“We are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.”Robert M. Sapolsky · Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst · 2017 · Robert M. Sapolsky, «Behave», capitolul 16 («Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will»), din memorie, necolaționat; versiunea românească e o redare a textului englez
The line between “us” and “them” is drawn in milliseconds, but it can be moved.
The “Us Versus Them” chapter opens with speed: in imaging experiments the amygdala responds differently to faces from another group in under a tenth of a second, before any conscious thought. But the response is not fixed. When participants have to judge the face on an individual criterion (for instance, which vegetable the person might like), the difference shrinks. Henri Tajfel's minimal group paradigm from the 1970s shows how little it takes: people split at random, by preference for a painter or the toss of a coin, immediately start favouring "their group" when sharing out rewards. The good news is that the same plasticity also allows “them” to shrink: contact under the conditions Gordon Allport described (equal status, a shared goal, institutional support), individuating the other and the exercise of taking their perspective measurably reduce prejudice, even if the effects are sometimes modest and fade without repetition. The last major chapter carries the book's argument to its end. If every act has neurons, hormones, childhood, genes, culture and evolution behind it, Sapolsky sees no room left for a will that is not itself caused. Hence he proposes treating dangerous behaviour like a car with broken brakes: you take it off the road to protect people, without hatred and without the idea of deserved punishment. That is his position, developed later in the book «Determined» (2023), and it is strongly contested: most philosophers are compatibilists, holding that responsibility makes sense even in a causal world, and many lawyers worry about what giving up blame would mean. In practice: when you feel instant contempt for someone “from the other side”, treat the feeling as a reflex of a few milliseconds, not a judgement, and look for an individual detail of the person. And when you judge someone's mistake, ask what chain of causes could have produced it, without giving up on protecting the people around them.
Everything so far shows that the us–them border shifts easily. But that very ease can be exploited. If a coin flip is enough to create loyalty, whoever controls the criterion controls the group. A political party defining the people against the elites does not invent the reflex; it just hands it a ready-made line. Likewise, an online platform that keeps showing you posts from your own camp does not create your contempt, but feeds it on a regular schedule. The good news stays the same: if the mechanism is that plastic, the criterion can be chosen deliberately, not just received. For instance, you can decide that us means everyone who wants the same safe morning routine, not those who share your opinion. The next question is what to do when you are the them in someone else's eyes.
Why it matters The “us-them” reflex is fast but malleable, and the question of free will changes how we think about blame and punishment.