With us or against us eventually leads to isolation

How a defence mechanism brings about our own destruction

Imagine a hot-button issue. Something that divides people into different camps. You could be for it or against it. Think it’s a good idea or bad. Consider it to be true or false. A recent example from Indian politics could be the caste census, but there are other, low-stakes options too.

• Are stats important in psychology?

• Is Tees Maar Khan the best Indian movie ever made?

• Is Shah Rukh Khan a better or worse actor than Kamal R Khan?

We may never agree on the answer to these questions, but eventually you will see a set pattern form. Some people will be on one side, and others on the opposite end. Imagine the following as an example.

Let’s say you are the red dot above, some people are to the left of you, some people are to the right of you. You don’t mind differences of opinion. Everyone has their tastes. But you have a window of tolerance too, marked by the blue dotted line here. Anyone outside these lines is passed off as “loony” or an “extremist hack”.

You don’t currently have a strong “With-me or against-me” perspective, but that can change.

“With me or against me”, hereon called “splitting,” usually occurs when the mind perceives threats from the outside world. Take this video as an example

almost.co

A post shared by @almost.co

The video was taken after a football match. A fan was discussing the match. You can see an older man, a supporter of the Israel football team, chime in and become defensive on the topic of politics, which was never brought up in the first place.

You can’t blame Jewish folks for being extra cautious. I mean, when you are one of the most repeatedly persecuted religions in the world, you tend to be extra careful when navigating the world. Such threats, both real and perceived, give birth to the splitting phenomenon.

When the world is full of threats, you want to be certain about who has your back and who doesn’t. Neutrality goes out the window. The area of tolerance reduces drastically. This is splitting. The complex world is too hard to navigate under threat, so you make it simple by imposing a binary model on it. People are with you or against you. Simple (but not accurate)

If the threat (real or perceived) seems overbearing, the tolerance zone becomes a straight line.

Not one inch to the left or right. It is splitting in the purest form.

It shouldn’t be surprising that those ‘outside’ this tolerance zone will consistently and repeatedly outnumber the people within it.

Because those in the “against us” category seem to be outnumbering us, we think the threat is only getting stronger. [When in reality, it is our tolerance zone that is shrinking]

This becomes a cycle. You are uncertain if a stranger is with you or against you. You look for clues about their allegiance. You mistakenly think they are against you and react aggressively, in a bid to defend yourself. The person, who until now didn’t care one bit, is pushed further away from you.

And that, my friends, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You think everyone is against you, which makes you behave in ways that push everyone against you.

A mechanism meant to protect you brings about your destruction.

You can see the pattern play out in Indian politics, too. Why just politics? It happens in our everyday life. Funnily enough, I see it happen in the psychology creators community too.

Splitting, or looking at the world as “with-me-or-against-me”, almost inevitably leads to isolation. This could be isolation of individuals, groups, communities or even nations.

One way to escape this cycle is to make some space for neutrality. Most people don’t care about you. They don’t think about you enough to be with you or against you. Once you accept that, the world becomes easier to navigate. You are at peace more often, and people don’t make you as anxious as they used to.