Others

The social and cultural practice of defining certain people as “others” in relation to one’s own group may be, of course, as old as humanity itself. The anthropologist Robert Redfield has argued that the worldviews of many people consists essentially of two pairs of binary oppositions: human/nonhuman and we/they. These two are often correlated, as Jonathan Smith observes so that “we” equals “human” and “they” equals “not human.”   The distinction between “us” and “them” occurs within our earliest historical evidence, on ancient Sumerian and Akkadian tablets, just as it exists in the language and culture of peoples all over the world. Such distinctions are charged, sometimes with attraction, perhaps more with repulsion – or both at once. The ancient Egyptian word for Egyptian simply means “human”; the Greek word for non-Greeks, “barbarian” mimics the guttural gibberish of those who do not speak Greek – since they speak unintelligibly, the Greeks call them barbaroi. Yet this virtually universal practice of calling one’s own people human and “dehumanizing” others does not necessarily mean that people actually doubt or deny the humanness of others. Much of the time, as William Green points out, those who so label themselves and others are engaging in a kind of caricature that helps define and consolidate their own group identity:

A society does not simply discover its others, it fabricates them, by selecting, isolating, and emphasizing an aspect of another people’s life, and making it symbolize their difference.

From Elaine Pagel’s The Origin of Satan

I read this last night before bed. I love what is being said here. Emphasis on the phrases in bold are what caught my attention. Recent current events are informed by these passages. We assume that those around us who do not speak our language are unintelligent and that they perhaps should be considered as less than or in the least placed in a hierarchical position beneath us. 

In and out group dynamics are at play here as well. Groups are as much defined by rules for those in the group as well as by those who do not follow rules and therefore are considered outside of the group. Group requirements tell you just as much about those inside the group as it does for those without.

There are of course religious implications here as well. Conflict between religious groups and between those who are religious and those not religious is nothing new. Defining God’s people as “we” and God’s enemies as “they” has been especially effective in consolidating identity among religious groups and to “rally the faithful” to action against perceived demonic or heretical groups. This has at time been used to promote hatred, prejudice and violence against marginalized groups.