Subject: Us and Them
From: Jerry Rasmussen - PM
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 08:36 AM

Given a choice, would you rather be one of "us," or one of "them?" If you're one of us, you reinforce everything we believe in. You agree with us. That's very comforting. It's good to know that you're right. If you're one of them, you're misguided at best. More likely, you're looked upon as insensitive (in contrast to how sensitive we are,) selfish and downright delusional. You aren't logical. Given a choice, I'll take neither of the above. I've never been much for group-think.

It really doesn't make much difference what the criteria are for being one of "us." It can be being a Christian, being a Liberal (which is code for Democrat, as we all know Republicans can never have a liberal thought in their head.) gay or straight. The important thing is that you are not one of "them." I find all of this extremely stifling. When I am on a Christian web site and someone starts ranting about homosexuals, I quietly exit stage left.
When people seem to be talking to hear themselves talk rather than to carry on a respectful conversation, I make for the nearest exit, left or right.
When people on here talk as if you have to be a Democrat and be in lock step with every Liberal position to like folk music, I think of the wonderful friends I have who are thoughtful, generous, loving and socially responsible who are Republican, including some who used to frequent Mudcat. Just when did folk music become the property of Democrats?

People bemoan the fact that folk music isn't as popular as it was in the 60's (or claim that it is.) For the brief moment that folk music had national popularity in the fifties and sixties, it was folk music, not Democrat music. Sure, there were important political songs that fueled great movements in helping to forge alliances for social change. But if you look at the body of folk music, only a small percentage of it is political. When you have to be a card-carrying Democrat to be welcomed into the folk community you immediately eliminate half the folk.

Many years ago when I was running a folk concert series I noticed when I booked a bluegrass group, I got a completely different audience. At the end of a bluegrass concert, I asked the audience to tell to me on the way out why they never came to the folk concerts. The most common complaint I received was, "I don't want to sit around all evening listening to someone complain." I protested strongly that folk music is not primarily protest music, but to no avail. Like most perceptions about the difference between "us" and "them," "Them" was stereotyped in the most negative, simplistic way. I wrote an article titled Rednecks versus Protest Singers with tongue in cheek that was a collection of quotes of cliches and judgments I'd heard from the folk and non-folk communities. They sounded as simplistic and inflexible as those I hear about gays and non-gays, Christians and non-Christians, Liberals and non-liberals.
The minute you define yourself as not being someone else, you get intellectually lazy. So, do you want to be an intellectual, or a non-intellectual.

And the game goes on.

There's a much better choice than "us" or "them." It's called "we."
This country has gotten into the mess we have in large part because
"us" and them" has become "us" versus "them."

I bet Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a Republican. He was a lawyer, for God's sake! The only work he ever did with his hands was sticking them in someone else's pockets. Sounds stupid, don't it. And it is.
But no more foolish than the endless quest to divide people into warring factions.

What do you think?

Jerry