Us vs Them

Earlier this week, in response to the recent events in Boston, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt posted a thoughtful and heartfelt response on Facebook, which was shared by approximately 253,000 people.

Since then I've been thinking about Patton's words of reassurance regarding Boston and the overall nature of humanity. It's a beautiful, rousing sentiment, and I wish that I could just be like, yes, you're right, "the good outnumber [the bad], and we always will," but I can't. I don't think it's as simple as a minority of broken, bad people lashing out against the overall good. 

Personally, and I'm sure this isn't something that's going to be a very popular opinion, I've always felt that as a species we don't really like ourselves, or one another, all that much. Instances like the one in Boston are at the extreme end of the spectrum, but there seem to always be degrees of "Us vs Them" in everything we do and say. 

Now, that term "Us vs Them" is so malleable, I find that it can be used to describe anything from interpersonal relationships to family dynamics, from cliques and social patterns to hierarchies in schools and jobs, from conflicting religious beliefs to rival political parties, from pitted countries to...well, you get the point. It's even in Patton's statement, the good...and the bad. 

It's very animalistic, Us vs Them. It's also very opportunistic, which is a survival trait that all animals carry. And we are basically animals that have developed our technologies quicker than our own abilities to use them responsibly. 

I think as higher functioning mammals we give ourselves way too much credit. I'm not saying all hope is lost, or that we should just embrace our inner beast and run amuck. I just think that we need to reconcile this inner conflict that we all feel by recognizing that we aren't the Good, with a few Baddies ruining it for everyone else. We all fall somewhere on that spectrum that I mentioned. We all see the world, to some degree, as Us vs Them. If we can reconcile this inner conflict, then and only then can we possibly hope to reconcile the outer, surface differances that we let stand between us.

To read Patton Oswalt's original post please follow the page break...


Patton Oswalt, April 15, 2013 - 3:56pm

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."