Us Mentality In The Military Essay
The Effect of The “Us vs Them” Mentality on U.S. Military Personnel and Police Force
There exists a very dangerous threat to society that settles in the minds of both the law enforcement and military of this nation and many other nations. This threat manifests itself in such forms as blatant racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and, in some cases, the use of excessive, sadistic, or otherwise unnecessarily excessive force. This threat that I write of will commonly be referred to as the “us vs them” mentality, which is often defined in the psychological community as the “Social Identity Theory.” According to Saul McLeod:
“Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team, etc.) which people belonged to were an …show more content…
We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.”
The us vs them mentality when it develops in groups such as the military, or the police force is even more dangerous than it is in normal society, as these groups have great power over our society.
One example of the dangers of this ‘us vs them’ mentality is that it can easily be used to start unnecessary, imperialistic wars. It’s fairly easy to start one of these wars once you have instituted an us vs them mentality into the masses. This mentality can be created by selecting a particular county or group to be the outgroup to your soon to be ingroup, it is important to make sure that the selected group is significantly different from the society that you’re currently in, these differences should be major, things such as dominant religion, societal norms, or their system of government. After you have identified these differences, they should be posed as a threat to your society's way of life; make sure that all media broadcasts the ruling party’s information, ensuring state run media. Dehumanize enemy soldiers by making them out to be blatant sadists, of whom would gladly relish in the suffering of your citizens, be sure to use some of those big societal differences against them too. For example, you could use a difference in religion to further dirty the name of your chosen enemy, the supposedly sadistic elements of your enemy could be attributed to a difference in religion, “they act in an inhumane manner because they don’t believe in “X”
There exists a very dangerous threat to society that settles in the minds of both the law enforcement and military of this nation and many other nations. This threat manifests itself in such forms as blatant racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and, in some cases, the use of excessive, sadistic, or otherwise unnecessarily excessive force. This threat that I write of will commonly be referred to as the “us vs them” mentality, which is often defined in the psychological community as the “Social Identity Theory.” According to Saul McLeod:
“Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team, etc.) which people belonged to were an …show more content…
We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.”
The us vs them mentality when it develops in groups such as the military, or the police force is even more dangerous than it is in normal society, as these groups have great power over our society.
One example of the dangers of this ‘us vs them’ mentality is that it can easily be used to start unnecessary, imperialistic wars. It’s fairly easy to start one of these wars once you have instituted an us vs them mentality into the masses. This mentality can be created by selecting a particular county or group to be the outgroup to your soon to be ingroup, it is important to make sure that the selected group is significantly different from the society that you’re currently in, these differences should be major, things such as dominant religion, societal norms, or their system of government. After you have identified these differences, they should be posed as a threat to your society's way of life; make sure that all media broadcasts the ruling party’s information, ensuring state run media. Dehumanize enemy soldiers by making them out to be blatant sadists, of whom would gladly relish in the suffering of your citizens, be sure to use some of those big societal differences against them too. For example, you could use a difference in religion to further dirty the name of your chosen enemy, the supposedly sadistic elements of your enemy could be attributed to a difference in religion, “they act in an inhumane manner because they don’t believe in “X”