A young person in my life is investigating the underlying cause of the “Us vs. Them” mentality. Essentially, this person says they would like to know where evil comes from, or why people “act the way they do.”
And so this letter, although addressed to them, is addressed to all of us.
Dear young person,
The last few months, you have raised the question of why “people act the way they do” and asked what is the source of the “us versus them” mentality.
As you know, I do not have sociological, psychiatric, ethnological, etymological, or behavioral science degrees to lend worldly “expertise” to what I say, so I will merely go with what I know to be true from having lived with myself for the last 57 years, and which Scripture confirms.
“What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.” James 4:1-2
Notice the above answer to “what is the source of quarrels and conflicts”:
Is not the source you…..
Our “pleasures” is that which pleases us, and we are not talking about food or places to visit here. Our true pleasure is that which brings satisfaction internally, and motivates what we think, say and do.
So although an adventurous vacation can make us happy, that happiness may linger only for a time and then fade upon our return. But the deeper pleasure of posting pictures on facebook or talking about our trip for years afterwards—that is the internal pleasure we really seek—the “war waging in our members” of heart, mind and physical embodiment—the members of our psyche that incorporate "street cred," making an appearance; identity.
I posit that in everything: career, marriage, family, neighborhood; what underlies the "us versus them" mentality is the ensuing evil we practice to attain that pleasure, whether or not we indeed obtain it, which I identify here as affirmation.
Even the most confident person craves it.
And when you begin to listen, and observe, to the world around you: from those who talk way too loud in a cafe, to those who interrupt, to those who have their own story to tell before you even finish yours, to fancy cars and cute clothes and beautiful works of art: the deepest pleasure of the human soul is the receiving of affirmation from another.
And it is what ironically also drives wedges between us and is the impetus of so much evil.
This is further clarified in Galatians:
So what has affirmation got to do with the above?
We go about satiating our need for affirmation, or retaliating for not getting it when we think we deserve it, by gut-human reaction as listed in the above verse. We may even “know” it is “wrong” to be jealous, or envious. But when we are assuaging a lack of affirmation, logic goes right out the window, and we instead do whatever we can to “please the members that wage war within us.”
And the problem with the need for human affirmation, either from others or from within ourselves, is that it is never enough, and we are sieves through which it comes and then quickly goes, leaving us craving yet more.
It is this constant and incessant drive for affirmation that often pits one against another.
So, as I said earlier, if we say we really want to get to the bottom of evil, and “us versus them,” then we have to start with ourselves, and we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, about ourselves.
And so, I will go first:
Before I found affirmation in Christ, my go-to's for affirmation were to talk over people; one-up and interrupt their stories; and gossip and criticize individuals and entire people groups in an attempt to convince myself of my superiority over them.
Again, all this to feed myself heavy doses of affirmation.
I would flatter in order to get on someone’s good side, or to impress them with my equally intelligent like-mindedness. So although I was lavishing accolades upon them, I was sniffing for a return complement and ordination into their status.
I would adopt the cool trends of the day, then resent the rest of the world when the rest of the world caught on and I was no longer uniquely affirmed by my style and my being “in the know.”
See, only I was entitled to be cool; to be cutting edge; to be “with it.”
Because then I could be superior to the “clueless” and “backward.”
You can imagine how these various motivations for affirmation caused huge inner distress, social exhaustion and perpetual anxiety, all part of my fending off a fear of being “less than.”
I was the farthest a person could be from “inner peace,” which led, not surprisingly, to dissension and animosity with everyone else: even people I liked. Because life became a perpetual competition.
This need for affirmation also robbed me of enjoyment in the jobs I had.
I was always listening in, noticing and ultimately resenting the compliments paid to co-workers. Any time someone else was praised, I felt inwardly threatened. Oftentimes this happened even if I did receive a complement, because I wanted to be the only one being lifted up and singled out for stellar competency and congeniality.
This is the breeding ground for Schadenfreude: that inner secret delight that bubbles up in us when we see someone fail, or “get what they deserve.”
This happens in families as well: sibling rivalry, the belief that a parent loves and favors one child over the others, the spreading of gossip and being a critical busy-body—all of it comes from an insatiable obsession with being affirmed.
And so affirmation, first and foremost, is tied to inner peace, and I posit that affirmation and inner peace cannot come from within, because of the state of the “within” that I have just described.
It goes back to the proverbial question I have asked many times on this blog: “How can I help me if I am the problem?”
How can I drum up and manufacture my own affirmation?
Clearly my track record is that I cannot, even though I read every zen and New Age book on “liking myself.” We can tell ourself this until we are blue in the face (I should know), but look around: clearly the “Just like yourself” mantra is wearing thin and not doing much to bring “peace on earth;” internally among individuals or externally among communities and nations.
So, the first part of my answer to the question of “why do people act the way they do” and what underlies the “us versus them” mentality is that individuals are not at peace with themselves, so they cannot be at peace inwardly with others.
We can fake being at peace with people face to face, but if we lack inner peace inwardly (and I argue this comes from the peace of having our need for affirmation satiated), we will lack an inner peace towards others that will continue to undermine unity and cooperation.
The second part of my answer is to deal with the “lust” mentioned in James 4.
“You lust and do not have.”
Lust here is a mindset, not a sexual obsession.
We “murder” or kill whatever comes between us and what we want—what we lust after.
This gets back again, I believe, to our constant and driving need for affirmation.
So if we “lust” after affirmation in our job, and we understand affirmation to mean high payment and respect for our talents, but we we don’t get high pay and respect, then we “kill” others (by our attitude towards them), who do make a lot of money and seem to garner all the respect in society.
So we would be hard pressed, for example, to say we like a CEO of a major corporation. We would be hard pressed to say we respect them. We would have no problem voicing derision towards them in our heads and with our peers.
We would have no problem lambasting race car drivers who rake in the cash, while we slave away, working twice as hard in a job that doesn’t damage the eco-system.
Inwardly, we are assuaged by this animosity; by our very own “us versus them” mentality.
Here we come to the uncomfortable realization that we cannot exclude ourselves from being a shareholder of evil, proven in the very vendettas we harbor within ourselves.
I know there is a huge push to blame religion, specifically, Christianity, for all of the evil in the world, even going so far as to accuse evil of being a religious social construct that non-Christians can now use to shame and blame Christians.
The only problem with this “scholarly” counter-cultural “Let’s turn Christianity over on its head so as to reveal it’s true colors!” is that it doesn’t eradicate evil or the “us versus them” mentality.
Many have jettisoned Christianity, and yet war persists.
Secular countries are in protest.
Tribal groups war with other tribal groups.
People who never set foot in a church, much less have any inkling of “traditional Christianity,” are rude and cheat, curse others and murder.
As long as people roam the earth, people will be the source of evil and “us versus them.”
As much as I wish it were all an invention by some cantankerous old bishops and reformation leaders, I know "us versus them" isn’t made up, and cannot be eradicated by believing so.
So to answer your question, I say look to yourself, as I had to look to myself to truly understand and perceive exactly where evil and “us versus them” begins.
It begins in me. And it begins in you.
“I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.” Romans 7:21
copyright Barb Harwood
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