It occurred to me today that, at some point, we started to become adversarial.

I live in Michigan, which means that I have plenty of friends who are Michigan fans. They ‘bleed maize and blue’ and they chant “Hail to the Victors” and they have ‘Go Blue’ bumper stickers on their vehicles.

I am a Notre Dame fan. I grew up a Notre Dame fan. My father graduated from the University of Notre Dame. I graduated from the University of Notre Dame. My wife and I are season ticket holders at Notre Dame Stadium.

Most of the time, it isn’t really a problem living in Michigan and being a Notre Dame fan. Most of the time, unless, I end up in one of ‘those situations’.

Chances are, you’ve been in one of ‘those situations’ as well. The situation where you come face-to-face with someone who is going to make an issue out of your membership in the ‘other’ group.

Here in Southwestern Michigan, the confrontation usually goes something like this:

“How can you be a Notre Dame fan? You live in Michigan.”

“Yes, I do live in Michigan, but Notre Dame is a half-hour drive from here, and the University of Michigan is a two-and-a-half hour drive from here.”

“So, you like Notre Dame because they’re closer?!?!”

“Among other reasons.”

“Oh yeah?!?! What other reasons?”

“Well, I graduated from Notre Dame.”

Etc., etc., etc..

What happens in this conversation, a conversation that I’ve had, literally, dozens of times, is interesting to notice.

The first thing to notice is the reasoning that we offer to explain our membership in a group. Sometimes, the reasoning is obvious: I’m in the male group because I have a penis, or I’m in the white group because I possess very little melanin. These are group membership reasons that make sense and have, historically, required little discourse.

But, when we belong to a group whose membership requirements are looser, then we must explain ourselves and the logic behind our group memberships. For some, the fact that I live in Michigan and root for Notre Dame doesn’t make sense, so I end up having to explain myself.

The other interesting thing to notice, when we are talking about us & them, is the ‘entrenchment’ that seems to happen. We prepare ourselves to occupy our position –to defend our hill– in the event that we end up getting into a ‘scuffle’. Why do we do this? I think it’s because we are preparing to defend our pride.

When we invest a part of our identity in one of these social constructs (our favorite team, our political affiliation, our race, our gender, our religion, etc.), defending that association becomes a part of defending who we are. When our associations are less significantly integrated with our self-concept, defending these when they are attacked or questioned becomes less important.

Additionally, people who tend to be proud people are more likely to be goaded into adversarial banter. Humble people find it easier, in general, to avoid the bait of the trap.

Who’s better? Michigan or Notre Dame? While Notre Dame has more football national championships, more Heisman Trophy winners, more consensus All-Americans, more College Football Hall of Fame members, and more NFL draft picks, Michigan has a greater winning percentage and more all-time wins. Is one clearly better than the other?

No.

Who’s better? Men or women? Democrats or Republicans? Football fans or soccer fans? The Bears or The Packers? Is one clearly better than the other?

No.

* * *

Attempts have been made to explain the adversarial nature of the human experience, so I won’t dare to wander down any of those roads. Why we tend to be this way isn’t as important, I don’t think, as figuring out how to change it so that we don’t tear each other apart. Let’s look around and see what our adversarial lens is doing to the world around us.

–> If you’ve ever paid much attention to sports, the vast majority of sporting events involve this adversarial mentality at their core, and then we become adversarial, by proxy, as fans of certain teams.

–> I noticed the other day that political campaign teams are now being called ‘victory committees’. And, of course, you know what the opposite of victory is: defeat. When our political system is built on the idea that we are going to engage in an activity (voting) which will necessarily create winners and losers, how can we be sure that we aren’t just watching some strange variation of a sporting event.

Oh, I know. It’s different because this sport is the one where the participants RUN THE COUNTRY.

–> Race relations in the United States have been a big problem for as long as the country has been a country. We can’t seem to get past the fact that we are all a little bit different, while at the time being mostly the same (especially in the ways that are most important). The idea that people treat each other so poorly based on differences that are so superficial is so often beyond my comprehension.

–> Men and women have a lot to learn from each other, but this becomes difficult to do when men entrench themselves in the ‘male’ foxhole and the women entrench themselves in the ‘female’ foxhole.

–> The socioeconomic system in America disadvantages a lot of people in our society. We could be doing more for our fellow humans to help them to overcome these disadvantages. Rather, we identify ‘the poor’ in their group and ‘us’ in a different group; then, it is much easier for us to justify treating our fellow humans differently, despite the fact that the differences amount to very little.

You get the idea. We have a lot of problems in our society that have their roots in the ‘us vs. them’ mentality. And, through these examples, it should be easier for us to see that the major issue is this: we think that the differences between ‘us’ & ‘them’ are significant. And, because we tend to stick to ourselves and they tend to stick to themselves, it might be the case that there are people who live their entire lives never learning that the differences, no matter who we are and who they are, aren’t that substantial.

And, the way to get past this belief that we have, that we hang on to, is to reach out and establish relations with members of those ‘other’ groups.

–>If you are a Republican who believes that Democrats are evil devil worshippers, I dare you to establish a relationship with a Democrat. You will discover how wrong you are.

–>If you are a white person who believes that black people are ignorant criminals, I dare you to establish a relationship with a black person. You will discover how wrong you are.

–>If you are a woman who believes that men are sex-crazed neanderthals, I dare you to establish a relationship with a man. You will discover how wrong you are.

* * *

Abraham Lincoln, in 1838, gave a speech where he said, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author…” In this speech, Lincoln was describing that only America would be able to take down America. I think the ‘us vs. them’ mentality in America is a cancer that will be a factor in the equation that brings us down. We must stop this in-fighting, Americans fighting Americans, so we can start fighting the war of repairing the American way of life.