I Want to Talk About the "You're an Idiot" Part

Does anybody else remember Field Day? It was that one day in elementary and possibly middle school where all students got a shirt, a different color for each grade, and participated in sport competitions. There were races, balloon tossing, hula hoop contests, tug of war, sack races, and so much more. It was my favorite day out of the whole year. I would bring an extra pack of markers so people would sign my shirt. Why did we do that? I was cleaning my attic over break and found so many shirts from my K-12 career that had scribbled signatures and weird drawings all over them. I still don't understand why we got these fresh shirts and wanted to ruin them with marker that would fade but never come out. There were also ribbons given out for first place, second place, third place, and participation.

 

The one thing that everyone could agree on during Field Day was that their grade was the best and everyone else was the enemy, someone trying to steal your first place ribbon. It did not matter that my best friend Sara of 5 years was in the grade lower than me; she was inferior suddenly because she was not in my grade and wanted to take my first place ribbon. I was in the hula hoop competition in 4th grade. I had been training all year for this moment and I let my entire grade know that I would be our representative. Sara was also her grade's rep. Once that whistle blew it was game on. I hula hooped my heart out until I was the last one standing. I jumped for joy and carried that blue FIRST PLACE ribbon with pride. But when I looked over at Sara crying because she was the first one out, I shrugged. Maybe she should have tried harder? Maybe that is what she gets for challenging the hula hoop master?

You're probably wondering a few things now. Why is Claire on this rant? Why was elementary school Claire such a jerk? Could Claire still win at a hula hoop competition now?

All valid questions. I will get to the first one. Second, Claire was a jerk because she was insecure and a really good at pretending to be a good person. And third, absolutely not.

During Field Day, I definitely subscribed to the "us vs. them" ideology. I suddenly went from being BFFs with Sara to her being the thing between me and victory. Hoggan describes this thinking evil of "the other side." While my schoolyard rivalry is not the same as this concept in the real world, it still reminds me of the basic understanding. Hoggan on page 14 describes the "advocacy trap" where we come to believe that the people who disagree with us are wrongdoers. We cannot collaborate and fix issues when we get caught in this advocacy trap; we lose sight of our original goal.

The book I'm Right and You're an Idiot also mentions in Chapter 2 of how we see this in relation to religion: God and the Devil, Moses and the Pharaoh, David and Goliath, Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil. I was raised Catholic by my mother and father. I was also the only Catholic granddaughter of my dad's parents. My uncles converted to their wives' religions and so my cousins were not Catholic. My grandparents supported my parents' decision to put me in Sunday school, because apparently going to church did not put enough Jesus in my life. I learned more about this line between being a good Catholic and sinning against my Lord and Savior. If I was not actively participating in the church, volunteering at church events, studying the Bible, confessing to my priest, then I must be a sinner and I must be on the path to burning in Hell for all eternity. It was this kind of thinking that led me to leave the Catholic church.

Putting everybody in a box, either your friend or your enemy, leaves out the vast grey area that exists in the world. Not everybody that disagrees with your viewpoint are your enemy. They can sometimes be your greatest ally. I would rather somebody tell me like it is, even if I do not personally believe it, than someone who will lie to me and tell me I am right all the time.

 

I also found fascinating about this chapter the concept of the push, pull, or collaboration strategies to change behavior, and the stances we take as friend or foe. I never thought of changing behavior in this way. It was always about persuasion, but persuasion can vary and each method has different results depending on the situation.

Here are some examples to exemplify these different strategies and stances:

• I push-friend my brother into cleaning his mess in the bathroom because if he doesn't, I will tell our mother.
• I pull-friend my friend into lessening her single-use plastic usage by convincing her she will save money by buying a reusable water bottle and it will look cuter than the regular Ice Mountain ones she carries all the time.
• I collaborate-friend my family into picking a restaurant we will all like, even though each one of us have different tastes and cravings for the night but we can only eat at one place. We all put aside our original ideas to find one in common?
  

How can you use the push/pull/collaborate, friend/foe strategy for changing behavior in your community (at school, at home, in an organization)? Have you ever used "us vs. them" binary thinking in a situation and how did you overcome that thinking? How can listening to the other side help attain a goal instead of ignoring them and plowing ahead anyway? How can we help ourselves and others learn and practice breaking the advocacy trap?

 Also rate my meme game on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best you've ever seen.