Read Pirsig's "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It is a good book.philosopher wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 3:54 pm Is it possible to break down "us vs. them" mentality? How?
I suggest:
* Ban on team sports on large/nationwide levels.
* Ban on non-professional uniforms (police officers should carry a uniform as part of their profession, but uniforms symbolizing an ideology or religion should be banned - like Ku-Klux-Klan-uniforms and niqab etc.). Also, school uniforms should be banned.
* Abolish conscription in countries where any such thing exists.
* Make it legal to desecrate private possessions of national symbols (ie. if you own a flag of your own country, you should be free to burn it).
* Other bans on nationalism.
In it he presents an argument I agree with (but am expanding upon right here): Western culture is grounded in Aristotelian Identity properities that necessitate an "us vs. them" mentality founded within the empirical perspective as "atomism". This atomism is summated under the these identity properties, within the grounds of "logic" as a means of interpreting reality, through the law of excluded middle where the "or"function is the focal point in which the western perspective is defined as a process of measurement.
In simpler terms when we observe the "or" function what we observe fundamentally is an act of separation itself as "or" is the foundation of the first "dichotomy" or "dualism", thus setting the grounds for the relation of "parts" (whether these parts are actual empirical phenomenon such as the atom, or abstract phenomenon such as the concept).
All particulation is atomism at its core, thus setting foundations for "relativity", with this atomism and relativity sythethised under the perspective of materialism through empiricism.
Aristotelian identity properties are a zeitgeist that form much of academic, and by default the surrounding, culture and as such they are as much a perspective and "means of measuring" reality considering they set the assumed axiomatic base western culture is founded upon. The "vs." mentality, exemplified under the law of excluded middle, while assumed, is a manner of assumption itself in which a phenomenon is observed an divided.
This division, whether it be abstract or empirical with this dichotomy in itself being subject to this same law of excluded middle, requires a projection of the observer as the observer him/her self is the"means" of separation in which the individual is the "point of awareness" that exists through that assumptive nature of "or".
"or", as a logical function, is a means of assumption in the respect and as such sets "a" grounding for awareness when observing the nature of assumption (or rather assuming assumption) requires a process of reception in which a phenomenon is defined "as is" thus necessitating a form of seperation because of its very act of definition requires a simultaneous "what it is not". A phenomenon, such as a bird, is assumed for what it is by what it is not, thus necessitating "or" as "assumption" being equivalent to a process of separation.
This "or" as the focal axiom of awareness reflects back to the psychology of the peoples and the culture composed of these peoples.
This further sets the ground for the process of "individualism", as a separation from the herd, that sets the context for current societal standards (under the context of consumer self-expression) that can be observed in the western process of individuation observed in Jungian Psychology, Darwin's Theory of Evolution (which mirrors Jung's process of individuation), Einstein's Relativity as the foundation for atomic technology, etc. that exists through the current industrialized manner we perceive reality as an "us vs nature".
In simpler terms, the "vs" mentality (or rather the extremes to which it is taken as competition and seperation is inevitable), can be argued as a logical conclusion to the foundations our civilization was built upon and is evidenced by the perceived social and world division resulting in what exists today.