City name sports team vs. the world!

                When is it ok to hate someone for who they have faith in? When you are watching sports of course.  I personally have never been that into sports but at one time about five years ago I used to be really into Hockey specifically the Detroit Red Wings.  During this period they had an intense rivalry against the Colorodo Avalanche and to be quite honest that I came pretty close to hating them.  I would say that I, at the very least dispised them strongly.  This sort of situation happens all the time, and many people are much much more serious about it than I am.  But there are so many different situations within society where this us versus them mentality comes up; rebuplicans versus demorats, pro choice versus pro life or arabs versus americans.  It is almost like it is just human nature that brings this about but I believe that time will heal this problem.

                My group of friends maybe more progressive then most but I really have a positive feeling about their overall ability to look at situations without demonizing one side and creating this “clash of civilizations.”  Now it is possible that they will grow more paranoid or simple minded as they grow old but this problem could go down with each generation.  A great of exanple of this is the situation in Ireland.  Protastents and Catholics had been battling eachother for many years keeping themselves completely separate from eachother and even going as far as to kill eachother.  But recently their has been a change as the younger generations have been growing up there has been an increasing number of them cooperating with eachother and in a lot of cases showing very little problem with eachother.  They are realizing that they are all Irish.  And unless they somehow become more opinionated with age they will no doubt go on to teach their children that it is ok for protestants and catholics to play together.

                Another key issue with the us versus them mentality is the source of their anxiety in the case of arabs versus americans we have of course seen a massive increase in hostility since 9/11.  This source is very strong and could take generations to stop this sort of discrimination from happening on both sides.  In a lot of NPR news stories especially on This American Life I have heard a push to hear the arab american voice, who have no doubt become a subaltern and need to be heard.  But even though the informed have an understaning of the situation here in the US like many other places it takes a while for information and education to trickle down.  If we are able to inprove our education then these sorts of problems would go down substantially.

                Only time can tell how long it will take for the problems I have talked to about to start to diminish, but even then people will move on to the next group to polarize and it will begin all over again.  Maybe in smaller numbers but maybe not.  The only real chance there is, is if society changes the way that they communicate with eachother and hopefully with the internet savy generations coming up we will see people talking to eachother, and learning what we are all really like.