On August 23, 2021
© By John Arkelian
It is deeply imbued in the human psyche to regard those we perceive as “the other” in negative terms: it gives us licence to treat them with indifference, suspicion, and active hostility. Our capacity (some would say, our need) for subdividing ourselves into “us” and “them” is relentless. It hardly matters what identifying marker or trait ‘justifies’ the distinction – race, religion, nationality, language, and culture are the usual suspects, but, in fact, any excuse will do. Indeed, if none of the usual grounds for discriminating avail, we are as apt to latch onto eye color or simply living on the ‘wrong side of the street’ as a basis for erecting the impassable border between “us” and “them.” Once we have identified the “the other,” it is all too easy for us to neglect them, marginalize them, dispossess them, ascribe sinister intent to them, fear them, hate them, oppress them, enslave them, or kill them. Maybe our innate ability to dehumanize (and/or demonize) select members of our own species is a relic of early Man’s tribal roots. But, truth-be-told, it’s all too common for us to embrace the urge to identify some of us as “other” rather than to resist that urge. As deplorable as it is to face, there is something deeply inhumane in our psyche which gives us permission to relish hostility toward others once the bolted door to our darkest impulses is flung open. The Holocaust and the genocide against Rwandan Tutsis are revolting milestones in the human capacity to enthusiastically embrace the opportunity to hate and harm the conveniently designated other. The intractable conflict in the Middle East, which pits Jews against Arabs, is a microcosm of the “us” versus “them” dynamic.
See our look at the causes, history, and possible cures for what ails the Middle East: “Apocalypse in Slow Motion: A Brief History of An Intractable Conflict” at: https://artsforum.ca/ideas/the-wide-world