I find it discouraging sometimes how we have a built-in need to belong to groups. In a world where most of us are otherwise trying hard to ensure our uniqueness and find our identity we still try damn hard to pigeon hole ourselves. We choose favorite sports, social income based groupings, we separate from the unwashed masses through our hobbies and special interests.
What fascinates me though is how even as we are drawn toward and join such communities we then often make every effort to split them into subgroups instead - sometimes with more dramatic results than others, others with more subtle effects.
Sports teams are the obvious example. Although it's pretty obvious there isn't
really any discernible difference between a soccer fan of team A and a soccer fan of team B, they'll still argue, yell, and even draw blood trying to point out the exact opposite.
... Nevermind they are essentially the same kinds of people, excited about the same plays, played the same game from when they were all kids; none of that matters.
I was surprised when I first noticed the same trend when it came to another community - dog owners. You'd (well, I'd) expect such a bunch to be very tightly knit given their common affection for Man's bestest four legged buddy, but that's just not the case. Kill or no-kill shelters? Strays or pedigree-certified races?
... Nevermind that your next door neighbor might hate
all dogs and wouldn't consider adopting one at all, somehow you end up disliking Bob down the street immensely because he went and paid a fortune to have heroic surgery performed on his puppy when he could have rescued a dozen poor strays with that money.
It just keeps going on and on. In the last year or so I've decided to be physically active so I'm spending a lot of time around gym-dwellers, including their online forums. It's very common to see people bashed in posts because of their training methods - Bob (yes,
him again) has the nerve to lift light dumbbells and perform a bazillion reps instead of working out with a sensible program like Starting Strength.
... Nevermind that the vast freakin' majority of people you ever run into are couch potatoes who don't step foot in a gym at all. So if you reserve your malice and disregard for the people who at least make some, even inefficient and clumpsy effort, would you be prepared to show the flab-bellied big-bellied rest of humanity?
So don't even get me started on the merits of Star Wars vs Trekkies, vi vs emacs, Windows vs Linux (vs Macs?), or any other internal denomination you care to think of. I'm sure there are many out there I've not even heard of but which split people up pretty damn passionately over.
Such hierarchies of self validation in communities really bug me. Which is naturally a hypocritical stance for me to take, too, given the context of this post; after all at least such people are trying to
be part of something even if they then simply try to rip other like-minded folk into shreds for disagreeing with their own personal flavor and inlination.
Is that normal, did people always
do this historically? I know it worked the same way with horse races ever since Byzantium (remember the
Nika riots) and if we want to be really controversial then we can include religion in this mix - after all, do Catholics and Protestants (or hey, Muslims and Christians...) have more or less in common compared to say, themselves and atheists?
Are we simply meant to be engaged in endless attempts to belong and be set apart from our own peers at the same time?
