"Us and Them"

Some popular terms have emerged from the reactions to the widening gap between rich and poor in America. The lowly "99%" and the noble "1%" have become common terms in political conversation. Reading between the lines, it's easy to tell this is just a numerical way to describe "us" and "them" and unite people against a common enemy. From this I started to think about this concept of "us and them" and its role in our societies.

Eventually, my thought process led me to the question "Can any human society function without a common enemy to keep it's population united and cooperative?" Growing up in America, my experience supports the idea that developing the "us and them" concept is essential to domestic stability. America has always had a common enemy to rally against. First the British, then Mexico, then our own countrymen, then Native Americans, then Spain, then Germany, then Axis, then minorities, then Communism, now the Middle East and international terrorists.

But a look at world history shows that all nations, past and present, simply flow through a series of "us and them" cycles. Whether the conflict is for territory, resources, money, religion, women, or whatever else, every society always maintains a "them" as a rally point for its people. A mechanism to keep peace domestically by giving everyone else a common enemy to worry about and prepare to do battle with.

And honestly, I don't think society could function without this mechanism. It's hard enough to keep peace and prosperity domestically with a real and threatening common enemy, so having none at all could prove to be an unwise decision. Even in our political system we have a tendency to split the population into two or three "parties" as opposed to having a truly open election. Better to have your population split into two groups instead of twenty or thirty, right? And while the upper class continues to control leaders right in front of our eyes, we're to busy fighting with our neighbors about whether we are elephants or jackasses.

Perhaps human beings just aren't capable of working together for the common good. Maybe we can't get along with each other if we don't have a common enemy to unite ourselves against. By far the most fruitful economic system to date has been capitalism, a system based on harnessing human greed to create production. So is it far fetched to think the "us and them" mechanism is the best domestic policy, a system based on harnessing human fear to create unity and maintain cooperation amongst citizens?

It's an interesting concept that works it's way into every society, usually designed and implemented by the "1%". Ever wonder how in a nation of over 300 million people, 3 million people can tell the other 297 million people what to do? But that's a different conversation all together...