Belonging

I have been thinking about society’s fickle behavior. Depending upon the era we are in, things change. Sometimes they change a lot, but the one thing that does not ever seem to change is the desire of people to belong.

We have a need to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Partly, I suppose because it means a bigger safety net in case something bad happens. Much of the time this need translates into something good, family, Brownies, Boy Scouts, chess clubs, sports teams.

Yet, that instinct to belong makes us a very vulnerable group of creatures. Anyone desiring to control us, only has to get us all riled up and we are ready, willing and able to band together into vigilante groups ready to ride out and right the wrongs we perceive before us.

Ku Klux Klan members, citizens leagues for decency, the inquisition, witch trials, all of these claim to be god fearing, upright people ready to defend the rest of us from dangerous, or immoral creatures who lie along the fringe of what is considered normal.

Like I said, people desiring to control the masses generally only need to find a scapegoat and point the finger. Given almost any reason, there seems to be an instinctual readiness in human beings to rise to the bait and go after a prey that is considered legal tender in the need for visceral reprisals. It may not be okay to murder people, but to tar and feather them, beat them, torture them as payment for being different in whatever the current mode of choice for “different” is, has always been more, or less condoned.

It was the Germans during WWI, the Japanese during WWII, the Jewish people through out the ages, the Muslims right now. The Spanish, the Irish, the blacks, disfigured people, or simply old people, no one is really safe in the long run, so it would seem we’d learn this is the most dangerous instinct man has.

But we don’t seem to. Belonging may be the most dangerous addiction mankind has ever known. It has so many uses for those with an agenda.