Actually, in all reality, that is incorrect. "Us" & "Them" was not the first concept. The first concept was, of course, "Me". A sense of personal identity. An evolution of that personal identity creates an opposing concept. Namely, "You", representing everyone that is not "Me".
Of course, as humans and other animals evolved, they began to band together into groups. Each person still had a personal identity, but the group gained an identity also. An identity larger than "Me". That group's identity is, in a word, "Us".
There are many scopes of "Us", ways you can cross-section the inhabitants of this planet into groups both large and small. We've even built a scientific system to describe the various cross-sections in a hierarchical form - Domain/Kingdom/Phylum/Class/Order/Family/Genus/Species. From that system we are described as homo sapiens sapiens.
But our system of classification doesn't end there. There are too many "homo sapiens sapiens" for our brains to stop there. The largest, and most obvious division is, of course, Male & Female, dividing our species fairly evenly into two groups. But we don't stop there, do we?
There are ethnic divisions, those that divide people based on the color of their skin. People are described as Black, White, Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple. Ok, maybe not those last two. But if there were people with a blue or purple tint, they would most likely be divided by some classification system from all of the rest.
But again, we don't stop there. We are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too good at dividing people into groups to stop there. Our dividing lines include (but certainly aren't limited to) -
- Geographical location
- Wealth
- Beliefs - Religious, Political, Philosophical, etc.
- Winners & Losers
- Body types
- Occupation
- What schools you go/went to
- What clubs you're in
- What clique you hang out in
- Size of your genitalia...
Why not one big US?
No I'm not talking about the United States, but think for a moment what those two words mean............
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.
