Us and Them

One doesn't have to know me very long to know that politics isn't just an interest of mine, it is a passion.  I pay a lot of attention to domestic and world events and I spend a lot of my time thinking about them and the ramifications of them.  One thing that I have kept coming back to over the last year or so is that I feel like so many of our arguments these days come down to US verses THEM. Immigration, health care, community center building, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, marriage equality -- it all seems to be about us and them.

The thing, to me, that seems to be lacking from the conversation is a very real understanding that all of us are an US and all of us are a THEM.  It just depends on which side of the argument your beliefs fall upon.  

I am an US in a lot of groups: woman, Democrat, liberal, non-Christian, American, coach, insured, working, tax-paying, peace-loving, married, heterosexual and on and on.

But I am a THEM to many, many more: men, Republicans, Independents, Greens, conservatives, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, every other country in the world, every other profession in the world, uninsured, non-working, non-taxpaying, war bent, single, gay, lesbian, queer, transgendered and on and on and on I could go.

It is so easy to vilify the "THEM" when it isn't "US" but we are always both US and THEM. 

People are generally drawn to those with whom they have much in common.  Clearly that isn't definitive - we all have friends who have different political beliefs, most of us have friends of different sexual orientations, religions, political beliefs but when we start thinking about the people we know -- even when they are in different situations - it is much more difficult for them to become THEM. Instead of the story of the uninsured person too lazy to get a job (THEM) - we know our friend who works 3 different jobs to cobble together an income to support their family only because those jobs are all part time, benefits aren't an option so they are part of the insured population in this country.  Instead of the story of the promiscuous gay men who want to destroy marriage, they become the lesbian couple who has been dedicated to each other for longer than you and your husband have been married, who have had to jump through hoop after hoop to ensure that each of them are medically responsible for the other because one of them has a degenerative disease and all of their parents support their decisions to be each other's person to make those decisions because they are together in everyone's eyes except the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  

I am not going to ask people to give up their beliefs - I would be offended if someone asked me to do that -- but what  I wish we could ALL do is stop breaking everything down to US and THEM and think of all of us as people who simply want to live good and decent lives and take care of ourselves and the people we love.  There will always be and US and a THEM but wouldn't it be a much kinder conversation if anyone who isn't US wasn't automatically an evil THEM?

Comments

[Cassie]

The politicians themselves are big on the US vs THEM thing and I hate it. I used to be very passionate about politics. HATE IT now. HATE.IT. I wish they'd all go away. As soon as they are elected they immediately begin campaigning for their next term. Uh, how about you do your JOB huh?

Whew! That rant was bottled up in there for a while! LOL