Me vs. Us vs. Them
I see Us vs. Them storytelling as lazy and insidious. How can I practice abolitionist relationality with authoritarianism's favorite story?
I’m sitting in a crowded auditorium, waiting for the show to begin. Surrounded by the buzz of anticipation, I sneak a sip of Diet Coke under my mask and let myself get swept up. The sacred moments just before a show begins feel like a wave gathering momentum and starting to crest; after working in theater for many years, it’s hard to surrender to being a surfer instead of the water. But tonight, I do.
The performer we’ve been waiting for walks to a single microphone placed on the front of the stage, greeted by a roar that ripples through the crowd. Instruments are laid out across the stage, but nobody is there to play them yet. Our leader for the evening begins to speak while the band filters on from the wings.
“I don’t know where to begin. But I think we can all agree. Fuck. These. People. Fuck their agenda. Fuck their values. And fuck what they want to do to us. They won’t win. We won’t let them. We will win. And they’re gonna know it tonight.”
The band hits the first chord with this final word, and the lights shift dramatically. It’s an impressive and arousing opener, and the crowd cheers. I clap for appearances, but the truth is I’m already distracted. In my mind, I’m jumping on the stage and claiming the mic, extemporizing the perfect counter-sermon to convince my peers in the audience — and the preacher we came to see — that expressing our moral objections like this is the wrong approach. The perfect pitch to convince them to listen to me instead.
In my mind, it’s become Me vs. Us vs. Them.
[The preceding anecdote was invented to illustrate a manifestation of the Attitude of Policing in me. Even though the Me it portrays is true, the events didn’t really happen.]
Authoritarian storytelling for all!
“Us vs. Them” is a narrative template, a storytelling technique. Most often associated with authoritarian regimes scapegoating marginalized groups to consolidate power, “Us vs. Them” is a Mad Lib we all habitually use to fit conflicts into an easily digestible format. When I refer to “Us vs. Them”, I am talking about any framing of social conflict with these characteristics:
There is one righteous group, typically framed as disempowered and deserving of power. This is “us”.
There is one unrighteous group, typically framed as the cause and perpetuator of the “us” group’s disempowerment. This is “them”.
There is a war between “us” and “them” that needs to be fought and won by “us” because “they” are already fighting and, more often than not, winning.
The Attitude of Policing is inherent to “Us vs. Them” stories, because every “Us vs. Them” story contains the moral imperative that “them” needs to be destroyed by “us”. Even if the Institution of Policing is often the “them” rather than the “us”, the Attitude of Policing in the story belongs to “us”.
“Progressives vs. Liberals” is Us vs. Them. “MAGA vs. woke mob” is Us vs. Them. “MAGA vs. RINOs” is Us vs. Them. “Democrats vs. Republicans” is Us vs. Them. “Blue Lives Matter vs. Black Lives Matter” is Us vs. Them. “Corporations vs. Labor” is Us vs. Them.
“Us vs. Them” is reflexive. “Labor vs. Corporations”, “RINOs vs. MAGA”, “Liberals vs. Progressives” are just as much “Us vs. Them” as their inverses.
Every “Us vs. Them” story is about redistributing power. Even if the “us” has plenty of institutional power, the story is always about how “us” needs to take power from “them” because “us” doesn’t have enough. Implicit in this narrative is the notion that power can only be given by “them”, whether voluntarily or by force.
“Us vs. Them” stories cannot have an ending. As long as power is a mutually exclusive, zero-sum game, the story will endure through endless recastings of the “us” and the “them”. Someone will always be able to play the aggrieved part.
Policing my comrades, my allies, my friends, myself
Take another look at my based-on-a-true-story above.
My disagreement with the performer immediately becomes another Us vs. Them conflict in my mind. I am “us” (disempowered & without a voice) and the performer+crowd is “them” (powerful & using their power to silence me). This story, followed to its logical conclusion, would end with “me-us” taking the power and the voice from “us-vs-them-them”. Even if that’s not how it ever plays out in reality, I think it’s important to acknowledge that the desire is there in some way.
You may recognize the Attitude of Policing in this story. I certainly do. An attitude of entitlement and responsibility to treat my discomfort as an occasion for silencing a voice that is triggering internal dissonance. This is a habitual understanding of power that comes to me through, as bell hooks first called it, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
I most often feel this Me vs. Us vs. Them story arising in me in spaces where I share affinity, spaces that feel like home. Queer spaces. Leftist spaces. Because of my own baggage, I am working with fear of speaking dissonance into a space that feels like home, for fear that I will lose the comfort of home that the space provides.1 So instead, the Attitude of Policing lives silently in me, and I cut off connection with my comrades, allies, friends, and myself by harboring it yet resisting its expression.
But we’re abolishing the Attitude of Policing here, removing the conditions that cause it to grow. In this case, that means empowering myself to speak my truth without policing anyone else’s along the way.
Re-telling the story, out loud and with intention
Here’s what I want to say: We must stop framing the struggle for liberation2 as “us” (the freedom fighters, the right side of history, etc. etc.) vs. “them” (the regressive, the dangerous, the reactionary, the evil). It will not give rise to lasting liberation. Instead, we must always endeavor to frame it as “empower us for the benefit of all, even them”.
That is my truth. It rises from deep in my gut every time I hear a charismatic speaker attempt to connect with their audience using an “Us vs. Them” narrative. I see it as lazy and insidious. It is a generalization of the propaganda tactics of authoritarian regimes. It reifies inequity and primarily serves the existing power structure, and the only thing it truly empowers is the ego of the storyteller by scoring a cheap and visceral connection with their audience.
It’s not about being nice to people who are exerting violence and domination. It’s not about willfully ignoring exploitation and extraction, or the people and institutions who take these actions. It’s about catching, in me and within our movements, the attitudes that give rise to this culture and these institutions. Then, it’s about making the choice to refuse to feed them, and instead feed attitudes that grow into another world, a liberated world for all.
Me and Me and Us and Them
“Me vs. Us vs. Them” is there in me. It may always be there. To imagine myself as an “us” in conflict with the “them” of “Me vs. Us vs. Them” would be to toss myself another layer deeper into the fractal of the Attitude of Policing. Instead, I must listen to “Me vs. Us vs. Them” whenever I hear it. It has something to teach me, and the lesson is begging to be shared.
The truth is, “Us vs. Them” is there right now too. It may be there for the rest of my lifetime. While I am committed to its abolition, its abolition will not come about by my attempting to police people who utilize it. How can I meet my own request and frame my own abolitionism as “empowering my own truth for the benefit of all, even ‘Us vs. Them’”?
The answer is obvious in theory, but hard in practice. I must voice my own truth, regardless of my fears, and accept the disagreement that will arise. I must seek not to change minds but simply to be heard and understood, and to hear and understand in return. Surely, “Us vs. Them” has something to teach me too.
I am aware that prioritizing my comfort over speaking my truth helps to perpetuate white supremacy. My growth in this domain will be non-linear and lifelong.
I originally phrased this as “our struggle for liberation”, which is…well, anyway, the concept is an alluring and easy default.