Last night LeBron James announced his intentions to leave his Cleveland Cavaliers to put on a Miami Heat jersey next season. About ten seconds later, former fans in Cleveland decided to help him along by physically adding heat to their once beloved LeBron James jerseys, lighting them up in flames. Perhaps these fans just wanted to see the new look for themselves. Actually, probably not. They probably just hate LeBron James now.
But how did this happen so quickly? I mean, for the last seven years, these fans called LeBron “king”. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any sudden changes in values, and he probably didn’t lose all of his basketball skills either. The only change was the team for which he played. For Cleveland fans, LeBron was no longer one of us. He had suddenly become one of them.
What decides whether or not we like people? Probably a lot of things—like whether or not they say nice things, whether or not they’re good-looking, whether or not they’re blocking our view (cough Mark), whether or not they comment (cough you) on our blog posts… But I’m convinced that the largest factor is how we think of them in the plural form, whether we think we or they.
Just think about it. Seriously. The we/they issue is true with the LeBron scenario (he's now one of them). It’s why the Big House hates Ohio State quarterbacks (eww, he's one of them), and it’s why most Germany fans now hate that stupid octopus (what the frick, he's now one of them?). It’s why we get upset with other drivers in traffic (jeez, what is wrong with them?). It’s the problem with democrats and republicans (let's just not listen to them), and it’s even the reason for racism and war (wow, I hate them because they're them).
The cool part, though, is that this we/they boundary can be easily influenced. I often—and I’m guessing a lot of people—subconsciously place strangers in the “they” category. It happens almost by default. With no previous interaction with these people, why should we think about them in the we sense? It's mostly a thoughtless thought, however, and there's no real basis for it. With just a little effort, we can rethink our "we-group" to be much more inclusive and spread the love a whole lot more.
Usually it only takes some conscious thought to recognize common values. For instance, yesterday I was driving home, annoyed with the dense traffic around me. I almost felt as if the other cars were my competition, preventing me from getting home quickly. After thinking about it, though, I realized everyone else was just like me. We all just wanted to get home quickly and safely. It sounds weird, but suddenly, the other drivers became my friends as we all worked together to get home. Believe me, it was a lot less lonely, I felt better about society, and with our newfound camaraderie and compassion, my friends and I all made it home in the end… brings a tear to me eye :'-|
Anyway…
So do it. Look for commonalities, think about “them” a little, and find reasons to love-not-hate. After all, LeBron is from Ohio just like Clevelandians, the octopus just wanted a nice meal, and those people we’re fighting across the world have families too. After all, all of us are one of us.
Heck, maybe someday an alien attack/other severe threat to our planet will arrive, cause our nations to unite together, and create world peace at last… er, that is, if a third of the world doesn’t argue that the threat doesn’t exist. But that’s a story for another day.
