All good people agree And all good people say, All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They (Rudyard Kipling) At the risk of appearing hyperbolic, I will suggest that both the hope and the peril of the world swirl in the microcosm that is the Andover vs. Andover conflict. At the risk of seeming to diminish the importance of recent incidents and the personal impact on students involved, I will not address them here, but instead reduce this dynamic to its impersonal and timeless essence. There are words for what is at play here: xenophobia, ethnocentrism, tribalism, and one more that I will focus on: alienation. Alienation is the process by which people that are alike in all sorts of fundamental and important ways can nevertheless come to regard each other as if they were from different planets. It is accomplished through four all too easy steps: Selecting some superficial characteristics as meaningful signs of social difference (e.g., an insignia or lack thereof on a cap or jacket indicating membership or lack thereof to an institution) Sorting people into groups on the basis of these characteristics (e.g., preppies and townies) Attributing personality traits, behaviors, social aptitudes and qualities to individuals classified as members of the mythological group (Those preppies are stuck-up, spoiled jerks. Those townies are jealous, obnoxious underachievers.) Acting as if the purported group differences justify differential treatment. (It’s only natural that we should disparage, shun, and even harass Them.) Alienation is an amygdala-driven process. That is, we do it automatically, unthinkingly, and as a consequence of a primitive impulse of one of the oldest (and dumbest) parts of our brain. Your amygdala functions as a hypersensitive and over-generalizing warning mechanism, evaluating stimuli in the environment and triggering actions of fight, flight, or freeze when there is any chance that the stimulus might be dangerous. Amygdalas are great at making gross distinctions – black-white, male-female, rich-poor, jock-nerd, prep-public, safe-dangerous, in-group-out-group, Us-Them. But they are woefully bad at subtlety and can’t be bothered at all with critical thinking. Your amygdala doesn’t pay attention to the fact that you and your Andover counterparts share the same town, the same (terrific) developmental period of growth and exploration, the same areas of study, the same anxieties about college, love, life, and what to wear, and even the same name! Instead your amygdala latches on to the actually insignificant but seemingly very significant distinction having to do with the school you attend and blows it completely out of proportion and into seemingly good reason for aloofness and even nastiness. Your amygdala doesn’t stop to investigate whether the people who threw the eggs or epithets were actually Andover High students, other Andover residents, or maybe people from somewhere else altogether. It doesn’t stop to ask if this particular person wearing blue and white will act the same as the last person you met in blue and white. It doesn’t concern itself with how many people might actually be involved. It doesn’t self-scrutinize, asking if there might be something its carrier has done to contribute to the problem. It only grunts out “Us-Them,” “good-bad,” “victim-victimizer.” Thank goodness you are more than your alienating amygdala! Thank goodness you have a newer, bigger, and sharper part of your brain, your neocortex, to talk back to, and when indicated, override your amygdala-driven impulses to alienate and mistreat your neighbors. You have a young, strong, flexible neocortex with which to rebel against that other stiff old-fogey part of your brain. As is your right as adolescents then, rebel. Rebel against your amygdalian impulses. By all means, rebel against this tired pattern of preppie-townie conflict. Resist your father’s and grandfather’s feuds. Found the AAA (Andover-Andover Alliance); charge it with the forging and maintenance of a healthy relationship and interdependence between all high-schoolers in this little town. Recruit adults at your school and in the town leadership to support this initiative. In fact, demand from them what you need to resolve this problem. But don’t expect the adults to do it for or without you. A quick look around at the state of the world and at the fact that the perennial A vs. A conflict is alive and well provides clear evidence that we adults haven’t been very successful at overcoming amygdala-driven behavior. Take this thing into your own hands and very capable neocortices. Wage a campaign for understanding and coexistence. Get to the root causes of the issue. Learn and practice the skills of leadership, conflict resolution, empathy, and diplomacy you are going to need as you move out into the world. It may indeed be hyperbolic but maybe also true enough that the hope and peril of the world lies in your ability to work this out. In the words of Kipling, I hope “you may end by (think of it!) looking on We as a sort of They!”
