No Room For “Them”

<p>“They” hold up very poorly in <a href='https://el2.convertkit-mail.com/c/preview/dpheh0hz/aHR0cHM6Ly9kYWlseXN0b2ljLmNvbS9tZWRpdGF0aW9ucy1tYXJjdXMtYXVyZWxpdXMvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9Y29udmVydGtpdCZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWNvbnZlcnRraXQmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPWZvci10aGVt'>Marcus Aurelius’s <em>Meditations</em></a>. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Marcus holds up very poorly when “they” come up. Who is “they?” They are the people the Romans referred to as barbarians—the people who lived outside the bounds of the empire. It’s when Marcus speaks (and acts) derogatorily about<em> them</em>—the Christians or the slaves or even the opposite sex—that we are reminded just how long ago he lived.</p><p>In Marcus’s time, the world was a strict hierarchy, almost a system of castes, and Marcus never really questioned this. In fact, his own identity was strongly tied up in the notion that he was <em>above</em> these lesser beings, these savages, these slaves, these <em>women</em>.</p><p>Thankfully, society has made incredible progress since then. We’ve granted religious freedom, equal rights, and civil rights...for the most part. But still, tribalism tempts us. Especially lately. We are suspicious of and think less of people who are not like us, who live differently than us, who come from somewhere different than us.</p><p>In Senator Ben Sasse’s new book, <a href='https://el2.convertkit-mail.com/c/preview/e5uph7h9/aHR0cDovL2dlbmkudXMvSXhWUVY='><em>Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal</em></a>, he talks about how the massive technological and sociological changes we are going through on this planet encourage those toxic impulses. We feel threatened, we feel insecure, so we retreat into (or descend into) tribalism. We want to blame other people for our problems, we want to create enemies, we want to focus on what <em>they</em> are doing wrong, and not the urgent (and resolvable) issues in our own lives. And of course, what this blame-shifting tribalism keeps us blind to is how much we all have in common, how 99% of us are just doing t