Ep20 -- Get Beyond Us vs. Them

 Well folks, it's NBA finals time once again,  and the Boston Celtics are the Eastern Conference champions. And that got me thinking about my childhood sports fandom.  You see, I grew up in Philadelphia and was as obsessed about local sports as pretty much every kid my age seemed to be.  It was Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, and Sixers all year round.  And then in 1981, the unthinkable happened.  My dad got a new job...in Boston.  That's right, Celtics country, enemy territory.  And the effect of living among Boston fans was so profound that to this day, even if I don't really care about the team or if I actually like some of their players. I'll root against Boston, just because, and yes, I'm a little embarrassed by this, just because a small part of me doesn't want to see Boston fans happy.  I know it's petty, it's vindictive, and ultimately it's totally meaningless. But that's just the way I feel.  

So for example, this year,  as the conference championship series's began, in the west I was rooting for Minnesota as they faced Dallas.  I like the Dallas coach, Jason Kidd. But  their star Luka Doncic just kind of rubs me the wrong way. He's obviously a great player.  He actually plays a lot like Larry Bird used to play, which is why I really wish he wouldn't complain to the refs. So constantly. He's just too talented for that and it's annoying to watch. But when the Celtic swept Indiana in the east, and Dallas was on the verge of sweeping Minnesota,  I switched to rooting for Dallas,  since, if they swept the series, they'd have a better chance of beating Boston. It's ridiculous. I know.  But I think sports are indicative of that evolutionarily advantageous part of human nature whereby we seek out social allegiances, which naturally lead us to us versus them scenarios throughout our lives.  And sports allegiances, whether in little league or as a pro sports fan are probably among the first us versus them demarcations that become really salient in our lives.  And for many people, myself obviously included.  It can last a long time.  

In sports, it's usually pretty innocuous. But obviously, in other realms, it can become a matter of life or death.  So this week, I want to follow up on an episode from a few weeks ago about how we all contain multitudes and look at how we might try to wear our in-group identities a little bit more lightly, think about ways that they don't really serve our best interest as individuals and in society,  and see if we can find some ways to blur the lines between us and them.  

Stay tuned. 

I'm Craig Boreth and this is The Great Ungaslighting, a podcast about the ways we all get conned into accepting a human culture that's out of sync with our human nature, and how we can fight back and put the kind back into humankind.  

But first, a word about a sponsor.  

The Great Ungaslighting is not sponsored this week by Samsung, which is the world's largest, or among the world's largest, manufacturer of smartphones, TVs, soundbars, semiconductors, and lots of other electronics.  But as Nathan Procter, senior director at the US Public Interest Research Group recently told 404 Media,  Samsung needs to be reminded that when you sell something, you don't own it anymore.  So it turns out that if you have a phone repair shop, and you want to buy repair parts from Samsung you must first agree to send Samsung the name and contact info of the phone's owner, the phone's equivalent of a serial number, and info about what's wrong with the phone.  Now it seems a little creepy, but not so bad. But that's not all. If you open up the phone and discover that it has previously been repaired using aftermarket parts, meaning parts not coming directly from Samsung,  you must notify the company of that and then destroy the phone. Samsung uses the word disassemble rather than destroy, but the point is clear.  

Now in Samsung's defense --  well, actually it's not in their defense, it's a damning lament about just how corporate is the world is right now-- lots of other companies do versions of this, destroying or inactivating products that are the property of their customers, not the manufacturers.  Another very common way that corporations punish their customers is by voiding their warranties 

if the device is repaired, by the owner or a third party.  Funny thing about that: It's illegal!  There's something called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, which makes it a federal crime for companies to tie their customers to particular services or to the use of particular parts. So what's with all those warning notices about voiding your warranty?  Well, it turns out that the big tech manufacturers like Apple, Sony, and yes, Samsung know full well that those warnings cannot be enforced, but they just assume that most people have never heard of the Magnuson-Moss Act, and will obey those warnings as if they weren't blatantly illegal.  It's yet another example of what tech critic Cory Doctorow describes as companies becoming too big to fail, then too big to jail, then too big to care.  

And we're back.  

My kids and I often have the argument about who is the greatest NBA player of all time.  The younger generation usually thinks it's LeBron. Whereas I, and what feels like most people around my age,  think it's probably Michael Jordan. Now one thing that I try to remind myself when this argument gets heated, is this: it's a totally meaningless argument. 

I mean, what difference would it actually make if one is conclusively considered the greatest of all time?  The obvious answer is of course it would make no difference whatsoever.  I think what's more interesting and this goes for sports, music, movies, whatever  is to just embrace the subjectivity of it all and talk about things as my favorite player of all time or movie or comedian or whatever.  

I remember when the LA weekly, which was this great alternative newspaper here in LA would run an occasional "worst bands of all time" article.  And they kind of did it just to highlight the absurdity of the idea of something so subjective as musical taste being categorized as best or worst.  So one year they listed as the worst band of all time: The Red Hot Chili Peppers. And people were pissed.  But again, what difference does it make?   If you're a chili peppers fan, are you suddenly going to hate them because some dude at LA Weekly says they suck.  And that was kind of exactly the reaction they were going for, and they got it.  

So enough about the meaningless us versus them distinctions. What about partitions that have real consequences for real people?  Now one that's been particularly salient lately is the abortion debate.  Now I want to try and not get too hung up on the politics of it, which is obviously a huge source of the energy that pushes the two sides away from each other.  And I don't want to focus on that because so much of the politics is just concerned with accumulating more political power  and very little thought goes to the actual people who are affected by the consequences of that debate.  

It reminds me of a recent new Yorker cartoon that shows a king looking out his castle window at two groups of peasants facing off pointing fingers at each other.  And the king says, "A revolutionary war was brewing, but I managed to turn it into a culture war."  
And of course there are people who want to use the abortion debate to limit women's autonomy and independence.  And I also don't want to focus on that part of the debate because again, It's ultimately about something other than abortion. It's about power.  But when you get down to the argument that's just about abortion, you can kind of drill down to a very specific place where the two groups diverge.  

On the one hand, you have a group of people who believe fetuses or even all the way back to blastocysts that's just a ball of cells a few days after fertilization, are human or have enough human potentiality that they deserve legal protection.  Now personally, I don't believe that. I'm on the other side and I agree with the National Abortion Rights Action League statement, not opposing restrictions on post-viability abortions that contain adequate exceptions to protect the life and health of the woman.  

Now. If you think about the beliefs of those two sides,  there's really hardly anything you can say that would convince one side to change their belief to that of the other side.  It really comes down to do you believe this fetus is a human. A viable human being or do you believe that occurs later, and there are a lot of other considerations to take into account?  

So you kind of have a choice.  We can either yell at each other, occasionally belittling and insulting each other forever, or we can look for ways to find some common ground.  And I'm not suggesting that anyone should stop their political activism, fighting to elect politicians and enact laws that enshrine and protect the rights they believe in. But at the same time, if we can find some common ground in ways that might actually help the very real people whose lives are affected by this issue,  we should probably do that.  I think everyone can agree that in an ideal world,  there would be no need for abortions. 

There would be no demand for them.  There would be no unwanted pregnancies and fetal abnormalities would never endanger a pregnant woman's life.  Of course, that's a utopian ideal that will never exist.  But to the extent that we can move in that direction, no matter how incrementally,  it seems like that would be a good thing, right?  So both sides as part of their political activism for or against the legality of abortion should fight together for better sex education, better access to contraception and better prenatal healthcare.  Now of course, some people will have a problem with that. But at least now you can argue with those people using hard data rather than subjective beliefs.  If we all want to lower the demand for abortion, and we all want fewer fetal abnormalities that endanger a woman's life, then there's a ton of research showing how we can do that.  

And I think there are a lot of people who will take the opportunity in this specific focused way to break through the us versus them dichotomy that has existed for so long and will continue to exist,  and try to find ways to work together and make things better. 

 And that's really the takeaway for this week. If you're experiencing us versus them conflicts that seem totally intractable, and who isn't these days,  I'd suggest giving some thought to the specific issue that's causing the rift and think about who that rift might really be serving,  and if there are ways that you can break through the barrier between us and them that could serve the greater good.  Now, if you can't find any way to break through, that's fine, but it doesn't mean you should give up. Remember, we all contain multitudes. So if you find yourself in an intractable us versus them situation with someone, maybe think about other ways in which you're on the same side, or find things that you have in common that don't really necessitate us versus them thinking. I don't know if it will help break down the walls between that big us versus them,  but it might help you feel a little better about each other, and that's always a good thing. 

 You know, as I was thinking about my childhood sports allegiances,  I also got to thinking about that other quintessential childhood experience, the family road trip and specifically that timeless refrain, "Are we there yet?"  I vividly remember sitting in the Wayback of our station wagon on some endless journey, and pissing off my parents by asking that over and over again.  Now, I didn't want to perpetuate that same ritual with my kids. So when they would ask the question, "Are we there yet?"  I'd say, you know, we're actually never there. We're always here. So even when we get there, at that moment it becomes here.  So the answer to your question is no, we're not there. We will never get there. We will always be here.  And that actually pisses them off even more, but I kinda like it.  And it's similar to the us versus them distinction.  If Gregory Bateson is right, and I'm pretty sure he is,  if we're all intimately connected in the same ecosystem, then at a certain level, there truly is no them, it's all us.  

Sure, it's fine to root for your team and against the other team, but don't think that somehow makes you fundamentally different or better than the other team's fans. There was this great Onion story a while back with the headline: you will suffer a humiliation when the sports team from my area defeats the sports team from your area.  It highlights the absurdity of extrapolating from the randomness of which sports team you support to the personality, character, and morality of one group of fans versus another.  It's just completely ridiculous when you think about it. Although, one thing I can say with absolute certainty:  All Philly fans are nuts.  

Well, that's it for this week. If you like the show, please post a review and introduce it to anyone and everyone you think might also dig it.  And until next week, be kind to yourself, cut each other some slack, and use your f%&#ing turn signal.