Us and Them

Belma Polat had an important mission in the media company she worked for. In fact a big conglomerate with TV company, online radio, portals, etc. She was in charge of understanding the hatred that was swarming in Turkey. As they were going through a time of political elections, the feeling that hatred was everywhere was greater.
But Belma was not a career journalist, actually she was Big Data’s support for a group of high-profile journalists. She was the youngest in the group, and it was the first really interesting job at the company, something that could give her a great reputation and participate in top media stories.
Belma’s group work was to use the company’s Big Data, along with contracted statistics and external databases, to eventually generate a report on hatred in the country.

Belma knew that this was not only a problem of her country, several nations in the Americas, in Europe, all over the world went through this.
A simple matter, a giant job. The answer could not be specific, linked to polarized positions of an election, social, sporting or political question. She needed to know the historical roots, and understood that she had to navigate a little bit in philosophy, sociology, and, of course, history itself.
She had what they considered there, a long time. 5 days to produce the outcome!
Belma gathered a lot of data, but could not correlate hatred with polarizing ideas in a universal context. The results were clear when judged on a case-by-case basis, and she was able to understand what leads people to prefer this or that political ideology, this or that religion, this or that opinion about front-page media events. But everything was clouded when extrapolating to hatred without the variable of the event, the context, the subject itself.
Was hatred present in every human being? This led Delma to religious and philosophical research, but did not answer the question to give content to the report, via a structured and then written deduction.

The demographic data, the statistics of pre-existing opinions helped her a lot, this in itself had already been a beautiful job, but she felt she lacked the icing on the cake, the link that would tie it all together. The last day has come.
Belma was exhausted with that work done without pause. Overactive, she confessed to the family that feared for an incomplete outcome for her job. She decided to stop a little and visit her grandfather, actually a neighbor of Delma and as always he was taking care of his motorcycle in the garage of a small house.
Her grandfather was an old-fashioned hippie, but she adored him. He had a great feature—did not judge anyone, you might say. In telling his dilemma, his grandfather gave no advice as always, just said:
“You will not get anywhere like that. You are restless. I see it in your face. How about just doing something light, looking at the flowers, listening to the music … ”
At that moment, his grandfather’s playlist moved on to the next song, and of course, everything revolved around classical rock in that garage. It began to play US AND THEM from Pink Floyd. A hit from the early 70’s, his grandfather’s style.
She listened to the lyrics:

“Us and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me and you
God only knows
It’s not what we would choose to do
…
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who
Up and down
And in the end it’s only round ‘n round
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words”

Belma smiled. Would it be an insight thanks to Grandfather and Pink Floyd?
In the end, was it all about “Us and Them”? Perhaps.
Sectarianism was historical and accompanied all polarizations. Over time, it no longer mattered what one group believed, it was mutant for individuals in the same data segment. But on the other hand, once the inner truths were established, there was a feeling of “Us”, which would in no way feel as “Them”. From then on, aggregations of what was “good” fell on the “Us”, and what was bad about the “Them”. Each created in an almost unconscious way, a framework of arguments for any and all defense of polarization, the continuity of hatred.
This was done with such psychic “violence,” that love and hate were heavy on the issue. It was no longer a logical opinion, a technical argument, ever. It was, however, a defense from the depths of every being’s guts. Whoever defended what he did not believe was now almost an enemy, someone without good will, they were “Them”.

It was forged intolerance, and with it, hatred.

Belma knew it was an insight, yes, perhaps, just a daydream. But she had an inner certainty that it was the way. She did not know if she would succeed, because it will require to base all that with data… many data, many models. But those hours of hard work remained, was within her expertise.
At that moment, the grandfather looked at her and saw the change in Belma’s expression. She gave him a kiss and touched the bike, saying … “Pretty.”

Belma left leaving a smile on grandfather’s face who continued the maintenance and listening to his playlist.

Main Imagem at pixabay.com from “999theone”.