Thinking in Groups — A Message to Race-Hustlers and Identity-Grifters
Reading a lot of the posts here on Medium — especially the political — I re-re-realise there is still a huge tendency of people to think in groups.
This isn’t exactly a surprise, but it’s also something that shouldn’t be taken as such a given that it should never be mentioned. In fact, I’d say it should be mentioned because divisive ideology seems to be pushing people to the danger point, and if the growing need for humanity to unify is to be recognised, then this tendency should be one of the first to be overcome.
Instead of writers writing about individuals they encounter, and countering their positions, there’s a tendency to reduce people to their perceived group identities. White, Black, English, Irish, Male, Female, Cis, Gay, Straight, whatever…
Then, with that established, the trend seems to be that they attribute certain attitudes or behaviours — which could just as easily be attributed across humanity as a whole — to one of these groups in order to make it seem like evidence of a perceived failure or shortcoming of that particular group.
First and foremost, my initial reaction is a suspicion that these writers are not engaging with a variety of individuals of their opposing perceived groups regularly, and when they do, it seems to them to be some kind of event. This, alone, is very telling.
Then, there’s a significant usage of certain language — keywords, buzzwords, jargon, etc. — which makes it abundantly clear that these writers are taking their worldviews and ideologies from bite-sized video clips and short, sweeping discussions on the internet.
The minor problem here is that many of them seem to be basing their ideological frameworks of interpretation on kernels of truth, which seem to make them adequately self-affirming and self-preserving. The major problem concerns what they do with that truth; how they use it to further the divisions many of them claim to be against, leveraging certain truths against other perceived groups in a bid to gain a “win” for their own perceived group.
I’m sure there are readers out there, for example, who would find it acceptable to disregard everything I say based on what they perceive to be my personal group identity. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again.
What they don’t know — or seem to be wilfully ignorant of — is this: no matter how many so-called wins they can score for their own group, and no matter what justification they can use to oppress their perceived oppressors, they are doing nothing to further awareness or to help their fellow human beings overcome these tendencies and behaviours.
In short, they are throwing fuel onto the fire from a safe distance and claiming it’s for the good of everyone to just let it burn.
In reality, they are providing enough rhetoric and ideological interpretation to justify further oppression of all people, and violent attacks, without ever directly calling for them.
The problem is not that they are necessarily wrong. It’s that they are providing a formulaic ideological framework that can be used interchangeably on/with different perceived group identities in different places and times.
If a so-called “black community” experiences legitimate oppression in realtime from a so-called “white community” (and their black allies), the resistance might be based off of a formulaic ideological framework which can then be used in other places where a so-called “white community” experiences legitimate oppression from a so-called “black community” (and their white allies).*
The same will then be said for the rich and the poor, with different terms and at different times, but following the same formula. Along with that, this ideological framework will start being used where “men” and “women” are concerned. Then, the same will go for one nation and another, then for one religion and another, and all the way through humanity until everybody’s nicely divided up into perceived classes and the one thing that rules them all is this divisive, identity-oriented ideology.
Nothing has changed. Nothing has been learned. A bit of perceived power has shifted hands, and humanity goes on experiencing the same cycle of division, bloodshed and misery.
My claim here is that we are our own worst enemy, and certain modes of thinking are the weapons used to keep us subjugated and enslaved — not by each other, but to ourselves and by ourselves, being endlessly filled with and ruled by easily justifiable glorified hatred that must be overcome by a united whole if we, as a species, are to move forward.
The perpetual game of point-scoring, identity-wars, name-calling, smearing each other’s characters for quick thrills, etc., is a product of a period of time where we did not know better.
Now, we have access to more insight and understanding then ever before, and more than enough to realise that not only are we a symbiotically interconnected species, but that we are also connected in this battle to overcome ourselves — that is, the inadequacies of our thinking, and the cages of our perceived group identities that are born out of it.
It is time to reclaim the unity that our outmoded social systems have broken apart, and work together to create a sustainable, global society, where everyone is taken care of and everyone is truly free. — Peter Joseph
A note on black and white communities:
There is much that could be said about “The Black Community” and “The White Community,” when, in reality, these two communities simply do not exist as concentrated or ideological wholes. There have been many different white communities that have sought to oppress, imprison, enslave and even kill one another, and for all sorts of justifications throughout the world. The exact same is true with the countless forms of “The Black Community.”
There are also many unpopular voices within these perceived communities that do not subscribe to prevailing ideological interpretations. And, if they were not constantly silenced and drowned out by the howling of the majority around them, their concern and often unifying perspectives would help solve a lot of humanity’s most pressing problems.
To boil all of our complex variations and histories down to a tale of one community versus the other, to put it simply, is a mistake. That’s a mistake one makes in a personal, ideological sense, in how they choose to classify people and events.
In a social context, that mistake becomes a useful and necessary tool for furthering the fragmentation of humanity. The long and short of it is, it’s appealing because it is easy to understand, and it is unfortunately far too easy to find kernels of truth to support this grand misperception.
Thinking is no shortcut to truth, and will continue to stand in our way if we let it.
And, so long as these are the prevalent tendencies, nobody wins — we all lose.
