Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
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Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#2On the same note, sometimes when I introduce two friends who don't know each other, I get the conversation rolling by (not overtly) getting them both to poke fun at me.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#3I see this pattern a lot in history. Things are bad until something worse comes along.
There's some quote about each country needing a reasonably strong enemy. Without one, the country starts trying to find enemies and conflict within.
Same thing might be happening in these mediations. By adding a bigger "enemy", the two parties probably quickly back down from trying to defend against to enemies and compromise with each other.
It's a sad state of human nature but apparently works.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#4Of course, if a paid therapist is the mediator, this advice can only have a very limited impact on their method regardless. They have a business to run, and that depends on them being liked.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#5I think a related phenomenon plays a significant role in the current American political divide. Americans whose self-identity is threatened by increasing technology and connectivity make up for the loss by banding together against identifiable groups of others. Whether the opposing party did something to deserve the hostility seems to matter very little. What matters is that they can be blamed enough to facilitate a collective bond against them.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#6I see this pattern a lot in history. Things are bad until something worse comes along. There's some quote about each country needing a reasonably strong enemy. Without one, the country starts trying to find enemies and conflict within. Same thing might be happening in these mediations. By adding a bigger "enemy", the two parties probably quickly back down from trying to defend against to enemies and compromise with e…
There's supposed to be some sort of Arabic proverb that's something along the lines of "Me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins, me and my brother and my cousins against the world".
It feels like a lot of attempted global social policy of the past 50 or so years has been trying to create a stronger consciousness of "humanity" as a thing, with our new enemies being abstract issues like poverty, hunger, climate change, drugs, inequality, etc. The "War on [...]" branding is part of that. Doesn't seem like it really gets the blood going as much. We'll probably have to have conquering aliens to fight against before that happens.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#7[deleted]
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#8I see this pattern a lot in history. Things are bad until something worse comes along. There's some quote about each country needing a reasonably strong enemy. Without one, the country starts trying to find enemies and conflict within. Same thing might be happening in these mediations. By adding a bigger "enemy", the two parties probably quickly back down from trying to defend against to enemies and compromise with e…
There's supposed to be some sort of Arabic proverb that's something along the lines of "Me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins, me and my brother and my cousins against the world". It feels like a lot of attempted global social policy of the past 50 or so years has been trying to create a stronger consciousness of "humanity" as a thing, with our new enemies being abstract issues like poverty, h…
Agreed. I think Ronald Reagan tried to evoke something like that during the cold war asking the lines of: imagine how well we'd get along if aliens discovered us
You see this in political parties too. When one fights hard enough to take power, infighting usually divides it and weakens it enough for the next party to take power
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#9A hostile mediator also sounds more fair. Hearing your faults straight from someone who is not afraid to say it as it is might convince you to accept them.
Re: Why Hostility Can Bring People Closer Together
#10I see this pattern a lot in history. Things are bad until something worse comes along. There's some quote about each country needing a reasonably strong enemy. Without one, the country starts trying to find enemies and conflict within. Same thing might be happening in these mediations. By adding a bigger "enemy", the two parties probably quickly back down from trying to defend against to enemies and compromise with e…
There's supposed to be some sort of Arabic proverb that's something along the lines of "Me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins, me and my brother and my cousins against the world". It feels like a lot of attempted global social policy of the past 50 or so years has been trying to create a stronger consciousness of "humanity" as a thing, with our new enemies being abstract issues like poverty, h…
I wish people felt the same about going to space as I do. I think that if we were more knowledge focused as a species that we'd be racing to the stars which would mean an insanely different mentality than the 'tow the line' kind of thing I think we have nowadays.