This week: In-groups/Out-groups Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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We all belong to various groups. It's natural. But how do we avoid tension between them?
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter explores the subject of conflict, and ponders how to build bridges between groups.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline |
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I’ve been thinking about groups, lately. Or, rather, how in-groups and out-groups form and persist. I guess it’s on my mind because there’s so much division everywhere – between men and women, members of different faiths, people from different cultures, between nations and ideologies, and it’s just never-ending. But why? We can all see the destructive force of these tensions, so why are we unwilling, or unable, to stop them?
There are theories that point to fear and avoidance of other groups having been important to the survival of the species when humanity was in its infancy. There may be some validity to these arguments, but a) it is difficult to know how, exactly, people got along all those thousands of years ago and b) we don’t live like that anymore, and we know these tensions are harmful, so it’s back to why we cannot overcome them.
Perhaps one of the reasons why we cling to our groups is because they give us a sense of belonging. A sense of identity, even. For example, many people support a sports team of some kind. Yet, what is “the team”? Its players change over the years. The management changes. The team’s ownership may even change hands. Still, the team lives on – or at least its name, and its colours, and its importance in the hearts and minds of its supporters. To the supporter, their support of the team matters. It’s a part of how they define themselves. This automatically places them in opposition to the supporters of competing teams, and whilst for many people this competition is nothing more than a bit of fun, others take it very seriously indeed. To the point of violence, in some cases.
I am not immune. I enjoy Formula 1, and I have my favourite drivers. I’m a rock chick, a bookworm, a gaming geek, and politically I am what some have called a tree-hugging leftie liberal, though I believe that most people have political views that cross the centre line – I know that I do. I’m a student, a carer, a Dutch citizen, a British resident, and all these layers of identity combine with many more that make me, me. Nobody is just one thing.
Something that worries me – scares me, even – is that there is a tendency to look at someone and to label them as just the one thing that we pick up about them. That this can have terrible consequences was shown by a neuroscientific research project by Harris and Fiske (2009). To give a very brief description of their research – when we meet people, or are shown photographs of people, certain areas of the brain (the medial prefrontal cortex, amongst others) are used to process information about them. Using fMRI technology, Harris and Fiske found that when shown photographs of people belonging to certain social groups, such as homeless people, these areas of person perception did not activate as normal. Instead, the areas of the brain that activated where those that are associated with non-human objects. In other words, these people were quite literally, on a neurological level, treated as not-human. And that reaction has, historically, led to a greater willingness to subject others to cruelty and violence. Causing me to wonder, once more, how we stop this. How do we stop our brains from responding as they do?
I don’t have the answers. I believe that a willingness to learn about other people, engage with people from different groups, to make friends with those we may not immediately recognise as ‘just like us’ can certainly help build bridges. Writing.Com is one of those places online where people from around the world, from all manner of cultures and backgrounds come together to share their work and engage with the works of others, and I have met, through here, some wonderful people over the years. I have even met up with a couple of them in person. Our shared love of the written word is a starting point to potentially great friendships, and it’s the realisation of what we have in common that can help us overcome our differences. Likewise, I remember that when I was in school there were various festivals and activities organised throughout the year where people from different cultures and faiths shared food and celebrated together – those were fun occasions that created a greater mutual understanding. Places and occasions where we can meet and learn from and about the other are good starting points, then, but it doesn’t appear to be enough.
I don’t know how we, globally, come together and put aside our differences. How do you get billions of people to really, truly believe that we’re pretty much the same, when you get right down to it? It may very well be impossible.
All we can do, then, is what we can on an individual level. Be kind and open-minded, willing to learn and share, and have fun along the way. Each and every bridge is progress.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline
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Action/Adventure: November 09, 2022 Issue [#11652]
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