5 ms·

Don’t most groups have a common enemy as a bonding factor?

by _thisdot 3y ago

Ensorceled 3y ago
My hiking group, revue theatre and place of employment have no enemies at all. This is a weird way to think.
- xwdv 3y ago
  Your hiking groups enemies are the people who litter the trails. Your revue theatre’s enemies are the people against the arts. Your place of employments enemy is lazy and rogue employees, or even competing employers. There are enemies all around if you are willing to find them.
  - jpmoral 3y ago
    Maybe but they aren't necessarily a bonding factor.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    This is very unhealthy if you really think like this. Our hiking facebook is full of pictures of the outdoors, we rarely talk about littering at all. We find the litterers annoying, they are not enemies. I don't even know who is "against the arts" maybe against more arts funding? ... do you often create imaginary enemies? Anyway, "people against the arts" has never even come up. We fire lazy employees and our CEO regularly meets with our competitors. None of these people are "enemies". The point is, groups don't regularly go around trying to find enemies. Cults do.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. I would say that hiking groups definitely have enemies. Land owners are hostile to the idea of ramblers rights and in the UK they are trying to dismantle them - look at the back and forth over the right to wild camp on Dartmoor in the UK. You might not hate these people or spend any time even discussing them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they exist and they dislike you, or at least the activity that you do, on land they perceive to be theirs. Same with the arts, you only have to look at the amount of HN comments clapping their hands with glee at all the AI tech that is putting actors, writers and artists out of work. There is a sizeable portion of society who see the arts as “not proper work” and have an intense envy and hatred that people can make a living doing it. No matter what you do, you literally can’t get everyone to like you. As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist.
      - neon_electro 3y ago
        Isn't there a middle ground between "getting anyone/everyone to like you" and "I'm declaring anyone/everyone (out of my group) to be my enemy"? If someone dislikes me, am I required to consider them my enemy? Is this not just a self-fulfilling prophecy towards conflict creation instead of conflict resolution?
        rcarr 3y ago
        > Isn't there a middle ground between "getting anyone/everyone to like you" and "I'm declaring anyone/everyone (out of my group) to be my enemy"? I don’t understand where this take has come from. I simply said that the enemies likely exist, whether you are aware of them or not. I didn’t say anywhere that you should start treating everyone not in your group as an enemy. > If someone dislikes me, am I required to consider them my enemy? Is this not just a self-fulfilling prophecy towards conflict creation instead of conflict resolution? Again, I didn’t say this anywhere. You are free to treat someone who dislikes you however you wish. You could be indifferent, hostile or try to reconcile differences. The response you take will likely be based on your interest, power levels and assessment of the threat. If a person is just moaning about you in the pub you might not take much interest. If the person is a kingpin who tells you to stop or he’ll have someone kill you, now you have a decision to make as to whether you want to fight for what you’re doing or acquiesce. Of course the guy in the pub and the kingpin are two ends of a large spectrum of activity and where you choose to define enemy depends on what level of activity you personally think warrants it. Someone like Jesus might not even consider the kingpin an enemy, just misguided and unenlightened - “forgive them father for they know not what they do”.
        neon_electro 3y ago
        Thank you for clarifying your position(s).
      - Ensorceled 3y ago
        > Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. Ok ... weird, but this is a strawman. Even if my groups have actual enemies that we are unaware of, we are still not worrying about these hypothetical backstabbers and, as such, do not "have a common enemy as a bonding factor". > As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist. Jesus was a mythical character; but in the Christian mythos: Jesus had actual enemies, was very much aware of those enemies and explicitly chose to turn the other cheek and to love them, ironically to your reference of him, making him not their enemy.
  - zogrodea 3y ago
    You have no enemies. There is no one in the world you need to hurt.
    - xwdv 3y ago
      Some people only have enemies in this world.
      - neon_electro 3y ago
        Are those people making a deliberate choice to perceive enemies when they could work towards perceiving those enemies as neutral or even allies?
  - TheGigaChad 3y ago
    [dead]
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Agree, Quaker meeting (and probably most other's church or religious group) is another obvious example.
  - JackMorgan 3y ago
    I grew up fundraising in evangelical churches and most certainly there are two common enemies talked about all the time: The Devil and The World. The World is an extremely broad catch-all term for whatever the speaker doesn't like. It isn't sin, which is laid out pretty clearly - lying, stealing, hate, murder, affairs, etc. The World is more like the speaker's preferences. CS Lewis has one of his main characters decide to give up her royal heritage for makeup and pretty dresses - that's The World. It's not _sinful_ it's just not what he thinks is important. The World fills an important role, because while Christians are taught that hate is a sin, it's allowed if you're hating The World. This gives an easy out that allows believers to hate as much as they please, as long as they call the object of hatred "The World" or "Worldly Things". Here's brief list of things I've heard genuinely described as The World: guitars, drums, syncopated rhythms, atonal music, chanting, fasting (recommended in the Bible), mediation (also recommended in the Bible), sugar, staying fit, eating meat, spicy food, curry, alcohol, cannabis, bathing suits, makeup, fashion, nudity, being LGBTQA+, pronouns, sex-ed, women in sports, women in the workplace, civil rights, birth control, chemotherapy, antidepressants, antibiotics, vaccines (shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this), archeology (unless it focuses on Israel around 30CE), science, astronomy, therapy, TRPG games, World of Warcraft (I mean it's right in the name!), communism, socialism, and shopping at businesses that aren't owned by Evangelicals. Not every church says the same things are The World, but there's definitely a lot of overlap. Generally the idea is that if it fits within the current culture of the speaker, then it's ok. If it's from a different culture than it's The World. The World has recently been given a new name that will sound familiar: Woke. It's a modern rebranding of The World into a fresh new term. The benefit is that Woke is a step removed from the religious terminology of The World, so it sounds less villainous to say it on public or broadcasts. Saying you hate The World and want to destroy it just isn't a good look.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Absolutely not. People bond because they like being around each other or because they share some goal. Making that goal a negative of "destroy X" or "protect against X" is a very clear sign that the group isn't healthy. EDIT: Where X here means an specific group of people.
- jl6 3y ago
  “Protect against X” is a bit of a Rorschach test… depending on the X, the healthy attitude can be found either on the offensive or defensive side.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    I meant X on both of those as a group of people. I recon that it could have been clearer. And yeah, there are a few exceptional cases when protecting against some other group is a very important goal. The group gathered around that goal can be even right, but I've never seen a case where it was healthy, and one should be always wary of those groups evolving into something exclusively destructive.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Okay I'll bite. Emacs and Org-Mode, these are groups that require you to do a public good with the idea that you're protecting against many X's. To do this, one can contribute in any meaningful way, big or small. For a cult, it seems to only do good, despite one of its unspoken tenets being to keep corporate interests at bay. Is that bad?
- _thisdot 3y ago
  Take example of politics. The left "hates" right and vice-versa. The bond within them is tight and has been going for a long time. Whereas the moderates/centrists party will never have a future because they don't have a common enemy to hate.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    Radical moderates would get vilified by both sides as insidious milquetoast charlatans! What a sad but funny thought.
2devnull 3y ago
You should clarify, most identity groups have an other/out group.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  I would expand that to any ideology, where the difference between an idea and an ideology around the idea, is whether that one idea (as good as it might be!) gets treated with sanctity over other ideas. I.e. Anacapitalists who love capitalism so much they think it can solve virtually all of societies decision making scenarios better than alternatives, such as democratic government, justice systems, etc. I came across a poet from a Soviet controlled country who referred to ideologists as "lunatics with a good idea". I have tried repeatedly to identify the poet since but have not been able to.

Don’t most groups have a common enemy as a bonding factor?

Ensorceled 3y ago

My hiking group, revue theatre and place of employment have no enemies at all. This is a weird way to think.

xwdv 3y ago
Your hiking groups enemies are the people who litter the trails. Your revue theatre’s enemies are the people against the arts. Your place of employments enemy is lazy and rogue employees, or even competing employers. There are enemies all around if you are willing to find them.
- jpmoral 3y ago
  Maybe but they aren't necessarily a bonding factor.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  This is very unhealthy if you really think like this. Our hiking facebook is full of pictures of the outdoors, we rarely talk about littering at all. We find the litterers annoying, they are not enemies. I don't even know who is "against the arts" maybe against more arts funding? ... do you often create imaginary enemies? Anyway, "people against the arts" has never even come up. We fire lazy employees and our CEO regularly meets with our competitors. None of these people are "enemies". The point is, groups don't regularly go around trying to find enemies. Cults do.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. I would say that hiking groups definitely have enemies. Land owners are hostile to the idea of ramblers rights and in the UK they are trying to dismantle them - look at the back and forth over the right to wild camp on Dartmoor in the UK. You might not hate these people or spend any time even discussing them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they exist and they dislike you, or at least the activity that you do, on land they perceive to be theirs. Same with the arts, you only have to look at the amount of HN comments clapping their hands with glee at all the AI tech that is putting actors, writers and artists out of work. There is a sizeable portion of society who see the arts as “not proper work” and have an intense envy and hatred that people can make a living doing it. No matter what you do, you literally can’t get everyone to like you. As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist.
    - neon_electro 3y ago
      Isn't there a middle ground between "getting anyone/everyone to like you" and "I'm declaring anyone/everyone (out of my group) to be my enemy"? If someone dislikes me, am I required to consider them my enemy? Is this not just a self-fulfilling prophecy towards conflict creation instead of conflict resolution?
      - rcarr 3y ago
        > Isn't there a middle ground between "getting anyone/everyone to like you" and "I'm declaring anyone/everyone (out of my group) to be my enemy"? I don’t understand where this take has come from. I simply said that the enemies likely exist, whether you are aware of them or not. I didn’t say anywhere that you should start treating everyone not in your group as an enemy. > If someone dislikes me, am I required to consider them my enemy? Is this not just a self-fulfilling prophecy towards conflict creation instead of conflict resolution? Again, I didn’t say this anywhere. You are free to treat someone who dislikes you however you wish. You could be indifferent, hostile or try to reconcile differences. The response you take will likely be based on your interest, power levels and assessment of the threat. If a person is just moaning about you in the pub you might not take much interest. If the person is a kingpin who tells you to stop or he’ll have someone kill you, now you have a decision to make as to whether you want to fight for what you’re doing or acquiesce. Of course the guy in the pub and the kingpin are two ends of a large spectrum of activity and where you choose to define enemy depends on what level of activity you personally think warrants it. Someone like Jesus might not even consider the kingpin an enemy, just misguided and unenlightened - “forgive them father for they know not what they do”.
        neon_electro 3y ago
        Thank you for clarifying your position(s).
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      > Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. Ok ... weird, but this is a strawman. Even if my groups have actual enemies that we are unaware of, we are still not worrying about these hypothetical backstabbers and, as such, do not "have a common enemy as a bonding factor". > As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist. Jesus was a mythical character; but in the Christian mythos: Jesus had actual enemies, was very much aware of those enemies and explicitly chose to turn the other cheek and to love them, ironically to your reference of him, making him not their enemy.
- zogrodea 3y ago
  You have no enemies. There is no one in the world you need to hurt.
  - xwdv 3y ago
    Some people only have enemies in this world.
    - neon_electro 3y ago
      Are those people making a deliberate choice to perceive enemies when they could work towards perceiving those enemies as neutral or even allies?
- TheGigaChad 3y ago
  [dead]
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Agree, Quaker meeting (and probably most other's church or religious group) is another obvious example.
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  I grew up fundraising in evangelical churches and most certainly there are two common enemies talked about all the time: The Devil and The World. The World is an extremely broad catch-all term for whatever the speaker doesn't like. It isn't sin, which is laid out pretty clearly - lying, stealing, hate, murder, affairs, etc. The World is more like the speaker's preferences. CS Lewis has one of his main characters decide to give up her royal heritage for makeup and pretty dresses - that's The World. It's not _sinful_ it's just not what he thinks is important. The World fills an important role, because while Christians are taught that hate is a sin, it's allowed if you're hating The World. This gives an easy out that allows believers to hate as much as they please, as long as they call the object of hatred "The World" or "Worldly Things". Here's brief list of things I've heard genuinely described as The World: guitars, drums, syncopated rhythms, atonal music, chanting, fasting (recommended in the Bible), mediation (also recommended in the Bible), sugar, staying fit, eating meat, spicy food, curry, alcohol, cannabis, bathing suits, makeup, fashion, nudity, being LGBTQA+, pronouns, sex-ed, women in sports, women in the workplace, civil rights, birth control, chemotherapy, antidepressants, antibiotics, vaccines (shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this), archeology (unless it focuses on Israel around 30CE), science, astronomy, therapy, TRPG games, World of Warcraft (I mean it's right in the name!), communism, socialism, and shopping at businesses that aren't owned by Evangelicals. Not every church says the same things are The World, but there's definitely a lot of overlap. Generally the idea is that if it fits within the current culture of the speaker, then it's ok. If it's from a different culture than it's The World. The World has recently been given a new name that will sound familiar: Woke. It's a modern rebranding of The World into a fresh new term. The benefit is that Woke is a step removed from the religious terminology of The World, so it sounds less villainous to say it on public or broadcasts. Saying you hate The World and want to destroy it just isn't a good look.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Absolutely not. People bond because they like being around each other or because they share some goal. Making that goal a negative of "destroy X" or "protect against X" is a very clear sign that the group isn't healthy. EDIT: Where X here means an specific group of people.

jl6 3y ago
“Protect against X” is a bit of a Rorschach test… depending on the X, the healthy attitude can be found either on the offensive or defensive side.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  I meant X on both of those as a group of people. I recon that it could have been clearer. And yeah, there are a few exceptional cases when protecting against some other group is a very important goal. The group gathered around that goal can be even right, but I've never seen a case where it was healthy, and one should be always wary of those groups evolving into something exclusively destructive.
tetris11 3y ago
Okay I'll bite. Emacs and Org-Mode, these are groups that require you to do a public good with the idea that you're protecting against many X's. To do this, one can contribute in any meaningful way, big or small. For a cult, it seems to only do good, despite one of its unspoken tenets being to keep corporate interests at bay. Is that bad?
_thisdot 3y ago
Take example of politics. The left "hates" right and vice-versa. The bond within them is tight and has been going for a long time. Whereas the moderates/centrists party will never have a future because they don't have a common enemy to hate.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  Radical moderates would get vilified by both sides as insidious milquetoast charlatans! What a sad but funny thought.

2devnull 3y ago

You should clarify, most identity groups have an other/out group.

Nevermark 3y ago
I would expand that to any ideology, where the difference between an idea and an ideology around the idea, is whether that one idea (as good as it might be!) gets treated with sanctity over other ideas. I.e. Anacapitalists who love capitalism so much they think it can solve virtually all of societies decision making scenarios better than alternatives, such as democratic government, justice systems, etc. I came across a poet from a Soviet controlled country who referred to ideologists as "lunatics with a good idea". I have tried repeatedly to identify the poet since but have not been able to.