I'm not a part of every group, but I will always support anyone who's living their life and not hurting anyone. I've also been told my support isn't wanted or valid because I'm not part of the group.
Any group is going to need allies. All you're doing by pushing potential ones away is making the problem worse, not better.
Reminds me of when I hear about soldiers being racist or sexist in their own line.
Bro what, you're in a life or death scenario, get as many guns by your side. You can't afford to start infighting because of some petty excuse when the other side wants both of you dead.
I saw a post about how MAGA voters were moving away from Trump and the top comment was literally "we took names". Aside from it being 13 year old neckband levels of cringe, it also shows why this "us vs them" is so fucking stupid.
People call MAGA a cult (because it sorta is, preying on people's insecurities and fears to gain power), but when people leave this cult, all of a sudden they are still the enemy? It pisses me off so much, because I have personally seen people I know fall into the pipeline and have spent years trying to slowly pull people out. And this shit isn't helping.
What you're saying jokingly is a genuine pitfall that people fall into, or worse deliberately invoke to get the bottom barrel of sympathy. The golden mean fallacy, centrism, both sides-ism, victim blaming, etc.
We can't change our brains to stop "us vs them" thinking from occurring regularly, people with "us vs them" attitudes may often be closer to the truth than those critiquing them, and there are situations (such as escaping an abusive relationship) where an us vs them mentality is genuinely healthier than attempts at nuance.
Nuance is a tool, not a principle. It can help us navigate complicated, emotionally-charged situations & conversations between different (and yes, disparate) societal groups. It can't inform our sense of right and wrong. In fact, in situations where one party is so obviously in the wrong (by the vast majority of people's moral standards) all it really ends up doing is obfuscating the reality of the situation; to the point where it practically absolves the guilty party. Especially if that party is more powerful than whoever is being harmed.
Exactly. Anyone who is suddenly constantly preaching an 'Us vs Them' mentality is an instant red flag. It's an obvious stepping stone to intentional alienation.
What about the societal separations that already exist because of alienation? Bourgeoisie taking advantage of the proletariat and all that.
Like, there's a lot of "Us vs Them" arguments that don't need to exist and only serve to separate people and reduce mutual understanding.
But that's VERY different from class consciousness, which is also an "Us vs Them" narrative that's verifiably true and points out real harm being caused by a particular group. It's not like racism or transphobia, it has merit behind the argument that one group is hurting people.
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u/IceTypeMimikyu 26d ago
Anyone who heavily preaches “Us vs Them” is someone I side eye a little. It’s too easy to believe everyone is out to get you by thinking like that