Let’s Stop the “Us” versus “Them” Conversations Before its too Late

Enlightened Amadan
Sep 6, 2018 · 10 min read

(17 minute Read)

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit — you choose. PROVERBS 18: 21 THE MESSAGE

In 1967 Z-Ping was a teacher of the educated, a tenure professor at a top university in China. At the time, he was thought of as a leading thinker in his country. Little did he know, this position, one of being an educated man would later cost him his life.

One summer day in 1967, Professor Ping was walking through the University Park when he was approached by a group of students wearing a red sleeve on their left arm.

Professor Ping knew this group was out looking for trouble. The red band on their arm meant they where part of the Red Guards, a resistance movement supported by the Chinese Leader Mao Zedong to spread his propaganda and use fear tactics to influence others.

As the group approached Mr. Ping, they stopped him and asked, “Why are you wearing the clothes of the West and not traditional Chinese garments with the red sleeve?”

As he looked to answer them, they asked him another question. A question that would determine his life.

With evil in his eyes, the groups leader stared Professor Ping up and down and said, “You are wearing western clothes and are a teacher for the infidels; To prove to us you are not a traitor to the cause, recite the second slogan from the Little Red Book.”

Mr. Ping, now shaking, stumbled his words, finally telling the group he did not know. These would be the last words of Professor Ping. The group immediately hit Professor Ping over the head with a small bat and kicked him until he died.

This story sounds immoral, right?

Unfortunately, the story is based on many factual stories from China in the late 1960’s.

In 1966, after the failed attempt by the Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong to introduce the communist viewpoint, his power over the country was starting to fade. His communist viewpoints created famine around the country and death of millions. In an attempt to regain some of his lost power, he introduced his new vision called the Cultural Revolution.

The cultural revolution waged war against what he called the “impure” elements of their society. The elements of society that where holding back his followers and creating famine for all. It was not his communist viewpoints creating these issues but instead the ‘other guys’. The other guys where any and all teachers, rich individuals, traitors, foreign agents, capitalist of any kind, and intellectuals (those with college degrees like Mr. Ping).

To enforce the new Cultural Revolution, Mao started the Red Guards. At first, people in China believed this small group was crazy, however, under direct support of Mao, gained popularity as they ravaged any and all people who they thought where traitors.

Between the two year period of 1967–1968, 1.5 million people where killed or died under this new war. A war entirely stirred up by Mao to protect his power and authority.

One of Mao’s favorite tactics is outlined below from the book 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green:

“Mao’s strategy of constant conflict has several key components.

First, be certain that in the long run you will emerge victorious. Never pick a fight with someone you are not sure you can defeat.

Second, if you have no apparent enemies, you must sometimes set up a convenient target, even turning a friend into an enemy. Mao used this tactic time and again in politics.

Third, use such enemies to define your cause more clearly to the public, even framing it as a struggle of good against evil. Mao actually encouraged China’s disagreements with the Soviet Union and the United States; without clear-cut enemies, he believed, his people would lose any sense of what Chinese Communism meant.”

As Mao later stated,

“A sharply defined enemy is a far stronger argument for your side than all the words you could possibly put together.”

WOW!!! Now please read this again…..

Fast Forward to Today:

Does this not give you the feeling of what we are experiencing today around the world from many leaders? Modern day politics seemed to take this quote as their mantra. Forget the facts. Forget what is really going on. Forget these are complicated times with complicated solutions. Everything is black and white. Right or wrong. There is no gray middle area. Focus on the enemy. Focus on what I say; disregarding the facts. Join my group to rebel against those other groups who are not like us. Wear my red thing to show what group you support. Anyone who does not think like us is one of them and out to get us.

In a time where we are so connected, why does it seem we are moving more into these perceived and made up groups where we can clearly define the so called “enemy”?

Humans DNA strives to be part of a Group:

Due to our biological makeup, humans constantly have an innate need to be in a group. That feeling you get of happiness, joy, or strength when you join a group. Groupings give you an identity, give you a reason, give you a cause, and give you a perceived meaning to life. In the past, being part of a group meant surviving or perishing.

Is Mao not just tapping into the real DNA identity of a human? In today’s day and age, is this not a weakness of humanity instead of a strength?

When we were holding clubs and threatened to be eaten by tigers or killed by other tribes, this mental model worked, but in today’s connected society, we should be moving away from this natural tendency not closer to it.

Is it not one of the greatest feats of mankind to go from thinking only of the group in your cave, to the group in your region, to the group in your country, to the group of your world?

Is this thought process that we are one man kind known as humanity the peak of the growth of human kind?

Is this thought process not the ultimate feat and goal of humanity?

If so, when we are so close, why are we moving backwards?

After watching football this weekend, this thought process was very evident. Sports tap into this innate trait. Sports give you a group to cheer for in their weekly fight, gives you a group to be proud of, and a feeling you are one of them. Most important, sports give your ego the deep down craving it needs to be part of something bigger then self.

But as everything else, when driven by emotions, you see it get carried away with people fighting and sometimes killing over sports. Is this not touching into the raw human element that is deep in all of us?

Now think about what happens when you have someone or a group of someone’s who are distraught, down and out, having no purpose in life (or at least feeling that way), and not progressing or growing in their life. Is it not easier for this person to jump on to a narrative of being part of a group with meaning? And is it not easier for this group’s leader or leaders to really form a narrative based on Mao’s quote to outline their mission and thoughts of us versus them?

Do Not Fall Victim to Others Massaging Your Ego for Their Own Good

This is very easy trap to fall into for many reasons. Why? The human ego, which is in all of us.

It’s against the human ego narrative to have this person or persons who are distraught or down and out to point the figure at themselves. The ego does not want to take blame for its faults, especially at a more primitive level.

Instead the ego quickly grabs on to the thought and narrative that it’s the perceived enemies fault. Because of them is the reason why I am the way I am today, and damn it, I am not taking it anymore.

It’s easier to blame then to take blame, and it’s easier to fight then to discuss.

This is a very powerful trait in all of us and something we should all constantly look out for and try to suppress. Throughout time, this thought process, when given time to fester and grow, has created mass killings, genocides, world wars, ethnic cleansing and probably most of the suffering humanity has seen over the many millennia on this planet.

You wonder how a person like Hitler comes to power? Or Mao in China?

This is the recipe. This is how it is done. Tap into the ugliness inside people; grab those people who are not doing as well as others and say, “Look it’s not your fault; I understand the way you feel and I am here to tell you, it’s the groups fault over there. Place blame over there, not on yourself. They will not agree, but if we stick together, we can overcome them no matter what they say. And together we are powerful, so why not just try and destroy them now. Let’s show them. Let’s show our power.”

The leaders who can tap into this human primitive thought process, and are successful in implementing it by having their followers base grow, have tremendous power.

Why is it we can sit here today and say, how would anyone follow a leader like Hitler, Mao Zedong, or Hideki Tojo, or how would anyone follow men like Jim Jones or David Koresh?

The simple answer is because these men came to power on emotion. With this emotion, they can do no wrong, and the narrative of us vs them in their followers quickly puts any real facts or fallacies on the back burner.

All of them have been brought to power by emotion; and this emotion is only really known and seen in its ugliness and stupidity well after it is over.

The U.S. today has a President who uses this tactic with great success. As Katy Tur says in her latest book, Unbelievable, My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, “Everything he (President Trump/ Candidate Trump at the time) says falls into one of two categories. If it’s good it’s “we,” if it’s bad it’s “they”.

President Trump is a genuis at persuasion, creating story dialog, controlling the main story line, and using the same tactics outlined in the quote above by Mao. He has over 40 years of experience on how to control an image and story line in the hardest city in the world to stay relevant. Yet, he’s done it successfully most of his life. He has used the same tactics to win the hardest race in the world, that of the US Presidency.

President Trump is not the only one using these tactics however.

Is it not what we have seen with Bernie Sanders, Brexit, Spain vote, terrorist acts, etc.?

The followers of these doctrines do not give a crap about history or facts because they are being driven by emotions (for those following these doctrines, the feelings that just came over you from reading the past few sentences, that is what I am talking about; that is your ego; meet Mr. Ego).

We need more than a sound bite to solve these complex issues we face as a society today.

Issue in Today’s News:

Due to the massive amount of information flow today, we as a people are overloaded with too much information to process and are defaulting to our emotions and primitive state for guidance.

We are in a time period of massive change. These changes are leaving some in the dust. These changes are necessary for humanity to continue to progress and grow, but what may be good for the whole may be bad for some of the parts.

These parts are just like Pete in my post in Innovation Paradox. Things are changing faster than they had over the past 100 years and they are upsetting and making angry and large groups of people around the world.

Combine this anger with mass technology improvements that create opportunities for these angry folks to not question their dogma and viewpoints but rather get more ingrained in these thought processes. The combination of anger, a director tapping into this anger for ratings, and simple solutions to complex problems is a ticking time bomb.

This creates more division, more hate, and the ‘us vs. them’ mentalities.

As Charlie Munger stated, “Avoid extremely intense ideology because it ruins your mind.”

In the past we had the news. Now we have Fox News, MSNBC News, CNN News, Twitter news. All of these enable the growth of intense ideology without its followers questioning the validity of this ideology.

Seriously, listen or read the news on MSNBC, Fox, or Twitter; notice how many of these stories use the ‘us vs. them’ dialog.

Unfortunately, compromise is frowned upon today.

As Li Lu recently stated on a podcast,

“Compromise should be looked at as a good thing. For some reason today, it is frowned upon. We should want compromise no matter what your ideology. If you think of it in game theory, with compromise you know the BS has been thrown out and only the hard core truest thought out pieces of legislation should make it through.”

How does this end…I am afraid history can show us how it ends…And its not good…

Lets not follow the paths of history but rather understand what is going on as a society and try to combat it whenever possible.

Lets not approach issues as republicans or democrats, as Latinos, African Americans, White, etc. but rather as Americans. Lets respect all view points and understand how these view points where formed instead of immediately calling them crazy.

We are better then this dogma of ‘us versus them’. Please, for the love of America, do not fall victim!

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub6/item67.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/mao_zedong.shtml

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www.enlightenedamadan.com

Enlightened Amadan

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Transforming Information Into Insight www.enlightenedamadan.com

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