Why do people feel the need to pick sides?
Form opinions about conflicts happening halfway across the globe (and often, form our own conflicts in response to these conflicts). Form sweeping generalizations about individuals in reponse to their opinions on said conflicts, or in response to their response to your opinion on said conflicts, or in response to your response to their response to—you get the point.
And, of course, we divide ourself into categories, like right and left and liberal and conservative or Catholic or Protestant or Black or White or Leo or Libra or INTP or ESFJ, and if we don’t like those categories we choose more niche categories, like libertarian or nondenominational or whatever. Everyone wants a label. Why?
It’s tempting to dismiss this as ‘tribalism’ and leave it at that. But that doesn’t really solve anything, does it? Giving something a name doesn’t explain it.
Which is kind of ironic, since that is exactly what we are trying to do when we stuff ourselves and others into these neat little boxes. We want to explain people. It takes a lot of work to figure someone out. But if we have a shorthand, it’s a lot easier:
“I may not know exactly who this person is, but I know that she’s a liberal, and I know what a liberal is, so I know that she believes this, this, this, this, and this.”
Substitute conservative, or Christian, or Sagittarius, or whatever other arbitrary category someone might identify with.
When we put ourselves into boxes we perform the exact same function. “I don’t know what to believe, but I know that I believe this, which other conservatives also believe, so I guess that means I also believe this, and this, and this, and I don’t like people who believe this, this, and this.”
And doing this gets you friends and gets people to agree with you, plus it’s a whole lot easier than having to come up with a belief system all on your own, which won’t please anybody because it doesn’t match up with their orthodoxy.
So, I guess this comes back to tribalism. It’s easier to be part of a group than to stand alone. You piss people off less often. And, as long as you stick to the script, you can be certain that, at least in your own little ‘tribe,’ what you say is safe.
Until it turns against you. It can always turn against you.
Maybe because I’ve always been and have progressively enjoyed my individual thoughts, evaluations, and actions more so than others, it seems, as I’ve gotten older, I never feel the need to seek the tribes approval. Of course, when it comes to employment and other group settings, I’ve always managed because of an internal, I guess work type ethic on the job and off. In a nutshell, if you’re doing things for approval, make it yours, not someone or some groups. I hope this doesn’t make me sound aloof, but maybe I am. God is always present, so I(you) are really never alone.
Interestingly, oxytocin plays a role in this. Not only does it give you warmer feelings towards the in-group, it also simultaneously makes you more skeptical of the out-group. The closer your connections with loved ones become, the more wary you become of others—naturally and hormonally. This falls under the tribalism bucket, of course, but it is more than mere choice. It's survival wiring.
Also, I think people, to some extent, need pre-packaged ideologies. It takes a lot of time to think through the ramifications of every issue. Ideologies allow people to benefit from the accumulated knowledge of many.
That is not in any way to justify thoughtlessly taking on an ideology (or being excessively hostile to out-groups). It's more of just a partial explanation…