Why "Us Against Them" Politics Is More Dangerous Than ISIS | Sebastian Junger | Big Think

I think everything we do is a form of tribalism. We’re evolved for that. We’re wired for that. The question is how big do we want our tribe to be? England seems to be saying we want our tribe and at our choice. All right, so that’s a point of view I understand. So it’s a legitimate point of view.

Equally legitimate is the opposite point of view where there should be a broader pan-European tribe, as it were, to protect itself and reinforce itself in a dangerous world. That’s also tribalism. It’s just a matter of how big you draw the tribe. At its essence, at its core, every individual has to decide whether they’re an individual or are they part of a larger group. Are they part of their neighborhood and are they part of their community? Or do they just exist to serve themselves?

What England is facing is something that every single human being in the world faces at some level in their lives about their own personal interests versus the interests of their group. Personally, I think that democracy is a messy experiment and there’s a lot of discourse, a lot of conflict, a lot of argument, a lot of debate, and a lot of dislike. I mean, we’re not required to like each other.

I think about the platoon that I was with in combat, the most stressful environment conceivable. There was a log of dislike within the platoon. There were guys who didn’t like each other at all. But the one thing they never did was speak with contempt about one another. They argued, they fought, they disagreed, but they respected each other. And you don’t disrespect someone inside the wire, as it were.

What’s disturbing right now in this country is that there are very, very powerful people – politicians and media leaders – who are disrespecting other people inside the wire. They are speaking with real contempt and derision about their president, about aspects of the government, about segments of the population. You just don’t do that. You never know when you’ll need those people for survival, when your life will depend on those people or you’ll be asked to save their lives. You just don’t know.

And the idea that this country can’t overnight be turned into a combat, you know, either this country can’t overnight be turned into one huge combat outpost is absurd. We just don’t know what’s going to happen. And so when you have politicians speaking like that, it’s not just the messy debate of democracy. It really undermines the basis of our country, the moral basis of our democracy. It’s much more dangerous to our democracy than ISIS is or Al-Qaeda is.

It also is a good campaign strategy and that’s the tragedy, right? I mean, you have politicians who appeal to a kind of tribalism by saying, "Look, it’s us against them," and the "them" are actually other citizens in this country. When you do that, you create very, very strong support in your base, but it’s the long-term consequence that you’re talking about the country as if it’s being split in two. It’s a little like marriage counselors advise, you know, just don’t say the word divorce within your conversations as a couple. That the idea of splitting up is not acceptable, and what I would say personally as a citizen to politicians is stop talking about this country as if it’s conceivable that it’s actually two countries. Just don’t do it because you’re starting a very, very dangerous dialogue and you don’t know where it’s going to end.

Well, this country is an example of a modern country that has overcome its internal divisions and has existed for over 240 years as a nation. And I mean, we’ve had a lot of rocky times and unfair laws and everything else, but we’re a nation of 330 million people and we’re still together. The democracies of Europe likewise. I mean, it’s not pretty, but neither is family life. I mean, no one guaranteed you pretty. Do you know what I mean? But it is working and it’s a continual work in progress.

What we all have to do, I believe, is keep reminding each other of our best qualities. An interesting thing about humans is that the worse the situation, the better we act. When you have the flood, the hurricane, the civil war, the blitz in London, whatever it may be, that’s when people will really step up and achieve a kind of loyalty to the common good. A kind of selflessness, kind of blindness to race and politics and religion and everything else that can divide us.

And as things get better, as circumstances get better and easier, people start to act worse. And I think it’s very, very helpful to remind your fellow citizens and remind yourself that in our very darkest days we all act quite well and that’s what we should aspire to throughout the course of our lives and throughout the course of our democracy.