EST Take Over

[Pure Fiction]

This is of the highest quality banter you shall have my time sir down with the brits 

[Ape]

AMERICAAAAAAAA FOOK YUH

[Renaissance]

English crew = barcode snipe?

[ceZa]

Lmaoo. EU unit always reign supreme. If you want proof let's arrange a cwa tournament, EU vs NA

[Cole]

5 hours ago, Divine said:

🤢

 

[Fred]

Americans versus them

The El Paso mass shooter had allegedly “wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.” He had posted a manifesto that “spoke of a ‘Hispanic invasion of Texas.’ It detailed a plan to separate America into territories by race.

There are different ways of trying to make sense of such an extreme mentality, but one way is to consider it as a form of us-versus-them thinking—oversimplifying and distorting complex problems by dividing the world into an us and a them, and scapegoating and vilifying the latter.

Psychological theories of us-versus-them

Examples of us-versus-them mentality can be seen in sports and other team-based activities but also in numerous other areas in life; the polarizing political rhetoric of Donald Trump, for instance, can be rife with it.

So what gives rise to us-versus-them views? Consider two theories:

 

Competition

One psychological theory suggests when we perceive that our group is in direct competition with another, especially over a limited resource, we are likely to experience hostility toward members of that group.

For instance, if we (people of the host country) are financially struggling and think that immigrants are contributing to the economy only by taking our jobs—as Donald Trump suggests and his supporters seem to believe—we feel hostile toward immigrants.  

 

Note that the political us-versus-them divisions are not only concerned with immigrant status; they often also concern nationalities, racial categories, and ethnic groups (e.g., Mexicans, South Americans, Africans, Blacks, Middle Easterners, Jews, Muslims). As Peter Baker recently wrote, Trump seems to be “drawing a deep line between the white, native-born America of his memory and the ethnically diverse, increasingly foreign-born country he is presiding over, challenging voters in 2020 to declare which side of that line they are on.”

 

Identity and self-esteem

Let us now turn to the second psychological theory of us-versus-them, which suggests this mentality can arise even without the perception of competition; the mere categorization of people into an us and a them is enough to produce hostilities.

For example, many people feel proud of their country, even without comparing their country to other ones. If you consider the U.S. to be your country, you probably feel the same way about it; it is likely that even if you are very critical of certain Americans’ views, attitudes, laws, policies, or if you hate many American politicians (even the president), you are not necessarily truly ashamed of being an American. That on some deeper level, you are still proud of being an American. Why?

One reason for this is that our self-esteem comes partly from our group membership. We need to feel good about our group to feel good about ourselves.

This can apply to any type of group identity. For instance, a few days ago was the Vancouver LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) pride parade, a parade that has many purposes, one of which is to empower LGBTQ individuals to be proud (despite various pressures on them to feel ashamed) and to feel good about themselves.

 

Or consider the slogan of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Make America Great Again. Psychologically, the slogan is also the promise of making Americans feel not just good but great about being American.

Of course, one wonders, have not all presidents tried to make America great? The difference is how they have gone about doing so and whether they have been successful. To illustrate, Barack Obama emphasized the value of all Americans working together to improve the country.

 

The path Trump has chosen appears to be one of emphasizing differences and excluding or rejecting certain groups. While there are good reasons for keeping our distance from some people (e.g., actual murderers and rapists), there are many bad reasons (e.g., racism and group narcissism) for doing so too. So following this path of creating and emphasizing divisions may be a dangerous way of trying to improve one’s self-esteem and make America great.

https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-inline-half-caption/public/field_blog_entry_images/2019-08/old_new_york_immigrants_usa_emamzadeh.jpg?itok=oM_by9Ie

 

Source: skeeze/Pixabay

Concluding thoughts on the us-versus-them mentality

The us-versus-them attitude is prevalent, and not just in politics. As fellow Psychology Today writer, Marika Lindholm, notes, these days we take sides on many issues: “Democrats vs. Republicans, vegetarians vs. carnivores, dogs vs. cats, breast vs. bottle, Coke vs. Pepsi.” Obviously taking sides on some issues (e.g., race and immigration) might have more serious consequences than others (e.g., chocolate or vanilla).

 

So what is the solution? The one offered by Lindholm involves “boundary spanners,” people like immigrants, biracial or bicultural individuals, gay military members, etc—individuals who belong to multiple groups and social worlds. She says instead of marginalizing boundary spanners, we should “honor and empower” them because they can help us bridge these us-versus-them divisions.

 

Nevertheless, such solutions are sometimes distorted into problems in need of solutions! This occurs when people or the media problematize individuals who are immigrant, biracial, transgender, etc. If you buy into such a narrative—that these issues are problems—then you will be less accepting of efforts to empower these people, and instead more open to rejecting and excluding them. Nonetheless, even if you are a staunch believer in the idea that race, gender, immigration status, etc, are the problem, consider what it would mean if instead of finger-pointing and creating/emphasizing divisions, we could work together to solve difficulties and issues that affect us all—issues concerning jobs, housing, education, healthcare, environment, and standards of living? What kind of United States of America would that be?

[Pat]

40 minutes ago, Renaissance said:

English crew = barcode snipe?

Lolololol

 

@Daniela

[Fred]

Clan members today are by and large unhappy at work. Leaving topic after leaving topic shows mistrust, fear and stagnation reigning supreme. The outcomes are clear either in the high cost of turnover or, for those who choose to stay, it correlates directly with the greater stats showing dramatic increases in clan-related mental health issues ranging from burnout and stress to severe anxiety and depression which ends up costing clans and greater society an estimated 300bill rsgp every year.

Buying them bonds, installing a hybrid tournament, appointing a new elite rank to negotiate clan events’s are all at most, a bandaid and at worse, an expression of the collective eye-roll the leadership performs when they are reminded if they want to win like FOE 2015 they have to "do people like FOE 2015" - shaking culture from the foundation is the answer.

Looking around big clans today and leaving out the contentious topics of politics, race or gender, there are a myriad of largely unchallenged “Us Vs. Them” attitudes. There’s “Leadership vs The Rest”; “IT and Business”; lately and worryingly “Doers and Thinkers” “Old Timers vs. Millennials (or any other kind of new-comers)”; and even, maybe the worst one or all - “Clan versus Clan”. Incidentally, they all have a flip side and the vice-versa is true but in the case of this last one, when clan members have perceived the implied "versus" and decide to turn the coin, that spells the beginning of the end for the respective enterprise.

 

The only one that arguably is less detrimental and may make evolutionary sense is “Us versus Rage” and even that is debatable in this new world of open sharing, collaborating and partnering to design better outcomes together.

So why shouldn’t we have any “versus”? Because the juxtaposition decimates empathy and goodwill and therefore honesty (what Amy Edmondson, the extraordinary Harvard professor and author behind the main study ever performed on the topic calls “candor” in this wonderful example from Pixar) so no Psychological Safety is being created and in the absence of Psychological Safety, no company can expect productive, innovative results.

 

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Signals And Compliance: Addressing The Problem Of New Account FraudOne of the main suggestions to foster an open climate is creating “braintrusts” as in Amy’s analysis of Pixar’s success. These are groups with clear rules and guidelines that enable and foster honest feedback while carefully steering it away from negativity so as to ensure it is received constructively. Members of these groups who offer their opinions, do so with the best of intentions, lead with praise, communicate with empathy and are mindful of always speaking up in the interest of progress. Amy notes the similarity to the academic Peer Review groups but another parallel can be drawn to Amazon’s memo culture that encourages a thoughtful, verbose approach to assimilating, processing and debating information.

A few years ago, intrapreneurially mentorship was the trendy go-to PowerPoint slide for the next big transformative behavior in organizational design, but that format even when successful only encourages 1-on-1 and does little to encourage group collaboration and silos breaking.

Another sensible suggestion steams from how new ways of work such as Agile may decrease burnout rates and increase the overall happiness of the employees working in this fashion. This is, of course, hinging on the same need for Psychological Safety caveat. While breaking the organisation into project or product based teams may appear counter-intuitive as it seemingly creates another group and therefore another opportunity for “us vs. them”, it’s likely that we’ll see this not to be the case as the definition of a “silos” revolves around being closed and inflexible whereas the new Agile ways of work empower the opposite and bring about openness and unifying flexibility.

These versus mindsets and resulting silos are a symptom of larger organizational issues. While no direct studies exist, it’s likely that an analysis of successful organizations who generally do well on Psychological Safety will find a lesser degree of “Us vs. Them” by whatever measuring method they would apply than what is found in other companies.

The more hands-on an organization is willing to be in breaking silos, the more likely it is they will be effectively be breaking some of the implicit "versus" states that have enabled them. Frameworks exist from Cynefin to newer entrants with own network theories to help executives make sense of the organizational challenge at hand and technology is emerging that will further help build Psychological Safety and open communication but realistically the best indicator of their future success in spotting and mitigating against harmful "versus" stances is the leadership's willingness to be completely open-hearted and open-minded and therefore obsessed with their people's well-being.

"Us versus Them" silos are fearful, closed, hurting and hurtful, paralyzing, negative, and ultimately extremely dangerous to the health -and ultimate survival- of the organization. Winning teams are, by contrast, psychologically safe, truly open, purpose-driven, customer and learning obsessed, agile or at least flexible, empathic with a positive agenda, have and share knowledge, are brave and heavily emotionally invested.

In a fight where "Us" is the "Versus Silos" and "Them" is the "Safe, Happy and Open Agile Team" - which one are you willing to bet the survival of your company on?

[Pat]

I want @Fred’s head on a spike!

[Fred]

1 minute ago, Pat said:

I want @Fred’s head on a spike!

 

buddy if you even try it!!!

[GFX]

Scottish Unit TAKE OVER!

[Daniela]

1 hour ago, Renaissance said:

English crew = barcode snipe?

🔫

watch ur back silly swed

[Marko]

think it's like 17-0 for EU vs NA p2p inners hehe lolZ

[Hope]

POG

[mikki]

FUCK BRITS NA TILL I DIE

[Stairway]

FUCK U STINKY FOREIGNS MY COUNTRY WILL DESTROY URS IN A BATTLE . #AMERICA

[Rumors-_-]

est est

[Penguin]

11 hours ago, Pat said:

Where have the Estonians gone?  They met the same fate.  Crowded out by British Socialism. 

 

[Harrie]

GET OUT OF MY CLANCHAT!!!!!!!

[K2P]

4 hours ago, Marko said:

think it's like 17-0 for EU vs NA p2p inners hehe lolZ

ym

[Divine]

31 minutes ago, Harrie said:

GET OUT OF MY CLANCHAT!!!!!!!

you're dutch, this is also your battle. 

[Rites]

foe has been carried by the english since it began, know your place

[Harrie]

3 hours ago, Divine said:

you're dutch, this is also your battle. 

apologies, i'll stand by your side

[loud]

approved. 

[Fifth Gate]

17 hours ago, Jack said:

Don’t recall asking?

 

13 hours ago, Proccy said:

shut the fuck up ur all fat american pigs

 

13 hours ago, easts_baws said:

you will regret this

 

13 hours ago, Jordai said:

 

🤢

Edited July 7, 2020 by Kurama