just where the mad \u2018them and us\u2019 thing came from.<\/p>\n The poison, the dismissiveness, the denouncing, the violence \u2013 it\u2019s just the insecure trying to survive, needing clear water between themselves who are good and other people, who are bad.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a qualitative assessment, it\u2019s a tribal assessment and much practiced on the football terraces; in Parliament, in offices, staff rooms and in the church where your label\/group is everything.<\/p>\n We were born otherwise; and once we are happy in our own skin, we can return there. Us and them Posted by Simon Parke, 26 February 2015, 5.47am To borrow the language of the British Psychological Study, (BPS) our \u2018ingroups and outgroups\u2019 are significant. They determine what we think of people and how we treat them \u2026 … Continue reading
\n– See more at: www.simonparke.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"