Us and Them

People of good will everywhere bemoan the fact that world seems perpetually divided into "us" and "them." Anywhere you go, you have an "us" and a "them," or many "thems." Why should this be, many people ask, when we are all human beings? Why can't there just be "us?" Some of these people answer their own question when they treat those of "us" who don't identify with a universal "us" as "them." At the same time, those who claim to represent the universal "us" can only be "them" in many eyes in nearly every place, because they seem not to belong to, or care for, any particular "us." That's where we're at, it seems, in the United States today, deadlocked in mutual resentment of a mutual refusal to belong to each side's ideal "us." It's easy to dismiss any particular "us" as narrow-minded and exclusive, but it's nearly as easy to dismiss an indiscriminate "us" that may amount to no more than a multitude of "me." It sometimes seems as if you have to jump through too many hoops to belong fully to any particular "us," and for no good reason other than custom, but do we really want to say that you don't need to do anything but be yourself to belong to the universal "us?" Is there really an "us" when the only requirement is to accept each other as we are? Some may answer that our common humanity is an irrefutable fact that makes us "us" automatically, but is that how most people feel about "us?" I suppose it depends on whether we mean "me" by "us," or something more that makes belonging meaningful and responsible. Ultimately, the problem of "us" and "them" remains a problem of, and for, "me" and "you."