The United States Identity Crisis. Observations On Forgotten Indivisibility.

The United States is currently facing an identity crisis. As a nation that claims unity and freedom as its dominant characteristics it is plagued with severe divisions on the basis of political ideologies, race, and class. Currently the people on both sides of the aisle are using political ideology to expand the gap between the other issues whether they know it or not. All things can be used for good or bad purposes including our nature as human beings. We are homo sapien sapien and like other species we come with a package of hard wired instincts. In much the same way herd animals congregate against threats and wolves run in packs we tend to gravitate towards a tribal configuration as a species. We cultivate tribal identities in the form of religion, political ideologies, nationalism, sports teams, and gangs. It is a deep seated primordial urge, and though it can operate as a strength it's currently our greatest weakness as a people. This as a weakness has been hijacked by the more predatory and well equipped of our species to control our trajectory and pit us against each other on an unprecedented scale. Why is this? How can each identity claim moral high ground or prejudice against the other identity when both have the loss of human life and blood shed packed into their sums? How is one ideology or governmental practice or preference more valid when each one allows totalitarian laws to be enacted like the NDAA or the Patriot Act? What makes either side or person who represents it more appealing? Above all, why are we going down the same path that humanity has traveled down before when history has shown us that it always has the same outcome? Death, war, famine, atrocities. Does humanity have a learning disability? Nah. This is human nature and mother nature being taken for a hard ride into the abyss. Let me explain.

Them And Us. The Instinct To Have An In And Out Group:

In 1979 Henri Tajfel developed his Social Identity Theory. The long and short of this is that even in minimal circumstances human beings will create collective identities and in and out groups on the smallest to the largest of details or differences. For instance a low level of this would be a sports team. If I were a Florida football team fanatic then naturally I'd say Georgia sucks and vise versa. You can find examples of this in art, music, religion, politics, nationalism, the list can go on and on. Now this instinct to mutually congregate around an ideology or identity is hard wired from roughly 180,000 years of our species living within a tribal configuration in a hunter gather existence. The individual existed at a minimal level. An individual was part of a family who was part of an extended family that was part of a tribe. The tribe was the outside ring of the identity and often consolidated when confronted with an external threat or crisis. Though we are governed behaviorally by the impulse to exist in a tribal configuration we often forget it. Sometimes even outright deny the impulse exist in the name of being more evolved. However one need only look at the insane barbarism that the state manages to put into nice neat outta sight boxes, coupled with the violence of the enforcement arm of the state called law, to see that we haven't progressed much. Most political ideologies claim to be aiming to get close to Utopia and ultimate equilibrium. Now out of all of the destinations we have had whether it has been the New World or Mars, the continual failures in our journey to Utopia over the past two thousand years have resulted in more death and desperation than any other destination mankind has attempted to reach. And if it is reached with our current approach it will be built on the bodies of billions. If we do arrive at utopia will it be worth it? We as a species are great at doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why is this? Why is it that with the naivety of a child believing in Santa Claus do we buy into the next political figure when he tells us he has the solution? In an age where information has never been more readily available why is it that when either side of the aisle can be arguing from fact that both can be wrong?

The Dark Side Of Them And Us. Inflated Personnel Significance And The Gratification It Holds:

Having suggested that we are governed by tribal instincts as a species and pointed out where that has been taken for a ride I'm going to point out my humble observation in regards to the dark side of this paradigm. It's not complicated or difficult though it's ubiquitous and insidious. When we belong to a collective or identify with a group and its ideological packages we often compete for approval and reward within that group. When we aren't doing this we cultivate a system of beliefs that relate to that group and spend a great deal of time practicing that belief by pouring our thoughts and energy into the ideologies that accompany the group and it's belief structure. In short we create and store ideological accelerants that upon encountering a source of ignition, blaze wildly out of control. If you look at any sports team rioting after a football match or political group rioting in protest you begin to see where I'm going with this. If the wild fire is sustained and manipulated it has historically lead to wide scale persecution and atrocities. The look of zeal and enthusiasm on the face of the rioter and looter tend to reveal the truth of their motive. It's never ideology in these circumstances, it's always primal that's at play. I want I take, I'm angry I smash,I'm in a crowd I'm empowered. Gustave Le Bon who was a French Social Psychologist observed that when in a crowd that the surgeon, cobbler, and brick layer were of equal intelligence and subservient to the whims of the collective rather than their individual will. When we have the opportunity as a nation, political identity, race or religion, we unfailingly create an in and out paradigm that with little encouragement drives the engine of division and violence further towards a dark destination. Yes we are hard wired to operate within a tribal framework, but our consent in allowing it to be manipulated always stems from our weakness in the face of self appointed reward and egotism. That self reward and egotism is always hidden within the cloak of our ideologies. The problem with beliefs is that they blind us to facts and logic. If I identified as right or left and was presented with a fact that contradicts my world view would I be right in defending my world view from that fact? Does holding an ideology mean I must on occasion be diametrically opposed to the truth? When we are preparing to see those we disagree with a them and us perspective it does no harm to ask these questions.

Perfection and Utopia have never been on the table for humanity. Coalescing into tribal formations and identifying with this or that tribe will always be at play. The end effect is entirely up to us. We don't need to let it be manipulated. We can strive for balance. Americans who identify as Americans sharing in the equality of being Americans seem to be falling into a dirty deception and trick that is as old as statism. Divide and rule. Create multiple in and out groups and play them off against each other while those who hold the dominate amount of resources and control gain more resources and consolidate more control. I tend to think that government is a living organism that has to share an ecosystem with the people. It's instincts are to survive and it's not a necessity in the overall food chain. When threatened or in competition for a particular resource it will have a myriad of different tactics that its nature dictates it executes to survive. These are often unpleasant and revolve around consuming its own people in it's later stages of life. It always ages into totalitarianism and tyranny. When it dies we call the birth of a new government evidence of the defeated tyranny rather than the scion of the old one. We have a choice how this all plays out as the American government is not the American people. Whether or not a change in our current trajectory will occur or not, I can't say. It is impossible to know whether or not Americans will unite as a tribe against the threat of shadow governments, the deep state, and establishment manipulation and rule. History says no and that we are all categorically screwed but I have trouble with this notion. As in nature eventually an event will occur that pressures or shocks us into growth, or as in nature an event will occur and we will eventually be pushed into extinction. I hope for the first and daily pray the later never comes. Thanks for reading guys and steem on.