LINKS

'Us vs. Them' Thinking Is Tearing America Apart

by Madeleine Albright

https://time.com/5929843/madeleine-albright-us-vs-them-thinking

“We must acknowledge that our divisions extend far beyond matters of political affiliation to include religion, race, gender, education, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and urban vs. rural. Confronted by this reality, many citizens are tempted either to retreat more deeply into their respective group identities or to insist piously that such categories are irrelevant and should not matter. Neither approach works.”

Why Your Brain Hates Other People

By Robert Sapolsky

https://nautil.us/why-your-brain-hates-other-people-236659/

“Considerable evidence suggests that dividing the world into Us and Them is deeply hard-wired in our brains, with an ancient evolutionary legacy. Among the most pro-social things we do for ingroup members is readily forgive them for transgressions. When a Them does something wrong, it reflects essentialism—that’s the way They are, always have been, always will be. When an Us is in the wrong, however, the pull is toward situational interpretations—we’re not usually like that, and here’s the extenuating circumstance to explain why he did this.”

A Plea for Boundary Spanning

By Dr. Marika Lindholm

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/more-women-s-work/201906/plea-boundary-spanning

“A rise in social media shaming, hate speech, and even violence against members of targeted social groups are the pernicious outcomes of our demographically, culturally, and ideologically divided boundaries.”

What School Shooters Have in Common

By Jillian Peterson & James Densley

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/10/09/what-school-shooters-have-in-common.html

1) They suffered early-childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age.

2) They were angry or despondent over a recent event, resulting in feelings of suicidality.

3) They studied other school shootings, notably Columbine, often online, and found inspiration.

4) And they possessed the means to carry out an attack.

Reasons for school shootings: why are they so frequent?

https://netivist.org/debate/reasons-for-school-shootings